Clara Bouveresse

Women Photographers are Dangerous celebrates more than 60 women photographers who have long deserved greater recognition for their extraordinary work. Many of these pioneers, innovators and artists have ventured into war zones, politics, feminist activism and more. All have taken risks and freed themselves from established frameworks, simply by being who they are and doing what they do. Ever since Louis Daguerre introduced the first camera to the world in 1838, women photographers have been present and excelled in every field, from art and the sciences to journalism and advertising. Yet all too often, they are denied the spotlight they deserve. Written and compiled by renowned historians Laure Adler and Clara Bouveresse, these pages set the record straight. Featuring over 100 outstanding photographic works by women photographers including Eve Arnold with her famous Marilyn Monroe portraits; Vivian Maier, whose photos were discovered only after death; and Anne Atkins, who is believed by some to have created the first ever photographic image. Photographers include: Anna Atkins, Julia Margaret Cameron, Virginia De Castiglione, Christina Broom, Frances Benjamin Johnston, Alice Austen, Olive Edis, Laure Albin Guillot, Imogen Cunningham, Claude Cahun, Dorothea Lange, Tina Modotti, Berenice Abbott, Anita Conti, Lisette Model, Margaret Bourke-White, Grete Stern, Dora Maar, Julia Pirotte, Lee Miller, Edith Tudor-Hart, Gerda Taro, Eve Arnold, Helen Levitt, Janine Niépce, Diane Arbus, Lisetta Carmi, Vivian Maier, Agnès Varda, Claudia Andujar, Claude Batho, Letizia Battaglia, Marianne Wex, Martine Franck, Sarah Moon, Sandra Eleta, Abigail Heyman, Graciela Iturbide, Paz Errázuriz, Catherine Leroy, Christine Spengler, Paola Agosti, Ishiuchi Miyako, Susan Meiselas, Sophie Ristelhueber, Erica Lennard, Donna Gottschalk, Alix Cléo Roubaud, Sophie Calle, Nan Goldin, Anne Noble, Cindy Sherman, Pushpamala N., Ouka Leele, Shirin Neshat, Francesca Woodman, Lorna Simpson, Angèle Etoundi, Essamba, Désirée Dolron, Géraldine Lay, Zanele Muholi, Sara Bennett, Shadi Ghadirian, Tarrah Krajnak, Gohar Dashti, Laia Abril, Bieke Depoorter, Maya Inès Touam.

Women have been pioneering photographers since the earliest days of the art form. This expertly curated set of three volumes in the renowned Photofile series brings together 190 women photographers from all over the world, working in all styles and genres. From the imaginative experiments of the 19th century to the thriving art movements of the 20th century and on to the digital world of the 21st century, this rich and diverse overview will inspire readers to explore the work of some of the greatest photographers of all time.

As global tensions rose and the Second World War began, many women photographers found themselves under threat or forced into exile. Others worked as war reporters or documented the aftermath of the conflict, but a great number found new creative energy and an increased engagement with political themes. Photography became a universal language to communicate around the world, and it was used to demonstrate empathy with those outside the establishment and to provide glimpses into the daily lives of women everywhere.

With the rise of feminism, women photographers conquered the mainstream, with an increasingly commodified art world now viewing them simply as photographers and not merely a novelty or subcategory. Some women combined their photography practice with video, installations and other media, while others used the camera as a tool for questioning the concept of imagemaking itself, or for opening a fruitiful dialogue with subjects, instead of imposing an outside viewpoint. A rising awareness of environmental concerns went hand in hand with the issues of globalization and diversity.

Women began working as photographers in the second half of the 19th century, a time when the rules of the medium had not yet been codified and experimentation was the order of the day. Some opened their own studios, patenting their own equipment and carving out a place for themselves in this new artistic field, while others were obliged to work anonymously or under pseudonyms. As the 20th century dawned, women embraced genres ranging from pictorialist soft focus to documentary realism and surrealist photomanipulation, fearlessly exploring the boundaries of photographic possibility.

In the mid-1970s in the United States as feminism gained huge momentum, three American photographers Eve Arnold, Abigail Heyman and Susan Meiselas published books of a new kind. Combining testimonies and images, they offer very original documentaries of women at work, their daily routines and their private lives. The trio brought their own style and experimented with the book format while showing women in a new light through photography. Their work sidestepped clichés to create alternative representations. This catalogue reveals their unusual approach to their works. The first, Growing Up Female by Abigail Heyman, published in 1974, is a kind of feminist personal diary. The photographer casts a lucid eye at her own life and questions the imprisonment of women in stereotype roles. The second, The Unretouched Woman, published by Eve Arnold in 1976, shows unknown women and celebrities in unexpected moments of their daily lives. The photos were deliberately not retouched or staged and, through them, the photographer offers a heteroclite and nuanced vision of women far from the glamour of glossy magazines. The third, Carnival Strippers, published in the same year by Susan Meiselas, is the fruit of three years of investigation into fairground striptease sideshows in the north-east of the United States. Through the performers’ long testimonies, the book gives a voice to its silent subjects, depicting their work, their dreams and their ambitions. The images provide an original perspective of female bodies, revealing their invisible make-up artistry and the staging involved behind their public appearances. In doing so it reveals a surprising, previously unseen glimpse into their sometimes prosaic, sometimes harsh private lives. It also reveals the social conventions and norms defining the status of women in society, within couples or within the domestic space to reveal working women, striving for independence and freedom.