David Travis

Art Institute of Chicago

Keith F. Davis

Elizabeth Siegel

One of Chicago's great cultural achievements, the Institute of Design was among the most important schools of photography in twentieth-century America. It began as an outpost of experimental Bauhaus education and was home to an astonishing group of influential teachers and students, including Lázló Moholy-Nagy, Harry Callahan, and Aaron Siskind. To date, however, the ID's enormous contributions to the art and practice of photography have gone largely unexplored. Taken by Design is the first publication to examine thoroughly this remarkable institution and its lasting impact. With nearly 300 illustrations, including many never-before published photographs, Taken by Design examines the changing nature of photography over this critical period in America's midcentury. It starts by documenting the experimental nature of Moholy's Bauhaus approach and photography's new and enhanced role in training the "complete designer." Next it traces the formal and abstract camera experiments under Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind, which aimed at achieving a new kind of photographic subjectivity. Finally, it highlights the ID's focus on conscious references to the processes of the photographic medium itself. In addition to photographs by Moholy, Callahan, and Siskind, the book showcases works by Barbara Crane, Yasuhiro Ishimoto, Joseph Jachna, Kenneth Josephson, Gyorgy Kepes, Nathan Lerner, Ray K. Metzker, Richard Nickel, Arthur Siegel, Art Sinsabaugh, and many others. Major essays from experts in the field, biographies, a chronology, and reprints of critical essays are also included, making Taken by Design an essential work for anyone interested in the history of American photography. Contributors include: Keith Davis, Lloyd Engelbrecht, John Grimes, Nathan Lyons, Hattula Moholy-Nagy, Elizabeth Siegel, David Travis, Larry Viskochil, James N. Wood

Photographs from the Institute of Design, 1937-1971

Taken by Design

Jane Lee Aspinwall

"Published to accompany an exhibition of the same name at the Art Institute of Chicago, Oct. 22, 2011-Jan. 15, 2012 and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Apr. 12-Aug. 26, 2012"--T.p. verso.

The King Survey Photographs

Timothy H. O'Sullivan

Dšir Charnay

Désiré Charnay, Expeditionary Photographer

Clarence John Laughlin

John H. Lawrence

Nancy Barrett

"This volume provides a much-needed reassessment of the life and work of Clarence John Laughlin (1905-1985). This volume brings a fresh perspective to Laughlin's work by reproducing his mots famous pictures alongside many that are less well known, and by the inclusion of three original essays on critical aspects of his acareer"--Jacquette

Visionary Photographer

Jane L. Aspinwall

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Staff

The Western Photographs, 1867-1868

Alexander Gardner

Harry M. Callahan

Fundación "La Caixa" (Madrid, Spain)

Carlos Gollonet

Harry Callahan

Marc F. Wilson

In this text, Keith F. Davis examines photography's social history and aesthetic development in an era of rapid national growth. He demonstrates how key themes and genres - including the business of daguerreian portraiture, the markets for Civil War images, and the art of Western landscape photography - reflected the concerns and values of nineteenth-century society. Photographers of this era expressed a new national consciousness while, at the same time, helping to shape it. They also explored the visual language of a radically new medium, laying the foundation for all of photography's subsequent history.

From Daguerreotype to Dry-plate, 1839-1885

The Origins of American Photography

J. Paul Getty Museum

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

Ray K. Metzker

Ju Zugazagoitia

Henry Art Gallery

Keith Davis explores the roots of Metzker's innovative vision, from his early interest in photojournalism through his studies at Chicago's Institute of Design in the 1950s, and his bold innovations of the 1960s and 1970s.

The Photographs of Ray K. Metzker

George N. Barnard

The book presents a biography of George N. Barnard, a professional photographer who worked and photographed during the time of the American Civil War. The author documents his life and the work contains over 200 samples of Barnard's work.

Photographer of Sherman's Campaign

Collects the photographs of Homer Page while he was a Guggenheim Fellow during the late 1940s.

The Guggenheim Year : New York, 1949-50

The Photographs of Homer Page

Sid Grossman

Sid Grossman and his photographs were largely forgotten after his untimely death in 1955 at the age of forty-two. One of the founders of the left-leaning Photo League (1936-51), Grossman was labeled a Communist and blacklisted in 1949. A demanding and capricious teacher who challenged his students to think critically about all aspects of their photography, Grossman's own approach to imagemaking and his remarkable body of work were constantly evolving. This monograph, the first comprehensive survey of Sid Grossman's life and work, contains more than 150 photographs that demonstrate Grossman's enduring talent and depth. The images range from his early social documentary work of the late 1930s to the more personal and dynamic street photography of the late 1940s, as well as late experiments with abstraction in both black and white and color. It features a biographical and critical essay by the renowned curator and photo historian, Keith F. Davis, which traces Grossman's evolution as a photographer and examines his considerable influence as a teacher. The book concludes with an extensive selection of excerpts from a transcript of tape recordings of a course that Grossman taught in the spring of 1950 in which he expounds his views on photography, art, and creativity.

The Life and Work of Sid Grossman

Frederick Sommer

Michael Torosian

April M. Watson

"With an essay by photo historian Keith F. Davis, reproductions of Sommer's diverse works, and a detailed chronology of his life by April M. Watson, The Art of Frederick Sommer describes and documents the full scope of the artist's achievement as a twentieth-century visionary. The book is a revelation for scholars, artists, students, and everyone who appreciates the power of art to transform, transcend, and inspire."--BOOK JACKET.

Photography, Drawing, Collage

The Art of Frederick Sommer

Keith F. Davis

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