Magnum Photos Marks its 75th Anniversary With Unseen Photos
Magnum Photo is marking its 75th anniversary by publishing 150 photos, some of them previously unseen, from its 25 photographers that joined the agency in the past 15 years.
An updated and expanded edition of its 2007 landmark publication Magnum Magnum adds some unseen images from photographers that include Rafal Milach, Emin Özmen, Nanna Heitmann, Cristina De Middel, Gregory Halpern, and Lua Ribeira.
The 700-page book will be limited to 1,000 copies with each book numbered. The first 75 books will be signed by over 20 Magnum photographers.
It has a large 390 x 320mm page size and was created in collaboration with Steidl and printed in Göttingen under the direction of Gerhard Steidl.
The book is collated and organized by photographers from Magnum. Each current Magnum photographer selected and critiqued six key works by another photographer at the agency and gave a commentary to explain the rationale behind their choices.
This creative process evokes the spirit of the founding members of the storied picture agency who used to edit each other’s photographs.
Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger, and David “Chim” Seymour founded the agency in 1947 in the shadow of the Second World War.
“Back in France, I was completely lost,” legendary photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson explained in an interview with Hervé Guibert in Le Monde.
“At the time of the liberation, the world having been disconnected, people had a new curiosity. I had a little bit of money from my family, which allowed me to avoid working in a bank.
“I had been engaged in looking for the photo for itself, a little like one does with a poem. With Magnum was born the necessity for telling a story. Capa said to me: ‘Don’t keep the label of a surrealist photographer. Be a photojournalist. If not you will fall into mannerism. Keep surrealism in your little heart, my dear. Don’t fidget. Get moving.’ This advice enlarged my field of vision.”
The book has been published by Volume in collaboration with Magnum Photos and Thames and Hudson. It can be bought here.
Image credits: All photos by Magnum Photos.
