The Luminous Years, Photographs by Karl Bissinger, Ex Libris Gore Vidal
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[Ex Libris Gore Vidal] Bissinger, Karl. The Luminous Years, Portraits at Mid-Century. First Edition. 2003. Book and dust jacket are both in very good condition. Book is stamped “From the library of GORE VIDAL” on the flyleaf. Introduction by Gore Vidal. Edited by Catherine Johnson.
No other photographer so expertly captured the magic of midcentury Bohemia than did Karl Bissinger. He eschewed the portrait studio then so popular. Instead, he preferred to capture subjects such as Truman Capote, James Baldwin, Jane Bowles, Montgomery Clift, Jean Marais, Juliette Gréco, Marlon Brando in their natural habitats. The effect made him a success then, and it makes this an important book now. Not only did Gore Vidal write the commentary, he also penned a 2007 article for The Smithsonian Magazine about the photograph of him that is featured prominently in the book. It was shot in 1949 in the garden of the Café Nicholson in New York and features a perfectly lit, perfectly handsome Gore Vidal dining with a crew of Bohemian friends that included Tennessee Williams and Tanaquil Le Clercq.
“For more than a half-century, whenever anyone asks me about the postwar 1940s and what it was like, I always say look at Karl Bissinger’s photograph of us [in the garden of the Café Nicholson].”
--Gore Vidal
No other photographer so expertly captured the magic of midcentury Bohemia than did Karl Bissinger. He eschewed the portrait studio then so popular. Instead, he preferred to capture subjects such as Truman Capote, James Baldwin, Jane Bowles, Montgomery Clift, Jean Marais, Juliette Gréco, Marlon Brando in their natural habitats. The effect made him a success then, and it makes this an important book now. Not only did Gore Vidal write the commentary, he also penned a 2007 article for The Smithsonian Magazine about the photograph of him that is featured prominently in the book. It was shot in 1949 in the garden of the Café Nicholson in New York and features a perfectly lit, perfectly handsome Gore Vidal dining with a crew of Bohemian friends that included Tennessee Williams and Tanaquil Le Clercq.
“For more than a half-century, whenever anyone asks me about the postwar 1940s and what it was like, I always say look at Karl Bissinger’s photograph of us [in the garden of the Café Nicholson].”
--Gore Vidal
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