Truth Beauty: Pictorialism and the Photograph As Art, 1845-1945

Brief Description: The hauntingly beautiful works of the Pictorialist movement are among the most spectacular photographs ever created. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, Pictorialist artists sought to elevate photography-- until then seen largely as a scientific tool for documentation--to an art form equal to painting. Adopting a soft-focus approach and utilizing dramatic effects of light, richly coloured tones and bold technical experimentation, they opened up a new world of vision expression in photography. More than a hundred years later, their aesthetic remains highly influential. "TruthBeauty" contains 121 stunning works by the form's renowned artists, including Julia Margaret Cameron, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Robert Demachy, Peter Henry Emerson, Gertrude Kasebier, Heinrich Kuhn, Edward Steichen and Alfred Stieglitz. Together, the collected works trace the evolution of Pictorialism over the three decades in which it predominated. This is the only collection of Pictorialist photographs by artists from North America, the United Kingdom, continental Europe, Japan and Australia in a single publication. Scholarly essays, and a selection of historic texts by Pictoralist artists, complete this rich overview of the first truly international art movement. Review Quotes: "Nordstrom and her collaborators make a strong argument for the importance of the movement and the innovation of its contributors. ...the academic essays and gorgeous reproductions of many rare images ensure that academics and casual fans alike will get their money's worth."?"Publishers Weekly"Marc Notes: Published in conjunction with an exhibition organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery in collaboration with George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film, Feb. 2-Apr. 27, 2008. Review Citations:

Publishers Weekly 01/02/2012 (EAN 9781553659815, Hardcover)

Choice 02/01/2009 (EAN 9781553652946, Hardcover)

Contributor Bio:  Nordstrom, Alison ALISON NORDSTROM is Curator of Photographs at George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film, where she is also the USA director in the MA program in Photographic Preservation and Collections Management with Ryerson University. She is editor of the academic journal Photography and Culture, London. She has curated more than one hundred photographic exhibitions and is widely published. Contributor Bio:  Padon, Thomas Thomas Padon, curator of the exhibition, is deputy director for exhibitions and programs at the American Federation of Arts, where he has organized many major traveling art exhibitions. Robert Harrison teaches philosophy, French and Italian literature, and European cultural history at Stanford University. Ronald Jones is an artist and critic who teaches at art schools in Frankfurt and Stockholm. Shirin Neshat is a New Yorkbased artist whose photographs and videos have appeared in many international exhibitions. Contributor Bio:  Kaneko, Ryuichi "Ryuichi Kaneko is a photo historian who is currently Curator, Tokyo Metropolitan Photography Museum."Contributor Bio:  McDonald, Jessica S Jessica S. McDonald is Assistant Curator of Photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and a doctoral candidate in the Visual and Cultural Studies program at the University of Rochester, New York. She is the U. S. reviews editor for the journal Photography & Culture.