Very Fine Print

Photo by Dan Bibb

In September, Radius Books released "John McCracken Sketchbook," a reproduction of a notebook that the artist filled with preparatory sketches for his Conceptual sculpture, such as the ones shown above.

Edward Steichen James Castle Mary Stevenson Cassatt John McCracken Le Corbusier Ronny Jacques Diego Rivera The Best Recent Releases in Photography

Send a letter to the Editor

Save to Del.icio.us Digg this

Overall, 2008 cast an ominous shadow over the future of printed matter. Newspaper readership receded, magazines folded, and Amazon.com launched Kindle, a book-downloading device that can put more than 200 titles into the palm of its user’s hand. In such an environment, it might seem counterintuitive that venerable art-book publishers actually increased their annual output of sumptuous volumes by more than a quarter this year. But perhaps it’s the books’ very luxuriousness—heavy stock, fine reproductions and large formats—that assures their survival. Just as the peacocks with the most extravagant plumes surpass their less-attractive counterparts, the art books of the highest quality thrived in 2008. A selection of the very fittest follows.

Among the most extravagant volumes of the year is the aptly titled Le Corbusier, Le Grand (Phaidon; $175).  This nearly two-foot-tall scrapbook provides a profusion of ephemera associated with the famously bow-tied, bespectacled architect—from his preparatory sketches for the metal and leather furniture that epitomized Bauhaus functionalism to snapshots of him posing with Josephine Baker. The gigantic tome begins with Le Corbusier’s birth certificate of 1887 and ends with the last photo taken of him, as he waded in the Mediterranean, in whose waters bathers would find his body in the summer of 1965.

Le Corbusier’s designs, such as the famous Villa La Roche, in the 16th arrondissement, also play a part in Paris, City of Art (Vendome; $95). This lavishly illustrated guide to the cultural history of the City of Lights was originally released to rave reviews in 2003 and has been updated with new entries, such as those on the Musée du Quai Branly, the polarizing showcase of African and Oceanic art, and the Simone de Beauvoir footbridge that now cascades across the Seine. Its 850 color plates stir the Francophile in all of us, bringing to mind Ernest Hemingway’s famous quote about the Gallic capital: “Wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”

Helen Pierce Breaker was one of the photographers who captured Hemingway while he was living in Paris. Her 1928 photograph of the author is among the shots included in Vanity Fair Portraits (Harry N. Abrams; $65), another supersize triumph of 2008. Seen through Breaker’s lens, Hemingway appears as inscrutable as one of his protagonists, consuming the frame but disclosing very little. He shares a spread with the gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson—an example of the inspired juxtapositions that make the book an extraordinary tribute to a century of pioneering magazine photography rather than a merely fair vanity project. Some pairings are historical: The ideologically opposed Mexican muralists José Clemente Orozco and Diego Rivera face off once again in the book’s pages. Others reveal the mag’s progressive political bent—Nancy and Ronald Reagan share a spread with the Hoovers, while Bill Clinton gets placed next to FDR.

Although the volume contains many spectacular color photographs, the elegant work of Edward Steichen and his contemporaries make you rue the day that emulsion met chrome. If  your inclination is toward the high drama of   black-and-white portraiture, you might be interested in two other books: Glamour of the Gods (Steidl; $65), a selection of 200 images from the film historian John Kobal’s collection of studio photography in the golden age of cinema, and Stolen Moments: The Photographs of Ronny Jaques (Glitterati Incorporated; $35), with an introductory essay by Town & Country editor in chief Pamela Fiori, which highlights one master of the medium whose work is absent from Kobal’s trove of Harlows and Hepburns. A frequent contributor to T&C and Harper’s Bazaar, Jaques shot without a crew, a practice whose lack of ego or pretense is mirrored in the ease of his subjects, John O’Hara and Marlon Brando among them.