Rare Books
Impossible to forget : the Nazi camps fifty years after
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Retrospective two
Rare Books
"How can a sustained thirty-year career be an aberration? This is a time of turbulence and edge, but should we dismiss someone who knows that and yet consciously chooses to make pictures that offer order, harmony, and respite? The energy that critics may wish to be in his work is expended in the doing, in the creation of over a dozen separate, coherent projects and thousands of single images. With the same discipline that he applies to long distance running, Kenna distills and refines. He is not turning off his critical faculties, but rather employs them to pay homage. The rebel in Kenna responds, 'I derive so much satisfaction from photography precisely because I've had the luxury of not caring what the art world thinks of my work. I have been able to use the medium as a way to help choose my personal journey or pilgrimage through this life. Most of the places I've photographed I chose because I wanted to acknowledge them and indeed pay homage to them...I haven't tried to be different or break any rules. I couldn't care less what the rules are anyway.'"--From introduction.
653194
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Ratcliffe Power Station
Rare Books
"Kenna's first photographs of the Ratcliffe power station were made in the early 1980s. They show dense emissions of smoke and steam interacting with clouds to form an almost undifferentiated chiaroscuro. I would describe the feel of Kenna's Ratcliffe project as crepuscular, in that the photographs invariably take on the tonal quality of a partially lit ecosphere peculiar to the photographer and his subject. Kenna is a brilliant manipulator of half-light. HIs grainy, spatial topography brings to mind the grey skies of Northern England that were the ubiquitous backdrop to his childhood. Kenna's Ratcliffe photos create the impression of an atmospherically foggy day. They register the homeostasis of a mood that is a dominant characteristic of this work"--From introduction.
653193
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Monique's kindergarten
Rare Books
"Michael Kenna's photographs from the Waldorf kindergarten are a homage to childhood and a paean to the imaginative potential of children's play. He came to know the kindergarten and Monique Grund first as a parent of his daughter, Olivia, and then as an artist who saw in the stuff of the place an emblematic presentation of the spirit of childhood. The images are the result of many sessions over several years in the kindergarten"--From introduction.
653099
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Fifty-Nine Years After, Or Recollections of My Adventures by Sea and Land While in Search of Gold in California [typescript]
Manuscripts
Cheney's reminiscence covers his voyage to California on the ship Pacific, his arrival in San Francisco August 6, 1849, and his time living in California until he left for Australia in February 1853. Cheney discusses the weather conditions during his voyage and some of the events that took place on board, including the removal of the ship's captain while in Rio de Janeiro; he also discusses his visit to Callao, Peru. Of his time in California, Cheney remembers his attempts at mining and at some other ventures such as selling lumber. He gives detailed descriptions of his time in San Francisco, Coloma, and Sacramento, California, and in the mining towns Bidwell Bar and Antoine Canyon
mssHM 63644
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Richard H. Kern letter to Augustus Murray Cathcart
Manuscripts
Kern writes that his men have just returned from an expedition "against the Navajoes." He will send Cathcart drawings later in the fall. He requests an extract of Cathcart's journal, and mentions letters of John C. Frémont. Kern would have returned earlier, but he was investigating the murder of one of his men. With cross-hatched note signed "Frémont."
mssHM 20657
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Confessionali
Rare Books
"These images of confessional boxes in Northern Italy symbolize what I continue to search for--the invisible within the visible, the intangible contained in the tangible, the illusion of reality. If words, thoughts and emotions could be made visual, these containers of memories would reveal a multitude of densely-packed hidden secrets, confessed, exchanged and discarded in return for some prayers and the blessing and forgiveness of a priest"--From photographer's introduction.
653361