Kenna, Michael. Huangshan. Poems from the T'ang Dynasty. One of sixty numbered and signed copies

KENNA, MICHAEL (PHOTOGRAPHER) 

HUANGSHAN. POEMS FROM THE T'ANG DYNASTY. SOUTH DENNIS, MASSACHUSETTS: STEVEN ALBAHARI, 21ST EDITIONS, PRINTED BY MICHAEL RUSSEM AT THE KAT RAN PRESS, [2010]

Folio (16 x 14 in.; 406 x 356 mm). 13 platinum prints, 12 tipped into the work and one housed separately in the publisher's paper folder, each signed on verso by Kenna, the photographs printed for Kenna by John Marcy at 21st Editions, poems translated by Stanton Hager, edited and with an introduction by John Wood, text set in Centaur and Arrighi by Michael and Winifred Bixler. Publisher's silk, designed and made by Mark Tomlinson. Publisher's silk covered box.

One of sixty numbered and signed copies

In Kenna's masterful photographs illustrating Huangshan, ethereal mists run like rivers haunting the mountains and valleys of one of China's most picturesque lands. Kenna, one of the world's greatest art photographers, has arguably captured the essence of Huangshan more perfectly than it has ever been captured before. The hand coated, signed platinum prints are accompanied by some of the greatest masterpieces of Chinese poetry, including many by famed mountain poet Han Shan (Cold Mountain), all of which are translated by Stanton Hager.

"Michael Kenna's landscapes have always had the subtle magic of Chinese painting and poetry...It was immediately evident to me that Kenna could not be creating such work were he not sharing an aesthetic and spiritual affinity with the sources of Chinese art. One does not simply take a camera to China, point, click, and return with such pictures. I could not guess how many photographs of China and its mountains I've seen, but I had never before seen any that looked like Michael Kenna's-even those by contemporary Chinese photographers. The source of Kenna's imagery clearly came from within him but mirrored an earlier Chinese way of seeing..." (Introduction by John Wood).