A View of the Cotswolds; with Essays by Shawn Kholucy, Ian Mackenzie-Kerr, Alan Powers, George Ramsden, Edwin Smith, Veronica Watts, and Rory Young
Herefordshire: The Whittington Press, 2005. First, Limited Edition. Folio, 13 1/2 x 9 5/8 inches (342 x 244 mm), [6], 50 pp. Set in Polyphilus and Fry’s Baskerville type and printed on Bugra-Bütten mould-made paper. Illustrated with 32 tritone photographic plates. Half-bound in black leather over paper-covered boards decorated with a repeat pattern from a wood engraving by Edwin Smith, spine lettered in silver; title page printed in orange and black, black endpapers. Housed in the original black paper-covered slipcase reinforced with grey buckram at head and foot. Accompanied by the separate PORTFOLIO containing TWO ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHIC PRINTS pulled FROM SMITH'S ORIGINAL NEGATIVES, the portfolio quarter-bound in grey buckram and black paper-covered boards.
Copy vi of only 70 copies issued with the original photographic prints, from a total edition of 350 copies, as stated on the limitation page.
A superbly produced homage to the architectural and pastoral beauty of the Cotswolds, bringing together the photographic work of Edwin Smith with a series of reflective essays on landscape, vernacular architecture, and English regional character. The tritone plates reproduce Smith’s photographs with exceptional depth and tonal subtlety, capturing the warm limestone textures, quiet churchyards, manor houses, cottages, and rural vistas that define the region’s visual identity.
The photographs were taken during the 1950s and 1960s, when Smith and his wife, the artist and writer Olive Cook, traveled extensively through England by bicycle with a half-plate camera mounted on a mahogany tripod, documenting historic buildings, gardens, and landscapes before the widespread transformation of the postwar countryside. The resulting images possess both documentary value and a deeply poetic atmosphere, reflecting Smith’s singular ability to unite architectural precision with a romantic sense of place.
Edwin Smith (1912–1971) is regarded as one of the foremost British architectural and landscape photographers of the twentieth century. Closely associated with the preservationist spirit of postwar England, his photographs appeared in numerous influential books and magazines and remain celebrated for their luminous composition, quiet humanism, and enduring evocation of the English countryside.
Condition: Fine.
Item number: 1808
Price: $540.00
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