Presence: Photographs with Observation by Shirley C. Burden [SIGNED]

New York: Aperture, 1981. First edition. Hardcover. vg. 1/100. Sm. 4to. Unpaginated. Mottled tan cloth with silver lettering on cover and spine in original slipcase. Signed on colophon by artist. Profusely illustrated with b/w reproductions of photographs on glossy paper. Preface by Thomas Keating. Accompanied by an original 9" x 12" silver print 'Ellis Island 1956', signed on verso in pencil by Burden, window-mounted on stiff board (16" x 20") in original portfolio of tan paper-covered boards with white folding flaps and silver lettering on front cover. With original wrapping paper of portfolio. Book and slipcase in fine, portfolio and photo as new, all in publisher's original shipping box. Rare. "What is presence? It is a relationship to something or someone. Shirley Burden's sensitive presence to concrete things is recorded in these photographs and in his commentary. He details patterns on a street in Los Angeles and discovers humorous groupings of chairs in a French park. A dead pigeon epitomizes the fruit of his search through the abandoned buildings of Ellis Island. He reveals a special presence to people like Dorothea Lange and the pilgrims at Lourdes - and they reveal theirs to him. He is also present to the invisible world of faith through his experience at the Abbey of our Lady of Gethsemani and at Lourdes, where the past, present, and future seem to come together for him in the realization of a Presence that is beyond all words and photographs - yet is nonetheless somehow present in them." (Thomas Keating).