RAY K. METZKER: LANDSCAPES

New York City, NY: Aperture Foundation, 1999. First Edition. First Printing.. Hardcover. Fine/Fine Dust Jacket.. New York City, NY: Aperture Foundation, 1999. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Edition/First Printing. 148 pages. Retrospective collection of landscape photographs. Now considered a contemporary art photography classic. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions, particularly the Softcover Edition. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now rare. An austerely elegant production by Wendy Byrne: Oversize-volume format. Pale gray cloth boards with metallic-silver titles embossed on spine, as issued. Photographs by Ray K. Metzker. Essay, "Voyage of Discovery", by Evan H. Turner. Printed on pristine-white, thick coated stock paper in Italy to the highest standards. In pictorial DJ with titles on the cover and spine, as issued. Published on the occasion of the landmark retrospective exhibition of the same name held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art from November 18, 2000 through February 11, 2001. Presents Ray K. Metzker's "Landscapes". Natural landscapes by the photographer who is celebrated for showing the enigmatic beauty, formal elegance, and quiet desperation of the landscape called the city. Marks most of the images' very first appearance in book form. Whereas his street photographs have a fluidity and volatility about them (because the city itself does) , Metzker's landscapes are unique and discrete visual experiences of stasis and constancy. Of course, the natural landscape changes, too, all the time. But as Evan H. Hunter points out in his brilliant Essay, they do so more slowly, at a much less hectic and sometimes glacial pace. Metzker's "dream landscape" is one that somehow captures or hints at this "time-stands-still" quality on film. His landscapes have their antecedent not in Robert Adams, but in the canonical work of the great Nature artist of Modernism, Claude Monet. "For me, to photograph is to wander with camera in hand, looking at everything along the way. What ultimately gives meaning and satisfaction to this act is discovering something I had not known, seen, or felt previously" (Ray K. Metzker) . An absolute "must-have" title for Ray K. Metzker collectors. This copy is very prominently, neatly, and beautifully signed in black ink-pen on the half-title page by Ray K. Metzker. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a contemporary art photography classic. This is one of few such signed copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. A rare signed copy thus. 97 duotone and tritone plates, 44 illustrations. One of the greatest photographers of our time. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER RAY K. METZKER TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0893819115.