Paris: Les Editions du Temps, 1961

4to, pp. 43. Original white linen boards, lettered in white-on-black to front panel and spine. Black endpapers, tan paper stock. Photographic dustwrapper. Text in French. Publisher's brochure laid in. A near fine copy in a very good dustwrapper with some light general edgewear, most noticeable at spine ends.

First French edition, preceded only by the very scarce German edition of the previous year. Publisher's promotional booklet for the book laid in, published by La Galleria l'Obelisco, Rome, in 1962, INSCRIBED IN FRENCH: 'Il y a des coeurs partout, chere annie. [arrow to gallery's name] Del Corso proprietaire grand administrateur [?] d'St. Etienne, Georges. De retour 23 Avril a 44 Rue du Bac, St. Hré 33.11 maintenant.' Title page of booklet in Italian, text in French.

Rome's La Galleria l'Obelisco opened in 1946. Under the guidance of its founders, Gasparo del Corso and Irene Brin, it became one of the world's most important spaces for the promotion of contemporary art, photography, fashion and design, seeing those disciplines not as separate entities but as interwoven strands of the same cultural pursuit. The gallery was one of the first in the world to mount photography exhibitions, and to give the discipline the artistic respect routinely accorded to art or sculpture. The Brassai photographs in this book were exhibited at La Galleria l'Obelisco in 1962, and the booklet laid in to this copy was produced to promote the show.