Dunes By Francis Tack & Paul Robin
Dunes
A Radiant Photographic Masterpiece Capturing the Evolving Geometries and Ageless Solitudes of the World’s Greatest Deserts
A Radiant Photographic Masterpiece Capturing the Evolving Geometries and Ageless Solitudes of the World’s Greatest Deserts
Bibliographic Specifications
- Title: Dunes
- Photographer & Artistic Director: Francis Tack
- Author / Text: Paul Robin
- Publisher: Vilo Publishing Ltd / Vilo International, Paris
- Publication Date: 2002 (First English Edition)
- ISBN-13: 9782845760448 (ISBN-10: 2845760442)
- Edition Details: First Printing of the First English Edition. Part of the prestigious World Memories international anthology series.
- Binding: Original publisher's premium fine cloth boards with crisp blind-stamped typography to the spine; complete with original unpriced high-gloss illustrated dust jacket.
- Physical Format: Oversized Luxury Coffee-Table Folio (4to), 283 pages. Extensively illustrated with breathtaking, large-scale, full-colour topographical and abstract sandscape plates printed on heavy-gauge satin art stock. Dimensions: Approx. 29 x 3 x 33 cm. Weight: Approx. 2.7 kg.
- Language: English (Translated from the original French partnership with GEO magazine).
Official Condition Report
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The Book: Near Fine (NF) / Mint
- Exterior / Boards: The massive cloth boards are in flawless, showroom condition—exceptionally flat, rigid, and completely square. The corners are razor-sharp with no trace of friction or bumping. The heavy spine remains completely upright, uncreased, and structurally immaculate.
- Interior: The substantial 2.7 kg text block is robustly bound, tight, and remarkably fresh. Internal pages and full-bleed visual layouts are completely crisp, bright white, and free of reader notes, annotations, modern highlighting, or dog-ears.
- Provenance: Pristine state; entirely free of previous owner signatures, institutional stamps, gift inscriptions, or dealer pencil marks.
- Protection: Kept pristine and safely enclosed within a custom archival-grade protective cellophane sleeve.
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The Dust Jacket: Very Good Plus (VG+)
- Condition: Bright, complete, and unclipped. Displays only very limited, superficial signs of minor handling and trace storage friction at the edge extremities, entirely consistent with careful collection preservation. Free of deep tears, major chips, or spine fading.
Synopsis & Historical Value
Published by Vilo International in 2002, Dunes is an extraordinary visual and scientific masterpiece that documents the shifting, ocean-like waveforms of the world's most arid environments. The book stands as an artistic triumph, blending the technical precision of French physicist and veteran dune-chaser Francis Tack with the lyrical prose of Paul Robin, who spent his youth raised among the Moorish nomads of the French Sahara.
The volume serves as a sweeping global survey of desert geomorphology, tracing Tack's cameras through the formidable sands of North Africa, the primeval Namib, the immense solitudes of the Libyan Desert, the ancient dunes of Saudi Arabia, the sweeping expanses of the United States, and the treacherous, "unfrequentable" corridors of China’s Taklamakan Desert. Rather than operating as a simple gallery, the text breaks down everything you need to know about sand dunes—explaining their geological formation, fluid wind dynamics, evolutionary patterns, and the hidden life of their delicate ecosystems. This large, beautifully protected folio remains a highly sought-after volume for collectors of high-end travel photojournalism, abstract landscape art, and environmental geology.
Author & Photographer Profile
- Francis Tack: A distinguished physicist, desert explorer, and artistic photographer. Combining his background in physical sciences with a lifelong obsession for remote desert expanses, Tack has spent decades documenting the micro-textures and macro-structures of sand formations worldwide.
- Paul Robin: An accomplished French environmental writer and ethnologist. Raised in the heart of the Sahara, his deep, intimate familiarity with desert survival, nomadic lore, and landscape transience infuses the scientific imagery with an evocative, poetic "odyssey" narrative.
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