(OPB2 SET12) COMPLETE #45-48 Divola Hosoe Zadeh Casagrande

This is for the One picture Books complete set 12 features four books each with a signed Print (the Hosoe book has his name stamp as he died during production). Kimono is limited to 500 numbered copies, each including a 5x7 inch original print original print with Hosoe’s name seal.

“This is my favorite small series. I had never created a work like this prior, and never have since, but it was heavily influenced by Aya Koda’s novel Kimono. Here is the spirit of a young photographer – I was 29 years old at the time – who wanted to see how far photography could come in competition with Ms. Koda's kimono literature, the best in Japan. I don't remember that mourning clothes appeared in the novel, but I really wanted to dress a beautiful woman, who lost her husband at a young age, in mourning clothes. So I persuaded Miki Aoyama, a model I was close to at the time, to be the widow. In the series “Kimono”, I wanted to depict the first half of a woman's life, up to marriage, married life, the death of her husband, and her determination to become independent.” — Eikoh Hosoe, 1988

Eikoh Hosoe (1933–2024) was a highly acclaimed Japanese photographer and filmmaker, known for his avant-garde, experimental style that explored themes of life, death, and human sexuality through myth and symbolism. A co-founder of the influential Vivo photography agency and the Jazz Film Laboratory, he gained international recognition for his collaborations with writer Yukio Mishima in Barakei (Ordeal by Roses) and with Butoh dancer Tatsumi Hijikata in Kamaitachi. Hosoe was a significant figure in postwar Japanese art, recognized with numerous awards, including The Medal with Purple Ribbon, and held positions such as director of the Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts.

Hosoe provided the images and layout for his contribution to our One Picture Book series, and after finalizing the printing proofs, sadly passed away at the age of ninety-one. His family provided his name seal which is stamped onto the back of each original print included within the books.

Kimono is limited to 500 numbered copies, each including a 5x7 inch original print with Hosoe’s name seal.

Toer is limited to 500 numbered copies, each including a 5x7 inch original print which has been signed by the artist.

“During my career as a dancer by Het Nationale Ballet in Amsterdam, I had the opportunity to work with Toer and take part in his dance creations. So I didn’t hesitate for a second when many years later, I got this chance to discover his other talents. It all made Toer even more of the perfect subject for a new series. For the last six months I have been seeing Toer regularly at his atelier in Amsterdam, to observe and document him working. At the age of 88, he is still creating new artworks every day.” – Susan Zadeh

Toer is a portrait series of Toer van Schayk (born 1936), a Dutch painter, sculptor, choreographer, dancer, scenic and costume designer, at his atelier in Amsterdam: a study of an artist at work by another artist.

Persian by ancestry and birth, Zadeh moved to France as a child, and then to Holland as a teenager. She has lived in Amsterdam ever since. Originally trained as a classical dancer, after a 12-year career at the Dutch National Ballet in Amsterdam she turned to photography and publishing. Zadeh became well-known as a champion of outsider artists through her seminal art magazine Eyemazing, which ran from 2002 to 2013 and which received a coveted Lucie Award. Since then, she has concentrated on her own work as an artist.

Limited to 500 numbered copies, each book includes a 5x7 inch original print that has been signed by the artist.

Paperworks is limited to 500 numbered copies, each including a 5x7 inch original print which has been signed by the artist.

In 2023, the ADI Design Museum in Milan commissioned Benedetta Casagrande to create an homage to Italian writer and design historian Anty Pansera. Experimenting in the studio and in the darkroom with the raw materials of writing and of design – paper and sign – Casagrande produced series “Paperworks” in which a limited set of paper cut outs is recombined and reconfigured in each frame. The signs of language (full stops, commas, semicolons, the letter “A”) and silhouettes of the artist’s body meet, interact and play out onto the photographic surface.

Benedetta Casagrande (Milan, 1993) is an artist, writer, curator, and educator working with photography. Her practice unfolds through what Carolyn F. Strauss has termed slow research: slowness as a principle of observation and constant repositioning, an attempt to situate human experience within wider webs of relations, time, and space. Her first photobook, All Things Laid Dormant (Skinnerboox, 2024), was shortlisted for both the Arles Authors Book Award and the Singapore International Photography Festival Book Award. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and in 2024 she received the Luigi Ghirri Prize.

Limited to 500 numbered copies, each copy of the book includes a 5x7 inch original print that has been signed by the artist.

Italian Cars is limited to 500 numbered copies, each including a 5x7 inch original print which has been signed by the artist.

In the summer of 2007, as part of its initiative to open thirty new branches across Italy, Deutsche Bank commissioned the American artist John Divola to photograph ten Italian cities. Divola was to be the first of three artists from three different continents who were to be selected for the project. That summer, Divola ended up photographing in twelve Italian Cities.

Shortly after Divola finished his work and returned home, the Great Recession started, and Deutsche Bank abandoned the project. The work that Divola made for the Deutsche Bank project has never been publicly shown.

However, in conjunction with working on the commission, Divola photographed Italian cars as a side project. This series, presented in Italian Cars, is Divola’s contribution to our One Picture Book Two series.

John Divola’s work is the subject of numerous books and catalogues. Widely exhibited and collected throughout the United States, Europe, Japan and Australia, Divola’s photographs are included in the permanent collections of many public and private institutions, including those of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Getty Museum, Los Angeles; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Limited to 500 numbered copies, each copy of Italian Cars includes a 5x7 inch original print that has been signed by the artist.