Blair, Richard and Ed Blair — New York 1969

Point Reyes Station, CA, Color & Light Editions, 2015. First Edition. Hardcover. Black cloth with BW illus. on front cover, black & illus. dust jacket, illus. flyleaves, 207 pp. many BW illus. New York street photography by Richard Blair (b. 1948), with poems by his father, Hugh Ed Blair. "The 60s were a time of great change: baby boomers were coming into their own; independent from their parents. The Vietnam war was raging, hippies were getting very high, and gloomy talk in New York City was of bankruptcy. Richard Blair was roaming the streets taking dramatic photographs of the city, while his father Ed Blair was living with the Beats in the East Village, performing in off-off Broadway plays and reading his remarkable poetry to the avant-garde. This book is a collaboration of a father and son, whose work in these different art forms has something in common; a love and respect for the common man, (particularly the vulnerable), whimsy and humor, and a subtle underlying sense of the blues. The photographs were mostly taken in the late sixties and the poems written a few years earlier. It is an unusual pairing, poetry and photography, but the father and son relationship which made this book possible was a deep one." (dj) SIGNED BY THE PHOTOGRAPHER on half title page. Scarce. VG (SIGNED BY PHOTOGRAPHER on half tp.) .