BLOMMERS, Anuschka and Niels SCHUMM. Anita and 124 other portraits.

(Amsterdam): Valiz, 2006. First edition. Hardcover. 30.2 by 24.4cm. 202 pages. The first monograph devoted to the collaborative work of the Dutch photographers Anuschka Blommers and Niels Schumm, bringing together a decade of editorial, fashion, and portrait photography that established the pair among the leading image-makers of their generation. Rejecting the conventions of commercial fashion photography, Blommers and Schumm developed a distinctive visual language in which meticulous staging, psychological ambiguity, and a heightened realism combine to produce images that are at once disquieting and quietly surreal. Rather than presenting a conventional chronological survey, the volume arranges 125 portraits alphabetically, juxtaposing celebrated figures from fashion, architecture, music, and the visual arts with anonymous sitters and everyday subjects, while the concluding section reproduces complete editorial series in their original published layouts. The result is both an artist’s monograph and a documentary record of one of the most fertile periods in independent fashion publishing, encompassing commissions for Self Service, Purple, Dazed & Confused, i-D, Another Magazine, Interview, Visionaire, British Vogue, Japanese Vogue, and The New York Times Magazine. A very good copy in photo-illustrated boards.