The Changing Face of Portrait Photography: From Daguerreotype to Digital

by Shannon Thomas Perich

Price: $34.58

ISBN 13: 1588342743

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Product Description

A richly illustrated volume examines the portrait work of Dorthea lange, Richard Avedon, Robert Weingarten, George K. Warren, Julia Margaret Cameron, the Barr & Wright Studio, Gertrude Käseebier, Nickolas Muray, Henry Horenstein, and Lauren Greenfiled. The Changing Face of Portrait Photography explores the power of the portrait and the role it plays in our personal and national identities.

The Changing Face of Portrait Photography explores ten groups of portraits selected from within the Smithsonian National Museum of American History's Photographic History Collection. The selections represent work by specific photographers with diverse relationships to portraiture, and through their sampling take a focused look at changing convention, theory, and technologies.

Author Information

Shannon Thomas Perich
Shannon Thomas Perich is an associate curator in the Photographic History Collection at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. She is the author of Richard Avedon's The Kennedy's: Portrait of a Family. She lives in Washington, DC.

Review Quotes

[Perich] has unquestionably produced an important, well-written, and aesthetically pleasing work.

—Publishers Weekly

In each of ten chapters, Perich provides a concise description of how both well-known and lesser-known photographers exploited innovations in technology to fulfill their aesthetic needs and the demands of their audience. One of the strengths of the book is Perich's ability to make clear the various complex photographic processes and then contextualize them within each artist's oeuvre to show how each development allowed for unique expression. The extensive and lavish illustrations (130 total) and their accompanying captions are another strength. This book will interest those seeking a history of portrait photography and a general history of photography.

—Choice