[PRODUCT SPECIFICATIONS]
Photographer: Ed van der Elsken
Publisher: Libroport, Tokyo
Format: Three softcover volumes
Edition: First editions, first printings
Dimensions: Approximately 25.6 × 25.3 cm each
Language: Japanese and English
Printed in: Japan
Included Volumes:
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エルスケン 巴里時代：1950–1954 / Paris 1950–1954
Published: 1985
Book Design: Tokiyoshi Tsubouchi
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エルスケン ジャズ 1955–1959・61 / Jazz 1955–1959–61
Published: 1988
Book Design: Tokiyoshi Tsubouchi
Printing Direction: Yoshiaki Ueda
-
エルスケン アフリカ 1957 / Africa 1957
Published: 1990
Book Design: Yukimi Azuma
Printing Direction: Tomohiro Urata
Content Note: Africa 1957 contains documentary ethnographic nudity in its original photographic context.
[OVERVIEW]
Paris came first.
Between 1950 and 1954, Ed van der Elsken photographed the young bohemians of Saint-Germain-des-Prés: restless faces, improvised rooms, wet streets and brief encounters shaped by the uncertainty of postwar Europe. These photographs became the foundation of Love on the Left Bank, the book that established his international reputation and introduced his distinctly cinematic approach to street photography.
Jazz 1955–1959–61 moves into another kind of darkness. Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Chet Baker, Thelonious Monk, Louis Armstrong, Sonny Rollins and their audiences emerge from smoke and stage light. Van der Elsken did not photograph jazz as a sequence of formal portraits. He photographed its tempo.
The final volume returns to his 1956–1957 journey through equatorial Africa. First developed through the 1958 publication Bagara, the work records communities, ceremonies, hunting and daily life in the former French territory of Ubangi-Shari and surrounding regions. Its scale is broader than the Paris photographs, but the eye behind them is the same: close, physical and alert to the moment before it disappears.
[IMPORTANT NOTE FOR INTERNATIONAL BUYERS: EASY AI TRANSLATION]
The books contain text in both Japanese and English. Japanese passages can also be read using smartphone translation tools such as Google Lens, ChatGPT or Google Translate.
[WHY THIS VOLUME IS A PRIZED COLLECTOR'S ITEM]
Libroport brought together three bodies of work originally created in different countries and periods, presenting them as a visually coherent Japanese series. The square format, restrained typography and consistent production allow Paris, jazz and Africa to be read as parts of one extended photographic biography.
Published in 1985, 1988 and 1990, the set traces van der Elsken from the work that formed Love on the Left Bank to the African journey first associated with Bagara. The final volume appeared in the year of his death.
Three places. One restless eye.
[CONDITION]
Very Good vintage condition.
Covers: Light shelf wear, with minor rubbing along the corners and edges.
Bindings: Firm and secure.
Interiors: Clean overall, with no conspicuous writing, tears or missing pages visible in the listing photographs
Please examine all listing photographs for the condition and contents of each volume.
