Family

by Lee Friedlander, Maria Friedlander (Contributor)

Like most fathers, Lee Friedlander has made photographs of his wife and children throughout their lives together. Unlike most fathers, Friedlander happens to be one of the greatest living photographers. In Family, Friedlander departs from his well-known terrain of the open road and the city street, focusing instead on his wife, Maria, his children and (later) his grandchildren. The result is an intimate narrative of a family's complex life, from 1958 to the present. The subjects are natural and unaffected in front of the ever-present lens, and the pictures make it clear that Friedlander's camera was a constant presence in the home, a natural extension of the artist himself. Over and over Friedlander recognized in an instant things that were precious and universal, yet specific to his own situation. Friedlander has done us a great honor by publishing these images. The inventive design of Family enhances the integrity of Friedlander's family album.

Genres: Photography

144 pages, Hardcover

First published May 2, 2004

About the author

Lee Friedlander is a seminal American photographer known for his innovative images of city streets. Often featuring candid portraits of people, signs, and reflections of himself in store front windows, Friedlander’s street photography captures the unexpected overlaps of light and content in urban landscapes. “I’m not a premeditative photographer,” he has said. “You don’t have to go looking for pictures. The material is generous. You go out and the pictures are staring at you.”

Born on July 14, 1934 in Aberdeen, WA, he studied at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena before moving to New York in 1956. Influenced by the work of Eugène Atget and Walker Evans, he attempted to see things as if a step removed, spontaneously reacting to all the potential images in front of him. Along with Diane Arbus and Garry Winogrand, Friedlander was represented in the historic “New Documents” exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art in 1967, curated by John Szarkowski. He went on to publish his acclaimed photobook The American Monument in 1976. More recently, in 2010, Friedlander published America by Car, a book which was accompanied by an exhibition at the Whitney Museum and featured a series of photos that were taken on road trips from behind the wheel of rental cars. The artist continues to live and work in New York, NY. Today, his photographs are held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, among others.