‘The Bitter Years’ was the title of a seminal exhibition held in 1962 at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, curated by Edward Steichen, and 2012 marks its 50th anniversary. The show featured 209 images by photographers who worked under the aegis of the US Farm Security Administration (FSA) in 1935–41 as part of Roosevelt’s New Deal. The Great Depression of the 1930s defined a generation in modern American history and was still a vivid memory in 1962. The FSA, set up to combat rural poverty, included an ambitious photography project that launched many photographic careers, most notably those of Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange. The exhibition featured their work as well as that of ten other FSA photographers, including Ben Shahn, Carl Mydans and Arthur Rothstein. Their images are among the most remarkable in documentary photography – testimonies of a people in crisis, hit by the full force of economic turmoil and the effects of drought and dust storms. The Bitter Years celebrates some of the m
ANSEL ADAMS: 400 PHOTOGRAPHS presents the full spectrum of Adams ' work in a single volume for the first time, offering the largest available compilation from his legendary photographic career. Beautifully produced and presented in an attractive landscape trim, ANSEL ADAMS: 400 PHOTOGRAPHS will appeal to a general gift-book audience as well as Adams' legions of dedicated fans and students. The photographs are arranged chronologically into five major periods, from his first photographs made in Yosemite and the High Sierra in 1916 to his work in the National Parks in the 1940s up to his last important photographs from the 1960s. An introduction and brief essays on selected images provide information about Adams ' life, document the evolution of his technique, and give voice to his artistic vision. Few artists of any era can claim to have produced four hundred images of lasting beauty and significance. It is a testament to Adams ' vision and lifetime of hard work that a book of this scale can be compiled.
Whether they are of Abu Dhabi, California, Egypt or Emilia, all of the images he produces are lit with a constant physical light and elements that this photographer seems to always have with him the way he does with his camera bag, and through which all he wants to do is observe the world. I find such an aesthetic to be more that of a painter than a photographer somehow. Better yet, that of a post-documentary or neo-pictorialist photographer, who experiences and conceives his work to be the exprssive gesture of an artist for whom the subject is above all the opportunity for a tremendous but constant variation in his view of the world.
In celebration of Hollywood's legendary actresses from the 1930sto the present, Assouline, together with Elle magazine, presentsThe Allure of Beauty: Women in Hollywood. From Marilyn Monroe andMarlene Dietrich to Anita Ekberg and Julia Roberts, each page ofthis vibrant anthology radiates with provocative images ofunforgettable faces and moments that have forever changed the placeof women in Hollywood - as well as in our culture. Elle magazinefilm critic Karen Durbin delves into the history of Hollywood,highlighting females who have proven their femininity, strength,and talent. The glitzy narrative accompanies a carefullyresearched, sexy selection of photography that captures theindividuality of each women. AUTHOR: Karen Durbin is the filmcritic for Elle magazine and contributor to The New York TimesSunday Arts Leisure section, for which she created and writesa regular feature on breakthrough performances in forthcomingmovies. She was the film critic of Mirabella magazine and editor inchief of The Village V
Images of the century (TASCHEN's 25th anniversaryspecial edition) The history of photography began some 150 yearsago, but only relatively recently has it been fully recognised as amedium in its own right. Cologne's Museum Ludwig was the firstmuseum of contemporary art to devote a substantial section tointernational photography. The L. Fritz Gruber collection, fromwhich this book is drawn, is one of the most important in Germanyand one of the most representative anywhere in the world,constituting the core of the museum's holdings. This book providesa fascinating insight into the collection's rich diversity; fromconceptual art to abstraction to reportage, all of the majormovements and genres are represented via a vast selection of thecentury's most remarkable photographs. From Ansel Adams to PietZwart, over 850 works are presented in alphabetical order byphotographer, with de*ive texts and photographers'biographical details, providing a comprehensive and indispensableoverview of 20th century photography
