Magnum Cycling
Magnum Cycling
by Guy Andrews
It’s no surprise that some of the world’s finest photographers have worked in and around a bicycle race at some point in their careers. Cycling provides the perfect subject for reportage, social documentary and street photography because it happens in real time and real life. It isn’t a traditional stadium or circuit sport: the action happens on the street outside your house, in city centres where people live or in the mountains where people go to escape. The accessibility of cycling and photography means they share interesting parallels, culturally and historically. The Magnum archive contains work that is exceptional on both counts.
This book draws upon the Magnum archive to present a celebration of the great photographers who have captured those most fugitive of moments in cycling: the personalities, emotions and human endurance. It is grouped into thematic chapters, with works by a range of photographers, showing carefully picture-edited images with discursive captions. Each chapter also features one ‘story’ of an iconic moment, event or scene captured by a single photographer. They explore themes such as the Tour de France, track racing in the velodrome, winter training and the revelry of the fans and crowds, with images by a variety of iconic photographers, including Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Guy Le Querrec and Harry Gruyaert.
“Glorious”
“A heavyweight addition to shelves”
“This isn’t simply a book for cycling enthusiasts, but also for anyone with an interest in sports photography, reportage or just the Magnum agency”
“The world’s best photographers capture the world’s most thrilling sport It is a moving and addictive collection”
“Strikingly documents the sport’s history”
“A reminder that, among the strained sinews, yellow jerseys and mud-splattered victory laps, cycling remains the sport of the people”
“Visually stunning and insightful… The balance of text to photographs is perfect: Guy Andrews’s narrative and captions inform and elucidate, and then get out of the way of the extraordinary images that are the heart of this beautiful book. More than 200 gorgeous, intimate photographs in black-and-white and vibrant color present a view of a sport that is adrenaline-filled, fast-paced and deeply, tenderly human. Magnum Cycling is a superior collection of art, history and emotion”
“The photographs of a new book, Magnum Cycling, which collects more than two hundred shots of riding events―the majority from the Tour and other scenes in France―are unified in capturing something holy”
“Glorious collection of images”
Published in 2016 by Thames & Hudson
ISBN 978-0-5005-4457-0