INVISIBLE CITY: THE TWELVETREES PRESS TRUE FIRST EDITION

Los Angeles, CA: Twelvetrees Press, 1988. First Edition. First Printing.. Hardcover. Fine/Fine Dust Jacket.. Los Angeles, CA: Twelvetrees Press, 1988. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Edition/First Printing. Unpaginated. The photographer's breakthrough debut collection. One of the greatest photography books of the 20th century. Limited Edition of 2000 copies. The true First Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with the 2014 Steidl New Edition. Published as a hardcover original only. The Limited Edition is now rare. An austerely elegant production by Ken Schles and Jack Woody: Regular-sized volume format. Cloth boards with titles on cover and spine, as issued. Photographs by Ken Schles. Text-quotations by Jean Baudrillard, Jorge Luis Borges, Franz Kafka, Lewis Mumford, and George Orwell. Printed in gravure on thick uncoated stock paper in the United States to the highest standards, a masterpiece of sheetfed gravure printing, outstanding in every respect. In black pictorial DJ with titles on the cover and spine, as issued. Presents Ken Schles' "Invisible City". Haunting nocturnal images of city streets juxtaposed with the people who inhabit them. They share an eerily disturbing quality which makes them seem meant for each other: A desolate place for a shadowy people. It is well-known that the photographs were taken in New York City and evoke Weegee's great work, "Naked City" (1945) . But there is no doubt that Schles also intends them to be seen as transcending their actual place and having a universal significance: As the intensely personal vision of an artist. His work seems to have haunted Ken Schles because it took him thirteen years - an eternity in our restless time - to produce his second collection, "Geometry of Innocence" (2001) . The latter looks outwardly where "Invisible City" was more inward-looking. "Stands alongside Brassai's 'Paris de Nuit' and van der Elsken's 'Love On The Left Bank' as one of the twentieth century's great depictions of nocturnal bohemian experience" (Gerhard Steidl) . An absolute "must-have" title for Ken Schles collectors. This title is a great photography book. This is one of few copies of the true First Edition/Limited Edition still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Precedes and should NOT be confused with the 2014 Reissued Edition. Copies available online, even those that are signed, have serious flaws. Obtained directly from the publisher, this is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare copy thus. 45 sheetfed gravure plates. One of the most brilliant artist/photographers of our time. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER KEN SCHLES TITLE IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 094264235X.