Merce Cunningham: Fifty Years

by David Vaughan

"The book on Mr. Cunningham aims at, and is, as complete and clear a portrait of the modern dance choreographer and his epochal work as has ever been published... The surprise of the Cunningham book is the grace with which it almost definitively sums up Mr. Cunningham's 63-year life in dance... Merce Fifty Years is a compelling portrait of a simple yet complex man and an artist who has seldom faltered in his explorations of life and art on the simplest and most complex levels." --Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times

"What emerges from this dispassionate, scrupulous account is much more than the chronicle of fifty years in the amazing and creative life of Merce Cunningham... Kudos to David Vaughan who has given us a noble work. As archivist for the Cunningham company for twenty years, he knows better than anyone how to turn this book about a great artist and about the art of this century into a work of art in itself."

--Mikhail Baryshnikov

Merce Fifty Years celebrates the career of one of the most important artists of the twentieth century from his first innovative and explosive solo dances to the present. This unique book incorporates images of performances by many world renowned photographers, including Imogen Cunningham, Barbara Morgan, Annie Leibovitz, Peter Hujar and Arnold Eagle.

320 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2005

Reviews

[Carolina Rocha · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing book for anyone interested in Merce's life and his work! I am doing a paper on him and John Cage and this book was crucial for me to really get to know Cunningham and his relationships.

[Chambers Stevens · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are interested in Merce Cunningham I recommend you get the ipad app version of this book. It includes clips of Cunningham's dances to go along with the text.