I have combined the three books from the National Museum of American Art series American Scene at a price for the 3 cheaper than the cover price for one book. Shot by 3 different photographers Each book looks at a very different piece of American life and culture. In the National Museum of American Art's new series, American Scene, the series editor and series curator express a hope to present the evolving portrait of America in a time when the myth of the 'melting pot' has given way to a social fabric woven into a 'coat of many colors.' While that noble dream is well on its way to being realized here, the reality still does not quite feel like art. The work of Bernice Abbott and Robert Frank, referred to in the introduction, provides insights into American life but is also characterized by a particular way of seeing. These books have less the effect of art than of photojournalism-though perhaps the best sort, one encouraging contemplation rather than sensationalism. Unfortunately, the problem lies largely in the nature of series, the constraints of size and format and introduction, which here places as much weight on the editors' vision as the individual photographer's ability to see. That said, these are nonetheless valuable documents of today's middle America, by turns pleasant and disturbing, honest, and mythical. In Search of the Corn Queen - Greta Pratt. Pratt focuses on the county fairs of the Midwest, the traditions they maintain, and, most importantly, the people who attend them. Arndt photographs men, mostly working class, mostly in crumbling cities, establishing a sense of unity among his subjects that makes it the more successful of the books. In these two multiple-image portraits, public libraries will find a moving record of fading people and their traditions. Eric Bryant, Library Journal Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. Men in America - Thomas Arndt. For fifteen years, men have been the focus of Thomas Frederick Arndt's street photographs: men at work, men in transit, men at bars, men in uniform, men at rest. Arndt describes the photos as pictures of ... our male family, and in them he documents, through his unique vision, an Everyman as full of pathos as Arthur Miller's Willie Loman. Arndt provides an unrelenting look at the often lonely, sometimes alienated, always eyecatching position of American men in contemporary society. Men are always looking. For something. These photographs echo the question raised by Larry Heinemann in the introduction: Men in America. Who are we? He captures their common expressions and gestures against a backdrop of tickertape parades, the New Orleans jazz festival, the Holocaust Survivors convention, and gatherings of street punks. These men are the spiritual heirs of that classic place in Robert Frank's The Americans. Like Frank, Larry Heinemann, a Vietnam Vet and National Book Award-winning author, considers the raw dilemma of men and the uncertain assumption about their new roles in society today. Spainish Harlem - Joseph Rodriguez To live in Spanish Harlem, New York's oldest barrio, is to confront some of the city's most endemic problems: crime, drugs, AIDS, and chronic unemployment. Yet the mecca where Puerto Ricans first established themselves in the 1940s is now the capital of Hispanic America - home to 120,000 people, half of whom are Latino. Shot in the mid-to-late '80s, Joseph Rodriguez's superb photographs bring us into the heart of Spanish Harlem, capturing a spirit and a time that survives despite the ravages of poverty. In a now-distant landscape littered with abandoned buildings, ominous alleyways, and plagues of addiction, the residents of Spanish Harlem persevered with flamboyant style and gritty self-reliance. From idyllic scenes of children playing under the sprinklers on the playground, or performing the Bomba Piena on Old Timer's Day, to shocking images of men shooting up speedballs and children dying of AIDS, Rodriguez showcases a day in the life of the barrio.
