One by Ken Ohara, First Edition with Scarce Dust Jacket

One by Ken Ohara

First Edition, First Printing, 1970

Scarce Dust Jacket

This is a very rare first edition, first printing of Ken Ohara’s critically acclaimed photobook “One” published by Tsukiji Shoka, Tokyo in 1970. Ohara emigrated to the U.S. as a young man and was an apprentice to both Richard Avedon and Hiro. “One” is a compendium of 500 faces which were chosen randomly in the streets and parks of New York and photographed in identical, tightly framed compositions. Each of the portraits were printed in the same tonal range and presented in full-page bleeds without any identifying text. These formal devices have the effect of obliterating the racial differences of the subjects. Parr and Badger in their reference work, “The Photobook: A History” write, "these photos deny the individuality of their subjects to make a wider social observation...Ohara has taken the utopian step of using the camera to turn humankind into one big melting pot, his serial photographs making almost ritual atonement for the sin of racism." Commenting on the book, Hiro wrote, “This is not a book of photography nor photographic technique. It reveals neither artist nor subject. It is a book of faces. Faces and faces and faces. Faces as anonymous and frightening as names in a telephone directory. You search for the familiar, the recognizable, the distinctive. Instead, the faces merge and what arises is form, abstracted, dehumanized. What remains is not five hundred faces, but one.”

Measuring approximately 10.5” x 9”, the book is bound in stiff photographically illustrated wrappers with the very scarce photographically illustrated dust jacket. The book is in Near FINE condition with the inevitable darkening of the page ends that is common to this title and very minor wear to the wraps. The dust jacket is in Near FINE condition with a bit of edge wear to the extremities and corners with the head of the spine area of the jacket showing some minor creasing and a very minor tear. Overall, this is a wonderful copy of a notoriously delicate title that is becoming increasingly scarce and rarely seen with a dust jacket.

Cited in “The Open Book” by Andrew Roth and “The Photobook: A History” by Parr & Badger. In 1974 his work was included in the landmark 'New Japanese Photography' exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Photographs of the front and back of the dust jacket, the book cover, as well as photographs contained in 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 pictures are viewable as a slideshow.