James Fee

The battle of Peleliu began on September 15, 1944. On a six-mile-by-two-mile coral island in the South Pacific, American and Japanese soldiers fought for 73 days under temperatures of up to 115 degrees, and when it was all over and done with, 8,768 Americans were killed or wounded and nearly 10,000 Japanese were dead. Photographer James Fee's father, Russell James Fee, then 21, was one of the marine corpsmen assigned to the battle as a medic, returning with diary and photographs in hand. Fifty-three years later, armed with these keepsakes, his son went to Peleliu to to see with his own eyes the place where his father's vision had taken shape. He himself returned with his own photos, presented here. All available copies of this volume are signed.

James Fee has been taking photographs for most of his life, and in the past decade he has developed a large and loyal following of critics and enthusiasts across the world of fine art photography. The 1990s was a prolific decade for Fee, who has in the last ten years produced several compelling series of works, all of which are documented in this essential new monograph. Presented here are the many black and white photographs of American icons and imagery that are thematically connected by Fee's obsession with the decline and destruction of the America that he knew as a young man: we see his series of New York imagery, including the Chrysler building and the Brooklyn Bridge; pictures of the crumbling Penn State penitentiary, Beat-inspired photographs of the American road; a distinctive and unique series of nude imagery; as well as his innovative collaborations with multimedia artist George Herms. Finally, presented here for the first time is a unique series of photographs taken on the South Pacific Island of Pelelui, a series which offers a glimpse at a long, very personal project for Fee, inspired by the photographs his father took while posted on the island during the Second World War.