One Mind's Eye: The Portraits and Other Photographs of Arnold Newman

Dust jacket notes: "If you've come this far, don't bother to read this flap copy but turn immediately to the contents of the book. You know the photographs; you've seen them for years. Newman's portraits of Stravinsky hunched within the black frame of his grand piano, of O'Keeffe sitting gravely, quietly beside her husband Alfred Stieglitz, of Adlai Stevenson staring laconically, almost apologetically, before the great empty chamber of the United Nations, of John F. Kennedy as a green freshman senator and later as president, are classics familiar to an entire generation. They are all here, the famous faces of the last thirty years. But that is hardly what sets this book apart from others of its kind, for the iconography of the great is an old and banal publishing convention. What distinguishes Newman, what makes him very special, is that he does more than record - he interprets. His portraits, placing their sitters indelibly in the contexts of mood, time, and profession, do more than tell you what the person does; they tell you what he stands for, in short, what he is. The faces, once observed, are unforgettable, but they would be so even if the names were completely unknown and unsung. For it is really beside the point that the people Newman has recorded are 'great.' These are great photographs because they are framed with intelligence, composed with vision and sympathy, and executed with consummate craft."