Publications

This lavishly illustrated volume rescues the lost history of the Foto-Cine Clube Bandeirante, a group of amateur photographers in São Paulo who, between 1946 and 1964, created some of the most spectacular modernist photography of the 20th century.

While European and North American photography histories are well-trodden, Fotoclubismo reveals how Brazilian photographers such as Geraldo de Barros and Thomaz Farkas radically experimented with abstraction and composition, creating a unique visual language that paralleled the country's rapid industrialization. This book served as the catalog for the groundbreaking exhibition at MoMA.

Toward the end of her life, Dorothea Lange (1895–1965) remarked that "all photographs—not only those that are so-called 'documentary' ... can be fortified by words." This publication examines Lange’s work through the lens of its relationship to text—whether in the form of her own field notes, captions by editors, or the context of the magazines in which they appeared.

Edited by Sarah Meister, the book unites Lange's iconic images of the Great Depression with less familiar works, arguing that the meaning of an image is never fixed but is constantly negotiated through its accompanying language. A vital contribution to the scholarship of social documentary photography.

A monumental survey of the Museum’s holdings, this volume chronicles the dynamic history of photography from the post-war era to the digital present. As lead editor, Meister worked with a team of curators to select works that represent the shifting definition of the medium.

The book features over 600 illustrations and offers a critical framework for understanding how photography moved from a niche artistic pursuit to a dominant force in contemporary art. It covers movements ranging from the New Topographics to the Pictures Generation and the rise of digital manipulation.

Before he became known for his color theory paintings, Josef Albers was an avid photographer at the Bauhaus. This focused study explores a unique body of work: photocollages that Albers created in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Meister’s analysis reveals how these collages anticipate the seriality and perception-bending logic of his later work. The title, derived from an Albers quote, reflects the idea that the combination of elements creates a sum greater than its parts—a principle central to both his teaching and his art.