IZIS (Israëlis Bidermanas, known as) 1911-1980 - Lot 74

IZIS (Israëlis Bidermanas, known as) 1911-1980 The tightrope walker, Le Cirque d'Izis, 1959. Photograph. Silver print 2009, estate stamp on back. Image: 36 x 24.3 cm; sheet: 40.5 x 30.3 cm Bibliography: "Izis 100 photos pour la liberté de la presse", Reporters sans frontières, 2011, ill.cover. "I click when I'm in unison with what I see", explained Izis, who knew how to "seek coherence between subject, emotion and form". All his life, Izis was a member of the circus family - not least because language barriers don't exist - small neighborhood circuses, jugglers, fire-eaters, sword-swallowers and Zampanos. We can't help but see in all these jugglers Izis's doubles, disembarking from Lithuania and wandering the streets of Montmartre in search of a place to sleep. Izis produced a moving series of images of his friend, the clown Grock. His tender photographs, in particular of all those - dwarfs, lilliputians, obese people - whose handicap becomes a spectacle, would find a familiar echo in the empathetic portraits later made by Diane Arbus.