Women War Photographers: from Lee Miller to Anja Niedringhaus

by Anne-Marie Beckmann (Editor), Felicity Korn (Editor)

Women have been on the front lines of war for more than a century. With access to places men cannot go, the women who photograph war lend a unique perspective to the consequences of conflict. From intimate glimpses of daily life to the atrocities of war, this exhibition catalog reveals the range and depth of eight women photographers' contributions to wartime photojournalism. Each photographer is introduced by a brief, informative essay followed by reproductions of a selection of their works. Included here are images by Lee Miller, who documented the liberation of Dachau and Buchenwald. The first woman journalist to parachute into Vietnam, Catherine Leroy was on the ground during the Tet Offensive. Susan Meiselas raised international awareness around the Somoza regime's catastrophic effects in Nicaragua. German reporter Anja Niedringhaus worked on assignment in nearly every major conflict of the 1990s, from the Balkans to Libya, Iraq to Afghanistan. The work of Carolyn Cole, Françoise Demulder, Christine Spengler, and Gerda Taro round out this collective profile of courage under pressure and of humanity in the face of war.

Genres: Art, Photography, Feminism, Nonfiction, History

224 pages, Hardcover

Published September 3, 2019

Reviews

[Mehsi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A shocking, stunning book about war, photography, and 8 women who were fantastic photographers. I found it really interesting to read about these women, get to know them, see what kind of things they photographed. The book's photographs were not always easy to see. We get dead bodies, wounded people, people crying over loss, and many more.
I would definitely recommend this book, BUT also make sure you can handle a book about war. This book doesn't shy away from anything.

[Marcela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful and powerful book.

[Barry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well curated exhibition catalog. Some essays were better written than others. In general the majority of the war photos in this collection valorize resistance and martyrdom in creatively aestheticized ways. It’s possibly implied here that women war photographers are more innately sympathetic to social justice movements on behalf of oppressed people as compared to the much larger body of work shot by men. My main interest was seeing more of Lee Miller’s wartime work, and the selection and reproduction quality here surpass what I saw in the Corcoran exhibit catalog, which I also greatly appreciated.

[David Turko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly powerful. This book shows the horror's of war from the Spanish civil war to the war on terror through the lenses of female photo journalists. A difficult read due to the subject matter but this is one book that I'm glad I read.

[Alejandro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cant say much more than it impacted me in ways I will remember for a long time. The way this exhibit combined a tasteful amount if biography with images absolutely immersed me everytime I read and viewed the pictures.