Being Human: Enigmatic Images of People by Unknown Photographers

Description

Anonymous photography has a magic all of its own. The intriguing images assembled here by collector and curator Robert Flynn Johnson are all mysterious, but their appeal is various. By turn poignant, humorous, erotic, disturbing, their subject is the human condition. Ten stunning characters explore every aspect of human experience - both public and private. Richly produced and with subtle tonalities marking their age, over 220 photographs showcase the work of photographers whose identities have been lost in time. The images are never less than mesmerising, and include among them previously unseen portraits of stars such as Cary Grant, Richard Burton and Marlene Dietrich. Complete with an introduction by bestselling author Alexander McCall Smith, this follow-up to Robert Flynn Johnson's widely acclaimed Anonymous is a publication that - in taking in birth , marriage, death, disease, hope, glory, despair and a plethora of other emotions, events and human states besides - will capture the imagination of any reader.

Robert Flynn Johnson was for many years Curator of Prints at the Achenbach Foundation, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. He has been an avid collector of anonymous photographs for many years, and his previous books include Anonymous.

'These are not just relics of a past age: these are real people, human beings with full lives, captured, for a single moment, in amber.' - World of Interiors 'Fascinating ... intriguing and intimate' - Black & White Photography 'The week's `Best Picture Book'' - Sunday Times 'A tantalising collection ... Shorn of a context, these unknown people and their unfathomable concerns start to take on a luminous mystery ... a whole series of narrative teases' - Sunday Telegraph 'An entertaining and earnest view of human life ...shows how a compelling image will always have significance even if the person who took it has long been forgotten' - Amateur Photography 'Fascinating ... intriguing and intimate' - Arena