Synopsis
A lavishly illustrated, close-up look at the lives, careers, and art of five extraordinary women whose work spans the history of photography profiles Julia Margaret Cameron, Margaret Bourke-White, Flor Gardun+a1o, Sandy Skoglund, and Lorna Simpson.
Reviews
Grade 6 Up-Wolf looks at five women who have made unique, artistic contributions to the field of photography. A brief biographical sketch is accompanied by a portrait of the artist and a half dozen photos representative of her work. In the 19th century, Julia Margaret Cameron developed the Pictorialist photographic style by which she sought to express the emotion of her subject rather than simply replicating its image. Margaret Bourke-White gained renown for her compelling pictures of industry and of the human condition, in peace and at war, as well as for the photo essay, which was the backbone of Life magazine. Initially, for these women, photography was a means of earning money to supplement meager resources, while the three contemporary photographers, Flor Gardu?o, Sandy Skoglund, and Lorna Simpson, approached photography as an outgrowth of interest in other art forms. Gardu?o focuses on examples of Hispanic culture. Skoglund and Simpson both go beyond careful composition for their work in that they create entire settings for their subjects. In the Skoglund image titled "Spirituality in Flesh," the walls, floor, mannequin, and stool on which the latter is seated are covered with hamburger. In similar fashion, Simpson's exhibitions or installments depend on elaborate arrangements, often complete with music. The author's challenge to her readers to devise new interpretations of the photographs extends the use of this book beyond recognition of style. Libraries can use this title for the basic information and as a springboard for interpretive discussions of photography as an art form.
Nancy E. Curran, Decatur Public Schools, IL
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From its dynamic title and eerie cover image to its clear-eyed prose, Wolf's study of five photographers and their medium is a model of understated originality. Deftly juggling biography, technique, social history and interpretation, the author, a curator at the Art Institute of Chicago and herself a photographer, punctuates her engrossing commentary with stunning examples of Julia Margaret Cameron's (1815-1879) Pre-Raphaelite portraits, Margaret Bourke-White's (1904-1971) muscular news photos, Flor Gardu?o's (b. 1957) lyrical Latin America, Lorna Simpson's (b. 1960) philosophical constructs, and Sandy Skoglund's (b. 1946) surreal scenarios. As each woman's journey to self-discovery is traced in lively and often moving detail (Cameron freed the chickens before converting a chicken house into a studio; Bourke-White bravely battled Parkinson's disease), the photographs materialize on the pages like triumphant visions. Art appreciation of this calibre should not be missed by interested readers of either sex. Ages 9-up.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Gr. 5-8. Similar in format and approach to Sills' Visions: Stories about Women Artists , this profiles five women who view the creative process of photography from extraordinarily different perspectives. Daring, celebrated news photographer Margaret Bourke-White and Julia Margaret Cameron, known for her dramatic, iconoclastic nineteenth-century portraitures, are Wolf's nod to history, with Flor Gardu{¤}no, Sandy Skoglund, and Lorna Simpson representatives of the art form now. Wolf smoothly mixes personal, evaluative, and technical information giving just enough to whet the appetite for more--which readers can locate through books suggested in the fine bibliography. The reproductions are crisp, glossy, and, generally, both excellent and well chosen. Particularly fascinating are those of African American Simpson's challenging pictorial social commentary and Skoglund's blazingly colorful, surrealistic photos, which take many months to set up. Best of all is Wolf's down-to-earth attitude toward photography as art. There's no snobbery or patronizing--just a fascinating view of what a medium can accomplish when imagination, daring, and skill come into play. Stephanie Zvirin
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