Reading

The New York School: Photographs by Jane Livingston

I sent away for this book after delving into everything I could find on the New York School movement on the internet. Sadly, there is not a whole lot to find on the net on the actual movement. As some of the photographers such as Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, Avedon, Weege, Friedlander etc associated with this movement are famous in their own right, the internet has a huge source of information on each individuals work, but not as a group.

This book was first published in 1992 and is no longer in print so the cost is quite high and unfortunately I found out that both UK and USA do not allow second hand books to be shipped overseas via most of the big online book stores such as Amazon.

After re-routing through my parents address in UK and some huge postage charges I finally took hold of this magnificent book.

Jane Livingston has done a marvelous job of collecting photographs (some never published before) of 16 photographers associated with The New York School Movement. Of the 16 photographers, several of them such as Richard Avedon, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, Friedlander, Weege David Vestal and Levitt are well know, but Livingston also includes some lesser know photographers such as Alexi Bradovitch, Lois Fauer, Leon Levinstein. One featured photographer that I have a particular interest in is also included; Saul Leiter. Leiter is only now beginning to accumulate fame after publishing a book of his colour works, many of which were produced during the same years as The New York School Movement (1940s, 50s and 60s). His book is called Early Colour, and I’m patiently waiting for a copy to be sent via Amazon as soon as the publishers start running a new batch.

The quality of the paper in The New York School: Photographs book is extremely high, and it feels as if you are leafing through actual photographs. Although each of the photographers were associated with the same movement, their individual styles are all quite different. It’s hard to describe the feeling I had when I first looked at the photographs in this book. I can only describe it as absolute awe.

The book also contains a biographical of each of the photographers and for the lesser know photographers this is valuable information that cannot easily be found anywhere else. I haven’t yet read much of the contents as I’m still making my way through the awesome photographs.

Despite the price, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in this movement. It maybe re-printed one day, but I don’t believe there will be any saving if the same quality of print is to be maintained.