Lewis Baltz: Signed Limited Edition Three Volume Set

Lewis Baltz: Signed Limited Edition Three Volume Set

Limited to 945 Sets

Each Volume Signed by Lewis Baltz

MINT Condition

This is a beautiful three volume individually signed limited edition by Lewis Baltz published by RAM Publications, Santa Monica in association with the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and Steidl Verlag, Göttingen, Germany, in 2005. The three volumes are:

The Tract Houses, First Edition, First Printing, 2005

The Prototype Works, First Edition, First Printing, 2005

The New Industrial Parks Near Irvine, California, Third Edition, 2005

This 3-volume publication of work by Lewis Baltz from the 1960s and 1970s, including two previously unpublished bodies of work, will soon be considered one of the definitive publications of the highly influential "New Topographics" genre that Baltz helped define. The obsessive care and craftsmanship that went into this book project is most evident in the extraordinary printing. The luminous tonal effect is achieved by the introduction of a special varnish in the tritone process. These beautiful plates reproduce Baltz's original photographs as closely as possible with modern printing technology. Holding the book is almost like holding a stack of Baltz's vintage prints.

From the Introduction by Adam D. Weinberg, Alice Pratt Brown Director, Whitney Museum of American Art: "Baltz's pictures are object-images, physical presences themselves, not representations of things. Although they are signs of real-world objects, they are also independent, archetypal forms...they have an inevitability, an inscrutability, a permanence, even a stateliness. His images demand more than contemplation and delectation: they demand reckoning....Baltz's work exemplifies the ways in which photography, beginning some four decades ago, started to loose the bonds of its isolation within its own segregated history and aesthetics and began to take its place among other media. This publication helps to set the record straight by revealing Lewis Baltz's significant role in this revolutionary shift." From the publisher: "Reproduced for the first time, Lewis Baltz's earliest portfolio The Tract Houses (1971) and his preliminary forays into a minimal aesthetic, as represented in The Prototype Works (1967-1976), illuminate Baltz's drive to capture the reality of a sprawling Western ecology gone wild. Together with The New Industrial Parks near Irvine, California, this trilogy reveals the indelible importance of Baltz in the changing course of contemporary photography."

Measuring approximately 12” x 12”, each volume of the set is signed in pencil on the title page by Baltz. Each of the books is a hardcover. Volume One (The Tract Houses): black cloth-covered boards and title blind-stamped on cover and spine; Volume Two (The Prototype Works): white cloth-covered boards with title blind-stamped on cover and stamped in black on spine. Volume Three (The New Industrial Parks near Irvine, California): gray cloth-covered boards with title blind-stamped on cover and stamped in black on spine. Each volume in a white dust jacket with title printed in black and gray on cover and spine. The three volumes are housed in a sturdy black paper-covered slipcase with "BALTZ" stamped in white on the front.

The condition of the set is MINT and is still housed in the original publisher’s white shipping box. This is a great opportunity to obtain a set of photobooks that will become increasingly scarce.

Photographs of the books as well as a few photographs from the book appear below. Please note that although the photographs appear digitized as thumbnails, they are viewable in the photo viewer by running your mouse over the thumbnail. You can also click on the thumbnail to open a separate window where the picture is viewable as a slideshow.