The Magnum Holiday Gift Guide, 2020

Magnum Editions Posters

We are happy to introduce the latest addition to the Magnum Editions range, Editions Posters, a new collection of contemporary works from 23 photographers, including three of the collective’s 2020 nominees.

Available in limited editions (100 unsigned and 50 signed, priced at $100  and $150 respectively) these 18×24” posters are individually numbered with a unique Magnum Editions label that is supplied separately. Printed on a luxurious 150gsm tatami paper using a digital print process, these posters are minimally designed, and the images will never be available in this size, or at this price again.

Featured above is Alec Soth’s Editions Poster image, taken from his famed book project Niagara. Learn more about the image, and the project behind it here.

Collectively, the works included in this first selection demonstrate the diverse visual language of the photographers working both in traditional photojournalism as well as more art-based practices within Magnum today.

All images in the selection can be seen here, or on the Magnum Shop.

Magnum Contact Sheets

Contact sheets are direct prints of sequences of negatives that were – in the pre-digital era – key for photographers to be able to see what they had captured on their rolls of film. They formed a central part of editing and indexing practices, and in themselves reveal the working processes behind some of the most iconic images of our times. Reproducing the originals at 16″x20″, Magnum Contacts sheets are intriguing historical documents, slices of photographic history, and a window onto the creative process.

The above contact sheet is Jonas Bendiksen‘s, showing the making of his famed photograph of locals scavenging for metal on a crashed satellite, among a  swarm of butterflies, in Russia’s Altai Territory.

You can explore the full range of Magnum Contact Sheet prints here, and read more about what contact sheets can reveal in the ongoing series, ‘Magnum Contact Sheets‘.

Magnum Editions 8×10″ Prints

Magnum has, since the mid-’80s, sold prints ranging from rare vintage prints, to stamped estate prints as well as editioned contemporary prints, and of course more recently the popular Square Prints. In June 2020, we introduced a new offering, the Magnum Editions 8×10” prints.

These archival-quality prints – each in an edition of just 100 – feature striking and famed photographs from Elliot Erwitt, Stuart Franklin, Raymond Depardon, Eve Arnold and many more, for the first time giving photography fans the chance to own iconic images from Magnum photographers at a more affordable price point: selling for $399, unframed. These photographs have never before been offered in this format, and once sold will never be available again.

Discover more about some of the individual photographs and the projects they originate from, here. You can see all 8×10 prints here, on the Magnum Shop.

Magnum Learn

Give a gift to inspire. Magnum’s on-demand online education series Magnum Learn commenced in 2018 with The Art of Street Photography which featured seven world-class photographers – Bruce Gilden, Martin Parr, Susan Meiselas, Richard Kalvar, Carolyn Drake, Peter van Agtmael and Mark Power – alongside industry leaders providing insights, knowledge and experience to guide participants through the a curriculum of ten engaging, in-depth, on-demand video lessons.

This was followed, in 2019, by the second course: Alec Soth: Photographic Storytelling, which features 19 lessons and more than five hours of material, covering a wide variety of topics; from Soth’s early development as an artist, to sources of inspiration, his key projects, and his insights on portraiture, editing, sequencing, and creating a photobook.

Magnum’s on-demand courses, packed with advice and insight to help one develop their practice, are ideal gifts for any aspiring photographer. Find out about Magnum’s educational offerings here.

Magnum Photobooks: rare, signed, and exculsive

For many, the photobook is the best way to engage with a photographer’s work, whether in the form of a single-project monograph, or a career-spanning retrospective. The meticulous attention that can be afforded to details of presentation, design, sequencing of images, print reproduction and of course the edit means that books can be the truest way to see a photographer’s work in the purest sense – the way they see it, and the way they want it to be seen.

The Magnum shop offers signed editions of Magnum photobooks, as well as rare and hard to find editions available nowhere else – like the signed mulitphotographer project Postcards From America, above. You can explore the books collection here.

Fine Prints

Photography, of all artistic oeuvres, offers a comparatively affordable entry point to collectors. Magnum’s Fine Print gallery features the breadth of Magnum’s print sales offering, allowing photography lovers – both established collectors and newcomers – to purchase vintage, editioned, signed or estate-stamped, prints. Spanning the breadth of Magnum’s more than 70 years of history, for the serious fan of photography, these one of a kind items represent artworks that can be found nowhere else. Explore the full Fine Print collection here.

The above fine print, by Thomas Hoepker, forms part of the New York Collection that boasts more than 130 prints, all of which can be seen here. Discover more about the making of these images and Magnum’s history in the city, here. Learn more about collecting photography here.

The Magnum Fine Print Gallery offers access to specialists, please contact gallery@magnumphotos.com to learn more.