Vu, the subject of this book, was one of the most popular, fascinating an estimated 450,000 readers with its incisive photographic stories and eye-catching front covers of people and events from Paris to Shanghai.

Published between 1928 and 1940 in Paris, Vu used more photographs than any other magazine, with 3,324 published in its first year. Unusually, these pictures were the main ingredient. They influenced the articles rather than the other way round.

Many of these images were unseen elsewhere, such as the first pictures of life in the Soviet Union by Lucien Vogel or the groundbreaking snapshots taken on the streets by Andre Kertesz, Henri Cartier-Bresson and others.