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Fascinating pictorials of the lost world of late 1940s America, from the lens of a pre-filmmaking teenaged Stanley Kubrick.

Stanley Kubrick: Drama & Shadows, published by Phaidon Press, is the first major publication of early photographs by renowned filmmaker Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999), taken between 1945 and 1950 — many of them never before seen by the general public. Kubrick made these fascinating photographs while he was a staff photographer for the New York - based Look magazine, following his graduation from high school and before he made his first films.

Thematic

Stanley Kubrick: Drama & Shadows shows the young Kubrick experimenting with image composition and reveals his attraction to dramatic, often psychologically intense subjects and narratives that would become elements of his recognisable style as a director. Divided into four thematic chapters (‘Metropolitan Life’, ‘Entertainment’, ‘Celebrities’, and ‘Human Behaviour’), this photo book features a carefully selected group of approximately 350 photographs organised into 37 photographic stories. An insightful introductory essay provides context and examines Kubrick’s photographs in relation to the history of photography.

Born in New York City in 1928, Stanley Kubrick began taking photographs when he was in high school. At sixteen, he sent a photograph he had taken of a newsstand after President Roosevelt’s death to Look Magazine. The publication of the photograph marked the beginning of Kubrick’s work for the magazine, which lasted until 1950, when he made his first 16mm documentary film. During those five years Kubrick completed dozens of photographic reportage assignments in New York City as well as abroad. The resulting thousands of negatives have remained in the archives of Look Magazine ever since.

New York

Kubrick’s photographs vary in subject, but people are the central focus of attention, as is his commitment to narration. Whether capturing the meditative state of passengers in a series of portraits made in the New York subway, following the boxer Rocky Graziano on the ring and in intimate moments, portraying the coming of age of socialite Betsy Von Fürstenberg, or narrating the tale of a shoe-shine boy in the streets of New York City, Kubrick takes pictures that combine tenderness, drama, irony, and often mystery, anticipating his cinematic style.

If Kubrick’s photographs are fascinating accounts of life in the late 1940s, they are also a major contribution to American photography of that era. At only 19 years old, Kubrick already had an immense talent in constructing complex compositions in which camera positioning and lighting played a crucial role.

Crone is an expert on Kubrick’s photographic work, and as an art historian, he examines Kubrick’s photographs in relation to not only his later films but also the history of twentieth-century art and photography.

Pictures As Parables

The book includes a first-class prologue by Jeff Wall, a foreward looking at Kubrick’s 'Epic Pictures as Parables’, written by the books author/editor Rainer Crone and a series of short essays looking at aspects of the great filmmakers’ work in the light of the images presented herein. These include the studious ‘Stanley Kubrick: Inventor of Facts’, written by Petrus Schaesberg and ‘Beyond the Looking Glass: Kubrick and Self-Reflectivity’ by Alexandra von Stosch. The volume is completed with a full notes section; details of suggested further reading; a full filmography and photo credits.

An invaluable contribution to the history of photography, this book explores how one of the most influential and successful film directors of our time used photography to master visual techniques and cultivate his signature style.

Author Rainer Crone holds the Chair for 20th Century Art and Media at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany. Formerly an Associate Professor of Art History at Columbia University, he is the author of the first monograph on Andy Warhol (1970), and has since widely published on twentieth century art and artists. His most recent books include: Louise Bourgeois, the Secret of the Cells (Prestel, 1998), Auguste Rodin: Eros and Creativity (Prestel, 1991), and Kasimir Malevitch: The Climax of Disclosure (Reaktion Books, 1991). He lives variously in Munich, Germany and Hampton Bays, New York.

Stanley Kubrick: Drama & Shadows by Rainer Crone is out now as a 420 page hardback volume, illustrated with 350 black and white photographs, priced £39.95/€59.95. The book is published by Phaidon Press.

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