"The Imperfect Work Of A Single Human Being's Hands"

AMERICAN DENIM: A New Folk Art

By Peter Beagle, photographed by Baron Wolman and the artists, presented by Richard M. Owens and Tony Lane

(1975)

First edition of this document of '60s and '70s denim embellishment, a collaboration between Rolling Stone's first chief photographer, the editor of RAGS, and the author of THE LAST UNICORN.

Near fine in very good plus jacket.

Price: $200.00

AMERICAN DENIM: A New Folk Art

"Decorating denim may not be quite as old an American art form as customizing one's own car, but it definitely antedates tie-dyed T-shirts, spray-paint graffiti, and the new cottage craft of making pornographic videotapes at home for instant replay."

AMERICAN DENIM is a social history in photobook form, captured not only by Wolman but by many of the artists who painted, embroidered, appliquéd, fringed, collaged, sequined and studded their own jeans and jean jackets. Beagle's accompanying text presents the individualism and free-spirited nonconformity of the '60s and after as a corrective to and psychic respite from the "passive horror" of the 1950s and before, holding up the proud and personal craftsmanship of denim art as one instance of the true and lasting legacy of the hippie movement: they were honest artisans, he says. "And they did wear such pretty clothes."

The Object

First printing. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc, (1975). 11'' x 8.5''. Original silver-stamped blue denim. In original dust jacket. 156 pages. 157 illustrations, including 145 color plates. Edge toning to dust jacket and interior pages. Light edgewear overall. Else clean and sound.

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