Limited to 120 copies worldwide. For further information

Born in Egypt, André Naggar settled in Paris in 1952 where he continued to pursue his passion for photography.

Highly respected and valued within a circle of connoisseurs, André Naggar is now gaining much wider recognition.

For Jean-Claude Lemagny, Chief Curator of the Department of Prints and Photographs at the Biblioth�que Nationale de France, "André Naggar's astonishingly original photographs show the world in a state of motion. Time exposure, and movements of the hand holding the camera, reveal trails and imprints of images left by the subjects with the passing of time. Here is the essential dimension: Time. The photographer moulds time as if it were a living matter.

Main exhibitions: Centre Georges-Pompidou, Paris (1980); Jerusalem Theater Foyer (1980); Biblioth�que Nationale de France, Paris (1988); Trianon de Bagatelle, Paris (1988); Gallerie Patrick Perrin, Paris (1988) Next exhibition: "Danse" Spring 1997 at the Ballets of Monte Carlo.

LA CHUTE D'ICARE

La Chute d'Icare, is a sequence of twelve images which beautifully expresses the artist's constant search for new ways of suggesting time and movement. With a painter's eye, Naggar seizes forms as they travel through space, creating shapes and surfaces charged with energy and emotion.

For this limited edition, the finest traditional materials and printing processes have been used to create a work of the highest quality which will delight both connoisseurs and art lovers.

The title page and each individually printed image, are signed and numbered by the artist from 1 to 120, and from I to XV for the artist's proofs. The original negative film and matrix plate have been destroyed to ensure the uniqueness of this edition.

COLLOTYPE

Those amongst you who are not acquainted with the rare qualities of collotype will be enchanted to discover them. Invented in France in 1854, it was the first process using a printing press, prior to photogravure, to have been applied successfully to photography. Unlike modern printing methods, collotype produces images unaltered by passing years and renders them in continuous tone, with an infinite range of subtle shades.

Using a negative film, the printer applies a coat of bichromated gelatine to a sheet of glass, which is then dried and exposed to the image. The gelatine surface hardens in proportion to the amount of light received through the negative. This matrix plate will then receive the ink as does a lithographic stone.

Each black and white image has required three to four delicate over-printings of the ink roller in nuanced shades of translucent black. The master-printer controls the application of the special inks by hand and the result is one of remarkable depth and delicacy of tone; his close collaboration and shared sensitivity with the artist are crucial in creating a work of art which expresses the artist's emotions.

Very few printers still practise this fine-grain printing process. With their two nineteenth-century presses, Michel Bertrand and Patrice Forest at the atelier ITEM in Paris, are now reviving this largely forgotten technique.

OVID

Over the centuries, the myth of Icarus has been a universal source of inspiration for mankind. Ovid's "Daedalus and Icarus", in chapter VIII of the Metamorphoses is a short text of timeless beauty which relates Daedalus' inventive and daring flight to freedom, his tenderness for his son Icarus, the ecstacy of flying, and the tragedy of Icarus' reckless rise towards the sun and fall into the sea.

We have chosen two clear, fluid translations: A.D. Melville's into English (1986), which we have reproduced with the kind permission of the Oxford University Press, and Georges Lafaye's (1925-30) into French.

BOOK DESIGN

The complete work is forty pages, unbound and presented in a simple, elegant chemise and slipcase, designed and hand-made by Rocio Santa-Cruz in Paris. The page is a large in-quarto, portrait format, of 44 x 32,5 cm (17,6 x 13 in).

Each of the twelve photographs, format 24 x 16 cm (9,6 x 6,4 in.) is printed on a separate page. The prints are protected by an acid-free, Japon conservation paper.

The text is printed on looseleaf cahiers. The layout of the text is designed and composed by hand by the talented English typographer, Michael Caine, who has established his own letterpress studio in the heart of Paris. We chose the traditional method of hand printing for the intensity of the colour and the sensuous imprint which the metal characters leave on the paper.

The design has been thought out to enable the artworks and the text to be individually displayed.

PAPER

We have selected a heavy and textured, acid-free, 300 gram paper, mould-made from cotton rag by the famous Hahnem�hle mill in Germany. Its soft white colour acts as a discreet, luminous background to the inked impression of the photographs. Lightly sized (containing little glue), the paper has a silken finish pleasing to the hand, yet also a firm enough body to pass undamaged three times through the press.

TYPOGRAPHY

The text has been hand-set in 20 point italic Garaldus. Specially designed in 1956 by Aldo Novarese for the Nebiolo foundry in Turin, this typeface is an Italian rendering of the universally praised Garamond. The Garaldus belongs to the long tradition of caractères nobles used only for books of great refinement. The height and narrowness of the perfectly proportioned letters, their beautiful obliques and hairlines, accentuate the fine draughtmanship of these individually hand-cast characters.

Management of the project:
Sophie Henley-Price

Editions Ruth Zilkha
72 rue Saint-Louis en l'île,
75004 Paris
Tel.: 33 (01) 46 33 01 23
Fax: 33 (01) 43 26 49 60

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