Sevilla, [s.n.], 1972 (printed and bound by Imprenta Sevillana). Words and pictures by Robert Vavra. Foreword by James A. Michener. Book design and cover drawing by John Fulton.
4to, [10], 274, [3] pp., ill.
First edition, limited subscribers’ issue (unnumbered), signed by Vavra. Inscribed by John Fulton in Spanish, with a drawing of a bull, on p. 3: “Para Lucien Clergue — / como recuerdo de su amigo. / John Fulton / Madrid 1973” [For Lucien Clergue — in remembrance, from your friend John Fulton. Madrid 1973].
A study of the Spanish fighting bull in words and photographs by the American photographer and writer Robert Vavra (1935–2025). Vavra, a naturalist by training rather than a photographer, set out for Spain in October 1958, aged 23, with a one-way ticket, intending to write this book. He became a photographer out of necessity. Over many seasons the leading Spanish breeders allowed him to follow their bulls from birth through the pastures, the testing of cows and the corrals to the final afternoon in the ring. The matador John Fulton introduced him to his first tienta. In his preface Vavra thanks Ernest Hemingway, James A. Michener and Fleur Cowles for advice on the manuscript. Michener, for whom Vavra photographed Iberia (1968), contributed the foreword.
Provenance
Lucien Clergue (1934–2014), French photographer, co-founder of the Rencontres d’Arles (1970), first photographer elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts (2006) and its president in 2013. The bullfight was one of Clergue’s central themes: his Toros muertos (1963) is among the classic photobooks on the subject, followed by El Cordobès: 77 photographies (1965) and the film Le Drame du taureau (1965). The book was presented to him by John Fulton (1932–1998), the American matador and artist based in Seville, who designed the book and to whom it is dedicated. Fulton was one of the very few Americans to become a full matador in Spain.
Binding & condition
Original black cloth, spine lettered in gilt, gilt drawing of a bronze Iberian bull by John Fulton to front cover; original pictorial dust jacket. Good: jacket lightly rubbed, with small tears to edges and corners; occasional small stains.
