Lee Friedlander: Christmas - (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

With a healthy sprinkle of plastic and tinsel, Friedlander's visions of a commercial, uniquely American Christmas evoke both irony and nostalgia

Whether or not you celebrated Christmas at some point during the last 70 years, you have no doubt encountered many of the scenes shown here in Lee Friedlander's eclectic black-and-white documentation of the holiday season across America. From city sidewalks to cookie-cutter suburbs, Friedlander captures it all: main street store window displays; plastic nativities on snow-covered lawns; inflatable snowglobes and Santa Clauses; questionable St. Nicholas-themed lingerie; oversize or underwhelming Christmas trees; and houses so covered in string lights as to demand nothing short of a miracle from the local power grid.
As in all of his work, Friedlander's images of Christmas reflect his own version of the holiday. Is Christmas in America a religious celebration? A commercial precept? A misunderstanding? An indulgent blasphemy? Or all of the above? The only certain thing is that December 25 has provided an opportunity for the people's photographer to hold up a mirror to a flawed, inventive, preoccupied and wonderful society.
Lee Friedlander (born 1934) has published more than 60 monographs since 1969. He was represented alongside Diane Arbus and Garry Winogrand in the 1967 New Documents exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, now understood as a landmark event in American documentary photography, and received his own retrospective at the same museum in 2005. He has lived and worked in New York since 1956.

Review Quotes

[Seventy] years of slightly seedy, kind of ironic, charming black-and-whites of iffy nativities and roadside yuletides.--Christopher Borrelli "The Chicago Tribune"

Friedlander strips away sentiment so that we can see objectively. He invites reflection.--Carolina de Armas "Air Mail"

Have yourself a very realistic Christmas with these wonderfully quotidian images of the holiday, decked in tinsel and plastic dross. Seven decades of sex-store mannequins, suburban lawns and tired-eyed mall Santas all become rich (if questionably festive) fodder for seasonal drapings, captured by Friedlander's quietly sardonic eye.--Leah Greenblatt "The New York Times Book Review"

Lee Friedlander, one of the pioneers of the self-portrait, brings his signature whimsy to Christmas.--Donny Bajohr "The Smithsonian Magazine"

So much of [Lee Friedlander's] greatness has to do with energy, unpredictability, productivity, humor, an almost-muscular mastery of visual geometry. None of those qualities are associated with Christmas, which makes their presence throughout the book all the more beguiling.--Mark Feeney "The Boston Globe"

The photographer, now 91, was famous for creating a new visual urban landscape in the 1960s and 70s in which the language of billboards, and the complication of shopfront reflection and often comic street-level juxtapositions all invaded the frame of his pictures. Christmas displays and decorations and have always been, in that sense, the gift that kept on giving.--Tim Adams "The Observer"

The volume assembles various kinds of images by the storied photographer who started pointing his lens at American life in 1948 and now finds himself at the age of 91.--Andy Battaglia "ARTnews"

This oversized book of photographs taken over the course of 70 years adds another layer to the chaos by zeroing in on scenes boasting a haphazard array of Christmas decorations. The overall effect is a dizzying commentary on the commodification of the holiday and, on occasion, its capacity as a beacon of hope.--Suzanne Van Atten "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution"

What I like best about Friedlander's Christmas photographs is the way they so smartly mix high and low, combining sneakily sophisticated compositional strategies with a splash of holiday irreverence, making pictures that are at once serious art and playful and impertinent cultural commentary.... Perhaps the most important gift he gives us with these images is his warmly dry wit, incisively reminding us to step back and observe the quiet absurdity of the whole holiday production.--Loring Knoblauch "Collector Daily"

Whether it's holiday parades or a picture of mannequins in fetish wear and Santa hats, all the images reveal something about the American psyche.--Tony Bravo "The San Francisco Chronicle"

While Christmas may be the central focus of this show, Mr. Friedlander's skill as a photographer is the real gift here.--Brian P. Kelly "The Wall Street Journal"

Friedlander captures the relentless, sometimes humorous, commercialism of a purportedly religious holiday in the United States.-- "AIPAD: Exposure"

Mr. Friedlander's probing lens exposes many absurdities of yuletide traditions in a consumerist society. In a 2010 photograph, an adult store's window display features Santa-inspired lingerie. Frank, full of character and occasionally disorienting, this collection is a joyful depiction of a uniquely American quirk. You needn't celebrate the holiday to enjoy 'Christmas.'--Angelina Torre "The Wall Street Journal"

Spanning the years 1958 to 2016, [these photographs] tell a story of how Christmas in America has evolved, from the community gatherings of the 1960s through the excess of the '70s and on to the sleek spectacle of the new millenium.--Megan Hill "The Financial Times"

There is something caricaturalabout Christmas--the plasticnativities on snow-strewnlawns, inflatable snowglobes, and adults ho-hoingin costume. In the 1960s and70s, Lee Friedlander set out todocument 'America's sociallandscape, ' and his black-and-white Christmas photographsare collected in this book.In it, he asks: Is the holidaya religious celebration, anindulgent blasphemy, or both?-- "Air Mail"

Classic and Christmas-y, there's 'Lee Friedlander: Christmas, ' a collection of holiday photographs by one of the medium's greats.--Emily Watlington "Art in America"

Friedlander's probing lens exposes many absurdities of yuletide traditions in a consumerist society. In a 2010 photograph, an adult store's window display features Santa-inspired lingerie. Frank, full of character and occasionally disorienting, this collection is a joyful depiction of a uniquely American quirk.--Angelina Torre "The Wall Street Journal"

With a healthy sprinkle of plastic and tinsel, Friedlander's visions of a commercial, uniquely American Christmas evoke both irony and nostalgia.--Amy Crawford "The Smithsonian"