CHRIS STEELE-PERKINS: FUJI: IMAGES OF CONTEMPORARY JAPAN

New York City, NY: Umbrage Editions Book, 2002. First Edition. First Printing.. Hardcover. Fine/Fine Dust Jacket.. New York City, NY: Umbrage Editions Book, 2002. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Edition/First Printing. 132 pages. Landmark collection of photographs. One of the most beautiful photography books of our time. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now rare. A brilliant production by Chris Steele-Perkins: Oversize-volume format. Red cloth boards with black titles embossed on spine, as issued. Photographs by Chris Steele-Perkins. Printed on pristine-white, thick coated stock paper in Italy to the highest standards. In pictorial DJ with titles on the cover and spine, as issued. Presents Steele-Perkins' "Fuji: Images of Contemporary Japan". Photographs of the dynamic and complex country. Unlike any other documentary, landscape, or street photography (all of which he draws upon), Steele-Perkins has struck upon an arrestingly simple idea for his portrait of a whole nation: Every single one of the photographs has Mount Fuji in it, visible in the background, looming over Japan, whether it's Tokyo, Kyoto, or a small town, village, and ricefield. It is easy to overlook what Chris Steele-Perkins has pulled off, and his achievement therefore deserves to be emphasized: He has made us keenly aware once again of the background, which we have come habitually to ignore when looking at photographs. His approach is subtle, cunning, and instructive in every image: Mount Fuji is the background in varying degrees of recession, sometimes looming over the horizon and too close for comfort, sometimes remote and distant, omnipresent yet never the main subject. While the Eiffel Tower is the concrete visual symbol of Paris, it does not symbolize France whereas to every Japanese (and every tourist), Mount Fuji is the enduring symbol of Japan. The idea is unrepeatable because there is no other mountain that any other people have vested with such symbolism. Mount Fuji was a central aspect of Japan's imperial - and ultimately disastrous - ambitions, remains a part of every important ceremony to this day, and continually reminds the Japanese people that they have once risen mightily, fallen shamefully, and risen triumphantly again, an economic powerhouse and the most advanced artistic culture in Asia today. The idea for the book was inspired by Hokusai's masterpiece, "The Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji". Hokusai discovered the Western notion of perspective through Dutch etching and radically transformed the Japanese wood-block print. As strange as it may sound, his resulting prints have a depth of field that is best described as photographic, and part of Steele-Perkins' achievement is to show precisely that fact in his own images. "Hokusai would have welcomed him as a worthy successor" (Ian Buruma). An absolute "must-have" title for Chris Steele-Perkins collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed in black ink-pen on the title page by Chris Steele-Perkins. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a great art photography book. As far as we know, this is the only such signed copy of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. A rare signed copy thus. 105 color plates. One of the greatest photographers of our time. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER CHRIS STEELE-PERKINS TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 1884167128.