WATANABE, Sumiharu. The Face of Washington Square.

(Tokyo): YuYuDo, 1965. First edition. Small quarto. Unpaginated.  One of the few great Japanese photobooks shot in America during the ‘Provoke era,’ it combines the spirit of the ‘happenings’ movement of the sixties with a photographic sensibility that draws strength from some of the same preoccupations as those seen in the work of William Klein, Helen Levitt, and Robert Frank during this time period. The images show the exuberant, almost pulsating diverse humanity at the heart of mid-60’s Greenwich Village.  A very good copy in photo-illustrated wrappers, lacking obi, in publisher’s printed slipcase.  A fascinating look at New York City in the early 1960s.