Fields of VisionThe Photographs of Ben Shahn, The Library of Congress
Published by GILES in association with The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Publish Date — September 2008 (UK and USA)
Dimensions — 64 pages, 180 x 180mm (7 1/8 x 7 1/8 in.)
Illustrations — 55 colour illustrations
Paperback price — UK£6.95 / US$12.95
ISBN — ISBN 1-904832-40-7
ISBN — 978-1-904832-40-9
Book Details (pdf) — Fields_of_Vision_AI2.pdf
Sales Points
Part of a completely new photography series, featuring The Library of Congress’ internationally renowned collection of Farm Security Administration (FSA) and Office of War Information (OWI) photographs, which includes work by some of the greatest names in 20th-century photography
“We just took pictures that cried out to be taken.” Ben Shahn
“No matter where he pointed his camera, Shahn could not help but find a telling detail that went beneath the surface. Sent to document the brutality of the Depression, he came home with that, plus its heart.” Timothy Egan on Ben Shahn
About the Book
The approximately 77,000 photographs in The Library of Congress’ collection from the Farm Security Administration (FSA), later the Office of War Information (OWI), provide a unique view of American life during the Great Depression and Second World War.
This government photography project, headed by Roy E. Stryker, employed many relatively unknown names who later became some of the 20th-century’s best-known photographers, such as Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Marion Post Wolcott, Arthur Rothstein and Carl Mydans. Initially conceived to document government loans to farmers and their subsequent resettlement in suburban communities, the scope of the project expanded to create a visual record of agricultural workers across the United States. Later, Stryker’s photographers recorded both rural and urban centers as the nation prepared for World War II.
Each volume in the Fields of Vision series features an introduction to the work of a single FSA photographer by a leading contemporary author or writer, and presents 50 striking images that show how the particular vision of these photographers helped shape the collective identity of America. Their evocative pictures transport the viewer to American homes, farms, and streets of the 1930s and 1940s, while offering a glimpse of a new narrative and intimate style that was later to blossom on the pages of LOOK and LIFE magazines. For many Americans of the pre-television age, the diversity and complexity of their country was defined by the lenses of these men and women.
