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 | The Art of the American Snapshot, 1888-1978 |
The impact of the humble American snapshot has been anything but humble. Any American who takes a snapshot contributes to a compelling and influential genre. Since 1888, when George Eastman introduced the Kodak camera and roll film, the snapshot has not only changed everyday American life and memory; it has also changed the history of fine art photography. The distinctive subject matter and visual vocabulary of the American snapshot--its poses, facial expressions, viewpoints, framing, and themes--influenced modernist photographers as they explored spontaneity, objectivity, and new topics and perspectives. A richly illustrated chronicle of the first century of snapshot photography in America, The Art of the American Snapshot is the first book to examine the evolution of this most common form of American photography. The book shows that among the countless snapshots taken by American amateurs, some works, through intention or accident, continue to resonate long after their intimate context and original meaning have been lost. The catalogue of a fall 2007 exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, The Art of the American Snapshot reproduces some 250 snapshots drawn from Robert Jackson's outstanding collection and from a recent gift Jackson made to the museum. Organized decade by decade, the book traces the evolution of American snapshot imagery and describes how technical, social, and cultural factors affected the look of snapshots at different periods. Sarah Greenough is curator and head of the department of photographs at the National Gallery of Art. She has organized numerous exhibitions that have traveled to museums around the world and is the author of many books, including Andre Kertesz; Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set; Robert Frank: Moving Out; and Walker Evans: Subways and Streets. Diane Waggoner, Sarah Kennel, and Matthew S. Witkovsky are assistant curators of photographs at the National Gallery of Art. Waggoner is curator and author of The Beauty of Life: William Morris and the Art of Design, and Witkovsky is curator and author of Foto: Modernity in Central Europe, 1918-1945. "The prints in The Art of the American Snapshot are reproduced at their actual modest size, with lots of blazingly white space, and have taken their riddles into oblivion with their anonymous creators...The camera, that highly evolved mechanism, put into Everyman's untrained hands the chance to become, if half by accident, a death-defying artist. The collector Robert Jackson deserves the last shot; his afterword to the catalogue manages to cast a pall of reasonableness over his curious passion."--John Updike, The New Yorker "The photos, chosen for the pleasure they give, and the text. which aims to recount photographic history, sometimes seem at odds, but the ways people took snapshots, what they took snapshots of, and how they presented themselves to the camera changed with time, and Jackson's sample is large enough to allow speculation about the nature of the changes. . . ."--Caleb Crain, New York Review of Books "Professionals who leaf through The Art of the American Snapshot 1888-1978 may despair as they realize that offhand efforts with a camera frequently produce more visual excitement than their studied excercises...Sarah Greenough...and her colleagues help to give meaning to the ordinary by probing, in their essays, how deeply the artless has shaped what we now consider art."--Richard B. Woodward, Wall Street Journal "The Art of the American Snapshot celebrates the humble snapshot with a collection of anonymous images belonging to art historian Robert E. Jackson."--Claire Holland, Financial Times Another Princeton book by Sarah Greenough: Another Princeton book by Sarah Kennel: Subject Areas: Published in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington |
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Prices subject to change without notice File created: 10/22/2007 | |||||
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