München, Paris, London: Schirmer/Mosel, 1993. First edition, first printing. Paperback. No pagination (96 p) featuring 47 full color and duotone photographs. Text by Jeannine Fiedler. Language: German. A very fine copy in a fine cover showing a very light crease in lower right corner.
Focus on Outerbridge's platinum and silver bromide prints from the 1920s and the tri-carbo-color prints from 1935-1939, a notoriously difficult print-form with each of the Carbo prints taking Outerbridge around nine hours to complete.
A great introduction to one of the pioneers of color photography, anticipating e.g. William Eggleston's and other 'new color' work, but also David Lynch's use of color and photography in Blue Velvet.
Paul Outerbridge Jr (NY, 1896) was a designer and illustrator before he started making photographs in the early 1920s. Working for Vogue in Paris, he befriended Picasso, Man Ray, Duchamp, Picabia, Stravinsky and Alfred Stieglitz, becoming Edward Steichen's biggest rival.
Dissed by photography pope John Szarkowski (who had been appointed by Steichen to become his successor as director of the MOMA's photography department) for making 'commercial illustrations', Outerbridge was actually a pioneer in applying Modernist aesthetic principles to commercial photography.
Overall, a photograph, Outerbridge wrote, should give viewers a more complete appreciation of beauty, 'or even a good mental kick in the pants.
If you don't purchase the book to discover more about Outerbridge's role as an influential pioneer of color photography, you might consider buying it to study his great cubist still lives, or better even, to enjoy some of his controversial 'fetishistic, borderline-kinky' (NYT) nudes. Check out the nudes with masks, or the great nude with the meat packer's gloves.