In Politics Unseen, Ellen Macfarlane radically reframes the ""pure photographs"" of California art photography society Group f.64, known for depicting Western landscapes, fruits and vegetables, flowers, and faces. By foregrounding f.64 members' and their prints' alliances across commercial, political, and artistic domains, the book shatters entrenched understandings of the group as disinterested in contemporary events and unseats conceptions of its prints as icons of modernist purity. Instead, Politics Unseen argues the politics of f.64's photographs become visible when interwar ideas about ""purity"" in the areas of eugenics, racial essence, nutrition, colonialism, and horticulture are interrogated. Ultimately, Politics Unseen alters perceptions not only of f.64, but also of what constituted a political image in 1930s America.
By:
Ellen Macfarlane Imprint: University of California Press Country of Publication: United States Dimensions:
Height: 254mm,
Width: 178mm,
Spine: 20mm
Weight: 907g ISBN:9780520399754 ISBN 10: 0520399757 Pages: 280 Publication Date:07 January 2025 Audience:
College/higher education
,
Further / Higher Education
Format:Hardback Publisher's Status: Active
Ellen Macfarlane is Assistant Professor of Art History in the School of Art and Art History at the University of Denver.