Jill Krementz: The photographer who changed book covers.

Image No. 1.  Kurt Vonnegut photographed by Jill Krementz.  “Until very recently, publishers were as interested in portraiture as the Passport Division of the Department of State -- not at all. Jill Krementz changed all this (Kurt Vonnegut, 1980, intro to The writer's image, vii).”

The photographer Jill Krementz is credited with the trend to use quality portraits of authors on book covers not just by her husband, Kurt Vonnegut, but by several sources in art and literary criticism.  In a review by Milton Meltzer (1981) in the Library Journal, the historian waxes poetic on Krementz’s work: “[Her author portraits] are a happy replacement for the inept snapshots once used on book jackets (Meltzer, 50).”  Again in 1981, the photography historian Estelle Jussim wrote an essay in The New Boston Review crediting Krementz with not only the quality of her portraits but her good salesmanship: “It is Krementz, apparently, who has convinced publishers that the face adorning the back flap of a colorful book jacket should be as enticing or marketable as the book itself (Jussim, 1989, 115).”  More recently, in 2004, The New York Times critic Lee Siegel also wrote glowing praise for Klementz’s portraits: “the master of this earlier idiom is Jill Krementz, who possesses a genius for illuminating such random instants, often depicting her writers in unguarded moments of glee (Siegel, 10).”

Image No. 2.  The writer John Updike by Jill Krementz, Georgetown, Massachusetts, October, 1979 (Krementz, 2009).  “Krementz had the unusual distinction of photographing John Updike for ''Bech Is Back,'' his 1982 collection of short stories about a fictional novelist named Henry Bech, as well as shooting, Updike relates, the imaginary Bech himself (Siegel, 2004, 10).”

How Did She Do It?

The “daughter of a jeweler in Morristown, New Jersey, (Michener, 1980, 27)," Krementz learned her art on the job.  After one year at Drew University in New Jersey, she got a job at Harper's Bazaar magazine in 1959 (Marquis biographies..., (n.d.)).  A year later, she was working at Glamour magazine; and one more year later she was a reporter with Show magazine (Marquis biographies..., (n.d.)) when she received a Nikon camera for her 21st birthday (Lamb, 2012).  After two years at Show magazine, she made the big time as staff photographer with the New York Herald Tribune in 1964 (Marquis biographies..., (n.d.)).

Image No. 3.  Author E.B. White photographed by Jill Krementz on the cover of her 1980 book The Writer's Image.  He  referred to her as “Jill, the Relentless” (Jussim, 1989, 117).

By the late 1960’s, Krementz had started photographing writers when she was a reporter for Time magazine’s New York office:  

I was just starting to photograph writers and I was very friendly with Dave Sherman, who was the picture editor--a picture editor and the book editor of Life magazine. So I'd go up and see him, and I'd very often photograph writers that he told me had books coming up. And so I photographed Kurt [Vonnegut] for Life, and while I was photographing him for Life, there was a reporter from The New York Times who was...doing a story. So I ended up selling pictures to The Times and it just kept going… (Lamb interview, 2012)

The quality of her photos got her regular contracts with many magazines including People (Marquis biographies..., (n.d.)).  “[Krementz] says she prefers to photograph famous writers at home because ‘I think it is very important for the subject to be relaxed, even happy’ (Michener, 1980, 27).”  And in a Booknotes interview in 2012, Krementz declared she had probably photographed 1,600 writers. As early as 1980, Krementz’s fame had resulted in a book publishing several of her key portraits.  The book was so successful, she followed it with The Writer's Desk in 1996.  

Image No. 4. The cover of Picked-Up Pieces, 1975 featuring Jill Krementz’s photograph of author John Updike next to Upike’s inscription to Krementz: "For Jill Krementz whose picture wagged the title and the title wagged the book ... many thanks and much affection, John U (Krementz, 2009).”

So what did book covers look like before Krementz?  

If book covers had author portraits, it was because the author submitted it themselves.  “Writers often used to supply their publishers with slovenly and haphazard snapshots that resembled photo booth productions (Jussim, 1989, 121).”  In the end, it comes down to the difference between a dust jacket and a book cover.  A dust-jacket was there to preserve the book, but once marketing got a hold of them, they became book covers:

As the 1950s progressed, publishers slowly began to view dust jackets as an integral part of the packaging and selling of the book. During the 1960s when technical progressions in print and design processes were made, dust jackets became ever brighter and more colourful as they clamoured on the shelves for attention (Victoria and Albert Museum).

In Image No. 4, we see John Updike's inscription to Krementz, in which he clearly links the value of her portrait with his book.  Finally, Estelle Jussim makes a case for the importance of author photographs on book covers and Krementz’s work especially:

If we are to believe Jill Krementz’s husband, Kurt Vonnegut...publishers have now [as of 1989] recognized that a good portrait is “as crucial to selling a book as good copy”… In fact, that face [the author portrait] may be as significant as the logos and trademarks of huge corporations (Jussim, 1989, 115).

Image No. 5.  Jill Krementz’s early portrait of Stephen King.

Do you judge a book by its cover?

Admit it, as a consumer, you do.  And so do librarians.  In fact there are multiple articles written specifically for librarians on choosing books by how attractive the book cover is.  For example, Lohmiller’s 2008 article “Go Ahead: Judge a Book By Its Cover.”  In 2000, the Orange Prize for Fiction conducted a study on book covers in which they “found that, after knowledge of the author or book, cover design and book title are deciding factors in sales (Phillips, 2007, 17).”  With the advent of e-books, book cover design has grown even more important: “...many people are… deciding to buy a book, especially an e-book, because they like the look of the cover (Sargent, 2013, 29).”  Finally, Will Manley, a librarian known for his blogging, wrote an entire article in 2010 on cookbook authors and how their author portraits influenced readership.  

I had a theory that different readers are attracted to different author pictures and that if a reader has a negative feeling about an author based upon the dust-jacket photo, nothing (not even a great review) will motivate that reader to surrender a sense of intimacy to the book. What I did to test my theory was take a series of eight photographs of various everyday non-celebrities and show them to 150 randomly selected library patrons. I asked each patron four questions about each photograph: Would you read (1) a cookbook, (2) a mystery, (3) a romance, and (4) a general nonfiction book by the person in the photograph. What did I find? These patrons preferred to read cookbooks by fat people, mysteries by skinny people, and nonfiction books by people with a scholarly, elitist look about them—pipes, bow ties, and wire-framed glasses . . . that sort of thing (Manley, 2010, 5)

In the end, I think the journalist Charles Michener (1980) was right. Photography is an agent of voyeurism (Michener, 1980, 29), and we are naturally drawn to or repulsed by photographs.  It makes sense that photographs on book covers inspire these emotions and that the book industry would want quality author portraits.  As publishers focused more on blockbusters, the authors became a commodity “as hot and salable a commodity as the book itself.  In fact, more so (Jussim, 1989, 115).” The opportunity for Jill Krementz to identify and fill that need was in part due to the advancements in printing and in part because she made it a valuable art form.

Check out more images through one of Jill Krement’z Photo Journals here: http://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/node/205235

REFERENCES

Jussim, E. (1989). Looking at Literati: The Writer’s Image.  In E. Jussim, The eternal moment : essays on the photographic image (pp. 115-121). New York, NY: Aperture.

Krementz, J. (n.d.). In Marquis biographies online.

Krementz, J. (2009). Jill Krementz Photo Journal - John Updike. Retrieved from http://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/node/193849/print

Lamb, B. (Interviewer) & Krementz, J. (Interviewee). (2012). Talk with Jill Krementz, author of “The writer’s desk.”  [Interview transcript, Interview video file].  Retrieved from Booknotes Non-fiction authors in hour-long interviews 1989-2004 Web site: http://www.booknotes.org/Watch/80477-1/Jill+Krementz.aspx

Lohmiller, D. (2008). Go ahead: Judge a book by its cover. Young Adult Library Services, 6(3), 13-15.

Manley, W. (2010). Cookbooks and their authors. Booklist, 107(3), 5.

Meltzer, M. (1981). The writer's image (Book). Library Journal, 106(1), 50.

Michener, C. (1980). Charles Michener on photography. New Republic, 183(24), 27-31.

Phillips, A. (2007). Cover story: Cover design in the marketing of fiction. LOGOS: The Journal Of The World Book Community, 18(1), 15-20.

Sargent, B. (2013). What's the secret?. Publishers Weekly, 260(27), 29.

Siegel, L. (2004, November 14). The age of Ettlinger. New York Times. pp. 10-11.

Victoria & Albert Museum. (n.d.) The History of the Dust Jacket. Retrieved from http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/h/history-of-the-dust-jacket/

Vonnegut, K. (1980). Introduction.  In J. Krementz, The writer's image: Literary portraits (pp. vii-xii). Boston: D.R. Godine.