Hank O'Neal

The photographs that launched Abbott's career: portraits of artists and writers in prewar Paris, from Jean Cocteau to James JoyceThis is one in a series of books to be published by Steidl that will explore Berenice Abbott's oeuvre. Abbott began her photographic career in Paris in 1925, taking portraits of some the most celebrated artists and writers of the day, including Marie Laurencin, Jean Cocteau, Peggy Guggenheim, Coco Chanel, Max Ernst, Andr Gide, Philippe Soupault and James Joyce. Within a year her work was exhibited and acclaimed. Paris Portraits 1925-1930 features the results of Abbott's earliest photographic project and illustrates the philosophy of all her subsequent work. For this landmark book, 115 portraits of 83 subjects have been scanned from the original glass negatives, which have been printed in full. Berenice Abbott was born in Springfield, Ohio, in 1898. She left Ohio State University early for New York's Greenwich Village in 1918, where she spent several years before studying in Europe. Abbott was first introduced to photography while studying sculpture in Paris; she became Man Ray's darkroom assistant and soon began her own studio, practicing primarily portrait photography. In 1929 she returned to New York, photographing its neighborhoods, buildings and residents. After a lung operation in the 1950s--, on doctor's orders to escape urban pollution, Abbott resettled in Maine, where she would remain until her death in 1991.

In 1948 Hank O'Neal was eight years old, and his baseball mentors were his grandfather, C. A. Christian, who'd been an exceptional semipro player at the turn of the century, and two of his father’s classmates at TCU, Jim Nolan and Jim Busby. His grandfather went on to college and became a pharmacist, but he never forgot his days of glory as a teammate of the soon-to-become-legendary Ty Cobb. After his introduction to these three men, all Hank wanted was to play baseball. In 1954 his family moved to Syracuse, New York, where Hank hung around McArthur Stadium, the home of the Syracuse Chiefs. One of the players, Ben Zientara, lived two doors away, and not only did Hank pester him and the other players, but he also began writing major league players, both active and retired. One of them, Ty Cobb, became his pen pal in 1955. He'd played with Hank's grandfather in Georgia fifty-five years earlier, and the 'nastiest man in baseball' was kind and supportive to his young fan. Sincerely, Ty Cobb traces ten years of a child's life in baseball, from his first struggles on the sandlot to his final high school game. It is illustrated with period memorabilia and twelve pages of handwritten letters from Ty Cobb, plus others from Hall of Fame players like Eddie Walsh and Frankie Frisch.

This is the story of two ordinary people, Harold and Sarah, who lived ordinary lives, each born more than a century ago. Perhaps there are millions of people who have similar stories and fascinating lives. But the lives of Harold and Sarah were preserved not in the memories of others but in the pages of seven scrapbooks, thousands of photographs, letters, postcards, illustrations, and bits of memorabilia from which their lives together may be reconstructed. Harold’s and Sarah’s lives were unusually fascinating because of time and place: the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, World War II, and the emerging supremacy of what came to be known as the American Dream. The story began and thrived in the rough and tumble world of the East Texas oil patch, and this makes it even more compelling. Preserving Lives is a love story of remarkable simplicity that appeared to be almost perfectly planned and executed. Harold and Sarah became part of the many who worked hard and believed in their dreams, and when, in the mid-1950s, it all came together for them with a good job, their first home, a new car every so often, and an upstairs and downstairs telephone, it was just the natural progression of things. It was also the perfect end of a two-plus decade journey together which they hoped they might continue to enjoy as the years passed. This is the way it was supposed to happen, once upon a time, and it is what Harold and Sarah managed to do.