phy department, curatedThe Family of Manin
- All 503 images from the exhibition—the
most successful photography show of the twentieth
century—were reproduced in the catalogue as
black-and-white photogravures. Maco Publishing,
a magazine printing company, produced MoMA’s
first edition, which went on to sell hundreds of thou-
sands of copies worldwide. By 1961, ten editions
later, MoMA had sold more than one million copies
of the work, making it the single most successful
photography publication in the twentieth century.
During the Great Depression of the 1930s and
leading up to World War II, the market for fine
editions shrank considerably, attracting only those
who could afford what was generally considered a
luxury item. The so-called paperback revolution of
the 1930s and 1940s, exemplified by the stream of
inexpensive books entering the marketplace, drew
more readers into bookstores than ever before.
While mass-market paperbacks gained popularity,
the fine art book maintained its connotations of
prestige, aesthetic value, and collectability.
Within the first half of the twentieth century, the
comparatively labor-intensive techniques of the
hand-made calotype, photogravure, and woodcut
illustration gave way to the machine-made halftone,
rotogravure, and photo-offset lithograph. Later in
the century, as computers entered publishing and
print houses, digital offset computer-to-plate technol-
ogies yielded further photo-reproduction options for
art presses. In considering all art presses in existence
at any given time, the range of printing methods used
was as varied as the methods available at that time.
As the variety of approaches to high-grade art print-
ing grew, large commercial print houses tended to
favor methods that would accommodate longer
print runs and shorter production timelines.
The arrival of the new and improved halftone
screen was viewed as a great leap forward in produc-
tion efficiency, as printers could now place a photo-
graphic image next to lead type, then transfer both to
the same printing plate. In the late 1800s and early
1900s, brothers Louis and Max Levy of Philadelphia
developed and refined the press equipment used to
create halftones. The ‘‘Levy screen’’ came into wide-
spread commercial use, offering printers better con-
trol over the replication of photographic tonal range.
Walker Evans’s bookAmerican Photographs(1938),
published by MoMA, was considered the highly suc-
cessful result of a marriage between his black and
white photographs and the letterpress halftone print-
ing technique.
Alongside developments in the halftone process of
photographic reproduction, many publishing houses
began exploring the advantages of offset printing.
In 1903, American printer Ira Washington Rubel
and German lithographer Caspar Hermann indepen-
dently invented and unveiled offset presses to the
commercial publishing industry. Through continuous
improvements in the 1930s and 1940s, photo-offset
lithography offered economy and speed that was
comparable to and increasingly better than letter-
press. As color film types and color print processing
options multiplied in the 1950s and 1960s, photo-off-
set lithography became the process of choice for
the high-quality tonal subtleties yielded by its four-
color separations.
In the postwar arena of fine art publishing, the
fluctuating dynamics of international production
and distribution were widely attributed to the ac-
quisitions and mergers that would dominate in-
dustry news through the end of the century. The
path of Abrams Books is a prime example. Estab-
lished in 1949 by Harry Abrams of New York,
Harry N. Abrams, Inc., was considered the first
company in the United States to focus entirely on
art book publishing and distribution. Initially, most
of the Abrams book list consisted of imports from
European publishing houses. By the 1960s, Abrams
had begun championing emerging American artists
through its Contemporary Artists series and by
exporting titles to Europe. In 1966, the Times-Mir-
ror Company in Los Angeles acquired the company,
which was later sold to La Martinie`re Groupe of
France in 1997. Through such changes, Abrams
retained its size, and after purchasing the Stewart,
Tabori & Chang imprint in 2000, its catalog diversi-
fied to include such areas as cooking, fashion, and
interior design.
Larger publishing houses, particularly subsidi-
aries of corporate conglomerates, assessed the prof-
itability of a single new title or series against the
production costs of long print runs. By using the
sales channels already in place and extending print
runs further, many large presses were able to lower
the per-copy price of each book to meet an even
broader audience. Publishers who owned world
rights could distribute their books internationally
and release co-editions elsewhere. In 1991, Call-
away Editions published seven simultaneous co-
editions of Irving Penn’sPassage, which won the
prestigious Prix Nadar. The award, given by the
Bibliothe`que nationale de France, honors the best
photographic book published in France or in the
French language each year.
Many print houses, such as independent press
David R. Godine of Boston, relied on reprint pro-
grams to flesh out their offerings. With the neces-
sary legal rights and permissions, a publisher could
reprint or re-release a work using their own pro-FINE ARTS PRESSES