Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The first major survey of contemporary British photography presents a far-ranging selection of the best of this generation of British art.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

This book, published to coincide with an exhibition of the same name, is a survey of contemporary photographic practice in Britain. The editors have included essays that address the broader historical context and influences, yet are able to identify impulses, such as the relationship between language and image or sociocultural critique that are particularly British. Each essay is generously illustrated, although the design in the later essays makes it a bit difficult to correlate the illustration with the text. Collectively, the essays convey the flavor and timbre of contemporary thinking on photography. With the exception of numerous studies on the invention of photography in England and the Victorian era, such as The Golden Age of British Photography, 1839-1900, ed. by M. Haworth-Booth (CH, Jan '85); British Photography in the Nineteenth Century, ed. by Mike Weaver (1989); Arts Council of Great Britain, The Real Thing (1975); and monographs on three major figures in the modern period--Bill Brandt, Tony Ray-Jones, and Richard Hamilton--little has been published specifically about modernist and postmodernist photography in Britain. Thus this is a welcome and instructive volume for the informed reader as well as upper-level undergraduate and graduate students. -J. Bloom, Academy of Art College