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Title: Brassai : The Eye of Paris by Anne W. Tucker ISBN: 0-8109-6380-9 Publisher: Harry N Abrams Pub. Date: 01 June, 1999 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $60.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (3 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Please
Comment: I am surprised that this book has gotten such mixed reviews here -- it is the definitive book on the subject. The essays are full of new information and elegantly presented. The design of the book, bleeds and all, remind me of the particular way Brassai made his books (which is why we care about Brassai today). The reproductions look like the original prints! The book is smart and real.
Rating: 5
Summary: An Exhibition Book That Does Justice to the Exhibition
Comment: I saw this exhibition at the National Gallery of Art and bought the book. The exhibition blew me away and so did the book! It is the best exhibition book on photography I have seen. The print quality of the photographs is superb and the text is excellent. This book is a lesson in photography, political science, and sociology.
Rating: 2
Summary: A long-awaited but disappointing retrospective
Comment: For lovers of great photography, one of the real gaps for a long time has been a monograph on this master of Euorpean street photography, whose images of Paris in the 30's in particular are among the greatest of their kind. Since the unfortuante deletion of the magnificent mid-80's reissue of PARIS BY NIGHT there has literally been nothing available except an over-priced paperback from Germany (I beleive) that has made its way to US museum bookshops and the like. What great news it was that Abrams, who are one of the best houses for this sort of thing, was publishing a major catalogue to accompany the travelling exhibit now at the National Gallery in Washington. The book was delayed several times earlier this year (no doubt to the chagrin of the museums the exhibit has already passed through) and has finally arrived in time for Christmas.
It is sad indeed to report that the book is a total disappointment- at least so far as the images themselves are concerned:
One: The source material and printing of the picutres are truly second-rate - without richness, luster, or dimension. Many look like photocopies from magazines or other books. They are oddly glossy but flat. Compare these to the incredible matte reproductions in PARIS BY NIGHT and the contrast between what can be done with with what is here is nearly heartbreaking.
Second: What is with the recent tendency to print photographs in an oversized, right-to-the-edges format with no sense of border or space to let the composition breathe and no sense of frame lines. The bleed-over simply kills the impact of many of these photogrpahs. It's a ruinous way to present great imagery. (It afflicts Abrams' new Bill Brandt book as well but to a lesser extent because the printing of that book is so much better.)
Third: There is very little that is new here. For such a major undertaking it comes across as a routine collection of well-known images, a greatest hits, that ends up delivering little emotional punch or insight into this great artist. Compare this to Abrams' own exhaustive works like Walker Evans: The Hungry Eye and you'll see what I mean.
With so many great photographers receiving deluxe treatment in the past few years from Abrams' W. Eugene Smith book last year to Bulfinch's Lartigue mongraph, it is a real shame that someone as seminal but poorly represented in print as Brassai should receive such a well-intentioned but unsatisfactory tribute. PLEASE BRING BACK PARIS BY NIGHT!
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Title: Brassai : Paris By Night by Brassaï ISBN: 0821227386 Publisher: Bulfinch Pub. Date: 01 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $50.00 |
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Title: The Secret Paris of the '30s by Brassai, Richard Miller ISBN: 0500271089 Publisher: Thames & Hudson Pub. Date: March, 2001 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Brassai: The Monograph by Brassai, Annick Lionel-Marie, Alain Sayag, Jean-Jacques Aillagon, Centre Georges Pompidou, Roger Grenier ISBN: 0821226681 Publisher: Bulfinch Pub. Date: 31 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $75.00 |
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Title: Diane Arbus Revelations by DOON ARBUS ISBN: 0375506209 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 30 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $100.00 |
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Title: Deus Ex Machina by Ralph Gibson ISBN: 3822866075 Publisher: TASCHEN America Llc Pub. Date: September, 1999 List Price(USD): $29.99 |
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