FOTOGRAFIA PUBLICA: PHOTOGRAPHY IN PRINT 1919 -1939
Horacio Fernandez [Editor], Fernando Gutierrez [Designer]
Horacio Fernandez [Editor], Fernando Gutierrez [Designer]: FOTOGRAFIA PUBLICA: PHOTOGRAPHY IN PRINT 1919 -1939. Madrid: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, 1999. First edition. Parallel texts in Spanish and English. Quarto. Photo illustrated paper covered boards. Decorated endpapers. 272 pp. 642 color illustrations. Elaborate graphic design throughout. Board edges lightly worn [as usual] with spine heel bruised. A nearly fine copy. One of our favorite reference books: Indispensable.
In the photographic camera we have the most reliable aid to the beginning of objective vision . . .
— Lazslo Moholy-Nagy
9.75 x 11.25 hardcover book with 272 pages and 642 color illustrations of page spreads from the most significant international publications of the interwar years, prominently featuring American, English, French, and Russian photographers. Companion volume to the Spanish travelling exhibition, a massive, gorgeous, scholarly resource and a fine visual anthology. Covering the years 1919-1939, the dawn of fine art offset printing. As the director of MNCARS, José Guirao Cabrera, states in the foreword: "A 20th-century art museum has the duty to examine one of the few occasions in which high culture has used the channels of low culture while maintaining (and even surpassing) the highest levels of quality."
Our century will be the age of the photograph.
--Waldemar George
Contains illustrated catalog entries for Berenice Abbott, Arquitectura Comtemporanea, AIZ (Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung), Maks Alpert, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Emilio Amero, Mauricio Amster, Arts Et Metiers Graphiques, Eugene Atget, Willi Baumeister, Herbert Bayer, Lester Beall, Cecil Beaton, Hans Bellmer, Aenne Biermann, Joseph Binder, Karl Blossfeldt, Erwin Blumenfeld, Pierre Boucher, Margaret Bourke-White, Bill Brandt, Brassai, Brigada Judozhnikov, Fritz Brill, Alexey Brodovitch, Anton Bruehl, Francis Joseph Bruguiere, Wim Brusse, Max Burchartz, Claude Cahun, Campo Grafico, Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Gabriel Casas, Pere Catala Pic, Le Corbusier, Imogen Cunningham, Daiesh, Das Deutsch Lichtbild, De 8 En Opbouw [Paul Schuitema], Walter Dexel, Cesar Domela, Domon Ken, Alfred Ehrhardt, Hermann Eidenbanz, Dick Elffers, Walker Evans, Farm Security Administration, Andreas Feininger, Film Und Foto, Hans Finsler, Hannes Flach, Fortune Magazine, Fotoauge [Roh & Tschichold], Semion Fridliand, Walter Funkat, Jaromir Funke, Gebrauchsgraphik, Hein Gorny, Heinz Hajek-Halke, John Havinden, John Heartfield, Florence Henri, Hannah Hoch, Emil Otto Hoppe, Horino Masao, George Huyningen-Huene, Georges Hugnet, I10, Boris Ignatovich, Jazz, Agustin Jimenez, Grit Kallin, Edward Mcknight Kauffer, Gyorgy Kepes, Andre Kertesz, Gerard Kiljan, Kimura Ihei, Gustav Klucis, Koga, Koishi Kiyoshi, Germaine Krull, Valentina Kulagina, Dorothea Lange, LEF, Hans & Grete Leistikow, Helmar Lerski, Life Magazine, Lilliput, El Lissitzky, Herbert List, Eli Lotar, Man Ray, Herbert Matter, Erich Mendelsohn, Margaret Michaelis, Minotaure, Modern Publicity, Tina Modotti, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, William Mortensen, Bruno Munari, Martin Munkacsi, Paul Nash, Natori Yonosuke, Nippon, Nojima Yasuko, Paul Outerbridge, Amedee Ozenfant, Cecilio Paniagua, Roger Parry, Juan Jose Pedraza Blanco, Walter Peterhans, Georgei Petrusov, Photographie, Photo Times, Picture Post, Natalia Pinus, Nicolai Prusakov, Querschnitt, Mariano Rawicz, Red, Jose Renau, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Hans & Erich Retzlaff, Hans Richter, Ring Neue Werbegestalter, Ringl + Pit, Aleksandr Rodchenko, ROPF, Zdenek Rossmann, Josep Sala, Erich Salomon, Roger Schall, Gotthard Schuh, Paul Schuitema, Serguei Senkin, Arkadij Shaijet, Charles Scheeler, SSSR NA STROIKE, Edward Steichen, Ralph Steiner, Varvara Stepanova, Vladimir & Georgi Sternberg, Alfred Steiglitz, Sasha Stone, Jindrich Styrsky, Ladislav Sutnar, Maurice Tabard, Tato, Karel Teige, Solomon Telingater, Nicolai Troshin, Georg Trump, Jan Tschichold, Umbo, Paul Urban, Jose Val Del Omar, Varietes, Vogue, Vu, Wolfgang Weber, Weegee, Edward Weston, Paul Wolff, Ylla, Zijeme, and Piet Zwart.
In 1925, the critic, poet, and one of the founders of Surrealism, Andre Breton, posed the question: when would 'all the books that are worth anything stop being illustrated with drawings and appear only with photographs?' A few short years after this statement, the photographic image had established itself as one of the most provocative, poetic, and radical forms of representation in modern society. A plethora of groundbreaking exhibitions, books and publicity, the work of some of the most influential figures in history of photography, ushered in the creative flowering of the medium across Europe. Unquestionably the increasingly effective presence of photography was tied to the emergence of these new recruits and their passionate conviction regarding its creative worth. [Kerry William Purcell]