Lot 67: ALEXEY BRODOVITCH

ALEXEY BRODOVITCH
Ballet. New York: J.J. Augustin, 1945.

Oblong quarto (280 x 215 mm). 104 black and white photographs. Original drab boards with cloth spine, original gray and white French-fold dust jacket pasted down at spine, as issued (chipping and splitting to spine panel and corners, some light fading). Provenance: Michael Putnam (presentation inscription).

FIRST EDITION, PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED BY BRODOVITCH: "To Michael Putnam N.Y. 1926 [sic] Good luck Alexey." Putnam was a student of Brodovitch, in the late 1960s. "A LEGENDARY PHOTOBOOK," and "one of the most successful attempts at suggesting motion in photography, and certainly one of the most cinematic and dynamic photobooks ever published" (The Photobook). It is a radical work, both in layout and technique, which "spat in the face of technique and pointed out a new way in which photographers could work" (Kerry William Purcell, quoted in The Photobook). 1 of 500 copies, the entire edition. 101 Books, pp.110-13; The Open Book, pp.136-37; The Photobook, pp.240-41; Regards 85. VERY RARE INSCRIBED.

[With:] PUTNAM, Michael. Silent Screens. Baltimore, 2000. Oblong quarto (220 x 255 mm). Black and white photographs. Original cloth; dust jacket. -- American Movie Theaters. New York, 2000. Oblong octavo (194 x 206 mm). Color photographs. Original wrappers. SIGNED. Intended as a color supplement to Silent Screens. (3)