American Photography: A Century Of Images

By Richard Lacayo

Instead of the usual parade of great photographers, this is more the story of pictures themselves, how they conquered the world and filled every last inch of psychic space. It travels from the Kodak Brownie, the memory toy that let everyone commemorate the everyday, to the computer manipulations that turn pictures into smooth lies. This is history that gives more time to mass-market phenomena and socially concerned work than anything formalist, unengaged or inward. So LIFE magazine, tabloids and the child-labor photos of Lewis Hine are all nicely served. Minor White, Garry Winogrand, Diane Arbus and William Eggleston rate less than a shutter click of mention. That's not the whole picture.

--By Richard Lacayo