TAG: MoMA BOOKS

Cover of What is Contemporary Art? A Guide for Kids by Jacky Klein and Suzy Klein, published by The Museum of Modern Art

MoMA’s current exhibition, Claes Oldenburg: The Street and The Store, celebrates the early years of artist Claes Oldenburg’s extraordinary career, when he experimented with painting and sculpture by reworking the stuff of every day into larger than life objects made with unexpected materials. Read more

Cover of the exhibition catalogue Henri Labrouste: Structure Brought to Light, published by The Museum of Modern Art

French architect Henri Labrouste (1801–1875) may not be an instantly recognizable name, yet he is one of the most influential precursors of modern architecture. Most well known for two luminous library reading rooms built in Paris in the 1800s, the Bibliothèque nationale de France (1838–50) and the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève (1859–75), Labrouste has been long admired by both modernists and postmodernists for his innovative embrace of then-new technologies, like cast iron and gas lighting. Read more

Cover of the exhibition catalogue Bill Brandt: Shadow & Light, published by The Museum of Modern Art

MoMA’s new book Bill Brandt: Shadow and Light by Sarah Hermanson Meister, curator in the Department of Photography at MoMA, is a fresh look at the work of an iconic British photographer. The exhibition currently on view isn’t the first time MoMA has presented Bill Brandt’s work to the public—the last Brandt retrospective was in 1969. Since then, the Museum’s perspective of Brandt’s work has evolved into a more complete consideration of the nuances and variations in Brandt’s own photo-historical approach.

Brandt’s photography is traditionally presented in thematic groupings at the artist’s own request, but this view alone simplifies a body of work that is multifaceted and far-reaching in style, influence, and subject matter. Bill Brandt: Shadow and Light is the most comprehensive overview of Brandt’s work to date, and it attempts to create a coherent trajectory across five decades of his career.

Beyond the 160 tri-tone reproductions of his photographs, the book features a rich appendix that illuminates different aspects of Brandt’s oeuvre. A section on Brandt’s photo-stories from 1939 to 1945 reproduces spreads from the publications in which they originally appeared, and a detailed survey of his methods for retouching his photos is especially fascinating in today’s world of digital cameras, smart phones, and instant photo filters. Brandt often spoke about how important the retouching process was in his work, and by looking at the various tools and techniques he used to edit and perfect his final images, photo conservator Lee Ann Daffner’s illustrated glossary dives deep into Brandt’s working process. As discussed in a prior INSIDE/OUT post, Dating Brandt, the same negative can look completely different depending on when Brandt retouched it.

Sample of Bill Brandt’s published photo-stories in the exhibition catalogue, Bill Brandt: Shadow & Light. The photo-stories are organized chronologically to suggest the breadth of Brandt’s artwork

I believe this power of seeing the world as fresh and strange lies hidden in every human being. In most of us it is dormant. Yet it is there, even if it is no more than a vague desire, an unsatisfied appetite that cannot discover its own nourishment….This should be the photographer’s aim, for this is the purpose that pictures fulfill in the world as it is to-day. To meet a need that people cannot or will not meet for themselves. We are most of us too busy, too worried, too intent on proving ourselves right, too obsessed with ideas, to stand and stare.

Bill Brandt took the time to “stand and stare” in many different ways. Whether through juxtapositions of class structure, wondrous nudes, inventive portraiture, or unearthly landscapes, Brandt’s far-reaching inspirations and approaches generated arresting imagery that still holds magic and wonder today.

From left: Bill Brandt. Francis Bacon Walking on Primrose Hill, London. 1963. Gelatin silver print, 91⁄4 x 71⁄2″ (23.5 x 19.1 cm). Collection David Dechman and Michel Mercure. © 2013 Bill Brandt Archive Ltd.; Bill Brandt. The Pilgrim’s Way, Kent. 1950. Gelatin silver print, 9 x 75⁄8″ (22.9 x 19.4 cm). EHG. © 2013 Bill Brandt Archive Ltd.

Cover of MoMA Highlights: 350 Works from The Museum of Modern Art, published by The Museum of Modern Art

Although the word “modern” will always spark some debate over its definition, The Museum of Modern Art has been committed since its founding in 1929 to collecting and sharing with the public the most compelling art of our time. Read more

Cover of the Century of the Child: Growing by Design, 1900–2000 publication

On the cover of MoMA’s new book, Century of the Child: Growing by Design, 1900–2000, two boys decked out in astronaut suits hold onto their Space Hoppers. Read more

MoMA’s current New Photography 2011 exhibition has inspired me to revisit the Museum’s books on photography. John Szarkowski’s monograph on Eugène Atget, titled Atget, has been particularly useful Read more