{"title":"Roy Decarava","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"sweet-flypaper-of-life-book-roy-decarava-9780999843819","title":"The Sweet Flypaper of Life","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe Sweet Flypaper of Life is a \"poem\" about ordinary people, about teenagers around a jukebox, about children at an open fire hydrant, about riding the subway alone at night, about picket lines and artist work spaces. This renowned, life-affirming collaboration between artist Roy DeCarava and writer Langston Hughes honors in words and pictures what the authors saw, knew, and felt deeply about life in their city.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Hughes's heart-warming description of Harlem in the late 1940s and early 1950s is seen through the eyes of one grandmother, Sister Mary Bradley. We experience the sights and sounds of Harlem as seen through her learned and worldly eyes, expressed here through Hughes's poetic prose. As she states, \"I done got my feet caught in the sweet flypaper of life and I'll be dogged if I want to get loose.\" DeCarava's photographs lay open a world of sense and feeling that begins with his perception and vision. The ruminations go beyond the limit of simple observation and contend with deeper meanings to reveal these individuals as subjects worthy of art. While Hughes states \"We've had so many books about how bad life is, maybe it's time to have one showing how good it is,\" the photographs bring us back to this lively dialogue and a complex reality, to a resolution that stands with the optimism of the photographic medium and the certainty of DeCarava's artistic moment.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e In 1952 DeCarava became the first African American photographer to win a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship. The grant enabled DeCarava to focus on the photography he had been creating since the mid-1940s and to complete The Sweet Flypaper of Life , a moving, photo-poetic work in the urban setting of Harlem. DeCarava compiled a set of images from which Hughes chose 141 and adeptly supplied a fictive narration, reflecting on life in that city-within-a-city. First published in 1955, the book, widely considered a classic of photographic visual literature, was reprinted by public demand several times. This fourth printing, the Heritage Edition, is the first authorized English-language edition since 1983 and includes an afterword by Sherry Turner DeCarava tracing the history and ongoing importance of this book.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49659661680913,"sku":"GOR012923616","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49732536926481,"sku":"NGR9780999843819","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50476544393489,"sku":"CIN0999843818G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50814112629009,"sku":"GOR009925534","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51416788173073,"sku":"CIN0999843818VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53631101567249,"sku":"GOR009909176","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0999843818.jpg?v=1774518915"},{"product_id":"roy-decarava-the-sound-i-saw-book-roy-decarava-9781644230107","title":"Roy DeCarava: the sound i saw","description":"Roy DeCarava: the sound i saw is the pictorial equivalent of jazz. Here the visionary photographer turns his gaze on legendary jazz icons John Coltrane, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington and Ornette Coleman, among many others.   “This is a book about people, about jazz, and about things. The work between its covers tries to present images for the head and for the heart and, like its subject matter, is particular, subjective, and individual,” writes DeCarava. A master of poetic contemplation and of sensual tonalities in black and white, DeCarava is, above all, a photographer of people. A member of the post–World War II generation that sought a new modernist vocabulary, he was first recognized for his innovative images of life in Harlem (the subject of The Sweet Flypaper of Life, his 1955 collaboration with poet Langston Hughes) and extraordinary portraits of jazz musicians like John Coltrane, Duke Ellington, and Billie Holiday. It is these two themes—New York and jazz—interwoven and inseparable, that are the ostensible subject of the sound i saw. However, the seemingly casual yet deeply felt compositions and the rich, gradient tones of DeCarava’s photographs stir emotions that resonate far beyond one neighborhood and one era.  Conceived, designed, written, and made as an artist maquette by DeCarava in the early 1960s, the sound i saw went unpublished for almost half a century until it was printed by Phaidon in 2001. At its core is a visual and philosophical journey to plumb the meaning of a creative life. The artist’s intention in proposing a complex relationship between vision and music moves his comprehensive, decade-long reflection to the status of a magnum opus. This new edition, co-published by First Print Press and David Zwirner Books, includes new scholarship by Radiclani Clytus, and reflections by Sherry Turner DeCarava.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49733094998289,"sku":"NGR9781644230107","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51118795063569,"sku":"GOR011100968","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1644230100.jpg?v=1751121092"},{"product_id":"sweet-flypaper-of-life-book-roy-decarava-9780999843826","title":"The Sweet Flypaper of Life","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":49954289156369,"sku":"CIN0999843826A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50146519154961,"sku":"CIN0999843826G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50953272557841,"sku":"GOR013099854","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52582220103953,"sku":"GOR014556005","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0999843826.jpg?v=1751439821"},{"product_id":"sound-i-saw-book-roy-decarava-9780714843315","title":"The Sound I Saw","description":"This is the long-awaited publication of a moving masterwork by one of the greatest photographers of our time. Conceived, designed, written and made by hand as a prototype by master photographer Roy DeCarava (b.1919) in the early 1960s, yet unpublished for nearly half a century, The Sound I Saw has largely existed as a legend among the cognoscenti of the photography world. Presented as a stream of 196 soulful images interspersed with DeCarava's own evocative poetry, the book is, in its form and effect, the printed equivalent of jazz. \"This is a book about people, about jazz, and about things. The work between its covers tries to present images for the head and for the heart and, like its subject matter, is particular, subjective, and individual,\" writes the author.   DeCarava is a life-long New Yorker who from his immediate world creates images that transcend the specific to depict universal themes of joy, anticipation, pain and survival. Largely unpublished, he was first recognized for his images of daily life in Harlem (the subject of The Sweet Flypaper of Life, his 1955 collaboration with Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes) and portraits of musicians like Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday. It is these two themes, Harlem and jazz, interwoven and inseparable, that are the ostensible subject of the book. However, the seemingly casual yet deeply felt compositions and the deep, rich tones of DeCarava's photographs stir emotions that resonate far beyond one neighbourhood and one era.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50098517246225,"sku":"CIN0714843318G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50360243421457,"sku":"CIN0714843318A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0714843318.jpg?v=1751361051"},{"product_id":"roy-decarava-light-break-book-roy-decarava-9781644230251","title":"Roy DeCarava: Light Break","description":"Light Break presents the first survey since 1996 of photographer Roy DeCarava, an essential figure of American art and culture, whose “poetry of vision” re-forms urban life, labor, love, and jazz into the discovery of “an intimate, emotional arc of transformation.”  Though DeCarava often refrained from public discussion of his work, this catalogue provides important background into determining factors of his aesthetic sensibility—his traditional training in painting and printmaking as well as his philosophical undertakings. It brings the viewer to a consideration of contradictory precepts in DeCarava’s work that seeks resolution through tonal and structural elements within the image.  Light Break presents a wide-ranging selection of DeCarava’s photographs accompanied by a preface by Zoé Whitley, an American curator based in London, and features an introduction and essay by curator and art historian Sherry Turner DeCarava. Titled “Celebration,” Turner DeCarava’s essay considers the artist’s singular poetic vision, his timeless portrayals of individuals and places, and his mastery of composition and photographic printmaking.  As Whitley writes, “In making photographs, as in life, DeCarava was patient. Possessing both a peerless self-awareness and acute observational skills, he knew intuitively when to wait and when to open the camera’s shutter. In the dark room, he availed himself of these same attributes, moving with steady assurance to develop his prints so as to allow the full range of what he called his ‘infinite scale of grey tones’—often realized at the deepest end of the spectrum—to emerge slowly and fully.”  Published on the occasion of two concurrent exhibitions of DeCarava’s work at David Zwirner New York in 2019, this exquisite volume showcases a dynamic range of images that underscore DeCarava’s subtle mastery of tonal and spatial elements across a wide, fascinating array of subject.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50398816665873,"sku":"CIN1644230259G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":53130968301841,"sku":"NGR9781644230251","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1644230259.jpg?v=1750992392"},{"product_id":"roy-decarava-photographs-book-roy-decarava-9780933286269","title":"Roy Decarava, Photographs","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51878787678481,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51878787776785,"sku":"GOR007157565","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780933286269.jpg?v=1754380549"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-roy-decarava.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}