Signed; Marian Schmidt; Édouard Boubat - Marian Schmidt Cercle d’Art [inscribed] - 1994

Marian Schmidt – Marian Schmidt

Paris, Cercle d’Art, 1994 – First Edition – Signed by the Photographer

A particularly interesting first edition of the photographic monograph dedicated to the work of Marian Schmidt (1945–2018), an important Polish photographer, educator and founder of the Warsaw School of Photography.

Published in Paris in 1994 by the prestigious Éditions Cercle d’Art, this beautifully produced volume presents a selection of Schmidt’s black-and-white photographs together with an introductory presentation by Édouard Boubat, one of the leading figures of French humanist photography. Bibliographical records confirm the 1994 edition, approximately 95–96 pages and 81 black-and-white illustrations.

The present copy is especially desirable because it has been personally signed by Marian Schmidt in his own hand.

Schmidt was born in Żyrardów, Poland, in 1945. After spending his childhood partly in Venezuela and studying mathematics in the United States, he eventually devoted himself to photography. His work focused strongly on people, everyday life and social observation. He also worked for prestigious photographic agencies including Black Star and Rapho.

After settling in Paris in 1980, Schmidt became associated with the tradition of European humanist photography. He later returned to Poland and became an influential photography educator. In 2000 he founded the Warsaw School of Photography, where he taught expressive photography and the phenomenology of the image.

The volume is also noteworthy for its connection with Édouard Boubat, whose presentation accompanies the book. Boubat was one of the major French photographers of the post-war period and an important figure in the development of humanist photography.

Marian Schmidt died on 7 March 2018. His photographs are held in important institutional and museum collections, including the Museum Folkwang in Essen, the Musée de la Photographie in Charleroi and the collections of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Condition

The album is preserved in very good collectible condition, with visible signs of handling and wear to the exterior/dust jacket. The interior remains clean and readable. Please examine all photographs carefully, as they form an integral part of the condition description.

The original handwritten signature of Marian Schmidt makes this copy considerably more collectible than an ordinary unsigned copy.

An appealing item for collectors of fine-art photography, Polish photography, 20th-century photographic books, humanist photography and signed books by photographers.