<!-- -->

thumb|Softcover book catalogue of The Family of Man, designed by [[Leo Lionni, Piper photo by Eugene Harris. First issued for $1.00 in 1955 by Ridge Press, 4 million have sold and it is still in print.]]

The Family of Man was an ambitious which is in excess of the largest audience for any other photographic exhibition. The photographs in the exhibition focused on the commonalities that bind people and cultures around the world, the exhibition serving as an expression of humanism in the decade following World War II. under the auspices of the Museum of Modern Art International Program.

|-

|Hamburg

|-

|Hanover

|-

|Frankfurt, Haus des Deutschen Kunsthandwerks, Oct 25Nov 30, 1958

|-

|France

|Paris, Musee National d'Art Moderne, Jan 20Feb 26, 1956

|-

| rowspan="2" |Netherlands

|Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, March 23April 29, 1956

|-

|Rotterdam, Floriade, May–Aug 1960

|-

|Belgium

|Brussels, Palais de Beaux Arts, May 23July 1, 1956

|-

|England

|London, Royal Festival Hall, Aug 1–30, 1956

|-

| rowspan="2" |Italy

|Rome, Palazzo Venezia

|-

|Milan, Villa Communale

|-

|Yugoslavia

|Belgrade, Kalamegdan Pavilion, Jan 25Feb 22, 1957

|-

|Austria

|Vienna, Kunstlerhaus, March 30April 28, 1957

|-

| rowspan="3" |Denmark

|Aarhus

|-

|Aalborg

|-

|Odense

|-

|Greece

|Athens

|-

|Finland

|Helsinki Taidehall

|}

Central America, India, Africa, Middle East

Copy 2, a duplicate of Copy 1 was commissioned by the USIA, circulated 1955–1963 and dispersed in 1963. It was shown in:

{| class="wikitable mw-collapsible"

|-

|Guatemala

|Guatemala City, Palacio de Protocolo, Aug 24Sept 18, 1955

|-

|Mexico

|Mexico City, La Fragua- Conference of Central American States, Oct 21Nov 20, 1955

|-

| rowspan="7" |India

|Bombay, Jehangir Art Gallery, June 18July 15, 1956, ext. July 20

|-

|Agra, University of Agra Library, Aug 31Sept 19, 1956

|-

|New Delhi, Industries Fair Grounds-IX Session of General Conference of UNESCO, Nov–Dec 5, 1956

|-

|Ahmedabad, Cultural Center, Jan 11Feb 1, 1957

|-

|Calcutta, Ranji Stadium, March–April, 1957

|-

|Madras, Madras University, June 10July 21, 1957

|-

|Trivandurum, Sept 1–22, 1957

|-

|South Korea

|Seoul

|-

|Southern Rhodesia

|Salisbury, Rhodes National Gallery, March–April, 1958

|-

| rowspan="4" |Union of South Africa

|Johannesburg, Gov't Pavilion-Rand Spring Show, Aug 30Sept 13, 1958

|-

|Cape Town

|-

|Durban, Nov 11–25, 1958

|-

|Pretoria, Jan 1959 Windhoek Port Elizabeth Uitenboge

|-

|Kenya

|Nairobi, Oct 1959

|-

| rowspan="3" |United Arab Republic

|Cairo, Dec 1960

|-

|Alexandria, Nov 1960

|-

|Damascus

|-

|Afghanistan

|Kabul

|-

|Iran

|Tehran

|}

Second European tour

Copy 3, a duplicate of Copy 1 commissioned by the USIA. Circulated 1957–1965 and at Steichen's request, this version of the exhibition was presented to the Government of Luxembourg for permanent display at Common Market Headquarters, Luxembourg, 1965. Previously, it was shown in:

{| class="wikitable mw-collapsible"

|-

|Norway

|Oslo, Museum of Applied Arts, Jan 15Feb 10, 1957

|-

| rowspan="3" |Sweden

|Stockholm, Lilijevalchs Konsthall, March 22April 7, 1957

|-

|Gothenburg, Svenska Massan/Gothenborg Fair, June 8–23, 1957

|-

|Halsingborg, Halsinborg Exposition, Jul 12Aug 18, 1957

|-

|Iceland

|Reykjavík, Sept–Oct, 1957

|-

|Denmark

|Copenhagen, Charlottenborg Gallery, Nov 22Dec 26, 1957

|-

| rowspan="4" |Switzerland

|Zürich, Museum of Design, Jan 25 – March 2, 1958

|-

|Basel, Kunsthalle, March 8 – April 16, 1958

|-

|Geneva, Musee Rath, April 16 – May 1958

|-

|St. Gallen, Aug–Sep, 1958 Bern, Jun–Aug, 1958

|-

|Yugoslavia

|Zagreb, Oct–Nov, 1958

|-

| rowspan="3" |Italy

|Milan, Villa Communale, Jan–Feb, 1959

|-

|Turin

|-

|Florence

|-

| rowspan="7" |Poland

|Warsaw, National Theatre, Sept 18 – Oct 21, 1959

|-

|Wrocław, Museum of Slask, Nov 8 – Dec 27, 1959

|-

|Wałbrzych, Jan 1 – Feb 7, 1960

|-

|Jelenia Góra, Feb 14–28, 1960

|-

|Kraków, March 1–15, 1960

|-

|Poznań, April 9 – May 1, 1960

|-

|Dąbrowa Górnicza, May 10–31, 1960

|-

|Belgium

|Ghent

|-

|Luxembourg

|Musee de l'Etat, July 23, 1966

|}

South America, Australia and South-East Asia

Copy 4, a duplicate of Copy 1. Commissioned by the U.S.I.A. Circulated 1957–62. Dispersed 1962. It was shown in:

{| class="wikitable mw-collapsible"

|-

|Cuba

|Havana, Museo Nacional Palacio de Belas Artes, March 6 – April, 1957

|-

|Venezuela

|Caracas, University of Caracas, July 5–30, 1957

|-

|Colombia

|Bogotá, Oct–Dec, 1957

|-

|Chile

|Santiago, University of Chile, Jan–Feb, 1958

|-

|Uruguay

|Montevideo, April 12–27, 1958

|-

| rowspan="4" |Australia

|Melbourne, Preston Motors Show Room, opened February 23, 1959

|-

|Sydney, David Jones department store, opened April 6, 1959

|-

|Brisbane, John Hicks Showrooms, May 18 – June 13, 1959

|-

|Adelaide, Myer Emporium, June 29 – July 31, 1959

|-

|Laos

|Bientani, That Luang National shrine – That Luang Festival

|-

|Indonesia

|Jakarta

|}

thumb|Poster for the Exhibition The Family of Man in three languages

Middle East

A revised version of the original shown at MoMA 1955. Circulated in the United States, 1957–59, then acquired by the USIA for circulation abroad (1957–58; dispersed 1958), and shown in Tel Aviv, Israel and Beirut, Lebanon

Soviet Union

Copy 5: Following a bilateral agreement between the US and USSR, in 1959 the American National Exhibition was to be held in Moscow and the Soviets were to have had the use of New York City's Coliseum. This Moscow trade fair at Sokolniki Park was the scene of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and United States Vice President Richard Nixon's 'Kitchen Debate' over the relative merits of communism and capitalism.

The Family of Man was a late inclusion that had not been originally envisaged in MoMA's itinerary. With a grant to the Museum of $15,000 (less than half of what it requested) and funding from the plastics industry for the radical pre-fabricated translucent pavilion design to house it, a fifth copy of the show was salvaged from what was left of the Beirut and Scandinavia showings, augmented with new prints.

An innovative exhibit

The physical installation and layout of the Family of Man exhibition were designed to enable the visitor to view it as if it were a photo-essay

  • Louis Faurer (USA)
  • Ed Feingersh (USA)
  • Andreas Feininger (USA)
  • Vito Fiorenza (Italy)
  • Leopold Fischer (Austria)
  • John Florea (USA)
  • Robert Frank (USA)
  • Toni Frissell (USA)
  • Unosuke Gamou (Japan)
  • William Garnett (USA)
  • Herbert Gehr (Edmund Bert Gerard) (USA)
  • Guy Gillette (USA)
  • Burt Glinn (USA)
  • Fritz Goro (USA)
  • Allan Grant (USA)
  • Farrell Grehan (USA)
  • René Groebli (Switzerland)
  • Mildred Grossman (USA)
  • Karl W. Gullers (Sweden)
  • Ernst Haas (USA)
  • Peter W. Haberlin (Switzerland)
  • Hideo Haga (Japan)
  • Otto Hagel (USA)
  • Robert Halmi (Hungary)
  • Hiroshi Hamaya(Japan)
  • Hans Hammarskiöld (Sweden)
  • Hella Hammid (USA)
  • Bert Hardy (UK)
  • Eugene Harris (USA)
  • Caroline Hebbe-Hammarskiöld (Sweden)
  • Paul Himmel (USA)
  • Frank Horvat (Italy)
  • Willi Huttig (Germany)
  • Yasuhiro Ishimoto (Japan)
  • Izis (France)
  • Fenno Jacobs (USA)
  • Raymond Jacobs (USA)
  • Ronny Jaques (Canada)
  • Bob Jakobsen (USA)
  • Nico Jesse (Netherlands)
  • Constantin Joffé
  • Carter Jones (USA)
  • Henk Jonker (Netherlands)
  • Victor Jorgensen (USA)
  • Clemens Kalischer (USA)
  • Simpson Kalisher (USA)
  • Consuelo Kanaga (USA)
  • Dmitri Kessel (USA)
  • Keystone Press (Agency, USA)
  • Ihei Kimura (Japan)
  • Martha Kitchen (USA)
  • Nikolai Kolli (USSR)
  • Torkel Korling (USA)
  • Nikolai Kozlovsky (USSR)
  • Ewing Krainin (USA)
  • Herman Kreider (USA)
  • Walter B. Lane
  • Dorothea Lange (USA)
  • Harry Lapow (USA
  • Lisa Larsen (USA)
  • Alma Lavenson (USA)
  • Arthur Lavine (USA)
  • Russell Lee (USA)
  • Nina Leen (Russia/USA)
  • Laurence Le Guay (Australia)
  • Henri Leighton (USA)
  • Arthur Leipzig (USA)
  • Charles Leirens (Belgium)
  • Gita Lenz (USA)
  • Leon Levinstein (USA)
  • Helen Levitt (USA)
  • Margery Lewis (USA)
  • Sol Libsohn (USA)
  • David Linton
  • Herbert List (Germany)
  • Jacob Lofman (Poland/USA)
  • Hans Malmberg (Sweden)
  • G.H. Metcalf
  • Gjon Mili (Albania/USA)
  • Frank Miller (USA)
  • Joan Miller (USA)
  • Lee Miller (USA)
  • Wayne Miller (USA)
  • May Mirin (USA)
  • Lisette Model (Austria/USA)
  • Peter Moeschlin (Switzerland)
  • David Moore (Australia)
  • Barbara Morgan (USA)
  • Hedda Morrison (Germany)
  • Ralph Morse (USA)
  • Robert Mottar (USA)
  • Carl Mydans (USA)
  • David Myers (USA)
  • Fritz Neugass (Germany/USA)
  • Lennart Nilsson (Sweden)
  • Pål Nils Nilsson (Sweden)
  • Emil Obrovsky (Austria)
  • Yoichi Okamoto (USA)
  • Cas Oorthuys (Netherlands)
  • Ruth Orkin (USA)
  • Don Ornitz (USA)
  • Eiju Otaki
  • Homer Page (USA)
  • Marion Palfi (USA)
  • Gordon Parks (USA)
  • Rondal Partridge (USA)
  • Irving Penn (USA)
  • Carl Perutz (USA)
  • John Phillips (Algeria/USA)
  • Leonti Planskoy (Russia/UK)
  • Ray Platnick (USA)
  • Fred Plaut (Germany)
  • Rudolf Pollak (Germany)
  • Rapho Guilumette (Agency, France)
  • Gottfried Rainer (Austria)
  • Daniel J. Ransohoff (USA)
  • Bill Rauhauser (USA)
  • Satyajit Ray (India)
  • Anna Riwkin-Brick (Russia/Sweden)
  • George Rodger (Great Britain)
  • Willy Ronis (France)
  • Annelise Rosenberg
  • Hannes Rosenberg
  • August Sander (Germany)
  • Walter Sanders (USA)
  • Sanford H. Roth (USA)
  • Gotthard Schuh
  • Éric Schwab (France)
  • Bob Schwalberg (USA)
  • Kurt Severin (Germany/USA)
  • David Seymour (Poland)
  • Ben Shahn (Lithuania/USA)
  • Musya S. Sheeler (USA)
  • Li Shu (China)
  • George Silk (New Zealand/USA)
  • Bradley Smith (USA)
  • Ian Smith (UK)
  • W. Eugene Smith (USA)
  • Howard Sochurek (USA)
  • Peter Stackpole (USA)
  • Alfred Statler (USA)
  • Gitel Steed (USA)
  • Edward Steichen (Luxembourg/USA)
  • Richard Steinheimer (USA)
  • Ezra Stoller (USA)
  • Lou Stoumen (USA)
  • George Strock (USA)
  • Constance Stuart (South Africa)
  • Étienne Sved (Hungary)
  • Suzanne Szasz (USA)
  • Yoshisuke Terao
  • Gustavo Thorlichen (Argentina)
  • Charles Trieschmann (USA)
  • François Tuefferd (France)
  • Jakob Tuggener (Switzerland)
  • Allan Turoff
  • Doris Ulmann (USA)
  • Alexander Uzylan (U.S.S.R.)
  • Ed van der Elsken (Netherlands)
  • William Vandivert
  • Pierre Verger (France/Brazil)
  • Ike Vern (USA)
  • 'Véro' (Werner Rosenberg) (France)
  • Roman Vishniac (Russia/USA)
  • Carmel Vitullo (USA)
  • Edward Wallowitch (USA)
  • Todd Webb (USA)
  • Sabine Weiss (Switzerland)
  • Edward Weston (USA)
  • Bob Willoughby (USA)
  • Garry Winogrand (USA)
  • Arthur Witman (USA)
  • Jasper Wood (USA)
  • Yosuke Yamahata (Japan)
  • Shizuo Yamamoto

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."</blockquote>

Roland Barthes too 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." "My main point here is that The Family of Man, more than any other single photographic project, was a massive and ostentatious bureaucratic attempt to universalize photographic discourse," an exercise in hegemony which, "In the foreign showings of the exhibition, arranged by the United States Information Agency and co-sponsoring corporations like Coca-Cola, the discourse was explicitly that of American multinational capital and government—the new global management team–cloaked in the familiar and musty garb of patriarchy." Sekula revises and expands this notion in relation to his ideas about economic globalisation in an article in October entitled "Between the Net and the Deep Blue Sea: Rethinking the Traffic in Photographs".

A number of photographers and artists refer to their experience of The Family of Man exhibition or publication as formative or influential on them and some, including Australian Graham McCarter, being motivated by it to take up photography. The exhibition met with rejection by the press and functionaries in the photographic profession in Germany and Switzerland, and was described by Fritz Kempe, photographer, photo historian and board member of a prominent photo company, as "tasty fodder to stimulate the aggressive instincts of semi—intellectual young men.". The cover design based on Steichen's original and featured a Black Star agency picture of a woman in Greece with flowers in her hair. Project director was Julia Scully, and the art director, Albert Squillace.

A contemporary review of the book in Spokeswoman of December 1979 described it as an "an ambitious attempt to portray the ephemeral and the timeless qualities inherent in woman [...] Feelings of love, sisterhood, kindness, rage, hate, grief and delight are captured here in portraits of women of all ages and origins." The pictures were accompanied by quotations from writings of Emily Dickinson, Denise Levertov, Marianne Moore, Christina Stead, Diane Wakowski and others chosen by project editor Sylvia Cole.

Material from both The Family of Man and The Family of Woman were later featured at the Schweizerisches Architekturmuseum in Basel to represent the career path of a female professional from "the search for recognition to self-affirmation" in the 1989 Schweizerische Ausstellung für Frauenarbeit ('Swiss Exhibition for Women's Labour'), a project by three women architects, Inès Lamunière, Flora Ruchat-Roncati, and Beate Schnitte, commemorating expositions of Swiss women’s work of 1928 and 1958.

The World's Family (1983)

The World's Family was another Jerry Mason publication through the Putnam Group, and also with designer Albert Squillace and editor Sylvia Cole. Its contents were photographs solely by American Ken Heyman, too young, as Mason points out in his introduction, to have submitted images for The Famiy of Man. Mason cites Heyman's work of and for Margaret Mead as his credentials for a new "vision of humanity," thirty years after The Family of Man, and of a different world "in 1983 when one begins to feel the Orwellian predictions for 1984 multiplying themselves beyond imagination? Some communities of families sense themselves hurtling into obliteration and oblivion."

The Family of Man 1955–1984 (1984)

Independent curator Marvin Heiferman's The Family of Man 1955·1984 was a floor to ceiling collage of over 850 images and texts from magazines, newspapers and the art world shown in 1984 at PSI, The Institute for Art and Urban Resources Inc. (now MoMA PS1) Long Island City N.Y.

New Republic<!--?-->

Further reading

  • Berlier, Monique, 'The Family of Man: Readings of an Exhibition'. In
  • Chapter 3 'Subtle Subterfuge: The Flawed Nobility of Edward Steichen's Family of Man.' In
  • Gedney, W and Donaghy, D. 'From The family of man (1955) to Robert Frank. William.' In
  • Giocobbi, Giorgio, 'Humanist Photography and The "Catholic" Family of Man.' In
  • 'Photography as popular culture: The Family of Man.' In
  • Gresh, Kristen. 2005. "The European Roots of 'The Family of Man' ". History of Photography 29, (4): 331-343.
  • Hurm, Gerd (ed.); Reitz, Anke (ed.); Zamir, Shamoon (ed.) (2018), The family of man revisited : photography in a global age, London I.B.Tauris,
  • Priem, K and Thyssen, G. 'Puppets on a string in a theatre of display? Interactions of image, text, material, space and motion in The Family of Man'. In
  • Sandeen, Eric J. Picturing An Exhibition: The Family of Man and 1950s America. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995.
  • Sandeen, Eric J. 'The Family of Man on the Road to Moscow.' In
  • Steichen, Edward (2003) [1955]. The Family of Man. New York: The Museum of Modern Art.
  • Szarkowski, J. "The family of man". In
  • 'The family of man: refurbishing humanism for a postmodern age' (2004) In
  • Stimson, Blake (2006) The Pivot of the World: Photography and Its Nation. Cambridge, Massachusetts: 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.
  • Hurm, Gerd / Reitz Anke / Zamir Shamoon (2018) ' The Family of Man Revisited. Photography in a Global Age '. London / New York : I.B. Tauris.
  • Photographs documenting the complete original exhibition at MoMA
  • Official website of the Museum The Family of Man, Clervaux, Luxembourg
  • Official educational platform of the Museum The Family of Man
  • Official website of the Estate of Edward Steichen
  • Steichen Collection Musée National d'Histoire et d'Art, Luxembourg
  • The Bitter Years, Waasertuerm Gallery
  • Museum of Modern Art, Grace M. Mayer Papers
  • Steichen family papers the Beinecke Library Yale University
  • Smithsonian, National Air and Space Museum – American Expeditionary Force Photo Section (Steichen) Collection 1917–1919
  • Smithsonian, National Air and Space Museum – Edward J. Steichen World War II Navy Photographs Collection, 1941–1945
  • Carl Sandburg Home
  • University of Illinois Library, Carl Sandburg Papers
  • CarlSandburg.net: a Research Website for Sandburg Studies