Arcana:

(AVEDON, RICHARD) (BALDWIN, JAMES). Avedon, Richard & James Baldwin. Lucerne, SWITZERLAND: C.J. Bucher, 1964. First Edition. Small Folio. Silver Gilt Debossed Boards. Photography Monograph. Fair./No Jacket - As Issued. np, profusely illustrated in b&w gravure. Designed by Marvin Israel. Text in English. "Nothing Personal" is Richard Avedon's strikingly beautiful 1964 collaboration with noted literary lion James Baldwin. The photographer's second book, its images primarily hail from "Harper's Bazaar" and other magazine editorial work from the fifties and sixties. With figures from politics, society, fashion, literature, and the arts, it is a veritable who's who of power of the mid-Twentieth Century containing many of Avedon's most famous portraits including Dwight David Eisenhower in close up, the fragile Marilyn Monroe, a smug George Wallace, the pregnant Ted Kennedys in the surf, and many, many more. These are beautifully reproduced in stark black and white gravure, with Marvin Israel's book design here every bit the equal of the legendary Alexey Brodovitch's contribution for Avedon's first work, "Observations". An internally clean and sound example of the 1964 C.J. Bucher first Swiss edition with an English language text lacking the publisher's slipcase additionally bearing the BOLDLY SIGNED PRESENTATION "For Dear ... with gratitude ever, Dick Avedon -" in black fountain pen on the verso of the front pastedown showing some mild brown staining to a few pages along the foredge of the textblock. The binding has a bit of play, and the glossy white boards show some overall wear, soiling and light age-toning with abrasions through to the cardboard at the tips. In addition, the paper covering the spine seems to have separated and subsequently been non-professionally repaired with two overlapping strips of black linen library tape run along its length. All in all, this is a sharper copy of this classic volume in hand than it describes here. It has been priced accordingly. Inventory Number: 020143