Ballet (In Dustjacket) by Alexey Brodovitch (Text by Edwin Denby) - 1945

New York: J. J. Augustin Publisher, 1945. Limited edition. Hardcover. Fair to fine condition. 1/500. Oblong Octavo. 143pp. Original light brown, textured boards in original dust jacket; protected by modern mylar. 104 gravure plates; various decorative typefaces on table of contents; plain boards; cloth tape spine; gray printed dust jacket, French fold. Stunning photographs by Alexey Brodovitch. Text by Edwin Denby. "Though Alexey Brodovitch was famous as an art director (his Harper's Bazar stint, from 1934 to 1958, remains one of the most influential in the history of graphic design) and book designer (Richard Avedon's Observations, André Kertész's Day of Paris), he was not known as a photographer until the 1945 publication of Ballet... Critic Jane Livingstone, who drafted Brodovitch as one of the more unlikely members of what she dubbed photography's New York School, speculates that only a few hundred copies of Ballet were ever printed, and that most of them were distributed as gifts to the… Read More

New York: J.J. Augustin, 1945. First edition. Hardcover, dust jacket. Very Good. FIRST EDITION of Brodovitch's masterpiece; of profound influence in the history of photography and photobooks. With extremely rare original slipcase. "Although known primarily as a mentor and patron of photographers, due in large part to his position as art director and graphic designer at Harper's Bazaar, Alexey Brodovitch also made a legendary photobook of his own. Ballet, published in 1945 by J J Augustin in New York, has become a photobook legend for two reasons. Firstly, only a few hundred copies were printed, so the book is more talked about than actually seen. Secondly, the volume was extremely radical, both in terms of the images themselves and their incorporation into the design and layout... "The 104 pictures in Ballet had been taken by Brodovitch between 1935 and 1937. He photographed ballet companies visiting New York, including the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, with whom he worked in Paris in the 1920s.… Read More