ILLUMINATIONS: PHOTOGRAPHS BY WILLIAM CARTER

San Francisco, CA: Editions One, 1996. First Edition. First Printing.. Hardcover. Fine/Fine Dust Jacket.. San Francisco, CA: Editions One, 1996. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Edition/First Printing. 120 pages. Retrospective collection of female nudes. One of the most beautiful erotic art photography books of our time. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions, particularly the Softcover Edition. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. An austerely elegant production by Editions One: Oversize-volume format. Gray cloth boards with titles embossed on cover and spine, as issued. Photographs by William Carter. Essay by Winston Naef, Curator of Photography, Getty Museum Los Angeles. Printed in tritone on pristine-white, thick coated stock paper in Italy to the highest standards. In pictorial DJ with titles on the cover and spine, as issued. Presents William Carter's "Illuminations". Luminous female nudes, masterly studies in chiaroscuro, celebrations of the sinuous female form. "Capping the author's 35-year career, this work is both a culmination and a starlingly fresh departure. Printed on sumptuous paper by state-of-the-art press in Florence, Italy, at once a highly fresh, personal view of the human body, and an affirmation of many civilizations' deeply held values of form and beauty" (Publisher's blurb) . "One reason I photograph the nude is that I am concerned with universals. Clothing is specific to time and place. The body is not. In the fifteen years I needed to bring this book to fruition, the camera became, for me, a kind of third eye: An open gateway beween the inner and the outer, my models and my perceptions of them" (William Carter) . An absolute "must-have" title for William Carter collectors. This copy is very prominently, neatly, and beautifully signed, dated, and inscribed in blue ink-pen on the title page by the photographer: "For Paul Berlanga, With warm regards, William Carter, December 2012". It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. It is signed on top of the page, making it even more prominent. The recipient, who is named, is an important Chicago-based artist/painter and photography expert. It comes with a scarce and pristine copy of B & W Photography Magazine, which celebrates William Carter's "Illuminatjons" as its Cover Feature. This title is a contemporary erotic art photography classic. This is the only such signed, dated, and inscribed copy (with Magazine Supplement) of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. A rare signed copy thus. Lavishly illustrated with tritone plates. One of the most brilliant photographers of the female nude of our time. A fine set. (SEE ALSO OTHER WILLIAM CARTER TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 1881529150.