Kraszna-Krausz Book Awards announce Long and Shortlists

Header image: Swimming Pool in Wiesbaden’ (1934) © Dr Paul Wolff and Alfred Tritschler. From ​Dr. Paul Wolff & Tritschler, Light and Shadow – Photographs 1920 bis 1950 ​ edited by Hans Michael Koetzle (Kehrer, 2019)

Established since 1985, The Kraszna-Krausz Book Awards provides a platform that highlights a beautifully diverse range of Moving Image and Photography books. The awards are open to books that have been published in the previous year and are available in the UK. This year saw over 200 entries, from which short and longlists have now been drawn up and were announced yesterday.

In a year that has seen galleries closed and exhibitions cancelled, it seems timely to appreciate another medium through which to view the art involved in image making and some stunning end results.

The 35th edition of the prize sees some stiff competition and judging will surely not be easy.

Quil Lemons, “Purple” South Philadelphia, 2018, from​ ​
The New Black Vanguard: Photography Between Art and Fashion​
by Antwaun Sargent (Aperture, 2019) © Quil Lemons

Winners will be announced in September prior to a livestream event featuring conversations about the two winning titles, hosted by and
in partnership with The Photographers’ Gallery. This takes the place of the usual awards ceremony, allowing celebrations to take place safely.

You can find more information about the work of the Kraszna-Krausz Foundation and about the selected books on their website.

Left: Jonas Mekas, ‘At the Film-Makers Cooperative’, 1962.
From ​I Seem to Live. The New York Diaries. Vol. I 1950-1969​
by Jonas Mekas (Spector Books, 2019)

Right: Two Archivist (gloves on), Photographic Collections,
National Museum Wales, Nantgarw, Cardiff, 2016 © Sophy Rickett.
From ​The Curious Moaning of Kenfig Burrows​ by Sophy Rickett
(GOST Books, 2019)

From the press release:

‘The books in the running for the 2020 Photography Book Award and Moving Image Book Award address diverse global issues related to race, justice, identity, and the construction of truth, history and memory.

Ranging from illuminating artist monographs and anthologies to in-depth critiques of photography or filmmaking, to photobooks reconstructing hidden stories, and much more, the lists reflect the Foundation’s enduring recognition of rigorous and original books that will likely have a lasting impact on their field.’

Still from Revisiting Genesis, by Oreet Ashery. 2016.
Web series, 93 mins. (Courtesy the artist).
Erika Paul Mellon, Lucy Reynolds & Sarah Perks (eds),
Artists’ Moving Image in Britain Since 1989​
(Centre for Studies in British Art, 2019)

2020 Photography Book Award Shortlist

LaToya Ruby Frazier (Mousse Publishing & Mudam Luxembourg)

Photography, Truth and Reconciliation by Melissa Miles (Routledge)

The Curious Moaning of Kenfig Burrows by Sopy Rickett (GOST Books)

Moving Image Book Award Shortlist

Screening Race in American Nontheatrical Film by Allyson Nadia Field, Marsha Gordon eds (Duke University Press)

Frame by Frame: A Materialistic Aesthetics of Animated Cartoons by Hannah Frank (University of California Press)

This Thing of Darkness: Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible in Stalin’s Russia by Joan Neuberger (Cornell University Press)

2020 Photography Book Award Longlist

The Canary and the Hammer by Lisa Barnard (MACK)

Women War Photographers: From Lee Miller to Anja Niedringhaus by Anne-Marie Beckmann & Felicity Kom, eds (Prestel)

Seeing the Unseen by Harold Edgerton (Steidl co-published with the MIT Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts)

LaToya Ruby Frazier (Mousse Publishing / Mudam Luxembourg)

Signs and Wonders: The Photographs of John Beasley Greene by Corey Keller (Prestel)

The New Black Vanguard: Photography Between Art & Fashion by Antwaun Sargent (Aperture)

Dr Paul Wolff & Tritschler: Light and Shadow – Photographs 1920 bis 1950 by Hans-Michael Koetzle (Kehrer Verlag)

Photography, Truth and Reconciliation by Melissa Miles (Routledge)

The Curious Moaning of Kenfig Burrows by Sophie Rickett (GOST Books)

Where We Find Ourselves: The Photographs of Hugh Mangum, 1897 – 1922 by Margaret Sartor & Alex Harris, eds (University of North Carolina Press)

Jamal Nxedlana, Johannesburg, 2019, from​
​The New Black Vanguard: Photography Between Art and Fashion ​
by Antwaun Sargent (Aperture, 2019) © Jamal Nxedlana

Moving Image Book Award Longlist

Artists’ Moving Image in Britain since 1989 ​by Erika Balsom, Lucy Reynolds & Sarah Perks (eds) (Paul Mellon Centre)

Screening Race in American Nontheatrical Film ​by Allyson Nadia Field, Marsha Gordon, eds (Duke University Press)

Frame by Frame: A Materialist Aesthetics of Animated Cartoons ​by Hannah Frank (University of California Press)

The Brighton School and the Birth of British Film ​by Frank Gray (Palgrave Macmillan)

Film, Music, Memory ​by Berthold Hoeckner (University of Chicago Press)

The Lost World of DeMille ​by John Kobal (University Press of Mississippi)

I Seem to Live. The New York Diaries. Vol. I 1950-1969 ​by Jonas Mekas (Spector Books)

This Thing of Darkness: Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible in Stalin’s Russia ​by Joan Neuberger (Cornell University Press)

The Brothers Mankiewicz: Hope, Heartbreak, and Hollywood Classics ​by Sydney Ladensohn Stern (University Press of Mississippi)

Silent Cinema: A Guide to Study, Research and Curatorship​ by Paolo Cherchi Usai (Bloomsbury)

Aggressive Assimilation, by Adrian Stimson. 2013.
Adrian Jr./Old Sun Residential School/Adrian Sr.).
Photographic triptych, 50.8 by 162.56 cm. Courtesy Adrian Stimson.
From ​Photography, Truth and Reconciliation ​by Melissa Miles​ (Routledge, 2019)

Intro by Siobhan
Details and photos via Flint Culture – copyright as detailed; please do not reproduce images without permission

23rd July 2020