Eva: Eloge De Ma Fille [Anglais] [Relié]

"[The]very fact of the emotional power of the work testifies to its artistic strength....This collection is utterly distinct."

In 1965 the esteemed photographer Irina Ionesco began photgraphing her young daughter, Eva Ionesco. Thus began a collaboration which culminated in this extraordinary testament to the beauty of a girl child as witnessed through the lens of her mother's eye.

Never before in the history of photography has an artist of this magnitude photographed her child to such stunning effect.

Weaving threads of baroque orientalism, gothic eroticism and surrealist fantasy, these mysterious images might well be controversial, but only if removed from the crucible of "dark love" which so ably contains and ferments them.

Ionesco insists "The liberty I took in baring her is innocent....in my gaze the greatest love of all took place"

Ionesco's photographs of her daughter Eva have been widely acclaimed since the 1970's. "EVA: Eloge de ma Fille" gathers 124 of these images into the definitive volume of Eva photgraphs.

Making this book was a wonderful collarorative effort between the designers and editors in the San Francisco Bay Area, Irina and Eva in Paris, and the creative team at Toppan in Los Angeles and Tokyo.

Alice Press would like to thank: Valerie Servant/G.I.P.Paris for her precious collaboration; Valer Martinenq for her enthusiastic correspondence with Irina and Valerie, and for immersing herself in all aspects of the project; Janis Kohlhase for her unwavering faith and patience; Nina Elizabeth Gates for her design and editorial assistance; Thomas R. Hummel of Toppan Printing for his production advice; Stephanie Rossignol for her translation of Irina's introduction into English; Graham Ovenden and A. D. Coleman for their essays,
and Irina and Eva Ionesco, whose dramatic and unique collaboration has created a visual jewel.

Irina Ionesco was born to Romanian parents in Paris, 1935. At the age of four she was separated from them and spent her formative years in the city of Constanza, Romania. Steeped in that city's fabulous riches and fascinating traditions, she returned to Paris first to dance, then to paint, and finally to find her true vocation as photographer of the bizarre and beautiful as they are evoked in women's erotic mysteries.

Ionesco was elected "Woman of the Year", Time Life Books, 1977, and has over 12 books and countless international exhibitions to her credit. Irina Ionesco currently lives and works in Paris.