Customer Reviews

Walker Evans: American Photographs

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I was really looking forward to the arrival of this book since I had heard that it was being reissued. I was crushed, however, when I opened it to find that it was literally a photocopy of an original book. Many of the pages of this book contain four pages of the original, two of which are blank pages. So now you have these classic, large-format (8x10 I assume) originals reproduced at around 3x2 in. What a waste of time. I bought the Atget book from the same company and it's the same story. Both of these are going back promptly.

Sure, it's a noble idea to make "...Rare and out-of-print photography books accessible to students and photobook enthusiasts." But when it's at the expense of the content - the PHOTOGRAPHS - I have to ask WHY BOTHER. This is a compromised reprinting of an original published edition of "American Photographs" which here is re-photographed from vintage book spreads and is painfully reproduced, sometimes half-size, sometimes seemingly 1/4 size. Now honestly, what value can be obtained from a photograph of a photograph that was originally printed in a book from 1938 now reprinted at 3 inches by 2 inches? Why not just reset the entire book in the original order with fresh image prints on full-sized plates and original readable typed commentary in an effective size bigger than 2pt? What is more important, the color and condition of the 1938 paper or the photographs? Foolish. This book is being returned. I enjoyed it more when I didn't own it.

This book (and the one on Atget which I also bought) was a major disappointment. While this may be a re-presentation of the work as originally published, the photographs are reproduced in almost miniature scale. Little value for the price, in my view.

basically this is a xerox of the original MOMA catalogue. for 40 bucks, don't waste your money. i wouldn't pay 10 dollars quite frankly. as someone else pointed out. the 5 star reviews are suspect. . .

This is an incredibly disappointing text for those of us interested in studying--or even casually enjoying--photographs. And please note that all the so-called "5 star" reviewers are actually hacks for the company. That in itself should reveal something about the integrity of this printing.

THIS REVIEW IS FOR THE 1988 MoMA
EDITION OF THE BOOK NOT (REPEAT
NOT) THE BOOKS-ON-BOOKS FACSIMILE
EDITION WHICH IS WHAT ALL THE OTHER
REVIEWS ARE ABOUT. AMAZON HAVE PUT
MY REVIEW WITH THIS FACSIMILE AND
THE 1988 EDITION. Confusing? Yes I know!

What can I saw about this remarkable photo book that hasn't been said before? Well, not too much. Actually not all the photos are American, three were taken in Cuba in 1932. I prefer the second section with thirty-seven photos of buildings and the man-made landscape in the eastern part of the country. Several of these are regularly reprinted, year after year, in books, magazines and now on the net in blogs or sites dealing with architecture.

The history of this famous book is quite fascinating. Over the years there have been four editions. Originally published by MoMA in 1938 (the five thousand copies were letterpress printed) to coincide with an exhibition of a hundred of Evans photos. Oddly forty-seven of these don't appear in the book and thirty-three in the book didn't make it to the exhibition. Even photos that appeared in both had different cropping or were from different negatives of the same event.

The second edition, in 1962, was again published by MoMA in an edition of four thousand copies, letterpress printed from the 1938 plates. The third edition, with the photos now out of copyright, was published by the East River Press. This edition is best avoided because it was printed by offset-litho from pages in the 1938 book rather than from the original prints.

This, the fourth edition, was again published by MoMA to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary in 1988. The eighty-seven photos here are printed as duotones, using a very fine screen, with prints made from the original negatives, but one exception which was made from the printed photo in the 1938 book because the negative had been destroyed.

The original 1938 exhibition photos have long been forgotten, (though if you are interested they are shown in Walker Evans the Hungry Eye) so it is this book that carries on his legacy. Unfortunately prices vary enormously for the different editions but you can see what pages in the original book looked like by checking out the Walker Evans: American Photographs (Books on Books).

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

I've only seen Evan's "American Photographs" in reprints so I really had no idea how the original was presented. This is an excellent way of getting a feel for a book that I will never own.

There were complaints in other reviews about the size of the reproductions. This is not a facsimile--it is not a "Second Edition"--and nowhere was it presented as such. The "Books on Books" series reproduces the entire book, cover to cover, dust jacket and in this case, belly band as well, and so the images of the spreads of the book are not at the original size (which were never anywhere near 8x10, by the way.) But it gives me a good enough sense of the original that I at least know what people are talking about when they say Robert Frank's "The Americans" was modeled on "American Photographs."

Further more, the essays are excellent at putting the book in context and the bibliographic info is fascinating. The price is not only reasonable but I was pleasantly surprised at how well printed it was and at how much care went into the scans and reproductions.

All around, I'm impressed and happy with this book and the others in the series.

Admittedly I was skeptical when I first heard about this series because they were descibed as a "book within a book", but after receiving the first two titles I clearly understand the purpose, and as books of scholarship, I like the approach. One of my frustrations with the Parr Badger books is that they only show the cover and one or two spreads, and with these I get to see the entire book and get a much better sense of the original. The essays avoid academic jargon and are easy to read and very imformative. Just ordered the other two available titles and looking forward to what's next in this series.

This is one of the new remarkable books in the "Books on Books" series, and I love what the publishers have achieved in making them. Conceptual and intelligent re-considerations of key works in the photographic canon for the intelligent consumer. Thoughtful people in the world of photography are particularly excited about this endeavor, and are looking forward to more titles, speculating about what they will be. As a librarian and bibliophile, I am delighted with the excellence of the materials and sewn binding, as well as the low key, almost meditative and very considerate way that the books that are the subject are reproduced...not as cheap facsimiles, but as informative notebooks on the subject of the great books of photography! Hurrah!

I would recommend this edition of Walker Evan's classic, American Photographs, to all students and collectors of photography books. The entire first batch of four volumes of the Books on Books series is a very affordable treasure and I anxiously await the next ones. I would however, recommend that you purchase these volumes now, before they are gone. As the series name says, these are books on books; they are not intended to simply be a reproduction of the books. They are, however, printed beautifully, so that the photographs in the portion of the book reproducing the original book are very clear and easy to see in all their detail. This portion is followed by the original essay, written by Lincoln Kirstein, contained in this monumental book, as well as a new essay which describes the evolution of the book and discusses it's contents and it's importance, followed by a short history of the publication. All this for what I feel is a very low price for all you get. I don't know how anyone interested in photography could better spend this amount of money to have something that they will return to many times over the years.