The Photographic Book since 1843

Course Description

The nature, form, and impact of the book changed dramatically with the introduction of photography, altering the way books would be made, would appear, and would help transform the communication of ideas in visual form.

In parallel to this phenomenon, the ability of the photograph to reach its widest audience would entail an essential partnership with the form of the book. The nomenclature of photography remains tied to the book: we think of the photographic “print” and of “printing” a photograph, even in an era where digital imagery dominates. 

Alongside these intertwined histories is the current phenomenon of the “photobook,” with a great resurgence and flowering of studies on photobooks, and of contemporary photography’s increased creative engagement with the format of the book through dealers, fairs, specialized auction sales, and publications, and through a wealth of practice. 

This course is designed to explore the history of the photographic book since Anna Atkins’s Photographs of British Algae was first privately circulated in 1843. It will be comprised of six two-hour sessions delivered online, based on the collections of Oxford’s Bodleian Library.

The six sessions will emphasize the physical form of the photographic book, an element neglected by most of the recent studies of the genre. It aims, therefore, to bring together the twin disciplines of the history of the book and the history of photography. Classes will be structured around the examination of exemplar cases—and will examine these case studies through paying close attention to the materiality of the books: paper, printing techniques, and design, as well as distribution, sales, and prices. Many of the examples will be illuminated through supporting archival evidence.

Topics

Introduction and Overview to the Course / The Earliest Photobooks

• Bibliography and historiography of the photographic book, from Johann Heinrich Schulze to Martin Parr and Gerry Badger
• Outline of history of technology of reproducing photographic images
• Early experiments in the photographic book: Anna Atkins, William Henry Fox Talbot, Hill & Adamson 

The Nineteenth Century, Photography in Silver and the Pasted-in Print

• From paper to glass negatives; salted paper prints to albumen
• The Blanquard-Evrard era: August Salzmann, Maxime Du Camp
• The Albumen era: Francis Frith, Julia Margaret Cameron, Alexander Gardner, George Washington Wilson 

Not Fade Away: The Rise of the Photomechanical Processes

•  Photogravure, carbon prints, woodburytype, collotype
• Nasmyth and Carpenter, The Moon; Men of Mark; John Thomson; P. H. Emerson; Gertrude Kasebier, Camera Work

Fit to Print: Photography in Ink and the Mass Image

•  The half-tone and rotogravure
• Germaine Krull, the rise of the picture magazines, Walker Evans, Margaret Bourke-White, Gordon Parks, Brassai, August Sander, Bill Brandt, Henri Cartier-Bresson 

The Ubiquitous Image: Photolithography 

• The continued evolution of photolithography
• Ed Ruscha, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, Martin Parr, Diane Arbus, Josef Koudelka, Daido Moriama, Eikoh Hosoe, Killed by Roses; Richard Benson and the mastery of photolithography, The Work of Atget; Madonna’s Sex
• Innovation in the photobook: the integration with digital Susan Meiselas Nicaragua
•  Making a photobook: Martin Parr, Oxford (2018), and a glimpse inside the Steidl printing shop

View the course description for the in-person version of this course.

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Advance Reading List

Preliminary Advices

Asterisks indicate key things to read if students have the time. All other readings are suggested but not required.

Photobooks: General

Auer, Michel and Michele Auer. Photo Photo Photo Books: 802 Photobooks from the M + M Auer Collection. Hermance: Éditions M+M, 2007.

Benson, Richard. “An Artist’s Perspective on the Photomechanical Alternative to Silver.” In Photography: Discovery and Invention, 109-16. Malibu: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 1990. Papers delivered at a symposium celebrating the invention of photography.

**Benson, Richard. The Printed Picture. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2008.

Brunet, Francois. Photography and Literature. London: Reaktion Books, 2009.

Fernández, Horacio. Fotos & Libros: Espana 1905–1977. Madrid: Accion Cultural Espagnola, 2014.

Fernández, Horacio. The Latin American Photobook. New York: Aperture, 2011.

Foster, Sheila J., Manfred Heiting, and Rachel Stuhlman. Imagining Paradise: The Richard and Ronay Menschel Library at George Eastman House, Rochester. Rochester: George Eastman House, 2007.

Gernsheim, Helmut. Incunabula of British Photographic Literature: a Bibliography of British Photographic Literature, 1839-75, and British Books Illustrated with Original Photographs. London: Scolar Press, 1984.

Goldschmidt, Lucien and Weston J. Naef. The Truthful Lens: A Survey of the Photographically Illustrated Book 1844–1914. New York: The Grolier Club, 1980.

Heidtmann, Frank. Wie das Photo ins Buch kam: der Weg zu photographisch illustrierten Buch anhand einer bibliographischen Skizze der frühen deutschen Publikationen mit Original-Photographien, Photolithographien, Lichtdrucken, Photogravuren, Autotypien und mit Illustrationen in weiteren photomechanischen Reproduktionsverfahren: eine Handreichung für Bibliothekare und Antiquare, Buch- und Photohistoriker, Bibliophile und Photographikasammler, Publizisten und Museumsleute. Berlin: Verlag A. Spitz, 1984.

Jaeger, Roland. Autopsie, Band 1: Deutschsprachige Fotobücher 1918 bis 1945. Edited by Manfred Heiting. Gottingen: Steidl, 2012.

–––. Autopsie, Band 2: Deutschsprachige Fotobücher 1918 bis 1945. Edited by Manfred Heiting. Gottingen: Steidl, 2014.

Karasik, Mikhail. The Soviet Photobook 1920–1941. Edited by Manfred Heiting. Gottingen: Steidl, 2015.

Newhall, Beaumont. Photography and the Book. Boston: Trustees of the Boston Public Library, 1983.

Parr, Martin and Gerry Badger. The Photobook: A History. 3 vols. London: Phaidon, 2005–2014.

Parr, Martin and Wassink Lundgren. The Chinese Photobook: From the 1900s to the Present. New York: Aperture Foundation, 2016.

Pfrunder, Peter. Swiss Photobooks from 1927 to the Present: A Different History of Photography. Baden: Lars Muller Publishers, 2011.

Ritchin, Fred and Carole Naggar. Magnum Photobook: The Catalogue Raisonne. London: Phaidon, 2016.

Roth, Andrew. The Book of 101 Books: Seminal Photographic Books of the Twentieth Century. New York: PPP Editions, 2001.

Roth, Andew, ed. The Open Book: A History of the Photographic Book from 1878 to the Present. Goteborg: Hasselblad Center, 2004.

Ryuichi, Kaneko and Ivan Vartanian. Japanese Photobooks of the 1960s and ’70s. New York: Aperture, 2009.

Ryuichi, Kaneko and Manfred Heiting. The Japanese Photobook 1912–1990. Gottingen: Steidl, 2017.

van Haaften, Julia. “‘Original Sun Pictures’: A Checklist of the New York Public Library’s Holdings of Early Works Illustrated with Photographs, 1844–1900.” Bulletin of the New York Public Library 80 (1977): 355-415.

Witkin, Lee D. and Barbara London. The Photograph Collector’s Guide. London: Oldbourne Press, 1979.

Albums

Bann, Stephen, ed. Art and the Early Photographic Album. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2011.

Batchen, Geoffrey. Photography’s Objects. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Art Museum, 1997.

Curtis, Verna Posever. Photographic Memory: The Album in the Age of Photography. New York: Aperture, 2011.

Di Bello, Patrizia. Women’s Albums and Photography in Victorian England: Ladies, Mothers and Flirts. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007.

Siegel, Elizabeth. Playing with Pictures: The Art of Victorian Photocollage. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2009.

Session One: Introduction and Overview to the Course / The Earliest Photobooks

**Armstrong, Carol. Scenes in a Library: Reading the Photograph in the Book 1843–1875. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1998.

Hamber, Anthony. Photography and the 1851 Great Exhibition. New Castle: Oak Knoll Press, 2018.

Jammes, Isabelle. Blanquart-Evrard et les origines de l’édition photographique française: catalogue raisonné des albums photographiques édités, 1851–1855. Geneve: Droz, 1981.

Macartney, Hilary and Jose Manuel Matilla, eds. Copied by the Sun: Talbotype Illustrations to The Annals of the Artists of Spain by Sir William Stirling Maxwell: Studies and Catalogue Raisonné. Madrid: Museu Nacional del Prado / Centro Estudios Europa Hispanica, 2016.

Nickel, Douglas R. “Nature’s Supernaturalism: William Henry Fox Talbot and Botanical illustration.” In Intersections: Lithography, Photography and the Traditions of Printmaking, 15-24. Edited by Kathleen Stewart Howe. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1998.

Schaaf, Larry J. ed. J. H Fox Talbot’s The Pencil of Nature, facsimile ed. New York: Hans P. Kraus, Jr., 1989.

Schaaf, Larry J. Sun Gardens: Cyanotypes by Anna Atkins. Edited by Joshua Chuang. New York: The New York Public Library, 2018.

Schaaf, Larry J. “‘The Caxton of Photography’: Talbot’s Etchings of Light.” In William Henry Fox Talbot: Beyond Photography, 161-89. Edited by Mirjam Brusius, Katrina Dean, and Chitra Ramalingam. New Haven: Yale University Press, Yale Center for British Art, 2013.

Schaaf, Larry J. “Third Census of H. Fox Talbot’s The Pencil of Nature.” History of Photography 36 (2012): 99-120. https://doi.org/10.1080/03087298.2012.632561

Smith, Graham. “H. Fox Talbot’s ‘Scotch Views’ for Sun Pictures in Scotland (1845).” In The Photobook: From Talbot to Ruscha and Beyond, 17-34. Edited by Patrizia di Bello, Colette Wilson, and Shamoon Zamir. London: Routledge, 2012.

Stevenson, Sara. The Personal Art of David Octavius Hill. New Haven: Yale UP, 2002.

Session Two: The Nineteenth Century, Photography in Silver and the Pasted-in Print

**Armstrong, Carol. Scenes in a Library: Reading the Photograph in the Book 1843–1875. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1998.

Athens, Elizabeth. “Relic, Photograph, Text: Picturing History in Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book of the War.” History of Photography 41 (2017): 76-89. https://doi.org/10.1080/03087298.2016.1274087

Cox, Julian and Colin Ford. Julia Margaret Cameron: The Complete Photographs. London: Thames & Hudson, 2003.

Daniel, Malcolm Daniel. “Sorting out Duchenne de Boulogne.” In Le livre, la photographie, l’image, & la Lettre: Essays in Honour of André Jammes, 253-60. Edited by Sandra Hindman, Isabelle Jammes, Bruno Jammes, and Hans P. Kraus Jr. Paris: Aux editions des Cendres, 2015.

Hamber, Anthony J. “Facsimile, Scholarship, and Commerce: Aspects of the Photographically Illustrated Art Book (1839–1880).” In Art and the Early Photographic Album, 123-50. Edited by Stephen Bann. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2011.

Nickel, Douglas R. Francis Frith in Egypt and Palestine: A Victorian Photographer Abroad. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2004.

Taylor, Roger. George Washington Wilson, Artist and Photographer, 1823–93. Aberdeen: Aberdeen UP, 1981.

Session Three: Not Fade Away: The Rise of the Photomechanical Processes

Brookman, Philip, Marta Braun, Corey Keller, Rebecca Solnit, and Andy Grundberg. Helios: Eadweard Muybridge in a Time of Change. Washington, DC: Corcoran Gallery of Art, 2010.

Hamber, Anthony J. “Facsimile, Scholarship, and Commerce: Aspects of the Photographically Illustrated Art Book (1839–1880).” In Art and the Early Photographic Album, 123-50. Edited by Stephen Bann. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2011.

**Hammond, Anne. “Aesthetic Aspects of the Photomechanical Print.” In British Photography in the Nineteenth Century: The Fine Art Tradition, 163-79. Edited by Mike Weaver. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1989.

Newhall, Nancy. P.H. Emerson: The Fight for Photography as a Fine Art. New York: Aperture, 1975.

Ovenden, Richard. John Thomson (1837–1921): Photographer. Edinburgh: The Stationery Office, 1997.

Stieglitz, Alfred. Camera Work: The Complete Photographs 1903–1917. Edited by Pam Roberts. Köln: Taschen, 2013.

Session Four: Fit to Print: Photography in Ink and the Mass Image

Benson, Richard. “Photography in Print.” In The Book of 101 Books: Seminal Photographic Books of the 20th Century, 285–92. Edited by Andrew Roth. New York: PPP Editions, 2001.

Campany, David. “Recalcitrant Intervention: Walker Evans’s Pages.” In The Photobook from Talbot to Ruscha and Beyond, 71-90. Edited by Patrizia di Bello, Colette Wilson, and Shamoon Zamir. London: Routledge, 2012.

Campany, David. Walker Evans: The Magazine Work. Gottingen: Steidl, 2014.

Campany, David. “‘Working for Magazines’ and ‘Works’ for Magazines: Walker Evans, the Popular Press, and Conceptual Art.” In Walker Evans, 33–37. Edited by Clement Cheroux. Munich: Prestel, 2017.

Doss, Erika. “Life’s Impact: Circulation, Copycats, and Reader Response.” In LifeMagazine and the Power of Photography, 110-25. Edited by Katherine A. Bussard and Kristen Gresh. New Haven: Yale UP, 2020.

Eskildsen, Ute. Irving Penn: Objects for the Printed Page. Essen: Museum Folkwang, 2002.

Frizot, Michel. Germaine Krull Paris: Editions Hazan, 2015.

Galassi, Peter. “For the Printed Page: Cartier-Bresson’s Work in the Periodical Press.” InHenri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century, 328–53. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2010.

**Handy, Ellen. “Printing Life Magazine at R.R. Donnelley & Sons.” In LifeMagazine and the Power of Photography, 86-97. Edited by Katherine A. Bussard and Kristen Gresh. New Haven: Yale UP, 2020.

Hoffmann, Katherine. “Sowing the Seeds/Setting the Stage: Steichen, Stieglitz and The Family of Man.” History of Photography 29, no.4, (2005): 320–30.

Meister, Sarah Hermanson and Marley Blue Lewis. “Bill Brandt’s Published Photostories, 1939–1945.” In Bill Brandt: Shadow and Light, 46-203. By Sarah Hermanson Meister. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2013.

**Szarkowski, John. “Photographs in Ink.” In Photography until Now, 177–247. New York, The Museum of Modern Art, 1989.

Session Five: The Ubiquitous Image: Photolithography

Azim, Dalia. “Books, Special Editions, Portfolios.” In Freidlander, 444-59. Edited by Peter Galassi. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2005.

Bair, Nadya. “The Decisive Network: Producing Henri Cartier-Bresson at Mid-Century.” History of Photography 40, no. 2 (2016): 146-66.

Benson, Richard. “Photography in Print.” In The Book of 101 Books: Seminal Photographic Books of the Twentieth Century, 285-92. Edited by Andrew Roth. New York: PPP Editions, 2001.

**Benson, Richard. “Working with Lee.” In Freidlander, 436-43. Edited by Peter Galassi. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2005.

Brouws, Jeff, Wendy Burton, and Hermann Zschiegner, eds. Various Small Books: Referencing Various Small Books by Ed Ruscha. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2013.

Eggleston, William. William Eggleston’s Guide, 2nd ed. With an essay by John Szarkowski. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016.

Glick, William J. In the Service of Scholarship: Harold Hugo & The Meriden Gravure Company. New Castle: Oak Knoll Company, 2017.

Greenough, Sarah. Looking in: Robert Frank’s The Americans, Expanded Edition. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2009.

Koudelka, Josef. Josef Koudelka: The Making of Exiles. Edited by Michel Frizot and Clément Chéroux. Paris: Collection de Photographies du Centre Pompidou / Editions du centre Pompidou / Editions Xavier Barral, 2017.

**Szarkowski, John. “Photographs in Ink.” In Photography until Now, 177–247. New York, The Museum of Modern Art, 1989.

Williams, Val. Martin Parr, 2nd ed. London: Phaidon, 2014.

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Course Evaluations

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Course History