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Heyman, Ken (Photographer); Mason, Michael (Contributor) & Willie (Subject) : Willie: Photographs By Ken Heyman Words By Michael Mason

The Ridge Press, New York City, NY, 1963

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in Fine Dust Jacket. 90 pages. Collection of photographs, presented as a child's album. One of the most beautiful photography books on childhood ever realized and published. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. There is no ISBN. The First Edition is now rare. A brilliant production by Ken Heyman and Albert A. Squillace: Oversize-volume format. Cream ribbed linen cloth boards with black titles embossed on cover and spine, as issued. Photographs by Ken Heyman. Text by Michael Mason. Printed in gravure on pristine-white, thick uncoated stock paper in Switzerland to the highest standards. The reproduction quality is outstanding in every respect. In pictorial DJ with titles on the cover and spine, as issued. Presents Ken Heyman's and Michael Mason's "Willie". An evocative photographic record of one ordinary and extraordinary child, which every child - and every childhood - is, or should be. Produced with the kind of meticulous attention to quality and detail that is no longer possible today, to say nothing of the demise of gravure printing. "Ken Heyman first saw Willie in a doorway on a side street of New York's Lower West Side. After he'd been photographing him for a moment or two, he realized what a marvelous freedom of expression and movement he had. He visited him on his block the next day, and on four other days, during the next two months" (Publisher's blurb). "A factual document, a book of magic and revelation. It brings a boy and a city to life with the vivid reality Mark Twain gave to Tom Sawyer and Mississippi country" (Edward Steichen). Well, the only other photographic record that readily comes to mind is Helen Levitt's photographic sequences in "A Way of Seeing" (1965) and "In The Street" (1987). An absolute "must-have" title for Ken Heyman collectors. This copy is very prominently, neatly, and beautifully signed and inscribed in black ink-pen on the dedication page by the photographer: "Thank you for your kind words, Ken Heyman". It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. The recipient is named. This title is a photography classic. As far as we know, this is the only such signed copy of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. It is, quite simply, the single most beautiful copy we have ever seen. Please note: ALL other copies available online have serious flaws, which is such a shame because this is a beautifully produced book that galleries and collectors treasure and hold on to if in collectible condition. A rare signed copy thus. 75 gravure plates. One of the most brilliant American photographers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO HELEN LEVITT TITLES IN OUR CATALOG).

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