Photobook of New York Storefronts to Launch at New York Antiquarian Bookfair

York, United Kingdom, March 24, 2015 (Newswire.com) - Thousands of book collectors will be heading to the Park Avenue Armory for the 55th Annual ABAA (Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America) Bookfair, the best of its kind in the world, with over two hundred dealers and some of the finest books, manuscripts and literary objects on the market today.

Amongst the dealers from overseas, Lucius Books will be travelling to attend for the 10th consecutive year. The fair sees the launch of VARIOUS NEW YORK STOREFRONTS, a collection of found photographs taken between 1947 and 1952 by an unknown photographer and discovered in a New York fleamarket. 

The unknown photographer shot many rolls of films, capturing pharmacies, cinemas, drugstores, liquor and clothing stores and restaurants, some in Manhattan and some in the wider New York State. Kodachrome was Kodak’s first commercially viable colour film but at a cost of $5 a roll to develop, it would have been well beyond the means of most of those working in the shops photographed, who will have been earning in the region of 25 cents an hour.
Each snapshot is a glimpse of a different time, pre-Mad Men and the art of shop display, before branding got serious and the rise of chainstores on the local high street. And pre-Ed Ruscha, though the cool gaze and the stand-across-the-street, point-and-shoot diffidence prefigures Ruscha’s Gasoline Stations and Sunset Strip. 

The more you look, the more you see. A figure hunched over a drink in the window of a restaurant; a poster hanging by one corner on a Pharmacy shop display; a paddling pool wilting in the window display of a general store. 

Many buildings are long demolished but at least a few still exist; Lucius hope that the publication will turn up a few more clues from New Yorkers who might remember these stores as they once were. Each will have a story; owners, employees, customers and neighbours. 

Printed in the style of Ed Ruscha’s Twentysix Gasoline Stations, VARIOUS NEW YORK STOREFRONTS publishes 48 images in their original size and format in a limited edition print run of 75 hand-numbered copies. The original photographs are also offered for sale as a collection.

The New York Antiquarian Book Fair previews on Thursday 9th April, 5-9pm and then opens daily Friday 10th April (noon-8pm), Saturday 11th April (noon-7pm) and Sunday 12th April (noon-5pm) at The Park Avenue Armory, 643 Park Avenue, at 67th Street, New York City. 
Further info and hi-res images: www.nyantiquarianbookfair.com or www.luciusbooks.com