Fine Printed Books & Manuscripts, Including Americana

Square 4to. Complete with 14 vintage gelatin silver prints, all but one c.175 x c.117 mm or the reverse, the other 121 x 80 mm, mounted recto only on card with printed captions. Original printed card covers (edges and spine yellowed, light wear at the extremities).

ONE OF THE RAREST IMPORTANT 20TH-CENTURY PHOTOBOOKS.

FIRST EDITION, LIMITED ISSUE, ONE OF 100 COPIES. Gowin made this, his first book, while still a student at Virginia Community College. Writing about it later, Gowin remarked: "from the beginning I wanted to make pictures so potent I would not need to say anything about them" (Emmet Gowin, New York: 1976). These early images, made between 1963 and 1964, have rarely been anthologized since. "This youthful homage is probably at least as much about America and the seductive power of photography as it is about Stieglitz...Gowin was already ambitious enough to make his book's cover another homage, this one to the original French edition of Frank's The Americans" (101 Books). ibid, pp.172-73.