The Piano Player

Society of the Spectacular Find

On the heels of last week's Ansel Adams photo circus comes an even more remarkable discovery, courtesy of Karl Baden:

Sirius Photography

Central Park, 1979, Tod Papageorge

New Brighton, 1985, Martin Parr
Skin, sweat, soda, jostling...The Dog Days of summer have arrived.

Fred Herzog

Now that color has come to dominate contemporary street photography, the art world's gaze has turned to the past, to see what color gems we may have overlooked during the b/w era. The trend started several years ago with Winogrand 1964, which published many previously unknown color photos. A few years later, Saul Leiter was uncovered. Recently we've seen color monographs published by b/w stalwarts Mark Cohen and Barbara Crane, and this fall Palm Springs 1960 by Doisneau and a new consideration of Haas will be published. The early color gold rush is on, with many tailings yet to sift through.

As long as we're reconsidering early color, I think it's worth taking a fresh look at Fred Herzog. His color work is on par with the folks mentioned above, but I suspect he is less well-known than any of them. Now approaching 80, Herzog just finished up an exhibition at Laurence Miller Gallery in NY. The selections below were pulled from the website of Equinox Gallery in Vancouver. You can order a gallery catalog from the site for $20 plus postage.

New World Confectionery, 1965

Jackpot, 1961

Magazine Man, 1959

Man With Bandage, 1968

Quebec City, 1969

Paris Cafe, 1959

Granville St. from Granville Bridge, 1966

Black Man Pender, 1958

Self-portrait

Yesterday I popped into a used bookstore in Waterville. In the back room was a single dusty shelf of photography books, the usual suspects mostly: nature monographs, TIME-LIFE compilations, a few Geddes titles. I was all set to leave when I noticed a thin spine tucked against a corner. I pulled it out. Holy Crap! Could it be?! It was Work From the Same House by Friedlander and Dine. In 20 years of hunting for photobooks I'd never seen a copy before.


This one was in rough shape. It was 40 years old and it showed. The paperback cover was slightly torn and yellowed. Some of the pages had separated from the spine. To the casual browser the book blended with the rest of the crud on the shelf. Would the store owner know what it was worth? Maybe I could score a deal? I checked the title page. $200 penciled in. Damn. The owner did know.

Untitled (Shoes), 1965-1969, Lee Friedlander/Jim Dine
from Work From the Same House
I sat down and leafed through. There were roughly 40 pages of Friedlander photos paired with weird hairy quasi-sexual etchings. About 1/3 of the photos were new to me. The rest I'd seen in later Friedlander books. But this was the primordial cauldron, his first book, before he'd really decided how to organize his work. The short bio on the back cover was perfect. "Born in Aberdeen, WA, 1934, nothing else is known about him." Or something to that effect. So even back then Mr. Lee had been elusive.

Any self-respecting Friedlander fanatic would've bought the thing on the spot. When you stumble on a book like that you were meant to find it. You don't pass it up. You bring it home and it becomes a cornerstone of your book collection.

On the other hand...$200 for a crummy old book that I might look through once or twice? A book with many photos I had in other books? And etchings I didn't really appreciate? A book that was well on its way to disintegration?

I don't need to tell you what I did. You already know.