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Black & White Men: Images by James Spada
Renowned celebrity biographer James Spada ("Streisand: Her Life") turns his talents to the fine art of photographing beautiful young men. In this stunning hardcover coffee-table book, Spada presents 60 of his favorite and most sensuous images, printed in duotone on heavy coated stock.
In his foreword to the book, Nick Johnson, the curator of the prestigious Gallery One at the New England School of Photography, where Spada recently had a one-man exhibition of these photographs, has written: "James Spada is a gifted artist whose images are both beautiful and moving. Much of his work is reminiscent of classical painting and sculpture, particularly Michelangelo s statue of David. In these photographs one sees an idealized male form, muscles rippling, skin as smooth as marble, beautifully rendered through a masterful use of light and photographic technique. While Spada s control of these formal qualities would alone set him apart from most photographers working with this subject matter, his images contain other elements that rarely find their way into male nudes and which give them their uniquely dimensional quality. The sensual eroticism that these photographs convey emerges not only from the innate grace of Spada s subjects but from the way he sees these men as an integral part of the light that describes them."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
James Spada is well known for his best-selling, in-depth biographies of Bette Davis, Princess Grace, Peter Lawford, and Barbra Streisand. He has also compiled pictorial biographies of Ronald Reagan (to be published in January 2001), Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Marilyn Monroe, Robert Redford, and Katharine Hepburn, among others.
Over the past several years, Jim has also become known for his evocative black-and-white studies of the male nude. He has had three one-man exhibitions, most recently in January 2000 at the prestigious Gallery One at the New England School of Photography in Boston. "I've been taking pictures since I was a teenager," Jim says, "but it took a back seat to my celebrity books. Now I d like to be known as a hyphenate, a writer-photographer. Photographing people is very much like writing about them, except that I'm creating the portrait with light rather than words. Light is as much a subject for me as the model."
In his foreword to the book, Nick Johnson, the curator of the prestigious Gallery One at the New England School of Photography, where Spada recently had a one-man exhibition of these photographs, has written: "James Spada is a gifted artist whose images are both beautiful and moving. Much of his work is reminiscent of classical painting and sculpture, particularly Michelangelo s statue of David. In these photographs one sees an idealized male form, muscles rippling, skin as smooth as marble, beautifully rendered through a masterful use of light and photographic technique. While Spada s control of these formal qualities would alone set him apart from most photographers working with this subject matter, his images contain other elements that rarely find their way into male nudes and which give them their uniquely dimensional quality. The sensual eroticism that these photographs convey emerges not only from the innate grace of Spada s subjects but from the way he sees these men as an integral part of the light that describes them."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
James Spada is well known for his best-selling, in-depth biographies of Bette Davis, Princess Grace, Peter Lawford, and Barbra Streisand. He has also compiled pictorial biographies of Ronald Reagan (to be published in January 2001), Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Marilyn Monroe, Robert Redford, and Katharine Hepburn, among others.
Over the past several years, Jim has also become known for his evocative black-and-white studies of the male nude. He has had three one-man exhibitions, most recently in January 2000 at the prestigious Gallery One at the New England School of Photography in Boston. "I've been taking pictures since I was a teenager," Jim says, "but it took a back seat to my celebrity books. Now I d like to be known as a hyphenate, a writer-photographer. Photographing people is very much like writing about them, except that I'm creating the portrait with light rather than words. Light is as much a subject for me as the model."
96 pages, Hardcover
First published October 30, 2000
About the author
James Spada
37 books29 followersAs a thirteen-year-old kid in Staten Island, James Spada started the first Marilyn Monroe Memorial Fan Club. He produced four bulletins and one yearbook a year for four years, when he had to disband the club due to lack of money.
In college he founded EMK: The Edward M. Kennedy Quarterly, and worked as an intern in Senator Kennedy’s Boston office in 1970.
At 23 his first book, Barbra: The First Decade (The Films and Career of Barbra Streisand), was published. He followed that up with the authorized book The Films of Robert Redford. He went on to write illustrated coffee-table books about Streisand, Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli, Katharine Hepburn, Bette Midler, Shirley MacLaine and Warren Beatty, and Jane Fonda.
In 1987 his first non-pictorial biography, Grace: The Secret Lives of a Princess, became a major international bestseller. He followed that up with intimate biographies of Peter Lawford, Bette Davis, Barbra Streisand, and Julia Roberts.
His writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, People, Ladies Home Journal, Cosmopolitan, The New York Times Book Review, McCall’s, the Los Angeles Times, the London Sunday Express, and many other publications.
In 2010 his first work of fiction, Days When My Heart was Volcanic—A Novel of Edgar Allan Poe, was published.
In recent years he has become equally renowned as a photographer of the male nude. His first collection, Black & White Men, was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award as the Best Visual Arts Book of 2000.
-----------------------------
From "Black & White Men" published in 2000:
Over the past several years, Jim has also become known for his evocative black-and-white studies of the male nude. He has had three one-man exhibitions, most recently in January 2000 at the prestigious Gallery One at the New England School of Photography in Boston. "I've been taking pictures since I was a teenager," Jim says, "but it took a back seat to my celebrity books. Now I d like to be known as a hyphenate, a writer-photographer. Photographing people is very much like writing about them, except that I'm creating the portrait with light rather than words. Light is as much a subject for me as the model."
In college he founded EMK: The Edward M. Kennedy Quarterly, and worked as an intern in Senator Kennedy’s Boston office in 1970.
At 23 his first book, Barbra: The First Decade (The Films and Career of Barbra Streisand), was published. He followed that up with the authorized book The Films of Robert Redford. He went on to write illustrated coffee-table books about Streisand, Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli, Katharine Hepburn, Bette Midler, Shirley MacLaine and Warren Beatty, and Jane Fonda.
In 1987 his first non-pictorial biography, Grace: The Secret Lives of a Princess, became a major international bestseller. He followed that up with intimate biographies of Peter Lawford, Bette Davis, Barbra Streisand, and Julia Roberts.
His writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, People, Ladies Home Journal, Cosmopolitan, The New York Times Book Review, McCall’s, the Los Angeles Times, the London Sunday Express, and many other publications.
In 2010 his first work of fiction, Days When My Heart was Volcanic—A Novel of Edgar Allan Poe, was published.
In recent years he has become equally renowned as a photographer of the male nude. His first collection, Black & White Men, was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award as the Best Visual Arts Book of 2000.
-----------------------------
From "Black & White Men" published in 2000:
Over the past several years, Jim has also become known for his evocative black-and-white studies of the male nude. He has had three one-man exhibitions, most recently in January 2000 at the prestigious Gallery One at the New England School of Photography in Boston. "I've been taking pictures since I was a teenager," Jim says, "but it took a back seat to my celebrity books. Now I d like to be known as a hyphenate, a writer-photographer. Photographing people is very much like writing about them, except that I'm creating the portrait with light rather than words. Light is as much a subject for me as the model."
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