Description
Photographs by Stephen Salmieri, Text by Owen Edwards, Hardbound, 142 Pages, ISBN: 9780914427391, First Edition, 1985 - **Second-Hand book in good condition**
CADILLAC Photographs by Stephen Salmieri Hand-painted by Sydnie Michele Salmieri Text by Owen Edwards
The Cadillac is no more just another car than San Simeon is just another house: it is the machine as ultimate symbol, as a way of life, a philosophical statement, a form of patriotism, even—for more than a few Cadillac zealots—something very close to a religious experience.
During the past dozen years, photographer Stephen Salmieri has traveled from coast to coast, from front yards in Beverly Hills to junkyards in Utah, to make a portrait of America as it is reflected in the magically revealing mirror of the Cadillac. In over eighty pictures, many of them beautifully hand-painted by his wife, painter Sydnie Salmieri, he has captured Cadillacs from almost every year of the make's long life.
The moods of Salmieri's photographs range widely, from the melancholy of neglect and entropy to the innocent ebullience of wealth and self-celebration. His visions encompass hope, despair, redemption, longing, elegance, ostentation, conformity, and wild eccentricity. As a result, this is far more than a car book, and the antithesis of an "official history" (though Cadillac lovers will be delighted by it). In an unmistakable way it is a book of portraits, of cars shaped by the people whose dreams they fulfilled, and of the dreams that since 1902 have made this American car the king of the road.
