Bill Burke teaches a class at the Museum School that deals with the production of a photographic books and sequencing of images. Bill has experience with this, having produced a number of incredibly powerful and important photography books of his own, namely I Want to Take Picture (1987, reissued in 2007), Portraits (1987) and Mine Fields (1995).

At the beginning of this semester’s class, he handed out a list of about 50 photo books for everyone to look at and brought in some great stuff from his collection (including a 1st edition copy of Walker Evan’s Many Are Called). With just a quick glance at the list I could identify Bill’s photographic bias but, nonetheless, it’s an excellent selection that includes a few books I’ve never seen. I recommend sitting down with any of these if you find the opportunity.

Here they are, as Bill had organized them, by year:

1928 – Die Welt ist Schon by Albert Renger Patsch
1930 – Atget Photographe de Paris by Eugene Atget
1933 – Paris de Nuit by Brassaï
1936 – The English at Home by Bill Brandt
1937 – You Have Seen Their Faces by Margaret Bourke-White and Erskine Caldwell*
1937 – Beauty of the Olympic Struggle by Leni Reifenstahl
1938 – American Photographs by Walker Evans
1939 – An American Exodus by Dorothea Lange and Paul Taylor*
1939 – Changing New York by Bernice Abbott
1941 – Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by Walker Evans and James Agee
1945 – Naked City by Wegee
1952 – The Decisive Moment by Henri Cartier Bresson
1955 – The Sweet Flypaper of Life by Roy Decarava and Langston Hughes*
1959 – The Americans by Robert Frank
1959 – Jazz by Ed Van der Elsken
1961 – Perspective of Nudes by Bill Brandt
1964 – The End of the Game by Peter Beard*
1964 – A Way of Seeing by Helen Levitt
1966 – Many Are Called by Walker Evans
1966 – Every Building on Sunset Strip by Ed Rusche
1966 – Andy Warhol’s Index by Andy Warhol
1968 – The Bikeriders by Danny Lyon*
1969 – The Animals by Garry Winogrand
1970 – Anonyme Skulpturen by Bernd and Hilla Becher
1970 – East 100th St. by Bruce Davidson
1970 – Self Portrait by Lee Friedlander
1970 – Diary of a Century by Jacques Henri Lartigue
1971 – Tulsa by Larry Clark*
1971 – Conversations with the Dead by Danny Lyon*
1972 – Diane Arbus by Diane Arbus
1973 – Wisconsin Death Trip by Michael Lesy
1973 – Suburbia by Bill Owens
1974 – The New West by Robert Adams
1974 – The New Industrial Parks Near Irvine California by Lewis Baltz
1975 – Vagabond by Gaylord Herron*
1976 – William Eggleston’s Guide by William Eggleston
1976 – The American Monument by Lee Friedlander
1976 – Carnival Strippers by Susan Meiselas*
1977 – Evidence by Mike Mandel and Larry Sultan
1979 – Lisette Model by Lisette Model
1980 – Citizens of the Twentieth Century by August Sander
1982 – A Loud Song by Danny Semore*
1983 – Telex Iran by Gilles Peres*
1983 – The Lines of My Hand by Robert Frank*
1985 – Rich and Poor by Jim Goldberg*
1986 – The Ballad of Sexual Dependency by Nan Godlin*
1986 – O Rio de Janeiro by Bruce Weber
1986 – The Last Resort by Martin Parr
1991 – Fait by Sophie Ristelheuber
1994 – Menschlich by Christian Boltansky

“*” = important use of text or quotes

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 30th, 2008 at 6:52 pm and is filed under Personal, Photo Books, Photo History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.