Beschreibung:

Title: Concerning America and Alfred Stieglitz and Myself Author: Gowin, Emmett (b.1941) Place: Richmond, VA Publisher: [Self-published] Date: May, 1965 Description: With 13 (of 14) mounted gelatin silver print photographs, most 4½x7, one 3¼x4¾. Thick-stock leaves with printed titles, some versos with text taken from the book America and Alfred Stieglitz A Collective Portrait (1934), as issued, printed with permission from the publisher. (4to) 11½x10½, original pictorial wrappers, front cover sketches printed in black over grids. First (and only) Edition, self-published, one of only 100 copies printed by Gowin, signed by Gowin in blue ink on the title/limitation page. Gowin’s rare and highly important first book, self-produced while still a student at Richmond Professional Institute (now Virginia Commonwealth University). These rather early images by Gowin taken from 1963 to 1964 have rarely, some never, been anthologized elsewhere. Images mostly taken in Virginia, one in Ontario, Canada and one of The Bowery in New York City. After graduating, he attended the Rhode Island School of Design and studied under influential American photographers Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind Gowin now teaches at Princeton University. Regarding this work, Gowin states in his first monograph: “From the beginning I wanted to make pictures so potent I would not need to say anything about them” (1976). “This youthful homage is probably at least as much about America and the seductive power of photography as it is about Stieglitz”; “Gowin was already ambitious enough to make his book’s cover another homage, this one to the original French edition of [Robert] Frank’s The Americans” – Andrew Roth, The Book of 101 Books: Seminal Photographic Books of the Twentieth Century, pp. 172-173. Only one copy located in extensive auction record researching for the past twenty plus years, which sold in April 2008 for over $80,000. Lot Amendments Condition: Lacks print number 6 “Shilo Baptist Church” (leaf excised). Also, print number 11 “Danville, Virginia, 1964” and title caption cut-out, trimmed and laid in. A few tan spots and dampstains to slightly darkened covers; contents (including photos) clean, marginal silvering or light fading to some of the photos; book just good, but photos near fine or better. Item number: 193521