Make room on your shelves for a slew of fine new monographs, including several candidates for this year’s Top 10 Photo Books. For your consideration: Leon Levinstein(Steidl/Howard Greenberg), the definitive survey of this great, under-appreciated street photographer’s work, is also one of the best books about New York at its most lived-in and lowdown – a city of tough guys, working girls, lovers, and loners that tourists rarely see. Sensitively sequenced and introduced by Bob Shamis, the work will remind you of Lisette Model, William Klein, Diane Arbus, and Weegee, all of whom covered similar ground, but Levinstein has a raw power all his own; he gets unsettlingly close to his subjects, looks hard, and never flinches. Bonus: a chapter of color work, previously unseen. In Jaromír Funke: Between Construction and Emotion (Kant), Antonin Dufek might be overstating his case when he compares the avant-garde Czech photographer to Moholy-Nagy and Man Ray, both of whom enjoyed considerably more international recognition in their lifetime and since. Funke remains little known, but his work from the 1920s and ‘30s has earned him more than a footnote in the history of European modernism. Although there are a lot of Bauhaus-style skewed compositions here, the core of the book is rich and solid, with a wide range of photograms, light abstractions, portraits, and nudes, as well as impeccably stylish still lifes of the sort his student, Josef Sudek, became even better known for. Another, uniquely American branch of 20th-century modernism gets its due in Paul Martineau’sMinor White: Manifestations of the Spirit (Getty). One of the founders and an early editor of Aperture magazine, White was influenced by Edward Steichen, Ansel Adams, and Edward Weston and is still in their shadow. But his work’s Zen-inflected spiritual bent – manifested in a sustained and transcendent series of nature studies – sets it apart. So do his photographs of the male nude, including images of one muscular young student – a sequence Martineau compares to Stieglitz’s studies of Georgia O’Keeffe, but one that the closeted and conflicted White never published in his lifetime. Printed in full for the first time here, it suggests the erotic underside of the book’s otherwise austere sensuality.
Horst: Photographer of Style (Skira/Rizzoli), the catalog to Susanna Brown’s knockout Victoria & Albert exhibition (up through January 4), is one of the savviest books so far on the photographer who epitomizes the neoclassical style in fashion and portraiture of the 1930s and ‘40s. As Brown points out early on, Horst’s style was regularly refreshed with baroque, surrealist, and modernist influences; applied to his broad range of interests (interiors, travel, the nude), it gave him the flexibility and strength for a long and varied career. Working primarily for Vogue, Horst perfected the studio shot – meticulously staged, dramatically lit, flawlessly elegant – for both fashion and celebrity portraits (Coco Chanel, Marlene Dietrich, and Luchino Visconti have cameos here). Brown and a number of excellent essayists cover it all, shrewdly and thoroughly, including less examined aspects of the work (nature studies, the use of color) that open up new areas of interest. A similarly engaging, magazine-style approach characterizes Snowden: A Life in View (Rizzoli), a breezy, brilliant, superbly designed overview of the life and work of the former Antony Armstrong-Jones. With essays and remembrances by a stellar cast (from Tom Ford to Robin Muir) and a running narrative by the man himself, Snowden is packed with vivid anecdotes and informed opinions. The book’s visuals are just as absorbing, tracking the career through magazine spreads, newspaper headlines, scrapbook pages, sittings diaries, and, of course, photographs. An ideal balance of image and text, it’s the very model of a modern memoir.
Best of 2016
Formed in 1963 by 11 photographers who recognized the necessity of “a forum to address the underrepresentation of African Americans in their field,” the Kamoinge Workshop gave its members a sense of solidarity and support in a period when black Americans were the frequent subject of mainstream media coverage but rarely its author.
The Shifting Borders of Photojournalism and Fine Art Photography
Disturbed by the lack of a visual record of Americ...
Eight Photographs. Eight Ways to Contemplate the Climate Crisis
In a special feature, photograph magazine asked eight professionals in the field of photography to each select a single photograph related to the climate crisis that resonated with them in the last year.
Roe Ethridge: It's Personal
At a time when youth and age seem to be blending i...
Interview: Michelle Dunn Marsh and Sylvia Plachy
Michelle Dunn Marsh, the founder of Minor Matters, the Seattle-based photography book publisher, has championed many photographers over the years.
Rosamond Purcell’s Cabinet of Curiosities
On the occasion of her first retrospective at the Addison Gallery, the photographer speaks to Lyle Rexer about photographing natural-history specimens in the “kingdom of the dead.”
Fazal Sheikh: Creating Common Ground
About 15 years ago, I came across Fazal Sheikh’s s...
Victor Burgin Revisits Photopath
The influential artist and writer reinstalls a landmark work for a new generation of viewers.
Photo-Poetics: Works Both Allusive and Elusive
With nearly two billion images posted each day on ...
Lucas Blalock: Object Relations
Emile, Man of the Future, 2016-17, barely even looks like a man. The large photograph, installed in Lucas Blalock’s first solo museum show, at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in downtown Los Angeles through July 21.
Image and Object: Erin Shirreff, Sara VanDerBeek, and Catherine Wagner
Three notable shows in Northern California this summer provide examples of how sculpture, and the idea of sculpture, are explored in photo-based work: Erin Shirreff, Sara VanDerBeek, and Catherine Wagner each make photo-based art and objects that are deeply informed by sculptural concerns.
Julia Dolan
Photo courtesy the Portland Art Museum Julia Dol...