Carnets de Gisèle Freund

Gisele Freund is known for her exquisite documentary photography of the 1930s. She spent most of her life in Paris, wandering the Saint-Germain-des-Prés neighborhood, specifically the legendary bookstore Shakespeare and Company. In this special space, she began snapping portraits of artists and writers, among them James Joyce, Henry Miller, Virginia Woolf, Jean-Paul Sartre, Henri Michaux, André Breton, Walter Benjamin, Henri Matisse and Pierre Bonnard.

This edition is made of two scrapbooks, constructed by Freund that display her favorite portraits in a raw and original manner. The first showcases black-and-white portraits with her typed notes. The second is bound with a red ribbon, containing 116 spot-varnished color photographs with handwritten captions.