Top Photobooks of 2013

Bill Brandt: Shadow and Light

Published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Edited and with text by Sarah Hermanson Meister. Text by Lee Ann Daffner.

Bill Brandt was the preeminent British photographer of the twentieth century, a founding father of photography’s modernist tradition whose half-century-long career defies neat categorization. This publication presents the photographer’s entire oeuvre, with special emphasis on his investigation of English life in the 1930s and his innovative late nudes. The Museum of Modern Art has been exhibiting and collecting Brandt’s photographs since the late 1940s, and has recently more than doubled its collection of vintage prints of his work, which forms the core of this selection. An essay by Sarah Hermanson Meister, Curator in the Department of Photography at MoMA, sets the artist’s life and work in the context of twentieth-century photographic history. With rich duotone illustrations that highlight the special characteristics of Brandt’s prints, this volume is an invaluable resource to students and scholars alike. Lee Ann Daffner, the Museum’s Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Conservator of Photographs, contributes an illustrated glossary of Brandt’s retouching techniques, enhancing the appreciation of Brandt’s printing processes. The book also includes a generously illustrated appendix of Brandt’s published photo-stories during the Second World War.

Bill Brandt (1904–1983) moved to London from Germany in 1934 and quickly began his investigation of British society, resulting in what would become his signature publications: The English at Home (1936) and A Night in London (1938). He continued to photograph in London throughout World War II, contributing regularly to Picture Post and Harper’s Bazaar. His postwar career expanded to include portraits and landscapes, and the celebrated series of nudes that remain his crowning achievement. His other major books include Camera in London (1948), Literary Britain (1951) and Perspective of Nudes (1961). Brandt died in London in 1983.

PUBLISHER
The Museum of Modern Art, New York

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 9 x 10.5 in. / 208 pgs / 254 duotone.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 3/31/2013
Active

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2013 p. 20   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9780870708459 TRADE
List Price: $55.00 CAD $72.50

AVAILABILITY
In stock

Taryn Simon: Birds of the West Indies

Published by Hatje Cantz.
Text by Daniel Baumann, et al.

All the birds from the 24 films of the James Bond franchise, photographed and classified by Taryn Simon

PUBLISHER
Hatje Cantz

BOOK FORMAT
Clth, 7.75 x 11.5 in. / 440 pgs / 196 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 12/31/2013
Out of stock indefinitely

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: FALL 2013 p. 15   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783775736633 TRADE
List Price: $55.00 CAD $75.00

AVAILABILITY
Not available

Jason Fulford: Hotel Oracle

Published by The Soon Institute.
Edited by Lorenzo De Rita.

”My neighbor June believes in Zeus” is the arresting opening sentence of Jason Fulford’s latest photo book. At once humorous and full of reverence, Hotel Oracle is a sustained visual meditation on the cosmos--what constitutes it, what its future might be and how to reconcile the world of the supernatural with the world of the 99-cent store. Fulford’s photos of everyday scenes and people search out the clues and signs of the prophetic and the numinous, readily mingling them with the banal and the preposterous. The pictures in Hotel Oracle were taken in the U.S., Canada, Italy, Greece, the Czech Republic, Poland, South Korea, Japan, Hungary, India, Bermuda and Germany. Fulford is a photographer, cofounder of J&L Books and a contributing editor to Blind Spot magazine. His books include Sunbird (2000), Crushed (2003), Raising Frogs For $ (2006) and The Mushroom Collector (2010).

PUBLISHER
The Soon Institute

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 7.75 x 9.5 in. / 144 pgs / 80 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 11/30/2013
Out of print

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: FALL 2013 p. 97   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9789081058445 TRADE
List Price: $65.00 CAD $75.00

AVAILABILITY
Not available

Imogen Cunningham

Published by D.A.P..
Text by Celina Lunsford, Jamie M. Allen, Marisa C. Sánchez.

Published with TF Editores.

Throughout her long life, Imogen Cunningham was tireless and exemplary in her pursuit of new developments in photography and in the expansion of her own practice. An inspiration to several successive generations, she reinvented the genres of botanical photography, street photography, nudes and portraiture, and expanded the possibilities of the double exposure. This publication celebrates the rich diversity of this modernist pioneer, covering Cunningham's entire seven-decade career--from her abstract shots of plants and nudes and optical illusions created using techniques such as inverted positive/negative images and double exposure, to her iconic portraits for Vanity Fair of artists, dancers, actors, musicians and writers such as Man Ray, Alfred Stieglitz, Martha Graham, Frida Kahlo, Gertrude Stein, Morris Graves and Merce Cunningham. The selection also includes many rarely reproduced works, plus essays by Celina Lunsford, curator of the exhibition, Jamie M. Allen and Marisa C. Sánchez, an illustrated chronology and selected bibliography.

Born in Portland, Oregon, Imogen Cunningham (1883–1976) chose at an early age to become a photographer and a working woman outside the home--choices that were profoundly bold for a woman of her generation. Around 1905-06, she purchased a 4 x 5 inch camera. After completing studies at the University of Washington, and the Technische Hochschule in Germany, she married, living first in Seattle and later in San Francisco, where--with Ansel Adams, John Paul Edwards, Sonya Noskowiak, Henry Swift, Willard Van Dyke and Edward Weston--she cofounded Group f/64, which practiced the conceptual constraint of unmanipulated photography. In 1945, Adams Cunningham joined the faculty of the California School of Fine Arts. She continued to take photographs until shortly before her death at 93.

PUBLISHER
D.A.P.

BOOK FORMAT
Clth, 9.5 x 11.75 in. / 262 pgs / 220 duotone.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 1/31/2013
Out of stock indefinitely

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2013 p. 18   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9781938922060 TRADE
List Price: $65.00 CAD $87.00 GBP £57.00

AVAILABILITY
Not available

Anders Petersen & JH Engström: From Back Home

Published by Max Ström.
Edited by Greger Ulf Nilsson.

From Back Home documents a rural Sweden far removed from the big city. Photographers Anders Petersen (born 1944) and JH Engström (born 1969) both hail from the rural county of Värmland in Sweden, and have returned there to produce this marvelous collaboration. The result is an intimate journey among people, experiences and landscapes spanning over 300 pages. Engström writes of the project: "The land between Klarälven River and the chestnut tree at Ekallén is full of little hard memories of sad and lonely times, but there is also a streak of warm confidence that runs all the way up to Älgsjövallen, a place of fairytale creatures and inquisitive moose. I am carrying my camera, shooting these old dreams through the foliage. It means my memories can never be destroyed because they no longer end in themselves." And Petersen writes: "I’ve returned to something my body and emotions recognize."

PUBLISHER
Max Ström

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 8 x 10.75 in. / 320 pgs / 71 color / 156 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 11/30/2013
Out of stock indefinitely

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2014 p. 98   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9789171261649 TRADE
List Price: $85.00 CAD $112.50

AVAILABILITY
Not available

Dennis Hopper: On the Road

Published by Fundación Museo Picasso Málaga/Legado Paul, Christine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso.
Edited by José Lebrero Stals.

Director, actor, photographer, artist and art collector, Dennis Hopper was a man of diverse talents who intersected with countless key moments in American culture--particularly, and most famously, in the 1960s. Hopper’s great gifts as a photographer are well established, with many of his images having entered public consciousness. This handsomely produced volume looks at Hopper’s photography throughout its glory years, from 1961 to 1967. In these years, Hopper carried a camera everywhere, from bars to marches, art openings to freeways. Conceived as a kind of road trip across America, the book runs the gamut of 1960s counterculture and film culture, taking in Warhol’s Factory (where Hopper spent much time), film shoots, street scenes, road trips and of course the classic portraits of movie stars, musicians, artists, bikers and activists, from Martin Luther King to Allen Ginsberg and James Brown. The result of exhaustive research into the artist’s archives at the Dennis Hopper Art Trust, and with a wealth of previously unpublished images, Dennis Hopper: On the Road offers a first-hand, collective portrait of an era.
Dennis Hopper (1936–2010) was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. An exceptional creative talent, his work in film, photography, painting and sculpture gained him both critical acclaim and a high public profile. He won an award at the Cannes Film Festival for 1969’s Easy Rider. His photographic work continues to be featured in high-profile international exhibitions.

PUBLISHER
Fundación Museo Picasso Málaga/Legado Paul, Christine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 9.75 x 12.5 in. / 273 pgs / 16 color / 158 tritone.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 9/30/2013
Out of stock indefinitely

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: FALL 2013 p. 17   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9788494024948 TRADE
List Price: $55.00 CAD $72.50

AVAILABILITY
Not available

Enrico Natali: Detroit 1968

Published by Foggy Notion Books.
Edited by Jane Brown. Introduction by Mark Binelli.

Detroit 1968 was first published in 1972 under the title New American People, and was the subject of Enrico Natali’s 1969 solo exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago. In his introduction to the 1972 edition, Hugh Edwards, former Curator of Photography at the Art Institute of Chicago, wrote: “All the photographs in the present collection were taken in 1967–1970 in Detroit, which in no way restricts their presentation as a brief of how Americans look and live today. These scenes and incidents might have occurred anywhere in the United States in this time when regional characteristics are disappearing ... this is a view of a situation and condition, not a localization.” Forty years later, we can now also appreciate the specificity of Natali’s subject, as this body of work presents an insightful exploration of Detroit when it was on the cusp of losing half of its inhabitants, along with its status as America’s industrial capital. We witness Detroit just before the auto industry began its decade-long decline, as race riots and the Vietnam War raged on. Here Natali captures the everyday activity of 60s-era storefronts, art openings, sporting events, the celebrated high school prom, secretaries enjoying an afternoon cigarette, computer main-frame operators and machinists, waitresses and beauticians, family portraits, and much more--these images capture the now-vanished spirit of this largely abandoned city during a critical, spirited moment in its history. This new edition includes an introduction by Mark Binelli, author of Detroit City Is the Place to Be and a contributing editor at Rolling Stone.
Enrico Natali was born in 1933 in Utica, New York. From the 1960s on he lived and photographed in various parts of the country, including New Orleans, Chicago and Detroit. In the late 1960s he began a meditation practice that eventually became his primary focus and culminated in his abandoning photography and devoting himself to that practice while raising a family and building a home in California’s Los Padres National Forest. In 1990 he and his wife started a Zen meditation center, the Blue Heron Center for Integral Studies.

PUBLISHER
Foggy Notion Books

BOOK FORMAT
Clth, 10 x 10.5 in. / 152 pgs / 102 duotone.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 11/30/2013
Active

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: FALL 2013 p. 41   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9780983587040 TRADE
List Price: $49.95 CAD $60.00

AVAILABILITY
Awaiting stock