A Way of Seeing. Photographs by Helen Levitt. Essay by James Agee. Horizon Press, New York, 1981. 15 pp. text + plates. Quarto. Second edition. First printing of enlarged edition with twenty-four additional photographs. Clothbound in dustjacket. 68 reproductions printed by Meriden Gravure.
Although most of the photographs in this book were taken in 1948, it was not published until 1965. This is the 1981 re-issue with a corrected text and twenty-four additional photographs.
In The Photobook: A History. Volume 1, Parr and Badger write: "Levitt's photographs are beautiful - major underrated wroks. Like Henri Cartier-Bresson, she achieves a rare balancing act: her pictures have sentiment without being sentimental, always maintaining an objective distance...The casual observer of these pictures, dazzled by their poetry, could easily miss the harsher realities masked by the surface warmth and joie de vivre." A seminal twentieth century photography book. This beautifully produced re-issue is almost as scarce as the original.
Fine- in Fine- dust jacket; some wear at extremities of boards and jacket.