Erwitt, Elliott - Musées observés
Elliott Erwitt (b. 26 July 1928 Paris, France) is an advertising and journalistic photographer known for his black and white candid shots of ironic and absurd situations within everyday settings -- the master of the "indecisive moment".
"OBSERVED MUSEUMS" by Elliott ERWITT. Editions Phaidon, Paris. 1999. First French edition. in-8, black cloth cover with a colorful illustrated dust jacket. 160 pages. Text in French translated from English by Frédéric Maurin & Donnatella Montinaro, illustrated with 164 black & white photographic reproductions, mostly full page, some double page.
"I am above all someone with a developed visual sense. Professional photographer for the civil registry office, amateur photographer for my gloriole. In my spare time, when I'm at home in New York, or when I'm traveling, whenever I have the time, I enjoy going to museums, exhibitions and historical presentations, actually visiting all the easily accessible places that show the fruit of 'human efforts to imitate, complement, modify or counterbalance the work of nature'. In short, by going to see works of art. To a large extent (or at least as I see it), a museum is a place where everything can be exhibited... Going to a museum to observe the spectacle of people is a particularly enjoyable activity, because they are there as observers, prisoners of an enclosed space. For a photographer, this is less like butterfly hunting than like fishing in a closed space..."
Title: Musées observés
Author: Elliott Erwitt
Publisher: Phaidon, 1999
ISBN: 0714890707, 9780714890708
Length: 159 pages
Hardcover