Publisher: Le Renard Pale France
Publication Date: 2009
Category: Artist's book
Text Source: Theophile Gautier's pantoum Les Papillons, originally published in Fortunio (1838)
Materials & Contents: Arches paper and tracing paper, with 3 original photographic prints
Photographs: The 3 original photographic prints included in the volume were made by Lucien Clergue in Arles and the Camargue in 2009, and printed by Kathy Cooper.
Design & Binding: Designed by Patricia Dupuy, with a silk-and-lace case; the vegetal paper cover was created by Genevieve Sicre; Chinese-style binding with a blue silk wrapper and antique lace.
Edition: Edition of 30 copies
Place and Date of Completion: Completed in Fontaine-de-Vaucluse for Christmas 2009
Signature: Signed by the photographer
Les Papillons places Theophile Gautier's pantoum within the material and visual language of a late artist's book by Lucien Clergue. Printed on Arches paper and tracing paper, the volume contains 3 original photographic prints. As the translucent pages are turned, poem and figure emerge through shifting veils, creating a light, atmospheric, and rhythmic visual experience. Its vegetal paper cover, blue silk wrapper, and antique lace case heighten the tactile and sculptural presence of the book as an object. Issued in only 30 copies, it holds literary, photographic, and bibliophilic value.
Lucien Clergue (1934-2014) was one of the major French photographers of the second half of the twentieth century. Born in Arles, he remained deeply connected throughout his life to both the city and the landscape of the Camargue. His work spans nudes, beach nudes, bullfighting, Mediterranean landscapes, portraits of artists, and artist's books, and is especially noted for transforming the body, the shoreline, light, and curvature into a highly formal and poetic black-and-white language. In 1955, he met Pablo Picasso and developed a lasting friendship with him; he also maintained close ties with literature, music, theatre, and the visual arts, which gave his photography a distinctly interdisciplinary character.

In 1970, Clergue worked with Michel Tournier and Jean-Maurice Rouquette to launch the Rencontres d'Arles, helping turn Arles into one of the world's major centers of photographic culture. In 2006, he entered the photography section of the Academie des Beaux-Arts, becoming the first photographer elected to that dedicated seat, and in 2013 he served as President of the Academie. As an artist, publisher, and cultural advocate, Clergue not only shaped a major strand of postwar French art photography through his own images, but also left a lasting mark on the history of photography in Arles and in Europe more broadly.

Theophile Gautier (1811-1872) was a major nineteenth-century French poet, novelist, and art critic, widely regarded as an important advocate of "art for art's sake." He occupies a central place in the literary and critical history of post-Romantic France and had a lasting influence on later poetic and aesthetic thought.