As photography became an increasingly accessible medium in the twentieth century, the popularity of the photographic album exploded, yielding a wonderful range of objects made for varying purposes—to memorialize, document (officially or unofficially), promote, or educate, and sometimes simply to channel creative energy.
Photographic Memory: The Album in the Age of Photography (Aperture, May 2011) traces the rise of the album from the turn of the century to the present day, showcasing some of the most important examples in the history of the medium, as collected by the Library of Congress.
The albums that comprise
Photographic Memory provide immensely personal and idiosyncratic historical perspectives. From an 1899 Alaskan expedition album of Edward Sheriff Curtis’s early work, to Walker Evans’s extended suite of images in study for
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, to a family album by Danny Lyon, this beautifully produced book provides an in-depth look at the history of photography through the handmade objects of some its most famous practitioners, much of which is previously unpublished.
The book includes works by photographers and filmmakers such as F. Holland Day, Jim Goldberg, Dorothea Lange, Duane Michals, Leni Riefenstahl, and W. Eugene Smith alongside lesser-known, yet significant albums on subjects as varied as African American vaudeville, the 1915 Jerusalem locust plague, and the folkways of Spain. Each album, beautifully reproduced over numerous spreads, is accompanied by detailed explanatory text. An insightful history of the album format and an informative essay about caring for and restoring albums,complement the collection.
At a time when the physical collection of photographs is becoming largely immaterial through digital means,
Photographic Memory is a comprehensive, illustrated history of a mode of presentation that became an art form in itself—a history that has seen radical shifts in the role of handmade artists’ objects.
In celebration of the book’s publication, Aperture will host a panel discussion, featuring Verna Posever Curtis, the book’s editor and curator of photography in the Prints & Photographs Division of the Library of Congress, alongside Denise Wolff of the Aperture Foundation and contributing artists Duane Michals and Paolo Ventura.
Panel Discussion at Aperture:
Tuesday, June 14, 6:30 pm
VERNA POSEVER CURTIS(editor) is a curator of photography in the Prints & Photographs Division of the Library of Congress. She has written and lectured extensively on 19th and 20th century photography, and penned the volumes
Ambassadors of Progress: American Women Photographers in Paris, 1900–1901 and
F. Holland Day: Selected Texts and Bibliography, among others.
Below are descriptions of the albums included in the book:
XL Olympiad, Berlin 1936, Leni Riefenstahl
This album was a Christmas present to Adolf Hitler from filmmaker Leni Riefensthal to commemorate the production of her film Olympia documenting the 11th summer Olympics in Berlin, considered by many to be the greatest sports film in history. The pictures reflect the film’s technical accomplishments and artistic mastery. The American military confiscated the album after WWII.
Walker Evans, Photograph Albums for Let Us Now Praise Famous Men 1936-1937
Volume 1: Pictures of the House and Family of an Alabama Sharecropper; Volume 2: The House and the Family of Frank Tengle, near Moundville, Hale County, Ala.
These albums were a series of journals kept by Walker Evans that was the initial edit for his seminal book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, (with James Agee) about the Great Depression through the stories of tenant farm families living in Hale County, Ala. The albums remained in government files in the loose-leaf albums pictured here until they came to Library of Congress via the FSA.
Harriman Alaska Expedition 1899
A documentation of a scientific tour to Alaska in 1899 sponsored by executive Edward Harriman at the height of the Gold Rush. Edward S. Curtis made these photographs early on in his career before he became a famous photographer. The album includes wonderful notes and drawings.
Tales of Politics Starring Clare Booth Luce
Compiler Tere C. Pascone, Christmas, 1948
Her admiring assistant gave this album to Clare Booth Luce as a Christmas gift. Luce was managing editor of Vanity Fair, an acclaimed Broadway playwright, and a staunchly conservative politician who served two terms in the House of Representatives. She was also the wife of publishing magnate Henry Luce. The album was designed to look like a playbill.
Phil Stern, January 1961
This album was a gift from Frank Sinatra to Leonard Bernstein to commemorate Bernstein’s performance at a gala for the Democratic Party on January 19, 1961 on the eve of the swearing in of President John F. Kennedy. Phil Stern was Sinatra’s “exclusive resident paparazzo.” Sinatra supervised the making of thirty individual albums, giving them an official and personal feel.
World War II Albums, 1941-1947, George S. Patton Jr.
This is a very personal album of General S. Patton, who was also an avid amateur photographer who documented scenes before and after battle during WWII. He would send his prints and negatives home to his wife and daughter who compiled this album for him. It is a self-portrait of Patton off the battlefield through personal snapshots.
Danny Lyon, The Family Album of Daniel Joseph Lyon, 2008-2009
This album reflects significant moments in the family life of photographer, filmmaker and writer Danny Lyon. He started assembling personal albums as a pastime starting with the birth of his children in the 1970s. The photographs reveal intimate moments in Danny’s life. He names the album Daniel Joseph Lyon to differentiate it from his professional identifier of Danny.
Duane Michaels, Album #3, January 10, 1975
This is one of a series of albums that Duane Michaels self-published to explore the album format. Each offers a window into his development as an artist and shares his philosophical concerns. The photographs suggest the inner life of the artist-photographer living and working in Manhattan. The scenes are very dreamlike and surreal.
Jim Goldberg, Guest Register, 1977
This album was Goldberg’s first attempt at producing a work of art. The album consists of photographs and writings of transient residents of the Wanger Hotel in San Francisco’s Mission District and serves as both an artistic statement and photographic diary. Goldberg asked his subjects to write about themselves and then mounted their portraits alongside their comments.
9½ x 11½ in.
(24.1 x 29.2 cm)
288 pages, 350 four-color images
Hardcover with jacket
ISBN 978-1-59711-131-7
$75.00; £45.00
Co-published with the Library of Congress
Aperture—located in New York’s Chelsea art district—is a world-renowned non-profit publisher and exhibition space dedicated to promoting photography in all its forms. Aperture was founded in 1952 by photographers Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, Barbara Morgan, and Minor White; historian Beaumont Newhall; and writer/curator Nancy Newhall, among others. These visionaries created a new quarterly periodical,
Aperture magazine, to foster both the development and the appreciation of the photographic medium and its practitioners. In the 1960s, Aperture expanded to include the publication of books (over five hundred to date) that comprise one of the most comprehensive and innovative libraries in the history of photography and art. Aperture’s programs now include artist lectures and panel discussions, limited-edition photographs, and traveling exhibitions that show at major museums and arts institutions in the U.S. and internationally.
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Christina Caputo, Publicity and Events Manager, (212) 946-7123, ccaputo@aperture.org
