biography photography

Hardcover. New York, Tim Duggan Books, 1st, 2017, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 248 pages, b&w illustrations. The first great portrait photographer, a pioneering balloonist, the first person to take an aerial photograph, and the prime mover behind the first airmail service, Nadar was one of the original celebrity artist-entrepreneurs. A kind of 19th-century Andy Warhol, he knew everyone worth knowing and photographed them all, conferring on posterity psychologically compelling portraits of Manet, Sarah Bernhardt, Delacroix, Daumier and countless others--a priceless panorama of Parisian celebrity. Born Gaspard-Felix Tournachon, he adopted the pseudonym Nadar as a young bohemian, when he was a budding writer and cartoonist. Later he affixed the name Nadar to the facade of his opulent photographic studio in giant script, the illuminated letters ten feet tall, the whole sign fifty feet long, a garish red beacon on the boulevard. Nadar became known to all of Europe and even across the Atlantic when he launched "The Giant," a gas balloon the size of a twelve-story building, the largest of its time. With his daring exploits aboard his humongous balloon (including a catastrophic crash that made headlines around the world), he gave his friend Jules Verne the model for one of his most dynamic heroes.

Hardcover. Steidl, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 360 pages. In 1878, the Photographic Times claimed that ten minutes provided sufficient exposure for photographing a landscape. Six years earlier, an English immigrant to the West Coast named Eadweard Muybridge, going by the commercial name of Helios, had already pushed photography far in the opposite direction: not to soak up time into pictures, but to divide time with the quickest exposures then imaginable. In 1872, the tycoon Leland Stanford had commissioned Muybridge to photograph his horse, Occident, to determine whether it ever lifted all four hooves off the ground at once. In proving that this was indeed the case, Muybridge achieved a five-hundredth-of-a-second exposure, and so began an anatomy of motion-in humans, horses, birds-that exploded the possibilities of photography and ultimately led to the development of the motion picture. Helios: Eadweard Muybridge in a Time of Change offers an opportunity to trace the life and art of the great photographer. In the wake of a wave of recent scholarship and renewed interest, it pitches his entire body of work against the backdrop of one of the most transformative periods of American and European history. Published to accompany a retrospective exhibition organized by the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Helios features essays by Philip Brookman, Marta Braun, Corey Keller and Rebecca Solnit that provide a variety of new approaches to Muybridge's art and influences.

Hardcover. Brookfiled, VT, Ashgate, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR. 159 pages. 24 color plates and 144 B&W illustrations. Black pictorial dust jacket. Black boards with silver gilt title to spine. Herkomer: A Victorian artist is a study of the life and work of the Victorian portraitist and social-realist painter, a self-made polymath whose boundless enthusiasm led him to take an early and important interest in photography, film-making, stagecraft and motoring. Biography of artist by publishing company laid-in. Overall, a clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. Germany, Steidl, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 262 pages. Hardcover with no dust jacket. Very clean, unmarked copy still in publishers shrink-wrap. Photographs throughout. Tight copy. The High and Lonesome Sound combines Cohen's vintage photos, film and musical recordings as well as an anecdotal text into a multimedia tribute to this underappreciated legend of American music whose every performance was, in Cohen's words, "not just a rendition of music, but a test of something to be overcome."

Hardcover. Germany, Steidl, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 262 pages. Hardcover with no dust jacket. Very clean, unmarked copy still in publishers shrink-wrap. Photographs throughout. Tight copy. The High and Lonesome Sound combines Cohen's vintage photos, film and musical recordings as well as an anecdotal text into a multimedia tribute to this underappreciated legend of American music whose every performance was, in Cohen's words, "not just a rendition of music, but a test of something to be overcome."

Hardcover. New York, NY, Little, Brown, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 482 pages, hardcover. Extensive b&w and color illustrations throughout. Silver gilt titles on spine. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket.

Hardcover. New York, MJF Books, 1st, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 166 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Photographs by Sid Avery. Clean, tight copy. An interesting collection of black and white photographs, presenting Hollywood Celebrities of the fifties and sixties in various scenes. e.g. Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward in their kitchen cooking breakfast, Debbie Reynolds with her children playing at home.

Hardcover. New York, MJF Books, 1st, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 166 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Photographs by Sid Avery. Front sun faded, otherwise clean, tight copy. An interesting collection of black and white photographs, presenting Hollywood Celebrities of the fifities and sixties in various scenes. eg Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward in their kitchen cooking breakfast, Debbie Reynolds with her children playing at home.

Hardcover. New York, MJF Books, 1st, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 166 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Photographs by Sid Avery. Front sun faded, otherwise clean, tight copy. An interesting collection of black and white photographs, presenting Hollywood Celebrities of the fifities and sixties in various scenes. eg Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward in their kitchen cooking breakfast, Debbie Reynolds with her children playing at home.

Softcover. NY, Assouline Publishing, reprint, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 366 pages. Softcover with light wear to wrappers. Very little wear to cover. Many b&w and color photographs throughout. A bright, clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Harcourt, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 288 pages. From the late 1950s until her death in 1971, renowned photographer Diane Arbus took pictures of oddball performers at the now-forgotten Hubert's Museum, a typical freak show in New York City's seedy Times Square. One frequent subject was Charlie Lucas, first a freak himself, later an inside talker. In 2003, Bob Langmuir, an anxiety-ridden, pill-popping, obsessive antiquarian book dealer from Philadelphia, unearthed a collection of photographs and memorabilia, including Lucas's journals and what he thought were Arbus's photos. This trove of genuine American kookiness came to dominate his life. Following Langmuir's quest--from the slums of Philadelphia to the halls of the Metropolitan Museum of Art--as he gathered, priced and ultimately came to understand this collection, author Gibson (Gone Boy: A Walkabout), himself an antiquarian book dealer, effortlessly twists these strands together with an emotional wallop. His toil in Hubert's vineyard, Gibson writes of Langmuir, amounted to no more or less than the continuing archaeology of the old, weird America. Gibson's laser focus on Langmuir's shifting state of mind as he struggles to master his personal demons and navigate the pitfalls of his own obsession gives this story its heart and opens a window onto a lost part of the American soul. 21 b&w photos.

Hardcover. Bath, UK, Parragon , reprint, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 224 pages. Extensive color photography throughout. This collection of stunning photographs from the archives of the Daily Mail, along with the detailed commentary, provide a wealth of information on the stars' public and private faces.

Hardcover. Boston, New Graphic Society, 1st , 1979, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 126 pages plus index of photographs. Hardcover with dust jacket. Interviews by Dater with people who knew Cunningham. 60 black & white plates by Cunningham. Clean.

Softcover. San Francisco, Chronicle Books, 1st pbk, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 180 pages. A retrospective examination of the pioneering 20th-century photographer's work that spanned some seventy years. Drawn primarily from Cunningham's archives at the Imogen Cunningham Trust, the most complete collection of her prints and negatives in the world. 120 black-and-white photographs. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. US, Frances Lincoln, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, pages. The most widely read British poet of the twentieth century, Philip Larkin was also a keen amateur photographer and through his life he made images of the people, places and things that meant most to him. The Importance of Elsewhere gathers the best of Larkin's photographic work, divided into short thematic chapters arranged in chronological order. Written by Richard Bradford, the acclaimed author of the Larkin biography First Boredom, Then Fear, the book shows how Larkin, as an individual, as a writer and indeed as a photographer, developed an acute sensitivity to all aspects of the world around him, from his love of open uninhabited landscapes and empty churches to his mixed feelings about crowds. There are also fascinating portraits of those people who were closest to Larkin, including his lovers, his mother and his literary peers.The book beautifully reproduces more than 200 images from the Larkin archive at Hull: the majority have never previously been seen in print. A substantial foreword by Mark Haworth-Booth, formerly curator of photography at the V&A, explores what it meant to be a serious amateur photographer of Larkin's generation.

Hardcover. Zurich, Edition Olms, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 208 pages, with dust jacket. Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. Delving into the photo archives of French magazine, Paris Match, where Chaigneau is an editor, and accompanied by several of the interviews and articles the magazine published, the author offers a glimpse into the working processes and personal lives of some of the 20th century's canonical visual artists . Focused mostly on European masters such as Pablo Picasso, Bernard Buffet, Rene Magritte, Marc Chagall, and Joan Miro, the book's highly accessible, if minimal, commentary and anecdotes allow the photos to take center stage. Georg Baselitz, for example, is pictured perched on a chair with his head in his arms, as if "haunted by invisible demons," with several large scale paintings in the background. In contrast, Salvador Dali, ever the "wily publicist," seems to relish the camera's presence: in one shot dressed as a Spanish nobleman with an expression of faux-seriousness. Elsewhere, as a testament to his creative drive, Henri Matisse is pictured in 1954, bedridden but still painting with a specially devised long brush mere months before his death. Moving beyond the studio, some attention is given to the private lives of the artists, adding a human element to these creative giants. Photographer Willy Rizzo captures Picasso in a rare candid and intimate moment, reading the comics of a newspaper while his boxer, Yan, looks on. But perhaps the most illuminating moments are when the artists, in interviews, talk about their creative process; there is something humble and brave, for instance, in Jacques Villon's quip, "I don't know what I've discovered... but I know that I'm still looking". Color and b&w photos.

Hardcover. New York, Rizzoli International Publication, reprint, 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, 239 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Extensive color and b&w photographs throughout. Illustrated end papers and fly leafs. Tear to top right corner of rear dust jacket flap repaired with tape. Light edge wear to dust jacket, otherwise clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. London, Phaidon Press, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 190 pages. Hardcover. Extensive b&w photography throughout. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket.

Hardcover. NY, Aperture, 1st, 1974, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, 220 pages, illustrated throughout in b&w. Light edgewear, tearing and sun-fade to dust jacket. Binding slightly shaken. Faint foxing to edges.

Softcover. New York, Thames & Hudson, 1st, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 112 pages. This book selects from Jane Bown's whole range of her photography during the forty-five years she has worked for London's Observer, starting with scenes typical of the fifties and ending with others characteristic of the nineties. The portraits, sandwiched between these and forming the body of the book, themselves range widely - from such proven classics as those of Samuel Beckett, Mick Jagger and John Gielgud, to early studies of the Beatles and recent photos of Alan Bennett, Archbishop Tutu, Boy George and Woody Allen among a great variety of famous people in the worlds of music, literature, stage, screen, politics and the arts. Clean. bright copy.

Softcover. New York, Thames & Hudson, 1st, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 112 pages. Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. This book selects from Jane Bown's whole range of her photography during the forty-five years she has worked for London's Observer, starting with scenes typical of the fifties and ending with others characteristic of the nineties. The portraits, sandwiched between these and forming the body of the book, themselves range widely - from such proven classics as those of Samuel Beckett, Mick Jagger and John Gielgud, to early studies of the Beatles and recent photos of Alan Bennett, Archbishop Tutu, Boy George and Woody Allen among a great variety of famous people in the worlds of music, literature, stage, screen, politics and the arts.

Hardcover. Boston, David R. Godine, 1st, 1992, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 112 pages. A photographer once remarked to Andre Maurois, "If I were to take a picture of a village wedding, Jean Cocteau would appear between the bride and groom." And he was right; Cocteau was photographed everywhere, by everyone, in all guises and poses. Cecil Beaton posed him smoking an opium pipe, Lucien Clergue caught him in the romantic ruins of Arles where Cocteau was shooting Orphee, Arnold Newman shot him in Paris, and Philippe Halsman in New York. Cocteau possessed, of course, a modern genius for self-promotion, but he also cared deeply about his own art and the art of a technique he embraced with passion throughout his lifetime - photography. Essay by Francis Steegmuller.

Hardcover. NY, Rizzoli, 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, still in publisher's shrinkwrap. A rare and poignant compilation of photography and written anecdotes by American photographer and artist Lee Jaffe that captures his close friendship, collaboration, and travels with the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat as they traversed Japan, Thailand, and Switzerland in 1983. Lee Jaffe, a cross-disciplinary visual artist, musician, and poet, took photos of his friend, Jean-Michel Basquiat, when they traveled abroad in 1983. As a photographer, Jaffe had a connection to Basquiat, and their time spent together resulted in an archive of imagery that captured one of the art world's true legends through an unfiltered and authentic lens. Basquiat and Jaffe connected over reggae music at a mutual friend's art show. It was the early 1980s in New York, when the art scene was raw, complicated, and thriving, and Jaffe cultivated strong connections with cultural figures such as Basquiat, Bob Marley, and Peter Tosh. "For me, watching him [ Jean] paint reminded me of the times I would sit and play harmonica while Bob Marley, with his acoustic guitar, would be writing songs that were eventually to become classics," Jaffe says. "With Jean and Bob, it seemed like they were channeling inspiration coming from an otherworldly place." This beautiful volume presents snapshots of Basquiat: from the artist smiling on a bullet train to Kyoto and behind-the-scenes documentation of Basquiat creating artwork in St. Moritz, to poignant portraits that mirror his undeniable magnetism. These rare depictions of Basquiat come to life with Jaffe's unforgettable experiences of their friendship, collaborations, and travels detailed in private written memories and anecdotes. This insightful and moving illustrated volume captures the soul of the unedited, ambitious, young artist during the height of his short yet unprecedented artistic career.

Hardcover. New York, Harry N. Abrams, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 224 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. 200 illustrations in color. Foreword by Jennifer B. Lee, Performing Arts Curator, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Index. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket. Joseph Urban is a lavish celebration of this prolific artist, architect, and designer, whose accomplishments include magnificent Art Deco buildings, spectacular Ziegfeld Follies productions, and dramatic sets for the Metropolitan Opera. Joseph Urban (1872-1933) began his career as an architect and artist in Vienna before moving to America in 1911. In 1914 he moved to New York, where he ultimately signed on as set designer of the Metropolitan Opera. He also became immersed in an astonishing array of outside projects, designing nightclubs, hotel lounges, skyscrapers, theaters, stage and film sets, and even children's books. Though his creative output was immense, little remains of his work except the Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, and the New School and the base of the Hearst Tower in New York.