Louis Faurer
Tucker's book on fashion photographer Louis Faurer (1916-2001) deals mostly with his personal work, which focused largely on everyday scenes of New York City, rather than with his work for magazines such as Vogue and Flair. Until now, information on Faurer has been limited to periodical articles, text within more general works, and exhibition catalogs with more limited scope than is presented here. This new book, which accompanied a recent traveling exhibition, presents a much-needed overview of Faurer's life and work. The overall strength of this book is the analysis of mood in Faurer's pictures, which is supported by part of a Princeton dissertation that compares Faurer's photographs to film noir. Though Tucker, a curator and founder of the photography department at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, discusses Faurer's relationships with other photographers and magazine editors, more material about the photographer's personal relationships would have been helpful. Still, the documentation provided in this book is exemplary and includes listings of Faurer exhibitions and photos that appeared in magazines. The illustrations are also excellent. Highly recommended for academic, larger public, and specialized art libraries. Eric Linderman, East Cleveland P.L., OHCopyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.