Timeline
A chronological record of The Family of Man: from the 1955 MoMA opening through the USIA world tour, the Luxembourg donation, the Clervaux permanent installation, the 2003 UNESCO inscription, the 2010–2013 restoration, and the 70th anniversary in 2025. Every row cites at least one source in this wiki.
Source of truth: data/timeline-events.csv — single source of truth for this page; future research agents add rows to that file.
MoMA opening: The Family of Man
503 photographs by 273 photographers from 68 countries open at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The show runs through 8 May 1955 and draws more than 270,000 visitors.
Exhibition catalog published
Two simultaneous editions of the catalog (trade and MoMA members') published on 21 June 1955, with Carl Sandburg's prologue reprinted in full. Text layout by Leo Lionni; printing by R. R. Donnelley.
USIA international tour opens — Corcoran Gallery
A separate international edition begins its world circulation at the Corcoran Gallery, Washington D.C. (30 June – 31 July 1955), nine days before the U.S. domestic tour opens in Minneapolis.
U.S. domestic tour begins — Minneapolis
The U.S. domestic tour opens at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (21 Jun – 4 Sept 1955), followed by Dallas, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh through November 1956.
Guatemala City stop
The international touring edition is installed at the Palacio Protocolo, Guatemala City, 24 August – 18 September 1955 — the first documented Latin American venue.
Dallas Museum of Fine Arts
Second U.S. domestic tour stop at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, 7 October – 18 November 1955.
West Berlin — Hochschule fur Bildende Kunste
The exhibition 'opens its European tour in West Berlin' at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in 1955. The visit was notable enough that German playwright Bertolt Brecht crossed from East Berlin to see it — documented by a NARA RG 306 photograph.
Mexico City — Calle Lafragua exhibition hall
The exhibition is shown at the exhibition hall at no. 4 Calle Lafragua, facing the Monument to the Revolution, Mexico City, 28 October – 13 November 1955. Attendance: 12,500+ per MoMA records communicated by the U.S. Embassy's Cultural Affairs Office.
Paris — Musee National d'Art Moderne
Paris showing at the Musée National d'Art Moderne (then at Palais de Tokyo), January 1956. The Paris stop prompted Roland Barthes's essay 'The Great Family of Man,' published the following year in Mythologies (1957).
Tokyo opening — Takashimaya Department Store
The exhibition opens in Tokyo at the Takashimaya Department Store on 21 March 1956, with the show running through April. More than one million Japanese visitors attend across a 25-city Japanese itinerary. The Emperor Showa visits; photographs of the Yamahata atomic-bombing images are reportedly curtained at the Emperor's request.
Belgrade — Kalemegdan Pavilion
The exhibition is shown at the Kalemegdan Pavilion (Cvijeta Zuzorić Art Pavilion), Belgrade, 26 January – 22 February 1957.
Havana — Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes
The exhibition is shown at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de La Habana, March 6 – April 1957, during the Batista dictatorship.
Caracas — Universidad Central
The exhibition is shown at the Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas, 5–30 July 1957.
Johannesburg — Government Pavilion
The exhibition is on view at the Government Pavilion, Johannesburg, Union of South Africa, 30 August – 13 September 1958.
Beirut poster documented
A NARA RG 306 photograph (no. 306-PPB-7) records a promotional poster for the exhibition in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1958. The physical venue within Beirut is not named in the caption.
Warsaw — National Theatre (Redutowa Hall)
The exhibition is shown at the Redutowa Hall in the National Theatre, Warsaw, in 1959 (and 1960), as part of a seven-city Polish itinerary including Wrocław, Wałbrzych, Jelenia Góra, Kraków, Poznań, and Dąbrowa Górnicza.
Melbourne — Preston Motors Showroom
The Australian leg opens in Melbourne at the Preston Motors Showroom on 23 February 1959, followed by Sydney (David Jones, 6 April), Brisbane (John Hicks Showrooms, 18 May – 13 June), and Adelaide (Myer Emporium, 29 June – 31 July 1959).
Moscow — American National Exhibition
The exhibition is shown in Moscow in 1959 at a venue identified in secondary literature as the American National Exhibition at Sokolniki Park — the same event associated with the Nixon–Khrushchev 'Kitchen Debate.' The CNA confirms a Moscow stop in 1959 but does not name the venue.
Krakow — Palac Sztuki
The exhibition is shown at the Pałac Sztuki (Palace of Art), Kraków, from 5 March 1960, as part of the seven-city Polish tour.
Steichen and Grand Duchess Charlotte — Washington
Edward Steichen meets Grand Duchess Charlotte during a Luxembourg state visit to Washington. Steichen reportedly introduces himself: 'I am a Luxembourgish boy.' This meeting is associated with the subsequent U.S. government donation of the exhibition to Luxembourg. Note: the 1963 meeting rests on a Tier-3 chronicle.lu source and is not corroborated by either CNA collections page consulted to date.
U.S. government donates the exhibition to Luxembourg
The United States Government donates the last complete version of the touring exhibition to Luxembourg, at Edward Steichen's request. The donation is described on the CNA collections pages as occurring in the 1964–1966 period.
Steichen visits Clervaux and expresses wish for permanent installation
Edward Steichen visits his native Luxembourg and visits Clervaux Castle, where he expresses his wish for the exhibition to be permanently installed there. A secondary (Tier-3) source reports that he called Clervaux 'the ideal place for the exhibition to reside.'
Edward Steichen dies
Edward Steichen dies at his home in West Redding, Connecticut, on 25 March 1973, two days before his 94th birthday. He was born 27 March 1879 in Bivange (Béiweng), Luxembourg.
Partial exhibition opens at Clervaux Castle
A partial exhibition of the photographs opens at Clervaux Castle in 1974. This partial display continues until 1989, after which the collection is prepared for the permanent 1994 installation.
End of partial display period
The 1974–1989 partial display of photographs at Clervaux Castle ends. The CNA chronology then jumps directly to the 1994 permanent installation; the intervening period is a documented research gap.
Restored prints begin pre-inscription tour
Restored versions of the prints begin an international touring wave that includes stops in Toulouse, Tokyo, and Hiroshima in 1992 and 1993–1994. This is a separate post-USIA touring wave, organised under CNA/Luxembourg institutional auspices.
Permanent installation established at Clervaux Castle
The collection is established as a permanent exhibition at Clervaux Castle, Luxembourg, under CNA custodianship. This is the installation that remains on continuous public display today (in its 2013-restored form).
Luxembourg submits UNESCO nomination
Luxembourg submits a nomination for The Family of Man collection to the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme's International Register. The nomination is submitted in 2002 and registered the following year.
UNESCO Memory of the World inscription
The Family of Man is inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World International Register, recognising it as documentary heritage of outstanding universal value. The submitting state is Luxembourg; the institutional custodian of record is the CNA at Clervaux Castle.
Exhibition closes for 2010–2013 restoration
Clervaux Castle closes the exhibition for renovation in September 2010. The restoration campaign is led by Studio Berselli (Milan): Silvia Berselli, Roberta Piantavigna, Francesca Vantellini, Isabel Dimas. Exhibition rooms are redesigned by Nathalie Jacoby (NJOY).
Clervaux reopens after restoration
Clervaux Castle reopens in July 2013 following the renovation of exhibition rooms and restoration of photographs. The current visitor experience — Berselli-restored prints in Jacoby's rooms — dates from this reopening.
70th anniversary symposium
A symposium marking the 70th anniversary of The Family of Man is held at Clervaux Castle on 24 May 2025, organised by the C²DH Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (FoMLEG project).
sources/ or research/. Claims that lack Tier-1 or Tier-2 backing are noted in body_short. Two rows carry explicit uncertainty flags: the 1963 Washington meeting between Steichen and Grand Duchess Charlotte (rests on a Tier-3 chronicle.lu source; not corroborated by the CNA collections pages); and the Moscow 1959 venue identification as Sokolniki Park (widely repeated in secondary literature but the CNA source confirms only year and city). No new external claims were introduced for this page; all dates and attributions derive from sources fetched and recorded in prior wiki passes.