From Library Journal
These two exhibition catalogs showcase the breadth of Andy Warhol's involvement with photography, and the special way that photography meshed with Warhol's obsession with fame. Andy Warhol--Photography is the larger work. Boasting 110 color and 300 duotone illustrations as well as more than 15 essays and interviews, it is, in fact, by far the most comprehensive examination of the subject ever published. The range is impressive, encompassing film stills, documentary photography, the use of photographs as the basis for his paintings, "automatic portraits," and other photographers' interest in his studio, the Factory. Warhol was the catalyst for all the work included, whether he acted as the photographer, subject, stylist, or inspiration. This broad look at Warhol's use of the medium is essential for academic art libraries and a good choice for most larger public library collections. In the catalog to the Nadar/Warhol exhibition, two Getty Center curators compile photographs by perhaps the first documentarian of star culture, 19th-century Parisian Nadar, and the man who brought the conflation of celebrity and art to its apogee, Andy Warhol. The images span from an 1857 portrait of Henri Murger (a popular writer of the day whose stories are the source for Puccini's La Boheme) to a polaroid of Mick Jagger. Wisely, the comparisons are implied and never seem forced. After an illuminating essay on fame by Richard Brilliant (humanities, Columbia), the book opens with a section of full-page Nadar photographs giving way to a Warhol section in the back. Opposite each image is an essay--concise, extremely readable, well researched, and consistently entertaining--that acts as both a biography of its subject and an insight into the artist's development at the time. Overall, this attempt to draw parallels between two artists whose lives and work concerned the celebrity of others and eventually their own fame is both clever and fruitful; one comes away wondering why someone hasn't noticed the similarities before. A book that will appeal to various audiences, this is recommended for all photography collections.
-Douglas McClemont, New York
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
-Douglas McClemont, New York
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Nashville, TN Tennessean, January 16, 2000
...[B]y far the most comprehensive examination of the subject ever published.(Library Journal, 1/2000).
