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Henri Cartier-Bresson's amazing feat as a photographer is the ability to follow his heart and the keen vision of his mind and eye in each photograph. His subjects are only part of the image in the viewfinder, whose composition he sometimes arranges with geometric precision. Many of his best photographs also have startlingly broad political and sociological connotations, which gives the ordinary subjects extraordinary dignity, even grandeur. Europeans is filled with these images, which are often visually complex as well: a 1952 picture depicts a poor immigrant tilling hard ground while in the distance the prosperity-propelled factories of industry belch smoke into already smoggy skies. This is not just a picture of a poor man, or industrial power, or the contrast between the two. It's an open question about the meaning of life, with an anonymous no one--just another human being--at its center. Another wonderful image in this collection is a 1954 shot of a handsome soldier ogling two pretty women. It shows that even at the bleakest moments in their social history, Muscovites were not immune to pheromonal persuasion.
Book Description
Henri Cartier-Bresson reveals--as only a few great artists have done consistently--the richness, the sensibilities, and the varieties of the human experience in the twentieth century. This volume of Aperture's Masters of Photography series confirms the genius of the photographer whose pictures with the new, smaller hand-held cameras and faster films defined the idea of "the decisive moment" in photography.
Cartier-Bresson's imagery is intimate, but it is also utterly respectful of his subjects. In his wide travels throughout the world, he has captured universal meanings through the glimpses into the lives of individuals in scores of countries. Each photograph is in itself a masterpiece of dramatic form; taken together, Cartier-Bresson's works constitute a personal history of epic scope.
Henri Cartier-Bresson presents forty-two of the artist's photographs, each recognized a a masterpiece of the medium. In addition, Cartier-Bresson offers a brief statement of his own artistic ethos, his striving for the spontaneity through intuition that imbues his work.
Customer Reviews:
Best of Bresson.......2006-06-25
A lovely little book showing the most famous pictures of Henri Cartier-Bresson on 95 pages only. A must-have for the Cartier-Bresson fans or a great first book to have on this fabulous photographer.
A True Master.......2005-10-06
If Cartier-Bresson did not invent the art of 35mm street photography, he certainly brought it to the attention of other serious photographers and the public. Trained as a painter, his eye for composition was unerring, but it was his instinct for the defining human gesture--that he termed "the decisive moment"--that made him one of the immortals of photographic history. As one of the founding members of Magnum, he changed the way we think of photographs and the way we see the world. This book is an introduction to his work. As such, it's all too short, but the economical format make it possible to see a few decent examples of his work and perhaps to inspire further study. He was a true master of the art.
Nice little collection.......2005-01-08
This collection is a nice, compact, and inexpensive sample of Cartier-Bresson's photographs. I would have prefered the book to be a little larger to allow for bigger pictures. The print quality is decent. I was disappointed that my favorite photograph by him, the one of the bicyclist going by the staircase entitled "Hyères, France", was absent.
the best.......2001-12-30
Cartier-Bresson is a God of Photography. This is his best album that I know.
Visualizing the Common Qualities!.......2001-07-02
Review Summary: This book is a brilliant expansion of M. Cartier-Bresson's 1955 show designed to emphasize the similarities that exist from country to country throughout Europe in the way people live together. M. Jean Clair has done a marvelous job of adding earlier and more recent images to extend and magnify this theme. As a result you will see an "unquestionable family likeness" for the Europeans that emerges from "the obstinate reworking of a chosen subject." The book contains 200 duotone images to make that point.
Reader Caution: While there is relatively little nudity in this book, there is one final image of two female models resting on a couch that would probably cost this material an R rating if it were a motion picture. If you skip that photograph, you will probably not find the other partial female nudity offensive. This one work is actually asexual, in portraying posing nude as hard work from which one needs a totally relaxing break.
Review: Since World War II, Europeans have been struggling with their common heritage and how to balance it with the national, religious, and cultural ones. Gradually, the differences are being homogenized. Brilliantly, Henri Cartier-Bresson understood early on that the connections were stronger than most other people probably realized. By showing the similarities across countries and cultures, he creates an awareness of potential for friendship that would escape those who had never visited all of these countries.
The work revolves around unnamed themes. But any casual viewer will spot children playing, men and women enjoying a relaxed moment together, public observances of religion and politics, how humans are dominated by nature, the contrasts between rich and poor, and the artificial nature of much modern life. His work also explores the subtle ways that natural and human-made objects display the same forms and outlines.
Here are my favorite images in the book: Guilvines, Brittany, France, 1956; On the banks of the Seine, France, 1936; Palais-Royal, Paris, France, 1959: Amarante, Alto Douro, Portugal, 1955; Lamego, Beira Alta, Portugal, 1955; Madrid, Spain, 1932; Ariza, Aragon, Spain, 1953; Aquila, the Abruzzi, Italy, 1951; Torcello, Italy, 1953; Zurich, Switzerland, 1953; Ridnik, Serbia, Yugoslavia, 1965; Gyor, Hungary, 1964; Near Linz, Upper Austria, 1953; Tug-boat pilots on the Rhine, Germany, 1952; Warsaw, Poland, 1931; Moscow, USSR, 1954; Fishermen, near Suzdal, USSR, 1972; George VI's Coronation, London, England, 1937; Queen Charlotte's Ball, London, England, 1959; and Break between drawing poses, Paris, France, 1989.
You will also be intrigued by how much of the political content of what is portrayed here has changed since it was photographed. The scenes of celebrating Soviet Communism and its founders are gone. The Berlin Wall is gone. The positive identification with everything royal in England is diminished.
Naturally, there's a less pleasant side of this convergence that M. Cartier-Bresson did not choose to portray -- the dominance of mass culture with world brands and forms of entertainment, often from outside Europe. In fact, some have argued that the gravity pulling Europe together is that people like to have more choices when they shop. Isn't it interesting that this dimension was ignored?
M. Cartier-Bresson has a masterly touch for composition that is seen again and again in these photographs. The large two-page landscapes with small people in them show the kind of sophistication that only the most successful painters achieve in the oversized paintings you see in the Paris museums. M. Cartier-Bresson also shows his love for people by portraying them in attractive, positive ways . . . even when they come from different ends of the religious and political spectrum. How wonderful it must have been for him to see people so positively!
Those who are long-time Cartier-Bresson fans will be disappointed a little in the images here. You are probably used to seeing them reproduced in somewhat larger sizes. The sizes used here work, but bigger in this case would have been better.
After you read this book and enjoy its wonderful images, I suggest that you think about how people can make connections with one another that move from a deep spiritual commitment to helping one another, regardless of the basis for that commitment. Otherwise, all we may find we have in common in the future is that it will look like we all shopped in the same mall.
Stand taller by assisting those who want to receive a willing heart!
Book Description
"I do not photograph nature, I photograph my fantasy," Man Ray proclaimed, and he found in the camera's eye and in light's magical chemistry the mechanisms for dreaming. Schooled as a painter and designer in New York, Man Ray turned to photography after discovering the 291 Gallery and its charismatic founder, Alfred Stieglitz. As a young expatriate in Paris during the twenties and thirties, Man Ray embraced surrealism and dadaism, creeds that emphasized chance effects, disjunction, and surprise. Tireless experimentation with technique led him to employ solarization, grain enlargement, mixed media, and cameraless prints (photograms)-- which he called "Rayographs"-- made by placing objects directly on photographic paper and exposing them to light. These successful manipulations, for which he was dubbed "the poet of the darkroom" by fellow surrealist Jean Cocteau, were a major contribution to twentieth-century photography.
Man Ray was no less adept at commercial and portrait photography, and he earned a good living both in Paris and later in Hollywood. His portraits of Joyce, Eliot, Matisse, Artaud, Hemingway, and Brancusi, among others, testify to his compelling insight. Renowned for his exotic wit and elegance, Man Ray was one of the most popular figures of his time and his work continues to hold wide appeal.
Man Ray presents forty-three of the greatest images from throughout the artist's career. The essay by Jed Perl describes the influences behind Man Ray's abundant career and his enduring contribution to photography.
Customer Reviews:
kind of disappointing.......2000-12-27
I bought this book expecting it to be a basic guide on Man Ray's work. The problem is it happens to be a little too basic. You can't find Man Ray's most expressive work, except for "Tears" (only on the cover), "Le Violin d'Ingres", "Mask of Woman", "Le Priere" and a few Rayographs. It seems to be a biographic record instead of an art book, although it doesn't blur the genius of Man Ray's photographs.
A Good Portal Into the Work of Man Ray.......2000-04-19
Aperture's "Master of Photography" collections are economical, well put together samplers of some of this century's best known photographers, and are a good starting point for those relatively unfamiliar with an artist's work. The emphasis is on providing a representative image from all stages in the photographer's career (a long, diverse one in the case of Man Ray)so depth in the era the photographer did his most important work is sacrificed to chronological breadth.
The reproductions are good, but not exceptional. Some of the images lacked the glow - the sense of captured light - seen in higher-end reproductions of the images. This slight deadening of the images was most apparent in Man Ray's wonderful solarized photos - images with a which when reproduced well seem to be lit from within.
Art and photography books are perhaps the least suited for e-commerce as we know it today. Some of my favorite images were not in the Aperture books, and I would have been able to see this before buying by thumbing through the book at a traditional bookstore. Hopefully, as technology advances, Amazon will allow us to "thumb through" these books of images on-line, by being able to view all the images electronically before buying.
All in all, this Aperture series is a good, inexpensive place to get started for someone who would like to see representative images of an artist with whom he or she is unfamiliar. They are not by any means comprehensive works, nor do they have the most beautiful reproductions of some of the mostmemorable images of this century. These books are, however, much less expensive than museum catalogs, have intelligent introductory essays, and are printed passably - they serve a valuable purpose in making the work of these photographers more accessible, and encouraging further exploration into an artist's work.
Book Description
Alfred Stieglitz was one of the most important cultural forces in twentieth-century America. He described himself in 1921 as "an American. Photography is my passion. The search for truth my obsession." As a photographer, editor, and gallery director, Stieglitz was a powerful--often domineering--influence on photography and art. As founder of the PhotoSecession movement and editor of the influential Camera Work, he eschewed the prevailing "artiness" of pictorialist photography, preferring a clarity of vision, a "crystallized awareness." In galleries such as "291" and An American Place which he directed, he introduced modern artists from this country and Europe.
His own work was a seminal force, inspiring clut-like devotion; the noted curator and scholar Ananda Coomoraswamy said of Stieglitz, "His art is absolute the way Bach's music is absolute." He is best known for his winter scenes in New York and Paris, his luminous landscapes at Lake George, his portraits of Georgia O'Keeffe and Dorothy Norman, and his elusive Equivalents. His study of the expressiveness of forms and the subtleties of light won him great acclaim.
Alfred Stieglitz presents forty-one of the artist's most significant photographs, spanning his career. Photographer Dorothy Norman, Stieglitz's close associate and working partner, has written an intimate and comprehensive text.
Customer Reviews:
Stieglitz.......2005-08-20
A small, but diverse representation of Stieglitz's work, well presented and of good quality. A good introduction.
Alfred Stieglitz.......2000-10-26
Alfred Stieglitz really had an eye for the art of photgraphy. he new what was needed in order to dreate good pictures, this book really captures the essence of that eye.
Book Description
"To me photography can be simultaneously both a record and a 'mirror' or 'window' of self-expression. The camera is generally assumed to be unable to depict that which is not visible to the eye. And yet the photographer who wields it well can depict what lies unseen in his memory."--Eikoh Hosoe
Eikoh Hosoe is an integral part of the history of the modern Japanese photography. He remains a driving force in photography, not only for his own work, but also as a teacher and as an ambassadorial figure, fostering artistic exchange between Japan and the outside world. His influence has been felt not only in his native country, but throughout the international photographic community.
Aperture's newly expanded Masters of Photography book series presents an introduction to the seminal photographers of our time. Each book in the series presents more than 40 images spanning the artist's career, along with a chronology, exhibition history and selected bibliography.
Customer Reviews:
A real Master.......2001-05-14
It is said that an image is more than a thousand words. Althought I don't think it is exact, it is what I have to say about this excellent book. Not only the quality of the images (those like the "Embrace" series, the ones about Mishima, some of the "Man and Woman" series), but the text indeed, makes this book a must for those who search the spirit behind the photographs, and who think that photography is much more than only a matter of "being in the right place at the right time".
Creativy at its maximux display.
Book Description
Manuel Alvarez Bravo has said of himself, "I was born in the city of Mexico, behind the Cathedral, in the place where the temples of the ancient Mexican gods must have been built." And as this selection of photographs shows, the too are deeply rooted in the culture of the Mexican people. Alvarez Bravo's unique eye for the monumental, the mundane, the mysterious reveals a vision of universal interest, rooted in the everyday yet always looking beyond. He focuses on the subtleties of human interaction to make eloquent images of dreams, death, and the transient life.
Since early in his photographic career, the photographs of Alvarez Bravo have been respected by artists from around the world. It is only recently, however, that Alvarez Bravo's importance as a master of photography has been confirmed in a series of major retrospective exhibitions at the International Center of Photography, New York; the Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; the Israel Museum. Jerusalem; the Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid; the Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Aperture is proud to acknowledge the contributions Manuel Alvarez Bravo has made to photography and to make available this selection of his wide-ranging work in this volume of its Masters of Photography series.
Customer Reviews:
Haven't received the book yet.......2007-02-06
This order was placed on the 6th of January; As of 6th Feb the book hasn't reached me yet. Could be the international shipping. I will post my review once I get it.
A beautifully printed small selection of Bravo's work........1998-06-13
This small book contains wonderfully printed samples of a great photographer's work. Any selection not done by the artist reflects a certain bias, but this collection has a very neutral one, and the book flows quite nicely. Coleman's essay at the beginning has been printed numerous times and reflects a cultural bias that glorifies Bravo as a "Mexican" photographer rather than as one without the qualifier.
Very complete but poorly printed Bravo collection........1998-06-13
The most complete collection of this wonderful photographer's work available, this book has unfortunately been printed so poorly that the qualities of most of the photographs is lost. The photos look muddy and suffer from low contrast. The essay, however, is excellent, and worth reading for an introduction to Bravo's life and work. The Aperture books of Bravo's work, while offering far fewer photographs, have much better reproduction.
Book Description
Paul Strand was more than a great artist: he was a discoverer of the true potential of photography as the most dynamic medium of the twentieth century. Purity, elegance, and passion are the hallmarks of Strand's imagery. This inaugural volume of Aperture's Masters of Photography series presents forty-one of Strand's greatest photographs, drawn from a career that spanned six decades.
Included are his earliest experimental efforts, created from 1915 to 1917, which Alfred Stieglitz declared had begun to redefine the medium. Subsequent photographs reveal the artist's impeccable vision in locales as diverse as New England and the Outer Hebrides, France, and Ghana. During Strand's last years, he concentrated on still lifes and the poignant beauty to be found in his own garden at Orgeval, France.
In an introductory essay, Mark Haworth-Booth, Curator of Photography at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, provides an overview of the artist's life and his enduring contribution.
Customer Reviews:
Decent little book.......2005-01-08
This collection is a nice, compact, and inexpensive glipse at a range of Paul Strand's photographs from throughout his long 60 year career. I would have prefered the book to be a little larger to allow for bigger pictures. The print quality is decent.
In the Eyes of the Beholder.......2001-11-24
as a person who has been close with the Strand family for a long time, i have to say that out of personal relations and out of knowing the full potential for paul and his family, this book is amazing. you have to remember that there is a face and a mind behind this camera, and the amazing talent that people must have in the first place to even be able to spot beauty in the everyday things. if you can take the time to look at the power of these photographs as a human being with a powerfully capable mind and not as a critic, prone to hang on every little detail instead of fully trying to enjoy the pieces in question, i can garauntee that you will be completely satisfied with this collection. in my mind it will always be stunning.
A Glimpse of Paul Strand.......1999-12-07
This book presents a small collection of Mr. Strand's images, all titled and dated, and offers a glimpse of the entire span of his career. We are given a sense of his work through four of the major times and places during his life: his photographic apprenticeship in New York during the late 1910's, a sampling of his work done under commission in Mexico, his well known work in New England, and finally, images taken after his emigration to France, in 1950. A brief biography precedes the photographs that follow, and we are left to consider the images free from further didactic comment.
At first sight, one senses immediately the charm this man might have possessed in his relationships with both himself and those people and things surrounding his life. This sense is borne out in the wry humor of "Town Hall", with its off kilter framing, which we instantly recognize as Paul Strand. Ironically, a closer study of his personal life indicates Mr. Strand could be a difficult man. The well-known "Wall Street", an earlier piece of darkly shadowed monstrous windows overpowering passers by, is as close to the foggy pictorialist sense Strand will get, and the rest of the images show him breaking away from that style, and moving head first into the previsualized and almost straight photographic style that he was to help break ground for.
In this collection, several of the photographs stand out; but many seem rather innocuous, specifically the portraits of those he knew personally, and those he didn't - none seem to capture the viewers imagination like those of Mr. Strands' contemporaries might, Edward Weston for one. Instead, they seem unimaginative and emotionless. Furthermore, it doesn't help that, lacking that content, it may be that his reputation as an innovative technician in the darkroom goes unnoticed here, seeing these images only on the page (in small 7 inch by 6 inch reprint).
On the other hand, we are shown some photographs which show how powerful a view of quiet solitude can be. Of particular note,"Tir a'Mhurain" stands alone. A wide view of the silence surrounding three horses watering in the bay, and in the very left foreground, they are being watched from far above by a lone white horse. The leading of the three animals has turned its mane toward, and is eyeing the lone horse. The silvery water of the bay reflects the stand of horses, and more strongly, that of an immense and clouded sky, suggesting a powerful solemnity. Faintly, in mid-ground, wood buildings of a fishing village are left powerless in front of only a small mountain range. Taken in 1954, an American living in France (but not able to speak the language), Mr. Strand might have felt himself the lone horse. The obtrusive sky begging for silence. The artist contemplating his subject from afar.
"Driveway" was taken late in his life (in fact, three years prior to his death) where he lived in France. This poetic view leads us through an overgrowth, tunnel-like, of bare tree limbs and branches. Beneath this dark surrounding of hibernating growth, two parallel white cobblestone paths. Our eyes search the dark, shadowed background to where we are being lead; almost imperceptible, at the end of the driveway, we make out a decrepit structure: a country cottage, seemingly empty and abandoned. One cannot help but feel the author's probable recognition of the path of his own life, and the awful truth of life: of autumn, the oncoming winter, the drawing to a close, and of coming home to a place unknown.
In this collection, these are his strongest images, these landscapes. - whether "Fox River", from his acclaimed book "Time in New England", or the handful of New York cityscapes, or the country landscapes and village life scenes, such as "Marketplace", taken in Italy. Robert Adams has suggested that Mr. Strands work went into decline following his emigration to France in 1950 (1). In actuality, it is these images we wish for more of. Mr. Strand's capacity was not limited by time and place, but by subject and content. Seeing the images borne from his emigrated life, one is left wanting less of his still life's and portraits, and more of what showed a more genuine side of Mr. Strand through symbolic form. Not the modernist machine pictures like "Oil Refinery", or "Akeley Motion Picture Camera", but more of "Landscape, Sicily, Italy", with its bare, white birch trees having cloistered the villager's in their quiet homes.
However, in this book, as a simple compendium of Mr. Strand's oeuvre, the viewer is at least left with a closer understanding of a part of what this celebrated photographer was seeing throughout the varied stages and places, both known and foreign, of his life.
1. Adams, Robert Why People Photograph, Aperture Press, 1994. pg. 85
Book Description
Harry Callahan, known for his bold exploration of quotidian details and his innovative use of the abstract in photography, has created a career that spans many eras and lives. From his extended portrait of his wife, Eleanor, to his formal studies of architectural structures and his observation of abstract expressionist line in natural forms, Callahan's remarkable work has been central to the development of American photography. The influence of his labors is easily recognized in the work of many disparate genres of visual art. His photographic legacy continues on not only in the vibrancy of his own images, but in the unparalleled inspiration his teaching has brought to many.
Aperture's Masters of Photography series presents Callahan's most vital and lasting images, in addition to a number of photographs that have never been published before. The accompanying essay by Jonathan Williams, poet, essayist, and the publisher of Jargon Society books, provides a unique textual complement to the subtlety of Callahan's work and vision.
Customer Reviews:
A Concise Compilation.......2000-04-27
Harry Callahan was the most influential and important figure in photography throughout the last half of the 20th century. This edition of his work shows chronologically how Callahan's approach to the medium evolved and changed, while his vision remained ever faithful to modernity. The book begins in Detroit, where Callahan worked for Chrysler while pursuing photography as a serious hobby. It was also during this time that he married Eleanor Knapp, who would later become the subject for many of his strongest images. The accompanying essay by Sarah Greenough is succinctly written, blending biographical information to the photographs Callahan took throughout his long, photographic journey (Callahan died in 1999). Callahan's outlook on photography changed dramatically after having met Ansel Adams, at a photography workshop in Detroit. Taking some of Adams' philosophy and refining it, Callahan created his own style of photographing/printing, made apparent by such images as `Weeds in Snow' and `Detroit, 1942'. In these images and throughout the rest of his life, Callahan easily turned the simplest subject matter into monumental works of photographic art. The book provides powerful examples of this, in both black & white and color. After leaving his job to pursue photography full time, Callahan moved to Chicago and taught at the Institute of Design. Continuing the experimentation he began in Detroit, Callahan worked and refined his style during his Chicago years, utilizing double exposure, collage, close-ups, and the use of positive and negative space. The book then turns to Callahan's New England period. It was during this time that Callahan taught at the Rhode Island School of Design, in Providence. The book captures this period vividly, with images of varying contrast and mood. Here we see Callahan's ability at adapting to his environment by producing increasingly poetic images of nature, as well as urban and suburban street scenes. In his later work from 1972-1992, the photographs in "Harry Callahan" document the photographer's travels in other countries, with an increased attention on color. It remains clear by the images shown in his later years, that Callahan continued to explore photography by constantly challenging himself and the medium. Where most photographers are known for one particular style or body of work (Cartier-Bresson's `decisive moment' or Robert Frank's publication of The Americans), Callahan is known for many different styles and bodies of work. The photographs in "Harry Callahan" prove this with each turn of the page. Callahan was a photographic artist in the truest sense, if we choose to believe an artists' goal is not only to create but to constantly evolve. Callahan was, continues to be, and always will be an influence to those photographers who seek not only perfection in the creation of their photographic art, but also change.
Book Description
Eugène Atget photographed the city of Paris and its environs obsessively for almost thirty years. He discovered a market for documentary photographs of Old Paris, which were bought by artists as source material for their canvases. But for Atget, the production of photographs about old French culture was also an occasion for making art.
His photographs are unparalleled in their lucid realism and their lyrical response to the living pulse of the city and to artifacts that speak of human life in almost every social class. His images of parks, lakes, shop windows, vendors, prostitutes, buildings, sculpture, street scenes of Paris, go beyond mere documentation to a poetic vision of a time gone by. Atget created some of the most beautifully articulated images of light and space ever made with a camera-- an imaginary world.
Customer Reviews:
Pocket Sized Atget.......2004-06-17
Eugene Atget spent his 30 years in photography making over 10,000 large-plate negatives of the art, architecture, and lives of Paris. His photographs capture the beauty and emotion of Paris in the late 1800s. Atget does an amazing job of engulfing the viewer into the Paris city life. His pictures of storefronts and street scenes are amazingly lit and present a romantic yet true to life view of Paris.
This small but powerful book is one of many in the Phaidon 55 series. The small size is great for carrying around, and even though the pictures are smaller then those in most photography books, they still hold true to the original prints. There is a short introduction and history of the photographer at the beginning. Each picture is accompanied by a brief description and insight into the photograph. Even though the size is smaller then most photography books, the images are still great quality, and for the price you can't go wrong.
A superbly presented and invaluable contribution.......2001-03-02
Eugene Atget (1857-1927) spent almost thirty years photographing details of often inconspicuous Parisian buildings, side streets, cul-de-sacs, and public sculptures. In Focus: Eugene Atget brings together more than 50 of the J. Paul Getty Museum's 295 photographs by Atget, with commentary on each image by associate curator of photographs at the Getty Museum, Gordon Baldwin. Atget's photograph and Baldwin's commentary are enhanced with a chronological overview of Atget's life and an edited transcript of a colloquium on his career. In Focus: Eugene Atget is a superbly presented and invaluable contribution to the history of photography.
19TH CENTURY PARIS PASSIONATELY DOCUMENTED FOR POSTERITY.......2001-01-18
Eugene Atget (1857-1927) is the undisputed photo-documentarian of 19th century Paris. With studious attention to detail, Atget seemingly photographed every intimate corner of his much-loved city. Leaving the well-known monuments and boulevards to others, Atget instead concentrated on the atmospheric fabric of everyday Paris, photographing shops and window displays, cobbled streets, doorways, stairways, vehicles, churches, amusement parks, street-peddlers and prostitutes.
Unraveling the mystery of Eugène Atget's life and work is easier said than done. Now considered to be one of history's most important photographers, Atget was relatively unknown during his lifetime. Posthumously famous for his photographs, Atget in fact made only a humble living selling his prints to architects, artists, and institutions.
Atget wrote in 1920, "I may say that I have in my possession all of Old Paris." His systematic method of photographing Paris street by street is spellbinding, and the result is a detailed catalogue of 19th century Paris. The result of Eugène Atget's life's work is gathered here in a heartbreakingly beautiful book for lovers of Paris, architecture, and photography.
breathtaking views of Paris in the past.......2000-12-30
I received this book as a gift because not only do I collect photography books but I also frequently go to Paris because I love the city. This book is full of full page photos of Paris in the past and has a dreamy quality of the day to day events and sites of Paris and the surrounding areas. It's a great collectible book for photography fans and Paris lovers.
Atget's Simple Documents.......2000-08-12
The J. Paul Getty Museum's latest photography book installment - focusing on the work of Eugene Atget, offers the best example of curators creating much ado about an artists work, through speculation and second-guessing. This merely justifies the curator's reason for employment, while boring the reader with a treasure trove of euphemisms and art-speak banter. That we learn more about each speaker's own Rorschach test interpretation of the photographs and less on the artist is not the point. The point is, why does the final third of the book contain this colloquium, when it could easily have been filled with more samplings from the Museum's 295 Atget holdings? Atget's images of Paris are brilliant for what they represent: a visual recording of what he considered worth preserving in pictures. His subject matter ranged from buildings and statues - to interiors, street merchants, and anything worthy of pursuing photographically in and around Paris. Atget's photographs gain their strength due to their simplicity; any further interpretation renders them less for their intent - which was purely documentation. Skip the verbiage contained in "Eugene Atget: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum", and just enjoy Atget's simple photographs of his beloved Paris.
Book Description
An unobtrusive portrait photographer who knew what he wanted from his subjects at the onset of his career, August Sander is the photographer of the soul and the chronicler of an age.
A meticulous workman and driven artist, he photographed the defeated citizenry of Germany in 1918, who needed photo identification cards for the occupying forces. By 1929 he had photographed all classes and types of the German people. Sander came under the influence of modern art and its vocal intellectual practitioners, whom he befriended in Cologne. It was through his discussions with them that he came to understand the importance of his portrait work and was encouraged to continue. He produced the first volume of an extended series he hoped would provide an exhaustive catalog, but by the 1930s his work fell into disfavor by the Nazis and was banned.
The photography of August Sander, resounding with clarity and expressiveness, comprises an extraordinary human document. This volume of the Masters of Photography series includes forty-three of his portraits that reveal a vast cross section of German society, from pastry chefs to industrialists, and provide a provocative glance at the Weimar Republic.
Book Description
Barbara Morgan was a remarkable pioneer in photography. Although she has been most celebrated for her extraordinary studies of modern dance in the late 1930s and early forties, her entire artistic career was fluid, searching, and embraced a wide range of philosophical and aesthetic influences. Morgan captured, through a variety of photographic processes, a new, enduring, understanding of what it means to dance. Her studies of pioneering dancers such as Martha Graham, Jose Limon, Erick Hawkins, and Merce Cunningham, have created a body of images that capture for posterity the spiritual essence of a temporal art. A former painter, she used montage and manipulated imagery to express the visual and kinetic energy of New York City. Combining photograms and light drawing, she experimented with moving light patterns to denote an ethereal momentum.
Included in this volume are the finest examples of Morgan's vision: her dance photographs, photomontages, light drawings, and other works from her long and varied photographic career. In the accompanying essay, Deba P. Patnaik, photo-historian and art critic, provides and overview of the development of her career, and unique insight into the deeply held beliefs that informed her work.
Customer Reviews:
Photography and Modern Dance.......2002-01-18
During 1935-41 Barbara Morgan Photographed dancers in New York City and Bennington, I liked very much the pictures
of Anna Sokolow, Martha Graham, Pearl Primus, Valerie Bettis, Merce Cunningham, Jose Limon, Charles Weidman,
and Doris Humphrey that are included in this book.
Books:
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- Independent Feature Film Production: A Complete Guide from Concept Through Distribution
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- History: Fiction or Science
- Bad News/Good News
- The Skull of the World: Witches of Eileanan #5
- The Warlock in Spite of Himself
- Women Who Run with the Wolves
- Chemistry for Today: General, Organic, and Biochemistry
- A People's Army: Massachusetts Soldiers and Society in the Seven Years' War
- History: Fiction or Science
- The Kingdon Field Guide to African Mammals
- Life in Napoleon's Army: The Memoirs of Captain Elzear Blaze
General
| Architecture
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
Henri Cartier-Bresson: A Propos de Paris
Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Mind's Eye
Paul Strand (Aperture Masters of Photography)
Alfred Stieglitz (Aperture Masters of Photography, No 6)
Eugene Atget (Aperture Masters of Photography)
