Photographic Memory

From the Daguerreian era to today’s digital age, this stunning volume explores the evolution of photographic portraiture through treasures from the National Portrait Gallery’s wide-ranging collection at the Smithsonian Institution.

Published to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the photography collection, the book highlights the medium’s role in democratizing portraiture. Works by leading photographers, including Richard Avedon, Mathew Brady, Annie Leibovitz, and James Van Der Zee, portray some of America’s most significant figures, including Abraham Lincoln, John Steinbeck, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Lin-Manuel Miranda, emphasising the remarkable people on both sides of the camera.