[Exhibition Catalog] Death of a Valley by [LANGE, Dorothea (1895-1965) and Pirkle JONES (1914-2009); Minor White, edits] - 1960

Rochester, NY: Aperture, 1960. First Edition. Stapled Wrappers. Near Fine+. First Printing of this elusive exhibition catalog documenting the Berryessa Valley, in California, before it was flooded to create Lake Berryessa. With text by Jones and photographs by Lange. Slim, squarish 8vo (235 x 205mm): [38]pp, with 26 black-and-white full- and double-page photographs (a farm worker holding a crate of grapes. a horse galloping madly through a burned field, a giant tractor kicking up clouds of dust where crops used to grow, the town cemetery with rows of clean-cut holes created when bodies were exhumed). Original stiff photographically illustrated stapled wrappers, with text on verso of both covers. Near Fine or better: minor soiling to covers (heavier on lower cover, which has thin band of rippling to bottom edge), but generally clean and bright throughout. Markham, "Death of a Valley," Geurnica (10/15/2015). Reprinted from Aperture 8:3 (November,1960). In 1956, Dorothea Lange approached Pirkle Jones about collaborating on a photographic essay about the final year in the Napa Valley community of Berryessa Valley, which that she had sold to Life magazine. Berryessa Valley was slated to be flooded after the completion of the Monticello Dam, part of the Solano Project to provide irrigation to 100,000 acres of prime agricultural land. Over the course of the year, Lange and Jones documented the community's transformation, from the removal of houses and bodies from graves to the destruction of forests. When Life, which had commissioned the project, declined to publish the story and returned rights to Lange and Jones, they organized a traveling exhibition, Death of a Valley. Aperture published the photographic essay, which served as the exhibition catalog (based on Digital Exhibits from the UCSC Library). N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.).