CLERGUE, Lucien.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Picasso, Mon Ami. First edition, signed by the author on the half-title. Although a world-renowned photographer in his own right and sometime chairman of Paris's Academy of Fine Arts, Clergue is best remembered for his decades-long friendship with Picasso, who once said that "Clergue's photographs are from God's own sketchbooks". This title is rare signed.Clergue and Picasso met at a bullfight in 1953 and remained friends until Picasso's death two decades later. Clergue was barely 20 and unknown, whereas Picasso, at the age of 72, was already established as one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. Clergue's early success, Les Saltimbanques (1955), was an attempt to impress the older artist who had offered his friendship and support.Picasso: Mon Ami is a testament to a rich artistic friendship and offers a rare intimate portrait of Picasso in his own surrounds. "A few years later Picasso died", recalled Clergue, "and left me an artistic orphan" (quoted by Macdonald).

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