Roberts, Holly. Holly Roberts. Untitled 50. Signed!

Untitled 50. First and only edition, first and only printing. Signed in black ink on the half-title page by Roberts. Photographically illustrated stiff wrappers. Painted photographs by Holly Roberts from an exhibition held at the Ansel Adams Center in San Francisco. Introduction by David Featherstone. 56 pages with 37 four-color plates. 10 x 9-5/8 inches. Like new. Summary: Holly Roberts (Untitled 50), published in 1990 by the Friends of Photography, is a significant monograph that explores the blurred boundaries between photography and painting. This volume serves as a comprehensive look at Roberts' unique process of physical manipulation and emotional abstraction. The Hybrid Technique Roberts is best known for her "photo-paintings." Her process, as detailed in this collection, involves: The Foundation: Using her own silver gelatin photographs—often of people, animals, or Southwestern landscapes—as a base. The Transformation: Overpainting the photographs with thick layers of oil paint. She obscures much of the original image, leaving only fragments (like a face or a hand) to anchor the work in reality. Physicality: The work is highly textural, featuring visible brushstrokes and scraped surfaces that give the images a primitive, raw quality. Themes and Imagery Psychological Depth: The book highlights Roberts’ ability to manifest internal emotional states. By painting over the subjects, she strips away their specific identity to reveal universal themes of fear, loneliness, and spiritual connection. Animism: A recurring motif in the monograph is the relationship between humans and animals. Her figures often appear mid-metamorphosis, drawing heavily on the mythic and folk traditions of the American Southwest. Minimalist Backgrounds: Most subjects are isolated against stark, monochromatic, or heavily textured voids, emphasizing a sense of existential drama. Critical Context As part of the Untitled series—a prestigious publication line from the Friends of Photography—this book positioned Roberts as a leader in the "Post-Documentary" movement. Essays: The volume typically includes insightful commentary (notably by David Featherstone) that situates her work within the context of contemporary art, rather than traditional straight photography. Format: It features high-quality reproductions that capture the subtle tonal shifts between the underlying photographic gray and the vibrant, often dark, oil pigments. Significance Holly Roberts (Untitled 50) is essential for understanding the subjective turn in photography during the late 1980s. It stands as a testament to the idea that a photograph does not have to be a literal record, but can serve as a canvas for complex, mythic, and deeply personal storytelling.