Customer Reviews

The New York School: Photographs, 1936-1963

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

 

 

This is treat for anyone interested in photography, especially in the period leading up to Winogrand, Friedlander, etc. Most of the photographs in this book, I've never seen before. Included are interesting 35mm work by Diane Arbus, some untypical Avedon, great Robert Frank's that I haven't seen published anywhere else, early Winogrand. However the really nice thing about this book is in being able to see the work of those lesser known, but nonetheless great, photographers such as Leon Levinstein, Louis Fauer, Alexi Brodovitch, and many more. Also includes a thorough and informative essay as well as individual profiles on the artists involved.

I agree that this is a great collection of photographs, many either never or seldom published before, and supported by interesting and original text. It is amazing how little biographical information exists on so many photographers. I bought the book because it encompassed so many of my photographic heroes and introduced me to some photographers I was not familiar with. But the reason I decided to actually write a review here was to correct the previous reviewer who mentions that Gary Winogrand's work is included in the book. It's not. But it sure is nice to see more on the Photo League. What a great group. And it's nice to see their influence so fully recognized. Thank you Ms. Livingston!

As this thick book hasn't been reprinted or released in paperback, since the first edition in 1992, it will explain the high price and also I like to think it's because it has come to be regarded as a first-class bit of scholarship about the subject. Author Livingston has written a fascinating study about sixteen photographers who could, by now, be considered the founders of the New York Style, though this clearly is not an established photographic genre: yet.

Out of the sixteen: Arbus; Avedon; Brodovitch; Croner; Davidson; Donaghy; Faurer; Frank; Grossman; Klein; Leiter; Levinstein; Levitt; Model; Vestal and Weegee there are some I had never heard of so the book was a useful introduction to Don Donaghy, Leon Levinstein and David Vestal. All of them are woven together in the author's eighty-eight page essay. Firstly as an overview of the period where magazines, books, galleries, movies, culture and not forgetting Cold War politics, created a climate of inward looking documentary photography, especially of shots on the streets of New York. The second part looks at individuals and their contribution to the style. Each of them also gets a biographic spread (with a photo) at the back of the book plus a really comprehensive exhibition and bibliography listing.

The first 251 pages are the photo portfolios with twelve or so from each photographer. Presented as spread and whole page bleed images or with generous margins though strangely the twelve from Don Donaghy are all six by four inches. An interesting production theme has the photos printed as duotones (with a 200 screen) on four kinds of paper from matt to semi gloss art. Alexey Brodovitch's very soft focus images from his 1945 Ballet book are on an appropriate matt creamy white while the rather hard edge Diane Arbus contributions are printed on a much whiter semi-gloss. The photo section I thought was quite remarkable because these are very personal images yet they seem to hang together, possibly because of the common subject matter, in a group style.

A common theme with several of the sixteen photographers is their involvement with the Photo League, co-founded by Sid Grossman and Sol Libsohn in 1936. The organization ran a photo school and encouraged documentary photography with a social intent. I only mention this because membership was important to many of these photographers and the background to the creative aspects of the League are well covered in Photography and Politics in America: From the New Deal into the Cold War, by Lili Corbus Bezner. Both books but especially Jane Livingston's, with some fine examples, cover a fascinating era of American photography.

***SEE SOME INSIDE PAGES by clicking 'customer images' under the cover.