Sketch of Paris — JH Engström, Aperture 2013

This is JH Engström’s Paris: smeared lipstick, torn curtains, dirty tiles and private glances. Shot between 1991 and 2012, Sketch of Paris is not a portrait of the city but of a life lived within it—dislocated, bohemian, and unfiltered. Across 250 images in black-and-white and saturated colour, Engström documents not just a place, but a mood: the delirium of late nights and early mornings, of bodies lost and found, of emotional exposure. With his instinctive, diaristic eye, the Swedish photographer offers a counter-archive to the romantic clichés of the French capital—something closer to Anders Petersen’s Café Lehmitz or Nan Goldin’s Ballad, but more erratic, more fractured. The design of the book itself, housed in a utilitarian slipcase with type pressed into raw cardboard, resists polish—matching the rough lyricism of Engström’s vision. This is Paris in fragments, in memory, in ruin and desire. It is also the record of an artist becoming himself.

Technical Sheet

Title: Sketch of Paris
Artist / Author: JH Engström
Date: 2013
Technique / Printing Method: Offset
Medium / Materials: Hardcover with slipcase
Language: English
Pages: 250
Publisher / Editor: Aperture
ISBN: 9781597112358
Condition: NEW