Title: PHOTOGRAPHIC LITERATURE & PHOTOGRAPHS
Date: December 13, 2005
Time: 10:30 AM & 2:30 PM
Exhibition:

Swann's two-session auction of Photographic Literature & Photographs on Tuesday, December 13 begins with nearly 300 books and periodicals that represent the full range of the Photographic Literature genre.

Among the highlights is issue Number 36 of the seminal publication Camera Work, which is illustrated with 16 photogravures after photographs by Alred Steiglitz, who founded the magazine, as well as a halftone after a drawing by Picasso, New York, 1911 (see top illustration).

The sale features many important publications from the 1930s, such as Roll, Jordan, Roll, photographer Doris Ulmann's collaboration with novelist Julia Peterkin documenting the Gullah Culture, in a deluxe edition signed by both Ulmann and Peterkin and with an extra photogravure plate, New York, 1933 (second illustration).

American examples from the 1970s include a rare copy of Diane Arbus's Aperture monograph originally published in 1972, one year after her death, in conjunction with a retrospective of her work at the Museum of Modern Art (third illustration); and a deluxe edition of Callahan, one of 350 signed copies issued with a signed photograph by Harry Callahan, New York, 1976 (fourth illustration).

The auction also features a large selection of Japanese photographic books including a signed copy of Daido Moriyama's Nippon Gekijo Shashincho [Japan, A Photo Theater II], Illustrated with full-page reproductions of Moriyama's gritty photographs, Tokyo, 1978 (See final illustration).