Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. Some signatures in front but not sure whos. No notes or highlighting. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> The project began when author Robert Flynn Johnson visited an art fair and became captivated by the beauty and originality of a group of nineteenth-century photographs of women. Curious to know more about these women Johnson began an investigation into their origin authorship and purpose. Now nearly a decade later he has unearthed more than two hundred vintage photographs of the Reading women which paint a full picture of the environment that they inhabited. In addition to showcasing the depth and diversity of the subject matter Johnson uses these photographs to detail their historical and sociological importance in the history of photography alongside essays from Ruth Rosen and Dennita Sewell that provide an insightful historical overview of these images in context of the period in which they were taken. The work here also speaks to Goldman’s extraordinary aesthetic vision. As famed burlesque dancer and foreword writer Dita Von Teese notes “This fascinating collection of found images more than a century old could not have originated just as a case study on the women employed at a brothel. The local photographer and his anonymous muses appear to straddle an artful titillation at times striving toward Degas nudes and at another more in the spirit of a strip and tease. There is beauty in even the most mundane moments.” Revealing and illuminating evocative and informational Johnson’s Working Girls represents the full breadth of Goldman’s collection confirming the artistic and historical importance of its documentation while also offering a deeper understanding of the private world of the Reading brothel and the women who inhabited it. (MP)