Limited edition, folio; one of 200 subscriber copies from a total edition of 500; this particular copy printed for Madame Daragnès; text printed in black and blue by French authors such as Colette and Paul Claudel; illustrated with a colored title, complete with 31 full-page etchings and engravings after Matisse, Dufy, Vlaminck, Laborde, Derain, Van Dongen, Bonnard, Vuillard, Bofa, Kisling, Gromaire, and others, with additional text illustrations; tissue guards present; loose gatherings as issued, contained in the publisher's printed wrappers; housed in the original blue and orange clamshell box (occasional minor soiling, some gatherings starting; front flap of wrapper detached, some creasing); 14 x 10 3/4 in.
A celebration of the City of Light, this collection of 31 essays features writing and art by the most influential French thinkers of the period. It was published in July of 1937, two months after the elaborate Exposition Internationale opened to the public in Paris. Over 31 million visitors attended, reveling in the global showcases and the city itself. The Exposition also marked the height of the Franco-German cultural exchange promoted by France and the Third Reich to dispel the looming thoughts of political divisions and war. Paris 1937 was in effect an effort by the city to unite the French people into a modern identity, using images of its lovely sights as representations of peace and tranquility in contrast to the shadow of the growing Nazi regime. (See Karen Fiss's The Third Reich, the Paris Exposition, and the Cultural Seduction of France).
