The beautiful and seductive images of an overlooked movement, reproduced in their full tonal range. Much has been written about Alfred Stieglitz and his role in establishing photography as an art. Little attention, however, has been paid to the pictorial photographers who followed Stieglitz, among them Imo Jean Cunningham, Edward Weston, Clarence H. White, and a host of others -- those who, in a widespread movement, approached photography in a painterly fashion, creating beautiful images through the use of careful lighting, manipulated tones, soft focus effects, and artistic compositions. In this important volume, Christian A. Peterson finally gives the pictorialists of the first half of the twentieth century their due. He describes the backgrounds of the movement, their methods, the photo clubs they belonged to, and their work, illustrated here with ninety-three stunning reproductions. The movement seemed to die out, Peterson suggests, with the rising popularity of 35mm photography in mid-century, when the care and slow working procedures required by large-format cameras became unpopular. 93 full-color photographs

From its earliest days, photography could not escape the pictorial traditions that had gone before it. This book, the first comprehensive study of Pictorialism in Europe, analyses the remarkable diversity of approaches taken by photographers across the continent whose practice was infused with contemporary debate about photography's relationship to art. Written by an international team of art and photography historians, Impressionist Camera examines the ways in which practitioners realized their pictorial vision, from the re-creation of Academic painting in photography to the use of soft focus to lend images an impressionistic quality. Also explored are the cross-currents with photography in America - where Pictorialism went on to flourish - including the seminal work of Alfred Stieglitz.

-Includes many never before published photographs -Featured artists include: Edward S. Curtis, Arthur Wesley Dow, Adolf Fassbender, and Alfred Stieglitz This book examines the history of the Pictorialist movement in America through the outstanding collection of photographs, books, and journals in the Two Red Roses Collection. The catalog features artists who were pioneers of early art photography, including Edward S. Curtis, Arthur Wesley Dow, Adolf Fassbender, and Alfred Stieglitz. Evolving from the earlier school of Naturalistic photography, Pictorialism was the first major movement to champion the cause of photography as one of the fine arts, and usually featured soft-focus effects, mimicking the established art of painting. The growing interest in pictorial photography occurred during the Arts and Crafts movement, and shared an emphasis on hand-craftsmanship, merging art, life, and popular appeal. The proliferation of how-to books and periodicals, along with the emergence of numerous camera clubs in cities across the United States, furthered the interest in this type of art from professional artists and amateurs alike.

This book is an investigation of the widely overlooked photographic style of pictorialism in the American West between 1900 and 1950 and argues that western pictorialist photographers were regionalists that had their roots in the formidable photographic heritage of the nineteenth-century American West.