Lee Friedlander - Cray At Chippewa Falls (PREVIEW PUBLICATION) - 1987

VERY RARE FOUR-PAGE "PREVIEW" PUBLICATION by famous American photographer Lee Friedlander -
for his brilliant factory photobook "Cray At Chippewa Falls".

"ONE OF THE MOST COVETABLE AND INSTRUCTIVE OF COMPANY PHOTOBOOKS"
- Gerry Bager -
("The Photobook: A History. Volume II", Martin Parr, Gerry Badger, page 199)

ONE OF LEE FRIEDLANDER'S RAREST BOOKS:
Lee Friedlander visited the company's locations in Wisconsin and Minnesota and created a personal vision of Cray Research through his photography. This, Lee Friedlander's eighth book, was commissioned by John Rollwagen, the president of Cray Research Inc., in commemoration of the company's 15th anniversary. The book was given to employees as a gift and never commercially sold.

One of Lee Friedlander's most successful books in a long and illustrious photobook career is Factory Valleys
(1982), where he combined urban landscapes from the United States' industrial heartland in Ohio with some of the finest portraits of factory workers since those of Lewis W Hine (see Volume I, page 126 and Volume |I, page 185). Some five years later he was invited by the president of Cray Research, John A Rollwagen to make a book along similar lines to celebrate the company's fifteenth anniversary.

"Cray was one of the most successful hi-tech companies of the 1980s boom and Friedlander was back in the territory with which he is most familiar: the white-collar suburbs. Although Factory Valleys described an essentially blue-collar world, Cray at Chippewa Falls is a similar mixture of urban landscapes and employee portraits. One might say that the landscapes are in familiar mode, but it is a mode that was virtually invented by Friedlander. It is always good to revisit the source and appreciate his skill - one of the signs of his mastery being the fact that he can work within his general style while rarely repeating himself or taking an easy option.
Friedlander made some frightening portraits of workers in Factory Valleys, images in which each individual seemed welded to his or her machine. In Cray at Chippewa Falls, given the nature of the commission, the employees' portraits are a little less demonic. Never-theless, they are a study in awesome concentration as their subjects face their computer screens. When at his best, no one photographs better or more naturally than Friedlander. In Cray at Chippewa Falls, he is so close to his best that this has become one of the most covetable and instructive of company photobooks."
(Gerry Badger in "The Photobook: A History. Volume II", Martin Parr, Gerry Badger, page 199 )

Welcome to the second "Factory Photobooks Auction" by Anatole Desachy (France) and Ecki Heuser (Germany).
Dive into the wonderful world of ‘Factory Photobooks’, an amazing genre for photobook collecting.
Discover the unknown work of renowned photographers and enjoy the unique, creative interaction of photography, typography, layout, design and material.

"To celebrate and commemorate the 15th anniversary of the founding of Cray Research, Inc., I commissioned a work of art by renowned photographer Lee Friedlander. During 1986, Mr. Friedlander visited our locations in Wisconsin and Minnesota and created a personal vision of Cray Research through his photography. The photographs have been reproduced as a book that will be presented to you on our company's 15th anniversary, April 6, 1987.
Mr. Friedlander was born on July 14, 1934 in Aberdeen, Washington, and currently resides in New City, New York. He has received numerous fellowships and awards, such as the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship and the National Endowment for the Arts. He has mounted solo exhibitions in museums and galleries throughout the world, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Photographer's Gallery, London, Gallerie Zabriskie, Paris, and Watari Gallery, Tokyo. His work is represented in the permanent collections of many museums worldwide.
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts has made a significant commitment to collecting Friedlander works. In addition to seven portfolios, Mr. Friedlander has created seven books of photographs. His eighth book is CRAY AT CHIPPEWA FALLS."
(John Rollwagen, president of Cray Research, in his introduction of the preview publication)

Lee Friedlander is famous for so many fantastic photobooks, starting with "Self Portraits" (1970, Andrew Roth, The Book of 101 Books, page 198/199; Martin Parr, The Photobook, vol 1, page 258; The Open Book, Hasselblad Center, page 262/263; 802 photo books of the M. + M. Auer collection, page 514), following books like "The American Monument" (Andrew Roth, The Book of 101 Books, page 236/237. Martin Parr & Gerry Badger, The Photobook, vol 2, page 28. The Open Book, Hasselblad Center, page 310. 802 photo books of the M. + M. Auer collection, page 600).

This is a lot by 5Uhr30.com (Ecki Heuser, Cologne, Germany).
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A Cray Research, Inc. Book Minneapolis, Minnesota. 1987. First edition, first printing.

Two black and white plates for the printed book of the same name, in matching stiff wrappers (card stock folder) with self-closing flap. 303 x 290 mm. 4 pages. 2 black and white photos. Photos: Lee Friedlander. Text in English.

Condition:
Inside fresh and clean with no marks and with no foxing. Folder outside with light trace of use; small stain at the top middle of the front, tiny bump at the bottom right corner, also tiny dog-ear at the bottom right corner of the two pages. Overall fine condition.

Very rare preview publication by Lee Friedlander.

Lee Friedlander's work is widely known for transforming our visual understanding of contemporary American culture. Known for passionately embracing all subject matter, Friedlander photographed nearly every facet of American life from the 1950s to the present. From factories in Pennsylvania, to the jazz scene in New Orleans, to the deserts of the Southwest, Friedlander's complex formal visual strategies continue to influence the way we understand, analyze, and experience modern American experience. Friedlander's work continues to influence photographic practice internationally, in part due to the heightened sense of self-awareness that is a trademark of so many of his photographs and in part because of his ability to embrace wide-ranging subject matter, always interpreting it in an elegance that hadn't existed prior to his work.

'Lee Friedlander, born 1934, is an American photographer and artist. In the 1960s and 1970s, Friedlander evolved an influential and often imitated visual language of urban 'social landscape', with many of his photographs including fragments of store-front reflections, structures framed by fences, posters and street signs. His work is characterized by its innovative use of framing and reflection, often using the natural environment or architectural elements to frame his subjects. Over the course of his career, Friedlander has been the recipient of numerous awards and his work has been exhibited in major museums and galleries worldwide (Museum of Modern Art, New York. Corcoran Gallery of Art. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne).'
(Wikipedia)