Front cover image for The new woman behind the camera

The new woman behind the camera

Andrea Nelson (Author, Writer of preface, Writer of introduction), Mia Fineman (Writer of preface), Kaywin Feldman, Elizabeth Cronin (Writer of supplementary textual content), Elizabeth Otto (Writer of supplementary textual content), Mila Ganeva (Writer of supplementary textual content), Kristen Gresh (Writer of supplementary textual content), Kim Sichel (Writer of supplementary textual content), Kara Felt (Writer of supplementary textual content), National Gallery of Art (U.S.) (Host institution), Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.) (Host institution)
"During the 1920s the New Woman was easy to recognize but hard to define. Hair bobbed and fashionably dressed, this iconic figure of modernity was everywhere, splashed across magazine pages or projected on the silver screen. A global phenomenon, she embodied an ideal of female empowerment based on real women making revolutionary changes in life and art--including photography. This groundbreaking, richly illustrated book looks at those "new women" who embraced photography as a mode of expression and made a profound impact on the medium from the 1920s to the 1950s. Thematic chapters explore how women emerged as a driving force in modern photography, bringing their own perspective to artistic experimentation, studio portraiture, fashion and advertising work, scenes of urban life, ethnography, and photojournalism. Featuring work by over 120 photographers, this volume expands the history of photography by critically examining an international array of canonical and less well-known women photographers, from Berenice Abbott, Dorothea Lange, and Lola Álvarez Bravo to Eslanda Goode Robeson, Tsuneko Sasamoto, and Homai Vyarawalla. Against the odds, these women produced invaluable visual testimony that reflects both their personal experiences and the extraordinary social and political transformations of the era" Provided by publisher
Print Book, English, 2020
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2020