Photography: History of Photography Volumes I–IV

This first volume (1839-1890) considers the years of the invention of photography and those immediately following-extraordinary years from both the point of view of history and of the development of the inventions. Including the great early forebears, like Daguerre and Talbot, and the great photographic expeditions that placed the world before the eyes of an ever-increasing number of people, this first volume also stresses the fundamental links between photography and the world of science. The volume concludes by examining the burgeoning relationship between photography and the traditional arts disciplines, a point of fundamental importance in the development of a photographic language.  

The second volume in the Skira Photography series serving as a major reference in the field. The fifty years of artistic and mass photography taken into consideration in this volume are unquestionably the most important in the twentieth century. The acceleration of technological progress, the advent of the era of the machine and the metropolis, the epoch-making economic crisis, the dramatic aftermath of the collapse of the old nineteenth-century order in Europe with political upheavals, wars, revolutions, and dictatorships, the first appearance of a mass society capable of expressing cultures and systems of communication in line with its needs: these are the most obvious stages of a history that was also recorded as it happened, in various forms and media. Among these, key importance certainly attaches to photography. This richly illustrated book—complete with synoptic tables and glossary—offers a wide-ranging survey of this era that will delight and inform a constantly growing audience.

This third volume in Skira’s History of Photography series serves as a major reference in the field of photography. The third volume (1941-1980) of the Skira History of Photography series considers the years signed by the revolution of color that marked the start of a radical change in the very nature of amateur photography. At the same time, through photojournalism, photography became a mirror of society and a tool for attempts to change it. This monograph traces the historical evolution of photography, focusing on artists such as Helen Levitt, Weegee, Robert Doisneau, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Josef Sudek, William Klein, Robert Frank, Richard Avedon, Shomei Tomatsu, William Eugene Smith, Gerhard Richter, Bernhard and Hilla Becher, Ugo Mulas, Ed Ruscha, and Larry Clark, just to name a few. The essays provide an in-depth discussion of some of the primary themes of the historical period: the evolution of documentary photography between 1950 and 1980, the color revolution, and the relationship between photography and conceptual art.

This fourth and final volume in the Photography series addresses the major themes of contemporary photography and the issues regarding the production and use of photographs in present-day society. With the advent of digital technology and the Internet, the late twentieth and early twenty-first century have marked a crucial milestone in the evolution of the photographic language and technique affecting professionals, amateurs, scholars, and enthusiasts alike, thus leading to the creation of an incredible number of images, often shared amongst millions. Through over 200 photographs from 1981 to 2013, this book closes the great Skira series dedicated to the history of photography. Providing an absolutely and truly international overview, the volume sheds light on modern historical figures like Robert Mapplethorpe, Luigi Ghirri, Martin Parr, Boris Mikhailov, Nan Goldin, Jeff Wall, and Cindy Sherman as well as their younger heirs.