ROADS AND PATHS: Twenty Walks 1971 - 1977 and Eight Photographs of Roads.

First edition, first printing. Signed by the author / artist. Publisher's original brown cloth, in dustwrapper. 36 pp. Unpaginated. Octavo 33.6cm x 24.3cm. Artists book with black and white photographic endpapers, and 35 photographic plates by Hamish Fulton. A near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the contents are clean throughout and without inscriptions or stamps. Complete with the lightly rubbed and creased dustwrapper that is a little marked to the white areas with a faint indented line on the front panel, and is otherwise free from fading, loss or tears.

Signed and dated by Hamish Fulton in blue ink on the half title page 'To Miranda / regards - Hamish 2. 2. 80'. A photographic documentation of various walks made by the artist across the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, America, Canada and Nepal between 1971 and 1977. Uncommon in signed state. Since the early 1970s Hamish Fulton (born 1946) has been labelled as a sculptor, photographer, Conceptual artist and Land artist. Fulton, however, characterises himself as a 'walking artist'. Fulton first came to prominence in the late 1960s as one of a number of artists, including Richard Long and Gilbert and George, who were exploring new forms of sculpture and landscape art. A central characteristic of their practice was a direct physical engagement with landscape. Fulton's time as a student at St. Martin's College of Art in London (1966-68) and his journeys in South Dakota and Montana in 1969, encouraged him to think that art could be 'how you view life', and not tied necessarily to the production of objects. He began to make short walks, and then to make photographic works about the experience of walking. In 1973, having walked 1,022 miles in 47 days from Duncansby Head (near John O'Groats) to Lands End, Fulton decided to 'only make art resulting from the experience of individual walks.' Since then the act of walking has remained central to Fulton's practice. He has stated 'If I do not walk, I cannot make a work of art' and has summed up this way of thinking in the simple statement of intent: 'no walk, no work'. (Tate Britain)