From Library Journal
Curator of photographs at the esteemed Victoria and Albert Museum for 20 years, Haworth-Booth is uniquely qualified to undertake this work, part history of the medium, part survey of the museum's vast and diverse holdings, and part story of how the institution built the collection. Fewer than 100 images have been selected from 300,000 in the museum, but the choices are all wonders, spanning the entire history of photography and reproduced with a tactile richness and luminescence, often in the full size of the print. It is Haworth-Booth's text, however, that earns this work a place in most libraries. He seamlessly blends the strands of his story and quotes from both practitioners and curators into a very readable narrative that could serve to initiate those newly curious about photography and also inform those well versed in its history. His emphasis on the British innovators may annoy some and may not tell the entire history, but this is an essential piece of the puzzle and belongs in most libraries, both public and academic.?Eric Bryant, "Library Journal"Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
[P]art history of the medium, part survey of the museum's vast and diverse holdings, and part story of how the institution built the collection. Fewer than 100 images have been selected . . . but the choices are all wonders, spanning the entire history of photography and reproduced with a tactile richness and luminescence, often in the full size of the print. It is Haworth-Booth's text, however, that earns this work a place in most libraries.

Book Description
The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) has one of the finest and oldest collections of photography in the world. In this fascinating book, Mark Haworth-Booth, Curator of Photographs at the V&A, offers the first comprehensive introduction to this extensive and impressive collection. In the process, he provides the reader with a general history of photography from its beginnings as a scientific curiosity, through its international commercialization, to its coming of age as an art form in its own right. Because of the V&A's uniquely long collecting history--dating back to 1856--many different epochs of photography's shifting identity can clearly be seen in this book. Reminding us that photography was not always viewed as a serious artistic medium, Haworth-Booth explores the changes and shifts in the perception of photography that have occurred over the years. In the 1850s, photography was a new and malleable medium that could result in anything from fine art to a commercial fortune. In the 1860s, photography became an industry practiced worldwide, but its new commercial status inspired creative radicals like Julia Margaret Cameron to emphasize its artistic potential instead. By the 1930s, photography became the dominant medium for mass communication, as a result of illustrated magazines. Photography returned as a fashionable medium for fine art in the 1960s--the same year television superseded magazines as the primary disseminator of information. The V&A's Victorian holdings are outstanding, with major photographs by Roger Fenton, David Octavius Hill, Robert Adamson, Julia Margaret Cameron, Gustave Le Gray, Camille Silvy, and Lady Hawarden. In recent years, the museum has acquired significant works by such twentieth-century master photographers as Bill Brandt, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paul Martin, Walker Evans, Paul Strand, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, and Cecil Beaton. A number of these photographs are published here for the first time.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

This book tells the story of how the medium of photography was embraced by the V&A, a new kind of museum that concerned itself with the arts of everyday life and with a large popular audience. Henry Cole, founder of the V&A, began to collect photography as an art form in 1856 and hosted an international exhibition of photographs in 1858. He bought and exhibited the works of pioneering Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, whose letters to Cole are among the many illuminating documents published here for the first time. The V&A's Victorian holdings are outstanding, with major photographs by Roger Fenton, David Octavius Hill, Robert Adamson, Julia Margaret Cameron, Gustave Le Gray, Camille Silvy, and Lady Hawarden. In recent years, the museum has acquired significant works by such twentieth-century masters as Bill Brandt, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, Paul Strand, and Cecil Beaton.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal