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Mannikko, Esko (Photographer) & Simona, Segre (Contributor) : 100% Cashmere

Ballantyne Cashmere, Ballantyne, Scotland, 2003

ISBN 0954442504

First Edition / First Printing. As New in No Dust Jacket, As Issued. 80 pages. Collection of color photographs. One of the most beautiful photography books of our time. The first and only edition. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. Privately commissioned, the book was not widely distributed or sold. The First Edition is now rare. An elegant production by Esko Mannikko and Petri Kuokka: Oversize-volume format. Sturdy brown leatherette pictorial hard boards with photographic reproduction pasted on cover and pale blue titles embossed on cover and spine, as issued. Photographs by Esko Mannikko. Essay by Segre Simona. Printed on pristine-white, thick uncoated stock paper in Finland to the highest standards. Without DJ, as issued. Commissioned by The Ballantyne Cashmere Company as a commemorative photographic record. Presents Esko Mannikko's "100% Cashmere". Photographs of the Scottish factory workers of Ballantyne Cashmere in Innerleithen, Scotland. "Made In Scotland" cashmere is regarded as the finest cashmere in the world, just as cashmere itself is regarded as one of the most beautiful fabrics ever invented by Man. The words "sheer" and "pure" come to mind when one speaks of cashmere. Like genuine cotton and silk, the finished product is 100% handmade, every sweater a product of an artisanal tradition, and a labor of love. Esko Mannikko's focus is on place and people. In "Mexas", he showed how the place is characterized by its Mexican-American inhabitants, and vice versa. He does the same here, with quiet yet brilliant effect: The suite of various workers whose lips perilously hold a needle from which a colorful thread hangs amounts to one of the most moving portraiture in contemporary art photography. Most photography is inherently about travel, comfort, leisure, sensuality, relaxation, and luxury. There are very few great photography books (Bill Owens' "Working" comes to mind) about work. Mannikko is an exemplary anomaly: His work thus far is about work, specifically work that is deeply connected to rural land. Even when he is abroad, his interest there is in the place's roots, craft, and centuries-old traditions. Mannikko's lifelong subject, the decline of rural Finland, is off-putting, even depressing, something people say they do not want in their lives, as if it were ugly or toxic (an accusation that the American writer Annie Proulx had to endure all the way to "Brokeback Mountain"). This is ironic because Mannikko's work breathes whereas most contemporary art and photography are lifeless exercises in Mannerist cleverness. Mannikko is a Classicist, a rarity in our shallow "post-modern" art world. It is important to be reminded that in a world saturated and choking with derivative images from glossy magazines, he is The Real Thing, a great artist: His impeccable compositional sense and formalist use of color as well as his aesthetic rigor and faultless eye are not just "world-class". They set Mannikko apart from other living photographers, and make him an artist in a class of his own. Mainstream recognition of his genius is long overdue. An absolute "must-have" title for Esko Mannikko collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed in black ink-pen on the title page by Esko Mannikko. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a great photography book. 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 pristine beauty. A rare signed copy thus. 50 color plates. Esko Mannikko's "Naarashauki: The Female Pike" was selected as one of the greatest photography books in "The Photobook". One of the greatest photographers of our time. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER ESKO MANNIKKO TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0954442504.

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