“A PLACE WHERE TIME HAS STOPPED”: FIRST EDITION OF PATERSON, SIGNED BY PHOTOGRAPHER GEORGE TICE

TICE, George. Paterson. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University, 1972. Oblong quarto, original stiff photographic wrappers. $650.

First softcover edition, signed by Tice on the half title, with frontispiece and 65 black-and-white photographic plates.

Newark-born George Tice began photographing Paterson, New Jersey in the mid-1960s and returned often over the next 30 years. Like much of his home state, the city was “not only a subject and a muse for Tice, but also a state of mind… His New Jersey is not without history, but it seems a place where time has stopped.” Generally shooting with a large format view camera, the award-winning Tice created pictures that “have an almost supernatural lucidity” (New York Times). “Tice’s work has been compared to that of painter Edward Hopper, offering spare, romantic views and portraits that reveal the essence of the subject and its deeper implications” (McDarrah & McDarrah, 490). This first edition of Paterson, published coincident with Tice’s one-man show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, received the Grand Prix du Festival d’Arles in 1973. With 66 black-and-white photographic plates, printed same year as first hardcover edition, no priority established.

Images quite fresh; faintest edge-wear to original wrappers. About-fine, scarce signed.