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 "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.

Bill Brandt: Shadow and Light

Arts & Photography

Meister, Sarah Hermanson

Photography & Video

Thames&Hudson

The photographer Berenice Abbott once mused, "How shall the two-dimensional print in black-and-white suggest the flux of activity of the metropolis, the interaction of human beings and solid architectural constructions, all impinging upon each other in time?" Picturing New York presents a myriad of answers to this question. Depicting both the iconic New York that captivates the world's imagination and the idiosyncratic details that define New Yorkers' sense of home, this anthology of photographs from The Museum of Modern Art's extraordinary collection reveals New York in all its vitality, ambition and beauty. Taken by artists pursuing their own curiosity as well as professionals on assignment, the works reveal a deeply symbiotic relationship between photography and the city, each delving into a new corner of New York while expanding the boundaries of photography as an art form. The selection comprises both celebrated images and lesser-known gems from the collection, accompanied by evocative excerpts from literary works about New York.

Picturing New York: Photographs from The Museum of Modern Art

The Museum of Modern Art, New York

More than any other artist, Walker Evans invented the images of essential America that we have long since accepted as fact, and his work has influenced not only modern photography but also literature, film and visual arts in other mediums. The original edition of American Photographs was a carefully prepared letterpress production, published by The Museum of Modern Art in 1938 to accompany an exhibition of photographs by Evans that captured scenes of America in the early 1930s. As noted on the jacket of the first edition, Evans, “photographing in New England or Louisiana, watching a Cuban political funeral or a Mississippi flood, working cautiously so as to disturb nothing in the normal atmosphere of the average place, can be considered a kind of disembodied, burrowing eye, a conspirator against time and its hammers.” This seventy-fifth anniversary edition of American Photographs, made with new reproductions, recreates the original 1938 edition as closely as possible to make the landmark publication available for a new generation. American Photographs has fallen out of print for long periods of time since it was first published, and even subsequent editions--two of which altered the design and typography of the book in small but significant ways--are often available only at libraries and rare bookstores. This version, like the fiftieth-anniversary edition produced by the Museum in 1988, captures the look and feel of the very first edition with the aid of new digital technologies. Walker Evans (1903–1975) took up photography upon his return to New York in 1927, following a year in Paris when his aspiration to become a writer withered in the shadow of Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Joyce. In 1935, Evans was commissioned by the Farm Security Administration to photograph the effects of the Great Depression in the Southeast. During this time he took many of the photographs that appeared in his collaboration with James Agee, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941), a book which has become a defining document of that era. Evans joined the staff of Time magazine in 1945 and shortly thereafter became an editor at Fortune, where he stayed for the next two decades. In 1964, he became a professor at the Yale University School of Art, where he taught until his death in 1975.

Walker Evans: American Photographs: Seventy-Fifth Anniversary Edition

KIRSTEIN, Lincoln

A spectacular clothbound compendium of iconic early 20th-century photography from MoMA's archives In 2001, the Museum of Modern Art in New York acquired an unprecedented survey of modern photography from longtime collector Thomas Walther. For 20 years, the German-born art enthusiast had dutifully amassed one of the most impressive private collections of photography in the world, replete with pieces from the era between the two World Wars. This time of creative experimentation saw numerous styles and approaches develop in parallel, such as pictorialism, abstraction and candid street photography, before merging into modernism. Photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson brought a new dynamism to their pictures by capturing people as they appeared going about their business on the street, while artists such as Man Ray extended a Surrealist approach to photography, placing props directly onto photo paper and capturing their ghostly silhouettes. Still more photographers continued to experiment with their craft and ultimately defined a generation of photography. Among the pieces included in this clothbound volume are some of the definitive examples of the medium. Photographers include: Berenice Abbott, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, John Gutmann, André Kertész, Alexander Rodchenko, Man Ray, Paul Strand, Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen and Edward Weston. Published in association with the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Masterworks of Modern Photography 1900–1940: The Thomas Walther Collection at The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Silvana Editoriale

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Books by Meister, Sarah Hermanson

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Meister, Sarah Hermanson. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Bill Brandt: Shadow and Light

Picturing New York: Photographs from The Museum of Modern Art

Walker Evans: American Photographs: Seventy-Fifth Anniversary Edition

Masterworks of Modern Photography 1900–1940: The Thomas Walther Collection at The Museum of Modern Art, New York