Signed; Henry Maitek - Jugend - 1980

A very nice book documenting youth culture in captivating black and white images by the German photographer Henry Maitek, this title signed by him and thus very rare.

Henry Maitek (1922–2007) was a renowned German-Jewish photographer whose youth and early adulthood were shaped by persecution during the Nazi era and his survival of the Holocaust. Youth and Persecution. Maitek was born in Sosnowitz (Poland) in 1922. His youth came to an abrupt end with the Nazi invasion. He endured a four-and-a-half-year odyssey through a total of ten concentration camps, including Blechhammer, Groß-Rosen, Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen. On 16 April 1945, he was liberated by the US Army – a date he later described as his ‘day of second birth’.

The body of work titled 'Jugend' (Youth) was published in the 1980s. The volume contains photographs depicting young people in various life situations. Typical of Maitek’s style is the “humanistic gaze” – he often captured people in snapshots that radiate dignity and individuality. The work contains texts by authors such as Erik Emig, Paul Karlas and Dr Horst Heißer.

Condition: very good, outside with minor signs of handling, a bit rubbed, inside clean and unmarked, just a prior owner's stamp on the front endpaper, signed by the photographer.