Over 200 photos judged the best of 1936 by a jury of 12 eminent photographers, including Edward Steichen, Arnold Genthe, and Lejaren À Hiller. Among those chosen are outstanding examples of art photography, photo journalism, sports photography, aerial photography, microscopic photography, portraits, and color photography. Cover design by Alexey Brodovitch.

U. S. CAMERA 1936 includes several images by Roy Stryker’s FSA photographers, including iconic images by Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn, etc.:

Is Photography Art? by Dr. M. F. Agha
Edit by Edward Steichen, Arnold Genthe, LeJaren Hiller, Ira Martin, martin Kent, Remie Lohse, Valentino Sarra, M. F. Agha and Alvan Macauley.
Photographs by Edward Steichen
"Our century will be the age of the photograph." --Waldemar George

In 1925, the critic, poet, and one of the founders of Surrealism, Andre Breton, posed the question: when would 'all the books that are worth anything stop being illustrated with drawings and appear only with photographs?’ A few short years after this statement, the photographic image had established itself as one of the most provocative, poetic, and radical forms of representation in modern society. A plethora of groundbreaking exhibitions, books and publicity, the work of some of the most influential figures in history of photography, ushered in the creative flowering of the medium across Europe. Unquestionably the increasingly effective presence of photography was tied to the emergence of these new recruits and their passionate conviction regarding its creative worth. [Kerry William Purcell]

Gravure is praised by connoisseurs the world over, because of the incomparably rich palette of blacks and shades of gray, the breadth of tonal range, and its exquisite expressiveness. Despite these qualities, gravure has pretty much disappeared over the last fifty years: the costly and time-consuming traditional gravure technique has been abandoned in favor of cheaper, faster modern industrial printing methods.