The First Picture Book: Everyday Things for Babies by Mary Steichen Martin de Martin, Mary Steichen - 1930

NY: Harcourt, Brace & Company. Good with no dust jacket; Boards heavily soiled, some light fingersoiling inside, photogravure of alarm clock has quarter-sized liftoff and some faint erased pencil scrawls on endpapers, spine cracked. 1930. First Edition. Hardcover. Light blue cloth with titles stamped in dark blue on front boards. 24 photogravure plates by Edward Steichen. Measures 8.5 x 7.5 inches. Introduction by Harriet M. Johnson. Legendary photographer Edward Steichen was friendly with Alfred Stieglitz during this Symbolist period and the latter devoted an entire issue of Camera Work to Steichen and featured his work in many others. Later in life, Steichen was renowned for his fashion photography and later still, for his work as a curator at the Museum of Modern Art, for which he organized the noteworthy Family of Man exhibition in 1955. In this book, he collaborated with his physician daughter to create a very modern picture book for toddlers showing objects that they would be familiar with, such as as high chairs, scooters, teddy bears, images of childish artwork, etc. Steichen's photographs evince a stillness and almost memorial view of these objects of childhood, and some even approach the surreal (one photo of painted wooden balls is echoed in shot of a pile of picture books). Mary Steichen Martin's instructional text to parents includes backing the photogravures with "strong, gummed linen paper" to make them more durable in the hands of children, but thankfully, this advice was not taken with this copy; Square 8vo 8" to 9" tall .