What They Saw: Historical Photobooks by Women, 1843–1999

$85 —

What They Saw: Historical Photobooks by Women, 1843 – 1999, 10×10’s most recent “book-on-photobooks” anthology in its ongoing examination of photobook history, explores photobooks created by women from photography’s beginnings to the dawn of the 21st century.

$35 International (OUTSIDE USA) shipping + $85 book = $120 USD
$7 USA ONLY shipping + $85 book = $92 USD

For Wholesale Inquires:
EU/UK: Idea Books — idea@ideabooks.nl
Japan: Twelvebooks — contact@twelve-books.com
USA: 10×10 Photobooks — info@10x10photobooks.org

Publisher: 10×10 Photobooks, NYC
Date of Publication: 2021
Size: 30 high x 24 wide cm (11.75 x 9.5 inches)
Pages: 352
Images: 672
Binding: Softbound with dust jacket, Smith sewn binding
Edition Size: First Printing: 2000 copies; Second Printing: 1500 copies
Weight: 1250 grams (2.8 lbs)
Editors: Russet Lederman and Olga Yatskevich
Associate Editors: Dolly Meieran and Jeff Gutterman
Designer: Ayumi Higuchi
ISBN: 978-0-578-93213-2
Printer: Ofset Yapimevi in Istanbul, Turkey

Press:
Collector Daily
The Times of London
Kraszna-Krausz Photography Book Award Winner 2022
Conscientious
AnOther Magazine
El País
Trigger/FoMu
PGH Photo
Blind
ARLIS/NA Review
Haaretz
British Photographic History
Widewalls
IMA Magazine
Leica Fotografie International
The Eye of Photography
Aperture: Announcing the Winners of the 2021 Awards
Aperture: A Look Inside the ShortListed Titles
Paris Photo
British Journal of Photography: 1854
Musée Magazine
All About Photo
Amateur Photographer
Shelf Awareness
Story of Books
The Photobook Review, Issue 20, Fall 2021 (Print only)
Delpire & Co (Interview)

2021 Book of the Year Citations:
Time Magazine
Lensculture
The Luupe
Internationale
1000 Words Magazine
Photo-Eye / Selected by Larissa Leclair and Mary Virginia Swanson
PhotobookstoreUK / Selected by Blake Andrews
Delpire & Co.
Deadbeat Club / Selected by Giulia Zorzi

Presenting a diverse geographic and ethnic selection, the What They Saw anthology interprets historical photobooks by women in the broadest sense possible: classic bound books, portfolios, personal albums, unpublished books, zines and scrapbooks. Some of the books documented are well-known publications such as Anna Atkins’ Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions (1843-1853), Germaine Krull’s Métal (1928) and Diane Arbus: An Aperture Monograph (1972), while other books may be relatively unknown, such as Alice Seeley Harris’ The Camera and the Congo Crime (c. 1906), Varvara Stepanova’s Groznyi smekh. Okna Rosta (1932), Eslanda Cardozo Goode Robeson’s African Journey (1945), Fina Gómez Revenga’s Fotografías de Fina Gómez Revenga (1954), Eiko Yamazawa’s Far and Near (1962) and Gretta Alegre Sarfaty’s Auto-photos: Série transformações—1976: Diário de Uma Mulher—1977 (1978). Also addressed in the publication are the glaring gaps and omissions in current photobook history—in particular, the lack of access, support and funding for photobooks by non-Western women and women of color.

Structured as a traveling reading room, publication and series of public events, the project launched in November 2021 with the release of this publication. The reading room is now touring internationally to allow the over 250 books in the project to be shared with a global community.

What They Saw Touring Reading Room Exhibition Schedule:
New York Public Library (NYPL), New York City (19 to 21 May 2022)
Enter Enter (with a rare book tour at the Rijksmuseum Library), Amsterdam (10 September to 23 October 2022)
Boston Athenaeum, Boston (2 to 4 March 2023)
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia Library / Space D, Madrid (February 2024)

>>More info on the reading room tour here.

Contributing Essayists: Mariama Attah, Jörg Colberg, Elizabeth Cronin, Deirdre Donohue, Anthony Hamber, Christine Hult- Lewis, Michiko Kasahara, Paula V. Kupfer, Jeffrey Ladd, Carole Naggar and Tony White.

Contributing Book Description Researchers-Writers: Rose Bishop, María Beatriz H. Carrión, Jesse Dritz, Taylor Fisch, Lauren Graves, Anna Jacobson, Paula V. Kupfer, Ashley McNelis, Katherine Mitchell, Frankie Moutafis, Carole Naggar, Caroline M. Riley and Kelsey Sucena.

What They Saw: Historical Photobooks by Women, 1843–1999 is a follow-up project to 10×10 Photobooks’ How We See: Photobooks by Women, which showcased contemporary photobooks by women (2000-2018) and began in 2018 at the New York Public Library with a tour to five other venues.

10×10 is grateful to the MUUS Collection for their generous support of this publication. The MUUS Collection is an organization with a mission to make visible their photography collection and archives through exhibitions, scholarship, donations, licensing, and the printing of images and books.

Additional support comes from the 10×10 Book Committee.