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Webb, Todd "Colorado - Pikes Peak or Bust" - Drafts for a Portion of a Noted Photography Book, circa 1960. 26, [18] (numbered to 16) pp. + ms envelope, a bit of creasing and age toning, still very good plus Two typed drafts, both with copious handwritten amendments, for a portion of author and photographer Todd Webb's book, "GOLD STRIKES AND GHOST TOWNS: A Photographic Tour Through the Historic Mining Camps and Ghost Towns," published by Doubleday in 1961. The work would become Section 3 of the book, entitled "Colorado - Pikes Peak or Bust." Award winning photographer Todd Webb (1905 - 2000) was known for his keen eye for everyday life and architecture and published books of his work on the American West as well as cities like Paris and New York. He was a bank teller in Detroit who moved at the onset of the Great Depression to California where he tried his hand at prospecting and worked as a fire ranger for the United States Forestry Service. Webb returned to Detroit and in 1940 completed a tenā day photography workshop taught by Ansel Adams. During World War II he was a photographer for the United States Navy, and in 1945 he moved to New York City and embarked on his professional career. The following year he had his first solo exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York and he was hired by "Fortune" magazine in 1947. In 1955, Webb was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to photographically record pioneer trails of early settlers of the western United States; during that year he walked from New York City to San Francisco, making pictures all the way. He won a contract to photograph Sub-Saharan Africa in 1958, shooting extensively in Ghana, Sudan, Togo, Somalia, Tanzania and Ethiopia. These images were published in 2021 as a book to complement his exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Webb moved to Santa Fe, befriended Georgia O'Keeffe, and in 1961 published a book entitled "Georgia O'Keeffe: The Artist's Landscape." His work has been displayed in 25 major museum collections including the New York MOMA and the National Gallery of Art in D.C. The text posited that "the stampede to the Pikes Peak region in 1859 was more the whim of a restless nation than the result of a fabulous gold discovery. It was the wishful thinking of a nation in the throes of a depression, with a memory of the excitement and riches of the California Gold Rush." It covers numerous towns and cities throughout the state, presenting fascinating anecdotes of particular prospectors, tidbits of history and little-known Colorado lore. Webb's photographic archive is located in Portland, Maine, where reproduction rights and sales of his prints are managed. The University of Arizona has a collection of his papers. Seller Inventory # 1576
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