Overview
Inspired by a desire to design a new pool for her own Long Island backyard, Kelly Klein sought out and put together the most arresting and iconic photographs of swimming pools in all their various forms to create this unique and stunning book. The photographs are as inspiring as they are moving, revealing an incredible wealth of styles and designs in climates and cultures across the globe, and evoking the sensations of rest and nostalgia, the clarity of water and light, the coexistence of coolness and warmth, and the insinuations of sex and romance that can bring such character to a swimming pool. Included are pools in all shapes, sizes, colors, and settings, from Tangiers and Miami to the ancient magnificence of Hadrian's Villa; from Coney Island to the Côte d'Azur; from the robber baron 1880s through the prosperous 1990s, and captured by great photographers such as Lartigue, Stieglitz, Munkacsi, Weston, Mapplethorpe, and Weber. Republished in its entirety from the original first edition of 1992, including 187 photographs and a note from Esther Williams, Pools is a classic of modern design photography and an inspiration to aesthetes and creative homeowners alike.
Synopsis
Inspired by a desire to design a new pool for her own Long Island backyard, Kelly Klein sought out and put together the most arresting and iconic photographs of swimming pools in all their various forms to create this unique and stunning book. The photographs are as inspiring as they are moving, revealing an incredible wealth of styles and designs in climates and cultures across the globe, and evoking the sensations of rest and nostalgia, the clarity of water and light, the coexistence of coolness and warmth, and the insinuations of sex and romance that can bring such character to a swimming pool. Included are pools in all shapes, sizes, colors, and settings, from Tangiers and Miami to the ancient magnificence of Hadrian's Villa; from Coney Island to the Côte d'Azur; from the robber baron 1880s through the prosperous 1990s, and captured by great photographers such as Lartigue, Stieglitz, Munkacsi, Weston, Mapplethorpe, and Weber. Republished in its entirety from the original first edition of 1992, including 187 photographs and a note from Esther Williams, Pools is a classic of modern design photography and an inspiration to aesthetes and creative homeowners alike.
BookList
You might think a book about swimming pools would be clever or kitschy, but this superbly designed volume is elegant and seductive. Every one of the 187 richly reproduced black-and-white or color images dazzles us with the shimmery, reflective, and soothing beauty of water. Klein has selected anonymous photographs of old but grand indoor pools and snapshots of modest but intriguing backyard scenes as well as evocative shots of remarkable settings by such notables as Jacques Henri Lartigue, Edward Weston, Alfred Stieglitz, Helmut Newton, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Bruce Weber. Many of the pools depicted are architectural masterpieces: gems set in dramatic or meditative landscapes, some built on cliffs above the wild sea in surprising juxtaposition. We gaze entranced at rococo tiled or colonnaded pools reminiscent of Roman baths, or at perfect, austere rectangles mirroring a stormy sky, or trees or cacti. Photographers have found inspiration in documenting public and private pools in Mexico, Florida, California, Long Island, Rio de Janeiro, Italy, Japan, and Spain from the turn of the century to the present, in use or in eloquent repose. A book to linger over and wonder at, this is a treasure, rare and fascinating.