"The greatest photographic exhibition of all times",
created by Edward J Steichen in 1955 for the Museum of Modern Art in New York
brought to the Château de Clervaux.

In 1951, in the midst of the Cold War, the American photographer of Luxembourg descent, Edward J Steichen, began preparations for his great plan of an exhibition to make man conscious of himself through the universal language of photography. The idea - inviting professional and amateur photographers, famous authors, and those as yet unknown to the general public, to send in their works met with great enthousiasm. Steichen received more than 2 million pictures from all over the world. At first he retained 10000 photographs, then whittled these down to 503 pictures by 273 photographers from 68 countries. Together they compose the "Family of Man" in an impressive setting of 37 themes, based on love and faith in man, depicting birth, work, family, education, children, war and peace, ...

The exhibition was a tremendous success, drawing more than nine million visitors in the 1950's and 1960's. In 1964, at the end of the collection's journey around the world, the American government gave it as present to the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg. It had been Edward Steichen's wish that "the most important work of his life" should be permanently housed in Luxembourg.

Following the expert's report by Anne Cartier-Bresson of the Ateliers de Restauration des Photographies in Paris, the decision was made to restore the photographs which had been damaged during their long journey around the world. The task was entrusted to Silvia Berselli and her team, who restored the complete collection in 2000 man-hours. Because of its uniqueness, the task roused the interest of many experts abroad.

The natural consequence of all these efforts was the ambitious idea to bring back the phtographs to the Château de Clervaux, ensuring the necessary conditions for the long-term protection of the photographs and preserving as much as possible the original setting and characteristic presentation.

The project began to take shape when a scale model was presented by the "Centre National de l'Audio-Visuel" (CNA). Public interest in the "Family of Man" grew in Luxembourg. Due to Jean Dieuzaide and his staff of the Château d'Eau gallery, an exhibition of the restored collection in the Réfectoire des Jacobins in Toulouse in January 1993, was a tremendous success. More than 30000 visitors from all over France, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Italy and Japan flocked to the exhibition, leading to a genuine renaissance for "The Family of Man". The French press commented favourably on the project. The legend of the exhibiton had survived four decades.

The exhibitions at the end of 1993 and beginning of 1994 in Tokyo and Hiroshima were equally important. Thousands of visitors, above all young people, re-discovered or saw for the first time the picture of man in the 1950's, as Edward Steichen and his team for the MoMA had imagined him.

The "Service des Sites et Monuments nationaux" supervised all construction work regarding the new museum in the Château de Clervaux in 1993 and 1994. The museum opened on June 3 1994. "Family of Man" has found a permanent home in a modern museum within a contemporary didactic framework providing the visitor with the necessary information to understand the multi-dimensionality of Edward Steichen's legendary creation.

The fact that the collection could now begin its second life, as Jean-Claude Lemagny has expressed it so well in his contribution to our book on the exhibition (The Family of Man, témoignages et Documents), is mainly due to the financial support of the Luxembourg Government.

But without the enthousiastic encouragement of many friends in Luxembourg and abroad, who joined us in our efforts to bring back the "Family of Man" to Clervaux, this project would never have acquired the necessary dimension to highlight this universal appeal for human dignity.

© Jean Back
Chargé de Direction
Centre National de l'Audiovisuel

Addendum:
In September 2003, the "Family of Man" exhibition was nominated for inscription on UNESCO's "Memory of the World" register with the following justification:

Luxembourg - Family of Man. The photographic exhibition mounted by the photographer Edward J. Steichen in 1955 for the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) was donated by the Government of the USA to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. It is preserved in the Clervaux Museum. The exhibition consists of 503 photographs taken by 273 photographers, both professional and amateur, famous and unknown, from 68 countries. It has been described as the “greatest photographic enterprise ever undertaken”. A huge undertaking, with unique cultural and artistic dimensions, it had a considerable influence on other exhibition organizers, stirred public interest in photography and proved exceptional in its ability to communicate a humanist message that was both courageous and provocative. The Family of Man exhibition has become a legend in the history of photography. It went far beyond the traditional view of what an exhibition should be and it can be regarded as the memory of an entire era, that of the Cold War and McCarthyism, in which the hopes and aspirations of millions of men and women throughout the world were focused on peace.

Luxembourg Tourist Office - London

2007