An American Century of Photography: From Dry-Plate to Digital

Drawing on Hallmark's major picture collection, Davis, the company's fine arts program director, here chronicles the technical and artistic evolution of photography since the 1880s in a richly produced accompaniment to a current traveling exhibition. The project's sweep is all-inclusive, reflecting cultural change from 19th-century sentimentality--and later a literal documentation of war, misery and disaster--to a ``circular process of signification'' seen by critics in today's fragmentation, construction and print manipulation for avant-garde experiments. More a reference source than a leisurely read, this tome nevertheless offers pleasant surprises and illuminates photography's amateur enthusiasms, social commentary, artistic innovation and technical achievement over the years. (Apr.)