The Somnambulist
New York: Lustrum Press, 1970.
Second Edition. Hardcover.
Scarce hardcover edition.
Gibson was first introduced to photography in the army and worked with Dorothea Lange and Robert Frank as a young photographer. He decided that journalistic photography wasn't his lane and focused on subjects that revealed themselves to him in his daily life, as a dreamer experiences a dream. Gibson has said that photographs are better than the photographer and that art is better than the artist. "I’m not the music, I'm the radio through which the music plays.” The photographs in The Somnambulist reflect that motif. One photograph in the series is of a beauty salon in flames that Gibson encountered in his ramblings on the streets of New York - as if in a dream. Sadly, Gibson's mother operated a beauty parlor and died in a fire.
Gibson created Lustrum Press in 1970 to take greater control over reproduction of his art photography. This is the first book produced by the press. His latest work published by the press, Sacred Land: Israel Before & After Time, was published in 2020. During the 50+ years of the press's operation, Gibson has published not only his own works, but those of other artists like Larry Clark, Mary Ellen Mark, Danny Seymour & Neal Slavin.
Item #901641ISBN: 0912810092
8-7/8 x 12-1/2", black cloth, unpaginated, 48 black & white photographs by Ralph Gibson.
Sunfading to cloth, a little bowing to boards, bumping to heal of spine and a bit of edge-wear to cloth at bottom-edge of rear board, externally good+, mild toning to edges of leaves, free of owner’s marks, internally very good.
Price: $250.00