Joyce James

1937 · réf. 2884 — Paris: np 1937. Very Good. POWERFUL IMAGE OF JAMES JOYCE BY SURREALISTIC PHOTOGRAPHER JOSEF BREITENBACH. A remarkable set of circumstances had to come together to this photograph of James Joyce by German born photographer Josef Breitenbach to first exist and then to survive. Throughout the summer of 1937 as he experienced increasingly painful flashes in his right eye Joyce pored over early proofs of Finnegan's Wake then known only as "Work in Progress". Perhaps he was preoccupied with correcting the inevitable and myriad errors in his pun-flecked stream of consciousness prose or perhaps he was overcome with pain but we know from Breitenbach's pocket diary that Joyce canceled four times before the two exiled artists finally met. James Joyce's relationship with Ireland was famously complex and included self imposed exile. He and Nora Barnacle his future wife left Dublin in 1904 for mainland Europe never returning to his homeland after 1912. On the other hand photographer Josef Breitenbach was a Jewish German refugee who fled the rising Nazi's. Both his Jewish background and prior involvement with the short-lived revolution of 1918 made him an early target of the Brownshirts who knocked on his Munich studio door one day in 1932. Thinking on his feet Breitenbach was able to use his portrait of then Vice-Chancellor Papen whom he had photographed the year before together with a letter of thanks from Papen for his work in order to claim that he was under Papen's protection. Seizing the brief vacuum created by his subterfuge Breitenbach immediately packed his bags and within days departed for Paris. Once in Paris Breitenbach mingled with the Surrealists showing in gallery exhibitions alongside Man Ray Henri Cartier-Bresson and Brassai. Over time he developed a reputation for landscapes nudes and photo-journalism. By the time Breitenbach photographed James Joyce in July 1937 he had built a portfolio of portraits of artists such as Max Ernst Emile Bernard and Bertold Brecht. Studio portraits like this print of Joyce were often bathed in a soft seductive glow both flattering and intriguing. Here Joyce sits in profile with clasped hands behind him are blurred rows upon rows of bookshelves. The message is clear: despite failing vision Joyce remained a bright and vibrant writer. Meanwhile history marched on. Two years later in September 1939 Breitenbach was placed with other German and Jewish exiles in a French internment camp. His survival skills still intact he volunteered for a rural labor force that saved him from deportation to a concentration camp. With the help of friends in England and the United States Breitenbach once again fled the Nazi's arriving in New York in June 1941. To his enormous relief his entire oeuvre of photographic prints and negatives including the Joyce pictures had been smuggled out of Paris by another friend and sent to the States by way of Havana. As Breitenbach once again built a life for himself in a new country he turned to his pre-war work. Among the first negatives he developed were those of Joyce - an homage to the writer who had died months before at age 59 in Zurich. Silver gelatin photograph. Taken in 1937; printed later. With "Estate of Josef Breitenbach" stamp on verso. Very faint corner crease only noticeable on verso. Image approx 9x7 1/2 in / 23 x 19.2 cm; with margins 9 3/8 x 7 7/8 in / 23.8 x 19.9 cm. A beautiful evocative image. Rare. References: Michael Shnayerson Josef Breitenbach: James Joyce 9 Portraits. Dublin The Towers 2004. np unknown books