FSA: The American Vision [Hardcover]

Gilles Mora (Author), Beverly W. Brannan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2006

The photographs produced by the FSA during the Great Depression constitute one of America’s greatest artistic legacies. The project launched a stellar group of young photographers, including Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Ben Shahn, Carl Mydans, Arthur Rothstein, Marion Post Walcott, and Gordon Parks, who fanned out across America and created images of intense power and poetry. Thousands of FSA photographs have been exhibited and published, and we may feel that we know them well. For this remarkable volume, however, Gilles Mora and Beverly Brannan immersed themselves in the vast archive at the Library of Congress and emerged with unknown treasures. Theirs is a new view of the achievement of the FSA photographers—the most comprehensive in print—that finally gives them their due as the creators of a new American photographic vision.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Long considered America’s leading expert on the FSA, Beverly Brannan is curator of photography at the Library of Congress. She lives in Washington, D.C.

Gilles Mora is the author of Abrams’ Walker Evans: The Hungry Eye and Edward Weston: Forms of Passion, among many other books. A curator and historian of photography, he is one of the world’s leading experts on 20th-century American photography. He lives in Paris.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 360 pages
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams (October 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810954974
• ISBN-13: 978-0810954977
• Product Dimensions: 12.4 x 9.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #866,735 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stryker's vision revealed, October 14, 2006

By 

Robin Benson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: FSA: The American Vision (Hardcover)

A worthy addition to a very small number of books that present a general selection of Farm Security Administration photos in an art book format. To my mind there are only three others, In this proud land: America, 1935-1943, as seen in the FSA photographs, A Vision Shared: A Classic Portrait of America and Its People, 1935-1943, (the only sumptuous large book production of the three) and Long Time Coming: A Photographic Portrait of America, 1935-1943. 'FSA' easily joins this list with 470 beautifully printed photos on quality paper with an impressive 250+ dpi screen and a unique and interesting editorial format.

Each of the sixteen FSA/OWI photographers gets a chapter that is divided into two parts. Firstly there is a selection of photos covering a single subject, usually between thirteen and twenty-five photos, though John Collier gets an impressive thirty-four of his work in the Pennsylvania coal industry, followed by a general selection of that photographer's work of between four and twelve images. I thought the single theme idea worked well, you can see how Walker Evens seemed to search out monuments and his love of typographic signs or Jack Delano and Russell Lee's interest in people doing ordinary jobs. Esther Bubley has a fascinating twenty-four shots taken on Greyhound bus trips in 1943. Each photographer's gallery selection is a mix of their well-known work and others, some published here for the first time.

The two authors contribute interesting essays, Brannan explains the overall idea of Stryker's vision and Mora writes about the creative aspects of the photographs. The back of the book has a useful chronology and bibliography for each photographer.

'FSA' is a beautiful book of content rich photos but I was rather disappointed with the over generous amount of white space on many pages. So many of these photos are landscape and would suit that book format which is why I think Michael Lesy's 'Long Time Coming' was so successful. It has slightly less photos than 'FSA' but they are bigger and presented in the more appropriate format. The captions also, in 'FSA', are printed on a separate page following each photo selection when they clearly should be on each relevant photo page (when will book designers get this right!). Despite these reservations and as I said earlier, 'FSA' is a wonderful addition to the published photo archive of America's Depression and early war years.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a historical record!, January 8, 2008

By 

David C. Zartman (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: FSA: The American Vision (Hardcover)

I bought this to have a permanent, nicely bound book of historic photos of the United States and I was not disappointed. Straight from government archives, these are photos from government-employed photographers who were assigned to go out in the Depression era and photograph what they saw. Today, we should be grateful someone had the foresight to do this. The photos are disturbing, beautiful, stark and moving. What happened to these people and families? Like the photos, so much dust now...but recorded forever. A brilliant book.

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Wrap on the FSA photographers, April 17, 2007

By 

Adam North "Adam North" (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: FSA: The American Vision (Hardcover)

This book have done a great job by putting this all together by project/Date base and indicating where they went. It has answered alot of my questions on the FSA photographers.
I am pleased the book used mostly unknown photographs.
I have already raving about this book