Photography

Title: Photographing America 1929-1947

Author: Henri Cartier-Bresson & Walker Evans

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Publisher: Thames & Hudson

Price: £27.50

Bookshop: Amazon

Spartacus Website: Walker Evans

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Walker Evans and Henri Cartier-Bresson belonged to the same generation and shared an insatiable intellectual curiosity. Their works had been exhibited together in 1935 at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York and they shared a period working in America when Cartier-Bresson spent eighteen months between 1946 and 1947 preparing his show at The Museum of Modern Art. This book draws a parallel between the work about America made by Evans and Cartier-Bresson in the period from 1930 to 1947. As John Szarkowski argued, Evans defined in his work the essence of the documentary aesthetic. Cartier-Bresson, on the other hand, was making a fresh start, leaving behind his work in moving imagery and fully embracing a career as a stills photographer. But they were both approaching their work as a form of social criticism, imbued with references to literature and painting. Photograph America presents an opportunity to confront and compare the visions of both of these seminal photographic masters at once.

Title: How to Read a Photograph

Author: Ian Jeffrey

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Publisher: Thames & Hudson

Price: £19.95

Bookshop: Amazon

Spartacus Website: Photography Websites

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Novices and experts alike will gain a deeper understanding of great photographers and their work, as Ian Jeffrey decodes key images and provides essential biographical and historical background to the images and their creators. Profiles of more than 100 major photographers, including Alfred Stieglitz, Bill Brandt, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, Paul Strand and László Moholy-Nagy, highlight styles and movements throughout the history of photography. Each entry includes a biography along with an illuminating discussion of key works and ample contextual information, making this book the ideal gallery companion for photography aficionados everywhere.

Title: Eve Arnold's People

Author: Brigitte Lardinois

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Publisher: Thames & Hudson

Price: £19.95

Bookshop: Amazon

Spartacus Website: Photography in the USA

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'Eve Arnold’s People' brings together the finest work by one of the great photographers of the twentieth century and provides, for the first time, an overview of her greatest talent – exceptional photographs of people, both famous and unknown, captured in formal and informal settings. This survey of her extraordinary career includes not only classic and intriguing photographs of Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, Paul Newman, Joan Crawford and Elizabeth Taylor, many of whom Eve came to know closely, but also of everyday people at work and at play around the world. Regardless of the subject’s fame, Eve’s unwavering eye and her ability to convey the spirit of the person in front of the lens remains constant. Created with Eve’s involvement, and featuring texts by Anjelica Huston and Isabella Rossellini and contributions from friends, associates and creative colleagues – Elliott Erwitt, John Tusa, David Puttnam, Michael Rand, Mary McCartney, Sheena McDonald, Jon Snow and Beeban Kidron – this book places Eve Arnold deservedly at the heart of the canon of photographic greats. It also stands as a testament to the keen attention her work has inspired from the latest creative generation.