I like these small, but thick Taschen books. They’re quite easy to carry around and I find that if I leave a copy on a nearby table I often pick it up when I have a moment or two to spare – just to browse. They’re also quite inexpensive (about $20 in this case).

This one is entitled 20th Century Photography and contains over 850 photgraphs from a large number of photographers (each photographer has his/her own short textual summary). Of course the pictures are necessarily quite small so you can’t see them in their full glory, but that’s fine for this type of overview.

One thing I missed when I bought the book was that this is 20th Century Photography as represented by the L. Fritz Huber Collection of Cologne’s Museum Ludwig. I have a few other ‘History of Photgraphy’ type books and they tend to be dominated by the usual suspects (e.g. Bresson, Frank, Stand, Adams, Weston etc.) mostly either American photographers or photographers who have worked in the US (with a few of the more famous non-American photographers sprinkled in). This books seems to have a more European orientation. Yes, many of the usual suspects are still there, but quite a few are missing – presumably because the Museum Ludwig does not have them in its collection. Some notable absentees are: Nan Golding, Diane Arbus, William Eggleston, Lee Friedlander, Gary Winogrand, Robert Frank, Cindy Sherman, Imogen Cunningham and Minor White. These are just a few that I noticed. There are certainly more.

The lack of these famous photographers is offset by the large number of photographers I’d never heard of: e.g. Hugo Smölz (interesting architectural photography); Friedrich Seidenstücker (a chronicler Berlin Life); Jean Le Gac (narrative art) and many, many more too numerous to mention.

I’m glad I bought it.

The photograph above is from the books’s cover and is Charlotte March, Donyale Luna with Earrings for Tween magazine, 1966 Gruber Collection.