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Skrebneski, Victor (Artist/Photographer); Zachary, Frank & Jones, Anthony (Contributors) : Skrebneski: Black White & Color

Bulfinch Press, Boston, MA, 1989

ISBN 0821217488

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in Fine Dust Jacket. 225 pages. Retrospective collection of photographs. One of Skrebneski's finest achievements. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. A brilliant production by Skrebneski: Oversize-volume format. The book weighs 3 pounds. Glossy pictorial hard boards, as issued. Photographs by Skrebneski. Text by Frank Zachary and Anthony Jones of The Art Institute of Chicago. Printed on pristine-white, thick coated stock paper in Italy to the highest standards. In pictorial DJ, which beautifully reproduces the actual photographs whose negatives are shown on the front and back boards, and red titles on the cover and spine, as issued. Presents Skrebneski's "Black White & Color". Definitive artistic statement in mid-career. Runs the whole gamut of Skrebneski's oeuvre and achievement spanning four decades (1950-1989). His finest and most representative images are sumptuously reproduced and brilliantly sequenced as a visual symphony (Prologue; First Movement; Second Movement; Third Movement; Fourth Movement; and Coda) : Homage-images of Europe and her artistic legacy, iconic Hollywood celebrity portraits, ground-breaking global fashion photographs, provocative experimental compositions in the overtly Surrealist and Modernist veins, palpably erotic male and female nudes, and previously unseen portraits from his personal collection. Skrebneski's photographs of Paris are deliberately blurred and emit not just light but radiance. They are deeply evocative, nostalgic, and resonant (he trained, studied, and worked in the great city before moving to the United States), suggesting the evanescence of memory and desire. The male and female nudes (the collection ends with a long sequence of austere male nudes) are dramatically lit and sculptural (rather than painterly), an approach to the nude that has influenced a whole generation of photographers. The point of the title is quite simple: Unlike most photographers, Skrebneski was equally a Master of black-and-white and color. At his very best, Skrebneski is ranked with Richard Avedon and Irving Penn as a fashion, lifestyle, and portrait photographer. As a male and female nude photographer, he is firmly grounded in the great tradition of Horst and George Platt Lynes. The late great fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy paid Skrebneski the ultimate tribute anyone could hope for when he called the latter "an artist, not just a photographer". An absolute "must-have" title for Skrebneski collectors. This copy is very boldly and beautifully signed in black pen-marker on the very last page by Skrebneski. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. The artist/photographer usually signs on the back of his books as a trademark. This title is an erotic 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 pristine beauty. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws ("Very Good"), are subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare signed copy thus. 67 duotone, 42 color plates. One of the greatest artist/photographers of our time. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER SKREBNESKI TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0821217488.

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