MOTHER'S DAYS

New York City, NY: Little Bear Press, 2002. First Edition. First Printing.. Hardcover. Fine/No Dust Jacket, As Issued.. New York City, NY: Little Bear Press, 2002. Hardcover. Fine/None, As Issued. First Edition/First Printing. Unpaginated. Retrospective collection of vintage photographs. The first and only edition. Published in a small and limited print run as a hardcover original only. The book remains the single most beautiful title published by Little Bear Press. The First Edition is now scarce. An austerely elegant production by Sam Shahid: Regular-sized volume format. Pictorial hard boards with titles on the cover and spine, as issued. Photographs by Imogen Cunningham. Edited by Bruce Weber with the assistance of Nan Bush and Leslie Lambert. Introduction by John Stevenson. Interview by Bruce Weber with Rondal Partridge, one of Imogen Cunningham's twins, an accomplished photographer in his own right. Printed on pristine-white, thick uncoated stock paper in the United States to the highest standards. Without DJ, as issued. Presents Imogen Cunningham's "Mother's Days". Never-before-published photographs by Cunningham, a family album of her three sons, Rondal and Padraic (fondly nicknamed Ron and Pad), who were handsome freckled redhead twins, and their younger brother, Grff. Taken during the 1920's and 1930's, the photographs are inescapably awash with nostalgia today. Charming, wistful, intimate, they recall a time that seems Edenic and gone forever. Imogen Cunningham was a daring pioneer of the male nude (she thought the male body was perfection personified). She photographed her sons nude because she thought they were beautiful as such (they were) and did so without any lewd intentions. The best photographs in this collection are those of the twins shot very closely together, gazing at each other, oblivious of the camera and the outside world. While Cunningham herself thought of the work as a private matter, Weber's own personal fascination with twins is deep-seated; twins are a major motif of his oeuvre (the Brewers and the Carlsons being the most famous) and is surely why he published these photographs in the first place. A lovely tribute to one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century by her surviving son (Ron) and BW. An absolute "must-have" title for Imogen Cunningham collectors. This title is a great photography book. This is one of few copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. A scarce copy thus. 38 tritone plates. Two of the finest American photographers of the 20th century. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER BRUCE WEBER TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0970574525.