Everyday Beauty - (Double Exposure) by Robin Givhan (Paperback)

About the Book

These selected works highlight the beauty of everyday occasions and feature photography and films by known and lesser-known artists.

Book Synopsis

Everyday Beauty features fifty-five images that pay visual tribute to the extraordinary style and aesthetic of African American figures, famous and anonymous, by highlighting themes of self-representation, resilience, and civic engagement. The photographs depict people across generations showing how staged and candid moments can be both beautiful and precious. African Americans have long recognized the power of images and used them to document moments--from the monumental to everyday.
This latest volume in the critically acclaimed Double Exposure series presents a range of photographic styles by celebrated photographers--such as Anthony Barboza, Charles "Teenie" Harris, Addison Scurlock, Louis H. Draper, Devin Allen (2017 Gordon Parks Foundation Fellowship recipient), Arthur Rothstein, and Dawoud Bey (awarded the MacArthur Fellows Program, MacArthur Fellowship, or "Genius Grant" in 2017)--as well as snapshots by unknown amateurs. There are remarkable images by African American photographer John Johnson--whose plate glass negatives offer a rare glimpse into the everyday life of African Americans in Lincoln, Nebraska before World War I--and studio portraits by the Calvert Brothers of Nashville, Tennessee, and William J. Kuebler, Jr. of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from the early twentieth century.

Review Quotes

"Though only 80 pages long, this wonderful work beams with a racial pride that radiates out well beyond its diminutive dimensions"--Publishers Weekly on Fighting for Freedom "The work in Through the African American Lens is compelling and historic"--Maurice Berger, The New York Times, Lens "Does a brilliant job of extracting the singularly unique experience of black women throughout the 20th century"--Nicole Crowder, The Washington Post, In Sight on African American Women "Though the collection features both portraits and candid shots, taken together they offer a window into both individual lives and the arc of American history"--Liz Ronk, TIME

About the Author

Robin Givhan is a staff writer and the Washington Post fashion critic. Her work has appeared in Harper's Bazaar, Essence, Vogue, New York magazine, The Daily Beast, and the New Yorker. In 2015 she published her first solo book, The Battle of Versailles: The Night American Fashion Stumbled into the Spotlight and Made History. In 2006 she received the Pulitzer Prize in criticism "for her witty, closely observed essays that transform fashion criticism into cultural criticism." Givhan received a Bachelor of Arts in English (Princeton University, 1986) and a Masters of Science in Journalism (University of Michigan, 1988).