"The function and mission of photography is to explain man to man and man to himself"

Universal message … Garry Winogrand shot of Coney Island bathers, New York, 1952, from Edward Steichen's groundbreaking exhibition, The Family of Man. Photograph: Fraenkel Gallery/Garry Winogrand

 

Via The Guardian

 

 

Double exposure: photography's biggest ever show comes back to life

The Family of Man, a groundbreaking post-war exhibition seen by more than 10 million people, reopens in Luxembourg

 

Giovanna Dunmall

Friday 5 July 2013

 

In 1955, Edward Steichen changed the world of photography forever. When the visionary curator and photographer decided to mount an exhibition to promote world peace and equality after two world wars, he was breaking the mould. He gathered 503 photographs of people from around the world, taken by 273 different (often unknown) photographers, and grouped them by theme. That exhibition, The Family of Man, opened in January 1955 at New York's Museum of Modern Art, where the Luxembourg-born Steichen was director of photography from 1947 to 1961. It went on to tour the world and become the most successful photography exhibition of all time – more than 10 million people have seen it. It will go back on show this weekend in a castle in Luxembourg, after renovation work that has taken three years.

"Family of Man changed the way we view photographs today, and how we think about exhibitions," says Anke Reitz, conservator of The Family of Man in Luxembourg, where the collection has been since 1994. "It is a milestone in the history of photography." Steichen chose images grouped by themes intended to be so universal that anyone in any culture could identify with them: birth, fathers and sons, mothers and children, education, love, work, death and religion. The images were hung in particular formations, some dangling from wires overhead or attached to poles. The birth photos were arranged inside an intimate circular structure, while theatrical lighting created further drama and atmosphere. Steichen hung the photos without captions. "The exhibition was meant to be understood around the world without the need for words," says Reitz.

Alfred Eisenstaedt's image of a University of Michigan marching band drum major practising his high-kicking prance, followed by admirers in Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1950

 

 

Now, in its renovated setting in Luxembourg, The Family of Man is just as striking, dynamic and emotional as it must have been all those decades ago. The photographs are laid out precisely as in the original MoMA exhibition; only the lighting has been altered, for conservation reasons. Images of children playing and crying, men and women marrying, dreamily staring into space, dancing or fighting – including work by Dorothea Lange, Bill Brandt and Elliott Erwitt – are beautiful or intriguing. Others appear more as historic documents, such as the photo of crowds gathered in London for Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip's wedding in 1947, or the image by Henri Cartier-Bresson of Gandhi lying in state in Delhi after his assassination in 1948.

American anthropology … Leon Levinstein, Couple in New York, 1952 Photograph: Howard Greenberg Gallery/Leon Levinstein

Sections of the show are now dated and gendered, and there is no doubt that the main worldview being expounded was white, western and male. One theme, "household and office work", shows only women cooking and cleaning, while the predominance of the nuclear family in many photographs, themes and arrangements feels reactionary and simplistic (as if the family could conquer all – even issues such as racism or social inequality).

For Reitz, such criticisms are founded, but are "part of the history of the exhibition". The Family of Man is very much a product of its time and its creator, she says. As a contemporary viewer, it is hard to appreciate quite what an impact this anthropological photographic survey must have had, nearrly 60 years ago, when viewed in places as culturally diverse as Indonesia, Russia, Japan, Italy and Laos. "For many people, it was like seeing the world for the first time," says Reitz. "A lot of them didn't have TVs or access to magazines."

A world revealed … Peruvian Flute Player, Pisac, Peru, 1954, by Eugene Harris

The Family of Man has stood the test of time because of how innovative Steichen was as a curator. He displayed photos without frames and blew them up into lifesize formats; he took images away from museum walls and into the centre of rooms where visitors could interact with them. Not long before dying, Steichen said: "The function and mission of photography is to explain man to man and man to himself." That is the reason The Family of Man continues to capture our imaginations.

FARRAH FAWCETT'S ICONIC RED SWIMSUIT DONATED TO THE SMITHSONIAN

Bruce McBroom

Farrah Fawcett's Red Swimsuit Going to Smithsonian
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: February 2, 2011

WASHINGTON (AP) — The red swimsuit that helped make Charlie's Angels actress Farrah Fawcett an icon is going to the Smithsonian in Washington.

Fawcett's longtime companion Ryan O'Neal will donate the swimsuit and other items to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History on Wednesday. A 1976 poster of Fawcett in the dampened red swimsuit sold millions of copies.

Also going to the Smithsonian are Fawcett's copies of scripts for the first season of Charlie's Angels and a 1977 Farrah Fawcett doll.

The items will be part of the museum's popular culture history collection.

Fawcett died in 2009 at the age of 62 after battling cancer.

ABOUT THE MAKING OF THE ICONIC PHOTOGRAPH

The image was released in 1977 as a poster, the same year as when she played Jill Munroe on the TV show Charlie's Angels. It went on to sell a record 12 million copies making it one of the most famous pin-ups ever.


Mike and Ted Trikilis dropped out of Kent State in 1967 to open an art gallery that sold posters. A shipment of anti-war posters soon became their number one bread winner and so they sold the store and became the Pro Arts Inc. They struggled for a few years but then a poster of the Fonz sold more than a quarter-million copies which bumped Pro Arts in the big leagues.

In April of 1976 Ted was working on his farm with the neighbor's son Pat Partridge when Pat wondered  if Pro Arts would make a poster of Farrah Fawcett. He admitted that he and his friends had been buying women's magazines just to get pictures of her from the Wella Balsam shampoo ads. Ted had never heard of Farrah but knew that if students were using ads of her then a poster would be a big seller. He soon got in touch with Fawcett's agent Rick Hersh and tried to get a deal. After Ted finished talking Hersh was puzzled and asked, "What type of product is Farrah to be selling on the poster?" "We want to sell Farrah on the Farrah poster," Ted explained.

Hersh passed the idea on to Farrah who thought it was "cute" and said she had a photographer she like to work with.

When the photo was taken Farrah Fawcett was still an unknown actress wanting to make it big. She hadn't yet signed on for her hit show Charlie's Angels but got some work doing commercials. Bruce McBroom was a freelance photographer who had worked with Farrah before and so Pro Arts agreed to hire him for the shoot. They wanted a bikini shot of the blond beauty.

The shoot was at Farrah's Bel Air, Calif., home of her and then-husband, actor Lee Majors. She did her own hair and they took the photos behind the home by their pool. She modelled several different swimsuits but McBroom didn't get excited about any of the pictures he shot. When she came down in the now famous red one piece swimsuit to cover a childhood scar on her stomach McBroom knew he had something. For the backdrop McBroom grabbed the old Indian Blanket covering his car seat and hung it up, "I should have told people I styled this," McBroom says, "but the truth is it came off the front seat of my '37 Chevy."

©Bruce McBroom/MPTV

He took a number of shots, using his Nikon, including a sultry Farrah eating a cookie but Farrah chose the final frame that would make her one of the most famous people of the 70's. In the early summer of '76 McBroom sent a package of 25 shots of Farrah indicating which one Farrah wanted to use.

©Bruce McBroom/MPTV

"I've since heard that when the guy in Cleveland got the pictures, he went, "First of all, where's the bikini?" He told me he wasn't ever gonna pay me, because he hated the pictures. But I guess he showed them around to people in his business and they changed his mind. It was Farrah's pose, Farrah's suit, Farrah's idea. She picked that shot. She made a lot of money for him and for herself, and made me semifamous."
--Bruce McBroom

McBroom was paid $1000 for the assignment but is happy to be associated with such a cultural icon. In 2006 on the 30th anniversary of the image, Fawcett, said "I was a little self-conscious [of the image], probably because my smile is so big, but it always more 'me' than any other photograph out there."

Bruce McBroom went on to work as the still photographer on over 65 movies, including "The Godfather Part Two, The Hunt for Red October, ET, City Slickers, Ghost Busters, Sleepless in Seattle, and many more. He now lives near Santa Fe, New Mexico, and his photographs can be seen at Monroe Gallery of Photography.


Related: "Bruce McBroom Remember The Iconic Poster Shoot" interview from Entertainment Weekly

Time Magazine: Fawcett Photographer Recalls an Iconic Shoot


Source: Famous Pictures: The Magazine