Overview

Todd Webb is largely known for his skillful photographic documentation of everyday life and architecture in cities, most notably New York and Paris, as well as his photographs of the American West. This new book showcases a different side of Webb's work, taken from an assignment that took him to eight African countries. In 1958, Webb was invited by the United Nations to document Togoland (now Togo), Ghana, Kenya, the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (now Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi), Somaliland (now Somalia), Sudan, Tanganyika and Zanzibar (now merged as Tanzania) over a five-month assignment. Equipped with three cameras and briefed to document industrial progress, he returned with approximately 1,500 colour negatives, but less than twenty of them were published, in black and white, by the United Nations Department of Public Information. The archive was then lost for over fifty years and was only rediscovered by the Todd Webb Archive in 2017. Todd Webb in Africa includes over 150 striking colour photographs from Webb's African United Nations assignment. This book, and an accompanying touring exhibition, provides expert insight into Webb's images with contributions by both African and American scholars. Accompanying essays place the photographs in their historical and artistic moment, and provide crucial insight into the role of photography in visualizing national independence and ingrained imperialism. With 203 illustrations in colour

Full Product Details

Author:   Aimée Bessire ,  Erin Hyde Nolan ,  Ali Jimale Ahmed ,  James Barnor
Publisher:   Thames & Hudson Ltd
Imprint:   Thames & Hudson Ltd
Weight:   1.860kg
ISBN:  

9780500545393

ISBN 10:   0500545391
Pages:   256
Publication Date:   21 January 2021
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In stock  
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Table of Contents

Introduction: Aimée Bessire and Erin Hyde Nolan 'Lost and Found: Rediscovering Todd Webb’s Photographs of Africa', Betsy Evans Hunt 'Todd Webb’s African Itinerary: Historical Synopsis of the African Countries Visited by Todd Webb in 1958', Jan-Lodewijk Grootaers TOGOLAND (TOGO) Plate Section: Togo A Snapshot of the Togoland (Togo) Election, 1958, Aimée Bessire The Myth of Africa, Aimée Bessire Eyewitnesses to History: African Photographers in Togo and Ghana (1880–1960), Christraud M. Geary GHANA Plate Section: Ghana James Barnor on Photography in Ghana in the 1950s, James Barnor in conversation with Aimée Bessire Seeing in Color: Todd Webb’s Color Photography and the United Nations Commission, Aimée Bessire SUDAN Plate Section: Sudan Land/scaping: Todd Webb’s Representations of the Changing Topography of Africa, Erin Hyde Nolan SOMALILAND (SOMALIA) Plate Section: Somalia Todd Webb’s Excursions into Somalia, Ali Jimale Ahmed FEDERATION OF RHODESIA AND NYASALAND (Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) Plate Section: Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland Yesterday Today Tomorrow Bush—Shooting in the Federation, Gary van Wyk Of Color: Todd Webb’s Images of Africa in the American Civil Rights Era, Casey Riley TANGANYIKA, ZANZIBAR (Tanzania) AND KENYA (TANZANIA AND KENYA) Plate Section: Tanganikya, Zanzibar, and Kenya Listening to Todd Webb’s Images of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, Rehema Chachage Mileage from Here: Nine Narratives, Emmanuel Iduma Endnotes • United Nations Images with Captions • United Nations Brochure • Bibliography • Author Biographies

Reviews

'Extraordinary' - Guardian 'A fascinating photographic journey by one of the twentieth century’s great photographers' - Creative Boom 'Remarkable' - The Eye of Photography 'A gem of a book. It is a stunning collection of never-before seen photographs, beautifully produced and sensitively contextualized' - The Article 'Intriguing' - World of Interiors 'Captivating' - Amateur Photographer

'Extraordinary' - Guardian 'A fascinating photographic journey by one of the twentieth century's great photographers' - Creative Boom 'Remarkable' - The Eye of Photography 'A gem of a book. It is a stunning collection of never-before seen photographs, beautifully produced and sensitively contextualized' - The Article 'Intriguing' - World of Interiors 'Captivating' - Amateur Photographer

Author Information

Todd Webb (1905-2000) was an American photographer active from the late 1930s to the 1980s whose work has attained an important place in the annals of American photographic history. Previous books on Todd Webb include I See A City, also published by Thames & Hudson. Aimée Bessire is Professor of African art history and cultural studies at Bates College in Maine. She has co-curated exhibitions including 'The Art of Identity: African Sculpture from the Teel Collection' (Fogg Museum, Harvard 1996) and 'Convulsive Beauty: The Impact of Surrealism on American Art' (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York 1988). Erin Hyde Nolan is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Maine College of Art, where she teaches the history of photography and visual culture. She was the manager of the Todd Webb Archive from 2010 to 2015.

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