Vincent Borrelli, Bookseller

NZ Library #1: John Schott: Route 66, Limited Edition (NZ Library - Set One, Volume Six) [SIGNED]

SCHOTT, John

Publisher: Portland, Oregon: Nazraeli Press, 2014
Edition: 1st Edition
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN: 9781590053881
Condition: New / New
Item #: 110444

$250.00

Specifics

First edition, first printing. Limited edition of 350 copies, signed by the artist on a label tipped in to the back cover, and numbered on the colophon page. Hardcover. Silk cloth-covered boards; with photographically illustrated dust jacket and silk cloth-covered slipcase debossed with title. 60 pp., with 47 duotone plates. 15 x 12 inches.

Condition

New in publisher's packaging.

Description

Selected alongside Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Joe Deal, Frank Gohlke, Nicholas Nixon, Stephen Shore and Henry Wessel as one of the participating artists in the immensely important and influential 1975 exhibition New Topographics: Photographs of the Man-Altered Landscape, John Schott's work depicts the old, decaying motels and gasoline stations along Route 66 in the desert southwest. The themed design of these buildings, often featuring tipis and pueblo-style architecture, hearkens back to the heyday of pre-interstate automobile travel, where quaint motels and service stations catered to families headed West. Schott's gleaming western light reveals how these structures attempt to blend into the landscape, yet ultimately exist in an artificial reality designed to lure travelers with the promise and mythos of the West.

From the publisher: "In the summer of 1973, John Schott drove Route 66 from the midwest to California and back, sleeping in his pick-up truck and photographing with an 8x10-inch Deardorf view camera. Among his subjects were vintage motels situated along the highway, and it was a selection of these photographs that, two years later, were included in William Jenkins' seminal New Topographics exhibition at the George Eastman House. The twenty images that were included in this exhibition have been well-documented, though never reproduced in a manner showing the richness of detail and tone displayed in the original contact prints. We are pleased to announce that, as part of our NZ Library, a beautifully printed, oversized book is now available which presents not only the 20 photographs originally shown from this important body of work, but all 47 photographs included in the artist's complete set of archived images. This important new publication opens with an illuminating essay by Britt Salvesen, Department Head and Curator of the Wallis Annenberg Department of Photography, and the Department Head and Curator of Prints and Drawings, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and a leading expert on the subject." John Schott's photographs are held in the permanent collections of many public collections, including those of The George Eastman House, Rochester, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums."

NOTE: FIVE SPECIAL EDITIONS (EACH VARIANT WITH A PRINT) ARE ALSO AVAILABLE.

From the publisher (about the NZ Library Series): "We are excited to announce the NZ Library, a new series of limited edition, highly collectible artist's books. Printed on Japanese art paper using our exclusive 'Daido black' inks, all books in the NZ Library have certain aspects in common: each title is produced using the highest material and production values; each is limited to 350 numbered and signed copies; each is bound in silk cloth and individually slipcased."

The NZ Library will be built six titles at a time, with groupings curated to balance and play off of past, present and future titles in the series. While copies--such as this item--will be available to purchase individually, a generous discount is extended for orders of all six titles in any given set. ($150 per book compared to $250 per book.)

Set 1 highlights work by some of the most creative and influential photographic artists active in Los Angeles during the 1970s; re-presents the long-overdue "wayward piece of the puzzle"-- John Schott's entire "Route 66 Motels" portfolio -- to the available literature relating to the groundbreaking New Topographics exhibition shown in 1975 at the George Eastman House in Rochester; offers new insight into Daido Moriyama's working methodology; and provides an ideal forum for the first international publication on the work of superstar contemporary artist Idris Khan."