Synopsis
In 1836, the landscape painter and conservationist Thomas Cole completed "View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm (The Oxbow)," his iconic painting of the Connecticut River where it bends like an ox yoke. Nearly 200 years later, Joel Sternfeld walked into the field depicted in the lower right quadrant of Cole's painting--which he had first photographed in 1978 while traveling for his seminal American Prospects series--and began making almost daily photographs. By 2006, the oxbow in the river was crossed by an interstate highway and the destructive effects of progress which Cole had so feared were making themselves apparent globally as climate change. This volume collects 77 of the quietly haunting photographs that Sternfeld made over the next year-and-a-half. His choice of subject matter--a flat, unremarkable corn and potato field--signals a conceptual stance away from previous nature depictions: His field is neither beautiful, nor sublime, nor picturesque. Its flatness offers an eloquent emptiness, as well as a vessel for the true subject of this work--the effects of human consumption upon the natural world. Following Sternfeld's Sweet Earth: Experimental Utopias in America and When It Changed, this volume resounds with political and cultural implications.
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Joel Sternfeld: Oxbow Archive
Published by
Steidl, Germany, 2008
ISBN 10: 3865217869
ISBN 13: 9783865217868
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Seller: Acadia Art & Rare Books. Est. 1931, Toronto, ON, Canada
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Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. 1st Edition. Hardcover with white cloth boards and tipped-in illustrations to front and rear. Copiously illustrated throughout, all in color. White cloth covers slightly soiled and green and purple stains to lower edge of rear panel. Interior clean and unmarked. Large Oblong 4to. Seller Inventory # 032564
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Joel Sternfeld: Oxbow Archive
Published by
Steidl International Photography, Germany, 2008
ISBN 10: 3865217869
ISBN 13: 9783865217868
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Book Condition: Very Good, with slight toning to page edges - please see photographs. No Dust Jacket as originally published, with photographs inserted onto front and back cloth boards - please see photographs. **Heavy Item additional postage may be required. This will be calculated at time of purchase.**. Seller Inventory # 0897
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Oxbow Archive
Published by
Steidl International Photography, Germany, 2008
ISBN 10: 3865217869
ISBN 13: 9783865217868
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Seller: 1968agency, Montecatini Terme, PT, Italy
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On a summer morning in 1833, Thomas Cole, a British-born, American landscape painter climbed to the top of Mount Holyoke in central Massachusetts and made a sketch of the Connecticut River where it bends and resembles an ox yoke. Three years later the sketch he made that morning became "View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm" ('The Oxbow'). The four by six foot painting, now a key work of American art has been described as Cole's attempt to create a moving time/space panorama within a single frame - the passage of time is represented by the ongoing fury of the storm on the mountain as sunshine returns to the meadow below. Cole was skeptical about progress and the painting may represent a warning about the clearing of wilderness to make open land for farms and factories.Nearly two hundred years after Cole painted "The Oxbow", the American photographic artist, Joel Sternfeld, walked into the mile square field depicted in the lower right quadrant of Cole's painting. Sternfeld had first photographed this field in 1978 while traveling on American Prospects and by the time he returned in 2006, the Oxbow in the river was crossed by an interstate highway and the destructive effects of progress that Cole had feared were making themselves apparent globally as climate change. Sternfeld spent the next year and a half walking that field, commuting to it on an almost daily basis from his home in southern Vermont. His archive is a record of classic New England seasonality, a nature study unlike any other as it is made with the foreknowledge that because of global warming it will never be the same again. His choice of subject matter, a flat unremarkable corn and potato field (archetypal new world crops), signals a conceptual stance away from previous nature depictions: his field is neither Beautiful, nor Sublime, nor Picturesque. The flatness of the field, an unusual stretch of visual freedom in the New England highlands offers an eloquent emptiness and a vessel for the true subject his work: iconic seasonal effect as manifestation of the orbiting Earth. Sternfeld's time landscape is also a companion piece to Sweet Earth: Experimental Utopias in America and to When It Changed (pictures at the Montreal Climate Change Conference) and needs to be understood in terms of the political and cultural resonances of those works. 144 pages Hardback / Clothbound 28 x 31 cm English ISBN 978-3-86521-786-8 1. Edition 09/2008 Out of print CONDITION: Due to its vintage condition, the book shows signs of wear on the hardcover (see images); the inside is perfect. There is a small tear on the last page. Seller Inventory # ABE-1775808491752
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