Hardcover. Ostfildern GR, Hatje Cantz, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. Catherine Opie (born 1961) has forged new idioms in both portrait and landscape photography, frequently combining the two genres to explore how people occupy different landscapes--from high school football players on the field to ice fishermen on frozen lakes, to surfers waiting for the next wave.
Hardcover. NY, Simon & Schuster, 1st, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 228 pages. Illustrated with full color and black & white photographs. Clean, bright copy. British photographer Beaton was noted for his portraits of royalty. His career spanned 50 years and included well-known portraits of King Geroge V and Queen Mary; his last official photo was in 1979. More than just a photographer, Beaton helped the royal family develop a worldwide image, an important component in the evolution and stability of the British monarchy as symbolic leaders of the Commonwealth. His photos were also an essential part of Britain's public relations and morale efforts, especially after Edward VIII's abdication and during World War II. A splendid compendium of Beaton's best works, supplemented by text explaining his importance.
Hardcover. Little, Brown, & Co., New York Graphic Society, 1st US, 1986, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 256 pages, hardcover with dust jacket. Retrospective on famed artist. Edited by Dr. David Mellor. With color and b&w plates throughout. Light edgewear and rubbing to dust jacket. Light fading and foxing to front flyleaf. Unmarked. A bright and tight copy.
Hardcover. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1st, 2016, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover 192 pages. On September 25, 1890, the Mormon prophet Wilford Woodruff publicly instructed his followers to abandon polygamy. In doing so, he initiated a process that would fundamentally alter the Latter-day Saints and their faith. Trading the most integral elements of their belief system for national acceptance, the Mormons recreated themselves as model Americans. Mary Campbell tells the story of this remarkable religious transformation in Charles Ellis Johnson and the Erotic Mormon Image. One of the church's favorite photographers, Johnson (1857-1926) spent the 1890s and early 1900s taking pictures of Mormonism's most revered figures and sacred sites. At the same time, he did a brisk business in mail-order erotica, creating and selling stereoviews that he referred to as his "spicy pictures of girls." Situating these images within the religious, artistic, and legal culture of turn-of-the-century America, Campbell reveals the unexpected ways in which they worked to bring the Saints into the nation's mainstream after the scandal of polygamy.
Hardcover. Cambridge MA, Wexner Center and MIT Press, 1sr, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, oblong pictorial boards, Any new film and any new book by French filmmaker Chris Marker is an event. Marker gave film lovers one of their most memorable experiences with La Jetee (1962)-a time-travel montage set after a nuclear war that inspired Terry Gilliam's Twelve Monkeys (1995). His still camerawork is not as well known, but Marker has been taking photographs as long as he has been making films. Staring Back presents 200 black-and-white photographs from Marker's personal archives, taken from 1952 to 2006. Some of the photographs are related to his classic films (which include Le Jetee, Sans Soleil, Cuba Si!, and The Case of the Grinning Cat), others are portraits of famous faces (Simone Signoret, Akira Kurosawa), but most are pictures of people Marker has encountered as he has traveled the world (an extra who appeared in Kurosawa's Ran, a woman seen on a street in Siberia). The central section of the book contains a series of photographs documenting political protests Marker has witnessed, including the march on the Pentagon in 1967, the events of May 1968 in Paris, and the tumultuous 2006 demonstrations protesting the French government's proposed employment policies. Still in publisher's shrinkwrap.
Hardcover. New York, Aperture, 1st, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 56 pages. Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. A Couple of Ways of Doing Something replicates a deluxe limited-edition portfolio whose initial run was only 75 copies. This clothbound edition preserves the luxurious sensibility of the original with 22 extraordinary oversized daguerreotypes printed in rich tritone. Working with daguerreotype master Jerry Spagnoli to conquer the complexities of this venerable process, which yields images of astonishing detail and gravity, Chuck Close photographed many of the same artist-friends who have made regular appearances in his paintings over the years: Laurie Anderson, Lyle Ashton Harris, Cecily Brown, Gregory Crewdson, Carroll Dunham, Ellen Gallagher, Philip Glass, Bob Holman, Elizabeth Murray, Elizabeth Peyton, Andres Serrano, Cindy Sherman, James Siena, Lorna Simpson, Kiki Smith, James Turrell, Robert Wilson, Terry Winters, Lisa Yuskavage and himself. Each image is complemented by a poem on its subject by Bob Holman, the celebrated and widely published New York School poet who originated and hosted the famous Poetry Slams at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and now runs the Bowery Poetry Club. With the counterpoint of Holman's engaging poetry, the collected work becomes a transfixing group portrait of Close's influential and highly creative circle of friends and colleagues, as well as an exploration of a challenging photographic medium.
Paperback. New York, Prestel, Revised, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 335 pages. Oversize hardcover with dust jacket. A very clean, unmarked copy with minor wear to dust jacket edges. Now available in a revised and expanded edition, this book offers the first comprehensive critical examination of one of America's most celebrated living artists. Chuck Close reinvented portraiture almost four decades ago with a series of nine-foot-tall, black-and-white likenesses of himself and fellow artists, which astonished an art world dominated by minimalism and conceptualism. Close has since explored an array of mediums. This lavish, large-format volume is the first to deal with all aspects of Close's career and to place them in a biographical context. Christopher Finch's insight into CLose's achievement comes by way of hundreds of studio visits and thousands of hours of conversation since he met Close in 1968. Finch provides an engaging, in-depth analysis of Close's portraits on canvas, from the continuous-tone airbrushed heads of the 1960s and '70s to the painterly "prismatic grids" of the past two decades. The more than 300 illustrations features in the book survey almost all of CLose's paintings, including his most recent work, together with a selection of his prints and multiples, and examples of his photographic oeuvre. This beautifully designed volume reveals not only the variety of pictorial strategies Close has devised, but the extrordinary personality of the artist behind the work.
Softcover. NY, Thames & Hudson, reprint, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 220 pages. This comprehensive catalogue traces the career of Cindy Sherman, examining her achievements as one of the leading American artists of our time. By exploring the myriad constructions of female identity and the body in our culture, Sherman imitates and confronts assorted representational stereotypes, becoming for many an icon of the contemporary concerns of feminism and postmodernism.Essayists Amada Cruz, Elizabeth A. T. Smith, and Amelia Jones offer keen insight and observations from several distinct vantage points, demonstrating that Sherman's work is a lens through which to view contemporary art and its ongoing concern with the profound issues of the structures of the self. More than 200 images show the breadth of Sherman's body of work, from the Untitled Film Stills of the 1970s to series such as Centerfolds, Fashion, Disasters, Fairy Tales, and History Portraits, as well as photographs influenced by surrealist artists. Also included are intriguing excerpts from Sherman's notebooks, selections from her contact sheets, and numerous Polaroid studies, all of which shed light on the artist's process.
Softcover. New York, Pantheon, 1st, 1984, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 197 pages, b&w and color photographs throughout. Light yellowing to edges of wrappers. Else a very clean, tight copy. 39 b&w and 50 color plates; 8.5 x 10.5 inches. An early retrospective of photographs by Cindy Sherman; introduction by Peter Schjeldahl; afterword by I. Michael Danoff.
Hardcover. Saint-Ouen FR, Editions Intervalles, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 221 pages, b&w photographs, text in English and French. For more than twenty-five years, Xavier Lambours has portrayed those who made cinema a myth: actors (Robert De Niro, Clint Eastwood, Harvey Keitel, Sean Connery, Harrison Ford, Nicole Kidman, Liz Taylor), directors (Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, Orson Welles, Francois Truffaut, Wong Kar-Wai), screenwriters, cinematographers, set decorators; they all played the portrait game under the direction of this hugely talented eye.
Softcover. NY, Harmony Books, 1st, 1975, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 128 pages. A photographic documentation of the Beatty-Cole Circus, recording and portraying the customs, activities, animals, and singular personalities of an endangered way of life. "I wanted to document the backstage everyday life of this ancient closed society and the people who live in it." Full-page b/w photos. Wrappers with light wear.
Hardcover. Scalo/DAP, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 159 pages. Color portraits of a community of immigrants living in Meyrin, a Swiss enclave near Geneva.
Hardcover. Brooklyn NY, powerHouse Books, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 112 pages. Photographer Henry Horenstein presents his earliest photographs, made from 1970 to 1973: a collection of portraits of family and friends, landscapes, and period imagery. These photographs describe a time familiar to everyone, when one moves from adolescence to adulthood-remaining a part of a family while beginning to create a network of one's own.
Hardcover. Brooklyn NY, powerHouse Books, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 112 pages. Photographer Henry Horenstein presents his earliest photographs, made from 1970 to 1973: a collection of portraits of family and friends, landscapes, and period imagery. These photographs describe a time familiar to everyone, when one moves from adolescence to adulthood-remaining a part of a family while beginning to create a network of one's own.
Hardcover. Munich, Prestel, 1st, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial boards, color and b&w photos. In this stunning photographic series, Pieter Henket presents images of the children of Odzala-Kokoua telling the oral history of the Congo in enchanting and creative ways. Shot over the course of a month, Henket documented the children of this remote region as they designed, planned, created costumes for, and acted out a series of myths - about their tribes, their landscape, and the animals and plants that they live among. Text in English and French. Clean, bright copy.
Softcover. US, ILR Press, 1st, 2009-08-06, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 142 pages, illustrated throughout in color. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to wrappers. Since 2001, Candacy A. Taylor (a former waitress herself) has traveled more than 26,000 miles throughout the United States collecting stories of these "lifers," as many waitresses aged fifty or over playfully call themselves. She interviewed fifty-seven waitresses in thirty-eight towns and cities. Their compelling stories are complemented and enhanced by Taylor's striking color photographs of the waitresses at work.Taylor expected that the waitresses she'd meet would feel overworked and underappreciated, but was surprised and delighted to find that the opposite was true. The proud, capable waitresses Taylor interviewed loved their jobs and, even if given the opportunity, "wouldn't do anything else." Nearly all the waitresses said that the physical labor of waitressing helped them to age more gracefully and that the daily contact with customers and coworkers kept them socially engaged. Lifers generally make more money from serving regular customers with whom they forge bonds over decades and their seniority earns them respect from their coworkers and managers. Taylor's sensitive and respectful portrayal of career waitresses who have turned their jobs into a rewarding lifetime pursuit turns Counter Culture into an invaluable portrait of the continued importance of community in our changing society.
Softcover. New York, ILR Press, 1st, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 170 pages. Softcover with light edgewear to wrappers. Color pictures throughout. "Career waitresses do more than just serve food. They are part psychiatrist, part grandmother, part friend, and they serve every walk of American life: from the retired and the widowed, to the wounded and the lonely, and from the working class to the wealthy. The classic diner waitress is an icon of American culture.... This book takes a moment to honor and recognize waitresses' contribution to our communities. Doing this project has helped me to redefine my perspective on life, work, and happiness. It has made me reevaluate the myth of the American dream that says you need to have an 'important' job to be happy."
Softcover. NY, Crown, 1st wraps, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, Black & white photos by Farley. 160 pages. "Farley has gathered these portraits of cowgirls - not showbiz cowgirls, but the real thing. Her subjects work in harsh, unpredictable climates, bring up families while they manage their ranches, and compete - and win - in rodeos alongside men. Her black-and-white photographs capture the spirit and energy of authentic working cowgirls and the raw beauty of the western landscape." Oblong format.
Hardcover. Boston, Bulfinch Press, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 112 pages, 73 duotone and 11 color photographs by David Bailey. Includes images of the Rolling Stones, Elton John, Queen, Bob Geldof, George Michael, The Beatles, Duke Ellington, U2, etc, Clean copy. Light fading to red spine, some yellowing to dust jacket.
Hardcover. Washington DC, National Portrait Gallery, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 272 pages, 300 color and b&w images. Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. Accompanied by a major exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London, in spring 2014, which will then tour to venues on four continents, this book like the exhibition, is structured thematically, with iconic images presented alongside many lesser-known and previously unseen portraits. Essay by Tim Marlow.
Hardcover. London, Thames & Hudson, 1st, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 224 pages. In this latest celebration of his art Bailey brings together for the first time the best of all his "beauty" photographs from the 1960s up to the present day. Commissioned by the best-known fashion magazines of the time, these portraits of what Vogue once called "The Bailey Kind of Girl" include models such as Jean Shrimpton, Marie Helvin, Penelope Tree, and Bailey's wife, Catherine Dyer. Blended with these are Bailey's startling ethnographic portraits of, for example, Asaro mud men and Indian dancers, and his own paintings. In his illuminating introduction, Robin Muir sets these photographs in the context of the period in which they were taken and reminds us that for over forty years Bailey has challenged our notions of female beauty with his own highly personal vision. The sensational color images collected here testify that few are more expert than this photographer on a subject that is today preoccupying us more than ever. No admirer of either beauty or Bailey will want to be without this book. 110 color photographs.
Hardcover. Steidl, 1st, 2016, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, illustrated boards, 96 pages. Determining the perfect exposure time for a photographic print in a traditional darkroom can be a time-consuming and tedious process, and the irreverent David Bailey (born 1938) has never had much patience for it. Normally a photographer makes a number of test strips, each showing different exposure times; but Bailey has always just intuitively torn off strips of the unexposed paper to find the desired result: "I would usually have it in the bag after three tears." Over the decades, Bailey has kept his "test tears," re-fixing and washing them to preserve the unpredictable and unique qualities of these "accidents." This book contains the best of Bailey's tears, which transform some of his most famous motifs into fascinating abstract pictures through their torn edges and myriad tones.