RIBOUD (Marc). - Lot 253

RIBOUD (Marc). Forty Years of Photography in China. Foreword by Jean Daniel. Paris: Nathan, 1996. Large quarto, publisher’s hardcover with illustrated dust jacket. A major monograph chronicling forty years of work by Marc Riboud (1923–2016), a leading figure at Magnum Photos and one of the greatest photographic chroniclers of contemporary China. From his first trip in 1957 through the 1990s, Riboud documented the country’s upheavals: the final years of Maoism, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, economic liberalization, and the dawn of modern China. The book brings together several hundred photographs—many of which have become iconic—arranged chronologically. True to the author’s humanistic aesthetic, it focuses on scenes of daily life, portraits, and urban and rural landscapes, revealing the profound transformations of a society observed with remarkable intimacy. Jean Daniel’s foreword highlights the exceptional continuity of this photographic record, which is unique in both its scope and duration. One of the definitive works on Marc Riboud and his Chinese body of work, sought after as much for the quality of its printing as for its documentary significance. Condition: a very fine copy, nearly like new. Dust jacket shows very slight signs of handling.