The only autonomous collection of Jack Smith's photographs to appear during his lifetime, The Beautiful Book
comprises 19 hand-tipped black-and-white contact prints made from the original negatives. The photographs were produced mainly during the course of extended shooting sessions in Smith's Lower East Side apartment. Most date from the winter of 1962, although a few are earlier - including the final'signature' photograph, a portrait of the artist on the steps beneath the Brooklyn Bridge taken by filmmaker Ken Jacobs. Nearly half the photographs feature the artist Marian Zazeela, who provided the design for the book's silk-screened cover. Smith and his associates assembled
the books during the late spring and early summer of 1962, before shooting began on Flaming Creatures. Published and distributed by Piero Heliczer's press, the dead language, The Beautiful Book was advertised with a statement from the filmmaker Ron Rice: 'we studied these photographs with keen eye discovering new & more beautiful images hidden in every dissolve & curve of the draperies & silks which ran through these masterpieces like some long lost mysterious fume from
byzantium.'
