Smith, W. Eugene. Pittsburgh: The Story of an American City by Stefan Lorant. Photographs by W. Eugene Smith, et al.

Doubleday, 1964. 1st edition. With contributions by Henry Steele Commager, Oscar Handlin, David L. Lawrence, John Morton Blum, Gerald W. Johnson, and others, with more than 1,000 illustrations.  This huge book is especially notable for the many photographs by one of the great photographers of the 20th century, W. Eugene Smith. Lorant hired Smith to come to Pittsburgh for a relatively short time to fill in some gaps and Smith ended up living with Lorant for an extended time and exposing about 10,000 negatives. Smith became totally engrossed in trying to produce a photographic portrait of the city in all its facets and was never able to complete his own book on the subject, although there have been several publications that include his Pittsburgh photographs, including Lorant's book offered here. In addition to its importance in the literature of photography, Lorant's book is a wonderful resource on the history of Pittsburgh. It reproduces documents and paintings from 200 years of the city's history, with chapters by Pittsburgh's leading historians. Reproductions by artists include paintings by David Blythe, William C. Wall, Russell Smith, John Kane, Samuel Rosenberg, William Libby, Roy Hilton, Edwin Anderson, Marty Cornelius, and Idabell Kleinhans. Aside from about 50 photographs by Smith, the book includes work by many other fine photographers including about a dozen by Margaret Bourke-White, as well as by Arthur Rothstein, Luke Swank, John Vachon, Frank E. Bingaman, and others. Near fine with dust jacket that has wear along top edge and a chip along top edge of spine extending to back cover. Another copy, very good without dust jacket, short tear at base of spine, otherwise fine. Heavy book, requires more postage than most items in my store.