Through a Different Lens: Stanley Kubrick Photographs

by Stanley Kubrick (Photographer), Sean Corcoran (Contributor), Donald Albrecht (Contributor)

In 1945, at just 17 years old, Stanley Kubrick became a staff photographer for Look magazine. His humanist slice-of-life features celebrate his native New York City and already reveal a burgeoning creative genius. With around 300 images, many previously unseen, as well as rare Look magazine tear sheets, this release coincides with a major show at the Museum of the City of New York and includes an introduction by noted photography critic Luc Sante.

Genres: Photography, Film, Nonfiction, Art and Photography, Collections, Coffee Table Books

328 pages, Hardcover

Published April 25, 2018

About the author

Stanley Kubrick was an influential American filmmaker, screenwriter and producer. He directed a number of highly acclaimed and sometimes controversial films. Kubrick was noted for the scrupulous care with which he chose his subjects, his slow method of working, the variety of genres he worked in, his technical perfectionism, and his reclusiveness about his films and personal life.

-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Kubrick

Reviews

[Georgia Scott]

Greatness is always ahead of its time. Proof is these pictures, many taken when the filmmaker was only seventeen. The best of them show sensitivity and guts. My favorites are when Kubrick gets in close to a prizefighter to reveal his human side with a loving twin brother and a girlfriend on the beach also when he follows a shoe shine boy through his long day as he helps to support his family. These are here though none was published by LOOK magazine. Those that were, with the exception of ones of Leonard Bernstein and Montgomery Clift, are less exciting. More like period pieces.

To be or not to be? The question for artists is more like this: To fit or not fit in? Kubrick chose his eventual path.

I'm glad he did. I might never understand 2001: A Space Odyssey, but Spartacus moves me no matter how many times I watch it. Both films have Kubrick's vision in them.

[Paolo]

Spulciando nel negozio di un illustre monumento adibito a sede di mostre (non mi abbasserò mai a scrivere giftsciop) mi imbatto in questo libro che mi ha suscitato irresisitibile impulso feticistico (a cui normalmente resisto), con conseguente resa all'acquisto.
Si tratta della raccolta delle fotografie che il giovane fotoreporter Stanley Kubrick ha pubblicato per la rivista Look. L'arco temporale va dal 1945 al 1950, vale a dire dai 16 ai 21 anni del grande regista.
Inutile dire che i germi del genio sono tutti ravvisabili e, come scive il curatore, nessun periodo come l'America post - rooseveltiana e nessun luogo come New York fornisce materia prima per chi voglia raccontare/raffigurare. La lettura in parallelo con ombre sull'Hudson di Singer, di pochi anni posteriore genera entusiasmante sinestesia.

[Michael Martin]

This incredible book, published by Taschen, and compiled by the Museum of the City of New York features beautiful reproductions of Kubrick's work for Look Magazine prior to his filmmaking years.
I would have given it five stars except for a few minor issues. My copy of the book has more than a few misprinted pages, which I have written the seller about and am hoping for a replacement, and that the full run does not suffer from the issues. More importantly, I really disliked how the last part of the book handled unpublished photos from the magazine. They are published too small, too many to a page, and with huge photo captions. It ends this great volume of work on a rather cheap note. Point size of these captions could have been half the size of what was used.

[Robert Zverina]

Would give this 2.5 stars if I could as it is solidly right down the middle. No shade on the authors/editors/designers of the book--it is superbly organized and crafted, the full Taschen treatment, hefty and slick. What disappoints is the insipid nature of Kubrick's photographs for Look, a popular biweekly lifestyle magazine to which he contributed from 1946-1950. I often hear this period referred to as his photojournalist phase, but that's quite a stretch. Instead of raw realities exposed in a flash, Kubrick's staged and posed assignments read like taxidermy--stiff and lifeless work for hire. Kubrick's formal mastery is evident, but it's all so banal and fake (starting with his first published photo: a mournful newsdealer surrounded by FDR DEAD headlines who, the text reveals, was coached by ur-director Kubrick to look sadder than he was). There's a handful of arresting images here, but mainly it's just a gross and sad reflection of the empty churn of mass media, then as now. Hooray for Stanley for escaping that machine at the tender age of 21. I predict big things for that young man.

[Afonso Lucas]

I’ve had this book for ages. Going through the pages, marveling at the black and whirr the photography and often stealing some compositions. Only recently have I actually read the complementary text. Well. It goes to show, the seeds of an artist are planted deep and often early

[Peter J.]

I got to see some of these on display at the Skirball Cultural Center last year and finally dove into Taschen's book. The photographs are interesting and striking enough that I could easily see Kubrick, had he not moved onto filmmaking, might be still be well known.