Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Today color photography is so ubiquitous that it's hard to believe there was a time when this was not the case. Color Rush: Seventy-five Years of Color Photography in America explores the developments that led us to this point, looking at the way color photographs circulated and appeared at the time of their making. From magazine pages to gallery walls, from advertisements to photojournalism, Color Rush charts the history of color photography in the United States from the moment it became available as a mass medium to the moment when it no longer seemed an unusual choice for artists. The book begins with the 1907 unveiling of autochrome, the first commercially available color process, and continues up through the 1981 landmark survey show and book, The New Color Photography, which hailed the widespread acceptance of color photography in contemporary art. In the intervening years, color photography captured the popular imagination through its visibility in magazines like Life and Vogue, as well as through its accessibility in the marketplace thanks to companies like Kodak. Often in photo histories color is presented as having arrived fully formed in the 1970s; this book reveals a deeper story and uncovers connections in both artistic and commercial practices. A comprehensive chronology and examples of significant moments and movements mark the increasing visibility of color photography. Color Rush brings together Ansel Adams and William Eggleston, Eliot Porter and Cindy Sherman, Edward Steichen and Stephen Shore, and examines them in a fresh context paying particular attention to color photography's translation onto the printed page. In doing so, it traces a new history that more fully accounts for color's pervasive presence today.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

This catalogue of a 2013 exhibition "attempt[s] to restore the nuance, complexity, and fluidity that characterized conversations around color photography for three-quarters of a century." Bussard (Art Institute of Chicago) explores the wide variety of commercial, artistic, and personal uses of color photography since the invention of the autochrome in 1907, focusing on the tension between its use in both "high" and "low" cultures. Hostetler (Smithsonian American Art Museum) looks at the roles of realism and artistry and ways perceptions and definitions of color photography have evolved over the years. The bulk of the catalogue contains encyclopedia-like entries on 50 photographers, organized chronologically, with brief essays and accompanying illustrations. A chronology, a glossary, and an exhibition checklist are included. Few monographs on the history of color photography exist, so this volume adds to the scholarship while providing useful analyses of key photographers. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-level undergraduates through researchers/faculty. L. M. Bliss San Diego State University