Family of Man: The Greatest Photographic Exhibition of All Time — 503 Pictures from 68 Countries (Corcoran Gallery of Art copy)
Citation
Steichen, Edward, ed. Family of Man: The Greatest Photographic Exhibition of All Time — 503 Pictures from 68 Countries, Created by Edward Steichen for The Museum of Modern Art. Prologue by Carl Sandburg. New York: Maco Magazine Corporation for The Museum of Modern Art, 1955. Copy held in Corcoran Gallery of Art records; digitised and archived at Internet Archive, item identifier: cor5_0_s06_ss01_boxrg5_0_2008_007_f19.
Tier justification
Tier 1: primary exhibition catalog from the first U.S. international stop of The Family of Man tour (Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., June 30 – July 31, 1955). The Corcoran’s copy represents the international-tour edition of the catalog, potentially carrying institution-specific inserts or markings that distinguish it from the MoMA paperback edition (src-moma-1955-catalog). Internet Archive digitised primary document.
Relevance
The Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington D.C.) hosted the international edition of The Family of Man from June 30 to July 31, 1955 — the first stop of the international tour, nine days before the domestic U.S. tour opened in Minneapolis (June 21, 1955), and preceding Guatemala City by approximately two months. The Corcoran stop is documented in the MoMA press release (src-moma-1955-press-release-book, p. 2) as the international-edition opening. This Internet Archive item — the Corcoran’s own copy of the catalog, digitised from their records — provides physical evidence of the international edition’s distribution and is the earliest archival trace of the international tour’s institutional footprint.
Key excerpts / pages
- Internet Archive item returned in search results (2026-04-30). Item title in search result: ‘Family of Man: the Greatest Photographic Exhibition of All Time - 503 Pictures from 68 Countries - Created by Edward Steichen for the Museum of Modern Art : Corcoran Gallery of Art : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive.’
- Item identifier: cor5_0_s06_ss01_boxrg5_0_2008_007_f19 — the identifier structure (‘cor5_0_s06_ss01_boxrg5_0_2008_007_f19’) suggests Corcoran records series 5, subseries 01, box RG5.0, 2008 accession.
- Catalog subtitle confirms international edition framing: ‘503 Pictures from 68 Countries.’
Notes
- Item page and full contents NOT directly fetched this round — URL returned in search results (2026-04-30) but not opened. Verified: false pending direct fetch.
- This entry is created on the basis of the Internet Archive item appearing in search results; the item identifier and title are the only confirmed metadata. The physical contents of the digitised item (whether it includes Corcoran-specific inserts, tour schedules, or markings) are unknown.
- The Corcoran Gallery’s own records (the archival box from which this item comes) may contain additional tour documentation — correspondence with MoMA, USIA memos, attendance records — that would be extremely valuable for
research/world-tour.md. These are NOT documented in this entry. - Note on distinction from
src-moma-1955-catalog: this Corcoran copy is the international-edition catalog, issued to accompany the USIA-sponsored international tour; the MoMA edition (src-moma-1955-catalog) is the domestic exhibition catalog / trade book. The two are related but institutionally distinct. - A future pass should fetch the Internet Archive item directly to confirm contents, check for Corcoran-specific inserts, and extract any tour-relevant material.