Print Matters Reimagines the Illustrated Magazine as a Modernist Powerhouse
This new volume explores how illustrated magazines shaped 20th century visual culture through the interplay of photography, text, and design
Print Matters
Media and Modernity in Illustrated Magazines, 1910–1970Authors
Maria Antonella Pelizzari, Andrés Mario Zervigón
Body Content
From Life and Picture Post to China Pictorial and Ebony, illustrated magazines were more than vessels for photography—they were sophisticated multimedia artifacts that orchestrated image, text, and design into powerful cultural narratives.
For much of the 20th century, they were the primary source of visual information for a global readership, much as the internet provides a social, political, and economic meeting ground for people today.
Print Matters: Media and Modernity in Illustrated Magazines, 1910–1970, (Getty Research Institute, $65) is a richly illustrated volume that reconsiders the illustrated magazine as a central force in shaping 20th-century visual culture. Bringing together scholars of photography, literature, media, and design, Print Matters explores how these publications forged a new kind of mass modernity. Essays examine the interplay of media within the magazine page, the influence of political and commercial forces on layout and content, and the global circulation of visual styles. With over 150 images and incisive commentary, the book reveals how illustrated magazines not only reflected modern life but actively shaped it.
Endorsements
“As the editor of VU once declared, photography was invented twice: first by Daguerre and Niépce and then, a century later, by the illustrated magazine. This wonderful volume investigates this second invention in fascinating detail, offering a global perspective on the development of a multilayered, multimedia vehicle in which the photographic image is combined with text and graphics to both celebrate and mediate the everyday experience of modernity. Featuring essays by a panoply of stellar scholars, this is a book that everyone must have on their shelf.”
— Geoffrey Batchen, Professor of History of Art, University of Oxford
“Print Matters is a brilliant collection of essays exploring how the illustrated magazine in the twentieth century became one of the key media for shaping the everyday experience of modernity for citizens around the world. The essays in this wonderfully illustrated volume demonstrate with panache how the amalgamation of photography, text, and graphic design in the many magazines that appeared in the last century both reflected and formed global forms of modernity. With essays skillfully analysing magazines from Europe and the United States to China, Vietnam, and South Africa, this is an essential volume for all those interested in modern print culture.”
— Professor Andrew Thacker, Department of English, Nottingham Trent University
Print Matters
Media and Modernity in Illustrated Magazines, 1910–1970$65/£55
