FEATURED BOOK

Restraint and Desire | Ken Graves and Eva Lipman

Restraint and Desire features the collaborative photographic work of Ken Graves and Eva Lipman, published by the Bay Area’s TBW Books.

Previous PhotoAlliance speakers Vanessa Woods and Josh Smith sat down with Stanford historian and educator Kim Beil for her ongoing series Talking in the Library in which she invites guests to discuss photo books. Both Woods and Smith had close creative ties to Ken Graves, who passed away in 2016, and remain dear friends with his wife Eva Lipman, who lives in the East Bay.

Their discussion of Restraint and Desire as they flip through the pages together is candid and insightful, offering a nuanced interpretation of these poetic, arresting photographs.

According to TBW books:

“Restraint and Desire is the culmination of a lifelong creative partnership between husband and wife Ken Graves and Eva Lipman, whose visionary life together was defined by the unique and selfless act of claiming artistic credit as a singular entity.

For decades they acutely surveyed high school dances, military ceremonies, football games, boxing matches, and other American social rituals, seeking to capture the complex intensity between humans often overlooked in these commonplace settings. These mostly prosaic happenings often revealed sexual tensions that Ken and Eva saw not only in the world around them, but in their own relationship. As Eva says, “our work reflected back to us, like a mirror, the intensities and power dynamics of our shared life together.”