dewi lewis publishing
Home | About Us | Index | Mail List | Offers | New & Recent Titles | Forthcoming | Collectors Editions | Links
|
|
ONCE UPON A TIME IN WALES
ROBERT HAINES For 35 years this extraordinary collection of photographs remained hidden from the world. Taken around 1971/2, by young photographer Robert Haines, they record life in the Welsh valleys, in the village of Heolgerrig and nearby Merthyr Tydfil. Heolgerrig was a very close-knit community with Welsh the first language. It was a mining community where most of the men worked underground and life seemed to revolve around the pub and the chapel. Merthyr Tydfil, once the ‘Iron Capital’ of the world, had a justifiable reputation as ‘tough’ with characters such as hard man, Melvin Webber, who died after being blasted by a shotgun, and ‘Mad’ Malcolm for whom no chemical substance was too strong The early Seventies were a time of flux and, looking at these powerful photographs now, many of the extraordinary characters featured seem to have drifted in from a previous century. Haines photographed the local people with enthusiasm and energy. Some he knew well, others were complete strangers. Some spent their days in the pub, others worked underground, living conditions were often very poor. The photographs speak to us today of a world very different to our own. |
||
.jpg)
Richard Billingham
Over recent years Billingham has photographed increasingly within the landscape and this new book brings together this work for the first time. The images are contemplative and thoughtful and reflect his primary concern for the ‘making’ of an image.
Billingham first exhibited in 1995 at the Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London, by whom he is still represented. His work has received significant international acclaim – in 1997 he won the Citibank Photography Prize and his work was one of the talking points of ‘Sensation’, the exhibition of Contemporary British Art from the Saatchi Collection. He was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 2001.
Billingham lives in Brighton and is currently a part-time senior lecturer at the University of Gloucestershire based in Cheltenham.
The work is introduced by Sacha Craddock, leading art critic and broadcaster.
£25.00 hardback
96 pages, 224mm x 280mm
45 colour photographs
ISBN: 978-1904587385
Published: February 2008
in association with University of Gloucestershire
ORDER NOW
|
|
AS I WAS DYING
PAOLO PELLEGRIN Winner of the Leica European Publishers Award As I was Dying brings together Paolo Pellegrin’s remarkable and moving images of human suffering within areas of conflict and war. Pellegrin captures both the horror and despair of war, and his photographs convey the powerlessness of those who are victim to it, as they witness the destruction of their homes and the death of their loved ones. These are forceful and unforgetable images that resonate in the memory and give voice to the unbearable suffering of so many people. Born in Rome in 1964. Paolo Pellegrin joined Magnum Photos in 2001 and has been a Newsweek contract photographer since 2000. He has won numerous awards including the Eugene Smith Award, the Vis D'Or, World Press awards, the Hasselblad Grant, the Robert Capa Gold Medal and the Olivier Rebot Award. Paolo Pellegrin has published 5 previous books and has exhibted widely in Europe and the United States. He lives in Rome and New York. |
||
|
|
SOMNAMBULISTS
JOANNA KANE The Somnambulists is a book of contemporary portraits of life and death masks from the cast collection of the Edinburgh Phrenological Society. Linked to the early nineteenth-century science of phrenology, these casts preserve quasi-photographic likenesses of individuals living 150 to 200 years ago – from unknown men and women to writers and artists such as Wordsworth, Keats and Blake. Releasing her subjects from the categories of the phrenological head collection, Joanna Kane magically renders photographic likenesses from before the age of photography. Joanna Kane is a photographer based in Edinburgh. She has shown work in the UK and Europe including at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery and as part of the European Month of Photography festivals. She works at Edinburgh College of Art.
|
||
.jpg)
|
|
SMALL WORLD
MARTIN PARR Introduction by Geoff Dyer This is a revised and updated edition of Martin Parr’s classic book which was first published in 1996. Copies of the original edition of Small World are now avidly sought by collectors and demand a high premium. It is a biting, very funny satire in which Parr looks at tourism worldwide, exposing the increasingly homogenous ‘global culture’ where in the search for different cultures those same cultures are destroyed. The issues that Parr raised a decade ago when the book was first published are even more relevant today. Whilst Parr’s larger-than-life troupe of tourists appear willing participants in an omnipresent consumer culture they are also bemused victims – at the mercy of larger social forces and locked into their insatiable craving for spectacle. Small World‘s citizens become a symbol of western society’s prosperous freedoms, declaring their power and their rights to travel, to choose and to consume. A member of the prestiguous MAGNUM photo agency Martin Parr is one of the best known photographers in the world today. He has published innumerable books and his work has been exhibited and published worldwide. |
||
|
|
DINKY TOYS
A celebration of Dinky Toys in the 1950s Kim Sayer Dinky Toys must be one of the most successful and collectable toys ever made. These delightfully stylish photographs feature models from the golden age of the Dinky toy – an era remembered fondly by every post-war baby-boomer. Now the subject of serious interest from collectors worldwide many of these models have re-emerged as highly collectable, often selling at very high prices. But the toys that feature here are neither pristine or shiny. Collected over the years by photographer Kim Sayer, their charm is in the chips, dents and worn paint work – toys that have been played with and loved. His affection for them is obvious, as each model is given its own delightful setting, reflecting a more gentle and innocent era. Visual puns abound – the Landrover, 'a fine model of a vehicle designed to go anywhere and do anything' climbs its way up a staircase, whilst the Avro York Airliner takes off from the ironing board, and an open-top sports car zooms along fighting the gale force winds of an electric fan. Many of the photographs also play off against the original marketing tagline used to sell the models: ‘Just look at the remarkable detail on this exciting model of Britain’s famous centurion tank. It is a welcome reinforcement for the playroom army.’ ‘Here is a fine new model, the Humber Police Patrol Car containing uniformed driver and patrolman.’ These are wonderful photographs that will appeal to all ages – particularly to those who will remember their days of short trousered bliss crawling about on the floor for hours on end, their imaginations fired by the splendour of their Dinky toys. |
||
.jpg)
|
|
STILL LIFE: KILLING TIME
ED CLARK Taken over the course of more than a year of exclusive access, this work applies large format still life photography to the context of a unique prison community, E Wing at Kingston Prison in Portsmouth. For eight years this was Britain’s only wing dedicated to holding elderly lifers: murderers, rapists, paedophiles and other violent criminals aged from their late 50s to over 80 years old. Still Life: Killing Time, is not simply a reportage about a particular prison. Elements of metaphor, abstraction and documentary explore the experience of long term incarceration and the passage of time, and touch on how ageing and physical decline affect the prison environment. The claustrophobia of these close up, deliberate and regular compositions reflects both the nature of the place and the experience of working in E Wing. The recurring motifs – bars, squares, boxes, grids – show the segmentation and ordering of time and space that is fundamental to prison life, while the details of the inmates’ possessions, notice-boards, walls, tables and bedsides suggest their state of mind and how they adapt to long term incarceration and getting old in an institution. Edmund Clark has built a reputation for combining strong ideas with an ability to work in sensitive situations and with people on the margins of society. His work combines still life, portrait and landscape to explore the relationship between environment, memory and the passage of time. His most recent exhibition was Faces and Memories of Centenarians at the Spitz Gallery, London, and at Bloomingdale’s, New York. A previous winner of a coveted ‘Gold Pencil’ at the New York One Show Advertising Awards, Clark’s work is also in major collections including the National Portrait Gallery. |
||
|
|
A SHORT HISTORY
OF PHOTOGRAPHY HARVEY BENGE introduced by Gerry Badger ‘While looking through his contact sheets, Harvey Benge noticed that one of his pictures reminded him of a ‘Friedlander’, another someone else. All photographers do this, and if the photograph in question apes another photographer too closely, it’s usually a cause for rejection. But Benge did the opposite. Picking out his ‘Friedlander’ and his ‘Parr’ and his ‘Baltz’ he decided to make an ‘anthology’ of contemporary photography featuring some of its biggest names. Yet they are all genuine, original Benges. They are also all good pictures, not mere pastiches of the ‘originals’ of which they gently but insistently remind one. This may be a game, but games can be very serious, and this fascinating book is both a serious and light-hearted exploration of photographic style.’ – Gerry Badger Working from both Paris and Auckland, New Zealander Harvey Benge has established an enviable international reputation with exhibitions throughout the world. He has published over a dozen books and has been a finalist of the Prix du Livre, Arles Festival, France. His work is held in many major collections. Gerry Badger is a well respected photo historian and critic. Co-author (with Martin Parr) of the two volume ‘The Photobook: A History’, he has also curated a number of exhibitions, including `Through the Looking Glass: Post-war British Photography’ for the Barbican Arts Centre, London. His published books include Collecting Photography (2003) and books on Eugene Atget and Chris Killip. He lives in London. |
||
.jpg)
|
Published in Association with |
BOMBAY MIX
KETAKI SHETH introduced by Suketu Mehta ‘Ketaki Sheth’s photographs, so formally interesting, so sharply seen, so deeply felt.’ Salman Rushdie ‘Sheth’s Bombay is subtle, considered and thoughtful, even when it is outwardly brutal.’ Suketu Mehta, author of ‘Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found’ ‘Stunning photographs…. Her work is terrific, fuelling me with energy and inspiration.’ Mira Nair Bombay Mix brings together the street photographs of leading Indian photographer Ketaki Sheth, images taken over a period of almost 20 years. Bombay is a city that never sleeps. Its population (17.7 million) and its geography put a premium on space. A lot of ‘living’ happens on the street, where a disparate and unlikely blend of humanity defines its boundaries in a tightly confined space. The thrill of Bombay is the thrill of contrast. The streetscape of the city is as much psychedelic as it is kaleidoscopic: there is so much to see. What is most difficult to discern is geometry, the internal order amidst the clutter. |
||
|
|
GREAT PHOTOGRAPHIC JOURNEYS
JOHN HANNAVY One hundred and fifty years ago travelling with a camera was both a novelty and an enormous challenge. The intrepid photographers who took their cameras to remote corners of the world brought back images which amazed their peers. Photographer and historian John Hannavy has recreated some of their epic journeys – travelling to Scotland along the route followed by William Henry Fox Talbot in 1844; recreating Charles Kinnear and Thomas Melville Raven’s 1857 journeys to France; exploring the Nile from Cairo to Abu Simbel along the route Francis Frith followed between 1856 and 1859; travelling through Russia and the Ukraine as Roger Fenton did in 1852 and 1855; across India from Calcutta to Simla following Samuel Bourne’s 1863 account of his travels; and exploring China and Cyprus as John Thomson did between 1863 and 1878. This beautifully illustrated book contrasts the Victorian world with our own, and looks at how our view of the world has changed in the intevening years. It chronicles the developments which have taken place in travel, architecture, culture, and of course photography itself. Professor John Hannavy has had a long involvement with photography and photographic history, and has been writing about the subject for over thirty years. He edited the recently published Encyclopaedia of 19th Century Photography, and has previously published many books and articles on travel, history, photography, and photographic history, and has written and presented two well-received series of television films on the history of photography for the BBC. |
||
.jpg)
|
|
LOVE, POWER, SACRIFICE
LIFE WITH THE JESUS ARMY JOHN ANGERSON introduced by William Shaw Photographed over twenty years, this is a portrait of the Jesus Army. For most of us, if we register them at all, they are the tambourine-wielding, gospel-singing fanatics who intrude on our Saturday morning shopping excursions. But for the members themselves, this charismatic Christian sect – often dismissed as a cult – is a total way of life. Founded in 1969 in Northamptonshire, England, believers are expected to renounce all their possessions, live in communes, and share all earnings. Their motto, and three basic tenets – Love, Power and Sacrifice – form the title of this book. It would be easy to ridicule belief, but instead photographer John Angerson has adopted another approach – a profoundly sympathetic authorial style which does not judge, or even simply chronicle, but seems to penetrate the very skin of a religious sect. What gives these photographs an eerie relevance today is that fanatical religious belief has, seemingly out of the blue, come to the foreground of contemporary life. From the Christian fundamentalist certainties that have underpinned recent American policy, to the Islamic extremism that has erupted everywhere from New York to London and Madrid, competing religious beliefs have redrawn the contours of the modern world. Angerson’s photographs provide a searing insight in a world within a world. By peering into this microcosm of fanatical religion we can begin to understand a phenomenon that it is no longer possible to ignore. |
||
.jpg)
|
|
THE VISITORS
CHARLOTTE CORY Charlotte Cory’s ‘Visitors’ are truly creatures of fantasy and fascination – each so delicately posed that we think “can that be real?” A noble tiger in full military regalia, a dejected donkey slumped in a chair in a sparse studio setting, a haughty kangaroo holding a cricket bat and gazing out at us dismissively. What kind of extraordinary creatures are these? Cory’s images rework cartes de visite, the photographic visiting cards that were a Victorian craze. Many millions were produced and are now so commonly discarded in junk shops that they are almost worthless. Can there be anything more poignant than a person got up in their best bib and tucker, preserved for a posterity that is no longer interested? Yet there is something assuredly sadder than discarded photographs of forgotten faces and family pets: all those stuffed animals in museums, shot long ago not on glass plates but with guns, their very bodies preserved for posterity to gawk at. Where did this moth-eaten lion sniff his last antelope? How many of us have stood with our noses pressed to the glass eyeing these captured creatures. The Visitors is a remarkable book that draws us into an imagined world of immense power and originality.In addition to her photographic work Charlotte Cory is an established novelist and writes regularly for BBC Radio. She has published three novels with Faber & Faber; her next historical novel will be published by Harper Collins. |
||
.jpg)
|
|
FLATLAND: A LANDSCAPE OF PUNJAB
MAX KANDHOLA Introduction by Alka Pande India’s Punjab is the land of the five rivers, five (Punj) rivers (Aab) – Ravi, Satluj, Chenab, Beas and Jhelum. It is also the birthplace of Max Kandhola’s family, who historically were landowners, with connections to farming, agriculture and also to the military. Max Kandhola decided to go back to Punjab after completing his project Illustration of Life (2002) in which he documented his father’s last moments of life, and reflected on issues within Sikh ritual, immortality and death. Over the last four years, he has visited the region as part of a continuing project to map family history through an odyssey of ancestral narratives, exploring memory, diaspora and identity. For him it is a land which is unfamiliar, yet it provides both a context and a beginning. Kandhola’s journey began in Nurmahal, in the district of Jalandhar, from which most of his family originally came. Using this as a starting point he travelled from the centre of Punjab outwards. Max Kandhola’s work and essays have been exhibited and published internationally and a touring exhibition of Flatland is currently in preparation. Kandhola lives in Birmingham and is Senior Lecturer in Photography at Nottingham Trent University. |
||
.jpg)
|
|
HOTEL AFRIQUE
Photographs by Stuart Franklin Text by Mark Sealy The elite hotels of Africa serve as an interface between the tribal, religious, social and cultural aspects of Africa and the global uniformity of international business culture. They are also the places where the unseen resources of many African countries – oil, diamonds, minerals – are bartered away behind closed doors. These are environments which have a strangely hybrid quality – their design, their cuisine, musak and global TV echoing ‘international’ standards. Yet they are ultimately sites of tension, where cultures collide and conflict. At the same time, however, these hotels are viewed by their local communities as symbols of achievement which contradict the more usual representations of Africa. Far from being despised as enclaves of the rich, these hotels have become ‘objects of desire’, the dream venue for weddings and where to be invited to a business conference is to have reached the pinnacle of success. And for most hotel employees there is the reassurance of wages that are higher than they could earn elsewhere and therefore their duties are carried out with pride and self-assurance. Stuart Franklin is a member of the prestigious photoagency MAGNUM PHOTOS of which he was president in 2006. He began his photographic career in the early 1980s and has since contributed to magazines world-wide. His work has also been widely exhibited and he has published four previous books. Mark Sealy is a well-known writer and commentator on photography. He is Director of Autograph ABP, an international photographic arts agency that addresses issues of cultural identity and human rights. |
||
|
|
SHUTTING UP SHOP
John Londei Shot over a fifteen-year period beginning in the early 1970s, Shutting Up Shop is a tribute to an era that has all but disappeared: the traditional small shops that feature have now almost all gone. In all there are 60 shops. Each one is unique, and their range diverse: from flowers to condoms, from tea to tobacco. As well as shops from London the series covers many regions of the UK, everywhere from the Isle of Harris to the Isle of Wight. As well as the photographs of the shops are their stories, vividly told through anecdote and interviews with the staff; for just as important as the shops were the shopkeepers, people who were cherished and seen as important members of their community. And how proud they were to be serving it! In 2004 Londei began the task of updating what had become of the shopkeepers and shops he’d photographed so long ago. His findings are included in the fascinating ‘afterword’ section of the book. Many had closed not long after the pictures were taken, others struggled on until the death or retirement of their owners; almost every single one had changed beyond recognition. John Londei is an award-winning advertising and editorial photographer. |
||
.jpg)
|
|
THE MOTHER OF ALL JOURNEYS
Dinu Li Shortlisted in the 2007 Rencontres d'Arles Photobook Award Inspired by the memories of his mother, originally told to Dinu Li as childhood bed-time stories, The Mother of All Journeys traces, through photographs and personal quotes, the story of a woman born in rural China and her escape to a new life via Hong Kong and eventually the industrial north of England. Li collaborated with his mother, using each other’s recollections as starting points and comparing the actual with the images lodged in their minds. Li’s photographs tease out fragmented moments in time, charting rural traditions from 1920s China and the communist ideologies of the late 1940s. Spanning two decades from the mid 50s, Li turns his attention to a Hong Kong changing from fishing village to urban metropolis. Under British administration, it was a time of sweatshops and western influence. Finally Li focuses on Britain, from the resettlement of his family there in the 70s, at a time of strikes and de-industrialisation, through to the millennium, and an era of multiculturalism and globalisation. Aided by family snapshots and Li’s mother’s narration, The Mother of All Journeys triggers a sense of repetition and nostalgia, invoking glimpses of the times we live in. Born in Hong Kong in1965, Dinu Li now lives in Manchester, England. His work has been widely exhibited both in the UK as well as abroad in shows in Beijing, Shanghai, Berlin and Toronto. |
||
|
|
GABRIELE BASILICO
WORK BOOK 1969 - 2006 introduced by Achille Bonito Oliva. This is the first complete monograph dedicated to the work of the Italian photographer Gabriele Basilico, who is recognised internationally as one of the most important contemporary landscape photographers. With more than 300 photographs included – from Glasgow to Tel-Aviv, from Milan to Beirut – it is a comprehensive overview of a major figure whose career has spanned almost 40 years. Born in Milan in 1944, Gabriele Basilico first studied architecture. This early training is reflected in his work and shows in his understanding of the landscape and architectural form. His landscapes avoid human presence and explore the complex interrelationships between the built environment and the natural one. Gabriele Basilico’s work has been widely exhibited in major international galleries worldwide and he has published over a dozen books on individual proejcts for publishers such as Thames & Hudson, Scalo, Phaidon and the Stedelijk Museum. This, however, is the first time that the extensive range of his work has been published in a single volume. A major retrospective of Basilico’s work began an international tour at the prestigious Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris in summer 2006. |
||
.jpg)
|
|
ANGOLA:
JOURNEY THROUGH CHANGE photographs by Sean Sutton Angola has the dubious distinction of being the most heavily landmine-contaminated country in the world. After nearly 40 years of bloody conflict, a peace agreement was finally reached in 2002, and hundreds of thousands of refugees began the journey back to their homelands. This is a story of re-establishing communities and of rebuilding lives shattered not only by the decades of conflict but also by the remnants of that conflict – the landmines and unexploded munitions that litter the country. The book is introduced by Heather Mills who is a patron of MAG and has campaigned vigorously on the issue of landmines. There are also texts by the renowned photojournalist Tim Page whose photographs during the Vietnam War were published worldwide; Lou McGrath, Director of MAG; Sean Sutton; and Benita Ferrero-Waldner Published in association with MAG and with support from EuropeAid. |
||
|
|
DARK DAYS
John Darwell In February 2001 Foot and Mouth Disease arrived in Cumbria. At its peak Cumbria was the worst affected county in Britain with a staggering 41% of all cases. For the local community the environmental and social consequences were to prove devastating. As a local resident, John Darwell found himself surrounded by the effects of the disease. Over the next twelve months he committed himself to recording what was taking place. Despite government reports to the contrary, the Cumbrian countryside became largely a ‘no-go’ area, whilst on the farms thousands of animals were destroyed, their bodies burnt on the now notorious pyres. The ultimate cleanup of the infected farms led to extraordinary lengths being taken to eradicate the virus. Dark Days represents one of the most complete records of this time and provides a powerful and emotive insight into one of the most dramatic and destructive periods in British farming history. |
||
dewi lewis publishing
8, Broomfield Road, Heaton Moor, Stockport SK4 4ND, England
Phone and fax: +44(0)161 442 9450
Email: mail@dewilewispublishing.com