The Book of 101 Books: Seminal Photographic Books of the Twentieth Century

Andrew Roth


The Book of 101 Books is published by Andrew Roth and includes over 500 full-color plates with essays by eight renown authors: Vince Aletti, Richard Benson, May Castleberry, Jeffrey Fraenkel, Daid Moriyama, Shelley Rice, David Levi Strauss, and Neville Wakefield.

Art historian Shelley Rice, in her illuminating 15,000-word essay “When Objects Dream,” surveys the history of 20th-century photography through the book. Richard Benson, dean of the School of the Arts at Yale University and internationally acclaimed expert on photographic printing, follows the developments in the art of printing from the photogravure to the new digital technologies in his 5,000-word essay “Photography in Print.” May Castleberry, independent curator and editor for the Library Council at the Museum of Modern Art, describes the production process for the reprinting of Steichen’s classic children’s book The First Picture Book and further discusses the challenge of exhibiting photographic books within a museum exhibition in her essay “The Presence of The Past.” Jeffrey Fraenkel, art dealer and book publisher, writes a personal account addressing the many pitfalls of book publishing in his essay “A Choice of Titles.” The contemporary Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama recounts the constructing of his seminal avant-garde publication Bye, Bye Photography, Dear (1972) in his essay “Reflections.” Neville Wakefield, art critic, theoretician, and contemporary art curator analyzes Richard Prince’s radical picture book Adult Comedy Action Drama (1995) in “Stand Up Comedy and the Horizontal Sublime.” Vince Aletti, art editor for The Village Voice, and David Levi Strauss, critical writer and professor, each write insightful 300 to 500 word essays that accompany the 101 books.

Price on request


PPP Editions, 2001

Trade edition of 5,000 copies.

Limited edition of 500 copies: silk and quarter-leather bound, cloth slipcase.

Deluxe edition of 101 copies: full-leather bound, silk slipcase, signed by the authors.


4to.; black-and-white and color photographs; gray cloth; printed wrappers.

︎︎︎ Exhibition