Focus: Memoirs of a Life in Photography
by: Newhall, Beaumont

Hardcover. US, Bulfinch , 1st, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 264 pages includes index. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket. A graceful, lively memoir by photography's first historian, with accounts of his friendships with many of the century's great photographers, from Alfred Stieglitz to Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, and Henri Cartier-Bresson. Newhall (1908-93) wrote the now-standard History of Photography (1937) and founded the photo collection at the Museum of Modern Art; as much as anyone, he helped photography gain acceptance as art. This memoir, finished shortly before his death, includes an account of his boyhood in Lynn, Massachusetts; of his training in art history at Harvard; the important early exhibits he organized at the MOMA; and the contributions of his wife, Nancy, to both the field and his own accomplishments. A long section describing his work as a photoreconnaisance expert in Egypt and Italy during WW II, though not closely related to his career, is also highly interesting. In addition, Newhall offers detailed accounts of various important photographers' working methods, as well as of discussions carried on among them about their work.