Author | Richard Avedon & Truman Capote |
---|---|
Language | English |
Genre | Photography |
Publisher | Simon & Schuster |
Publication date | 1959 |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print Hardback |
Pages | 151 pp |
OCLC | 1455816 |
Observations is a collaborative coffee table book with photography by Richard Avedon, commentary by Truman Capote and design by Alexey Brodovitch. It features a slipcase with color, all-capitalized lettering; the book itself is further housed in a clear acetate/glassine slip cover and is printed with the same bold design as the slipcase in black-and-white. Simon & Schuster published the work in 1959 having it printed using the photogravure method in Lucerne, Switzerland.
Avedon and Capote started collaboration on the book in 1945.
Observations contains numerous portraits of famous people of the twentieth century, including Pablo Picasso, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Katharine Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe and Mae West.
Isak Dinesen was initially insulted by Capote's description of her, but forgave him shortly before her death in 1962. [1]
Kerry William Purcell contends the book's design represents the pinnacle of Alexey Brodovitch's book designs. [2]
The book is a sought-after collectors item and typically sells for hundreds of dollars, even when not in ideal condition.
Truman Garcia Capote was an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright, and actor. Several of his short stories, novels, and plays have been praised as literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958) and the true crime novel In Cold Blood (1966). His works have been adapted into more than 20 films and television productions.
Richard Avedon was an American fashion and portrait photographer. He worked for Harper's Bazaar, Vogue and Elle specializing in capturing movement in still pictures of fashion, theater and dance. An obituary published in The New York Times said that "his fashion and portrait photographs helped define America's image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century".
Music for Chameleons (1980) is a collection of short fiction and non-fiction by the American author Truman Capote. Capote's first collection of new material in fourteen years, Music for Chameleons spent sixteen weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, unprecedented for a collection of short works.
Answered Prayers is an unfinished novel by American author Truman Capote, published posthumously in 1986 in England and 1987 in the United States.
The Grass Harp is a novel by Truman Capote published on October 1, 1951 It tells the story of an orphaned boy and two elderly ladies who observe life from a tree. They eventually leave their temporary retreat to make amends with each other and other members of society.
Alexey Vyacheslavovich Brodovitch was a Russian-American photographer, designer and instructor who is most famous for his art direction of fashion magazine Harper's Bazaar from 1934 to 1958.
The Muses Are Heard is an early journalistic work of Truman Capote. Originally published in The New Yorker, it is a narrative account of the cultural mission by The Everyman's Opera to the U.S.S.R. in the mid-1950s.
Breakfast at Tiffany's is a novella by Truman Capote published in 1958. In it, a contemporary writer recalls his early days in New York City, when he makes the acquaintance of his remarkable neighbor, Holly Golightly, who is one of Capote's best-known creations. In 1961 it was adapted into a major motion picture of the same name.
The Black and White Ball was a masquerade ball held on November 28, 1966, at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Hosted by author Truman Capote, the ball was in honor of The Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham. He copied the idea of the black and white ball and My Fair Lady "Ascot theme" from an extravagant no-expense-spared black and white ball held two years earlier by Dominick Dunne and his wife Lenny to celebrate their 10th anniversary at their Santa Monica home. Attendees included such big names as the Ronald and Nancy Reagan, the Bloomingdales, Peter Lawford and Patricia Kennedy, David Niven, Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood and Hope Lange to name but a few. Capote was invited and attended. He did not reciprocate and did not invite Doninick Dunne to his ball in 1966.
The Thanksgiving Visitor is a short story by Truman Capote originally published in the November 1967 issue of McCall's magazine, and later published as a book by Random House, Inc. in 1968. The story takes the form of a childhood tale about a boy and his bully problem. The story has a strong moral lesson related to revenge. It is a sequel to Capote's A Christmas Memory.
Summer Crossing is the second novel written by American author Truman Capote. He started the novel in about 1943 and worked on it intermittently for several years before putting it aside. Capote's manuscript came to light almost 20 years after Capote's death and the novel published in 2005.
Other Voices, Other Rooms is a 1948 novel by Truman Capote. It is written in the Southern Gothic style and is notable for its atmosphere of isolation and decadence.
"Miriam" is a short story written by Truman Capote. It was originally published in the June 1945 issue of Mademoiselle. "Miriam" was one of Capote's first published short stories, and in 1946 it earned an O. Henry Award in the category Best First-Published Story.
The Dogs Bark: Public People and Private Places is an anthology of works by American author Truman Capote. It was published on September 12, 1973 and includes essays from Local Color and Observations, as well as The Muses Are Heard.
"A Diamond Guitar" is a short story by Truman Capote, first published in Harper's Bazaar in 1950; it is noted as one of his better quality early short stories. The title refers to the prize possession of the younger man, a rhinestone-studded guitar; the guitar serves as the key image of the story.
Local Color is the third published book by the American author Truman Capote, released in the Fall of 1950. Local Color includes notes and sketches about persons and places, including travel journal-style essays on cities and countries Capote had lived in or visited.
A Tree of Night and Other Stories is a short story collection by the American author Truman Capote published in early 1949. The title story, "A Tree of Night", was first published in Harper’s Bazaar in October 1945.
"Children on Their Birthdays" is a short story by Truman Capote, published serially in the late 1940s and appearing in A Tree of Night and Other Stories in 1949; it is noted as one of his better quality early short stories.
David Attie was a prominent American photographer, widely published in magazines and books from the late 1950s until his passing in the 1980s. He was one of the last great proteges of legendary photography teacher and art director Alexey Brodovitch. Attie worked in a wide range of styles, illustrating everything from novels to magazine and album covers to subway posters, and taking now-iconic portraits of Truman Capote, Bobby Fischer, Lorraine Hansberry, and many others. He also created the first-ever visual depiction of Holly Golightly, the main character in Breakfast at Tiffany's, when he illustrated the Capote novella's first appearance in Esquire Magazine. He was best known in his lifetime for his signature photo montages—an approach he called "multiple-image photography": highly inventive, pre-Photoshop collages that he made by combining negatives in the darkroom. His work has received new attention with a pair of posthumous books: the well-reviewed 2015 publication of his Capote collaboration "Brooklyn: A Personal Memoir, With The Lost Photographs of David Attie," and the 2021 collection of his behind-the-scenes photographs from the very first season of Sesame Street, "The Unseen Photos of Street Gang." He has been the subject of several solo exhibits in recent years, including a two-year retrospective at the Brooklyn Historical Society. One recent critic wrote that even decades later, "his explorations of photomontage remain durably inspired, innovative, and visually dynamic."
Brooklyn Heights: A Personal Memoir is an autobiographical essay by Truman Capote about his life in Brooklyn in the late 1950s. While it was eventually combined with the original photo illustrations by David Attie in a coffee table edition, and has been included in anthologies as well, it was first published in the February 1959 issue of the mid-century travel magazine Holiday.