The Smithsonian Magazine
December 9th, 2025
Lee Friedlander: Christmas
Photographs by Lee Friedlander
Afterword by Peter Kayafas
2025
Lee Friedlander: Christmas 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 the renowned photographer of the social landscape.
From the afterword:
"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."
978-0-87130-105-5