Jason Polan | Every Person in New York Vol 2

Jason Polan

Every Person in New York Vol 2

New York City, USA: Dashwood Books, 2021

412 pp, 7.3 x 1 x 9.25”, softcover

Edition size unknown

I think of Ed Ruscha’s Every Building on the Sunset Strip as one of the most influential artist books of all time, and not because it inspired similar street photography. But rather the idea of trying to present a comprehensive collection of anything. The Every of the title. 

Rucha’s mandate was a very finite two-and-a-half kilometre stretch of a 38 km California boulevard. Jason Polan set himself an impossible task, and then spent ten years trying to make a dent in the goal of drawing every person in a city with eight and a quarter million residents, 

This book picks up in June 2014, where Volume 1, published in 2015, left off, and draws from the artist’s meticulously kept sketchbooks. Designed and Edited by Hans Seeger, the title features more than 5,000 drawings. 

Jason Polan died on this day six years ago, at the age of 37. By this point he had completed more than 50,000 portraits. 

"Jason Polan’s powers of observation — so simple, quick, supple, fun, and visually intelligent — made him one of the consummate draftsmen of the 21st century.” 

- Jerry Saltz, New York Magazine