Signed X2 Hans Silvester - Bench - 2016

Exceptionally signed copy by Hans Silvester on the half-title page and dedicated on the title page, unique and unavailable as a signed copy online. 236 pages and about 150 color photographs printed full-page or double-page, texts in French by Hans Silvester. Solid publisher’s hardcover bound in illustrated cover. In excellent condition, practically like new.

“In Ethiopia, 600 kilometers south of Addis Ababa, live the Bench, an ethnic group of farmers of about 180,000 people. For 7 years, Hans Silvester traveled to meet this little-known people whose villages, gardens, and fields are set in the high-altitude mountains, especially hard to access. He gives us here an essential chronicle and testimony on the life of these farming communities whose intense labor has allowed them to domesticate many plant and animal species in an extraordinary relationship between man and nature. The remarkable photographs by Hans Silvester also reveal the singular pictorial art of the Bench, who make the walls of their houses the frames for fascinating works” (dust jacket). A final chapter titled “Tomorrow” questions the future of this community. Tin roofs are beginning to replace thatched roofs, and the construction of a road foreshadows rural exodus and the disappearance of these villages.

Born in 1938 in Germany, Hans Silvester took his first photos at age twelve. An unconditional defender of nature, he published in 1960 a notable book on the Camargue with a text by Jean Giono. A member of the Rapho agency, he published notably a very important book on the Gypsies, then at Éditions de La Martinière Les Chats du soleil, Les Chats du bonheur and Sieste et Tendresse, all international successes. His most recent reports from this great traveler led him to India, to Rajasthan, where he photographed the peoples of the Thar desert and the incredible menagerie depicted in the frescoes of Shekhawati. This work gave rise to two books, The Daughters of Mirabai and The Cavaliers of Shekhawati. Among his latest works one can cite Camargue Horses (2002), The Writings of the Wind (2003), It Was Yesterday (2004), It Was Elsewhere, and The Peoples of the Omo, etc.

Hans Silvester received the International Planète Albert Kahn Prize in December 2022 for his career as a whole and for his testimony of an era from 1960 to today. “Thanks to his openness to the world, to the acuity of his photographer’s eye and his sense of beauty, he transmits iconic images representing everyday people, witnesses of a culture, a place, a moment... The photographer’s eye freezes a fleeting moment to remind us of what constitutes our history. In this sense, he is at once an artist, a sociologist, a historian, a defender of cultures and of nature through an approach based on trust and observation.” (retourdevoyage.com). His numerous books have always enjoyed enormous international success and are quickly exhausted and then reissued.

Copy in excellent condition, practically like new. A book from my personal collection kept with the utmost care. Shipped protected with reinforced packaging and guaranteed international tracking. In case of multiple purchases, possible group shipment with refund of excess postage paid via Paypal.

1.5 kg before packaging