FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
powerHouse Books is pleased to announce the November 2020 release of
The Boys
Photography & Text by Rick Schatzberg
Essay by Rick Moody
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"Rick Schatzberg has achieved something truly remarkable. The Boys renews my faith not just in the photobook, but in the ability to describe something new and profound in one's later years."
— Alec Soth
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When two of his oldest friends died unexpectedly, Rick Schatzberg (born 1954) turned to photography to cope with his grief. He spent the next year and a half photographing his remaining group of a dozen men who have been close since early childhood. Now in their 67th year, “The Boys,” as they call themselves, grew up together in the 1950s in post-war Long Island, New York.
Conceived from the outset as a photo book, Schatzberg collected old 70s snapshots that tell the story of The Boys’ shared history and used them to introduce each individual as they are today. He paired the vintage photos with contemporary large-format portraits which connect the boy to the man. Mixed in with the images are twelve chapters of moving, poetic text in which Schatzberg addresses friendship, aging, loss, and memory, as the group arrives at the brink of old age. In the final stages of preparation for the book, two more of The Boys died. Now they are ten.
The Boys is a beautiful, heart-rending memoir in pictures and words that juxtaposes elements of place, personal history, and identity to poignantly capture male friendship over time. The bond between the boys is evident both in the old photographs and the way each subject reveals himself to the camera today. Many of the men were brave enough to remove their shirts for Schatzberg. The machismo exhibited during the men’s fun-loving youth has evolved into something more reflective and meditative in Schatzberg’s revelatory portraits.
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"Rick Schatzberg’s The Boys, beautifully and honestly, brings me into the intimacy and vulnerability of guys, of manhood, of the friendship of men, sometimes a mystery to me, a woman. And to the bittersweet and complex later-in-life feelings and stories, of growing older but also closer, of losing but gaining and learning, the stories of men, and of all of us."
—Elinor Carucci
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Rick Schatzberg is a photographer and writer living in Brooklyn, New York and Norfolk, Connecticut. He received his MFA in Photography from the University of Hartford in 2018. Rick holds a degree from Columbia University in Anthropology (1978), played French horn with Cecil Taylor’s jazz ensemble in 1970s, and was a business executive and entrepreneur in the New York metropolitan area for many years. In 2015 he completed a one-year certificate program at the International Center of Photography. In the same year, his first monograph, Twenty Two North (self-published), was awarded first prize at Australia’s Ballarat Foto International Biennale.
Book Design:
The Boys is designed by the award-winning Dutch photo book designer Sybren Kuiper a/k/a/ Syb. The book includes a dozen gatefolds each opening to reveal a portrait along with close-ups and details of one of the 12 men. The afterword by Rick Moody is produced as a separate 12-page pamphlet which will sit in a “pocket” on the book’s inside back cover.
A partial preview is available by clicking here: The Boys
Personal Relationships / Men's Studies / Portraiture
Hardcover, 7-1/2 x 9-3/4 inches, 144 pages
ISBN: 978-1-57687-963-4, $50.00 US/ $70.00 CAN
High-res scans to your specification are available upon request; scanning from the book or lifting images from the mechanical file are strictly prohibited. Mandatory credit line: From The Boys by Rick Schatzberg, published by powerHouse Books.
For press inquires:
Andrea Smith
andreasmith202@gmail.com
For contact at powerHouse Books:
Madison Morales
madison@powerhousebooks.com
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