The history of the photographic book goes back well more than a century; the medium of photography and the book format were understood very early on to relate to each other on both technical and aesthetic levels. The examples of truly great combinations of photographic image and text, great design and typography bound together as books are numerous, and make up an impressive artistic, social, and documentary statement of the 20th century. Writer and rare book expert Andrew Roth has selected for this volume a group of 101 of the best photography books ever published: books that bring all of the elements of great bookmaking together to create, ultimately, a thing of beauty, a work of art. Mostly made up of publications in which the photographs were meant to be seen in book form, as opposed to the book being merely a repository of images, this list includes many artists and titles that will be familiar to the collector, but also not a few surprises. Chronologically, the first book is Volume One of Edward Curtis's seminal 1907 The North American Indian, the last is David LaChapelle's LaChapelle Land from 1996, and in between are books by Walker Evans and Berenice Abbott, Atget and Brassai, Robert Frank and Garry Winogrand, and many other seminal photographers from all over the world. Each book in the catalogue receives a double page spread including publication information, several image spreads, and a short text about it. The Book of 101 Books, however, is far more than simply an annotated and illustrated catalogue. Six important new essays on a variety of related topics from respected scholars, critics, and artists are included as well: here you will find Richard Benson on the history of printing techniques, Shelley Rice on the societal significance of photography books, May Castleberry on reprints, exhibitions, and keeping books alive for the public; Daido Moriyama on his personal memories of making his classic Bye Bye Photography, Dear, Neville Wakefield on the particular attributes of one of the most recent books in this group: Richard Princeis 1995 Adult Comedy Action Drama, and Jeffrey Fraenkel on the myriad perils of publishing photography books. The catalogue entries themselves are written by the well known critics Vince Aletti and David Levi Strauss. Taken together, the depth and beauty of these essays and images makes The Book of 101 Books both an essential reference and an aesthetically compelling object. In order to insure safe delivery for this item we can only ship Federal Express 3rd Day. An additional charge of $25.00 will be added to your purchase.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Rare book maven Andrew Roth has turned his powers of judgment toward photography in The Book of 101 Books: Seminal Photographic Books of the 20th Century. Given two full pages each, the selections receive a bibliographic and physical description and a publishing history, as well as cover images and a few choice samples of their contents there are 500 color illustrations in all. Volume one of Curtis's 1907 The North American Indian kicks off the book, followed by plenty of other familiar luminaries, from Stieglitz to Ansel Adams to Henri Cartier-Bresson to Diane Arbus and Nan Goldin. Surprises include Max Ernst and Ren‚ Crevel's Mr. Knife Miss Fork, Bauhaus "phenom" Leszli Moholy-Nagy's Malerei Fotografie Film, and Gilles Peress's Telex Iran, to name a few. Essays by six scholars, artists and critics round out this unusual, beautifully produced collection.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Rare book dealer and gallerist Roth delivers just what the title promises. Two or four pages are given to each of 101 books, from Edward Curtis's The North American Indian: Volume 1 (1907) to David LaChapelle's LaChapelle Land (1996). Naturally, a few choices are bound to offend any given reader's taste (LaChapelle Land?!), but overall Roth's choices fairly represent both stunning individual achievements (Hans Bellmer's La Poup‚e) and landmarks in the evolution of both the medium (Larry Clark's Tulsa) and the genre (Robert Frank's The Americans). For each book, the cover and at least a couple of interior spreads are reproduced and accompanied by complete bibliographic information as well as a cogent and concise essay on the book's significance. Together with a half dozen essays on broader themes gallerist Jeffrey Fraenkel on publishing, photographer Daido Moriyama on the creative process, librarian May Castleberry on preservation and access these would be worth the price of the book. The addition of the sumptuous reproductions from so many titles that are simply unavailable to most libraries make this an essential purchase for any serious photography collection. Eric Bryant, "Library Journal"
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
50 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Perfect Book,
By Edward Tufte (Cheshire, CT USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Book of 101 Books, The: Seminal Photographic Books of the Twentieth Century (Hardcover)
This is an extraordinary book, both for its content and design. The book provides a wonderful view of 20th-century photography and photographic books, reproducing several double-page spreads (at reduced size) from a well-chosen list of 101 great photographic books. There is so much to see and think about here.The catalog entries, luminously written by Vince Aletti and David Levi Strauss, provide a fairly detailed description, history, and analysis of each of the photographic books. And there are several essays on the history and techniques of photographic publishing; these essays are informative, smart, learned. This is one of the best-designed books in recent years. The typography, layout, and printing quality are just perfect, at the very highest level of excellence. Andrew Roth and Jerry Kelly did the book design; Sue Medlicott supervised the printing which was done superbly at the Stamperia Valdonega. In the last few months, I have seen 3 extraordinary visual books that powerfully demonstrate just how wonderful books can be:
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The photographer's photography book,
This review is from: Book of 101 Books, The: Seminal Photographic Books of the Twentieth Century (Hardcover)
Now this is something special! As a publication designer I can appreciate the care and thought that went into this stunning and unique book. Andrew Roth, in the introduction, explains his brilliant idea, 'The basis for my selection was simple. Foremost, a book had to be a thoroughly considered production; the content, the mise-en-page, choice of paper stock, reproduction quality, text, typeface, binding, jacket design, scale - all of the elements had to blend together to fit naturally within the whole'. I would agree with all of that (I have eight of the 101) and also his selection of the photographic books which mostly exemplify what he was searching for.
Not all of these criteria apply to each book though. The author has wisely included all the covers to his selection and I don't think there is a single book jacket shown that I would class as excellence in design, that is, the title and image working together as one to sum up the contents for a potential purchaser. Mostly they are the usual publishers' marketing department output, a single photo or image with some (bland) typography added. Strangely the cover to 'The Book Of 101 Books' is rather dull and typographically conservative. Another area where, I think, many of the books fall short of the author's criteria is the lack of captioning. Many of the reproduced spreads clearly just have the photos on the page with no information for the reader. Why do publishers (and possibly even the photographers) think that beautiful, imaginative and stimulating photos don't need some textual explanation on the same page? I recently bought 'Dream Street' by Eugene Smith, an excellent collection of photos taken in 1955 of life in Pittsburgh, virtually all of the photos make me ask "What's going on here" and I have to constantly turn to the back of the book to read a caption, even more annoying because there is plenty of space on each page for them. This lack of a caption on the same page as the photo seems a common fault with many photographic books. The author says his goal was not to compile a selection of rare or precious books, just great ones and the 101 chosen reflect that vision, starting in 1907, with the twenty volume 'The North American Indian' and ending in 1996 with David LaChapelle's 'LaChapelle Land', these two books are a world apart but nevertheless have elements in common that the author was searching for. The other ninety-nine books show the amazing diversity that a photographer's eye, light and chemicals can do to the world. As well as the spreads from the books there are six essays dealing with photographic book publishing, all of them interesting and thought provoking, Richard Benson (no relation) writes a very succinct explanation of book printing techniques over the last hundred years. Handling this sumptuous book, turning over the pages of the beautiful paper it is printed on, looking at the images (printed with a screen well over two hundred dots to the inch) it is a good example of why books will not vanish in this expanding digital age. BTW: another reviewer has commented that 'The Book Of 101 Books' is one of the best designed books of recent years, beautiful as it is I don't think I would go that far and I'll not be adding it to my Listmania: 'My favorite well-designed books'. Editorially I think there are a couple of errors, firstly, in the bibliographic details there is no mention of a books pagination, and secondly, all the text about a book is in one paragraph, clearly a mistake when some of the pieces are several hundred words long. I also think the layouts have an annoying fault, each of the 101 books starts on a spread and the left-hand page displays the books cover within a text wrap of two columns, this second column frequently looks a line short because the writer's initials are ranged right on the last line instead of occupying a new line or even hanging them in the margin, in bold face, for instance. ***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Books as art.,
By The Hammer (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Book of 101 Books, The: Seminal Photographic Books of the Twentieth Century (Hardcover)
The amount of impact a single photo can have is well known. What hasn't been as clearly shown before is how much power collections of photographs can (and have) had. The gathering together of photographs related by theme or time or geography or other subject makes an artistic statement of its own. You have to love books as much as photographs, and be open to the idea that the making of books is an art form, to love this book.
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