F. HOLLAND DAY Suffering the Ideal

Santa Fe: Twin Palms, 1995. First Edition, limited to 5000 casebound copies. With over 85 circa 1895-1910 photographs, some tinted by Fred Holland Day, impressively reproduced on large plates. Folio, the publisher's original yellow cloth, the upper cover decorated in black with adaptation of the cover design by Aubrey Beardsley originally intended for 'Salomé', the spine lettered in black, in the original clear acetate jacket. 141, [1] pp. A very fine copy, essentially as mint. FIRST EDITION AND AN EXCELLENT COLLECTION OF PHOTOGRAPHS BY F. HOLLAND DAY ACCOMPANIED BY JAMES CRUMP'S BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY ON THE ARTIST/PUBLISHER. Fred Holland Day was the first person of influence in the United States to advocate that photography should be considered a fine art. At the turn of the century, his influence and reputation as a photographer rivaled that of Alfred Stieglitz. Day confounded and self-financed the publishing firm of Copeland and Day, which from 1893 through 1899 published about one hundred titles. The firm was influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement and William Morris's Kelmscott Press. The firm was the American publisher of Oscar Wilde's Salomé, illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley; The Yellow Book periodical, also illustrated by Beardsley; and The Black Riders and Other Lines by Stephen Crane.
As both a photograph and publisher Day was highly controversial. His photographic subjects were often nude males. From 1896 through 1898 Day experimented with Christian themes, using himself as a model for Jesus.