Print matters: media and modernity in illustrated magazines, 1910-1970

Abstract

"This volume presents a nuanced exploration of how illustrated magazines shaped global visual culture between 1910 and 1970. In the early to mid-twentieth century, the vast majority of printed photographs appeared in the pages of illustrated magazines. Publications such as Life, China Pictorial, Drum, Picture Post, and Ebony did more than showcase photographs; they crafted visual narratives by combining images, text, and graphics into influential cultural artifacts. These periodicals shaped public perception and mass media consensus like the Internet does today, bringing a shared visual experience to homes and newsstands around the world. The essays in this volume delve into the technologies and visual strategies behind these publications, showing how their layouts were affected by political, commercial, editorial, and artistic factors leading up to World War II. The commentaries also explore how democracy, dictatorships, colonization, and modernity at large gave rise to experimental magazine designs, turning avant-garde art and lifestyle reporting into popular formats. Featuring over 150 images, Print Matters traces how illustrated magazines evolved across countries and continents, offering new insights into their history and enduring impact on culture and society."-- Publisher's website.

Contents

Introduction: the illustrated magazine beyond boundaries / Maria Antonella Pelizzari and Andrés Mario Zervigón -- Part One: Defining the illustrated magazine, blurring the lines -- The photographic condition of magazines / Thierry Gervais -- Archiving war (photographs): albums and the design of the Picture Press during the Spanish Civil War / Jordana Mendelson -- The spectacular and the banal : on the visual logic of the Illustrierter Beobachter / Daniel H. Magilow -- What is a socialist pictorial? China Pictorial and the art of Cold War propaganda / Yi Gu -- Part 2: Networks, platforms, and the traffic in photographs -- Made for distribution: Robert Capa and John Steinbeck's visit to the USSR / Nadya Bair -- The Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung and its photography supply networks / Andrés Mario Zervigón -- Paper routes / Jason E. Hill -- Media convergence in Angelo Rizzoli's periodicals: La Signora di tutti (1934) / Maria Antonella Pelizzari -- Part 3: Media ecosystems: learning from each other -- Fortune from below: picturing American labor before the New Deal / Margaret Innes -- The visual labor of photojournalism: Stefan Lorant at Weekly Illustrated and Picture Post, 1934-40 / Tom Allbeson -- With love from Germany: Regards as the "French A-I-Z," 1928-36 / Christian Joschke -- The militant photography of Vie nuove/Giorni (1946-78 / Isotta Poggi -- A world of Black women: how Ebony, Zonk!, Drum, and Bingo cultivated pan-African affinities / Tsitsi Jaji -- Part 4: Propelling modernity -- Vietnam Pictorial and the colors of socialist futurity / Thy Phu -- The beckoning (and still early Reckoning) of color in interwar America / Sally Stein -- In conversation with Susan Meiselas / Maria Antonella Pelizzari and Andrés Mario Zervigón.