Photography
Boss Ladies of CLE features the stories and photos of twenty leading women—from a James Beard Award–nominated chef to hip-hop artists to the CEO of a global brand. Some are well known figures, and others are rising stars. Some have formal training, but many are self-taught.
Through their stories, we gain an authentic, attainable portrait of success and learn what it means to be a Boss Lady. As the only book that focuses exclusively on the careers of women in Cleveland, it’s an essential read for women and girls that debunks the mentality that you have to move away to make it.
Carleton Watkins (1829–1916) is widely considered the greatest American photographer of the nineteenth century and arguably the most influential artist of his era. He is best known for his pictures of Yosemite Valley and the nearby Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias. Watkins made his first trip to Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove in 1861 just as the Civil War was beginning. His photographs of Yosemite were exhibited in New York for the first time in 1862, as news of the Union’s disastrous defeat at Fredericksburg was landing in newspapers and while the Matthew Brady Studio’s horrific photographs of Antietam were on view. Watkins’s work tied the West to Northern cultural traditions and played a key role in pledging the once-wavering West to Union.
Motivated by Watkins’s pictures, Congress would pass legislation, later signed by Abraham Lincoln, that preserved Yosemite as the prototypical “national park,” the first such act of landscape preservation in the world. Watkins’s photographs helped shape America’s idea of the West, and helped make the West a full participant in the nation. His pictures of California, Oregon, and Nevada, as well as modern-day Washington, Utah, and Arizona, not only introduced entire landscapes to America but were important to the development of American business, finance, agriculture, government policy, and science.
1st edition; published by Fraenkel Gallery, in association with Bedford Arts, Publishers, San Francisco. Essay by Peter E. Palmquist; dust jacket has very light scuffing; tan buckram with brown lettering on cover and spine; former owner's signature in ink on ffep; binding tight; text clean and bright. VG/VG
Exceptionally rare first U.S. PB edition, published 1991 by Bedford Arts, Solitude of Ravens is one of the most important photo-books to come out of Japan, let alone one of the most important photo-books of the 20th century. All editions of this book are extremely rare and increasingly valuable in both the private photo-book market as well as at art-book auctions.
1st U.S. edition, published by Bedford Arts, Publishers, 1991. First published in 1986 as Ravens by Sokyu-sha Co., Ltd., Japan. Softcover; scratch and scuffs on bottom right side of front cover; some scuffs on rear cover; otherwise in very good condition. G+
The first definitive biography of Richard Avedon, a monumental photographer of the twentieth century, from award-winning photography critic Philip Gefter.
In his acclaimed portraits, Richard Avedon captured the iconic figures of the twentieth century in his starkly bold, intimately minimal, and forensic visual style. Concurrently, his work for Harper's Bazaar and Vogue transformed the ideals of women's fashion, femininity, and culture to become the defining look of an era. Yet despite his driving ambition to gain respect in the art world, during his lifetime he was condescendingly dismissed as a celebrity photographer.
What Becomes a Legend Most is the first definitive biography of this luminary--an intensely driven man who endured personal and professional prejudice, struggled with deep insecurities, and mounted an existential lifelong battle to be recognized as an artist. Philip Gefter builds on archival research and exclusive interviews with those closest to Avedon to chronicle his story, beginning with Avedon's coming-of-age in New York between the world wars, when cultural prejudices forced him to make decisions that shaped the course of his life.
Compounding his private battles, Avedon fought to be taken seriously in a medium that itself struggled to be respected within the art world. Gefter reveals how the 1950s and 1960s informed Avedon's life and work as much as he informed the period. He counted as close friends a profoundly influential group of artists--Leonard Bernstein, Truman Capote, James Baldwin, Harold Brodkey, Renata Adler, Sidney Lumet, and Mike Nichols--who shaped the cultural life of the American twentieth century. It wasn't until Avedon's fashion work was exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the late 1970s that he became a household name.
Balancing glamour with the gravitas of an artist's genuine reach for worldy achievement--and not a little gossip--plus sixteen pages of photographs, What Becomes a Legend Most is an intimate window into Avedon's fascinating world. Dramatic, visionary, and remarkable, it pays tribute to Avedon's role in the history of photography and fashion--and his legacy as one of the most consequential artists of his time.