“I DREAM THINGS THAT NEVER WERE AND SAY WHY NOT”: RFK FUNERAL TRAIN, INSCRIBED AND SIGNED BY PHOTOGRAPHER PAUL FUSCO

FUSCO, Paul. RFK Funeral Train. (New York): Magnum/Umbrage, (2008). Oblong quarto, original black cloth, original photographic dust jacket. $950.

First Aperture edition, with over 50 color plates of Americans paying final tribute to Robert F. Kennedy, inscribed and signed by Magnum photographer Paul Fusco on the half title: "Jason— I appreciate the opportunity to visit with all of you. All the best, Paul Fusco 11/13/09."

"On Saturday afternoon, June 8, Kennedy's body, as President Lincoln's 103 years before, was carried by a funeral train from New York to Washington. As they had for Lincoln, many thousands—perhaps, for RFK, a million people—lined the tracks" (Evan Thomas). Magnum photographer Paul Fusco here records that passage, in images that have a "powerful, cinematic quality" (Parr & Badger II:46). "Like The Americans, Robert Frank's seminal book of 1959… Fusco balances a compassionate eye with a photojournalist's lightning-quick instincts for the telling picture" (New York Times). With Senator Edward M. Kennedy's eulogy to his brother, delivered Jun 8, 1968, along with memorial essays by Norman Mailer and RFK biographer Evan Thomas, afterword by Paul Fusco. First Aperture edition, preceded by scarce special edition produced by The Photographer's Gallery, 1999 and the Magnum/Umbrage trade edition published in 2000.

A fine inscribed copy.