THE PHOTOGRAPHIC ARTS

Iowa City, IA: University Of Iowa Press, 1997. First Edition. First Printing.. Hardcover. Fine/Fine Dust Jacket.. Iowa City, IA: University Of Iowa Press, 1997. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Edition/First Printing. 191 pages. Landmark monograph on subject. One of the most important photography books ever published in 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 by a University Press. The First Edition is now scarce. A brilliant production by Richard Hendel: Oversize-volume format. Brown cloth boards with metallic-silver titles embossed on spine, as issued. Photographs by some of the greatest photographers of all time. Text by John Wood, one of the finest photography expert/scholars of our time. Notes to the Plates and extensive Bibliography appended at the end. Printed on pristine-white, thick uncoated stock paper to the highest standards. In pictorial DJ with titles on the cover and spine, as issued. Presents John Wood's "The Photographic Arts". A masterly and indispensable account. "This volume of essays deals with aspects of photography that have been neglected by John Wood's fellow historians. Although he has authored four previous books on the daguerreotype, he addresses oversights of his own, and discusses the subject from a different vantage than that employed by his colleagues. In his essay on European Pictorialism, he appraises the work of several undeservedly obscure masters of the craft, and disputes the nature of Alfred Stieglitz's legacy. Included in this seminal work are essays on the American daguerreotype, contemporary daguerreotypy, the American autochrome, the art of the cyanotype, and American symbolism in photography. Wood's fresh use of the diaries and journals of gold field miners and his penetrating vision of the near-extermination of indigenous peoples, "the American holocaust", enable him to contrast between the reality and the mythology manifested in the faces of the photographed participants. His equally ingenious view of the primary myth to which most of this work refers, the Grail Quest, leads him to some striking conclusions in the context of visions of spirituality and desire" (Publisher's blurb). An absolute "must-have" title for John Wood and photography book collectors. This title is a contemporary art photography classic. 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. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A scarce copy thus. 103 plates. Some of the greatest photographs the world will ever see. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER JOHN WOOD TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0877455732.