"PAUL ALMASY – DAS FRÜHWERK / EARLY WORK". Collectif.  Editions Braus, Heidelberg. 2005. Imprimé en Allemagne. Petit in-4, couverture cartonnée grise sous jaquette photo. 144 pages. Textes bilingues Allemand / Anglais de Klaus Kleinschmidt et de Axel Schmidt, traduction anglaise par Philip Matson, illustré de très nombreuses reproductions photographiques noir & blanc, 11 vignettes in-texte et 100 planches hors texte par Paul Almasy.

 

"He, born in Budapest in 1906, came up with an amusing contest for himself against Henri Cartier-Bresson, the master of photoreportage. It was the kind of infantile endeavour only elderly gentlemen of about the same age can hit upon. As the senior ranking photojournalist, the Hungarian scion of the blue-blood Almasys wanted at all costs to outlive the "youngster" Cartier-Bresson, born in 1908. It did not work out. Paul Almasy died in September, 2003 at the Biblical age of 97. He was followed just eleven months later, in 2004, by Cartier-Bresson at a mere 95. Nothing gained, all has waned: the former lived longer but died earlier, the latter died later but the great leveller - time - equalises vitae… For the first time, akg-images in Berlin, the archive in charge of his estate, and photonet, the Wiesbaden gallery with exclusive rights, are explicitly showing his early works - in view of the significance of his work it is for both archive and gallery a duty as well as a privilege. Even connoisseurs will not be familiar with the viewfinder images from Paul Almasy's early years. akg and photonet have thus taken this milestone of the Hungarian photographer as an occasion to present his entire early work in a selection, which is further authenticated by his own personal involvement in it…" Klaus Kleinschmidt.

 

Ref LPB1246