Best Face Forward: Some Thoughts on the Portrait Photograph

A renowned photographer, curator, and critic offers extraordinary insights into the evolution and significance of portrait photography.

"When we contemplate a portrait," says Gerry Badger in his introduction to this book, "we are asked to contemplate life. . . . We are drawn powerfully to the person depicted." The relational aspect of portraiture comes into sharp focus through this personal selection of photographic portraits from the past two centuries. Here readers will find very-well known works by widely recognized photographers together with lesser-known, but no less superb pictures by lesser-known artists. Tied together with Badger's unique insights, these photographs reference and complement each other in an ongoing conversation about portrait photography's history, perspectives, and concerns. Each entry features a gorgeous full-page duotone or color image accompanied by a brief essay. Badger's exacting insights and encyclopedic knowledge of his subject lead readers through a scintillating discussion that examines "death" portraits by Hippolyte Bayard and Sunil Gupta; issues of colonialism and racism through works by Malaysian photographer Yee I-Lann and Samuel Miller's portrait of Frederick Douglass; portraits of women from the 19th and 20th centuries; and what is perhaps the first "celebrity" photograph of Sarah Bernhardt. Including a variety of mediums, from calotype and collage to palladium and ink-jet prints, this volume is a marvelously enlightening masterclass on photographic portraiture, as well as a unique and valuable reference work.