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Norwegian Art Photography 1970 - 2007

Cecilie Malm Brundtland

Room At The Top

Tony McGee

Georgia O'Keefe and the Camera

Susan Danly

The Sixties

Robert Altman

The Story of the Supremes

Daryl Easlea
 

The Beauty and the Best

by Mike Von Joel

Whatever they say about French women, on the evidence of this book it is true. A visual celebration through the medium of photography - from the Belle Epoque to today - the subject is, simply, the girls of Paris. From the street captures of Robert Doisneau, where the girls are inevitably beautiful in their naturalness and simplicity, to the more provocative women of the clubs and smoke-filled cafes seen through the lens of Brassai, that indefinable allure is the common denominator.

Parisiennes: A celebration of French women

A celebration of French women
Various authors/photographers
FLAMMARION
ISBN: 978-2-803-0037-9

IN THIS LARGE format book from Flammarion, 225 duotones are presented in eight clearly defined sectors: motherhood, appetite, work & play, out & about, rebellion, elegance, flirtation - and of course - love. Each section is accompanied by an essay from a leading writer on art and culture - and a most revealing insight into the Parisian woman’s psyche from Catherine Millet, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Art Press, in an short essay entitled ‘Love’. Mlle Millet was eventually exposed as the author of The Sexual Life of Catherine M - a racy, graphic tale of promiscuous behaviour by a middle class intellectual - which caused a petite scandal five years ago. So clearly she writes from some position of authority.

Despite a roster of great photographers - including the ever present ‘anonymous’ providing a hundred years worth of great images - the real star of this book is Edouard Boubat (1923 - 1999). For it is the snaps by this Paris based artist that truly capture that indefinable, heady mixture of glamour, charm, ingenuous sexuality, unforced beauty and feline independence of the girls of French capital. Whilst Lartigue, Willy Ronis, Sabine Weiss, Charbonnier, Janine Niepce and the others ably distilled the essence of Paris into single images featuring the city’s women, Boubat seems to repeatedly succeed in capturing the inner spirit of femininity - the eternal Marianne - in the City of Light.

With a stirring introduction by feminist literary critic, Xaviere Gauthier, Flammarion celebrate the beauty and joie de vivre of the girls of Paris - and do it with grace, style and wit. It is easy to see why Paris is now the number one tourist destination in the world.

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