Rick Poynor
Recent articles by Rick Poynor
Heroes of wealth and power
An essay published in Mack’s new ‘Discourse’ series accuses three prominent photographers of…
Godard becomes ‘Godard’
In 1961, the new wave director posed for a German fashion photographer. The publicity pictures that…
Palaces of petroleum
The adventurous design of a 1960 book promoting Australia’s fossil fuel industry offers a poignant…
The haunted shore
Images of spectral sea-bathers haunt the light-filled pages of Nigel Grierson’s self-published…
Netherworld of crime
A new book expands upon an impressionistic photo-essay about crime by Gordon Parks, including…
Eye’s early years
Issue 100, Summer 2020
Founding editor Rick Poynor recalls the aims and ideas behind the launch of an independent design…
Recolouring the past
At a time when image falsification is a source of concern, the digital colourisation of…
Instant object of desire
A Polaroid photo’s aura of ephemeral uniqueness lies in its small white frame and supercharged…
Whiteness made strange
A brave, if flawed book of artists’ photographs addresses racism through the lens of white…
Scalpel sharp
A UK retrospective examines the explosive photomontages of feminist artist Linder, from the shock…
Among the spirits
Nadav Kander’s poetic and mysterious portraits of celebrities steal the limelight in his new book…
Four-wheeled dreams
A new V&A book of photographs of cars fails to acknowledge the bigger picture. Photo Critique by…
Traces of longing
Issue 99, Autumn 2019
For Belgian collagist Katrien De Blauwer, making work is both an obsession and an act of therapy. By…
Defiance and revelation
A new book of Peter Kennard’s work adds context and background detail to his angry, radical…
Banquet of images
For its 50th anniversary, the Arles festival stages a
generous array of contemporary and…
Nature in captivity
Luigi Ghirri’s rigorously composed pictures of plants outside people’s homes exercise a banal…
A confederacy of lunches
A text-only book argues that ‘social’ photography is more about self-documentation than…
Two cheers for publishing
Issue 98, Spring 2019
A two-volume book packed with graphic design history is a visual blockbuster, but does little for…
Posters for the people
Issue 98, Spring 2019
Photographs by the Polish designer Wojciech Zamecznik investigate the use of posters as public…
Catalogue of things
A close relative’s colour slides show a densely layered record of everyday life. Photo Critique by…
From out of the blue
Volume one of Anna Atkins’ beautiful study of British algae, issued in 1843, was the first ever…
Awkward objects
The tradition of the painted still life has been reinvented by contemporary photographers with…
Streets without people
Emigre’s Rudy VanderLans explores the clotted terrain of Tokyo’s Shibuya and Shinjuku districts…
Hole in the head
An artful book of deliberately torn, anonymous photographs from the Cold War era leaves many…
Hardcore history
Issue 97, Autumn 2018
Cinematic view
Issue 97, Autumn 2018
A recent edition of Aperture examines the enduring affinity between two art forms. Photo Critique by…
Twisting the alien
Set to minimalist techno, Arthur Jafa’s APEX is a cycle of images that illuminate the condition of…
Scenes from an imperfect world
Even Don McCullin expressed doubts about his photographs of war and suffering. What is their…
Emotion pictures
Alex Prager’s ravishing tableaux mix glamour and unease. Photo Critique by Rick Poynor
No fixed style
Issue 96, Spring 2018
Mining the ruins
Issue 96, Spring 2018
When petrol replaced coal, the island of Hashima lost its purpose and slowly decayed. Rick Poynor…
Enigmas of abstraction
Photography records with startling accuracy. Why use it to create non-representational images?…
Different kinds of marginal
Diane Arbus’s unsparing images retain their power to discomfit. Photo Critique by Rick Poynor
Colour field
By choosing colour over black-and-white, Joel Meyerowitz pioneered a new type of American street…
Fabricated reality
Andreas Gursky’s photographs, manipulated like digital paintings, have spectacular impact. But…
Witness of the moment
A book of informal interviews with Henri Cartier-Bresson is testament to a great photographer’s…
Exposing the menace
Issue 95, Winter 2018
David King’s posters integrated type and image with power and uncompromising political commitment.…
Relentless riches
Issue 95, Winter 2018
A busy blockbuster traces the stunning history of Japanese photobooks. Photo Critique by Rick…
Mississippi dreaming
Alec Soth’s photographic journey along the Mississippi merges the documentary with the poetic.…
Graphic language of the wall
Brassaï’s photographs of graffiti with handwritten typographic treatments made striking, almost…
Bauhäuslers at rest and play
Issue 94, Summer 2017
Beyond context
Issue 94, Summer 2017
Mysterious equipment, unknown officials and arcane activities combine in a photobook that is…
The joy and sadness of dust
A familiar domestic nuisance provides the theme for this ambiguous and labyrinthine exhibition.…
Inner space man
Mike Halliwell’s montages illustrate J. G. Ballard’s The Atrocity Exhibition with a flair that…
Age of the female gaze
Girl on Girl – a new survey of 40 contemporary photographers – raises questions about the nature…
Double satori
For photographer Sergio Larrain (1931-2012), making pictures was a form of spiritual quest. Photo…
Modernist cottage industry
Issue 93, Winter 2017
For more than a decade, Ruth Artmonsky has been publishing modest, readable books about design and…
Reputations: Fuel
Issue 93, Winter 2017
‘We love collecting vernacular … it’s functional, not following a preconceived idea of what is…
Traces of a drifter
Issue 93, Winter 2017
Camera in hand, Harry Pearce dives into the urban underbelly in search of the unfathomable. Photo…
Elton John’s new vision
‘The Radical Eye’, the superstar’s opulently framed collection of modernist photography, is a…
Feminist scrutiny
Photographs challenge norms of female sexuality, beauty and domesticity. The first in a new series…
Take my concept
Issue 92, Summer 2016
Boris Bućan’s early posters display an audacity that challenges divisions between graphic design…
Browsing, or reading?
Issue 92, Summer 2016
A new shop demonstrates the global resurgence of indie magazines. Critique by Rick Poynor
From trade to poetry
Issue 91, Spring 2016
Barcelona’s new Museu del Disseny shows how design can claim a space for itself. Critique by Rick…
Depth and ambiguity
Another Way of Telling, by John Berger and Jean Mohr, extends the possibilities of the…
Cold War culture-jammer
Hispanic photomonteur Josep Renau aimed Technicolor jets of scorn at the mirage of US consumerist…
Online rhetoric
Issue 90, Summer 2015
Though intended to make its contents ‘democratic’, art website The Space is a perplexing jumble.…
Words and pictures talking
Canongate has reissued John Berger and Jean Mohr’s A Fortunate Man, about Gloucestershire doctor…
Trust me, I’m a photographer
Issue 89, Winter 2014
Pay close attention
Issue 89, Winter 2014
Adam Michaels and Prem Krishnamurthy of Project Projects bring deep cultural engagement to every…
Against the flow
Issue 89, Winter 2014
As editorial design becomes more predictable, Swedish feminist quarterly Bang kicks against visual…
Energy and emotion
Aperture’s new series of photography books may prove to be an essential educational resource for…
Readymade format
Issue 88, Summer 2014
An illustrated ‘gift book’ dictionary by Heretic brings Marcel Duchamp’s ideas to a wider…
The retoucher’s accidental art
Issue 88, Summer 2014
The reworked press photos now being discarded are unique objects and compellingly strange images.…
Photographer as page maker
David Campany’s examination of Walker Evans’ freewheeling magazine work – for Fortune…
Space for stories
Issue 87, Spring 2014
Visual Editions’ box of literary maps challenges authors to think differently about the structures…
Occupation hazardous
For ‘place hackers’, subversive and daredevil urban explorers, photography validates a search for…
Incisive vision
Issue 86, Autumn 2013
Eduardo Paolozzi’s gifts as a collagist have been neglected by the worlds of both art and design.…
Empathy and doubt in Arles
From the cool alienation of colour to the directness of black and white – Rick Poynor reflects on…
Screen prints
Issue 85, Spring 2013
Recently discovered posters for the RCA Film Society provide fresh perspective on the intimate…
Identity crisis
Issue 85, Spring 2013
Rebranding ITV was meant to generate a warm glow – not the heated reaction it received from…
Cold-blooded runaways
A third edition of Redheaded Peckerwood, Christian Patterson’s ravishing photobook, gives this…
An outlandish everyman
Issue 84, Autumn 2012
These short films throw new light on the eccentric collaboration between 1960s film-maker /…
Look south
In the first of a new series of Photo Critiques, Rick Poynor examines The Latin American Photobook…
American Gothic
Issue 6, Spring 1992
Barry Deck’s Template Gothic is vernacular in inspiration and futuristic in effect. Is it a…
A disappointing splash
Issue 83, Summer 2012
The woman who took on the Wolf Man
Issue 83, Summer 2012
Sława Harasymowicz’s first foray into graphic novels illuminates a Freudian case history with…
Crash covers
Issue 52, Summer 2004
J. G. Ballard’s novel resists attempts to summarise it with a single image
Documents of the marvellous
Issue 65, Autumn 2007
The authentic spirit of Surrealism lives on – in projects based on curious collections that…
Is anybody out there reading?
Issue 9, Summer 1993
The world made visible
Issue 62, Winter 2006
Motif, edited by Ruari McLean, was a quirky mix of art and illustration, with its roots in graphic…
Iran’s tantalising visual revolution
Issue 62, Winter 2006
Metafisikal experiments
Issue 72, Summer 2009
Tour de flash [extract]
Issue 67, Spring 2008
Missing Brits in Poland
Issue 61, Autumn 2006
Perfection of an empty page
Issue 13, Summer 1994
Parr’s ambivalent obsessions
Issue 74, Winter 2009
Borderline
Issue 71, Spring 2009
Metahaven makes visual proposals that suggest a new role for graphic design in public life
One week in pictures
Issue 73, Autumn 2009
Now we are deluged with more images than ever, we have lost faith in the power of the photo to…
The shape of a pocket
Issue 81, Autumn 2011
In 1960s France, Henry Cohen’s inventive photographic covers made Gallimard’s Idées series…
Essential on every level
Issue 66, Winter 2007
The magazine as laboratory bench
Issue 12, Spring 1994
Protest minus the politics
Issue 12, Spring 1994
Machine head
Issue 75, Spring 2010
Fritz Kahn commissioned illustrators to realise his surreal pedagogical vision – mechanical…
Poster boy for a lost Seattle
Issue 40, Summer 2001
Reputations: Robin Kinross
Issue 80, Summer 2011
‘It’s to do with meaning, which forces its way up like a root growing under a pavement – it…
Glaser’s genial self-portrait
Issue 39, Spring 2001
Running on empty
Issue 74, Winter 2009
Form follows purpose: Inkahoots (extract)
Issue 46, Winter 2002
Does this Brisbane studio offer a role model for socially concerned design? [EXTRACT]
Recent blog posts by Rick Poynor
David King: Books of blood and laughter
25 May 2016
Mission America
3 March 2015
Graphic and grotesque
29 June 2012
In graphic detail – Critique on Kiki
15 April 2011
Revelations in style
24 September 2008