The Annuals

THE ANNUALS

Annuals come out only once a year, and this year they're cheerful for a change. But in looking them over one cannot avoid a certain wistful longing for a bit more unity of presentation. A nifty way of doing annuals would of course be to present smaller ones, each dealing with only one or two approaches to photography, or with the work of several photographers presented in sufficient quantity to give the viewer some idea of the man and his philosophy. These might, ideally, come out at intervals during the year. But the old dollarbound question necessarily arises—would they have sufficient general appeal to be profitable to the publishers?

Be that as it may, of the important annuals, u. s. CAMERA, PHOTOGRAPHY YEAR BOOK (London), and PHOTOGRAPHY ANNUAL (New York), have some interesting things to offer. Each has strong points that the others lack.

u. s. CAMERA has traded the boxing gloves donned to select last year's offering for mittens. Taking its cue from Steichen's Family of Man Show, no doubt, it presents some logical thematic groupings. There is a well organized and informative section on Mr. Steichen’s work and life, and portfolios on six other photographers. These last, not as comprehensive as the Steichen piece, still give the reader some interesting insight into the work of G. E. Kidder Smith, Wynn Bullock, Brett Weston, W. Eugene Smith, Richard Avedon and Leon Levinstein. Their color section is devoted to the "Color in Paradise" photographs done by Eliot Elisofon for LIFE, and is notably better than annual color sections generally are.

In their Fine Pictures section many "arrived" photographers are represented, PHOTOGRAPHY ANNUAL concentrates on the lesser known photographers.

The editors of PHOTOGRAPHY ANNUAL have again deftly selected and organized their material. And this apt grouping of the pictures by types—that is, action, realism, children, portraits, design, color camera, effects, etc.—probably helps them achieve a certain aroma of success which the quality of the pictures does not entirely warrant. Reproduction is brutally contrasty but still better than u. s. CAMERA’S which is mostly flat, PHOTOGRAPHY ANNUAL’S color section is just too, too popular.

PHOTOGRAPHY YEAR BOOK (London) by all odds does the best reproduction job. And it is a happy circumstance that this is so for they have some fine photography to offer, especially from their five "Guests of Honor”-—Bill Brandt, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Herbert List, W. Eugene Smith and Yousef Karsh—plus the assorted representatives of seven countries.

It is questionable whether or not its geographical organization is of any worth, because one never knows whether it is really representative of the countries’ photographic thinking. Last year, for example, the United States was, to put it mildly, poorly represented. It is most encouraging to note that this year some of "our boys” seem to have taken the Hint and sent the editor something worth looking at.

Out of all three Annuals, here are a few I liked:

Walter Rosenblum’s roof top scene, Bourke-White’s intense study of the young Catholic brother, and Pirkle Jones’ luminous power line insulators. These are in the American section of the London Annual. In the French section, the hooded spectres of Ervin Marton’s bus seats are wondrous indeed. Certainly Karsh has scored a tripple bagger with his portrait of Pablo Casales—it’s in all three annuals. Bill Brandt’s old lady with lamp in picturebedecked hallway is a masterpiece. And, in PYB, two nudes are worth noting, one man and one woman in the perfectly delightful photograph by N. M. W. Mansill.

The old Steichen portrait of Alfred Stieglitz in u. s. CAMERA is genuinely moving. W. Eugene Smith’s tiny tots on page 51 is fine, just fine. Pirkle Jones made a spread with his "cows in pasture" (pun noted). And Ruth Bernhard’s magnolia leaves, sadly muddied by USC reproduction, still retains the beauty which brought it to APERTURE’S cover a while back. I can’t very well move on without a mention of Wynn Bullock’s beautiful forest scene and Brett Weston's voluptuous rock formation in the portfolio section of USC.

Fulvio Roiter’s delicate winter scene was good enough to win a place in PHOTOGRAPHY ANNUAL and PYB. And Ellery Wardwell Stone’s chairs are a nice design piece in PA.

All in all, the annuals definitely have a bright and cheery look about them this year.

James S. Peck