Author Description

The Centre Pompidou in Paris houses the largest collection of Modern art in Europe and one of the greatest collections of twentieth-century photography in the world. This comprehensive catalogue of the photo collection features 350 images, reproduced in tritone and duotone, by nearly 300 of the most famous artists and photographers to engage with the medium--from Franti ek Drtikol, Paul Strand, Walker Evans, Constantin Brancusi, Alexander Rodchenko and Berenice Abbott, via Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Man Ray and Edouard Boubat, to Robert Mapplethorpe, Cindy Sherman, Thomas Struth, Andreas Gursky, Nan Goldin, Vik Muniz, Gregory Crewdson and Thomas Demand. It is divided into six sections, each of which is prefaced by a brief essay. Contributing scholars include Herbert Molderings (on Modernist photography), Alain Sayag (on Dada and Surrealist photography), Clément Chéroux (on "Poetic Realism"), Christopher Phillips, and Agnès de Gouvion Saint-Cyr and Quentin Bajac (on contemporary photography). This substantial and lavishly produced volume offers an authoritative perspective on twentieth-century photography as viewed through the contents of one of the greatest photographic archives in the world.