The family of man : the photographic exhibition / created by Edward Steichen for the Museum of Modern Art

Smithsonian Libraries and Archives

Object Details

compiler
Steichen, Edward 1879-1973
organizer
Steichen, Edward 1879-1973
writer of foreword
Sandburg, Carl 1878-1967
writer of added text
Norman, Dorothy 1905-1997
book designer
Lionni, Leo 1910-1999
editor
Mason, Jerry
photographer
Stoller, Ezra
host institution
Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.)
printer
R.R. Donnelley and Sons Company
Subject
Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.)
Issued also in a standard edition (192 pages) and a Pocket Book edition (256 pages).
"Prologue by Carl Sandburg": pages 2-3. "Introduction by Edward Steichen": pages 4-5.
"Editor: Jerry Mason. Art director: Leo Lionni ... Captions: Dorothy Norman. Production: Allied Graphic Arts, Inc."--Page opposite title page.
"A special portfolio of photographs by Ezra Stoller of the Family of Man exhibition on the walls of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Installation designed by Paul Rudolph. Photographic footnotes by Wayne Miller": pages 195-207. Included in this edition only.
LC copy 1 (P&P copy) in library binding. DLC
Parr, M. Photobook, v. 2, page 218
Summary
"The greatest photographic exhibition of all time--503 pictures from 68 countries"--Title page of standard edition.
"Conceived as an exhibition for MoMA in New York in 1955, with a catalogue published both by Maco Magazine Corporation and Simon and Schuster, The Family of Man has been heavily criticized, usually for its sentimentality and its disingenuous simplicity. Although indeed sentimental, The Family of Man was not as simple as it looked. ... The de-politicization of the photography was in fact a calculated piece of political image-making, stating that American values were the only universal values, and that the world could be one big happy family under the beneficent guidance of Uncle Sam. ... One of the ironic aspects of the project is the way its whole aesthetic derives from those German and Soviet exhibitions and propaganda books of the 1930s. The sententious tone, the grim determinism, the tendentious ideological stance, even the design, place The Family of Man in the propagandist mode of modernism rather than in the utopian wing to which it nominally aspires. Nevertheless, and this is an important point, it contains many fine photographs."--The Photobook : A History Volume II / Martin Parr and Gerry Badger. London : Phaidon, 2004.
1955
Call number
TR6 .N55 1955d
Type
Exhibitions
Photobooks
Exhibition catalogs
Physical description
207 pages : chiefly illustrations ; 29 cm
Smithsonian Libraries
Topic
Photography
Portrait photography
Photography, Artistic
Humanity in art
Human beings in art
Miscelanea Norte Americana (Literatura)
Record ID
siris_sil_669310
Metadata Usage (text)
CC0