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 (Click for larger image) 
Michals, Duane (Artist/Photographer) & Whitman, Walt (Poet).
SALUTE, WALT WHITMAN.
Santa Fe, NM:
Twin Palms Publishing,
1996.
Hardcover.
First Edition/First Printing.
112 pages.
As New/As New.
Signed. Artist Book. The artist/photographer's book-length homage to one of the most important creative influences on his life and work. Limited Edition of 4000 copies. A magnificent production by Duane Michals and Jack Woody: Oversize-volume format. A tall and slim book. Handsome gray silk cloth boards with black titles embossed on cover and on spine, as issued. Photographs by Duane Michals. Poetic fragments by Walt Whitman. Printed in rich gravure on thick uncoated stock paper to the very highest standards. In pictorial DJ with titles on spine, as issued. Presents one of the artist/photographer's most tender collections of photographs. Collectively, they attempt to "translate" into images the most crucial portions of Whitman's masterpiece, "Leaves of Grass", that is to say, the love Whitman felt for a young American Civil War soldier. Michals spiritually and erotically consummates in his modern photo-narrative what remained unconsummated in Whitman's life. "Both an extension and a summation of Duane Michals's decades-long exploration of desire and an acknowledgment of the lifelong comfort, inspiration, and extraordinary vision he has found in the writings of his spiritual mentor and companion, Walt Whitman. Enjoying retrospectives as well as the accumulated critical accolades that a long, illustrious career brings, Michals finds an open meadow in the ageless words of Whitman. In this book, a litany of images unfolds, evoking the sensuality and rapturous longing that was part of this singular American poet's great contribution" (Publisher's blurb). Walt Whitman was the greatest American poet of the 19th century and indisputably the most influential American writer thus far: He is considered the spiritual father of Latin-American modernism and was enormously influential to European writers like the greatest modern Portuguese poet, Fernando Pessoa. His influence on photographers, not just Duane Michals, is truly astonishing, and the great cultural critic/novelist Susan Sontag devoted an entire essay on him in her seminal book, "On Photography". Whitman was also "gay" long before it became fashionable to "come out". His homosexuality was characterized by tenderness, profound friendships, and the possibility of somehow freely expressing a love that was otherwise unspoken then and is still not fully accepted now. The way Duane Michals has assimilated Walt Whitman into his own work is unique among photographers and will be regarded as among the most moving artistic transmutations of our time: Poetic, iconic, and ecstatic. A "must-have" title for Duane Michals collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed in black fountain pen by Duane Michals. Michals signed only a very limited number of the Limited Edition. This title has been out-of-print for a long time. This is one of very few signed copies of the Limited Edition still available online and has no flaws, a pristine beauty. A very scarce signed copy thus. 68 sheetfed gravure plates. One of the finest living American artist/photographers. A flawless copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER DUANE MICHALS TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0944092349. $100.00 |
