SCHUH (Gotthard). — Islands of the Gods: Java, Sumatra, Bali - Lot 273

SCHUH (Gotthard). — Islands of the Gods: Java, Sumatra, Bali. Lausanne, Éditions Clairefontaine, 1954. Large quarto, publisher’s hardcover with illustrated photographic dust jacket, 154 pp., numerous black-and-white photographs reproduced by photogravure. French translation by Gustave Roud. First French edition of one of the great postwar travel photography books, originally published in German under the title *Inseln der Götter* in 1941. This French edition was published in October 1954 by Clairefontaine. Swiss photographer and reporter Gotthard Schuh (1897–1969) undertook an eleven-month journey in 1938–1939 to Singapore, Java, Sumatra, and Bali. The photographs he brought back were first published in the *Zürcher Illustrierte* before being compiled into *Inseln der Götter*. The book was a huge success: it has been reprinted and translated numerous times and remains Schuh’s most famous work. Far more than a simple ethnographic report, *Islands of the Gods* blends personal narrative with artistic photography. Schuh focuses on faces, gestures, ceremonies, and daily life, with particular attention to Java, Sumatra, and especially Bali. The Swiss Foundation for Photography now considers the book a decisive milestone in the history of the photographic travel book. The book is particularly remarkable for the quality of its large-format photographic prints: portraits, ritual scenes, processions, landscapes, and studies of movement alternate with Schuh’s narrative. His highly subjective and poetic approach foreshadows, in certain respects, humanist photography and the major author-driven photography books of the 1950s. A complete copy with its illustrated dust jacket, which is significant. Fair to good condition: dust jacket is quite worn, with scuffing, soiling, creases, small tears, and missing material on the headband and corners, particularly on the back cover; interior appears clean and well-preserved.