Lucien Clergue Knihy

This photographic retrospective of the renowned contemporary photographers includes--and looks beyond--his famous Picasso portraits and sumptuous nudes to explore the lifelong obsessions and passions of a brilliant artist. This collection of almost one hundred and fifty images traces the dynamic continuum that is Clergue's career: from the mysterious gypsies of his childhood, and his friendships with Picasso, Cocteau and other avant-garde personalities, to breathtaking images of sea and sand, riveting nudes, and searing portraits. Together these images, some of them never published before, create a showcase of Clergue's decades-long fascination with life, death, and the "mysterious in between." This volume also includes a biography that highlights Clergue's accomplishments as an artist, an essay on his ventures into surrealism, and a series of correspondence between Clergue and Jean Cocteau.

Lucien Clergue (*1934 in Arles) is one of the most notable photographers of our time. The themes of his pictures--traveling artists, gypsies, war ruins and graves, plants in the swamps of the Camargue, tracks in the sand, bullfighting scenes--testify to his deep connection to his homeland. He became famous for his photographs of nudes, whose aesthetic, sensual play of light and water enthralled Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau so much that they remained Clergue's mentors until their deaths. This is the first book to feature Clergue's architectural photographs of Brazil's newly built capital of Brasilia, taken in 1962-63, which until just recently were believed to be lost. Blinded by the cool beauty of this metropolis, the eye is seduced into following the curves of a confident, optimistic type of architecture.