From Library Journal
Founded in 1952 by Minor White, Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams, and other kindred spirits, Aperture magazine has been documenting the art of photography and encouraging its growth for 50 years. This anniversary book project was begun before the November 2001 death of the organization's longtime director, Michael E. Hoffman, but was brought to completion by the magazine's editor and other Aperture staff. The story of Aperture-which is now also the publisher of hundreds of books-is virtually a history of photography in America, as evidenced by the four-part, anecdotal account written by frequent Aperture contributor R.H. Cravens. The volume contains 250 color and black-and-white images from Diane Arbus, Paul Strand, William Eggleston, and dozens of others, chosen from issues of the magazine, as well as 40 previously unpublished photographs. Its arrangement is based on a curator's eye rather than on chronology, creating both haunting juxtapositions and delightful serendipity. Original page spreads from the magazine and documentary photographs of the artists add interest to this already inspiring and impressive book. Required for all photography collections both as a historical text and as a powerful compilation of images.Carolyn Kuebler, "Library Journal"Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Book Description
Since its founding in 1952, Aperture has grown from a small periodical to a cultural phenomenon that reaches the largest and most diverse audience for significant photography worldwide. By examining it's own history, Photography Past/Forward: Aperture at 50 explores the currents in photography that have brought the medium to its present status as one of the most important art forms, and arguably, the most powerful medium of communication. It also demonstrates how Aperture has shaped and furthered this evolution, expanding the international audience for photography.

A remarkable selection of images culled from every period of Aperture's history illuminate photography's ever-expanding ability to evince uncommon beauty and render subjects as diverse as landscape and portraiture to issues of international social concern, whether civil rights, AIDS, domestic abuse, freedoms of speech, environmental conservation, or mass migration, to name a few. Other selections will explore evolving photographic techniques that have allowed image-makers to push artistic boundaries, from Aperture's revival of the vintage photogravure process to current explorations in the digital realm.

With groundbreaking images by such early masters as Joseph Nicéphore Niépce and William Henry Fox Talbot to seminal figures in the history of the magazine including Paul Strand, Dorothea Lange, Minor White, Ansel Adams, Barbara Morgan, and Henri Cartier-Bresson, this lush publication traces the evolution of both the magazine and the photographers whose work has become an important part of its story. Long-time collaborators Sally Mann, Eugene Richards, Richard Misrach, Robert Adams, Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman, and Mary Ellen Mark, among many others, have made a selection of recent work, which together with images and original spreads from past issues offer a dynamic view of the medium's breadth of focus and innovation.

Remaining true to Aperture's history of providing a vital sounding board for a vast community of thinkers on and practitioners of photography, Photography Past/Forward: Aperture at 50 is supplemented by texts-excerpted from Aperture issues #1 (1952) through #165 (2001)-in which a range of voices from Nancy and Beaumont Newhall to Danny Lyon, Madonna, and Arthur Danto expound theories, manifestos, musings, and critiques on a broad range of photography-related subjects.



About the Author
R.H. Cravens--longtime contributor to many Aperture books and articles--provides an in-depth anecdotal chronicle of Aperture's evolution based largely on the magazine issues themselves and interviews with Michael E. Hoffman, Publisher and Executive Director from 1964 through 2001, whose comprehensive vision and voice unearths a history as rife with innovation as the history of photography itself.

FROM THE PUBLISHER