An award-winning photojournalist and social documentarian, Arthur Grace (born 1947) has traveled globally and to every region of America on assignment for major news organizations as well as for his own personal projects since the early 1970s. In America 101 , Grace draws 101 pictures from his rich personal archive to assemble a visual crash course on what defines and represents us as Americans. Organized here into thematic chapters, Grace’s book plumbs America’s cultural DNA, fusing the style and the physical proximity of a photojournalist with the conceptual distance and healthy skepticism of an artist. As High Museum of Art Curator of Photography, Brett Abbott, states in his introductory essay, “In Grace’s America, the ordinary meets the absurd, veneration and irreverence comingle in unexpected and delightfully humorous ways, a lighthearted joie de vivre soothes a violent vein, and the sanctity of the individual competes with our continual drive toward collective direction.” "For nearly four decades of a nonstop career traveling the world, Mr. Grace carried a Leica rangefinder and took personal black-and-white photos. He thought they might have some potential one day if he ever had the luxury to stop shooting and pore over his archives to recognize it... When Mr. Grace began digging through his archives, he wondered where all his personal photos over the years fit in. He had published three books on aspects of American culture: presidential elections, comedians and state fairs. But he searched for the common thread in it all. 'I've been all these places. I've seen all these things. What defines it?' he wondered. 'The cultural DNA of what makes up this country and what represents and defines us as Americans. With that in my head I started editing the pictures...' And the title, 'America 101'? That's a final lesson, too. 'It's like Econ 101, in college,' Mr. Grace said. 'That's your basic course. That's what the book is: a visual crash course on what Americans are like. If you want to know, open the book'." --Ruth Fremson, New York Times Lens Blog Arthur Grace began his career in photojournalism in 1973 as a staff photographer for United Press International. Over the course of three decades, he has covered stories around the world for Time, Newsweek, Life, The New York Times Magazine, Paris Match, and Stern. He has published five critically acclaimed photography books. His work has been exhibited and collected at museums such as the High Museum of Art, J. Paul Getty Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the International Center of Photography, and more. His archives are currently housed at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American history at the University of Texas - Austin. Brett Abbott was Curator of Photography at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.