Review by New York Times Review
Winogrand (1928-84) is known for his empathetic brutal-beautiful street photography in 1960s New York, a spectrum expanded in this retrospective catalog. Above, "Park Avenue, New York, 1959."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [April 14, 2013]
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Edited by photographer and essayist Rubinfien, this landmark volume serves as the catalogue to a Winogrand (1928-1984) travelling retrospective opening in March 2013 at the San Francisco Museum of Art, and features 460 black-and-white photographs and five accompanying essays. The catalogue mixes the photographer's most famous images with some never-before-seen work from previously undeveloped film and unpublished contact sheets. Unlike contemporaries Robert Frank and Lee Friedlander, Winogrand's work is distinctly off-kilter and frenetic, richly evoking the societal changes afoot in the 1950s, '60s, and '70s. However, the work is also deeply personal-he shows us Americans from all walks of life, their relationships to each other, and their environment. In several famous shots, we see their reactions to him and his camera, as in the woman laughing while holding an ice cream cone, clearly amused by something he said. Just as masterfully, Winogrand sometimes captured an entire tableau, as in the shot of eight people on a New York park bench, which contains multiple stories competing for attention. Winogrand reveals the inimitable rowdiness of real life in all its tragic and comic excess, establishing a whole new style of street shooting that is celebrated in this fine volume. 460 duotone illus. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
The Museum of Modern Art organized the first retrospective of photographer Garry Winogrand 25 years ago, only four years after his death in 1984. Arguably, too little time had then elapsed to allow scholars and curators to respond fully to his work, much less examine the numerous posthumous undeveloped and unprinted rolls of film he left behind. This new retrospective and substantial catalog, published in association with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and edited by photographer Rubinfien (A Map of the East), helps to redress that problem. The content-black-and-white plates showing the full range of Winogrand's work, as well as critical essays, biographical information, and a bibliography-amounts to a portable symposium of the artist's work. Although he was adamantly not a political artist, the social forces roiling the mid-century United States in which Winogrand lived nonetheless forcefully defined his work. The book also introduces readers to Winogrand the man, teacher, and friend: warts and all. VERDICT As a genre, retrospectives seem almost invariably affirmative in their assessment of their subject. Students of photography will appreciate this catalog's balance of diverse critical views together with a genuinely warm and affectionate embrace of Winogrand as a person.-Michael Dashkin, New York (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by New York Times Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
