INSCRIBED BY W. EUGENE SMITH TO PHOTOJOURNALISTS PETER AND DAVID TURNLEY

SMITH, W. Eugene. W. Eugene Smith: His Photographs and Notes. New York: Aperture, 1969. Quarto, original stiff photographic wrappers. $1850.

True first edition, in softcover, of this retrospective monograph on W. Eugene Smith’s storied career, warmly inscribed by him on the title page to brothers Peter and David Turnley, both award-winning photojournalists, with 120 finely printed duotones from Smith’s career.

"A heroic figure in American photography, Smith created photo essays so compelling in their power that it can be said his work changed, as well as documented, history" (McDarrah, 457). "Renowned for the extended picture essays he made for Life… Smith became famous as the model of the committed photojournalist" (New York Times). Edited by Minor White, this classic monograph contains many of Smith's most famous images, including "The Walk to Paradise Garden." Afterword by Lincoln Kirstein. A true first edition, this 1969 double-issue of Aperture initially appeared in wrappers, with "a printing overrun to be subsequently bound into a book," published the same year (Hughes, 451). See Parr & Badger II:104. A rare association copy, from the collection of Peter Turnley, this is memorably inscribed by Smith to photojournalists David and Peter Turnley, twin brothers whose award-winning work covering "almost every important international news event:" of recent decades was honored in a 1996 exhibit at New York's International Center of Photography (New York Times). David Turnley won a 1990 Pulitzer Prize and Peter Turnley, a Newsweek photographer and contributing editor at Harper's Magazine, is the recipient, along with his brother, of several Overseas Press Club awards.

Images clean and fresh; some soiling, edge-wear to bright, unrestored wrappers. A highly desirable association copy, in extremely good condition.