“HE USES HIS CAMERA AS A QUESTION MARK” (TIME)

KLEIN, William. William Klein. (Singapore: [no publisher], 1992). Slim quarto, original stiff paper wrappers. $650.

First edition of this retrospective catalogue, with portrait frontispiece and 46 pages of “raw, kinetic, and utterly original photographs” (Roth), signed by Klein on the front cover and dated “April ‘03.”

Klein developed a radical new way of taking pictures, "combining black humor, lyricism and acerbic social observation with daring graphic invention." "His visual language made an asset out of accident, graininess, blur, and distortion. He has described his work as 'a crash course in what was not to be done in photography.' Klein employed a wide-angle lens, fast film, and novel framing and printing procedures to make images in a fragmented, anarchic mode that emphasized raw immediacy and highlighted the photographer's presence in the scene" (Encyclopedia of Photography). This retrospective catalogue reproduces representative images from 1954 to 1989, some double-page, others multiple images on a single page. See Roth 140-41.

Book fine, hairline scratch through signature.