Click images to enlarge

ISBN 978-1-59005-438-3
Hardcover, Slipcased, 12 x 15, 48 pages, 31 duotone plates
Limited edition of 350 numbered and signed copies.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1935, Philip Melnick grew up in Los Angeles, where he attended the University of California. In the 1970s, shooting with a medium format camera, Melnick made black-and-white photographs of his surroundings, exploring the unique sense of style found in the Southern California urban landscape. Nineteen Seventies California offers a beautifully presented selection of Melnick’s most striking work from this period, in which he displays a keen eye for the character of its vernacular architecture and the distinctive look of its streets: the quirky confluence of a single parked car with a street facing wall and a fragmented apartment building; the intersection of street, fence and another non-descript apartment house. He isolates the intricate pattern of a wall, creating arresting fusions of everyday sights and geometric abstraction. “Melnick’s images emphasize a push-pull, hard-soft tension that give his pictures distinguished style and great beauty,” wrote the late Fred McDarrah, who was himself a photographer for The Village Voice, as well as a writer, during the years that this series was produced.

Philip Melnick’s work has been widely exhibited and written about; his photographs are included in the permanent collections of numerous important institutions, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and Bibliothèque National, Paris.