The Pierre Loos's collection presents the "Elephant" Album which is the great work of Casimir Zagourski, the accomplishment of his work as a photographer including his personal demonstration album. Anxious to commercialize his photographs, he had the idea of gathering them in luxury objects that would all be different, created on demand as prestigious editions. Carefully hand-annotated, each collection is unique: the chosen themes, the number and order of photographs differ from one copy to another. Some develop hairstyles and scarifications, others daily life, others fauna and flora.
Lot 534 - Casimir Zagourski (1883-1944)
"The Elephant" Album
Estimate 10 000 - 15 000 €
Result: 19 500 €
All, however, have this famous embossed leather cover, specially made by a craftsman, representing an elephant head in profile. Objects of art as well as ethnological testimonies, these albums are at the same time the reveries of a visitor in Africa and an aesthetic manifesto.
Lot 533 - Casimir Zagourski (1883-1944)
Casimir Zagourski Personal Demonstration Album, called "Elephant" album
Estimate 10 000 - 15 000 €
Result: 19500 €
The series of faces photographed from the front or from the side, with or without jewels, the close-ups of the scarifications taken according to the same framing bring Casimir Zagourski closer to the photographers of the New German Objectivity. His personal album, slightly larger than the others, was used to make the perfect demonstration of this harmonious navigation between memories of travels, modern aesthetics and viceral attachment to a country still spared by the pangs of modernity.
