Monographs & Art Books / U

Shoji Ueda is one of the tenors of Japanese and international photography. Passionate about visual experimentation, in the 1930s he imposed an extremely personal style that abandoned the documentary vision of photography to develop a strange and unusual world. His famous "dune scenes" now belong to the history of photography.

Many remember his images taken in the dunes: strange scenes of characters, difficult to date, but whose charm and invention have no equivalent in the history of photography. But the whole of Shoji Ueda's work is not well known, at least outside his country. Thus, no work has ever been devoted to him in France, with the exception of brief catalogs published on the occasion of a few exhibitions. Whereas in Japan a superb museum now houses his work and publications are constantly appearing on the various aspects and periods of his work. This work, which appears in the "loiseau rare" collection, is therefore a highlight in the field of French photographic publishing. Although it does not offer an exhaustive vision of this work, it nevertheless reveals, on the theme of childhood, a journey through its main aesthetic stages: from the thirties, the date of his first photographs, until the seventies.

Sixty compelling black-and-white images highlight a retrospective of the work of pioneering American photographer Jerry Uelsmann, bringing together a selection of compelling photographs, ranging from the early 1960s to the present, that reveal his dramatic synthesis of photographs from multiple negatives. 10,000 first printing.

"During my life as an image-maker, I have encountered many works of art that have left a deep and lasting impression. There was a strong feeling of relevance that imbedded them in my consciousness. They became a source of inspiration that encouraged me to explore the boundaries of my own visual quest. The images in this book represent a small selection of artists, art, and art trends that have evoked a lasting sense of personal rapport. It is with deep gratitude that I pay homage, celebrate, and reference these sources." -- Jerry Uelsmann

The photographs in Referencing Art, spanning the past five decades, reveal a relatively unknown facet of Jerry Uelsmann's working process: an on-going dialogue with the history of art. These images are tributes to artists whose work has made a deep and lasting impression on Uelsmann, and the range of works cited in this new book is vast as he pays homage to Man Ray, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacommetti, Ansel Adams, Marcel Duchamp, Alexander Calder et al. Jerry Uelsmann's work is included in most major photography collections in the United States and Europe, and has been exhibited throughout the world. A five-page essay by Alex Alberro and Nora M. Alter, entitled "Imagination and the Image," accompanies this remarkable anthology.

More wonderful photographs from this magnificent photographer as featured in this touring exhibition. It is invaluable to see other images from the artist’s oeuvre (especially early work from the 1950s to observe thematic development), not just the most famous of the surreal montages.

Uelsmann Untitled features the largest number of Uelsmann images ever collected in a single volume. Among them are some that have never before been published, several beloved favorites, and many rarely seen images. Drawn from his entire career, they show both the evolution of his technique and the solidity of his vision. An accompanying essay by Carol McCusker, curator of photography at the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, provides historical and biographical context and discusses Uelsmann’s formative experiences and his coming of age as a photographer.

When Jerry Uelsmann composes Yosemite National Park, rocks float. So do clocks and flamingos. Nudes glide through white water rapids. Acclaimed as an international master of photomontage, Uelsmann creates images of the park so wild and personal that they expand the concept of nature photography.

Doris Ulmann (1882-1934) was one of the foremost photographers of the twentieth century, yet until now there has never been a biography of this fascinating, gifted artist. Born into a New York Jewish family with a tradition of service, Ulmann sought to portray and document individuals from various groups that she feared would vanish from American life. In the last eighteen years of her life, Ulmann created over 10,000 photographs and illustrated five books, including Roll, Jordan, Roll and Handicrafts of the Southern Highlands.

This is the first complete retrospective of the work of photographer Doris Ulmann, treating the full scope of her production, including her early pictorialist photographs, her studio portrait production, her focus on the rural craftsmen and women of Appalachia and her work on the African American and Gullah communities of coastal South Carolina and Georgia. Ulmann created studio portraits in her native New York of literary and artistic celebrities but also traveled to Appalachia, the rural South and the Gullah coastal region to photograph locals and their crafts. Because of her variety of subjects, her work is difficult to categorize, but it has elements of pictorialism (fine art photography that often blurred its subjects to emphasize atmosphere) and documentary photography. It focuses on preservation of the American past and shows an interest in some of modernism s concerns: a priority on form, sharper tonal contrast and quality of line, and unmanipulated prints.

Is This Place Great or What presents photographer Brian Ulrich’s decade-long exploration of the shifting tectonic plates of American consumer society. Ulrich photographs the architectural legacies of a retail-driven economy in the midst of collapse—shopping malls on the brink of demolition, empty big box stores, the fraying surfaces of a shopping-obsessed culture. Interspersed with these images are a series of clear-eyed yet sympathetic portraits—teenaged shoppers lost in reverie over a new pair of shoes, thrift-store mavens determined to find the best deal possible, and families desperately in search of that perfect purchase. Cinematic and utterly engrossing, these portraits trace a palpable trajectory from irrational exuberance to debt-laden hangover. Both personal and sociologically astute, Ulrich has successfully managed to get under the skin of the current economic crisis, providing a sobering document of the American consumer psyche in the first decade of the twenty-first century.

Is This Place Great or What accompanied an exhibition at the Cleveland Museum of Art with support from Fred and Laura Bidwell.

An old man's humorous and touching account of life told through stunning photographs and hilarious quotes.

This is the story of Joseph Markovitch, a vulnerable old man with a great sense of humor who lived in London his entire life. Joe loves Nicolas Cage films, has five sugars in his tea, and he has quite bad catarrh. Dealing with quintessential subject matter such as childhood, art, work, relationships and religion in a playful but touching way, Joseph provides thought-provoking commentary on the state of the modern world.

Hauntingly beautiful photographs of dogs in cars.

As a child, photographer Martin Usborne was once left in a car. This was not for long, but he wondered if anyone would come back. Around the same age he fell in love with dogs - they could not speak, just as he felt he was silent in that car. Thirty years later the two experiences came together in this cinematic and darkly humorous project that looks at the way humans are able to silence the animals they love best. No dogs were harmed in the making of this project.

Every winter throughout Spain it is estimated that up to one hundred thousand hunting dogs are abandoned or killed at the end of the hare-coursing season when they are no longer needed, perform badly, or are too old.

This book portrays dogs that have been rescued and sets them against the landscapes in Spain where they are typically abandoned. Shot in a style that references the tone and mood of Velázquez, who painted at a time when these dogs were treated with great respect, Martin Usborne's photographs show both the classical beauty of the animals and the ugliness of their modern situation.

One of America’s most highly regarded photographers, Burk Uzzle has claimed a territory all his own as a chronicler of the quirky and strangely beautiful in the vast American landscape. A Family Named Spot gathers seventy-seven black-and-white photographs taken during the photographer’s many trips across the United States in the last decade. Also included is an Allan Gurganus short story inspired by the photographs and published originally in The New Yorker.