Edited by Nicholas Muellner, Catherine Taylor. Text by bell hooks, Nydia Blas, Cheryl Finley, Kate Addelman-Frankel.
A loving and powerful photobook following the lineage of one Black family, interrogating the semiotics of family portraiture
This profoundly moving and visually ravishing photobook, the first major monograph by American photographer Nydia Blas (born 1981), is an exploration of one Ithaca-based Black family and its community across many generations. The book is also a formally rigorous examination of the taxonomy and syntax of family portraiture. Blas’ contemporary works are integrated with selections from her historical family albums in order to tell an extended intergenerational story, and to bring forward the evolving and recurring nature of the portrait photograph throughout the medium’s history. Deploying doubling, repetition and more subtle echoing and mirroring, Love, You Came from Greatness builds a powerful line of feeling and thought across generations and photographic tropes and styles. It features an illustrated discussion among Blas, curator Kate Addleman-Frankel and Cornell art historian Cheryl Finley. The volume concludes with the republication of bell hooks’ seminal 1995 essay "In Our Glory: Photography and Black Life," a deeply personal text that expands on crucial themes of family, photography, and Black identity and community.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Huck magazine
Sara Rosen
For her first major monograph, the photographer and educator returned to her hometown of Ithaca, New York, to create a layered, intergenerational portrait of its African American families and community.
Brooklyn Rail
Sarah Moroz
Esteeming and celebrating the agency of representing oneself, as well as one’s entourage, forms the crux of this project.
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Nydia Blas’ extraordinary new photobook lives up to its name. Published by Image Text Ithaca Press, Love, You Came from Greatness is the rising Atlanta-based photographer, educator and community organizer’s first major monograph. Born in Ithaca, New York, for this project Blas returned to her hometown to explore her past and present roots, going back more than a century. This quietly profound artist’s book blends new and archival photographs to produce a meaningful portrait over generations. “It is so important to keep saying that there is power in looking, and that your viewpoint is really important,” Blas is quoted. “And that what you have to say is really important.” Her dedication at the beginning of the book? “To love, for being the only thing that can save us.” The ingenious production of the book is also worth noting. Perfect-bound with silkscreen on gold paper and cloth-wrapped boards, it is all and only its own. Featured here, “Ithaca, New York, 2013. Rosario Williams, my daughter.” continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 10 x 11.5 in. / 130 pgs / 50 color / 10 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $60.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $87.5 GBP £52.00 ISBN: 9781733497145 PUBLISHER: Image Text Ithaca Press AVAILABLE: 1/21/2025 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: WORLD
Published by Image Text Ithaca Press. Edited by Nicholas Muellner, Catherine Taylor. Text by bell hooks, Nydia Blas, Cheryl Finley, Kate Addelman-Frankel.
A loving and powerful photobook following the lineage of one Black family, interrogating the semiotics of family portraiture
This profoundly moving and visually ravishing photobook, the first major monograph by American photographer Nydia Blas (born 1981), is an exploration of one Ithaca-based Black family and its community across many generations. The book is also a formally rigorous examination of the taxonomy and syntax of family portraiture.
Blas’ contemporary works are integrated with selections from her historical family albums in order to tell an extended intergenerational story, and to bring forward the evolving and recurring nature of the portrait photograph throughout the medium’s history. Deploying doubling, repetition and more subtle echoing and mirroring, Love, You Came from Greatness builds a powerful line of feeling and thought across generations and photographic tropes and styles. It features an illustrated discussion among Blas, curator Kate Addleman-Frankel and Cornell art historian Cheryl Finley. The volume concludes with the republication of bell hooks’ seminal 1995 essay "In Our Glory: Photography and Black Life," a deeply personal text that expands on crucial themes of family, photography, and Black identity and community.
