‘Lisboa, Cidade Triste e Alegre’, originally published in 1959, is a symphony about Lisbon of the fifties, showing the city in its different aspects. The “graphic poem”, as Victor Palla and Costa Martins liked to call it, constructs a new city with (photographic and poetic) images, a city in the process of assimilating an international style.
The photos are very modern, grainy, taken in a fast way, choosing spontaneity and instinct to artifact and composition. According to Martin Parr and Gerry Badger, who included this book in "The Photobook: A History, vol.1": 'Lisboa is particularly notable for using many of the book-making ideas developed by William Klein, and Dutch photographers like Ed van der Elsken and Joan van der Keuken, and has a vibrant, cinematic feeling'.
This new edition follows exactly the first edition, including text and poems by Rodrigues Migueis, Alexandre O’Neill, Armindo Rodrigues, David Mourão-Ferreira, Eugénio de Andrade, Jorge de Sena and José Gomes Ferreira.
It also includes a supplement with an introduction by Gerry Badger and a full transcription into English of the book’s index, where the authors explain in detail the making of each image.
Lisboa, Cidade Triste e Alegre
Victor Palla & Costa Martins
Pierre von Kleist editions, 2015
Hardcover / 175 pages / b&w / 27.9 x 22.5 cm
Incl. 52 page supplement with original text by Gerry Badger, "City of the Seven Hills".
ISBN 9789899776395
From the 2015 edition:
As fotos da Lisboa triste e alegre dos ano 50 (Observador). Here
Lisboa tão triste e alegre que o Estado Novo escondia (DN). Here
Lisboa, Cidade Triste e Alegre. Retrato de uma sinfonia urbana dos anos 50 (Jornal i). Here
From the 2009 edition:
Best book of the year for 5B4 by Jeffrey Ladd. Here
Best books of 2009 for Le Monde. Here
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