Judith Aronson’s Likenesses

Buried on the back flap of a dust jacket, writer’s headshots are often viewed as a necessary evil to promoting books. They usually include a combination of the following: a desk, a pen, a bookshelf, a pensive look and or hand propped like Rodin’s The Thinker. The point is that the author’s image often looks as dry as the paper it’s printed on. 

If you are looking for work that breaks these stereotypes, designer and photographer Judith Aronson recently published a book of intimate portraits of writers and artists called Likenesses. The book includes over 100 pages of collected photographs with original commentary by the sitters. Designers will also appreciate the layout carefully designed by Aronson herself.  

above:  Derek Walcott and Sigrid Nama (top image),  Norman Mailer (below)

Aronson’s portrait of Geoffrey Hill and Alice Goodman, included inside and on the cover of this book, was featured as July’s Portrait of the Month at the National Portrait Gallery in London. 

An exhibition of photographs from Likenesses will be shown at Christ Church Oxford. Read the review in Financial Times.

The book is described briefly:

What makes “Likenesses” unique is that the sitters observe and comment on one another – memories, assessments, elegies, tributes. A historian calls up a poet who figures elsewhere in the book; a poet summons up memories of her mother, a distinguished woman of letters, alongside her in the photo.

You can order it though the UK publisher Carcanet Press now or wait until September to get a copy.