PUNK Book

A first-edition copy of PUNK — the lavish 2002 portfolio publication produced by Roberta Bayley with Amsterdam's Aenigma Books and Prints and New York's Kunst Editions, gathering 24 black-and-white photographs Bayley made in and around CBGB between 1976 and 1979 across the foundational years of the New York punk scene. The photographs sit in chronological orbit around the bands and figures Bayley shot from inside the scene — Sid Vicious, Johnny Rotten, Debbie Harry, the Ramones, the Heartbreakers, Iggy Pop, the Damned, the Dictators, among others — each image hinged onto a large card sheet and paired with a facsimile of Bayley's own handwriting recounting the story behind the photograph, and each print initialed by Bayley in the margin.

The portfolio carries a constellation of introductions from the scene Bayley grew up inside: Debbie Harry (an essay handwritten and faxed from a hotel while travelling, reproduced in the book via letterpress, alongside a song text she contributed); Richard Hell (Bayley's partner from 1974 until early 1975, and the figure whose torn-shirt visual identity she had documented from the closest possible vantage point); John Holmstrom (Punk Magazine's founding editor); and Legs McNeil (the writer who coined and popularized the term "punk" alongside Holmstrom). Each introduction is signed by its contributor. The volume additionally includes a signed portrait of Bayley by photographer David Godlis; a silkscreened recreation of the Punk Magazine no. 3 cover (April 1976), with Joey Ramone illustrated by John Holmstrom, numbered and signed; and a copy of Punk Magazine's 25th-anniversary issue from Winter 2001. The whole portfolio is housed in a handmade wooden-and-cardboard slipcase clad in original pages from Punk Magazine no. 6, 1976 (the Legend of Nick Detroit issue), hand-titled in gold ink by Bayley.

The portfolio was published in a numbered edition of 76 — the number deliberately keyed to 1976, the foundational year of New York punk — of which only 60 copies were offered for sale. Bayley had moved to New York in the spring of 1974 after a brief period working for Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood at Let It Rock on the King's Road; in July 1974 she met Richard Hell, and months later began working the door at CBGB at the request of Terry Ork, the manager of Hell's band Television. She remained at the door until 1978, when she moved to a position with Blondie inside Peter Leeds's management office. The proximity that resulted is what PUNK as a publication ultimately documents: a body of work made not from outside the scene but from inside the room, by the person who had been there longer than most of the bands she was photographing.

Book: 16 1/4 × 10 3/4 inches (41.3 × 27.3 cm)
Case: 17 3/4 × 11 3/4 inches (45.1 × 29.8 cm)