Lucien Clergue - Toros Muertos [Signed] - 1962

First edition, signed on the title-page with name and "Ole"; (263 x 267 mm, 10¼ x 10½ in); black-and-white photographs, texts by Jean Cocteau and Jean-Marie Landau; photo-illustrated endpapers, black-and-white photo-illustrated paper-covered boards, text in red, white cloth spine lettered in red. Stamped " Aufgeschieden, Fernleihbibliothek Bonn". Very good copy. [48]pp. Much of Lucien Clergue's work revolves around themes of loss, death, and decay, primarily made in and around his native Arles and the surrounding Camargue region. He took these photographs between 1955 and 1962 at several bullfighting arenas in the South of France: Nîmes, Arles, Lumel, Beaucaire, Méjanes, Châteauurenard, Marseille, and Le Gran du Roi. 'The book's design, bold and cinematic, is also extremely effective in both heightening the drama and maintaining a dynamic flow to the action. By repeating a series of close-ups, and showing us very little of the stadium, the crowd, or other players in the drama, Clergue keeps our attention on the bull's plight, imparting a strong psychological sense to the drama' (The Photobook). The Photobook: A History I, p219.,

Toros Muertos ("Dead Bulls") is a powerful and critically acclaimed photobook by French photographer Lucien Clergue. First published in 1962 by Ernst Battenberg Verlag in Germany (with a notable American edition by Brussel & Brussel in 1966), the book captures the stark, visceral reality of bullfighting across arenas in the South of France.

Rather than focusing on the glamour or heroism of the matador, Clergue explicitly documents the pain, anguish, and final moments of the bulls. It positions them as the tragic, defeated losers of a violent blood sport.Imagery: The book features high-contrast, black-and-white halftone photographs. Clergue’s framing focuses heavily on textures—the coarse sand of the arena, the sheen of blood, and the heavy, expiring bodies of the animals.

Clergue was a close collaborator and friend of Pablo Picasso. This book reflects a shared mid-century fascination with the mythic, ritualistic elements of the bull—viewing the arena fight as a tragic dance between the hunter and a symbolic Minotaur. While Clergue and his contemporaries (including author Jean Petit, who contributed poetry to the volume) did not explicitly design the book as an anti-bullfighting statement, its unflinching look at animal suffering makes it read strongly as an anti-bullfighting critique to modern audiences.