A photo-dialogue on Florida past and present

Sunshine state. Swampland paradise. Tourist aspiration. Real estate racket. Refuge of excess. Political swing-state. Subtropical fever dream. With forms of nature and culture found nowhere else, Florida is unique. It is also among the most elusive and misunderstood of places. Anastasia Samoylova photographs Florida on intensive road trips. Walker Evans (1903–75) photographed it over four decades. Twisting the visual clichés, these two remarkably discerning observers convey Florida’s dizzying combination of fantasy and reality.

Evans witnessed modern Florida emerging in the 1930s, with its blend of cultures, waves of tourism, stark beauty and blatant vulgarity. He photographed there until the 1970s, making Polaroids that still feel contemporary. Samoylova inherits what Evans saw coming. With intelligence and humor, she picks her way through the seductions and disappointments of a place that symbolizes the contradictions of the United States today. In Floridas, photographs by Samoylova and Evans are presented in parallel, weaving past and present, switching between black-and-white and color imagery, all complemented by an essay by editor David Campany and a visionary short story by celebrated novelist and Florida resident Lauren Groff.

Florida is as fascinating as it is deceptive, a place of wild cliché and deep complexity. Walker Evans and Anastasia Samoylova have been two of the state’s most acute and thoughtful observers. In this book their photographs are seen in rich dialogue across the decades. Florida cannot be explained but these smart and playful photographers are the perfect guides to the puzzle. - David Campany

About the Authors:

Born in Moscow in 1984, Anastasia Samoylova moves between observational photography and studio practice. Recent exhibitions include those at Kunst Haus Wien, Kunsthalle Mannheim, USF Contemporary Art Museum, the Orlando Museum of Art, The Print Center and the Chrysler Museum of Art. Her work is held in the Wilhelm Hack Museum, Perez Art Museum Miami and the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, among other collections. Steidl published Samoylova’s FloodZone in 2019.

Walker Evans (1903–75) is an acknowledged master of photography whose diverse body of work continues to shape our understanding of the modern era. Evans began photographing in the 1920s, moving quickly to define his aesthetic and subject matter: straight and sober images of American everyday life and its environs. Within a decade he had produced some of the most significant photographs of the twentieth century, exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art and published two landmark books: American Photographs (1938) and Let us now Praise Famous Men with James Agee (1941). Evans wrote art and film reviews for Time (1943–45), was employed by Fortune between 1945 and ’65 and taught at Yale thereafter. Steidl has published Lyric Documentary (2006), Walker Evans: the magazine work (2014) and Double Elephant (2015).

This elegant, large-format volume presents twenty masters of photography via 300 extraordinary authorial photographs, providing a broad yet accessible overview of twentieth-century photography.

From Man Rays pioneering experimentations to the elegant and provocative fashion shots of Helmut Newton and Herb Ritts, this volume showcases masters of their craft across different photographic genres, from reportage and documentary to art and portraiture to fashion and glamour photography.

For each artist featured, a 22-page portfolio of their iconic images provides a comprehensive overview of their oeuvre.

Each section opens with an insightful introduction to the masters work and includes a concise biography of the photographer. Images are accompanied by insightful, engaging commentary from the specialist authors and contextualized by original essays that shed light on the stories, motivations, and techniques behind each shot.

Featuring a striking, elegant design and large format, Master Photographers brings a host of stunning works into sharp focus and incorporates a truly international cast of photographers.

From French masters such as Robert Doisneau and Henri Cartier-Bresson, to the wit and charm of Englishman Martin Parr, via the provocative oeuvre of Japanese photographer Araki Nobuyoshi, and the powerful portraits of Americans Walker Evans and Elliot Erwitt, this volume provides a fascinating insight into the work of the most innovative and important photographers of recent times.

A discerning introduction to and a celebration of the legendary masters of twentieth-century photography, this volume is perfect for amateurs and aficionados alike.

Master Photographers features the work of Araki Nobuyoshi, Gabriele Basilico, Margaret Bourke-White, Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Doisneau, Elliott Erwitt, Walker Evans, Mario Giacomelli, Mimmo Jodice, William Klein, Peter Lindbergh, Man Ray, Robert Mapplethorpe, James Nachtwey, Helmut Newton, Martin Parr, Herb Ritts, Sebastiao Salgado, and August Sander.

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Люди определившие фотоискусство 20-го века. Культовые снимки лучших фотографов своего времени. Знаменательные кадры и их создатели, разнообразие жанров и тематик. Все это собрано под одной обложкой в великолепно оформленном издании.

300 великолепных авторских фотографий от двадцатки лучших мастеров своего времени собрано в первоклассную крупноформатную книгу. Эта коллекция – прекрасный толковый обзор фотографии 20-го века. От новаторских экспериментов Ман Рея до элегантных и провокационных фешн-снимков Хельмута Ньютона и Херба Ритца, в этом солидном издании представлены работы двадцати легендарных фотографов, поистине мастеров своего дела в совершенно разных жанрах – от фоторепортажей и документальной фотографии до художественной и портретной съемки.

Портфолио каждого фотографа, представленного здесь, включает подборку его самых выдающихся снимков, информацию о его творческом наследии в целом, краткую биографию и комментарий к каждой из выбранных фотографий. Элегантный дизайн книги и ее большой формат позволяют в полной мере насладиться этими культовыми снимками. Вас ждут фотографии, сыгравшие ключевую роль в фотоискусстве, сформировавшие и превратившие этот жанр в то, чем он является теперь.

Вас ждет звездная двадцатка легенд фотографии -  Нобуёси Араки, Габриеле Базилико, Маргарет Бурк-Уайт, Роберт Капа, Анри Картье-Брессон, Робер Дуано, Эллиотт Эрвитт, Уокер Эванс, Марио Джакомелли, Миммо Йодиче, Уильям Кляйн, Питер Линдберг, Ман Рэй, Роберт Мэпплторп, Джеймс Нахтвей, Хельмут Ньютон, Мартин Парр, Херб Ритц, Себастио Сальгадо и Август Зандер.

The importance of Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Walker Evans appears so clear today, so indisputable, that one hesitates to draw attention to it for fear of stating the obvious. Yet in 1935, when the New Yorker Julien Levy, one of the most influential collectors of the 20th century, conceived the exhibition Documentary and Anti-Graphic Photographs by Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans & Alvarez Bravo, no one could imagine the eminent place the trio would occupy in the avant-garde of their time, nor the immense influence the photographers would have on future generations.

Gathered together here again for the first time since 1935, these period prints represent an exceptional set of essential and sometimes unknown images. This selection of early works of three masters of photography places us face to face with the history of the medium in the making.

The show in New York in 1935 was one of the first exhibitions Henri Cartier-Bresson ever had. This book is the last project he considered before leaving us - the wheel has come full circle.

1169 illustrations, 31 in colour,1121 in duotone

This unprecedented volume bring together for the first time Evans's photographs from the archive that contains more of his images than any other in the world.

Shown here in remarkable duotone reproductions are icons of twentieth-century photography, such as Evans's pictures of tenant farmers and their families taken in the 1930s, but also many less well known, such as those he took in the 1940s of the Ringling Brothers circus and many previously unpublished images.

Walker Evans ranks with Stieglitz, Steichen and Strand as a photographer of the highest calibre.

His images captured forever the harshness of the Depression, the beauty of nineteenth-century brownstone architecture, the evocative presence of everyday trash, the very essence of American life.

His three years of work in the depression-hit South produced his most famous series, the book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, with text by James Agee. At the same time, Evans assembled his influential exhibition 'American Photographs' at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, recreated here in its entirety. Towards the end of his life he even experimented with colour photographs which are reproduced here for the first time in any book.

Walker Evans: The Hungry Eye has been assembled by John T. Hill, longtime friend of Evans and executor of his estate, and the distinguished French writer on photography Gilles Mora. All phases of Evans' creative career are presented, each section preceded by an explanatory essay, establishing a definitive canon of Evans' finest work. The pictures themselves are reproduced to the highest standards from the original negatives.

This is the broadest, most comprehensive summary of Walker Evans' achievement ever published. It offers an unequalled tribute to a distinguished and innovative photographer who endowed his own America with universal significance.

‘The real thing that I’m talking about has purity and a certain severity, rigour, simplicity, directness, clarity, and it is without artistic pretension in a self-conscious sense of the word.’

It was Walker Evans himself who provided this perfect definition of his own work. He photographed Depression-era America with a constant striving for objectivity, a kind of documentary neutrality. Nevertheless, the sculptural subtlety of his images and the close attention he pays to both people and things marked an entire generation of artists.

PHOTOFILE brings together the best work of the world’s greatest photographers, in an attractive format and at an easily affordable price. Handsome and collectable, the books are produced to the highest standards. Each volume contains some sixty full-page reproductions printed in superb duotone, together with a critical introduction and a full bibliography. The series has been awarded the first annual prize for distinguished photographic books by the International Center of Photography, New York.