In 1974 Thomas J. Cooper and Paul Hill, then photography lecturers at Trent Polytchnic, Nottingham set out on a four year long project that resulted in them interviewing probably the most influential photographers of the first part of the 20th century. The interviews were compiled into Dialogue with Photography and an ebook version has just been published https://amzn.eu/d/33MywJV .
The interviewees were, according to the New York Times, the 'movers and shakers of 20th century photography' and they were originally published in Camera (Lucerne). On seeing the interviews, editor Nancy Meiselas (sister of Susan) at Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York signed up Hill & Cooper, and a year later FSG co-published the book with Thames & Hudson, London. Dewi Lewis then took on that role in the UK until last year. As all the interviewees are deceased, the book is unique, and there is nothing like it around today. In it one can read why Ansel Adams thought The Family of Man exhibition in 1956 took back photography as an art form 10 years, how photography never completely satisfied Henri Cartier-Bresson, that historian Helmut Gernsheim never paid more than £4 for any photograph in his stupendous collection; or about the effects World War Two had on George Rodger and, more surprisingly Cecil Beaton, together with anecdotes from Paul Strand about Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O'Keeffe, Imogen Cunningham on Steichen, Brett Weston on his dad, Edward, and much more revealing photographic history - AND gossip....
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