MoMA: Family of Man Exhibition
Takashi Kono
Japanese, 1906–1999
c.1955
A lithograph poster by Takashi Kono from about 1955 advertising Edward Steichen’s international exhibition The Family of Man, using a reproduced photograph, Japanese lettering, and geometric color blocks to sell a universal human narrative.
You first notice the strong, staggered Japanese title cutting across a grid of olive, gray and black rectangles, a small black-and-white photograph of smiling children tucked into the block structure, and a vertical gold stripe that reads like a magazine column, giving the whole image a calm, modern order.
As a piece of exhibition design, it translated postwar internationalist ideals into a restrained modernist graphic language, helping to present photography as a tool of cultural exchange and popular humanism.
Medium
Lithograph
Dimensions
28 7/8 × 20 3/8" (73.3 × 51.8 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Anonymous gift
Accession
862.2015
Palette
Exhibitions
