JH Engström: Sketch of Paris

For over twenty years, Swedish photographer JH Engström has lived and worked in Paris, a city that, like New York, has a long photographic pedigree; countless photographers have been inspired by its iconic architecture and busy streets. Sketch of Paris, however, is hardly a catalog of classic Parisian scenes, offering instead a raw yet lyrical portrayal of the artist’s misadventures, loves, and random encounters in its streets, bars, and artist lofts—an entirely personal Paris. Drawing more from Nan Goldin and Anders Petersen than Eugène Atget or Henri Cartier-Bresson, Engström brings us on a gritty, no-holds-barred guided tour of life in his adopted city. The photographs provide a type of homage to Paris, a city that has greatly influenced and inspired Engström—as a photographer and as a person. The book brings together 250 color and black-and-white photographs—self-portraits, nudes, portraits of lovers, friends, strangers, and the occasional street scene—all shot between 1991 and 2012, tracing a critical time during the development of the artist’s own voice and vision.