The History of Photography: From 1839 to the Present

by Beaumont Newhall (Photographer)

Since its first publication in 1937, this lucid and scholarly chronicle of the history of photography has been hailed as the classic work on the subject. No other book and no other author have managed to relate the aesthetic evolution of the art of photography to its technical innovations with such an absorbing combination of clarity, scholarship and enthusiasm. Through more than 300 works by such master photographers as William Henry Fox Talbot, Timothy O'Sullivan, Julia Margaret Cameron, Eugène Atget, Peter Henry Emerson, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Man Ray, Edward Weston, Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Ansel Adams, Brassaï, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Harry Callahan, Minor White, Robert Frank and Diane Arbus, author Beaumont Newhall presents a fascinating, comprehensive study of the significant trends and developments in the medium since the first photographs were made in 1839. New selections added to the fifth edition include photographs made in color, from hand-tinted daguerreotypes of 1850 to turn-of-the-century autochromes by Edward Steichen, to works by contemporary masters such as Eliot Porter, Ernst Haas, William Eggleston, Stephen Shore and Joel Meyerowitz. Beaumont Newhall (1908–1993) was an influential curator, art historian, writer and photographer. In 1935 he became the Librarian at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 1940, he became the first Director of MoMA's Photography Department. He served as Curator of the International Museum of Photography at the George Eastman House from 1948 to 1958, then as its Director from 1958 to 1971. While at the Eastman House, Newhall was responsible for amassing one of the greatest photographic collections in the world.

Genres: Photography, Art, History, Nonfiction, Reference, Art and Photography, Art History

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1964

Reviews

[Simone · Rating 2 out of 5]

Assigned for my media history class, the pictures are awesome, the history a little less so. Don't let that "to the present" in the title fool you. He stops around 1955.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un ottimo libro per chi volesse conoscere a fondo la nascita della fotografia e i suoi primi sviluppi nei dettagli tecnici e aspetti artistici. Una cosa che si tende a pensare oggigiorno è che la fotografia e i movimenti artistici che ne fanno parte siano nati nel periodo antecedente e posteriore alla guerra per poi esplodere con l'avvento delle Polaroid e di altre tipologie a colori ed infine con la nascita del digitale. Molte invece delle filosofie di pensiero e delle tendenze che ancora oggi occupano il mondo della fotografia sono nate alla fine dell'ottocento e all'inizio del novecento, come la fotografia "straight", i dogmi della photo-secession o del gruppo f/64. Devo dire che questa cosa mi ha un po' spiazzato. Nelle mie ricerche ho osservato anche altri fenomeni che però in questo libro non vengono accennati e che sarebbe utile evidenziare, ad esempio la fotografia "memento mori", sviluppata in epoca vittoriana e poi caduta in disuso negli anni '40, che mostra come l'immagine avesse ancora un ruolo evocatore potentissimo tanto da venire usato per "conservare" in vita i morti (spesso) prematuri, la foto era spesso di gruppo assieme al morto, il quale talvolta, soprattutto se si trattava di bambini, era sistemato in pose che dissimulavano la sua morte: pratiche che oggi definiremo del tutto macrabe. Descritto questo piccolo neo non resta che leggerlo, o quanto meno sfogliarlo dato il prezzo (52euro!) per vedere le foto fatte da Nadar a Baudelaire (un pazzo!) o quelle astratte e pure scattate da E.Weston a delle melanzane. Buona lettura e visione!

[Parisa Hoseini · Rating 4 out of 5]

کتاب تاریخ عکاسی بیومنت نیوهال تقریبا تا حد زیادی شبیه باقی کتاب‌های تاریخ عکاسی است. کتابی برای مبتدیان که می‌خواهند با جریان‌های عکاسی از ابتدای اختراعش تا حدود دهه ۸۰ میلادی آشنا شوند.
من این کتاب را با کتاب تاریخ عکاسی لنفگورد همزمان مطالعه کردم. به نظرم بیومنت نیوهال با جزییات بیشتری مباحث تاریخی را مورد بحث قرار داده. و اینکه مزیت این کتاب نسبت به کتاب لنگفورد در آن است که سیر جریان‌های عکاسی به هم پیوسته هستند. یعنی نیوهال به شکلی تاریخ را روایت می‌کند و از فصلی به فصل بعد گریز می‌زند که مباحث پیوسته از آب درمی‌آیند.
کتاب لنگفورد اینطور نیست. لنگفورد خیلی ساده‌تر و کلی‌تر بررسی می‌کند و مباحثش از هم گسسته است. یعنی مثلن شما نمی‌دانید که چرا از عکاسی صریح رسیدیم به دوران مدرنیسم و...
یک سری بحث‌های معمولی است که به طور کلی گفته شده. البته این را هم ذکر کنم که تاریخ عکاسی لنگفورد در سال‌های دهه ۸۰ بهتر بررسی کرده. یعنی دوران پسا مدرنیته و اندیشه انتقادی را بازتر کرده. در صورتی که بیومنت نیوهال آخر کتاب را یک جوری سرهم کرد و بسیاری از عکاسان را در فصل آخر معرفی کرد بدون آنکه سبک هایشان را جداگانه بررسی کند.

ترجمه کتاب چندان روان نیست ولی قابل فهم است. و ارجاعات کتاب‌ هم بسیار دقیق نوشته شده است.
توصیه می‌کنم برای فهم بهتر تاریخ عکاسی کتاب لنگفورد و نیوهال را با هم بخوانید.

[W.B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

It would be worth the price of admission even if it didn't include words. Because the images selected are often unearthly, just shivs of light. A truly great collection which draws from so many periods, and there are even some great color plates included. The writing and contextualization aren't bad either. You can probably find this on ABE.com cheap.

[Valts Čibals · Rating 5 out of 5]

My edition is from 1949, I found it in a small second hand bookstore in Slovenia and it’s one of the luckiest finds I’ve ever made.

The book is very comprehensive and it’s funny and amazing to me how a lot of attitudes have not changed for more than a 100 years. Is photography an art? Some still claim that no it’s not. This discussion has been going on since the 19th century. Another one - people were using their 35mm cameras to take snapshots everywhere, all the time, even at theater plays so they had to ban them there. They were also worried that these cameras would drive down the artistic and technical value of photography. Just too many amateurs! Sounds familiar? That’s because smartphones today spark the same opinions.

This book is well worth a read and holds up really well, I found a lot of information that I had never seen on the internet. Probably because online people are focused on the newest and the greatest, completely oblivious that the arguments they make have been made many times before. And that is the beauty of this book to me, it proves, once again, that history is worth studying because it saves us from falling in the traps that the previous generations did. We like to think that this time around things are different, when often enough, they only seem different on the surface. I am not a proponent of historicism, you won’t deduce future of photography from this book, but it will give you a good chuckle, if you’ve ever spent any time online reading discussions about photography.

[Ahmed Belal · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's the main book of the history of photography, good for a start but, any one read it need to do farther reading.

[Holden Richards · Rating 4 out of 5]

Newhall does a superb job covering alot of ground. Its all here from the earliest experiments to the current day interpretive experimentation. Beautifully illustrated.

[Daniel Rainer · Rating 5 out of 5]

The definitive, canonical history of photography as an expressive medium—written by a man at its very center.

[Miguel Fernandez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Newhall does what he's trying to do well: 'western' summary of technological and artistic innovations and debates from its inception to the mid-20th century.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

I "had to" read this back in the day for a university photography course. Many years later I still own it. I'm not sure I've actually "read" it as it's a bit like a copy of National Geographic: the photos themselves are worth keeping it for and generally the reason why you might (a) pick it up in the first place and (b) keep it. It could be considered out-of-date if one is interested in techniques and such, however, for a pure sense of the history of *analog* photography up until the book was written at, heck, the photos in it are a great introduction to that. Browse through this book and then try to look at digital photography the same way (I still can't duplicate depth of greys without 'enhancing' my digital photos). It can also be an interesting comparitive read if you are into the current 'trend' of digital reproduction of classic photography (e.g. 'toy'/analog cameras and equivalent digital effects).

[Ad Astra · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderfully comprehensive book through the eyes of those responsible for innovation and design. I pulled this out for research and while I wasn't able to expansively cite this resource, it was my favorite one I'd read. Daguerreotypes, calotype, collodion, albumen (spelled albumin in my 1938 second edition) and explanations of the wet and dry plate processes are all explored here through a semi-historical narrative. I'd recommend this to those looking for some light reading about the history of photography who is looking for something to technical. Also note this book is also under the title 'Photography: A Short Critical History' before it was revised.

[Rajiv Chopra · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a perfect way for the serious student of photography, to get into the history of photography. The chapters are laid out, not only chronologically, but in terms of the various developments that took place in the field of photography.

As I discovered, this is not a book that you should skim through, or read quickly. This is a book that you need to study, with a pencil in hand, and to underline key concepts.

For an Indian like me, this is marvellous, as it has given me some excellent ideas for future photographic projects.

What I would like, is an updated edition, to cover digital photography

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

A summary of this book

blah blah chemicals used for processing early photographs
BLURRY PICTURE
more chemical news, wet plates, dry plates, blah
PICTURES, PICTURES, MOSTLY BORING

Suddenly!

interesting discussion of movements (Photo Secession!)
GOOD PICTURES
fascinating description of straight photography
EXCELLENT PICTURES - EDWARD WESTON! SWOONING!
horrifically outdated (1980) assessment of photography's current state

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book. I took an art history class in college and studied the history of photography...I was hooked after that. The collection of photos by greats like Stieglitz, Lange, White and Adams (just to name a few)and a brief history of their lives are beautifully detailed.

[Cassidy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Full of information, but really takes makes photography not as much fun to learn about. I had to read this for a history of photography course. Ugh.

[Artlab]

Photography

[Jennifer]

on of my college "textbooks" from Syracuse University.

[Jonathon Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

I use this book all the time in my photography classes. Great reference and detailed history.