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By: Prestel Publishing
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Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> Photography -> Criticism & Essays
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8
Average rating: 3.0 of 5
Not Especially Iconographic 3 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.
This volume sells itself as an invaluable collection of the century's most powerful and moving images featuring some 160 masterpieces by more than 90 photographers from 1900 to 2000. Honestly, maybe one half of the photos collected in this book truly deserve to be called icons. Any reasonably well educated person should be able to immediately place an iconic photo. An example being Robert Capa's "Death of a Loyalist Solider". This is the single most famous image of the Spanish Civil War and most reasonably well educated people will know it. Martin Parr's "Sediscombe, from "Think of England", does not quite hit the mark.
This book was produced by the German Publishing Company, Prestel. In turn, many of the 90 photographers exhibited in this book are German. Quite frankly, I have never heard of many of these photographers. If I were German, maybe I would know their works. The other weakness of this book are a number of images from contemporary photogaphers. Although the images are interesting, not enough time has passed to raise them to the level of icons.
This is an interesting book but by no means are all the 160 photos presented masterpieces nor the 90 photographers all masters of the art of photography. A good book to purchase in the discount bin.
Editorial Review:
Ninety seminal images by the world’s greatest photographers provide a stunning tour of the twentieth-century’s greatest camera work. From the first image, Heinrich Zille’s Nine Boys Practicing Handstands, to the final, Nan Goldin’s backstage portrait of transvestite performers, this generously illustrated volume explores photography’s impact on the way we experience the world. Every major photographer is represented in double-page spreads, which feature one full-page image, a brief essay on the artist, and additional images of note. Presented chronologically, photographs testify to the evolution of an art form that is continually reinventing itself. From portraiture, photojournalism, and abstraction, to landscape, fashion, and works that transcend genre labels, the selection of masterworks presented here demonstrates the beauty of photography in all its variety.
