[Nijinsky, Waslaw. (1889-1950)] [Adolph de Meyer. (1868 - 1949)]
Nijinsky. L'Après-midi d'un Faune. 1912. Thirty-three Photographs by Baron Adolphe de Meyer. Palladium Prints by Richard Benson.
New York and London: Eakins Press and Dance Books . [1978]. First Edition thus. Folio (460 x 355 mm.). 33 palladium prints of various sizes (most c. 220 x c. 180 mm.) by Richard Benson after Adolphe de Meyer. Publisher's original cloth-covered binding, printed label on the upper cover. Copy 3 of 250, signed by Benson. Contained in the original cardboard carton, worn.One of 250 numbered copies signed by Benson, who has produced splendid palladium prints from the famous suite published by baron Adolphe de Meyer in 1914. Of that original publication, which included only thirty images, only four copies are known to exist. The present edition added three additional images by De Meyer discovered in the Performing Arts Collection of the New York Public Library. An elegant and beautiful book.
This copy formerly in the Collection of Pulitzer-Prize-winning poet Frank Bidart, whose thirty-page work "The War of Vaslav Nijinsky" is at the center of his 1983 volume The Sacrifice. Critic David Lehman praised Bidart’s technique of alternating portions of the dancer’s monologue with prose sections on Nijinsky’s life, noting that “the result combines a documentary effect with an intensity rare in contemporary poetry.” (20180)
Signed Photograph Dance