About This Exhibit

By Alex Novak

This special selection of rare books spans the gamut from early and virtually never seen 19th-century documents to scarce and in-demand contemporary books and portfolios.

I hope you find the group as interesting as I have. The range is quite astounding, comprised of the correspondence between Niepce and Daguerre about the invention of photography through several scarce volumes illustrating Andreas Gursky's contemporary photography.

Other 19th century finds include a Collection du Journal La Lumiere (the Rare First Volume from 1851) originally owed by the important amateur photographer Edouard Delessert.

Important portfolios, such as Frantisek Drtikol's Ten Nudes in pigment process, the sought-after Czech "Fotografie 1928-58", Petr Helbich's "Chvaly: Uvahy a Fotografie" and the very scarce "Man Ray et Ses Amis", are all in the selection. There are also four portfolios (platinum) and volumes from 21st Century Publishing, including Flor Garduño's "The Sonnets of Shakespeare", "Sally Mann", Eikoh Hosoe's "Flowers of Evil" (Les Fleurs du Mal), and Joel-Peter Witkins' Songs of Innocence. There is also the exotic book/portfolio of Asian nudes by Robert Bianchi.

Modern volumes include monographs by Josef Sudek (signed), Henri Cartier-Bresson (his most important monograph), James Fee (signed and with prints), William Eggleston (signed), Larry Clark (a signed copy of "Teenage Lust: An Autobiography"), Karl Blossfeldt, Andy Warhol (signed), Bruce Davidson (signed copy of Subway), Richard Avedon (signed copy of "Portraits"), Marcus Doyle (signed and with print), Aaron Siskind (signed) and Danny Lyon (signed).