William Herbert Mortensen was born in 1897, and died in 1965. He was the Michelangelo of Photography. In 1921 Mortensen arrived in Hollywood and began working with Cecil B Demille. He worked on literally all of the Demille productions over a six year period. He was a Hollywood Portrait photographer in demand, and photographed all of the Hollywood stars including Rudolph Valentino, Norma Shearer, Norma Talmage, Lon Chaney, Clara Bow and Jean Harlow. But he was an odd sort, quite strange, and with a very definite "edge" to his work that was anything but popular at the time. Other photographers, consipred against him, and by 1931 he'd had enough -- he fled Hollywood and opened the Mortensen School of Photography in Laguna beach. During the next 30 years he taught over 3000 students. Working with writing partner (and muse) George Dunham, Mortensen produced over a hundred articles on photography, and wrote nine books, including this book, Mosters & Madonnas. All of Mortensen's books are out of print, and highly valued, some more than othes. This book is the prize of Mortensen books.

This is William Mortensen's acclaimed book, "Monsters & Madonnas, A Book of Methods."

The ultimate and most sought-after Mortensen book, not only his life's best work but by far the best reproduction quality of any vintage Mortensen book. Though the book's primary attraction for most collectors is the quality of the fine gravure reproductions of Mortensen's images, photographers and photo enthusiasts will also appreciate Mortensen's incredibly detailed, witty, and extremely entertaining descriptions of his artistic and technical approach to each of his best photographs.

Though Mortensen books and prints now sell at a premium, Mortensen has not yet begun to receive the recongition that he deserves. He was a consumate master of photography, and his books, all of them, are absolute treasures to anyone that has ever taken the time to read them. The wit and intelligence of his writing, combined with his technical and artistic mastery, is unlike anything in photography, before or since.

Mortensen's extended and publicized debates with Ansel Adams shaped the direction of photography in the second half of the twentieth century. Obviously, Adams prevailed. Some would say that was unfortunate. Photography has now recovered, coming full circle. Mortensen compbined multiple mediums, blurring the lines between photography and illustration, just as is happening today. What Mortensen did with pencils, leather stumps, bromoil printing, paper negatives, texture screens, and other manual manipulation, today's generation does with photoshop, dual quad core processors, and eight gigabytes of ram. And thus, the genius of Mortensen's work is finally receiving significant attention in art circles.