Book of Photographs from Lonesome Dove - Bill Wittliff

A Book of Photographs from Lonesome Dove.

By Bill Wittliff, foreword by Larry McMurtry, and introduction by Stephen Harrigan.

Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007. 188 pages, large, hardback book, 112 large, sumptuous brown-tone photographs. ISBN 978-0-292-71311-6 $45.00 http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/

How does one photograph a cultural benchmark? Get an artist who understands it. Larry McMurtry’s 1985 best-selling novel took a Pulitzer Prize, etc., and Wittliff’s screenplay, miniseries version took 7 Emmy’s, 2 Golden Globes, etc. Here Wittliff’s long sharpened photographic sensibilities cover the movie’s making – from Robert Duval and Tommy Lee Jones onto the land itself. An intelligent and graceful spaciousness has been Wittliff’s hallmark of artistry from his early days of design at the SMU Press, into his Encino Press, and onto the screen.
La Vida Brinca and Vaquero: Genesis of the Texas Cowboy are earlier photographic works of Wittliff. You might as well put them on the coffee table with this Dove. You’ll want to keep them viewed but unsoiled.