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PAUL HOGARTH
Paul Hogarth is a reportage illustration legend. As well as numerous books that collect his works via subject, he also wrote this book on the subject. I managed to nab a copy from ex library stock.

The book is formed around a chronological history of reportage (or the artist as reporter, as Hogarth titles it) illustration and art. Setting the scene with a history of social development and evolution through art and war artists in the Crimea right through to the 60s, which would have been absolutely current at the time the book went to press.

Hogarth laments and celebrates fluctuations in the art forms uses in printed media over the course of each chapter, offering a context to explain those fluctuations, but one can't help but feel that from out perspective, reportage is all but gone. Certainly it's no longer a staple of magazines being as it's an odd rarity to find an article or report carried out fully by a visual artist. So whilst there might well have been a post WW2 dip in commissioned reportage due to paper costs or a peak during the 60s because of clear integration and sympathy with the pop art scene.

​If Hogarth was able to update his book to bring chapters through to the 21st century, his book might take the tone of a eulogy.