Scarce first edition of this semi-autobiographical photobook, documenting chilly scenes in the life of a suburban midwestern family — with Hill's own contemporary c.v. and letter to a gallery laid in.
Very good plus.
Price: $600.00
"Somewhere amidst Duane Michaels, theatrical sequences, Diane Arbus' lovely celebration of the bizarre and Bill Owens' own investigation of suburban life, Hill has taken a turn and arrived at his own place." - quoted by Hill
Produced with the aid of an artist endowment from the Ohio Arts Council, Hill's first book was a semi-autobiographical portrait of a nuclear family, portrayed by his own relatives in a series of solemn tableaux and captioned with imagined quotes: "I like to be alone at night and water the grass," says "Harry Dicebox," pictured on his lawn with two ghostly white plastic flamingos against the spreading darkness. On his website, Hill quotes an unnamed contemporary reviewer: "Hill, director of his own past, the photo as Proustian madeleine, has given us a glimpse of the insidious side of the American Dream." We find only five institutional holdings via OCLC.
Read more: Hill, "The Dicebox Family Album," StephenJHillPhotography.com.
First printing. (Columbus, Ohio): Columbus Society of Communicating Arts / Aladdin Press, 1980. 9'' x 9''. Original black and white wrappers. Black and white photographic plates. Unpaginated. Typed letter signed by Hill laid in, with a copy of his CV. Light edgewear and rubbing to wrappers, faint toning to fore-edge. Interior bright.
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