LUCIEN CLERGUE — Photographies 1954–1961. Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, 1962

Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Pavillon de Marsan, Palais du Louvre, 107 rue de Rivoli, Paris 1er, 31 January–24 April 1962. Opening 31 January, 15 heures. Original exhibition invitation. Letterpress or relief printing in dark green on cream card stock, 13.5 × 10.5 cm. Formal institutional text to recto; blind-embossed motif to reverse.

Condition: Very good. Light age toning, minor corner and edge wear, and faint surface impressions consistent with handling and storage.

The exhibition surveyed Clergue’s photography from 1954 to 1961, the period in which his principal subjects — bullfighting, the Camargue, bodies, ruins and mortality — first took shape. His 1957 book Corps mémorable paired photographs with poems by Paul Éluard, a cover by Pablo Picasso and an introductory poem by Jean Cocteau. In 1961 Edward Steichen included him alongside Bill Brandt and Yasuhiro Ishimoto in Diogenes with a Camera V at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

The invitation follows none of that imagery. No photograph appears. Clergue’s seven years of work are transferred into names, dates, address and protocol: the museum president, the minister, the opening hour and admission for two. The blind impression on the reverse leaves the institution present without ink.

An early museum document from the moment Clergue’s photographs moved from artists’ books and personal networks into international institutional circulation.

Ships flat, securely backed and tracked from the UK.