Let Truth Be the Prejudice: W. Eugene Smith, His Life and Photographs (Hardcover)

~ (Author), W. Eugene Smith (Photographer), John G. Morris (Afterword)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This survey of Smith's work is a particularly fine one, in terms of the reproduction quality, choice, and layout of images. The juxtaposition of picture groups seems to parallel the emotional upheavals and periods of calm in his life: World War II, rural America, Ku Klux Klan, Spain and Africa (Albert Schweitzer), the mammoth Pittsburgh project, gentle views from his Manhattan window, jazz artists, an unpublished Haiti essay, Japan (Minamata). The pictures (accompanied by lengthy quotations from Smith) speak eloquently of his vision, mission, and craftsmanship. Unfortunately, Maddow's essay adds far more than we need to know about Smith's personal relationships, by way of a tiresome pastiche taken from the thousands of documents at the Center for Creative Photography. (Maddow performed this same service in Edward Weston: fifty years ). The accompanying bibliography of photo essays and writings by and about Smith is very useful. Kathleen Collins, Library of Congress
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"In Eugene Smith's work the world found an important aspect of America-- its longstanding moral passion. He hungered after that conclusive, suggestive moment of visual truth; he sought through pictures a précis of one then another aspect of our humanity. And he succeeded in that search-- giving us in sum a broad and deep rendering of this life's thickly textured particulars. We are much indebted to him."--Robert Coles, author of Dorothea Lange: Photographs of a Lifetime

"Gene Smith is reviewed today as a shining knight of light. He explored photography's power to project human drama and emotion. He succeeded in raising our level of conscience and he himself perished too soon, paying the price."--Cornell Capa, Director, International Center of Photography

"Gene Smith was perhaps the photographer who tried most heroically to make the magazine photo story lead the standards of coherence, intensity, and personal accountability that one expects of a work of art."--John Szarkowski, Director, Department of Photography, Museum of Modern Art
-- Review

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Aperture; illustrated edition edition (October 30, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0893811793
• ISBN-13: 978-0893811792
• Product Dimensions: 13.3 x 10.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #774,271 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars He was probably a bastard, but I wish I'd met him, July 27, 1999

By A Customer

In the fall of 1985 I drove down from Northern New Jersey to the Philadelphia Museum of Art to see the retrospective show of W. Eugene Smith's work for which this book was the catalog. I walked through the rooms and people stood in front of his Minamata photographs, weeping. Smith paid for those pictures with his eyesight, probably the better part of his sanity. If he drank before, the stories are that after his return from Japan he plunged into the bottle full-bore. If one can talk of a man's life and work in religious terms, W. Eugene Smith's career was a prolonged and self-willed crucifixion, a sacrifice in the name of a Truth that I'm not sure we're ready for yet.

I haven't photographed seriously in quite a few years, but whenever I made a print, there in the darkroom I could feel Smith's presence saying two things to me: "You're lousy at this" and "Don't ever stop."

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars He didn't editorialize, June 10, 2000

By	S. WATSON (Door County) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In the mid-70's, I attended a slide lecture by Smith at Northern Michigan University in Marquette. I didn't know a thing about him, but the presentation haunts me still. He was helped onto the stage, a very old man, and quietly, he narrated the Minimata work in a slide show. The audience, a bunch of party school undergrads and townspeople, were completely silent the entire time. It was almost as if Smith knew that if the slightest emotion showed in his voice, his audience would be lost in sobs. He didn't editorialize, he just spoke, simply and quietly. At the end of the show, he put up one last slide. It was of a blackboard with the words in chalk, "Thank you, all you lovely people." It brings tears to my eyes almost 20 years later.

3 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brillantly sad and talented man, November 2, 1999

By	hellahaylo "hellahaylo" (columbia, sc) - See all my reviews

The life of W. Eugene Smith is none the less; inspiring yet depressingly so... A reflection of the truth in life, man and society.