American Modern: Documentary Photography by Abbott, Evans, and Bourke-White - Hardcover

Corwin, Sharon; May, Jessica; Weissman, Terri

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0520265629 ISBN 13: 9780520265622

Publisher: University of California Press, 2010

Synopsis

American Modern, the beautifully illustrated companion volume to the exhibit of the same name, explores the reinvention of documentary photography in the 1930s, focusing on the work of three iconic figures: Berenice Abbott, Walker Evans, and Margaret Bourke-White. More broadly, the book maps the formation of what we now identify as “documentary style,” showing how a marginalized genre associated with Progressive reform politics was transformed into a major component of modern art and public culture in America. The essays by Sharon Corwin, Jessica May, and Terri Weissman describe how each of these three photographers developed a different model of photography--as well as a particular understanding of modernism and modernity--which each believed would set the standard for future generations of artists. American Modern identifies the points where Abbott, Evans, and Bourke-White connected, diverged, and competed, and demonstrates how commercial and governmental commissions, the influence of mass media, the establishment of public institutions of modern art, and international theories of photography all intersected to establish the now-dominant documentary style.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

"With three smart essays and an incisive selection of pictures, American Modern shows how the practice of documentary photography during the 1930s was more capacious and flexible than we ever thought. The opportunities to make and show pictures were everywhere, in photo books, magazine spreads, museum shows, and of course the New Deal programs. This book tells us how beloved documentarians like Abbott, Bourke-White, and Evans learned how to walk these many paths, sometimes with great delicacy and knowing, and along the way produce startling pictures. This is good stuff."―Anthony W. Lee, author of A Shoemaker’s Story and founding editor of Defining Moments in American Photography

About the Author:

Sharon Corwin, Carolyn Muzzy Director and Chief Curator at the Colby College Museum of Art, contributed to Alex Katz: Collages and Terry Winters: Prints and Sequences. Jessica May is Assistant Curator of Photographs at the Amon Carter Museum. Terri Weissman is Assistant Professor in the Department of Art & Design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is the author of The Realisms of Berenice Abbott, forthcoming from UC Press.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0520265629
• ISBN 13: 9780520265622
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 213