The dog in photos: A unique history of our favourite four-legged friend

Forget #dogsofinstagram, this is real canine art, showing how the camera has been key witness to dogs in all their diversity, character, and friendship, from pensive pooch portraits to four-pawed action shots.

Todd Webb, 79th Street, New York, 1952 (Yancey Richardson Gallery/TASCHEN)

With more than 400 canine portraits, this book is both a picture tribute to our favourite four-legged friend and a unique history of dogs in photography.

From the 19th century right through to today, we see how the camera has been the key witness to our abiding affection for dogs, capturing their beauty, character, joy, and abiding friendship.

In celebration of the world’s favourite animal, we bring you over 400 photographs of or about dogs. With pictures from the 19th century to today, the collection includes works by Man Ray, Eric Fischl, Wolfgang Tillmans, Donna Ruskin, Fatima NeJame, Vincent Versace, and of course Elliott Erwitt and William Wegman. Together, their pictures, unique in style but united in canine affection, are testimony if ever there was one that dogs are not only best friends, but also pure photographic inspiration.

Forget #dogsofinstagram, this is real canine art, showing how the camera has been key witness to dogs in all their diversity, character, and friendship, from pensive pooch portraits to four-pawed action shots.

As intellectually as it is visually stimulating, the book includes captivating essays tracing the presence of dogs in the history of photography and their relationship with humans across the decades.

The author

The Dog in Photography 1839–Today Raymond Merritt Hardcover, 14 x 19.5 cm, 688 pages US$ 20 | £ 15 | € 15 (TASCHEN)

Raymond Merritt is a senior partner of the New York law firm of Willkie Farr & Gallagher and a member of the Executive Committee of the American Fund for UNICEF. He has been active in the photography world for over thirty years, serving as a trustee of the International Center of Photography, New York, and a member of the acquisitions committee of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and the Norton Museum, West Palm Beach. An avid collector, he has curated numerous photography exhibitions and edited several books on photography. He also served as a director of the SoHo Partnership and the Loyola Foundation.

The Dog in Photography 1839–Today

Raymond Merritt

Hardcover, 14 x 19.5 cm, 688 pages

US$ 20 | £ 15 | € 15