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Distributed for National University of Singapore Press

Marjorie Doggett’s Singapore

A Photographic Record

With Photographs and Other Contributions by Marjorie Doggett
An evocative interplay of photos and texts, this is a tribute to a pioneer woman photographer, Marjorie Doggett. Born in England, Doggett was a self-taught photographer. She had arrived in Singapore in early 1947, a city she would call home until her death. Starting in the early ’50s, camera in hand, she captured the cityscape of Singapore for posterity. In 1957, she published the pioneering collection Characters of Light. It was the first photo book to fully portray Singapore’s urban setting and architecture. And it was the first local photographic book by a woman.

Marjorie Doggett’s Singapore features many of Doggett’s unpublished photographs alongside newly restored images from Characters of Light. Accompanying these photos are Edward Stokes’s historical and personal texts. Together, the photos and narrative offer an entirely new presentation of Singapore, through the prism of Doggett’s life, inspiration, and methods. It is a fitting tribute to a woman whose talents contributed significantly to the preservation of Singapore’s historic architecture.

204 pages | 134 duotones | 11 x 10

Architecture:

Art: Photography


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Reviews

"...beautifully produced with top-quality photographic reproductions" and "excellent introductions and commentaries packed full of biographical and historical information which adds depth and contextuality to the photographs."

Asian Review of Books

 “Significantly, Marjorie Doggett’s photos are the first seriously published visual record of Singapore’s urban landscape to have superbly captured many of the island’s grand structures as well as its more modest vernacular buildings. . . . In Asia, the few women who did create photo books were virtually unknown, with Marjorie Doggett blazing the path.”

BiblioAsia

“[It] is important in focusing on a photographer who, though she was productive, was neither commercial nor an artist, but who remained, in the true sense, an amateur, a dedicated documentarian. . . . this book serves handsomely as an example to others harboring (or hoarding!) a collection of historical photographs."

Trans-Asia Photography Review

“Doggett captured what turned out to be the end of an era. . . . This beautifully produced book is a fitting testament to an outstanding woman who led a life of quiet significance.”

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong

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