Micrographie Decorative
Guillot, Laure Albin. Micrographie Décorative. Preface by Paul Léon. Paris: Draeger Frères, 1931.
Folio; illustrated with 20 photogravures, each approximately 8 ½ x 11 inches and individually mounted within die-cut and embossed window enclosures; vellum dividers; spiral bound; heavy cardstock boards; bound front wrapper, decoratively embossed, with additional stamping in silver; small chip to head of spine; light tanning and foxing to front; housed in fabric-covered interior slipcase, as issued; held within printed cardstock portfolio box with fabric ties, as issued; light exterior soiling, foxing, and edge-wear.
First edition; limited printing; one of 300 numbered copies (this is #50). A presentation copy, inscribed
by Guillot on the title page in the year of publication: Pour Mr. Andre Georges Arou / avec l’expression de ses sentiments le plus sympathiquement choisis / Laure Albin Guillot / 17 Juin 1931. Additionally, signed by Léon on last page of his preface.
A fine copy of one of the most unusual and beautiful photobooks of twentieth century, illustrated with gorgeously printed photogravures of highly magnified botanical cross-sections. The images—each printed onto different colored and metallic papers—are identified by species at the rear of the volume, yet the fantastic patterns depicted stand alone as significant works of art, with their variety of nonrepresentational striations, whorls, and formations reflecting the modernist movement’s fascination with form, pattern, light, and color, and providing a discrete historical link to contemporary abstract art.
The book was created by Laure Albin-Guillot, a Parisian commercial and artistic photographer, as a tribute to her husband, a noted specialist in microscopy who had died two years earlier. A master of technology, she had often served as his photo-micrographer, and made use of the very latest methods of image production to be the first in France to photograph decorative microscopic images, combining science with visual art into a genre she called “micrography.”
Guillot was already a well-regarded photographer at the time of the book’s publication, known primarily for her portraits of Parisian celebrities and fashion work, but also working in a wide variety of genres, including nudes, landscapes, still lifes, and journalism. Her first published work appeared in Vogue in 1922, when she was in her early forties, and she subsequently exhibited regularly at numerous artistic salons, as well as the 1925 International Exposition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts. In 1931, she became president of the Union féminine des carrières libérales et commerciales, an organization that supported the interests of women in professional life, and the following year was appointed head of a number of key bodies, including the Directorate-General of Fine Arts and the Cinémathèque nationale.
Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Guillot’s work was frequently published in the press and exhibited around the world. Among her associates were Paul Valéry, Colette, Anna de Noailles, and Jean Cocteau, and in 1936 she collaborated with Valéry on Narcisse, the first of her works that combined photography and literature. In 1937, she organized the exhibition Femmes artistes d'Europe, and continued creating works during the German occupation. Following the war, she worked as a portraitist until her retirement in 1956, and died in 1962. A retrospective of her work was held in 2013 at Jeu de Paume in Paris.
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