Photobook Recommendations From Isabella Burley of Climax Books

At Climax books, the sensory worlds of individual artists come together in striking fashion. There are newly printed posters of Sophy Ricketts’ Pissing Women alongside visions of Tokyo-bacchanal from Nan Goldin and Nobuyoshi Araki, among many other rare objects and telling pieces of ephemera. Founded by fashion editor and Acne Studios Chief Marketing Officer Isabella Burley in 2020, the distributor of rare books and unique objects now has storefronts in London and New York. We sat down with Isabella to talk about how she built her collection and some of her favourites so far.

Is there a photography book you're looking at right now? What page are you on?

Yes! We've just received our new Martine Syms book back from the printers. It's a big, almost 600 page survey of Martine's image-making over the last ten years. I'm on page 308.

What photography book do you most often recommend to customers and why?

It changes all the time, which makes it fun. Our customers in NYC are so different from our customers in London. The last three were Hiromix, girls blue, 1996; Catherine Opie Dyke Deck, 1995; and Yaa-Hoo by Paul McCarthy from 1998.

Hiromix, girls blue was her first photobook and it's just so so special. Some of the images were taken when she was just 17 years old. I love the picture of Sofia Coppola in the book. Five years after the book was published in 2003, Hiromix had a cameo in Sofia’s cult, Tokyo-set film Lost in Translation.


What sort of work do you like to publish? How do you find it and how do you choose?

I'm always drawn to archival bodies of work that have been overlooked or under-recognised. I also love to see outtakes! The images that didn't make the final edit, but feel equally important. I found Pissing Women by Sophy Rickett 1995 when I was volunteering at Oxfam Books, it was just one image inside a little art magazine. I needed to know more! So a few years later I emailed Sophy and found out she had only officially published 2 images but had many others in her collection.

It was a similar thing with Jim Britt, Sisters, 1976, which I published in 2018. I knew and loved the Comme des Garçons campaign of the two girls with braces, but didn't know the story behind it. Then Jim Britt (the photographer) saw an article I had written about how much I loved the image and got in touch to send me a print. I had no idea he was behind the image, which was a makeshift photo session with his two daughters that  ran in People Magazine (where Rei Kawakubo saw it and licensed it for a campaign). So I asked Jim if I could make a book featuring all of the outtakes from that photo shoot – the joyful, awkward images of his daughters. This was the first book I ever published.


What is the last photograph you took? Can you share it with us?

The light was amazing in London this morning. So I took some pics of my house and the flowers in the farmers market.

Do you take pictures aside from with your phone? If so, what camera do you use and why?

I wish I did! I used to have disposable cameras when I was a teenager


Can you send us a photograph or page that represents an important moment or memory related to your book collection?

My signed Detail mag covers from Traci Lords ♡♡♡

How did your childhood inform what you do today? Did you grow up surrounded by art / books?

Yes, I grew up in a house filled with books and art! My Dad doesn't own a mobile phone and reads every day. The stairs and rooms are all filled with books. I'm going with my Dad to the Francis Bacon exhibition tomorrow :)


What would you be doing if you weren't running Climax and working in fashion?

I couldn't imagine doing anything else. I love what I do.


What's next for Climax?

More publishing, more fashion collabs and maybe a space in LA!