Minor White: Memorable Fancies

The personal journals of one of postwar America’s most influential photographers, published for the first time

One of the most significant unpublished texts in the history of photography, Memorable Fancies is the daybooks of Minor White, an artist who played a leading role in shaping the practice of photography in postwar America. Begun in the early 1930s and taking its name from a series of dialogues in William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, these writings are part diary, part photography manual, and part aesthetic treatise. Minor White, Memorable Fancies presents this work in its entirety for the first time, offering an intimate look at the ideas and interior life of one of the most important photographers of the twentieth century.

In this beautifully illustrated volume, art historian Todd Cronan sheds light on White’s guiding concerns and the connections between White’s writings and his public practice as a photographer and influential publisher and teacher. White’s journal is accompanied by an array of photographs by White as well as annotations that provide background and context, illuminating White’s life and career while capturing a vibrant and inventive moment in the history of modern photography.

Challenging our assumptions about photographic agency and the interplay between art and life, Minor White, Memorable Fancies engages deeply with the creative potential of photographic work, the nature and effect of artworks on viewers, and the formative role that chance plays in the production of photographs.

Distributed for the Princeton University Art Museum

Minor White (1908-1976) was an American photographer, writer, educator, and cofounder of Aperture magazine. Todd Cronan is professor of art history at Emory University.