Galapagos: The Flow of Wildness. Complete in Two Volumes. Volume 1; Discovery. Volume II; Prospect

Sierra Club, 1968. First edition. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. Both books in Very Good+ condition in Very Good dustjackets; a small chip to the dustjacket of Volume 1; a short tear to the dustjacket of Volume 2. In Very Good Slipcase Box, Which has some general shelf wear. Each volume has 69 color plates; v.l: Discovery: Corsairs/pirates; sailors; W. W. Feltus, Capt. Benj. Morrell; Herman Melville; Scientists: Darwin, Slevin, Wm. Beebe; v.2: Galapagos Journal; Galaposgos Sketches; photographs by Eliot Porter; Introductions by Loren Eiseley & John P. Milton; text by Eliot Porter & Kenneth Brower; Kenneth Brower, editor; selections from the writings of Charles Darwin; William Beebe; Herman Melville & others. Eliot Furness Porter (December 6, 1901 November 2, 1990) was an American photographer best known for his color photographs of nature. For twenty years, Porter pursued a project to publish nature photographs combined with quotes from works by Henry David Thoreau. Not until an associate introduced him to the executive director of the Sierra Club did Porter find a willing publisher. His 1962 book, In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World featured Porter's color nature studies of the New England woods. The book enjoyed considerable success despite its high price, pioneered the genre of the nature photography coffee-table book, and lead to several other titles by Porter in a similar format published by the Sierra Club and others. It increased Porter's reputation greatly, and he served as a director of the Sierra Club from 1965 to 1971. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1971. In 1979 the work of Eliot Porter was exhibited in Intimate Landscapes, the first one-person show of color photography at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. This exhibition earned Porter praise as the individual who brought credibility to color photography as a medium of fine art. The image selection defined what is now meant by the term intimate landscape: the close-range, quiet compositions of natural elements with muted colors and dense textures, meditative and dense with layered meanings, which were the hallmark of Porter's work at the exclusion of more expansive and spectacular landscapes.