Foto-Auge is the key survey of New Vision photography and an exemplary example of the New Typography, referred to in a contemporary review by Walker Evans in Hound and Horn (Oct-Dec 1931) as a 'nervous and important book'.

Franz Roh and Jan Tschichold conceived the idea for this anthology during a joint visit to the Film und Foto exhibition at the Deutsche Werkbund, Stuttgart (18 May-7 July 1929), which travelled to Zurich, Vienna, Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland), Agram (now Zagreb, Croatia), Tokyo and Osaka. This pivotal exhibition was principally organised by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy with advisers including Edward Weston, Piet Zwart, and El Lissitzky, proposing work from their respective countries. The official Film und Foto catalogue was not illustrated, and Werner Gräff's book Es kommt der neue Fotograf! (1929), published to coincide with the exhibition, only included a few exhibited images due to an early print deadline. Recognising the need for a visual record of this important show, Roh and Tschichold selected 76 works for their book. He and Tschichold continued their collaboration with the Fototek monographs on Moholy-Nagy and Aenne Biermann the following year. In an essay titled 'The Value of Photography' written for Hand und Maschine (Feb 1930), Roh wrote:

'Of the people who reject the Werkbund exhibition, almost all are unused to today's tighter, more constructive vision, not only in photography but in painting, architecture, and sculpture. Daring camera angles are taken for "mannerisms" (the usual objection to anything new). Photography is put to its best purpose, however, when it does not show things as they have been perceived for generations, but instead presents new approaches that are bolder and not yet exhausted.'

First edition; 4to (290 x 205 mm, 11½ x 8 in); black-and-white photographs and illustrations, essay and captions by Roh in German, French, and English, design by Jan Tschichold, old adhesive tape marks to inside covers and to first and last pages, tape and tape mark to margin of one page, occasional minor foxing; photo-illustrated and embossed card covers, folded in at spine and wire-stitched, spine printed in red and black; light wear, minor soiling and spotting, short tears to spine-folds at foot, a very good copy of a book that is prone to wear, with none of the usual fading to the red spine; 94pp.

Regards à travers Le Livre 30; Fotografia Pública 182-6; The Photobook: A History I, pp98-9; The Open Book pp82-3; Auer Collection p140; Autopsie II, pp330-49.