From Library Journal
Tucker's book on fashion photographer Louis Faurer (1916-2001) deals mostly with his personal work, which focused largely on everyday scenes of New York City, rather than with his work for magazines such as Vogue and Flair. Until now, information on Faurer has been limited to periodical articles, text within more general works, and exhibition catalogs with more limited scope than is presented here. This new book, which accompanied a recent traveling exhibition, presents a much-needed overview of Faurer's life and work. The overall strength of this book is the analysis of mood in Faurer's pictures, which is supported by part of a Princeton dissertation that compares Faurer's photographs to film noir. Though Tucker, a curator and founder of the photography department at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, discusses Faurer's relationships with other photographers and magazine editors, more material about the photographer's personal relationships would have been helpful. Still, the documentation provided in this book is exemplary and includes listings of Faurer exhibitions and photos that appeared in magazines. The illustrations are also excellent. Highly recommended for academic, larger public, and specialized art libraries. Eric Linderman, East Cleveland P.L., OH
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
Louis Faurer was one of America's "quiet" photographers. Known for his raw, melancholy, psychologically charged pictures of life on the street, and in particular for evocative shots of 1940s and 1950s Times Square, Faurer frequently drew on the film noir idiom to create memorable images of moviegoers, box-office lines, ushers, and theaters advertising B movies such as Force of Evil, Edge of Doom, and Ace in the Hole.
Much of Faurer's best work, though, is of ordinary activity and people, and he frequently haunted the streets of New York, finding poetry amid the crackle of the city. In an untitled picture taken in 1937 in Philadelphia, the trousers, jacket cuffs, and cane of a seated man are in sharp focus, as are a box of pencils and a sign announcing, "I am totally blind." Hurrying past him are the blurred figures of pedestrians. Other shots such as I am Paralyzed, Daddy Warbucks, and Eddie reveal a rare social awareness.
Faurer also worked as a fashion photographer for nearly thirty years, producing work for Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, and Flair, with a particular gift for highlighting his subject's ephemeral grace. He was a lasting influence on Robert Frank and other members of the New York School of photography.
This book, the first to examine Faurer's work in depth and bring it to a modern readership, brings together a great deal of previously unpublished material, as well as images not seen since they originally appeared in magazines in the 1940s and 1950s.
