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I found a second hand copy of 100 Masterpieces of Photography, chosen from the collection at the Pompidou Centre, in Waterstones, Gower Street: probably the best-stocked photo bookshop there is. A £6 bargain. It contains many photographs I had not seen and artists I had not encountered. The full list is below and the details images are shown from those chosen as new entrants in the Snappers Gallery.

The descriptions are deftly written and comprise a (selective) history of photography.

Amao, D. (2010) 100 Masterpieces of Photography. Paris: Editions du Centre Pompidou

Photographers featured in the book —
(a tick ✓ means already included, a dagger † means new entrant)

Hans Bellmer

Hans Bellmer

b: 1902 Kattowitz, Germany / d: 1975 Paris

Bellmer's Les Jeux de la poupée, 1936 (The Doll's Games) appears in the Pompidou Centre's 100 Masterpieces of Photography. Bellmer associated with the Dada movement in Berlin and gained success as an illustrator for novels and advertisements in the 1920s and 30s. But the in reaction to the rise of fascism he decided to " withdraw from all socially useful activity", build various version of his "artificial girls" and photograph the process. The black and white photographs were published in a book, Les Jeux de la poupée, in 1934 to the acclaim of the Surrealists. After the war, hand coloured prints were published in a 1949 book of the same name that included poems by Paul Éluard.

Note in fig.1 the macintoshed voyeur observing from behind a tree in the background.

sources - Wikipedia, Tate

added - 15Mar20

Erwin Blumenfeld

Blumenfeld photographing Sophie Malgat,
photographed by Gordon Parks, 1950

b: 1887 Berlin / 1969 Rome

Blumenfeld's Manina or L'Âme du torse appears in the Pompidou Centre's 100 Masterpieces of Photography. Blumenfeld joined the Amsterdam Dadaists in 1918, produced photomontages under the name Jan Bloomfield, moved to Paris in the 1930s where he was influenced by the Surrealists, and emigrated to the US in 1941. In the States, he pursued a successful career as a commercial photographer.

The featured image shows Manina, an artist who also worked with the Surrealists and who posed for Man Ray. It presents a stimulating contrast between stone and flesh, emphasised by the complex lighting. The position of the head, at an angle impossible in nature and the imbalance of sizes creates a provocative juxtaposition.

He is quoted on his web site as saying,

Photography is so easy a medium to use, the box camera, a roll of film, a snap – a picture! Photography, the art, is so immensely difficult because it is so easy to get a picture of sorts. One must work hard to smuggle anything into a photograph other than record keeping. Erwin Blumenfeld, nd

sources - Wikipedia

links - artist's (estate) web site

added - 13Dec19

Constantin Brancusi

Self portrait (nd.)

b: 1876 Romania / d: 1957 Paris

Brancusi's La Colonne sans fin (The Endless Column) appears in the Pompidou Centre's 100 Masterpieces of Photography. When the sculptor Brancusi, a friend of Edward Steichen, expressed dissatisfaction with the way his works were photographed, Steichen suggested that Brancusi should take his own photographs. He learned to do so with the help of May Ray and the skill proved useful subsequently in organsing and siting his works.

The piece shown was first carved from a tree in Steichen's garden. The finished version, cast in bronze, stands in Târgu Jiu, Romannia.

sources - Wikipedia

added - 2Dec19

Claude Cahun

b: 1894 Nantes / d: 1954 Saint Helier, Jersey

Cahun's Self-Portrait, 1919 appears in the Pompidou Centre's 100 Masterpieces of Photography.

Cahun was born Lucy Schwob to a wealthy, intellectual family. She aligned with the Surrealists in 1920s Paris and is best known for self portraits.

Fig. 1 is similar to that shown in Pompidou and clearly from the same series. Figs. 1 and 3 and similar variants are often shown cropped to the head and torso or head and shoulders.

sources - Wikipedia

links - Guardian

added - 26Nov19

Luc Delahaye

Luc Delahaye

b: 1962 Tours, Fr.

Delahaye's US Bombing of Taliban Positions (2001) appears in the Pompidou Centre's 100 Masterpieces of Photography (p.101). After a career as a war photographer (including for Newsweek) and a period with Magnum, Delahaye turned to more personal projects, though linked to his previous photojournalism subjects.

In the example here, the image shows a mundane landscape and the cloud of smoke can only be understood as a manifestation of violence with the exolanation of the title.

sources - Wikipedia

links - Tate - Guardian

added - 26Aug20

Marcel Duchamp

Duchamp multiphotograph, 1917

b: 1887 France / d: 1968 France

Duchamp's Couverture-Cigarettes (Cigarette Cover) appears in the Pompidou Centre's 100 Masterpieces of Photography.He collaborated with Man Ray in various photographis projects and produced this image (fig. 1) for the front cover of a book of verse (?) by the Dada poet George Hugnet.

See Irving Penn's cigarette images.

Duchamp also figures in an earlier entry in the book, headed Broadway Photo Shop which describes a vogue in the late C19th for multiple portraits using "two mirrors set at an angle of 60 to 70 degreed, which produce a quintuple image".

sources - Wikipedia

added - 4Dec19

Paul Facchetti

Paul Facchetti

b: 1912 Milan / d: 2010 France

Facchetti's Untitled (Sardine) appears in the Pompidou Centre's 100 Masterpieces of Photography. He opened a studio in Paris in 1930 and while he worked on commercial assignments, also produced idiosyncratic, stylised images and was an early user of colour, here the Carbo process. Erwin Blumenfeld, who also appears in the book, was a collaborator. The test describes the image as,

Half Surrealist vision and half childish cruelty, this image combines tragi-comedy with the appeal of a magazine cover. Constantly present in Facchetti's work, these two features bring it close to the concerns of the Subjective Photography movement that developed in Germany in the 1950s, which stood for "a photographic art aware of its plastic function" 100 Masterpieces of Photography, Pompidou Centre, p.44

The sardine occurs in quite a few classic photographs. It is (or, perhaps, was) probably seen as symbolic because of the way it was packaged, particularly when the tins used those characteristic keys. See Stane Jagodic at Photo London, 2019.

sources - Wikipedia

links -

added - 14Dec19

Patrick Faigenbaum

Logo v.2

b: 1954 Paris

Faigenbaum's Nude appears in the Pompidou Centre's 100 Masterpieces of Photography. It describes how he gradually 'emancipating himself' from the influence of Bill Brandt and is best known for lengthy-exposure portraits of family and friends with high contrast lighting.

This intriguing nude is unusual for Faigenbaum. The pose and set are clearly carefully conceived and delightfully meaningless.

sources - Wikipedia (fr)

links - Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson

added - 14Jan20

Paul Graham

Logo v.2

b: 1956 Stafford (UK)

Graham's San Francisco (Man Selling Flowers) appears in the Pompidou Centre's 100 Masterpieces of Photography. It describes him as 'one of a generation of British photographers who - through their use of colour in particular - have radically transformed the landscape of European documentary photography, leading it in a more conceptual and artistic direction'.

The work shown in the book comprises six images of an ill-kempt man, on the street, holding a few unattractive flowers, presumably for sale. It is one of a series, A Shimmer of Possibility, where he photographs one or more characters in a variety of scenes which, although inconclusive, together allow, and almost compel the viewer to speculate on th story behind the character(s). It is an intriguing approach which might lend itself well to OCA's I&P course.

The positive 5b4.blogspot review refers to the sets as 'haikus' which, when I first read it, seemed a rather clever description, however, on second thoughts, haikus often tend (I think) to be precise in subject and meanng, where are these works are strongly enigmatic. A book review in a recent AmPhot † stated 'I would have preferred to see some more context and explanation. Many of the images seem quite ordinary, but perhaps hold a deeper meaning once you know the story'. It is difficult to know why, but I do not feel that applies to A Shimmer of Possibility in general or to San Francisco (Man Selling Flowers) in particular.
I suspect that part of the reason is because Graham has a reputation and therefore there is a tendency to reason that 'if he's good and decided to take, process and exhibit these images then they must be important or significant or good in some other way'. Perhaps so, but I think that the combination of the title (at least in the case of Man Selling Flowers) and images provide just enough information to intrigue.

sources - Wikipedia

links - Paul Graham Archive - Guardian - MoMA - Anthony Reynolds Gallery - BJP - ASX - Mack Books - 5b4.blogspot

added - 29Jul20

† of John Gossage's The Nicknames of Citizens, though that's not important, it could be applied to any number of contemporary books. 01Aug20 edition, review by Amy Davies, 3 stars.

Raoul Hausmann

Raoul Hausmann, 1919
by Hannah Höch

b: 1886 Vienna / d: 1971 Limoges

Hausmann's Female Nude Seen From Behind (c.1931) appears in the Pompidou Centre's 100 Masterpieces of Photography. It describes Hausmann as 'one of the most radical figures of Berlin Dada. Originally a poet, in the late 1920s snd influenced by Man Ray and László Moholy-Nagy, he turned to photography. Fig. 1 is one of a series taken on a beach with Vera Broïdo-Cohn.

The text quotes Hausmann,

Whether the image exploits natural forms or the transformation of light is of no importance. What is important is that our optical consciousness should abandon traditional ideas of 'beauty' and more and more closely adapt itself to the new beauty of the moment and its surprising points of view ... that it create these moments that will never return: then photography is an art Raoul Hausmann, quoted in 100 Masterpieces of Photography, Pompidou Centre

sources - Wikipedia

added - 10Dec19

Lucien Hervé

Hervé

b: 1910 Hódmezővásárhely, Hungary / d: 2007 Paris

Hervé's Theatre on the Roof of the Unité d'habitation Marseille appears in the Pompidou Centre's 100 Masterpieces of Photography. He was born László Elkán. Pompidou states that he 'patiently built up one of the most distinguished bodies of work by any 20th-century photographer.' His work on moving to Paris was similar to Doisneau and Ronis, but het met Corbusier and became his official photographer and also worked with other architects, producing sympathetic representations of their work.

sources - Wikipedia

links -

added - 8Jun20

Eikoh Hosoe

Eikoh Hosoe, 1989

b: 1933 Yonezawa, Japan

Hosoe's untitled 1952 image appears in the Pompidou Centre's 100 Masterpieces of Photography. It describes his darkroom technique of 'printing the photograph in terms of the shadows, then bringing out the rest by post-exposure'.

Wikipedia speaks to his

psychologically charged images, often exploring subjects such as death, erotic obsession, and irrationality [and]
dark, high contrast, black and white photographs of male and female bodies Wikipedia

My immediate thought on seeing fig. 2 was of Erwitt's New York City, 1974.

sources - Wikipedia

links - Artnet

added - 17Jun20

Roger Livet

Logo v.2

b: 1905 Paris / d: 1975 Paris

Livet's image of a flatiron being taken for a walk from a series of prints titled Une regrettable affair appears in the Pompidou Centre's 100 Masterpieces of Photography. He was influenced by but not part of the Surrealist group in Paris. In 1929 he made a 5-minute film calles Fleurs maurtries (Bruised FLowers) which his entry describes as 'deranged and incomprehensibe'. In 1947 he re-edited the film with the help of Jean Calvel and retitled it Une regrettable affair. The series of 19 prints of the same name was taken from the film negative.

The entry describes it as a tribute to Gérard de Nerval who walked his pet lobster. It also calls to mind Otto Steinert's Boulevard St Michel, Paris, 1952.

sources -

added - 8Dec19

Lucien Lorelle

Logo v.2

b: 1894 Paris / d: 1968 Paris

Lorelle's snap appears in the Pompidou Centre's 100 Masterpieces of Photography. Although not an 'official' member of the Surrealists, he and his brother owned the cinema where Buñuel's Un Chien andalou and L'Âge d'or were screened and their influence is clear. He worked with photomontage, often including the female body. Pompidou sees parallels to Brassaï and Boiffard in Catalepsie.

sources - Wikipedia

links -

added - 5Jun20

Dora Maar

Dora Maar, 1937
Rogi André

b: 1907 Paris / d: 1907 Paris

Maar's 29, rue d'Astorg, c. 1937 appears in the Pompidou Centre's 100 Masterpieces of Photography. and Maar has a major retrospective at the time of writing (Dec19) at Tate Modern.

Pompidou describes Maar as

Picasso's companion from 1936 to 1946, model for his La Femme qui pleure [and] an important photographer and Surrealist. Pompidou Centre, 100 Masterpieces of Photography, p.46

The hand-coloured fig. 1 is shown in Pompidou, fig.2 was used for the Tate publicity, fig. 3 is an example of Maar's work outside the studio.

sources

links - Tate

added - 07Jan20

Rene Magritte

Logo v.2

b: 1898 Belgium / d: 1967 Belgium

I was surprised to learn from the Pompidou Centre's 100 Masterpieces of Photography that Magritte was a photographer. It states,

In the late 1920s [he] began to take photographs as an amateur … In addition to the ordinary souvenir photographs, … he also staged curious scenes, Surrealist in mood Pompidou Centre's 100 Masterpieces of Photography , p. 24

The book shows his portrait of his friend Camille Goemans writing, in the presence of a dangling shoe (fig. 1) and comments on the presence of the string holding the shoe and suggests that leaving it visible if more Surrealist than obscuring it.

sources - Wikipedia

added - 4Dec19

Daniel Masclet

Daniel Masclet

b: 1892 Blois, France / d: 1969 Paris

Masclet's Planks in a lane appears in the Pompidou Centre's 100 Masterpieces of Photography. Masclet trained as a cellist, but turned to photography ynder the influence of the pictorialist, Baron Adolf de Meyer. He later aligned himself with more contemporary approaches to the craft with the modernists of the New Vision. In addition to his photography, he also cyrated exhibitions, notably Nudes: The Beauty of Women in 1933.

His Planks in a lane brings to mind John Runk's image that appears in Szarkowski's The Photographer's Eye.

sources - Wikipedia

links - Annex Galleries

added - 19Mar20

Gilles Peress

Logo v.2

born - died

name's snap appears in the Pompidou Centre's 100 Masterpieces of Photography. It describes …

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sources - Wikipedia

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added - artist's web site

Bernard Plossu

Logo v.2

born - died

name's snap appears in the Pompidou Centre's 100 Masterpieces of Photography. It describes …

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sources - Wikipedia

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added - artist's web site

Wali Raad

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born - died

name's snap appears in the Pompidou Centre's 100 Masterpieces of Photography. It describes …

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sources - Wikipedia

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added - artist's web site

Sophie Ristelhueber

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born - died

name's snap appears in the Pompidou Centre's 100 Masterpieces of Photography. It describes …

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sources - Wikipedia

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added - artist's web site

Denis Roche

Logo v.2

born - died

name's snap appears in the Pompidou Centre's 100 Masterpieces of Photography. It describes …

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sources - Wikipedia

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added - artist's web site

Alexander Rodchenko

Alexander Rodchenko, 1935

b: 1891 St. Petersburg / d: 1956 Moscow

Rodchenko's Portrait of my mother appears in the Pompidou Centre's 100 Masterpieces of Photography. The book describes how his adoption and use of the medium of photography was influenced by Stalinist aesthetic orthodoxy. Nevertheless, the outcome was an effective approach in isolating the subject and using unusual camera angles. Rodchenko was a rounded fine art and graphic artist whose introduction to photography was through collage.

sources - Wikipedia

links -

added - 27Nov19

Alina Szapocznikow

Logo v.2

born - died

name's snap appears in the Pompidou Centre's 100 Masterpieces of Photography. It describes …

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sources - Wikipedia

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added - artist's web site

Maurice Tabard

Untitled (Self-Portrait with
Roger Parry), 1928-39
[from MoMA]

b: 1897 Lyons / d: 1984 Paris

Tabard's Punu Mask appears in the Pompidou Centre's 100 Masterpieces of Photography. It describes him as, 'one of the most important French photographers of the years between the wars'. After studying in New York, he returned to France where he became involved with the Surrealists. He was experimenting with solaration at the same time as Man Ray.

Of their shown image, Punu Mask, trial print for a film on voodoo, 1937 Exhibition (gelatin print, solarised and covered with transparent orange film), this is described as, 'particularly striking and original … a very rare example of colorization produced other than by toning'. It may be recalled that the Surrealists liked masks, Man Ray's Anatomies, 1929 being an example.

sources - Wikipedia

added - 11Jan20

William Wegman

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born - died

name's snap appears in the Pompidou Centre's 100 Masterpieces of Photography. It describes …

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sources - Wikipedia

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added - artist's web site

Wols

Self portrait, 1940

b: 1931 Berlin / d: 1951 Paris

Wols (born Alfred Otto Wolfgang Shulze) Untitled, c.1938 (Kidneys) appears in the Pompidou Centre's 100 Masterpieces of Photography. Wols was born into a wealthy German family with contacts in the art world. He began studying photography, but left to work in France where he became befriended artists and photographers, was active in both spheres and part of the Tachisme movement of abstract painters. He published a book of art theory, Aphorismes de Wols.

Pompidou describes the featured image as,

a frontal, uncompromising image of this pair of kidneys on an oilcloth, emphasising the repugnant aspect of his subject by counterposing to the raw offal a multi-coloured tablecloth whose ovoid motifs seem to be multiplied images of the kidneys themselves. Pompidou Centre's 100 Masterpieces of Photography, p. 48

sources - Wikipedia

links - Tate

added - 14Mar20

name

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born - died

name's snap appears in the Pompidou Centre's 100 Masterpieces of Photography. It describes …

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sources - Wikipedia

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added - artist's web site