A beautiful meditation on the agency of photographs, this book on the Mormon photographer Charles Ellis Johnson is also a remarkable account of American sexuality, its rituals, and its prohibitions, down to the last strap unfurled from the last shoulder in that photograph earmarked for an eager customer in Fresno. Sexuality itself lies coquettishly hidden in almost all studies of ... Read moreAmerican art except this one.
Alexander Nemerov, author of Soulmaker: The Times of Lewis Hine Boasting the inclusion of over eighty images and large format printing with semigloss pages, the book is gorgeous. Fortunately, the packaging befits the thought and writing. . .beautifully written and already a breath of fresh air for a discipline that has all too often missed the historical significance of material media practices. . .smart, enlightening, and thoroughly novel. And these contributions, coupled with extensive historical research, are more than welcome.
Journal of Mormon History In Johnson's vast stereographic archive, Campbell has a treasure trove, which she frequently alchemizes into interpretive gold on everything from Victorian tourism to chorus-girl sexuality to Mormon historical memory to women's rights activism. Hers is a visually sumptuous book, filled with close and often sparkling explications of particular images. . .rich and fascinating.
Mormon Studies Review The story of Johnson and his art remains a compelling microhistory of his faith, and casts into illuminating light a story often told through abstractions. . .a fascinating book.
Nova Religio Charles Ellis Johnson and the Erotic Mormon Image is brilliant in its persuasive interpretation of the photography of Johnson as an act of repositioning the Latter-day Saints in mainstream American society. Campbell's extremely compelling analysis will have tremendous appeal to scholars in history of art, religious studies, American studies, and history, as well as to a larger reading public. Beautifully written and engaging, this book has my strongest endorsement.
Sally M. Promey, author of Painting Religion in Public: John Singer Sargent's Triumph of Religion at the Boston Public Library Show Less