Aaron Siskind's first monograph with a small group of exhibition ephemera including two Light Gallery invites addressed to his friend, Maria Lipkind (nee Cimino). After an initial career teaching English in public schools, Siskind joined and was actively involved in the New York Workers' Film and Photo League (1932-35) and later the Photo League (1936-41). He distanced himself from these groups in the early-forties, saying that 'the so-called documentary picture left me wanting something... For some reason or other, there was in me the desire to see the world clean and fresh and alive, as primitive things are clean and fresh and alive. He began experimenting with the medium's capacity for abstraction, making photographs of rocks, rust, graffiti and peeling plaster, echoing and influenced by his association with Franz Kline and the emerging Abstract Expressionist painters.

First edition; 4to (331 × 254 mm, 13 x 10 in); black-and-white photographs printed in relief halftone, design by Ivan Chermayeff, minor toning to edges; tan endpapers, black cloth-covered boards, titles stamped in silver and red on spine and in silver on upper side, minor wear to corners, photo-illustrated dust-jacket, printed in black and red, light wear to extremities, two short tears to top edge of upper panel, one with creasing, minor toning, light creasing to head of spine, with a leaf of paper laid in at title-page, also laid in are three exhibition invitations, one exhibition invitation/prospectus, and a press release, near-fine in an excellent dust-jacket; [112]pp.

The Book of 101 Books pp152-5; The Photobook: A History I, p250; The Open Book pp180-1.