Photographs

Assouline, 1999. A near-fine copy with some scratches on jacket; bumped on botton right corner. 12.25 x 10.5 inches. 160 pages. Cloth; dust jacket. Signed by the photographer on front free endpaper in pencil and inscribed to a collector. "This is the first comprehensive survey of the work of Paul Himmel (b.1914) and the first publication about his work in 40 years. The son of immigrant Bohemian intellectuals, Himmel took up photography as a teenager and studied graphic journalism under art director Alexey Brodovitch. He worked from 1947 to 1969 as a professional photographer for such clients as Vogue and Harper's Bazaar, and several of his photos were included in Edward Steichen's "Family of Man" exhibition. By 1969, he had become disenchanted with photography and retrained as a psychotherapist. An exhibit of his photographs in New York City in 1996 brought him back to public attention. Himmel's photographs are genuinely fresh and unusual. Many are high-contrast, emphasizing the design and patterns contained in an image; subjects range from New York City scenes to nudes reduced to grainy vestiges to color abstractions. This monograph richly reproduces Himmel's engaging pictures of humanity in all its variations and is recommended for all fine art and photography collections.