Full of Grace: A Journey through the History of Childhood [Hardcover]

Ray Merritt (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2007

Full of Grace chronicles the evolution of the child in society through the past one hundred fifty years of photography. With illustrative text throughout, societal roles and conceptions of the child worldwide are explored through the works of master photographers—including Lewis Carroll, Julia Margaret Cameron, Alfred Stieglitz, André Kertész, August Sander, Lewis Hine, Jacob Riis, Jacques-Henri Lartigue, Paul Strand, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Margaret Bourke- White, Mike Disfarmer, W. Eugene Smith, Helen Levitt, Gordon Parks, Weegee, Werner Bischof, Cecil Beaton, Robert Doisneau, Anne Frank, Brassai, Elliott Erwitt, Eve Arnold, Garry Winogrand, Robert Frank, Seydou Keita, Henri Cartier-Bresson, William Klein, Mary Ellen Mark, Ralph Gibson, Bruce Davidson, Mario Giacometti, Larry Clark, Duane Michals, Paul Fusco, Gilles Peress, Francesco Scavullo, Robert Mapplethorpe, Helmut Newton, Sebastião Salgado, Sally Mann, Bruce Weber, Adam Fuss, Eric Fischl, Anna Gaskell, Lauren Greenfield, Tina Barney, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, David La Chapelle, and Tierney Gearon, to name a few. Divided into five chronological chapters—from "The Child Romantic" to "The Knowing Child"—advances and setbacks, both political and social, are explored in the progress toward gaining the basic rights of freedom of speech, health care, and education for all children. Areas such as child labor and exploitation and the effects of intolerance, poverty, illiteracy, hunger, disease, war, and terrorism are addressed, while also celebrating positive advances in child development and welfare.

With more than three hundred photographs and illustrations and more than one hundred pages of text, Full of Grace is an engaging and informative journey through the history of children in society—a journey that is seen through the eyes of photographers and the voices of writers of children’s classics.

A traveling exhibit will be launched in connection with the publication of Full of Grace. The editor’s net proceeds from the book and exhibition will be contributed to UNICEF.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this elegant edition, Merritt, author and editor of more than 20 books, chronicles how youth is rendered in photographs, as well as other art and literature, over the course of the last 150 years. Highlights include hand-colored photos from Lewis Carroll (including an image of his muse, young Alice Liddell) and masterpieces by Richard Avedon, Andre Kertesz, Sally Mann, Robert Mapplethorpe and Nan Goldin. Cutting no corners, Merritt tackles the usual suspects (children at play, children at rest, children and dogs) as well as the difficult issues: hunger and poverty, embodied in the chilling Great Depression work of Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans; war, including opposing quotations from Adolf Hitler and Anne Frank; and political oppression, as in Carl Iwasaki's shot of Linda Brown in her segregated Kansas classroom prior to her landmark case against the Board of Education. These sobering images are set beside thorough, concerned discussion of critical issues facing children today: AIDS, over-population and famine among them. The text, broken into modes of perception-"the innocent child," "the child assailed," "the child alone," etc.-is peppered with quotes from the likes of Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, Rainer Marie Rilke, Jack London, William Wordsworth, Victor Hugo and Herman Hesse. An eclectic, captivating study, this is a fine volume for anyone who works with children or children's welfare issues. 350 four-color and duotone photographs. (Jan).
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Ray Merritt has been associated for the past forty years with the international law firm of Willkie Farr & Gallagher, which employs more than six hundred attorneys in Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, England, and the United States. Merritt has authored and edited five books on photography, including A Thousand Hounds (Taschen, 2000). He has served as a trustee of the photography committees of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the International Center of Photography, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida, where he is the Committee Chairman. Merritt’s philanthropic activities include work with the U.S. Fund for UNICEF—where he serves as Secretary, Director, and member of the Executive Committee—and the Third Millennium Fund—where he serves as a member of the Advisory Board and as Secretary. He lives in New York.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: powerHouse Books (January 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1576873293
• ISBN-13: 978-1576873298
• Product Dimensions: 12.4 x 9.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #767,588 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #78 in Books > Arts & Photography > Photography > Children

More About the Author

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

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars 'Full of Grace' book. Great book. Warning about the mailing, December 16, 2008

By 

J. Dennis "Ordinary Jane" (UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Full of Grace: A Journey through the History of Childhood (Hardcover)

I ordered three copies of this for holiday presents because I liked one I had been given so much and because some money from this goes to a charity. Unfortunately, they were inadequately packed (together in one box) and given that they are extremely heavy, the box in which they were put couldn't take it and burst. One arrived perfect, another with moderate fraying to jacket and one with both jacket tearing AND damage to the spine (really unsightly). So whilst I'd recommend the book, order one at a time.