Preview our Fall 2023 catalog, featuring more than 500 new books on art, photography, design, architecture, film, music and visual culture.
APERTURE/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Photographic Memory
The Album in the Age of Photography
Edited by Verna Posever Curtis.
As photography became an increasingly accessible medium in the twentieth century, the popularity of the photographic album exploded, yielding a wonderful range of objects made for varying purposes--to memorialize, document (officially or unofficially), promote, or educate and sometimes simply to channel creative energy. Photographic Memory: The Album in the Age of Photography traces the rise of the album from the turn of last century to the present day, showcasing some of the most important examples in the history of the medium, as collected by the Library of Congress. The book includes albums by acclaimed photographers and filmmakers, among them Walker Evans, Danny Lyon, Holland Day, Jim Goldberg, Dorothea Lange, Duane Michals, Leni Riefenstahl and W. Eugene Smith, as well as lesser-known but equally significant albums. Each album is beautifully reproduced over numerous spreads with an accompanying detailed explanatory text. An insightful history of the album format, as well as an informative essay about caring for and restoring albums are included. At a time when the physical collection of photographs is becoming increasingly immaterial through the ascent of digital publishing, and at a time in which radical shifts have occurred in the status of handmade artists' objects, Photographic Memory is a comprehensive illustrated history of a form of presentation that became something of an art in itself.
Featured image is a spread from the Family Album of Daniel Joseph Lyon, excerpted from Aperture's Photographic Memory: The Album in the Age of Photography.
Danny Lyons, as he was known, is a self taught American photographer, and is known as one of the most active photographers to document the American Civil Rights Movement. In this selection from Aperture's book, we get to explore the more casual, intimate side of his body of work.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
The New York Times Book Review
Editor
The photo albums featured in Curtis's book are from the Library of Congress's holdings, including,… [photos] by Jack Delano, which document the lives of coal miners in the towns of Schuykill County in eastern Pennsylvania.
FROM THE BOOK
Drawn from the collection of the Library of Congress, this beautifully produced book is a celebration of the history of the photographic album, from the turn of last century to the present day. The book includes albums by acclaimed photographers and filmmakers, among them Walker Evans, Danny Lyon, Holland Day, Jim Goldberg, Dorothea Lange, Duane Michals, Leni Riefenstahl and W. Eugene Smith, as well as lesser-known but equally significant albums. Each album is beautifully reproduced over numerous spreads with an accompanying detailed explanatory text.
FORMAT: Hbk, 9.5 x 11.5 in. / 288 pgs / 350 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $75.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $90 ISBN: 9781597111317 PUBLISHER: Aperture/Library of Congress AVAILABLE: 5/31/2011 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: No longer our product AVAILABILITY: Not Available
Photographic Memory The Album in the Age of Photography
Published by Aperture/Library of Congress. Edited by Verna Posever Curtis.
As photography became an increasingly accessible medium in the twentieth century, the popularity of the photographic album exploded, yielding a wonderful range of objects made for varying purposes--to memorialize, document (officially or unofficially), promote, or educate and sometimes simply to channel creative energy. Photographic Memory: The Album in the Age of Photography traces the rise of the album from the turn of last century to the present day, showcasing some of the most important examples in the history of the medium, as collected by the Library of Congress. The book includes albums by acclaimed photographers and filmmakers, among them Walker Evans, Danny Lyon, Holland Day, Jim Goldberg, Dorothea Lange, Duane Michals, Leni Riefenstahl and W. Eugene Smith, as well as lesser-known but equally significant albums. Each album is beautifully reproduced over numerous spreads with an accompanying detailed explanatory text. An insightful history of the album format, as well as an informative essay about caring for and restoring albums are included. At a time when the physical collection of photographs is becoming increasingly immaterial through the ascent of digital publishing, and at a time in which radical shifts have occurred in the status of handmade artists' objects, Photographic Memory is a comprehensive illustrated history of a form of presentation that became something of an art in itself.
