GURREY, Alfred Richard.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Idyls of Hawaii. First and sole edition of this rare photography booklet, handmade and self-published by the father of surf photography A. R. Gurrey. We have traced only one other copy on the market and none institutionally.This work was produced at the same time as Gurrey's better-known, but only marginally more obtainable, book Surf Riders of Hawaii. These photos of Hawaiian landscapes include two images of an outrigger, possibly the Gurrey family's own canoe "Kamaaina". Gurrey was an adherent of the Roycrofters arts and crafts movement (his gallery being described as "the home of the Hawaiian Roycrofts" in The Mid-Pacific Magazine in 1912), and his artisan aesthetic can be clearly seen in this elegant brochure.Photography was one of the main drivers of early tourism to the islands, and "assisted in the transition of the colonial Hawaiian economy from sugar growing to tourism" (Johnston, p. 192). The vision of an island paradise and "the myth of Hawai'i as an idyllic and extraordinary destination was well established", having been already disseminated by writers such as Stevenson (ibid.). Through photography such as Gurrey's, in booklets like Idyls of Hawaii, this image was being reinforced in every shot. The first tourist guide to Hawai'i, The Hawaiian Guide Book for Travelers, was published in 1875 by the newspaper editor Henry M. Whitney, but it was Lorrin A. Thurston's Vistas of Hawai'i (1892) that "was to provide the model for the use of photographs to promote the isla

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