March II 2021 Catalogue

B a u m a n R a r e B o o k s F a i t h 2 0 2 1 59 Inscribed By Photographer Roman Vishniac 60. VISHNIAC, Roman. Polish Jews. A Pictorial Record. New York, 1947. Quarto, original black cloth, dust jacket. $2200. Click for More Info First edition, presentation/association copy from the library of noted photography collector Howard Daitz, long associated with New York’s Lee Witkin Gallery, inscribed by Vishniac: “For Howard Daitz, Roman Vishniac,” with introduction by Abraham Joshua Heschel and 31 full-page photogravures of Eastern European Jews on the eve of World War II, scarce in bright unrestored dust jacket. Born in Russia, Roman Vishniac was living in Germany when hired by the Joint Distribution Committee in the early 1930s to travel through Eastern Europe, documenting “Jewish communities that would soon be destroyed by Hitler.” “These pictures,” Vishniac wrote, “were made without letting the subjects know of the presence of a camera. They represent real life completely unposed. And so today they have become documents of a lost epoch of a lost people.” This presentation/ association copy is inscribed by Vishniac to respected photographic collector Howard Daitz, whose wife Evelyne Daitz was a director of the famed Lee Witkin Gallery during Witkin’s lifetime, and became the gallery’s owner and director on his death in 1984. Book and plates fine, some chipping to spine head of extremely good dust jacket with bit of loss not affecting text. A near-fine presentation copy with a distinctive association.