La France de Profile

One of Photography's Greatest Classics Now Published In English for the First Time

Aperture is delighted to release a unique classic featuring its first ever-English translation. In La France de Profil, Paul Strand's photographs and commentary by the celebrated French author, poet Claude Roy, combine to capture the essence of rural life in post-war France. Like Strand's renowned books Time in New England and Un Paese, La France de Profil is a profound meditation on place. Strand's portraits of the young and old evoke a sense of history and character. Images of narrow alleys, old tabaco shops, sidewalk cafes and fields convey the textures and rhythms of the French countryside. Claude Roy complements Strand's photographs by adding collages made from small town newspapers and his own wry handwritten musings on French mentality and mores.

Today, La France de Profil is not only a tribute to a way of life that still exists in the French countryside, but a monument to the evocative power of skillfully synthesized pictures and text.