Miller, Henry. AN HISTORIC EARLY AND ICONIC PHOTOGRAPH OF THE AUTHOR.

9" x 12". [1931]. Taken by Brassai, whose photographs of the Parisian demi-monde documented Left Bank life at a time between the wars when American expatriatism was flourishing, and three years before the publication of "Tropic Of Cancer."

The image portrays the bespectacled author leaning against a doorway, his Borsalino fedora tilted rakishly, a half-smoked cigarette between his fingers, in sober repose.

The photograph, one of forty numbered silver prints, is signed by Brassai on the mat below the image, and on the verso bears his atelier stamp and his written words: "Henry Miller a Paris (1931)." This much-reproduced image was first published in 1931 in "Americans Abroad," an anthology of expatriate authors. Some four decades later Brassai used it again as the cover portrait for his memoir of Miller. Miller's American publisher, John Martin of the Black Sparrow Press, later acquired the photograph and had Miller inscribe it to him.

Brassai met the American author soon after Miller had departed New York for Paris. The two men were part of a bohemian group that included Anais Nin, Lawrence Durrell, Alfred Perles, and Michael Fraenkel, who was the model for Boris in "Tropic Of Cancer." Fine and framed under museum glass.

A lovely juxtaposition of considerable literary and photographical importance.