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«Shomei Tomatsu Photographs 1951-2000»

Limited and signed edition: 500 copies
Published in: 2012
127 pages
Photographs: 90 (b/w and colour)
Dimensions: 248 x 325 mm
Weight: 1,1 kg
Cover: embossed hard-cover
Languages: English / Japanese
ISBN: 978-3-9812537-7-1

Regular edition: The edition numbers 51 to 500 bear the personal seal of Shomei Tomatsu, on extra Japanese paper.
subscription price 245 USD until March 31st, 2013 / after that 320 USD.

Special editions:

• deLuxe edition Nr. 1 – 5 – in a separate, handmade box; they include a digital black & white print, signed and numbered by the artist:
  Evident absence, Michiko, Actress, Tokyo 1971 [book: cover and page 105]
  price: 7,950 USD
• Special edition Nr. 6 – 50 – include a sheet of handmade Japanese paper signed by Shomei Tomatsu and come in a unique, handmade linen box.
  The first 20 special edition are sold already.
  No. 21 -35, price: 650 USD
  No. 36 - 50, price: 780 USD

Here are some facing pages from the book:

Some more variants of the boxes:

I see it as both an honour and a great pleasure – after my books on Yutaka Takanashi and Issei Suda – to be able to continue my series on the masters of Japanese post-war photography with a book on Shomei Tomatsu. Although I have long been familiar with a number of his iconic images, I have only come to fully comprehend the entire spectrum encompassed by his sixty-year career while preparing this book.

From his roughly fifteen publications to date – which include the only important Western publication, the catalogue of his 2006 exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Art – I had selected roughly 110 photographs for my book. With copies of the photographs I selected under my arm, I visited Shomei Tomatsu and his wife this past summer in his studio in Okinawa, where he has been living for several years now, mainly for health reasons. And I was amazed that the great master, who has a reputation among the cognoscenti of being very rigorous, approved of my selections, without any reservations.

With the exception of a very few photos from the early years of the American occupation of Okinawa – which are to be included in an American publication planned on this topic – and three motifs for which the negatives can no longer be found, my selection constitutes the contents of this book. I was conscious of the fact that my chosen limit of roughly 100 illustrations for this book would mean forfeiting the one or the other important motif. Nevertheless, I am convinced that the final selection not only clearly illustrates why Shomei Tomatsu is seen as a “godfather” by nearly all living Japanese photographers – including the stars of the scene whose work is considerably more present in the West, such as Nobuyoshi Araki or Daido Moriyama – and why colleagues in his native country all regard him with such respect. Hence, this book should also contribute to establishing an appropriate place for his work and his name in the international photography scene.

Stéphane Duroy «Hüter der Zeit»

Limited and signed edition: 500 copies
Published in: 2012
Photographs: 76 (color and b/w)
Dimensions: 245 x 327 mm
Weight: 1,2 kg
Cover: embossed linen cover, with three different motifs
Languages: English / German / French
ISBN: 978-3-9812537-6-4

Regular edition: subscription price 170 USD until March 31st, 2013 / after that 210 USD.

Special editions: The books with the edition numbers 1 to 35 are special editions in a handmade printed box; they include a silver-gelatine print respectively a cibachrome print, both sized 9.5 by 12 inch, signed and numbered by the artist.

• deLuxe Edition Nr. 1 – 5 – includes two prints:
  Unitex, Lodz, Poland, 1997, Cibachrome [book page 121/122]
  Easington, Great Britain, 1992, silver-gelatine [book page 57]
  price: 2,900 USD
• Edition Nr. 6 – 20 – includes the Chibachrome print:
  Unitex, Lodz, Poland, 1997, Cibachrome [book page 121/122]
  price: 1,600 USD
• Edition Nr. 21 – 35 – includes the silver-gelatin print:
  Easington, Great Britain, 1992, silver-gelatine [book page 57]
  price: 1,600 USD

print of special editions – Easington, Great Britain:

Here are some pages from the book:

The Frenchman Stéphane Duroy was born in Bizerte (Tunisia) in 1948 and lives in Paris. He initially worked predominantly as a press photographer, and as a member of the photo agency VU shot extensive reportages for Die Zeit, Stern and Der Spiegel. He gradually moved away from commissioned journalism to projects of his own, which have been the subject of numerous thematic publications and exhibitions. One of his particular interests is Europe and its history.

He has been coming to Berlin regularly since 1989 to record the events and changes in the city. With minimal means and a sensitive approach – always free of superficial effects – he mixes colour and black-and-white photos. On his journeys through Europe he creates silent and serious images devoid of pathos. By dispensing with all forms of anecdote, he creates space in his photographs for a very personal kind of solitude. His first extensive monograph is being published to accompany the exhibition in a collectors’ edition.

example Special edition - book and box:

«Issei Suda. The Work of a Lifetime - Photographs 1968 - 2006…»

Pages: 128 p.
Photographs: 90
Dimensions: 255 x 325 mm
Weight: 1,4 kg

Editions:

Regular edition No. 1 – 500, signed and numbered: 250 USD

Special editions numbers I – XXXV, in a separate, hand-made linen-box, include siver-gelatine prints (size 9,5" by 12") signed and nubered by the artist in the following combinations:

• DeLuxe Edition No. I – V – includes two prints:
  Takasaki Gunma, 1971 (book p. 29) and Higashi-jûjô, Tokyo, 1981 (book p. 102)
  subscription price until 31st May, 2012: 3000 USD, after May 31st: 4200 USD
• Edition No. VI – XX – includes the print:
  Takasaki Gunma, 1971 (book p. 29)
  subscription price until 31st May, 2012: 1800 USD, after May 31st: 2400 EUR
• Edition No. XXI – XXXV – includes the print:
  Higashi-jûjô, Tokyo, 1981 (book p. 102)
  subscription price until May 31st, 2012: 1800 USD, after May 31st: 2400 USD

Special editions motif – Higashi-jûjô, Tokyo:

Special editions motif – Takasaki Gunma:

Some pages from the book:

When I first encountered works by Issei Suda (born 1940 in Tokyo) several years ago, it was more than the discovery of a photographer I had never heard of before. For me, the names Araki and Moriyama represented the epitome of Japanese post-war photography. I was fascinated by their unique pictorial approaches and treatment of the printed image, above all in contrast to their contemporaries in the West. Presumably it was due to my lack of knowledge that, at the time, I was of the opinion that there were no other photographers marked by such individuality within that spectrum.

Only now do I know that Issei Suda is someone who – on account of his subtle sensitivity and quiet power of observation – deserves to be included among the great names in Japanese photography. My discovery immediately triggered in me a desire to learn more about Suda and his oeuvre. That turned out to be quite a difficult undertaking. An artist hardly known by private galleries and ignored for the most part by the museums and collections, even his publications – numbering approximately a dozen and hitherto published exclusively in Japan – were to be found neither in libraries nor in bookshops.

Long out of print, they were available – at best – from used book sellers at astronomical prices. Only at great expense did I succeed in purchasing a number of them and gaining a more comprehensive impression of Suda's work. The more or less lackadaisical design of his previous publications, my general fascination with Japanese art and culture, and the sensational success of my Takanashi book together planted the idea in my mind of publishing another book on one of Japan's most important photographers.

The new volume was to do justice to the significance of Suda's oeuvre with regard to design, craftsmanship and the selection of photographs. Now, finally, a book containing the most important works in Issei Suda's oeuvre has been produced, featuring five different cover motifs printed on cloth, 128 pages with altogether 90 illustrations, the majority large in scale, and a separate slipcase. Although he is gravely ill, Suda signed all five hundred copies of the standard edition and contributed two different motifs for the forty copies of the special edition, of which three versions are available.

Timm Rautert «New York 1969 – Tokyo…»

In the year marking Timm Rautert's seventieth birthday, we are very happy to have the opportunity to publish his series on New York and Japan, which he executed almost concurrently. Timm Rautert, for many years one of the most important teachers of young photographers in Germany and professor at the Leipzig Academy of Visual Arts, always produced his own photographic works in serial form.

The most well-known of his series was presumably Germans in Uniform (published by Steidl in 2006). The series on the Amish as well as The Hutterites (forthcoming this year from Steidl), however, have both been published to date only in a few examples in the book accompanying the major retrospective of 2006/07. The same is true of the series featured by our book, New York and Tokyo/Japan.

A representative selection of works from the two series is now being published for the first time in our series of bibliophilic photo books. Here, essentially two books unite to form one (the New York series begins at one end of the book, the Japan series at the other), creating a special kind of tension in the juxtaposition of the two portraits.

The New York images of 1969 seem to have come down to us from a century long past, for the city as we know it today is barely recognizable in them. The large majority of the shots of Tokyo and Osaka, on the other hand – taken for the most part only one year later – show views still to be found there today. The two series thus not only convey suspenseful impressions of two exceptional cities and countries but, in their juxtaposition, also convey a lasting conception of the history and development of two completely dissimilar cultures.

• limited and signed edition
• 500 copies
• published in 2011
• book size 10  x 13 inch
• cover: embossed half-linen and two printed images on hard-cover
• printed in triplex
• 144 pages
• 90 full-page images
• English / German / Japanese
• ISBN 978-3-9812357-4-0
• 200 USD

The books with the edition numbers 1 to 35 are special editions in three different separate, hand-made linen-boxes; they include silver-gelatine prints (size 9.5" by 12") signed and numbered by the artist and printed by Wolf Haug, Essen in the following combinations:

• The deluxe edition no. 1–5 includes two prints:
  NY Bus, 1969 [p. 28/29] and Osaka, 1970 [p. 37]
  SOLD OUT
• The edition no. 6 –20 includes the print:
  NY Bus, 1969 [p. 28/29]
  price 2100 USD
• The edition no. 21 – 35 includes the print:
  Osaka, 1970 [p. 37]
  price 2100 USD

Japan,
Osaka, 1970

New York
Bus , 1969

Some pages from the book:

Bruce Wrighton «At Home»

With Bruce Wrighton's «At Home» we now present the first four-colour project in our series of limited edition photography books for collectors. On 128 pages, with 81 images – most of them full size – the book shows the every day life of a little town in the eighties.

«Bruce Wrighton's work spanned a relatively small area, the downtown of Binghamton, New York, and a few nearby cities, and he had only a relatively short time to do it in, for he died in 1988 at the age of 38.

Yet he produced a portrait of a place and time – and a class – in America that brings a segment of history more alive than any textbook and is better to look at than most of them. The place comes through clearly enough in photographs of streets and diners, hotels and storage rooms, but it is in the portraits of people that it is most crucially discovered. You can find Wrighton's subjects today in many small cities, quite likely in more of them in 2010 than in the 1970s because numerous cities have lost their major employers and the burden of economic problems weighs even heavier.

So he has recorded a minor history with major ramifications, a history that is twice alive, once in its current echoes across the nation and once in lasting images. Photography, life, and history keep company everywhere.»

Vicky Goldberg

• limited edition
• 500 copies
• published in 2010
• book size 9 5/8 x 12 5/8 inch
• embossed red linen cover plus printed transparent jacket
• 128 pages
• 81 images
• German / English
• ISBN 978-3-9812537-3-3
• numbered normal edition 180 USD

The books with the edition numbers 1 to 99 are special editions in separate, hand-made cassettes; they include digital pigment prints on Inova smooth cotton, natural white, 315 g/sqm, printed by artificial image, Berlin, in the following combinations:

• DeLuxe edition no. 1 – 9 includes the three prints shown below
  price: 2,100 USD
• special edition: numbers 10 – 99 includes one of the three prints (each in an edition of 30 copies)
  price: 750 USD

Woolworth shopper,
Binghamton, NY, 1987

Some more pages from the book:

Yutaka Takanashi, Photography 1965–74

On May 1, 2010 will be published the third volume in our series of bibliophile photo books, which are limited to editions of 500: Yutaka Takanashi, Photography 1965–74. It is the first major monograph by this pioneering Japanese photographer to be published in the West.

Yutaka Takanashi belonged to the small group of photographers who launched the magazine Provoke in 1968/69. The magazine had considerable influence on Japanese photography of that period. He was one of the founding members of this group along with the photographer Takuma Nakahira, the critic and photographer Kôji Taki, and the theorist Takahiko Okada. Daidô Moriyama joined the group during the production of the second issue.

As a member of the small Provoke collective, Takanashi was able to find a new theoretical approach and its visual language. The influence of this group and of the magazine on the photographic scene in Japan was immense. Nobuyoshi Araki described Provoke in retrospect as the trigger of an explosion in Japanese photography. In the following years the Provoke photographers produced major works in terms of photographic history, whereby Yutaka Takanashi defined the high point as well as the end of this era with the publication of his first book, Toshi-e (Towards the City), in 1974.

This two-part book set new standards in terms of design, materials and craftsmanship. In a compartment behind the larger volume, Toshi-e, one finds an earlier series in the smaller format volume, Tôkyô-jin; it seems to have provided the basis for the larger book. The smaller volume is designed to look like a printed notebook on simple paper. This combination is indicative of Takanashi's non-dogmatic treatment of the different visual styles and approaches of the 1960s. While he shows the real Tôkyô on the verge of becoming a modern urban society in Tôkyô-jin and names the concrete location at which each of the photographs was taken, Toshi-e contains a view of an urban landscape that has no defined location.

Our book, Yutaka Takanashi, Photography 1965–74, presents a representative cross-section of these two pioneering photographic series in 35 full-page illustrations and 6 large format plates. An extensive biography, list of exhibitions and a bibliography round off our newest publication. The book will be officially presented on May 7 in conjunction with an exhibition of vintage prints at the Galerie Priska Pasquer and Schaden.com in Cologne.

The limited edition of 500 will be published in three different versions.

• Editions numbered 1 – 30: include a gelatin-silver print of the photograph "untitled" from Toshi-e (double page 19–20), personally printed and signed by the artist, in the same format as the book. The book along with a separate portfolio containing the print, both bound in linen, are enclosed in a printed linen slipcase.
• Editions number 1-10 will be sold for 1,200 EUR SOLD OUT
• Editions number 11 – 20 for 1,500 EUR SOLD OUT
• Editions number 21 – 30 for 1,800 EUR
• Editions number 30 – 130 are signed by the artist SOLD OUT
• Editions number 131 – 500 available with one of two linen covers printed with alternative motifs.
• Each of the books is stamped with the artist's personal seal.

• 116 pages
• book size 245 x 325 mm
• ISBN 978-3-9812537-2-6

Ray K. Metzker «Automagic»

Subsequent to the first publication «City Stills» (published in 1999 by Prestel) and its great monograph «Light Lines» (published in 2008 as a co-production by the Steidl publishing house and the Musée de l’Élysée), AutoMagic is a book dedicated exclusively to Metzker’s photography of the automobile.

• The second volume in our series of bibliophilic photography books
• edition of 500, signed
• embossed cloth binding with dust jacket
• 120 pages
• 79 plates in tritone
• German/English
• retail price 200 USD
• ISBN 978-3-9812537-1-9
• a special edition of 15 contains a silver gelatine print handmade and signed by the artist in the format of the book; price 2800 USD

Frauke Eigen «SHOKU»

• 224 pages in Japanese binding
• 24 full-page plates in dutone
• embossed cloth binding
• format 325 x 305 mm
• 500 numbered copies
• trilingual text (German/English/Japanese) by Prof. Dr. Ulrich Schneider
• retail price 138 USD
• ISBN 978-3-9812537-0-2
• a special edition of 15 contains a silver gelatine print handmade by the artist in the format of the book. Price 1300 USD.

(all prices include the German tax on books)