Talisman (1986)

Arthur Tress's desire to use photography as "an evocation of the sacred by magical means" is indicated by his choice of Talisman as the title for this collection of his work.

Born in Brooklyn in 1940, Tress first used a camera as a young teenager, documenting the dilapidated amusement parks of Coney Island to capture the brutality and lyricism of big city life. In the mid-1960s, he began working on commission as an ethnographic photographer, traveling as far afield as Africa, Alaska, Mexico, and Japan in order to create symbolic records of the customs of other peoples; he also produced photo-journalistic essays on subjects closer to home, such as the poor communities of the Appalachians, in a sober mode influenced by W. Eugene Smith and by the work associated with the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s. Tress's photography since the late 1960s, which is the subject of this book, continues to bear the imprint of these early experiences. The mood of abandoned desolation which intrigued him as a child still guides his imagination, while his detached observation of the complexities of human behaviour has provided his characteristic portraits with their psychological incisiveness. - from the book

Title: Talisman
Publisher: Museum Of Modern Art Oxford
Publication Date: 1986
Language: English
Binding: Softcover
Book Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: N/A
Edition: First Edition
Size: 24 x 22 cm
Pages: 156