Lady Liberty

Lady Liberty recounts the conception, construction, assembly and installation of the statue in rarely seen photographs and informative text. It shows how French sculptor Auguste Bartholdi used photographs and photomontages -- notably, a giant panorama of the city of New York -- to study the site chosen for his statue and to monitor its construction, which was taking place in Paris.

The photographs showing the progress of the statue also became a great communication tool. Financing the colossal gift from France to America took massive fundraising that only innovative advertising could generate. It would give birth to the now-familiar method of exploiting the immediacy of photography to drive commerce.

Lady Liberty traces both the expected and the surprising elements of the statue's construction and assembly, and show how the image of the statue oscillated between reality and fiction. They record a vast utopian project that lasted 20 years and was marked by the major political, social, architectural and aesthetic influences of the time.

For all Americans, for historians, for photography aficionados, for students young and old, for newcomers welcomed by Lady Liberty, this book takes readers on a journey through the unknown life of one of the world's most powerful icons.