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Photography Histories-

Cover of Skira History of Photography Volume III

Skira History of Photography

Skira Four Volume History of Photography  Edited by Walter Guadagnini  Skira’s four volume history of photography takes an unusual but rewarding approach. Recognizing that it is impossible, even in four volumes, to provide a comprehensive history of photography, publishing house Skira has instead chosen to dig deeply into key movements in the history of photography, […]
American Witness RJ Smith

American Witness

American Witness. The Art and Life of Robert Frank, by RJ Smith, Da Capo Press Robert Frank was the most influential photographer of the second half of the 20th century. And the basis for that influence is almost exclusively attributed to a single work, The Americans. First published in France in 1958 and then the […]
Group f.64

Group f.64

Group f.64 By Mary Street Alinder, Bloomsbury Group f.64 may be the most influential collection of photographers ever. That influence can still be felt today and their work remains perennially popular. Monographs and retrospectives highlighting the work of individual members continue to be published ninety years later. While Alfred Stieglitz may be credited with relentlessly […]
Photography the Key Concepts

Striving for Art

Photography, the Key Concepts by David Bate, Berg Publishers Where exactly does photography fit into the world of art? That photography is, or can be, “art” has been a settled question for a century or more. Far more difficult to answer is: what sorts of photographs are “art.” And, who is it that determines the […]

2009 NPR Story about Robert Frank

One of the great things about Google and the Internet is that you never know when you might stumble upon a prize. This one comes via Google Alerts and is an NPR story from 2009 on Robert Frank. It’s pretty basic stuff, but I have a rule that virtually anything on Robert Frank that I […]
Disappearing Witness

In Search of Things as They Are

Disappearing Witness by Gretchen Garner. Johns Hopkins University Press. Gretchen Garner thinks documentary photography contributes something that is worth preserving. For much of the 20th Century,  that would have seemed like a ridiculously self-evident perspective. Documentary photography, or more precisely, what Garner refers to as spontaneous witness, dominated photography for most of the past century […]
History of Photography Newhall

Thinking about Beaumont

The History of Photography by Beaumont Newhall. The Museum of Modern Art (1982 Edition) Beaumont Newhall’s History of Photography is so much a part of the history that it documents that it can be hard to read it today and evaluate the book on its own merits. I first read Newhall’s history more than 35 […]

How to Read a History of Photography

I’ve discovered a secret about reading histories and criticisms of photography. It’s the internet. Almost every book on photography contains a disclaimer from the author that he or she regrets that the practical limits of publication means the book cannot possibly include enough images to give the reader a complete picture of the photographers and […]
American Photography Orvell

A Narrative of Paradigms

American Photography by Miles Orvell, Oxford History of Art Series. In his introduction, Miles Orvell sets out a challenge for himself: to tell the history of photography in America as “a narrative of successive paradigms, rather than a string of masterpieces.” Presumably, by doing so, Orvell – Professor of English and American Studies at Temple […]
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