HENRY GROSSMAN HAS TWO OF MY ALL-TIME BEATLES PHOTOGRAPHY BOOKS:
Every so often I feel compelled to create what some may call a repeat post of a couple of books from the collection that I have spoken about before. I do this because I consider those books worthwhile for a 2nd look because they bring me so much satisfaction and pleasure to have on the bookshelf. Some would call that vanity, but I consider it to be having made good choices and was fortunate enough to have been able to acquire them for the collection!
Henry Grossman’s collection of photographs that he took of the Beatles was certainly voluminous. Here are a few books I have acquired from Curvebender Publications over the years dealing with that subject matter.
Curvebender Publications has a reputation for producing stellar quality books and the books they have published about the late photographer Henry Grossman’s work with the Beatles do not veer away from that observation. Two of my favorite Beatles photography books are by the same man and are published by the same company.
This book, Kaleidoscope Eyes, is one of the favorite Beatles books in my collection. It was issued in a limited-edition of 1967 copies to reflect on the year the fabled Sgt. Pepper album was released. The copies were signed by the photographer. The book received its title from the fact that the photographs in the book were a chronological photo essay of the recording of one of the most famous songs from the album entitled Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Even the number of the books issued was magical to me as 1967represented a special time for the evolution of pop music as popular music finally began to receive the praise and accolades that it so richly deserved.
The intelligentsia and the masses were beginning to be on a more equal footing in their appreciation of these new sounds. Needless to say, I was overjoyed to be able to secure copy # 1967 for my collection, it being the last signed and numbered copy of this beautiful book!
The slipcase for the book:
The front cover of the book:
The gloves provided to handle turning the pages of the book:
The signed Henry Grossman print what was included in the book:
Title page of the book which was edited by Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew:
The signed and numbered copy of the book:
PLACES I REMEMBER – MY TIME WITH THE BEATLES:
This book is so heavy that you would be better using a forklift to take it out of your bookshelf. This book documents Grossman’s multiple years of photographing the Beatles and it serves as a wonderful time capsule of his time with them! This is a numbered edition, but I did not purchase the signed edition of this volume!
A side view of the book to demonstrate to you how immense or thick that it is:
The title page which once again has been brilliantly put together and edited by the team of Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew:
There were only 1,200 copies of this edition and this is copy # 494:
The Table of Contents for the book:
Made the decision to conclude this post with my favorite magazine cover featuring the Beatles. Ironically, it is also a Henry Grossman photo which only appeared on the Asian edition cover of Life in late July 1967! I searched for years to find a near mint copy of this edition of the magazine at a reasonable price, and I was fortunate to be able to eventually find and secure one!
Henry Grossman passed away in 2022.
Hope you enjoyed this post about Henry Grossman’s photography work with the Beatles!
Be healthy and be happy!
Buzz
OUR FEATURED BEATLES BOOK
John Lennon: The Boy Who Became A Legend
Michael Hill is one of the few people to have been friends with John Lennon from the age of five, through Dovedale School and Quarry Bank too. It was Michael who introduced John Lennon to rock ‘n’ roll – the moment John said changed his life. This is the story of how that happened.
crazy prices and to print the Sgt.Peper prints in black & White in the colourful age of psychedelia is just wrong
Very interested to read about Henry Grossman’s books which I confess had never heard of before during my life-long collecting of books about The Beatles starting in 1971! Presumably these limited editions were hugely expensive and are now impossible to find in the second- hand market. Any chance I wonder of new editions becoming available at a price that most Beatles fans can afford? And please don’t refer these books to Genesis Publications for new editions!
Mark, unfortunately you are correct with many of your sentiments about these limited-edition books. It is the double-edged sword of those types of books as they are indeed expensive and out of the price-range of many fans who might wish to purchase and enjoy them. The ideal situation in a release like this if you as a publisher deciding to produce a limited-edition book to also issue a much cheaper edition available for the mass audiences who also may wish to purchase the book. Not only is the publisher involved in these types of decisions but the author as well especially in a photography book. Mark, I feel the same way you do when a signed limited-edition McCartney book is issued for example, and the starting price of the book starts at $3,000. The end result of something like that is that it creates resentment for those who would like to acquire one but simply can’t afford one!