“AN ATTEMPT TO RECORD AND GLORIFY THE AMERICAN BIKERIDER”

LYON, Danny. The Bikeriders. [Santa Fe, New Mexico]: Twin Palms, 1997. Quarto, original black cloth, original dust jacket, original cloth clamshell box. $1950.

Author's proof of the limited gravure edition of this classic photo-essay on motorcycle gangs, APII (author's proof) of only 100 copies signed by Danny Lyon and with an original silver gelatin photo by him, with 48 full-page duotones, in publisher's clamshell box.

"In his book, The Bikeriders, Lyon defined a new kind of photographer, a combination witness and participant. He embodied the idea of the rebel with a camera, the photographer documenting an 'outsider' community who was himself a member of that community" (Parr & Badger II, 18). Lyon joined the Chicago Outlaw Motorcycle Club in 1963 and began making photographs and tape recordings of its members through 1967. "Danny Lyon's early work has a definite Woodstock-to-Altamont trajectory. He went from being the staff photographer of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, documenting the early '60s civil rights movement… to being the staff photographer of the Chicago Outlaws motorcyclist's club, documenting the violent subculture of early biker gangs" (Roth, 190). In Lyon's words, "It is what I have come to believe is the spirit of the bikeriders: the spirit of the hand that twists open the throttle on the crackling engines of the big bikes." This is an author's proof copy (numbered "APII") from the publisher's limited edition of 100 copies with author's signature, original silver gelatin photo, and clamshell box; Twin Palms simultaneously released signed and trade editions as part of this "gravure edition." The first edition was published in 1968. See Parr & Badger I:256; Open Book, 236.

Fine condition.