SMITH, Edwin (1912-1971)

[Photobook] A View of the Cotswolds

Risbury, Herefordshire: The Whittington Press, 2005. Limited Edition. Hardcover. Number 22 of 350 copies set in Poliphilus and Fry's Baskerville types and printed at the Whittington Press on sand-colored Bugra-Butten mould-made paper. With essays, commentaries, and a checklist by Alan Powers, George Ramsden, Veronica Watts, Edwin Smith, Shawn Kholucy, Ian Mackenzie-Kerr, and Rory Young. Royal 8vo (342 x 244mm): [6],50pp, with 32 tritone photographic plates. Publisher's half charcoal-grey coarsely woven cloth over repeat pattern paper-covered boards after a wood engraving by Edwin Smith, spine lettered in silver, title page printed in orange and black, black end papers. An exemplary example in original matching slip case, tightly bound and clean throughout. Fine. Item #BB2311

During the 1950s and 1960s, Smith and his wife, the artist and writer Olive Cook, bicycled throughout England, recording, with a half-plate camera mounted on a mahogany tripod, church and country-house architecture, landscapes and gardens, and vernacular buildings dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Cotswolds views presented here date from those sojourns, and celebrate the local style and exquisite harmony of churches and tombstones, manor houses and cottages, created using the same pale honey and ochre limestone. Smith trained as an architect and thought of himself as a painter, but he was also a preeminent photographer, publishing more than thirty volumes of his work. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.).

Price: $274.00