LONDON ISSUE 136 Nov 2008

Recent releases by Steidl Books:

• 'Portraits of Power' by Richard Avedon. Juxtaposing images of elite government, media and labour officials with photographs of counterculture activists, writers and artists as well as ordinary citizens caught up in national debates, it explores a five-decade taxonomy of politics and power from one of America's best-known artists.
• 'Glamour of the Gods' by Robert Dance and John Russell Taylor. A survey of Hollywood portraiture from the industry's Golden Age, 1920-1960. The photographs are drawn from the extraordinary archive of the John Kobal Foundation in London. John Kobal was the last century's pre-eminent authority on Hollywood photography, and the first collector and later author who systematically sought to understand photography's important role in creating and marketing the great stars central to the Hollywood mystique.
• 'Patrick Demarchelier' by Patrick Demarchelier: This monograph is the definitive guide to the photographic career of one of the most prodigious fashion photographers of our time. From his earliest work at Harper's Bazaar to his now mythic collaboration with Vogue, Demarchelier has single-handedly redefined the fashion photograph and with it the fashion industry. His celebrity portraits have shaped the public personae of figures ranging from Princess Diana to Madonna.