Robert Delpire

Robert Delpire (24 January 1926 – 26 September 2017) was an art publisher, editor, curator, film producer and graphic designer who lived and worked in Paris.

He published books of photography, illustration and graphic art through Éditions Delpire and Photo Poche.

[3] Delpire was the first to publish many notable books of photography including Les Américains (1958, The Americans) by Robert Frank, "perhaps the most influential photography book of the 20th century";[4] and Les Gitans (1975, Gypsies) by Josef Koudelka, "one of the defining photobooks of the 20th century".

The retrospective exhibition, Delpire & Co., was shown at Rencontres d'Arles festival, Arles; Maison européenne de la photographie, Paris; then simultaneously across four locations in New York.

[10][11] As a medical student, Delpire became editor-in-chief of Neuf (Nine), the Maison de la Médecine's cultural review for its doctors.

Delpire published three photography books under the short-lived imprint Huit (Eight): Doisneau's Les Parisiens tels qu'ils sont (Parisians as They Are, 1954); Cartier-Bresson's Les Danses à Bali (Dances in Bali, 1954), the first of a long collaboration between Delpire and his friend Cartier-Bresson; and George Rodger's Le Village des Noubas (The Village of the Nubas, 1955).

[15] Its first was the début publication in book form of Crocodile Tears (1955) by André François, having already published it in Neuf No.

Delpire & Co. was the first French publisher of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are[2][12] (Max et les Maximonstres, 1967).

[2][16] For a decade from around the mid 1950s, Delpire, in partnership with Claude Puech,[17] produced sales brochures and posters for Citroën, using the work of photographers (Helmut Newton, Sarah Moon, and others),[18] illustrators, painters and typographers.