One of the high points of 20th-century photojournalism: the Smith's documented the effects of mercury--discharged by a Chisso factory into the town's water and food supply--on the population and the Japanese government and Chisso's attempt to hide those effects. Photographs by W. Eugene Smith; text by Aileen M. Smith. 192 pages; over 100 b&amp;w photos; 9.5 x 11.75 inches.

Minamata: The Story of the Poisoning of a City, and of the People Who Chose to Carry the Burden of Courage.

Politics & Social Sciences

W. Eugene Smith

Aileen M. Smith

Politics & Government

Holt, Rinehart

Minamata is a fishing and farming town on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu. Its people joined the industrial age when the Chisso Corporation built a chemical factory there. The disaster that then befell them, and the ways in which some have managed to respond, reach far beyond Japan. Their courage is a flag of hope for all life - but it will have signaled no victory unless it awakens other people to action in every corner of this planet. An uneasiness developed in the town in the early 1950's. Many individuals fell ill with the same symptoms: limbs and lips tingled and then became numb; speech slurred; motor functions went out of control. Some died. Was this strange new disease contagious? Nobody knew.Minamata's disease was recognized as methyl mercury poisoning from industrial wasters. The mercury reached people through contaminated fish. Some doctors suggested that the number of persons affected might reach 10,000. So far 103 have died and some 700 others have been verified seriously - and permanently - damaged. As groups of victims pressed a turbulent, multi-sided crusade to force industry and government to take responsibility, W. Eugene Smith and his wife, Aileen, moved to Minamata. The result of their collaboration is an enduring document that crowns the work of one of the world's great photographers.

Minamata: The Story of the Poisoning of a City, and of the People Who Choose to Carry the Burden of Courage

HOLT. RINEHART AND WINSTON

Legendary photographer W. Eugene Smith's epic study of Pittsburgh in the 1950s. In 1955, having just ended his high-profile but stormy career with Life magazine by resigning, W. Eugene Smith was commissioned to spend three weeks in Pittsburgh and produce one hundred photographs for noted journalist and author Stefan Lorant's book commemorating the city's bicentennial. Smith stayed a year, compiling nearly sixteen thousand photographs for what would be the most ambitious photographic essay of his life. But only a fragment of the work was ever seen, despite Smith's lifelong conviction that it was his greatest set of photographs. Now, in an astonishing, first-time assemblage, edited by Sam Stephenson, of the group of core pictures that Smith asserted were the "synthesis of the whole," we see a portrayal not just of Pittsburgh but also of America at mid-century by a master photojournalist. In his accompanying essay, Alan Trachtenberg provides a critical reading of Smith's photographs, assessing Smith's attempt to document visually an American city in the context of the time period. 175 duotone photographs.

Dream Street: W. Eugene Smith's Pittsburgh Project

Arts & Photography

Individual Artists

W.W.Norton

The Concerned Photographer 2 - The Photographs of Marc Riboud, Dr. Roman Vishniac, Bruce Davidson, Gordon Parks, Ernst Haas, Hiroshi Hamaya, Donald McCullin, W. Eugene Smith

Bruce Davidson

Roman Vishniac

Gordon Parks

ERNST HAAS

Marc Riboud

Donald McCULLIN

THAMES HUDSON LTD

In French. No. 7 in "Photo Poche" series of Centre National de la Photog. B/w photos; 63 full-page numbered plates.

W. Eugene Smith (Photo poche) (French Edition)

Photography & Video

Centre National De La Photogra

Images from W. Eugene Smith's photo-documentary on the poisoning of the Japanese town of Minamata by industrial mercury. Photographs by Smith; essay and captions by Jim Hughes. First edition, 1991 printing. Unpaginated; 44 b&w plates; 5 x 7.5 inches. Bibliography, exhibition history. Text in French. From the Photo Notes series.

Minamata

Jim Hugues

W. Eugene Smith : A Life in Photography [Japan Import]

Crevis

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Books by W. Eugene Smith