L Is for Look: Children's Photobooks

From the ABCs to fairy tale reinterpretations--tracing the history of a surprisingly multidisciplinary genre, children's photobooks

Dedicated to the history of the children's photobook, L Is for Look brings together more than 100 albums published across the world, covering all the different categories of children's literature, from ABC books to reinterpretations of traditional fairy tales. From its emergence--marked by the development in the 1930s of new teaching methods based on images rather than text--through to the present day, the children's photobook has served as a stimulus for children to question and nurture their view of the world. Explored by some of the major figures in photography, the genre is notable for predominately attracting women photographers and uniting a diversity of disciplines, such as the graphic arts and live performance.
Photobooks include: Aenne Biermann: 60 Photos (1930), Mary Steichen Martin: The First Picture Book (1930), Ylla: Animals (1950), Robert Doisneau: 1,2,3,4,5 (1955), Stefan Moses: Manuel (1967), Tana Hoban: Count and See (1972), Shigeichi Nagano: The Hospital at Night (1979), Bruno Munari: Ciccì Coccò (1982), Robert Wood: What's Next? (1982), Tomi Ungerer: Clic Clac (1989), Cindy Sherman: Fitcher's Bird (1992), Annette Messager: Rions Noir (2003), William Wegmann: Flo & Wendell (2013).