Masterworks of Modern Photography 1900-1940: The Thomas Walther Collection at the Museum of Modern Art, New York

In 2001, the Museum of Modern Art in New York acquired an unprecedented survey of modern photography from longtime collector Thomas Walther. For 20 years, the German-born art enthusiast had dutifully amassed one of the most impressive private collections of photography in the world, replete with pieces from the era between the two World Wars. This time of creative experimentation saw numerous styles and approaches develop in parallel, such as pictorialism, abstraction and candid street photography, before merging into modernism.
Photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson brought a new dynamism to their pictures by capturing people as they appeared going about their business on the street, while artists such as Man Ray extended a Surrealist approach to photography, placing props directly onto photo paper and capturing their ghostly silhouettes. Still more photographers continued to experiment with their craft and ultimately defined a generation of photography. Among the pieces included in this clothbound volume are some of the definitive examples of the medium.

Photographers include: Berenice Abbott, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, John Gutmann, André Kertész, Alexander Rodchenko, Man Ray, Paul Strand, Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen and Edward Weston.