Into the Sunset: Photography’s Image of the American West – Hardcover Book

The development of photography coincided with the exploration and settlement of the American West, and since the opening of the frontier the medium has helped shape the perception of the West’s physical and social landscape. Into the Sunset examines how photography has pictured, established, and transformed the image of the American West, from 1850 to the present.

Published to accompany a major exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, this dynamic survey charts changing myths and cultural attitudes about the West through the more than 120 photographs reproduced in its plate section and an expansive essay by Eva Respini, former assistant curator in the Department of Photography. The book brings together work by Robert Frank, Darius Kinsey, Dorothea Lange, James Luna, Richard Prince, Edward Ruscha, Cindy Sherman, Stephen Shore, and Carleton E. Watkins, among many others, arranged thematically in engaging spreads to highlight the artist’ differing views of the American West’s land and people. 168 pp.; 158 illus.