PRIVATE VIEWS: POLAROIDS BY BARBARA CRANE

New York City, NY: Aperture Foundation, 2009. First Edition. First Printing.. Hardcover. As New/No Dust Jacket, As Issued.. New York City, NY: Aperture Foundation, 2009. Hardcover. As New/None, As Issued. First Edition/First Printing. Unpaginated. Exhibition Catalog. Retrospective collection of Polaroid photographs. One of Barbara Crane's finest achievements. The first and only edition. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. An austerely elegant production by Francesca Richer: Regular-sized volume format. Ribbed brown cloth boards with Polaroid reproduction pasted on the recessed center and gilt titles embossed on the cover and spine, as issued. Photographs by Barbara Crane. Text by Barbara Hitchcock. Printed on thick, glossy stock paper in the United States to the highest standards. The reproduction quality is exemplary in every respect. Without DJ, as issued. Published on the occasion of the landmark retrospective exhibition held at the Stephen Daiter Gallery Chicago in November and December, 2009. Presents "Private Views: Polaroids by Barbara Crane". All taken in Chicago between 1980 and 1984, at various annual summer festivals that continue to be celebrated to this day. Since each photograph is one-of-a-kind, the whole lot can only be viewed through this volume, where they are reproduced at actual size. Barbara Crane has stated that her lifelong goal as a photographer has been to "attempt to eradicate previous habits of seeing and thinking, to keep searching for what is visually new while always hoping that a fusion of form and content will take place" (Barbara Crane) . Her Polaroids "offer an intense, sun-drenched, sweat-glistening example of one such fusion, in which the social document is combined with extreme close-ups, tight cropping, and mixed lighting for maximum impact. Her technique also serves to bring out the sheen of flesh photographed at close quarters under a hot summer sun. The effect is mesmerizing, creating a palpable sensuality from image to image, an incredible document not of a particular event or personality but of something more intangible: The public expression of euphoria" (Barbara Hitchcock) . Crane is identified with the Institute of Design and its Bauhaus aesthetics. In these Polaroids, Barbara Crane deploys the same rigor, simplicity, and functionality to create a genuinely sensual, even erotic, experience, the fulfillment in its own distinctive way of her visionary aims. Indefatigable until the end, Barbara Crane died on August 7, 2019 at the age of 91. An absolute "must-have" title for Barbara Crane collectors. This copy is very prominently, neatly, and beautifully signed in black pen-marker on the title page by Barbara Crane. 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. 105 color plates. One of the finest American photographers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER BARBARA CRANE TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 1597110965.