What did you buy at the Strand?

... I was asked, and of course I never leave a bookstore without something in hand.  I found this Errata Editions' reprint, Alexey Brodovitch's Ballet, first published in 1945.  According to the provided description, Errata's Books on Books series is "an ongoing publishing project dedicated to making rare and out-of-print books accessible to students and photobook enthusiasts."  I could not not support a project such as this, and besides, the book is gorgeous, and besides all that, Brodovitch was a famed designer who had once painted scenes for Diaghilev's Ballet Russes and after that became a textile and jewelry artist, all the while working as a designer of magazines until finally becoming the art director of Harper's Bazaar.  He took the photographs that became Ballet behind the scenes, in New York theaters, caring only to capture the movement and mood and disregarding technical theory.



This is a phenomenal book, a perfect Valentine's Day book, an important series.  I'd never seen it anywhere, until I happened on the Strand.