Kentucky Renaissance: The Lexington Camera Club and Its Community, 1954–1974 - Hardcover

Sholis, Brian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300218982 ISBN 13: 9780300218985

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2016

Synopsis

A groundbreaking study of the extraordinary photographers, writers, printmakers, and publishers who formed a flourishing modernist community in Kentucky

Dozens of American cities witnessed the founding of camera clubs in the first half of the 20th century, though few boasted as many accomplished artists as the one based in Lexington, Kentucky. This pioneering book provides the most absorbing account to date of the Lexington Camera Club, an under-studied group of artists whose ranks included Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Van Deren Coke, Robert C. May, James Baker Hall, and Cranston Ritchie. These and other members of the Lexington Camera Club explored the craft and expressive potential of photography. They captured Kentucky’s dramatic natural landscape and experimented widely with different techniques, including creating double and multiple exposures or shooting deliberately out-of-focus images.
 
In addition to compiling images by these photographers, this book examines their relationships with writers, publishers, and printmakers based in Kentucky at the time, such as Wendell Berry, Guy Davenport, Jonathan Greene, and Thomas Merton. Moreover, the publication seeks to highlight the unique contributions that the Lexington Camera Club made to 20th-century photography, thus broadening a narrative of modern art that has long focused on New York and Chicago. Featuring a wealth of new scholarship, this fascinating catalogue asserts the importance and artistic achievement of these often overlooked photographers and their circle.

About this title

Book Description:

Centered on the experimental photographers who belonged to the Lexington Camera Club, this book explores an under-studied group of artists, writers, printmakers, and publishers who formed a flourishing modernist community in Kentucky.

About the Author:

Brian Sholis is curator of photography at the Cincinnati Art Museum. John Jeremiah Sullivan is a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine, a contributing editor to Harper’s Magazine, and southern editor of The Paris Review. 

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0300218982
• ISBN 13: 9780300218985
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 192