America in Black and White

This book reveals the stunning early work of John G. Zimmerman (1927-2002), a true icon of American photography. His massive oeuvre gives a unique panorama of American life and culture in the second half of the twentieth century. This publication presents a selection of black-and-white pictures, shot between 1950 and 1978, which show the rough and uncut visual ingenuity of Zimmerman. Zimmerman was a man of many facets and his pictures cover a diversity of subjects, ranging from sports, fashion, arts and architecture to politics and the Jim Crow South of the 1950s. From producing whimsical ads to covering exclusive stories for mainstream magazines such as Life, Time, Sports Illustrated and Paris Match, from photographing the Beatles to shooting the disastrous fire at a General Motors plant... Zimmerman could do it all and did it - always pushing the boundaries of the photographic medium. In his endless search for a new visual language and the essence of movement, he created whatever he needed to make the seemingly impossible possible. John G. Zimmerman was a refined chronicler, who wanted to depict every sphere of society, but above all wanted to see, to see more, to see it all. AUTHOR: Arne De Winde is lecturer and researcher at PXL-MAD School of Arts and the Department of Literary Studies of the University of Leuven (Belgium). Francis Hodgson is Professor in the Culture of Photography at the University of Brighton, having established himself as a critical writer on photography. Oliver Kohns teaches German and Comparative Literature at the University of Luxembourg. His main research interests are literary theory, and European literatures of the 18th to the 21st century. Daniel Pena is a Pushcart Prize winning author and Assistant Professor at the University of Houston Downtown where he teaches in the Department of English. 100 b/w images