Café Lehmitz.

8vo (238 x 212 mm), pp.18, [2] blank, [96]. 88 black-and-white photographs, text by Roger Anderson. Original wrappers; edges lightly rubbed. Original dust-jacket attached at spine, text printed in black and illustrated with black-and-white photographs on upper and lower panels; nicks to hinges at head of spine, short closed tear and 15 mm closed tear repaired with tape to lower side.\n\nFirst edition. Between 1965 and 1968 Pertersen was a student of fellow Swedish photographer Christer Strömholm. Strömholm had discovered Petersen sneaking into the darkrooms at the Stockholm Fotoskalan to make prints. On seeing his work Strömholm admitted Petersen to the school and encouraged him to photograph subjects that held a personal meaning. Petersen travelled to Hamburg where he had lived previously and began photographing in Café Lehmitz in 1967. Located at the end the Reeperbahn, Café Lehmitz was a place of refuge for those on the margins of society. Petersen spent much time there over a period of over two years getting to know the locals, often giving them prints and letting them take pictures themselves. The resulting book is an authentic portrait of these people, ‘one of the finest photobooks of the decade’ (Parr).\n\nRoth, A. et al. Open Book, pp.318-9; Parr, M. and Badger, G., The Photobook: A History, Vol.I, p.230-1.