Buy this book on-line

Del Valle, Eduardo & Gomez, Mirta : From The Ground Up

Nazraeli Press, Tucson, AZ, 2003

ISBN 1590050541

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in Fine Dust Jacket. 112 pages. Landmark debut collection of the photographers' work. Now considered a contemporary photography classic. The first and only edition. Published in a small and limited print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. An elegant production by Chris Pichler: Oversize-volume format. Blue cloth boards with tipped-in color photographic reproduction on the cover and titles on cover and spine, as issued. Photographs by Eduardo del Valle and Mirta Gomez. Introduction by Sandra S. Phillips. Afterword Essay, "Home", by Richard Rodriguez. In transparent glassine DJ, as issued. Presents Eduardo Del Valle's and Mirta Gomez's "From The Ground Up". The work of an American photographer-couple of Cuban descent who will give the (insufferably boring and overrated) Bechers a run for their money. "The Cuban-born husband-and-wife team of Eduardo del Valle and Mirta Gomez has worked collaboratively for thirty years, receiving international acclaim for their photographs of subjects in a state of flux. 'From The Ground Up' is a three-part photographic essay focusing on the metamorphosis of the vernacular architecture in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. This fascinating study, comprising photographs taken from the mid-1980's to the present, is surely the most extensive and comprehensive record of the design and evolution of this region's built structures. Del Valle and Gomez are recipients of Guggenheim, Cintas, and NEA fellowships in photography. Their work has been widely exhibited in the United States and abroad, and is in the Permanent Collections of The Museum of Modern Art New York, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and The Brooklyn Museum" (Chris Pichler). The great photographer Lewis Baltz, who is best-known for his desolate urban landscape work, once referred to the work of photographers like Hamish Fulton, Paul Hill, Capability Brown, Humphrey Repton, and Richard Long as "land artists", photographers who have a genuine connection with the land in a way that their predecessors (like Ansel Adams) did not. These are very different artist/photographers but what unites them all is a love of the land and its structures, whose primary characteristics are flux, change, metamorphosis, and ultimately, evolution. Ansel Adams sought to capture majesty through breathtaking photographs of scenic landscapes and stunning landmarks. What is uniquely and profoundly moving about the "land artists" is a search not for static and immutable Essences but for Reality in all its concreteness, ruin, and beauty. They do not take pretty pictures; they take beautifully honest pictures. Eduardo del Valle and Mirta Gomez are worthy "land artists" in this great late-modern tradition. "Beautifully made color photography and an achievement of enormous richness. Eduardo del Valle and Mirta Gomez have followed one thread with great tenacity. I don't know of any other body of work quite like it" (John Szarkowski). An absolute "must-have" title for Eduardo del Valle and Mirta Gomez collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed in blue pen on the title page by Eduardo Del Valle and Mirta Gomez. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is now collectible. As far as we know, this is the only such signed copy of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. A scarce signed copy thus. 82 color plates. Two of the finest American photographers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER EDUARDO DEL VALLE AND MIRTA GOMEZ TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 1590050541.

1
1

Bibliophile Bookbase for antiquarian books, maps and prints.