Small Deaths: Photographs (Wittliff Gallery Series) [Hardcover]

Kate Breakey (Photographer), A. D. Coleman (Introduction)

Book Description

Series: Wittliff Gallery Series | Publication Date: November 15, 2001

Small lives end every day--the unfledged bird fallen from its nest, the unwary lizard caught by a cat--as unnoticed in dying as they were living. Deeply moved by these small deaths since her childhood in South Australia, photographer-artist Kate Breakey has been photographing found animal remains since the mid-1990s, creating stunning, oversized, hand-colored images that--paradoxically--glow with life. This volume is the first book-length work devoted to the photographs of Kate Breakey. It gathers 75 color images from her ongoing "Small Deaths" series. These birds, flowers, lizards, and insects vividly express Breakey's desire to preserve each lost creature--to "freeze it in time, suspend it in space, immortalize it so that its beauty and its death are memorialized." In a brief afterword, Breakey traces the origins of her art to a childhood spent among domestic and rescued animals on the Australian coast. In the introduction, noted art critic A. D. Coleman links Breakey's work to the larger traditions of still-life painting and the postmortem photography of the nineteenth century.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This elegantly designed book features 81 photographs by Australian-born artist Breakey, a self-proclaimed naturalist who makes "post-mortem" photographs of birds, plants, and other small creatures. These oddly reverent "portraits" of dead subjects are enhanced with such creative photographic techniques as shallow depth of field and painstaking hand coloring methods that transform decaying animals and plants into colorful and romantic memorials. Breakey, who has exhibited widely in the United States and abroad, credits the influence of natural history dioramas, but the works here are firmly rooted in fine art photography, not science or history. Noted photography critic A.D. Coleman's insightful foreword draws comparisons between Breakey's work and the history of art and photography, but Small Deaths is essentially a collection of beautiful, highly personal photographs, not a scholarly or theoretical work. Recommended for larger public libraries and general collections. Shauna Frischkorn, Millersville Univ., PA
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Since 1980, Kate Breakey's photography has appeared in over thirty one-woman exhibitions and in over thirty group exhibitions in the United States, Australia, Japan, and France. It is also held in numerous public collections, including the San Diego Museum of Photographic Arts, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, Arizona, the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin, the Australian National Gallery, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and the Art Gallery of South Australia, as well as various private collections. Currently, Kate Breakey lives and works in Tucson, Arizona.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 168 pages
• Publisher: University of Texas Press (November 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0292709013
• ISBN-13: 978-0292709010
• Product Dimensions: 10.6 x 14.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,395,133 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, June 29, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Small Deaths: Photographs (Wittliff Gallery Series) (Hardcover)

I bought this book after not being able to find any other images online except the cover. I was really looking forward to owning it; I'm one of those people who collect things like tiny bird bodies, egg shells, nests....
It's a beautiful concept, but the format of the book was extemely disappointing; too much white space framed the images, keeping the viewer at a distance instead of inviting intimacy, empathy. The creatures in the photographs often looked posed.

The images also would have been more touching if they hadn't seemed so manipulated in color. It was like the photographer hadn't truly been recording the beauty of the "insignificant" deaths but seeking and exploiting them by forcing unnatural aspects on them.

I also expected this book to be filled with the record of the deaths of bird, rodents, lizards.... not the many images of dying flora that looked like pop culture greeting cards.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sorrowful and Enchanting, January 18, 2007

By 

Meredith Mizell - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Small Deaths: Photographs (Wittliff Gallery Series) (Hardcover)

There is a great deal of juxtaposition in Kate Breakey's work, and to great effect; though her photographs capture often pitiable subjects, particularly the birds, they portray them with a magnificence of color they could only dream of in life. Breakey's photography is excellent and evocative, and her skillful application of color to each image only heightens the experience. Soft focus and a saturated palette produce a dreamlike quality to many of her pieces. As I turned the pages of the book, I felt sadness for the small creatures that go unnoticed, but I was also moved by the quiet dignity they have in death. Breakey's treatment of her subject matter elevates it from the mundane to the transcendent, and it's an utterly captivating journey.

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Artistic Sensitivity of the Natural World., December 12, 2001

By 

Ellen Osmanski (Beaufort, South Carolina United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Small Deaths: Photographs (Wittliff Gallery Series) (Hardcover)

A beautiful book of an art form created with a heartfelt sensitivity for some of nature's smaller creatures.