Thinking about Lee
November 17th, 2008I’ve been thinking about Lee Friedlander a great deal this month. For one thing, we just launched Lee Friedlander: New Mexico (with Radius Books and Andrew Smith Gallery). It was Friedlander’s 33rd book, a fact that sent me back to his massive 2005 MoMA retrospective catalogue to both verify and remind myself of all the books that had come before ours.
In the back of this massive exhibition catalogue (which, after all, accompanied what was the largest photographic exhibition by a living photographer in the history of MoMA) is a section entitled Books, Special Editions, and Portfolios (compiled by Dalia Azim) and which chronicles Friedlander’s output of printed matter. The first entry on the list, Photographs & Etchings (By Friedlander and Jim Dine) is from 1969. The last entry, #46, is Sticks & Stones: Architectural America, and is dated 2004. (There are several books since 2004 that I can think of, such as Cherry Blossom Time in Japan, Frederick Law Olmsted Landscapes, and of course, Lee Friedlander: New Mexico).
In talking with Lee about his books, he told us that the New Mexico book was his 33rd book (!!) and of those, Katy Homans had designed 21 (!!). I also asked him which were his favorites, to which he ever-so diplomatically replied with an analogy—”They’re like children. How can you choose a favorite?”
Below are the spreads from the MoMA catalogue which outline his books and portfolios. Many of these, thankfully, are still in-print. Friedlander, Eggleston, Stephen Shore, Diane Arbus, and the Bechers form a sort of cadre, a set of progenitors whose actions have influenced nearly all things that have happened in the last three to four decades in contemporary photography. (Lewis Baltz and Ed Ruscha are like the step-sons of this nuclear family).
