MELL KILPATRICK: CAR CRASHES & OTHER SAD STORIES - Scarce Pristine Copy of The First Hardcover Edition/First Printing

Kilpatrick, Mell (Photographer) & Dumas, Jennifer (Contributor/Editor)

ISBN 10: 3822864110 / ISBN 13: 9783822864111

Verlag: Cologne, Germany: Benedikt Taschen Verlag, 2000, 2000

1st Printing. 175 pages. Published in 2000. Retrospective collection of photographs on subject. One of the most brilliant photography books of our time. 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 Benedikt Taschen: Oversize-volume format. Pictorial hard boards with titles on cover and spine, as issued. Photographs by Mell Kilpatrick. Essay by Jennifer Dumas. Pictorial Biography appended at the end. Stunning pictorial endpapers. Printed on pristine-white, thick coated stock paper by Taschen in Cologne, Germany to the highest standards. In matching pictorial DJ with titles on the cover and spine, as issued. Presents Mell Kilpatrick's "Car Crashes & Other Sad Stories". Unflinching photographs, unmatched in their gruesome-ness and tragedy, worthy of comparison with Weegee at his best. Here are some of the most horrific images Kilpatrick routinely took, with detail and nuance, factual accuracy and precision, and an unblinking eye at the dark side of our passionate love affair with the car. Like many love affairs (the book should have been called "Car Crashes And Other Love Stories"), the endings have often been bloody and deadly. Mell Kilpatrick was a movie projectionist in 1940's California when he bought a camera and made himself invaluable to insurance companies and the highway patrol, as a photographer of auto wrecks and later, as a news photographer. His imagery may have been influenced by the films he saw from the projection booth, notably their chiaroscuro effect. "An unsparing archive of human tragedy. Deals in different ways with the reality of sudden death" (Publisher's blurb). Car crashes have inspired at least one literary masterpiece, J. G. Ballard's "Crash". The grisly fascination they have for us helps explain why there remains such a clamor to see the censored photographs of the mortally wounded Diana, Princess of Wales, the most famous victim of a car crash, precipitated, ironically enough, by "paparazzi" photographers. An absolute "must-have" title for Mell Kilpatrick collectors. This title is a photography classic. This is one of few copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws because they have been pored over again and again. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A scarce copy thus. 165 black-and-white plates. One of the most remarkable photographers of the 20th century. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO WEEGEE TITLE IN OUR CATALOG) ISBN 3822864110. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 21182

Inhaltsangabe:

<div>An incredible and utterly unique historical document. This book contains selections from the photographic collection of one Mell Kilpatrick, a news photographer from South California who relentlessly pursued his profession during the 40s and 50s, capturing images from the plentiful crime scenes and in particular automobile collisions that came his way. Kilpatrick was an obsessive witness to the effects of the post-war explosion of car culture in California, and through his lens he repeatedly viewed the fatal consequences of speed. technology and reckless abandon. His work might have remained lost and unknown, sealed away in his locked darkroom, untouched since his death in 1961, if it hadn't been brought to light by collector and dealer Jennifer Dumas, who Found the 5,000 negatives and realised she'd stumbled upon something very special. Although he covered other 'stories' apart from crashes, including shots of everyday life in the small towns he visited, it is the roadside images that dominate the collection. They are an unsparing archive of human tragedy. Picture after picture unveils yet another tableau of disaster with infinite variations -- the fragile shells of cars collapsed and upended, corpses hidden or fully revealed, stoic cops and laughing bystanders dealing in different ways with the reality of sudden death. It is this combination of the banal or ordinary and the appalling horror of the moment of impact that makes Kilpatrick's work a Fascinating experience.</div>

Bibliografische Details

Titel: MELL KILPATRICK: CAR CRASHES & OTHER SAD ...
Verlag: Cologne, Germany: Benedikt Taschen Verlag, 2000
Erscheinungsdatum: 2000
Einband: Hardcover
Zustand: As New
Zustand des Schutzumschlags: As New
Signiert: no
Auflage: 1st Edition.