The Family of Man
The Family of Man was an ambitious[1] photography exhibition curated by Edward Steichen, the director of the Museum of Modern Art's (MOMA) Department of Photography. It was first shown in 1955 from January 24 to May 8 at the New York MOMA, then toured the world for eight years, making stops in thirty-seven countries on six continents as part of the Museum's International Program. More than 9 million people viewed the exhibit.
According to Steichen, the exhibition represented the "culmination of his career."[2]
The physical collection is archived and displayed[3] at Clervaux Castle in Luxembourg (Edward Steichen's home country; he was born there in 1879 in Bivange). It was first presented there in 1994 after restoration of the prints.[4]
In 2003 the Family of Man photographic collection was added to UNESCO's Memory of the World Register in recognition of its historical value.[5]
As U.S. cultural diplomacy
The photographs included in the exhibition focus on the commonalities that bind people and cultures around the world and the exhibition itself served as an expression of humanism in the decade following World War II.[6] The United States Information Agency toured the photographs throughout the world in five different versions for seven years, under the auspices of the The Museum of Modern Art International Program.[7]
The collection's overtones of peace and human brotherhood symbolized a lifting of the overhanging danger of an atomic war for Soviet citizens.[8] This meaning seemed to be grasped especially by Russian students and intellectuals.[8]
Rhetoric
Carl Sandburg, Steichen's brother-in-law, 1951 recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, wrote an accompanying poetic commentary displayed as text panels throughout the exhibition.
- "There is only one man in the world and his name is All Men.
- There is only one woman in the world and her name is All Women.
- There is only one child in the world and the child's name is All Children."
- "People! flung wide and far, born into toil, struggle, blood and dreams, among lovers, eaters, drinkers, workers, loafers, fighters, players, gamblers. Here are ironworkers, bridge men, musicians, sandhogs, miners, builders of huts and skyscrapers, jungle hunters, landlords, and the landless, the loved and the unloved, the lonely and abandoned, the brutal and the compassionate — one big family hugging close to the ball of Earth for its life and being. Everywhere is love and love-making, weddings and babies from generation to generation keeping the Family of Man alive and continuing."
- "If the human face is "the masterpiece of God" it is here then in a thousand fateful registrations. Often the faces speak that words can never say. Some tell of eternity and others only the latest tattings. Child faces of blossom smiles or mouths of hunger are followed by homely faces of majesty carved and worn by love, prayer and hope, along with others light and carefree as thistledown in a late summer wing. Faces have land and sea on them, faces honest as the morning sun flooding a clean kitchen with light, faces crooked and lost and wondering where to go this afternoon or tomorrow morning. Faces in crowds, laughing and windblown leaf faces, profiles in an instant of agony, mouths in a dumbshow mockery lacking speech, faces of music in gay song or a twist of pain, a hate ready to kill, or calm and ready-for-death faces. Some of them are worth a long look now and deep contemplation later."
An innovative exhibit
The physical installation and layout of the Family of Man exhibition aimed to enable the visitor to read this as a photo-essay[9] about human development and cycles of life. Architect Paul Rudolph designed a series of temporary walls among the existing structural columns[10] guiding visitors past the images,[11] the effect of which he described as "telling a story",[12] encouraging them to pause at those which attracted their attention. However, open spaces within the layout required viewers to make their own decisions about their passage through the exhibition, and to gather to discuss it.
Enlarged, often mural scale images, angled, floated or curved, some even displayed on the ceiling, were grouped together according to diverse themes. These ranged from lovers, to childbirth, to household, and careers, then to death and finally, full cycle, ending once more with children. Photos were chosen according to their capacity to communicate a story, or a feeling, that contributed to the overarching narrative. Each grouping of images builds upon the next, creating an intricate story of human life. The design of the exhibition built on trade displays and Steichen's 1945 Power In The Pacific exhibition which was designed by George Kidder Smith for MoMA.
The permanent installation of the exhibition today at Chateau Clervaux in Luxembourg follows the layout of the original exhibition at MoMA in order to recreate the original viewing experience.
A popular publication
Jerry Mason (1914–1991) contemporaneously edited and published a complimentary book of the exhibition through Ridge Press,[13] formed for the purpose in 1955 in partnership with Fred Sammis.[14] The book, which has never been out of print, was designed by Leo Lionni (May 5, 1910 – October 11, 1999) and reproduced in a variety of formats (most popularly a soft-cover volume)[15] in the 1950s, and reprinted in large format for its 40th anniversary, and in its various editions has sold more than four million copies. All 503 images from the exhibition were reproduced with an introduction by Carl Sandburg, whose prologue reads, in part:
- "The first cry of a baby in Chicago, or Zamboango, in Amsterdam or Rangoon, has the same pitch and key, each saying, "I am! I have come through! I belong! I am a member of the Family. Many the babies and grownup here from photographs made in sixty-eight nations round our planet Earth. You travel and see what the camera saw. The wonder of human mind, heart wit and instinct is here. You might catch yourself saying, ‘I’m not a stranger here.’ " [16]
In 2015, to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the inaugural exhibition, MoMA reissued the book as a hardcover edition, with the original jacket design from 1955 and duotone printing from new copies of all of the photographs.[17]
Photographers
Steichen's stated objective was to draw attention, visually, to the universality of human experience and the role of photography in its documentation. The exhibition brought together 503 photos from 68 countries, the work of 273 photographers (163 of whom were Americans)[18] which, with 70 European photographers, means that the ensemble represents a primarily Western viewpoint.[19]
Dorothea Lange assisted her friend Edward Steichen in recruiting photographers[20] using her FSA and Life connections who in turn promoted the project to their colleagues. In 1953 she circulated a letter; “A Summons to Photographers All Over the World,” calling on them to “show Man to Man across the world. Here we hope to reveal by visual images Man’s dreams and aspirations, his strength, his despair under evil. If photography can bring these things to life, this exhibition will be created in a spirit of passionate and devoted faith in Man. Nothing short of that will do.”[21] The letter then lists topics that photographs might cover and these categories are reflected in the show's final arrangement. Lange's work features in the exhibition.
Steichen and his team drew heavily on Life archives for the photographs used in the final exhibition.[22] These constitute more than 20% of the total (111 out of 503). However, Steichen also travelled internationally to collect images, in 11 European countries including France, Switzerland, Austria and Germany.[23] In total, Steichen procured 300 images from European photographers, many from the humanist group, which were first shown in the Post-War European Photography exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1953.[23] Due to the incorporation of this body of work into the 1955 The Family of Man exhibition, Post-War European Photography is thought of as a preview to The Family of Man.[23] The international tour of the definitive 1955 exhibition was sponsored by the now defunct United States Information Agency, whose aim was to counter Cold War propaganda by creating a better world image of American policies and values.[23]
The following lists all participating photographers (see original 1955 MoMA checklist):
- Ansel Adams (USA)
- Erich Andres (Germany)
- Emmy Andriesse (Netherlands)
- Diane and Allan Arbus (U.S.A., Vogue)
- Eve Arnold (Magnum)
- Richard Avedon (U.S.A.)
- Ruth-Marion Baruch (USA)
- Hugh Bell (U.S.A.)
- Wermund Bendtsen (Denmark)
- Paul Berg(USA, St Louis Post-Despatch)
- Lou Bernstein (USA)
- John Bertolino (Italy/USA)
- Eva Besnyö (Netherlands)
- Werner Bischof
- Maria Bordy (Russia, UN)
- Édouard Boubat (France)
- Margaret Bourke-White (USA)
- Mathew Brady (USA)
- Bill Brandt (UK)
- Brassai (France)
- Manuel Álvarez Bravo (Mexico)
- Josef Breitenbach (Brackman Associates) (Germany, USA)
- David Brooks (Canada)
- Reva Brooks (Canada)
- Ernst Brunner (Switzerland)
- Esther Bubley (USA)
- Wynn Bullock (USA)
- Shirley Burden (USA)
- Rudolf Busler (Germany)
- Harry Callahan (USA)
- Cornell Capa (USA)
- Robert Capa
- Robert Carrington
- Lewis Carrol (UK)
- Henri Cartier-Bresson (France)
- Ted Castle (USA)
- Marcos Chamudes (Chile)
- Ed Clark (USA)
- Hermann Claasen (Germany)
- Jerry Cooke (USA)
- Roy DeCarava (USA)
- Loomis Dean (USA)
- Jack Delano (USA)
- Nick De Morgoli
- J. De Pietro
- R. Diament (USSR)
- Robert Doisneau (France)
- Nell Dorr (USA)
- Nora Dumas (French)
- David Douglas Duncan (USA)
- Alfred Eisenstaedt (USA)
- Elliott Erwitt (USA)
- J.R. Eyerman (USA)
- Sam Falk (USA)
- Nat Farbman (USA)
- Eleanor Fast
- Louis Faurer (USA)
- Ed Feingersh (USA)
- Andreas Feininger (USA)
- Vito Fiorenza (Italy)
- Leopold Fisher (Austria)
- John Florea (USA)
- Robert Frank (USA)
- Toni Frissell (USA)
- Unosuke Gamou (Japan)
- William Garnett (USA)
- Herbert Gehr (USA)
- Edmund Bert Gerard
- Guy Gillette
- Burt Glinn (USA)
- Fritz Goro (USA)
- Allan Grant (USA)
- Farrell Grehan (USA)
- Rene Groebli (Switzerland)
- Mildred Grossman (USA)
- Rapho Guilumette (Agency, France)
- Karl W. Gullers (Sweden)
- Ernst Haas (USA)
- Peter W. Haberlin
- Hideo Haga (Japan)
- Otto Hagel (USA)
- Robert Halmi
- Hiroshi Hamaya(Japan)
- Caroline Hammarskiold
- Hans Hammerskiold (Sweden)
- Hella Hammid (USA)
- Chien Hao (China)
- Willie Huttig
- Yasohiro Ishimoto (Japan)
- Izis (France)
- Fenno Jacobs (USA)
- Raymond Jacobs (USA)
- Ronny Jacques (Canada)
- Bob Jakobsen (USA)
- Nico Jesse (Netherlands)
- Constatin Joffe
- Carter Jones
- Henk Jonker
- Victor Jorgensen (USA)
- Clemens Kalisher (USA)
- Simpson Kalisher (USA)
- Consuelo Kanaga (USA)
- Dmitri Kessel (USA)
- Keystone Press (Agency, USA)
- Ihei Kimura (Japan)
- Martha Kitchen (USA)
- N. Kolli (USSR)
- Torkel Korling (USA)
- Koslovsky (USSR)
- Ewing Krainin
- Herman Kreider
- Walter B. Lane
- Dorothea Lange (USA)
- Harry Lapow (USA
- Lisa Larsen (USA)
- Alma Lavenson ((USA)
- Arthur Lavine (USA)
- Russell Lee (USA)
- Nina Leen
- Laurence Le Guay (Australia)
- Henri Leighton
- Arthur Leipzig
- Charles Leirens
- Gita Lens
- Leon Levinstein
- Helen Levitt
- Margery Lewis
- Sol Libsohn
- David Linton
- Herbert List
- Jacob Lofman
- G.H. Metcalf
- Gjon Mili
- Frank Miller
- Joan Miller
- Lee Miller
- Wayne Miller
- May Mirin
- Lisette Model
- Peter Moesehlin
- David Moore (Australia)
- Barbara Morgan (photographer)
- Hedda Morrison
- Ralph Morse
- Robert Mottar
- Carl Mydans
- Dave Myers
- Fritz Neugass
- Lennart Nilsson
- Pal-Nils Nillson
- Emil Obrovsky
- Okamoto
- Cas Oorthuys
- Ruth Orkin
- Don Ornitz
- Eiju Otaki
- Homer Page
- Marion Palfi
- Gordon Parks
- Rondal Partridge
- Irving Penn
- Carl Perutz
- John Phillips
- Leonti Planskoy
- Raphael Platnick
- Fred Plaut
- Rudolf Pollak
- Gottfried Rainer
- Daniel J. Ransohof
- W.C. Rauhauser
- Satyajit Ray
- Anna Riwkin-Brick
- George Rodger
- Willy Ronis
- Annelise Rosenberg
- Hannes Rosenberg
- Sanford Roth
- Éric Schwab
- Bob Schwalberg
- Kurt Severin
- David Seymour
- Ben Shahn
- Musya S. Sheeler
- Li Shu
- George Silk
- Bradley Smith
- Ian Smith
- W. Eugene Smith
- Howard Sochurek
- Peter Stackpole
- Alfred Statler
- Gitel Steed
- Edward Steichen
- Steinheimer
- Ezra Stoller
- Lou Stoumen
- George Strock
- Constance Stuart
- E. Sved
- Suzanne Szasz
- Yoshisuke Terao
- Gustavo Thorlichen
- Charles Trieschmann
- Francois Tuefferd
- Jakob Tuggener
- Allan Turoff
- Doris Ulmann
- A. Uzlyan;
- Ed van der Elsken
- William Vandivert
- Pierre Verger
- Ike Vern
- Vero
- Roman Vishniac
- Carmel Vitullo
- Edward Wallowitch
- Sabine Weiss
- Arthur Witman
- Jasper Wood
- Yosuke Yamahata
- Shizuo Yamamato
Reception and criticism
Photography, said Steichen, "communicates equally to everybody throughout the world. It is the only universal language we have, the only one requiring no translation." [24] When the exhibition opened most reviewers loved the show, embracing the idea of this 'universal language', and lauding Steichen as a sort of author and the exhibition as a text or essay. Photographer Barbara Morgan, in Aperture, connected this concept with the show's universalising theme;
- In comprehending the show the individual himself is also enlarged, for these photographs are not photographs only — they are also phantom images of our co-citizens; this woman into whose photographic eyes I now look is perhaps today weeding her family rice paddy, or boiling a fish in coconut milk. Can you look at the polygamist family group and imagine the different norms that make them live happily in their society which is so unlike — yet like — our own? Empathy with these hundreds of human beings truly expands our sense of values.[25]
Roland Barthes however was quick to criticise the exhibition as being an example of his concept of myth - the dramatization of an ideological message. In his book Mythologies, published in France a year after the exhibition in Paris in 1956, Barthes declared it to be a product of "conventional humanism," a collection of photographs in which everyone lives and "dies in the same way everywhere ." "Just showing pictures of people being born and dying tells us, literally, nothing."[26]
Many other noteworthy reactions, both positive and negative, have been proffered in social/cultural studies and as part of artistic and historical texts. The earliest critics of the show were, ironically, photographers, who felt that Steichen had downplayed individual talent and discouraged the public from accepting photography as art. The show was the subject of an entire issue of Aperture; “The Controversial ‘Family of Man’”[27] Walker Evans disdained its "human familyhood [and] bogus heartfeeling" [28] Phoebe Lou Adams complained that "If Mr. Steichen's well-intentioned spell doesn’t work, it can only be because he has been so intent on [Mankind's] physical similarities that...he has utterly forgotten that a family quarrel can be as fierce as any other kind."[29]
Some critics complained that Steichen merely transposed the magazine photo-essay from page to museum wall; in 1955 Rollie McKenna likened the experience to a ride through a funhouse,[30] while Russell Lynes in 1973 wrote that Family of Man "was a vast photo-essay, a literary formula basically, with much of the emotional and visual quality provided by sheer bigness of the blow-ups and its rather sententious message sharpened by juxtaposition of opposites — wheat fields and landscapes of boulders, peasants and patricians, a sort of ‘look at all these nice folks in all these strange places who belong to this family.’"[31] Jacob Deschin, photography critic for The New York Times, wrote, "the show is essentially a picture story to support a concept and an editorial achievement rather than an exhibition of photography."[32]
From an optic of struggle,[33] and echoing Barthes, Susan Sontag in On Photography accused Steichen of sentimentalism and oversimplification: '...they wished, in the 1950s, to be consoled and distracted by a sentimental humanism. [...]Steichen's choice of photographs assumes a human condition or a human nature shared by everybody. By purporting to show that individuals are born, work, laugh, and die everywhere in the same way, "The Family of Man" denies the determining weight of history - of genuine and historically embedded differences, injustices, and conflicts.'[34]
Others attacked the show as an attempt to paper over problems of race and class, including Christopher Phillips, John Berger, and Abigail Solomon-Godeau.[35]
Conversely, other critics defended the exhibition, referring to the political and cultural environment in which it was staged. Among these were Fred Turner,[9] Eric J. Sandeen,[36] Blake Stimson[37] and Walter L. Hixson.[38]
Tributes, sequels and critical revisions
Karl Dallas' song, The Family of Man, also recorded by The Spinners and others, was written in 1955, after Dallas saw the exhibition.[39]
In the years since The Family of Man, several exhibitions stemmed from projects directly inspired by Steichen's work and others were presented in opposition to it. Still others were alternative projects offering new thoughts on the themes and motifs presented in 1955. These serve to represent artists', photographers' and curators' responses to the exhibition beside those of the cultural critics, and to track the evolution of reactions as societies and their self-images change.
World Exhibition of Photography
Following The Family of Man by 10 years, the 1965 Weltausstellung der Fotographie (World Exhibition of Photography) was based on an idea by Karl Pawek and, supported by the German magazine Stern, toured the world.[40] It presented 555 photographs by 264 authors from 30 countries, outweighing the numbers in Steichen's exhibition. In the preface to the catalogue entitled 'Die humane Kamera' ('The human camera'), Heinrich Boll wrote: "There are moments in which the meaning of a landscape and its breath become felt in a photograph. The portrayed person becomes familiar or a historical moment happens in front of the lens; a child in uniform, women who search the battlefield for their dead. They are moments in which crying is more than private as it becomes the crying of mankind. Secrets are not revealed, the secret about human existence becomes visible."
The exhibition, wrote Pawek, 'would like to keep alive the spirit of Edward Steichen's wonderful ideas and of his memorable collection, The Family of Man.'.[41] His exhibition posed the question 'Who is Man?' in 42 topics. It focussed on issues that were sublimated in The Family of Man by the idea of universal brotherhood between men and women of different races and cultures. Racism, which in Steichen's show was represented by a lynching scene (replaced in the European showings by an enlargement of the famous picture of the Nürnberg trial), is confronted in the Weltausstellung der Fotographie section VIII Das Missverständnis mit der Rasse (Misunderstandings about Race) by the black man in the photograph by Gordon Parks who seems to view from his window two scenes of attacks on black people (photographed by Charles Moore). Another photograph by Henri Leighton shows two children walking together in public holding hands, one black, one white. Though reference to the content of the older exhibition in the new is evident, the unifying idealism of The Family of Man is here replaced with a much more fragmented and sociological one.[42] The exhibition met with rejection by the press and functionaries in the photographic profession in Germany and Switzerland, and was described by Fritz Kempe, board member of a prominent photo company, as "tasty fodder to stimulate the aggressive instincts of semi—intellectual young men.".[43] Nevertheless, it went on to tour 261 art museums in 36 countries and was visited by 3,500,000 people.
2nd World Exhibition of Photography
In 1968, a second Weltausstellung der Fotographie (2nd World Exhibition of Photography) was devoted to images of women [44] with 522 photographs from 85 countries by 236 photographers, of whom barely 10% were female (compared to 21% for The Family of Man), though there is evidence of the effect of feminist consciousness in images of men in domestic environments cleaning, cooking and tending babies. In his introduction, Karl Pawek writes: "I had approached the first exhibition with my entire theological, philosophical and sociological equipment. 'What is Man'?; the question had to awaken ideological ideas. [...] I also operated from a philosophical point of view when presenting the[se] photos. As far as woman was concerned, the theme of the second exhibition, I knew nothing. There I was, without any philosophy about woman. Perhaps woman is not a philosophical theme. Perhaps there is only mankind, and woman is something unique and special? Thus I could only hold on to what was concrete in the pictures."
The Family of Children
UNESCO named 1977 The Year of Children and in response the book The Family of Children was dedicated to Steichen by editor Jerry Mason, and imitated the original catalogue in its layout, in the use of quotations and in the colours used on the cover.[45] As for Steichen's show there was a call-out for imagery but 300,000 entries were received compared to the 4 million at the MoMA show, resulting in a selection of 377 photos by 218 participants from 70 countries. However, female and male nudity is not restricted to ethnic black people as it was in The Family of Man.
Oppositions: We are the world, you are the third world
In 1990 the second Rotterdam Biennale lead exhibition was Oppositions: We are the world, you are the third world - Commitment and cultural identity in contemporary photography from Japan, Canada. Brazil, the Soviet Union and the Netherlands [46] The cover of the catalogue imitates the layout and colour of the original but replaces the famous image of the little flute player by Eugene Harris with six images, four photographs of young women from different cultural backgrounds and two excerpts from paintings. In the exhibit scenes of a endangered ecology and the threat to cultural identity in the global village predominate, but there are intimations that nature and love may prevail, despite everything artificial that surrounds it, notably so in family life.[42]
New Relations. The Family of Man Revisited
In 1992 the American critic and photographer Larry Fink published a collection of photographs under the heading of New Relations. The Family of Man Revisited in the Photography Center Quarterly.[47] His approach updated Steichen's vision by integrating aspects of human existence which Steichen had omitted both because of his wish for coherence and of his innermost convictions. Fink provides only the following commentary: "Rather than a fawn pretence to anthropological/sociologic analysis of the events depicted; rather than categorise and choose democratically for social relevance.| took the path of least resistance and most reward. I simply selected quality images with the belief that the path of strong visual energies would visit equal strong social presences". He concludes:"The show is a compendium of visual hints. It is not an answer or even a full question, but cognitive clues...."
family, nation, tribe, community: SHIFT
In September/October 1996 the NGBK (Neue Gesellschaft fur Bildende kunst Berlin- New Society for the Visual Arts Berlin) in the context of ‘Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW)' (House of World Cultures Berlin) conceived and organised the project family, nation, tribe, community: SHIFT with direct reference to the historical MoMA exhibition. In the catalogue, five authors; Ezra Stoller, Max Kozloff, Torsten Neuendorff, Bettina Allamoda and Jean Back analyse and comment on the historical model and twenty-two artists offer individual approaches around the following themes: Universalism/Separatism, Family/Anti-family, Individualisation, Common Strategies, Differences. The works are predominantly from artist photographers rather than photojournalists; Bettina Allamoda, Aziz + Cucher, Los Carpinteros, Alfredo Jaar, Mike Kelley, Edward and Nancy Reddin Kienholz, Lovett/Codagnone, Loring McAlpin, Christian Philipp Müller, Anna Petrie, Martha Rosler, Lisa Schmitz, STURTEVANT, Mitra Tabizian and Andy Golding, Wolfgang Tillmans, Danny Tisdale, Lincoln Tobler, and David Wojnarowicz reflect major contemporary issues: identity, the information crisis, the illusion of leisure, and ethics. In his introduction to the exhibition, Frank Wagner writes that Steichen had offered a vision of an harmonious, neat and highly structured world which, in reality, was complex, often unintelligible and even contradictory, but by contrast, this Berlin exhibition highlights ‘first’ and ‘third’ world tensions and is eager to concentrate on a variety of attitudes.[48]
The 90s: A Family of Man?
The following year Enrico Lunghi directed the exhibition The 90s: A Family of Man?: images of mankind in contemporary art, held 02.10.-30.11.1997 in Luxembourg, Steichen's birthplace and by then the repository of the archive of a full version of his The Family of Man. Aside from their understanding of Steichen's efforts to present commonalities amongst the human race, curators Paul di Felice and Pierre Stiwer interpret Steichen's show as an effort to make content of Museum of Modern Art accessible to the public in an era when it was regarded as the elitist supporter of 'incomprehensible' abstract art. They point to their predecessor's success in having his show embraced by a record audience and emphasise that dissenting voices of criticism were heard only amongst 'intellectuals'. However, Steichen's success, they caution, was to manipulate the message of his selected imagery; 'After all,' they write, 'wasn't he the artistic director of Vogue and Vanity Fair...?'.[49] They proclaim their desire to retain the exhibiting artists' 'autonomy' while not posing their work as the antithesis of Steichen's concept, but to respect, and echo, its arrangement while 'raising questions' as indicated by the question mark in their quotation of the original title. The exhibition and catalogue 'quote' from Steichen, setting pages of the book of his exhibition with their quotations around groupings of images (in monochrome) beside the works of contemporary artists (predominantly in colour) collected in themes used in the original, though the correlation fails for some contemporary ideas, which digital imaging, installation and montage works effectively convey. The thirty-five artists include Christian Boltanski, Nan Goldin, Inez van Lamsweerde, Orlan and Wolfgang Tillmans.
References
- ↑ The Family of Man is "one of the most ambitious and challenging projects, photography has ever attempted. It was conceived as a mirror of the universal elements and cmotions in the everydayness of life and demonstrates that the art of photography is a dynamic process of giving form to ideas and of explaining man to man". Steichen quoted in United States. American Embassy. Office of Public Affairs; University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (1956), Visitors' reactions to the "Family of man" exhibit, American Embassy, Office of Public Affairs, retrieved 19 October 2014
- ↑ Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Family of Man: The greatest photographic exhibition of all time—503 pictures from 68 countries—created by Edward Steichen for the Museum of Modern Art. New York, Maco Magazine Corporation, 1955.
- ↑ http://www.steichencollections.lu/en/The-Family-of-Man
- ↑ http://www.clervauximage.lu/index.php?id=8;lang=en;event=1
- ↑ "Family of Man". UNESCO Memory of the World Programme. 2008-05-16. Retrieved 2009-12-14.
- ↑ "Edward Steichen at The Family of Man, 1955". MoMA. Retrieved 15 March 2013.
- ↑ founded in 1952 to develop and tour circulating exhibitions, including United States Representations at international exhibitions and festivals, one-person shows, and group exhibitions. Since the founding of the International Program, MoMA exhibitions have had hundreds of showings around the world. MoMa Archives
- 1 2 White, Ralph K. (Winter 1959). "Reactions to Our Moscow Exhibit: Voting Machines and Comment Books". The Public Opinion Quarterly. 4. 23: 461–470. doi:10.1086/266900.
- 1 2 Turner, Fred (2012) 'The Family of Man and the Politics of Attention in Cold War America' in Public Culture 24:1 Duke University Press. DOI 10.1215/08992363-1443556
- ↑ "Family of Man, Exhibition Installation at Museum of Modern Art by Paul Rudolph". Interiors (April 1955): 114-17.
- ↑ http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004675273/
- ↑ Paul Rudolph, interview by Mary Anne Staniszewski, December 27, 1993, quoted in Staniszewski, Mary Anne & Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.) (1998). The power of display : a history of exhibition installations at the Museum of Modern Art. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass p.240
- ↑ Parr, Martin & Badger, Gerry (2006). The photobook : a history. vol. 2. Phaidon, London ; New York
- ↑ Mason was previously editor of This Week (1948—1952), then editorial director of Popular Publications and editor of Argosy magazine (1948—1952
- ↑ Stimson, Blake (2006). The pivot of the world : photography and its nation. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass
- ↑ Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Family of Man: The greatest photographic exhibition of all time—503 pictures from 68 countries—created by Edward Steichen for the Museum of Modern Art. New York, Maco Magazine Corporation, 1955.
- ↑ MoMA bookshop site
- ↑ Jay, Bill (1989) "The Family of Man A Reappraisal of 'The Greatest Exhibition of All Time'. Insight, Bristol Workshops in Photography, Rhode Island, Number 1, 1989.
- ↑ Kristen Gresh (2005) The European roots of The Family of Man , History of Photography, 29:4, 331-343, DOI: 10.1080/03087298.2005.10442815
- ↑ Turner, Fred (2012). 'The Family of Man and the Politics of Attention in Cold War America', in Public Culture 24:1 Duke University Press DOI 10.1215/08992363-1443556
- ↑ Dorothea Lange, letter, January 16, 1953, quoted in Szarkowski, “The Family of Man,” 24.
- ↑ Alise Tlfentale (2015) in Šelda Pukīte (editor) and Latvian National Museum of Art and Luxembourg National Museum of History and Art. Edvards Steihens. Fotografija: Izstades katalogs (Edward Steichen. Photography: Exhibition catalogue). Neputns Publishing House and Latvian National Museum of Art
- 1 2 3 4 Gresh, Kristen. 2005. "The European Roots of 'The Family of Man' ". History of Photography 29, (4): 331-343
- ↑ Edward Steichen, "Photography: Witness and Recorder of History," Wisconsin Magazine of History 41, no. 3 (1958): 160.
- ↑ Barbara Morgan, "The Theme Show: A Contemporary Exhibition Technique," in n.a., "The Controversial Family of Man," Aperture 3, no. 2 (1955)
- ↑ Roland Barthes, "La grande famille des hommes" ("The Great Family of Man"), in Mythologies (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1957), 173–76; English translation edition: Roland Barthes, "The Great Family of Man," Mythologies, translated by Annette Lavers (St Albans, Hertfordshire: Picador, 1976), 100-102.
- ↑ Aperture, vol. 3, no. 2, 1955
- ↑ Walker Evans, "Robert Frank," US Camera 1958 (New York: US Camera Publishing Corporation, 1957), 90.
- ↑ Phoebe Lou Adams, "Through a Lens Darkly." Atlantic Monthly, no. 195 (April 1955), p. 72
- ↑ "Good photographs speak for themselves. Steichen would be the first to agree, but somehow he and Paul Rudolf (sic), a gifted Florida architect, designed a display so elaborate that the photographs become less important than the methods of displaying them [...] Pictures of children throughout the world playing ring-around-a-rosy are contorted into trapezoids and mounted on a circular metal construction. In another instance a man is chopping wood high in a tree top. This undistinguished photograph has been mounted horizontally over the spectator's head. To see it properly he has to get in the same position as the photographer who took the picture, on his back! [...] Photographs grow from pink and lavender poles, dangle from the ceiling, lie on the floor, protrude from the wall. Some, happily, just hang. In case the point has not yet been made, toward the end of the exhibit there is a group of nine portraits arranged around---yes, a mirror. Alongside is a quote from Bertrand Russell. " ... for the majority it is a slow torture of disease and disintegration." wrote Rollie McKenna, in his review of "The Family of Man," New Republic, 14 March 1955, p. 30.
- ↑ Russell Lynes, Good Old Modern: An Intimate Portrait of the Museum of Modern Art (New York: Atheneum, 1973), 325.
- ↑ Jacob Deschin quoted in Szarkowski, John; Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.) (1978), Mirrors and windows : American photography since 1960, Museum of Modern Art ; Boston : distributed by New York Graphic Society, p. 16, ISBN 978-0-87070-475-8
- ↑ Lopate, Phillip (2009). Notes on Sontag. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J. ; Woodstock p.205
- ↑ Sontag, S. (1977) On Photography. Penguin (Harmondsworth), UK
- ↑ Abigail Solomon-Godeau, "‘The Family of Man’: Den Humanismus für ein postmodernes Zeitalter aufpolieren" ("‘The Family of Man’: Refurbishing Humanism for a Postmodern Age"), in "The Family of Man," 1955–2001: Humanismus und Postmoderne; eine Revision von Edward Steichens Fotoausstellung ("The Family of Man," 1955–2001: Humanism and Postmodernism; a Reappraisal of the Photo Exhibition by Edward Steichen), ed. Jean Back and Viktoria Schmidt- Linsenhoff (Marburg, Germany: Jonas, 2004), 28–55
- ↑ Eric J. Sandeen, Picturing an Exhibition: "The Family of Man" and 1950s America (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995
- ↑ Blake Stimson (2006), The Pivot of the World: Photography and Its Nation. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
- ↑ Parting the Curtain: Propaganda, Culture and the Cold War, 1945 – 1961 (St Martin's Press: New York, 1997), p. 83.
- ↑ Dallas, Karl. "The Family of Man". Bandcamp. Retrieved 26 September 2016.
- ↑ Becker, Hellmut (1965). Zur "Weltausstellung der Photographie". : [Ansprache zur Eröffnung der Weltausstellung der Photographie in der Akademie der Künste am 11. Juli 1965. Akademie der Künste, Berlin
- ↑ Pawek, K. The Language of Photography: The Methods of this Exhibition. In World Exhibition of Photography (1964) & Pawek, Karl & Wilhelm, Peter Jürgen (1964). World Exhibition of Photography : 555 photos by 264 photographers from 30 countries on the theme What is man?. Gruner + Jahr, Hamburg
- 1 2 Jean Back (1997) Identities and Differences: Four Historical and Contemporary Approaches Towards The Family Of Man. In Di Felice, Paul & Stiwer, Pierre & Galerie Nei Liicht & Casino Luxembourg (1997). The 90's : a family of man? : images de l'homme dans l'art contemporain. Casino Luxembourg : Café-Crème, Luxembourg
- ↑ Karl Pawek in introduction to Stern (Hamburg) (1968). Die Frau : 2. Weltausstellung der Photographie, 522 Photos aus 85 Ländern von 236 Photographen. Gruner + Jahr, Hamburg
- ↑ Stern (Hamburg) (1968). Die Frau : 2. Weltausstellung der Photographie, 522 Photos aus 85 Ländern von 236 Photographen. Gruner + Jahr, Hamburg
- ↑ Mason, Jerry (1977). The Family of children. Grosset & Dunlap, New York
- ↑ 1990). Oppositions : commitment and cultural identity in contemporary photography from Japan, Canada, Brazil, the Soviet Union and the Netherlands. Uitgeverij, Rotterdam
- ↑ Center Quarterly (Woodstock, New York: Photography Center) no. 50 (1991). "It's All Relative" [re: Larry Fink, "New Relations The Family of Man Revisited": 4-17
- ↑ Family, Nation, Tribe, Community SHIFT: Zeitgenössische künstlerische Konzepte im Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin: Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst HGBK, 1996)
- ↑ Paul di Felice, Pierre Stiwer (1997) Catalogue réalisé à l'occasion de L'Exposition "The 90s: A Family of Man?" au Casino Luxembourg, Forum d'art contemporain et à la Galerie Nei Liicht de Dudelange en octobre-novembre I997, co-édité par Casino Luxembourg-Forum d'art contemporain et Café-Créme absl., traductions Marie-Jo Decker, Jean-Paul Junck, Pierre Stiwer. Imprimerie Centrale Luxembourg. Dépôt légal octobre I997 ISBN 2-919893-07-6
Further reading
- Gresh, Kristen. 2005. "The European Roots of 'The Family of Man' ". History of Photography 29, (4): 331-343.
- Steichen, Edward (2003) [1955]. The Family of Man. New York: The Museum of Modern Art. ISBN 0-87070-341-2
- Sandeen, Eric J. Picturing An Exhibition: The Family of Man and 1950s America. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995.
- Stimson, Blake (2006) The Pivot of the World: Photography and Its Nation. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
- Turner, Fred (2012) 'The Family of Man and the Politics of Attention in Cold War America' in Public Culture 24:1 Duke University Press. doi:10.1215/08992363-1443556
External links
- Photographs documenting the complete original exhibition at MoMA
- Official website of the Museum The Family of Man, Clervaux, Luxembourg
- CarlSandburg.net: a Research Website for Sandburg Studies