Isaac Bashevis Singer and the Lower East Side

Isaac Bashevis Singer and the Lower East Side

Â Â Â Â Isaac Bashevis Singer, the Polish-born Yiddish writer and Nobel laureate, and New York documentary photographer Bruce Davidson collaborated on a surreal feature film made in 1973, entitled Isaac Bashevis Singerâ€™s Nightmare and Mrs. Pupkoâ€™s Beard. This film was at once a documentary about Singerâ€™s New York and a dramatization of one his short stories.Â The film grew out of their friendship, as residents of the same building on the upper West Side of Manhattan, and their common interest in New York City street life. During and after production, Davidson made numerous portraits of Singer and also returned to the Lower East Side for a documentary series of photographs.
Â Â Â Â A selection of more than forty of the stunning images made between 1957 and 1990 is available here for the first time in Isaac Bashevis Singer and the Lower East Side: Photographs by Bruce Davidson. The book also includes portraits of Singer, stills from the film, the black and white portfolio known as The Garden Cafeteria, and selections from the Lower East Side series. The Garden Cafeteria was a collaboration depicting denizens of the East Broadway restaurant frequented by Singer during his trips to The Jewish Daily Forward. The portfolio has never been published nor exhibited in its entiretyâ€”until this volume. Included is an introduction by Singer himself on Davidsonâ€™s images, an in-depth interview with Davidson about his art, aesthetic and political views, and his Jewishness, and a reflective, contextual essay by Ilan Stavans on the relevance of this collaboration between the writer and the photographer. Through Davidsonâ€™s lens we see Singerâ€™s literary world of Holocaust survivors and Ã©migrÃ©s from Eastern Europeâ€”a displaced culture in its twilight.
Â Â Â Â This book is a co-publication and appears in conjunction with an exhibition organized and presented by the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College, on the occasion of the centennial celebration nationwide of Singer's birth in 2004.
Country USA
Brand University of Wisconsin Press
Manufacturer University of Wisconsin Press
Binding Paperback
UnitCount 1
EANs 9780299206246
ReleaseDate 0000-00-00

Country	USA
Brand	University of Wisconsin Press
Manufacturer	University of Wisconsin Press
Binding	Paperback
UnitCount	1
EANs	9780299206246
ReleaseDate	0000-00-00