Everett Ruess: A Vagabond for Beauty
Salt Lake City, UT: Gibbs M. Smith, Inc.; Peregrine Smith Books, 1983. First edition, association copy, signed by Pat Jenks. Hardcover. 228pp. Octavo [22 cm] Melon-colored paper over boards with gilt lettering and decorative stamping on the spine and front cover. With light edgewear to the spine and boards, and a minor short, thin mark on the front board. In the dust jacket with occasional short closed tears and chips to the edges. Very Good + / Very Good. Item #64989
ISBN: 0879051434
From the dust jacket- "Everett Ruess, bold adventurer, artist, writer. He traded prints with Ansel Adams. He studied and lived with Edward Weston, Maynard Dixon, and Dorothea Lange. He tramped around the Sierra Nevada, the California coast, and the desert wilderness of the Southwest, pursuing his dream of ultimate beauty and oneness with nature. Then, in November of 1934, at the age of 21, he mysteriously vanished into the barren Utah desert."
Pat Jenks has inscribed the front free endpaper: "With regards from / Everett's friend, Pat / Jenks 5/11/85."
Randolph "Pat" Jenks befriended Ruess when they met along a Northern Arizona road in May 1931. Pat Jenks picked an exhausted Ruess up from the side of the road and nursed him back to health at Deerwater Ranch near Flagstaff. A photograph of this encounter is shown on p. 47 of this book. While Ruess was at the ranch, he rested and produced some art, ultimately giving Jenks a couple of pictures in appreciation for his stay. After Ruess left the ranch he continued to stay in touch with Jenks via letters.
This title is not commonly seen signed by Jenks.
Price: $450.00