The Photo League

The Photo League was a cooperative of photographers in New York who banded together around a range of common social and creative causes. Founded in 1936, the League included some of the most noted American photographers of the mid-20th century among its members. It ceased operations in 1951 following its placement in 1947 on the U.S. Department of Justice blacklist with accusations that it was a communist, anti-American organization. The League's origins traced back to a project of the Workers International Relief (WIR), a communist association based in Berlin. In 1930 the WIR established the Workers Camera League in New York City, which soon came to be known as the Film and Photo League. Its goals were to 'struggle against and expose reactionary film; to produce documentary films reflecting the lives and struggles of the American workers; and to spread and popularize the great artistic and revolutionary Soviet productions' (Anne Tucker, in: The Photo League: Photography as a Social Force. Modern Photography. p. 90, 1979).

Members of the Photo League

Members of the Photo League (source: The Jewish Museum New York)

Berenice ABBOTT, Alexander ALLAND, Lucy ASHJIAN, Marynn Older AUSUBEL, Lou BERNSTEIN, Nancy BULKELEY, Rudy BURCKHARDT, Angela CALOMIRIS, Vivian CHERRY, Bernard COLE, Larry COLWELL, Ann COOPER, Harold CORSINI, Jack DELANO, Robert DISRAELI, Arnold EAGLE, John EBSTEL, Myron EHRENBERG, Eliot ELISOFON, Martin ELKORT, Morris ENGEL, Harold FEINSTEIN, Godfrey FRANKEL, George GILBERT, Leo GOLDSTEIN, Sid GROSSMAN, Rosalie GWATHMEY, Lewis W. HINE, Morris HUBERLAND, Nathan Jay JAFFEE, Consuelo KANAGA, Seymour KATTELSON, Sidney KERNER, Gabriella LANGENDORF, Arthur LEIPZIG, Rebecca LEPKOFF, Jack LESSINGER, Leon LEVINSTEIN, Sol LIBSOHN, Jerome LIEBLING, Richard LYON, Sam MAHL, Jack MANNING, Phyllis DEARBORN MASSAR, Tosh MATSUMOTO, Sonia HANDELMAN MEYER, Lisette MODEL, Barbara MORGAN, Lida MOSER, Arnold NEWMAN, Marvin E. NEWMAN, Ruth ORKIN, Marion PALFI, Bea PANCOAST, Solomon Fabricant PROM, David ROBBINS, Walter ROSENBLUM, Edwin ROSSKAM, Arthur ROTHSTEIN, Rae RUSSEL, Edward SCHWARTZ, Joe SCHWARTZ, Ann Zane SHANKS, Lee SIEVAN, Larry SILVER, Aaron SISKIND, W. Eugene SMITH, Fred STEIN, Ralph STEINER, Louis STETTNER, Erika STONE, Lou STUEMEN, Paul STRAND, Rolf TIETGENS, Elizabeth TIMBERMAN, David VESTAL, John VACHON, WEEGEE, Dan WEINER, Sandra WEINER, Bill WITT, Ida WYMAN, Max YAVNO, George S. ZIMBEL

Photo books by members of the Photo League


This so far only monograph on Sid GROSSMAN, a comprehensive survey of his life and work, includes early social documentary work (1930s), more personal and dynamic street photography (1940s), and late experiments with abstraction in b/w and in color.
from 38,00 € Weight 1.7 kg
In German language 'Hinter der Kamera', Juliet Hacking portrays 38 of the most important personalities in the history of photography. By working out contexts, the portraits add to an overview of great innovations, trends and developments in photography.
24,80 € * Weight 1.3 kg
Pb., 14 x 19,5 x 4 cm., 544 pp., b/w ills., trilingual text: English, German & French
24,00 € *
HC (no dust jacket, as issued),
58,00 € *
Pb. (no dust jacket, as issued), 13,5 x 23,5 x 3,5 cm., 432 pp., b/w ills., text language: English
24,00 € *
The out-of-print volume 'Paul Strand at Work. Toward a Deeper Understanding' presents a selection of b/w images taken between 1943 and 1953 in France, Italy and New England. In these series, he explore the connection between people and the natural world.
from 38,00 € Weight 0.4 kg
A collection of various photo book titles by the American photographer Berenice ABBOTT (1898-1991). The titles listed in this set are already out of stock. This complete offer can include various editions of the same title.
998,00 € *
'Paul Strand in Mexico' contains the photos, he has taken in the early 1930s, reflecting the development of his idea of the 'collective portrait' in which he depicted the region through individuals, still lifes, architecture as well as religious themes.
48,00 € Weight 2.9 kg
'Shooting Off My Mouth Spitting Into The Mirror' is an unconventional biography of the work of Lisette MODEL (1901-1983), in which the author Eugenia Parry offers meta-fictional monologues with the artist and us with a new interpretation of the work.
24,80 € *
Re-edit, HC with dust jacket, 21 x 20 x 1,5 cm., 96 pp., 73 b/w ills., bilingual text: French / English
16,00 € *
For out-of-print book 'Ghana. An African Portrait', Paul STRAND collected and found motifs - landscapes, architecture, portraits, street scenes - that were suitable for documenting the transition to modernization of Ghana, who had declared as independent.
0,00 € *
This monograph provides an excellent view of the work of the US-American photographer Berenice ABBOTT, who not only made Eugène ATGET's work about Paris world-famous, but also pursued her own project about changing New York and did science photography.
48,00 € Weight 1.1 kg
This 5 volume project that present hundreds of outstanding ABBOTT images for the first time. These previously unknown images further clarified the range of her photographic activity beyond her 'Paris Portraits', 'Changing New York' & 'Documenting Science'
450,00 € * Weight 12 kg
New Ed., HC (no dust jacket, as issued), 24,5 x 31,5 x 2,5 cm., 200 pp., 128 duotone b/w ills., bilingual texts: German / English
39,90 € *
The photo volume 'Paris Portraits. 1925-1930' features the clear, honest results of the earliest photographic endeavor of the prominent US-american photographer Berenice ABBOTT’, which illustrates the philosophy that shaped all of her subsequent work.
68,00 € * Weight 1.6 kg
'Paul Strand. Southwest' reconstructs a previously largely unexplored period of his distinguished career through b&w photographs shown for the first time, including dramatic landscapes and decaying ghost towns, as well as a collection of notes & ephemera.
from 20,00 € Weight 1 kg
The book 'Berenice Abbott. Portraits der Moderne' gives selected works and explanatory essays on the three major groups of works - portraits, cityscapes, natural science.
0,00 € *
HC (no dust jacket, as issued), 30 x 24 x 3,5 cm., 336 pp., 361 b/w ills., text language: English
49,90 € *
Catalog for the exhibition in the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin with ABBOTT's famous iconic images from the 'Changing New York' series, early portraits and pioneering work as a science photographer, thus providing an insight into the work of a great artist
from 48,00 € Weight 0.9 kg
by Hans-Michael Koetzle. Hardcover in slipcase, 25,5 x 30 x 12 cm., 512 pp. - GERMAN TEXT ONLY!
98,00 € *