“AN ELOQUENT LOOK AT LIVES ON THE EDGE”: STREETWISE, WITH POSTCARD BY MARY ELLEN MARK, SIGNED BY HER AND HER HUSBAND, FILM DIRECTOR MARTIN BELL

MARK, Mary Ellen. Streetwise. (New York): Aperture, (1988). Square quarto, original photographic wrappers. $550.

Second edition, with black-and-white photogravure Halloween postcard by Mark (measuring 3 by 5-1/2 inches), captioned “Happy Holidays,” signed by Mary Ellen Mark and her husband Martin Bell, who directed the 1984 Oscar-nominated film inspired by her work, with 58 black-and-white photogravures.

“One of the most important photojournalists, Mark has produced photographs that often focus on people outside conventional society’s bounds.” Her remarkable work in Streetwise had origins in what remains “her best-known photo essay, a story of teenage runaways in Seattle [that] appeared in Life magazine in July 1983” (McDarrah & McDarrah, 300). In Streetwise, as in all of “Mark’s best work, the intimate photo-essays that are her forte, she takes an eloquent look at lives on the edge” (New York Times). Mark’s striking photographs also inspired the 1984 Oscar-nominated film directed by her husband Martin Bell. With introduction by John Irving and edited soundtrack dialogue from Martin Bell’s film, Streetwise. First Aperture Press edition, preceded same year by extremely scarce University of Pennsylvania Press edition; published only in softcover; without dust jacket as issued. With bookstamp of renowned fashion editor Barbara Turk beneath signed postcard by Mark, attached to front free endpaper by corner photo-mounts.

Images clean and fresh; fragile wrappers bright, only small crease to lower corner of front panel. A near-fine copy.