Customer Reviews

Icons of Photography: The 20th Century (Prestel's Icons)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It is a fabulous book for black and white enthusiasts; however tends to be bland overall. It basically gives you a brief bio of the photographer, and two of his/her photos. Not much variety in the work, but great for anyone looking for a book of basic b & w works, and also would be nice as a coffe table piece.

This volume sells itself as an invaluable collection of the century's most powerful and moving images featuring some 160 masterpieces by more than 90 photographers from 1900 to 2000. Honestly, maybe one half of the photos collected in this book truly deserve to be called icons. Any reasonably well educated person should be able to immediately place an iconic photo. An example being Robert Capa's "Death of a Loyalist Solider". This is the single most famous image of the Spanish Civil War and most reasonably well educated people will know it. Martin Parr's "Sediscombe, from "Think of England", does not quite hit the mark.

This book was produced by the German Publishing Company, Prestel. In turn, many of the 90 photographers exhibited in this book are German. Quite frankly, I have never heard of many of these photographers. If I were German, maybe I would know their works. The other weakness of this book are a number of images from contemporary photogaphers. Although the images are interesting, not enough time has passed to raise them to the level of icons.

This is an interesting book but by no means are all the 160 photos presented masterpieces nor the 90 photographers all masters of the art of photography. A good book to purchase in the discount bin.

Not a bad book at all. In fact, it contains some truly iconic photographs. It also contains a lot of mundane photographs, and as a result doesn't really live up to the title of the book. I agree with the oldest review (May 1999) below -- too many rather bland photos (and yes, almost all are black-and-white).

Wow! This is the best catalogue of modern (20th century) photography I've seen recently. The opportunity to compare photography's earliest attempts with its most recent successes is fascinating. How much photographs have changed and yet how much they remain the same. The text is interesting for all levels, from those who dabble in photography to those who read every book that comes out. Overall, it's a very well made and very thoughtful survey of this past centuries unique medium.

A photos are the best in this book!