new tribute book

[dick]

http://www.wallpaper.com/art/stuart-fra ... cohen/8160

Stuart Franklin lenses a poignant tribute to Leonard Cohen
Art / 19 Nov 2014 /
By Nick Compton
Dear Leonard, produced in collaboration with New York-based publisher Silas Finch, contains 32 silver gelatin prints by Magnum photographer Stuart Franklin
Most people would just send a card. But if you're a Magnum photographer and your devotions run as deep as Stuart Franklin's clearly do, you want to give something a little special. Leonard Cohen – poet, songwriter, Canadian, mordant wit and broken heart – recently turned 80. And Franklin sent Cohen a book, a book he had made specially.

Dear Leonard, produced in collaboration with New York-based publisher Silas Finch, contains 32 silver gelatin prints of Franklin's photographs, some from the archives and some shot exclusively for the book. Each image has a Cohen lyric running across it – 'Your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm', for instance – letterpress-printed by hand in transparent magenta by Portland-based letterpress printer and edition binder Rory Sparks. Only 25 copies of the book are being made and only 15 are being made available to the public, at a cost of $2,250.

Franklin, a former president of Magnum, began his career at the Sunday Times in the late 1970s and then moved to the French photo agency Sygman. He worked in Beirut, Northern Ireland, Gaza and Sri Lanka and shot a series of iconic images during the Tiananmen Square uprising. For nearly two decades he also shot for National Geographic and his recent work has been more concerned with landscapes and their eradication. Through all this, Franklin has been listening to Leonard Cohen.

Just how personal a project this is for Franklin is made clear in a letter to Cohen, a copy of which is mounted in the book, envelope and all. Franklin writes about hearing Cohen's music for the first time in 1969, when he was 13, the year his mother committed suicide. There is a picture that alludes to his mother's death in the book.

Cohen's music, says Franklin, was 'palliative relief from psychological trauma'. Cohen also inspired in Franklin the wanderlust that has taken him around the world. There are shots in Dear Leonard, of the inside of Libyan jails ('I'm a fool but I think that I can heal it') and the Sydney Opera House from above ('Our steps will always rhyme'). One shot taken especially for the book is of Cohen's best-known subject 'Suzanne', a classical statue of a female nude found while walking with his wife along the Berg River, north of Cape Town, South Africa.

'Cohen's lyrics are always ambiguous,' says Franklin. 'They open up space. And that is what I want to do with my photography.'

[lizzytysh]

Just going by the description and this man's [Franklin's] credentials and experience, I would want to buy this book... but, unfortunately, it's not even on the table

[dick]

My wife says I can't have it.

[lizzytysh]

LOLOL ~ too funny, Dick.
Let me know how it goes and if Linda's Law prevails

[Goldin]

Some extra info:
http://www.silasfinch.org/publications/dearleonard/
http://www.silasfinch.org/publications/ ... eonard.pdf

Look! It became cheaper! Just $1,250 instead of $2,250. Buy it now and save ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS!

[cohenadmirer]

Would love to see this - but certainly not buy it!
Even with a massive drop in price It's probably not yet found its true market value - ie. the fair price at which it would sell!

Wonderful gift for Leonard and thanks for letting us know about it

[Mabeanie1]

I'm in when the price is reduced by another $1,200 .....

Wendy

[Goldin]

Everything is crazy about this book for me, but especially this fact - you can choose where to buy it:
via the author's website - for $1,250
or in this web store - still for $2,250

[lizzytysh]

Ha. The capitalistic market.
So, since the massive price drop by going to the photographer's own site, I can't wait to see yours, Roman. Hoping you'll be bringing it to Amsterdam, and keeping it in the hotel's safe, of course.

[Goldin]

Yeah, I absolutely love the idea to save a solid thousand bucks just by buying this book at his website... What an amazing offer!
On the other hand, I appreciate the idea to save one thousand dollars (and a bit more) by NOT buying it.

Actually, I'm living in my own personal Greece right now. That's a strange Greece, without warm weather and even sunlight. But, just like there, not too much cash is left in my personal Greece (I left quite a lot of those colourful sheets of paper in the actual, common Greece - although I guess, this didn't help the country much). So, I'm certainly the only one among my colleagues who's praying to let my work begin

[lizzytysh]

LOL Hilarious, Roman. Great analogy.
My contribution to their economy didn't go far, either... a much greater deficit to mine than contribution to theirs.

Just yesterday, a man said [relative to his situation at hand] that "A dollar saved is a dollar earned."
That principle seems to have its limits, though, eh?

[Goldin]

Pardon, that's not Stuart Franklin's website, but the studio's.

That must be an honour even for LC to receive such a tribute from the author of this picture.
By the way, one of his recent books is dedicated to Saint Petersburg: http://www.stuartfranklin.com/albums?album=51
But I'm not sure when the photos have been taken - hardly can remember snowdrifts in my city That's something from my childhood.