Lee Friedlander: Christmas
Deborah Bell Photographs, New York
November 6, 2025 - January 10, 2026
Deborah Bell Photographs presents Lee Friedlander: Christmas, an exhibition of photographs by Lee Friedlander dating from 1958 to 2015, in collaboration with Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Luhring Augustine, New York.
This exhibition also celebrates the release of Friedlander's most recent book, LEE FRIEDLANDER: CHRISTMAS, published by the Eakins Press Foundation, New York. Although many of the photographs on view are well known from their inclusion in Friedlander's previous books and numerous exhibition catalogues, and have appeared on the walls of museum and gallery exhibitions internationally, this publication features Friedlander's personal edit of photographs related to the theme of Christmas. As indicated by the Eakins Press Foundation, the book presents 106 beautifully reproduced photographs that span the artist's life, cover most of the United States, and give us a sweeping view of American culture by this renowned photographer of the social landscape. The exhibition features some 30 photographs selected from the book.
Afterword by Peter Kayafas
Eakins Press Foundation, 2025
Clth, 11.75 x 12.5 in. / 112 pgs / 106 b&w / 106 tritone
ISBN 9780871301055
Cover Photograph: Lee Friedlander (American, b. 1934)
San Angelo, Texas, 1997
Gelatin silver print sheet 20 x 16'“ (50.8 x 40.6 cm)
© Lee Friedlander, Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco
and Luhring Augustine, New York
Peter Kayafas, Director and President of Eakins Press Foundation, writes in the Afterword to the sumptuously illustrated book:
Whether or not you've celebrated Christmas at any point over the past seventy years--roughly the period covered by these photographs--you have no doubt encountered some of the things Friedlander shows us here....Is Christmas in America a religious holiday? A commercial precept? An ironic commentary? A misunderstanding? An indulgent blasphemy? All or none of the above? In these pictures, the only thing certain is that Christmas has provided an opportunity for the people's photographer to hold up a mirror--and make no mistake, it is Friedlander's mirror--to a diverse, flawed, inventive, preoccupied, and spectacular society.
DEBORAH BELL PHOTOGRAPHS
526 West 26th Street, New York, NY 10001
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Deborah Bell Photographs, New York , November 1, 2018 – January 19, 2019