“MEATYARD CREATED A MODE OF ‘NO-FOCUS’ IMAGERY”

(MEATYARD, Ralph Eugene). Ralph Eugene Meatyard. Edited with Text by James Baker Hall. Reminiscence by Guy Davenport. (Millerton, New York: Aperture, 1974). Slim quarto, original black cloth, original photographic dust jacket. $450.

First edition of this posthumous retrospective of Meatyard’s work, with 101 rich photogravures.

Meatyard’s work was regarded by his peers as “among the most original and disturbing imagery ever created with a camera… His best known images were populated with dolls and masks, with family, friends and neighbors pictured in abandoned buildings or in ordinary suburban backyards… Meatyard created a mode of ‘no-focus’ imagery that was distinctly his own. ‘No-focus’ images ran entirely counter to any association of camera art with objective realism and opened a new sense of creative freedom in his art” (Masters of Photography). This posthumous retrospective, compiled by Meatyard’s friend James Baker Hall, captures “a much deeper strangeness, a fully realized vision of the world, resonant with delight and awe and fear.”

Interior fine, a few stray glue spots to cloth binding, small closed tear to dust jacket. A near-fine copy.