HISTORICAL
PHOTOGRAPHY
The books
in this section are photography books of historical interest. These
books present photographs from the earliest days of 19th century and
early 20th century photography.
Most of
the books are available through our association with Amazon.com. However,
many books have limited availability. If you are interested in a book
that is not available through Amazon.com, we most likely have an alternative
source or a copy in our collection that you may inquire
about.
The listing
here is alphabetical by the book title.
A
B C D E F G
H I J K L
M N O P Q R S T U
V W X Y Z
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Bernice
Abbott & Eugène Atget,
Clark Worswick
2002, Arena Editions
10.75" x 9.25", 144 pp.
(used copies available) |
Eugène Atget’s photographs of
Paris between 1898 and 1927 form the bedrock of an American modernist
photographic vision. In 1927, Berenice Abbott, one of the century’s
most renowned photographers in her own right, became the largest
collector of Atget’s work when she purchased his estate. For
the next 40 years (1929–1969), Abbott devoted much of her
creative life to popularizing the work of Atget. Representing her
vision of Atget’s tapestry of Parisian life, this book reproduces
and discusses the rare prints created by Abbott from Atget negatives
— one of the few instances of one great photographer printing
another great photographer’s work. Over 100 duotone photos
are featured, some of which Abbott developed from previously unpublished
Atget negatives.
"The Atget prints are ... a rare and subtle perception, and
represent perhaps the earliest expression of true photographic art."
— Ansel Adams |
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The
Black Female Body: A Photographic History,
Deborah Willis, Carla Williams
2002, Temple Univ Press
12.36" x 9", 228 pp.
Publisher:
List price: $60.00 |
"Searching
for photographic images of black women, Deborah Willis and Carla
Williams were startled to find them by the hundreds. In long-forgotten
books, in art museums, in European and U.S. archives and private
collections, a hidden history of representation awaited discovery.
The Black Female Body offers a stunning array of familiar and
many virtually unknown photographs, showing how photographs reflected
and reinforced Western culture's fascination with black women's
bodies. ... Read more about
this book |
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Book
of Nudes,
Alessandro Bertolotti
2007, Harry N Abrams-penguin/ Putnam
List price: $50.00 |
Alessandro Bertolotti’s unrivalled collection
of books on nudes, amassed over thirty years, allows us to explore
the history of photographic creations, from the first academic snapshots
all the way up to the most audacious avant-gardists. More
about this book » |
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Mathew
Brady and the Image of History,
Mary Panzer, et al.
1997, Smithsonian Institution Press
11.25", x 9.5", 256 pp.
List price: $44.95 |
"During a career that spanned the 1840s to
the 1890s, Mathew Brady consciously set out to capture the pivotal
moments of the second half of the nineteenth century. Here are his
famous portraits of President Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Jefferson
Davis, the Union dead, and Robert E. Lee. - 72 b/w photographs,
79 b/w illustrations." |
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Julia
Margaret Cameron: The Complete Photographs,
Julian Cox, et al.
2003, Getty Trust Publication
12" x 10", 532 pgs.
List price: $150.00
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For the
first time, all known images by Cameron, one of the most important
nineteenth-century artists in any medium, are gathered together
in a catalogue raisonne. In addition to a complete catalogue of
Cameron's photographs, the book contains information on her photographic
experiments and techniques, artistic approach, small-format photographs,
albums, commercial strategies, sitters, and sources of inspiration.
Also provided is a selected bibliography of all major Cameron
publications, a list of exhibitions of her work, and a summary
of important Cameron collections worldwide. This catalogue is
published in conjunction with a traveling exhibition of Cameron's
photographs that opens in England in spring 2003 and will be on
view at the Getty Museum in autumn 2003. |
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Julia
Margaret Cameron's Women
Sylvia Wolf, et al.
1998, Yale University Press
12.85" x 9.78", 216 pgs.
List price: $27.50
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Introduction
by Sylvia Wolf, essays by Phyllis Rose, Debra N. Mancoff, Stephanie
Lipscomb
The New
York Times Book Review, Andy Grundberg
The is the book that Julia Margaret Cameron, the premier photographer
of the Victorian era, has long deserved. Not only are the 63 full-page
plates well chosen and superbly printed, but the texts ... place
Cameron's work in arresting contexts. |
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Francis
Frith in Egypt and Palestine
A Victorian Photographer Abroad,
Douglas Nickel
2003, Princeton University Press
11" x 9.75", 240 pp.
List price: $65.00 |
In 1856, the English photographer Francis Frith
set out on the first of three tours of Egypt and the Holy Lands.
Traveling up the Nile and then on to the Sinai, Palestine, Syria,
and Lebanon, Frith systematically crafted exquisite pictures of
ruins, landscapes, and legendary sites. He then published his
views in England and America in a variety of formats, becoming
something of a celebrity in photographic circles. This book, the
first to place Frith's Egyptian and Levantine images in cultural
context, reveals the distinct meanings these ostensibly "topographic"
pictures held for the photographer and his Victorian audience.
A Quaker by birth and an entrepreneur by nature,
Frith brought to his photographic projects a sense of mission:
to revive and confirm the stories of the Bible, while offering
the region to armchair travelers as a seamless Oriental milieu
of Romantic reverie. Francis Frith in Egypt and Palestine narrates
the political, intellectual, and social concerns that make Frith
representative of England's encounter with the East in the nineteenth
century. Historian of photography Douglas R. Nickel brings a sophisticated
interdisciplinary approach to bear on the subject in order to
expose the complexity of Frith's image-making, setting the photographs
against a Victorian backdrop of religious debate, imperialist
thought, Romantic philosophy, and Pre-Raphaelite aesthetics. -
publisher
- 75 duotones, 10 halftones |
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Flora
Photographica, Masterpieces of Flower Photography, 1835 to the Present,
William A. Ewing
1991, Simon & Schuster
12.25" x 10.25", 224 pgs.
(out of print, used copies available) |
"In
Flora Photographica, photographic historian and curator
William A. Ewing has brought together more than 180 works by over
100 photographers both to display their work as well as to trace
the history of flower photography from the earliest experiments
of William Fox Talbot to the suprisingly lucid compositions of
Robert Mapplethorp." - from the book jacket.
Photographers
include: August Lumière, Roger Fenton, Karl Blossfeldt,
Edward Steichen, Imogen Cunningham, Mark Anthony, Edward Weston,
August Sanders, Hugo Erfurth, Julia Margeret Cameron, Helen Levitt,
Eiko Hosoe, Sally Mann, Paul Outerbridge, Man Ray, George Platt
Lynes and many, many more. |
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German
Photography 1870-1970: Power of a Medium,
1997, Yale Univ Press
Klaus Honnef
11.35" x 10.27", 296 pgs.
List price: $70.00 |
"This
superbly illustrated book examines the different levels and purposes
of German photography from 1870 to 1970: art, photojournalism, propaganda,
advertising, and architectural and fashion photography. Setting
the historical background before which the use and abuse of photography
takes place, the authors examine the extent that photography was
influenced by the German nationalist movement, the changes it underwent
during the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II, its links to the avant garde
movements, and its development through the world wars and the Cold
War." |
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The
History of Japanese Photography,
Anne Tucker
2003, Yale University Press
12.36" x 9.92", 512 pgs.
List price $65.00
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"Over
the past 150 years, Japanese photographers have created an impressive
body of work that ranges from dignified imperial photographs to
sweeping urban panoramas, from early ethereal landscapes to modern
urban mysteries. Despite the richness, significance, and variety
of this work, however, it has largely been neglected in Western
histories of photography. This gorgeous and groundbreaking book—the
first comprehensive account of Japanese photography from its inception
in the mid-nineteenth century to the present day—reveals to
English-speaking audiences the importance and beauty of this art
form. Written by a team of distinguished Japanese and Western scholars,
this book establishes that photography began to play a vital role
in Japanese culture soon after its introduction to Japan in the
1850s. Illustrated essays discuss the medium’s evolution and
aesthetic shifts in relation to the nation’s historical and
cultural developments; the interaction of Japanese photographers
with Western photographers; the link between photography and other
Japanese art forms; and photography as a record and catalyst of
change. Handsomely designed and generously illustrated with beautiful
duotone and color images, the book emphasizes not only the unique
features of Japanese photography but also the ways it has influenced
and been influenced by the country’s culture and society."
- 356 color illustrations |
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Image
and Memory: Photography from Latin America, 1866-1994,
Wendy Watriss
1998, University of Texas Press
13.25" x 11", 464 pp.
List price: $65.00 |
"This
is a very important and exciting book, one whose illustrations
alone deserve to be seen. Bringing them together with these essays
is a publication that is long overdue, one that will finally be
available to North American audiences for both the generalist
and the specialist, the artist and the writer." --Michele
M.
"Penhall,
specialist in the history of Latin American photography FotoFest
1992, a major festival of international photography, brought Latin
American photography into focus for a wide audience. Offering
a diverse selection of photographers, countries, artistic movements,
and subject matter, the shows revealed a photographic tradition
rich in history and creativity. Drawing from the more than 1,000
images exhibited by FotoFest, this book documents the work of
fifty photographers from ten countries. The photographs range
from the opening of the Brazilian frontier in the 1880s to documentary
images from El Salvador's recent civil war to works of specifically
aesthetic intent. Many of the photographs appear here in print
for the first time. Wendy Watriss's opening essay provides the
curatorial overview for the book. Lois Parkinson Zamora examines
the roots of visual image-making in Latin American cultures. Boris
Kossoy addresses the history of Latin American photography through
the nineteenth century, while Fernando Castro covers the contemporary
scene. With its compelling images and English-Spanish text, this
book will serve as a benchmark for future studies of photography
in Latin America." |
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William
Henry Jackson and the Transformation of the American Landscape,
Willam Henry Jackson
1988, Temple University Press
355 pgs.
(out of print, used copies available) |
"Acclaimed
in the nineteenth century as "the world’s most famous
landscape photographer," William Henry Jackson and his camera
presided over the mapping, bounding, and settling of the American
West and the larger American landscape. In this lavishly illustrated
study, Peter B. Hales investigates the conversion of America’s
landscape from myth to scenery and Jackson’s effect on this
cultural transformation. ...
William Henry
Jackson himself is rich material for an authoritative study. Not
simply a chronicler, he immersed himself and his photographs in
the processes of change that swept America from the 1840s until
the 1940s. Official photographer to the Hayden Survey of the American
West, early explorer of Yellowstone, and celebrant of the Colorado
Rockies, Jackson was instrumental in the mass-marketing of landscape
photography at the beginning of the twentieth century. Retired
in the 1920s, he was rediscovered by the American Scene enthusiasts
of the thirties, and found another career as painter of nostalgic
images of America’s Golden Age of frontier freedom." |
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Likeness
and Landscape: Thomas M. Easterly and the Art of the Daguerreotype,
Dolores A. Kilgore, Thomas M. Easterly
1994, Missourie Historical Society
12.5" x 9.5", 250 pp.
List price: $70.00
(order
this book) |
"This
sumptuous volume sets a new standard for excellent daguerreotype
reproduction and brings forward the hitherto unknown Thomas M. Easterly
as a significant figure in early photography. Kilgo's extensive
research and the beautiful pictures support her assertion of Easterly's
work as rivaling that of Southworth and Hawes, the Boston partners
generally thought to be the finest daguerreotype portraitists. Based
in St. Louis, Easterly was at the mid-nineteenth-century frontier,
which gave him access to the Native Americans he began portraying
in the 1840s and whose portraits constitute one of the highlights
of the book. Easterly's main work was portraiture, as was that of
all daguerreotypists, but Easterly also made an unusual number of
landscapes on the silvery plates, and he continued using daguerreotypy
into the 1870s, long after other photographers had switched to the
glass-plate collodion process. A valuable, scholarly record, Kilgo's
work will delight serious historians as it gives them and even the
most casual reader the flavor of the exciting interface of urbanization
and wild frontier in mid-nineteenth-century America" Gretchen
Garner |
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Lost
China : The Photographs of Leone Nani,
2004, Skira
11" x 9.5", 224 pp.
List price: $55.00 |
"Using a mobile studio and working with glass
plates that he developed and printed on his own, Nani captured images
of young couples, families , dignitaries, peasants, and artisans.
His curiosity and respect for a culture whose values were not his
own and whose customs were foreign becomes clear through photographs
ranging from portraits, to images of architecture and the landscape.
His skills as a detailed observer of local habits and customs make
Lost China: The Photographs of Leone Nani an intimate exploration
of China during the early twentieth-century-a time which has, for
the most part, been restricted to the descriptions of travelers." |
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Ninteenth
Century Photographic Cases and Wall Frames (2nd Edition),
Paul Berg
2004, Paul K. Berg
584 pp.
List price: $85.00
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"This
is the most up to date,comprehensive reference text and illustrated
catalog on the subject. It contains more than 2000 cases illustrated
in full size with hundreds more illustrations of related material.
There is an 8 page centerfold of cases in full color. The hsistorical
chapter details important facts about the case making industry,
the companies and the individuals involved, designers, enravers,
die sinkers and dealers. There is a price guide as well as a rarity
rating system for every case. The book has been made user fiendly
for the novice collector without sacrificing any detail for the
advanced collector or dealer." |
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Pictorialism
into Modernism: The Clarence H. White School of Photography,
Clarence H. White
1996, Rizzoli
12.25" x 9.5", 207 pgs.
(used copies available) |
"Pictorial photography is noted for its artistic
expressiveness, careful design and composition, and muted focus.
In 1914 Clarence White (1871-1925) left Alfred Stieglitz's Photo-Secession
group, abandoned his ambitions to be a photographic illustrator,
and opened the Manhatten-based Clarence H. White School of Photography.
Lecturers at his school included Stieglitz, Paul Strand, and Edward
Steichen. White's unique teaching skills, especially his encouragement
of women students, nurtured the careers of such talented photographers
as Margaret Bourke-White, Laura Gilpin, and Dorothea Lange. Presented
by the Detroit Institute of Arts and the George Eastman House, this
companion volume for a traveling exhibition contains the elegant
photographic imagery of White and his students. The clear text by
two photography curators imparts how the revered teacher's romantic
pictorialism became the foundation for the student's avant-garde
modernism. By far the most substantial review of White's work and
influence in print, this is recommended for photohistory and general
collections." - Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. |
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Stieglitz
and the Photo-Secession, 1902,
William Innes Homer, Catherine Johnson
2002, Viking Studio
12.25" x 9.25", 144 pp.
List price: $29.95 |
Edited by Catherine Johnson
At the turn of the last century, there was a sense of dissatisfaction
within both the American and European photographic communities.
In 1902, an avant-garde band of photographers, led by Alfred Stieglitz,
began to champion their work as art, rather than as a mere form
of documentation, in an exhibit at the National Arts Club in New
York. They called themselves the Photo-Secession and are considered
to be the best and most original photographers of their day. This
group included luminaries such as Edward Steichen, F. Holland Day,
Frank Eugene, Gertrude Käsebier, Clarence H. White, and Stieglitz
himself. Stieglitz and the Photo-Secession,
1902 is the first book to re-create that monumental exhibit,
with 100 color plates complemented by text from noted art scholar
William Innes Homer. This beautiful book and remarkable tribute
to Steiglitz and his contemporaries is a must for all lovers and
students of photography. |
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Alfred
Stieglitz: The Key Set - Volume I & II: Alfred Stieglitz Collection
of Photography,
Sara Greenough, et al.
2002, Harry N. Abrams
17" x 13", 1100 pp.
List price: $150.00 |
Few individuals have exerted as profound an
influence on 20th-century American art and culture as Alfred Stieglitz
(1864-1946). This luxurious two-volume boxed set is the definitive
catalogue of the Alfred Stieglitz Collection of Photographs at
the National Gallery of Art, Washington, the most complete Stieglitz
holding in existence, donated to the gallery by his widow, artist
Georgia O'Keeffe.
Numbering 1,642 photographs, the collection represents
the full range of the master photographer's work-from early studies
made in Europe, to views of the majestic New York skyline, to
incomparable intimate portraits of O'Keeffe. Coinciding with a
major traveling exhibition and providing complete scholarly apparatus
and a chronology, this sumptuous volume demonstrates how Stieglitz
absorbed the most advanced artistic concepts of his time into
photography and transformed the medium forever. |
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Carleton
Watkins,
Douglas Nickel
1999, Harry N. Abrams
11.75" x 10.79", 228 pgs.
List price: $65.00
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"Acknowledged
as the foremost 19th-century American landscape photographer,
Watkins (1829-1916) produced visual images of an American West
that the Victorian populace had barely begun to imagine. Lugging
cumbersome equipment, he captured the majesty of Yosemite, the
Pacific Coast, the Columbia River, and other regions of the west
including frontier towns that sprang forth from the mining and
lumbering industries. In this companion to a touring exhibition,
curator Nickel provides an enlightening reassessment of Watkins's
remarkable artistry and the widespread popularity of his panoramic
and stereographic pictures. Featured here are 105 full-page tritone
plates (many of which have never been published before) whose
scenic splendors prompted a national effort for environmental
conservation. ..." - Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information,
Inc. |
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Carleton
E. Watkins: Photographs, 1861-1874,
Carleton Emmons Watkins
1989, Bedford Arts
219 pgs.
(used copies available) |
"This
monograph of mammoth-plate albumen prints covers the birth and
maturation of Watkins's landscape work during a 13-year period
in the "golden age" of American wet-plate landscape
photography. Included are images from his two Yosemite trips
(1861 and 1865-66), plus images of the Pacific Coast, Columbia
River, Oregon, and Utah, and of mines. With its excellent laser-enhanced
reproductions and 18 newly discovered images, this study expands
the coverage of Watkins's early work found in other books about
this tireless photographer, who toted 2000 pounds of baggage
and glass through the wilderness, saw much of his work destroyed
in the San Francisco earthquake, and died nearly blind and penniless
in a state hospital in 1916. This
majestic selection of 111 albumen prints, reproduced by laser
technology and including 18 never published before ..."
- Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Photographers on this page:
Atget
Brady
Cameron
Frith
Jackson
Stieglitz
Watkins
White
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