RARE DEDICATION COPY OF PROPAGANDA AND OTHER PHOTOGRAPHS, WARMLY INSCRIBED BY PHOTOGRAPHER KALISHER TO NOTED AUTHOR ALLON SHOENER, WHO ALSO WROTE THE BOOK’S AFTERWORD, WITH 71 FINELY SCREENED FULL-PAGE HALFTONES

KALISHER, Simpson. Propaganda and Other Photographs. Danbury, New Hampshire: Two Penny/ Addison House, (1976). Square quarto, original black cloth, original photographic dust jacket. $900.

First edition of Kalisher’s important second photobook, a unique dedication copy gifted to Allon Schoener, award-winning author and museum curator, one of the book’s dedicatees and author of its afterword, inscribed by Kalisher on the title page, “Allon, Finally, it’s done! Many thanks for your contribution to it. I hope you will value it as I do. Best regards, Simpson,” with 71 finely-screened halftone plates of America in the 1970s.

Noted for his deceptively straightforward approach, photographer Simpson Kalisher has been highly praised for a photographic eye that “perceives oddity where others would see nothing, or at most the commonplace… A photographer of the world… Kalisher reveals a mercurial personality in his art… complicated and not a little playful.” In Propaganda his subtle, often ironic pictures of everyday Americans are also “tinged with the softening aura of melancholy” (New York Times). Here Kalisher inscribes his photobook to one of its dedicatees, Allon Schoener, who also wrote the book’s afterword. A renowned author, editor and highly regarded museum curator, Schoener organized the 1969 “Harlem on My Mind” at the Metropolitan Museum and wrote the book of the same title, as well as the award-winning New York: An Illustrated History of a People (1998). In his afterword Schoener writes of his long friendship with Kalisher, in particular that subtle and “ingenuous understatement” that distinguishes his work. With introduction by Russell Baker. Issued simultaneously with softcover edition.

Book fine; lightest soiling to about-fine dust jacket.