This in-depth and generously illustrated look at six postwar photographers, along with a selection of their predecessors and contemporaries, captures a unique and pivotal moment in American photographic history. World War II and its aftermath ushered in a new era of artistic expression. Abstract Expressionism, film noir, Beat poetry, and the New Journalism are often considered responses to war's shocking realities. Creative photographers responded to the same situation with images that broke the rules of conventional photographic technique. Street Seen, a companion volume to an exhibition, highlights six photographers who were prominent during and immediately following the war. Lisette Model s unflinching look at the urban environment; Louis Faurer s portraits of eccentrics in Times Square; Ted Croner s haunting night images; Saul Leiter s evocative glimpses of daily life; William Klein s graphic, confrontational style; and Robert Frank s documentation of American ideals gone awry these and other beautifully reproduced photographs communicate the emotional resonance of everyday life in postwar America. An essay by Lisa Hostetler explores the aesthetic revolution that took place after the war and reveals the principles of spontaneity and subjective interpretation that guided these photographers as they sought to make sense of new realities. A timeline, brief biographies, and bibliography are also included in this valuable compilation of the mid-century s most influential photography.
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About the Author
Lisa Hostetler is Curator of Photographs at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Previously she worked at the Department of Photographs at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Scenes from the street,
This review is from: Street Seen: The Psychological Gesture in American Photography, 1940-1959 (Hardcover)
Lisa Hostetler brings together various political, social and creative strands in this brief look at six street photographers, though I would call the six featured members of a much wider New York School. Only NYC seems to have generated such a creative photographic explosion in the relevant years and not only via the camera but canvas, too. The exhibition (and six pages in the book) features art from de Kooning, Kline, Pollock and Pousette-Dart though I'm not sure why other than they are visual.
I thought the book had a rather unfortunate editorial weakness by just focusing on the six: Croner; Faurer; Frank; Klein; Leiter and Model. By not including Arbus, Davidson, Levitt, Weegee and others seems a mistake because they all contributed just as much to this new, slowly evolving street style of personal, impressionistic photography. This was really brought home to me when comparing 'Street seen' with Jane Livingston's remarkably thorough The New York School: Photographs, 1936-1963 where, as well the six, an additional ten photographers are considered. Not only does Livingston fully explore the lives of these artists but she reveals, in depth, the social and commercial background to the times that helped create this School genre. Of the 137 photos in 'Street seen' I think well over half also appear in Livingston's book (which has about two hundred and displayed better). 'Street seen' is beautifully printed on a matt art paper but I thought it somewhat over designed to make the contents fill the 278 pages. The copy, set in a fairly large size, only fills the bottom half of the text pages, with quite a few columns falling short, the footnotes, thankfully placed at the bottom of the relevant pages, are in a tiny condensed type (six point) that I found hard to read except in daylight. At the back of the book there are nineteen pages of an historical timeline and biographies of twenty-four photographers that only really need ten pages or less. The book is sufficently lightweight not to have an index. Strangest of all are very faint page grid lines that appear on the left-hand edge of all the text, pure designer whimsy as they contribute nothing to the book's comprehension. Oh, and seventy-three pages have no numbers either. No doubt seeing these street photos in an exhibition was fascinating and thought provoking but I found the book sadly lacking when compared to Jane Livingston's superior coverage in words and images of these interesting photographers. ***SEE INSIDE THE BOOK by clicking 'customer images' under the cover.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Valuable!,
This review is from: Street Seen: The Psychological Gesture in American Photography, 1940-1959 (Hardcover)
The exhibit the book is based on is the kind that makes you want to pick up a camera and go out and shoot the next day. If you think Robert Frank mystically originated a new direction in photography all by himself, get this book. If you want to see the equivalent in still of what Noir was in motion, get this book. If you want to see a portrayal of humanity that is the the equivalent of Giacometti in photo, get this book.
I usually am annoyed by the very presence of placard copy at a visual arts exhibit, often muttering under my breath, "If you wanted to see words you should go to a library." But the captions, based on text in this book, were actually motivating and clarifying in their making of connections. The original print size in this era was small, so there is not much lost in terms of scale between exhibit and catalogue. A fault to me was having some images reproduced as a spread, leaving the gutter going down the center of an image. Why would you do this to a fine art image? Get it. They will probably have clearance discounts now that the show is over.
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