BY
PENNY WOLIN
When certain images come to mind that both capture and create our cultural history—photographs of Elvis Presley, Elizabeth Taylor or Albert Einstein; a final embrace of John Lennon and Yoko Ono—we may not have known that the creators of these images are Jewish.
Over a six-year period, photographer and author Penny Wolin embarked upon multiple road trips across America, photographing, interviewing and discovering the family albums of over 70 leading photographers of Jewish Ancestry. The results are an original work of art and scholarship that investigates the extraordinary skill of the photographic witness. It is the culmination of Wolin’s unprecedented face-to-face encounters with many of the most original photographers of our time. These photographers taught the world to see.
All texts and photographs © 2022 Penny Wolin
Memoirs and photographs of, and by, the most influential Jewish American photographers of the 20th century.
PRAISE
“The entries, arranged alphabetically, offer an intriguing range of opinions, styles, eras, and insights, together with large, beautifully reproduced photographs. A rich, well-documented collection for students of photography and Jewish culture.”
“Descendants of Light: American Photographers of Jewish Ancestry is a careful, elegant, illustrated examination of the preponderance of Jews in the top echelons of professional photography in the 20th century.”
“Wolin’s desire to interview Jewish photographers with a view to ascertaining if their faith played a part in their art is an interesting line of inquiry. It will surely contribute new insight to the history of photography.”
The J. Paul Getty Museum Department of Photographs
“Penny Wolin has been around the block. And across the country. Up and down the coasts. Several times. And each time, she has captured the essence of American photographers of Jewish descent.”
“This important book will inspire anyone who wants to think—about photography, art, the world and our place in it.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Penny Wolin is the author of three photographic monographs. Her photographs are held in such collections as the Smithsonian American Art Museum; she is the recipient of two grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities; she was a contract photographer with LIFE Magazine; studied photography at ArtCenter College of Design; film at the American Film Institute and visual anthropology at UCLA. She currently resides in the great city of Los Angeles and a small farm in the Redwoods of Northern California.