Sontag argues that photographs can be “both objective record and personal testimony, both a faithful copy or transcription of an actual moment of reality and an interpretation of that reality.”* The extended portrait of Maria negotiates between objective image and the photographer’s subjectivity, blurring the line between private familial record and formal, public artwork. It also illuminates the way Maria and Lee love one another: the selflessness with which Maria accepts being photographed at any moment, and the inspiration Lee constantly finds in Maria. Viewing these images again offers the viewer the intimacy of the journal because of the immediacy of the photograph—the fragmented, finite nature of each image asks the same questions we considered at the beginning: Why this moment, why in this way? We engage with the family archive, photographs elicit questions that allow us to learn more deeply about the artist and what moves him. Friedlander’s portraiture combines the urgency of a photographer inspired to capture an image with the urgency of a loved one hoping to conserve a memory.

 

Some images of the Friedlanders’ 68 years of marriage directly involve movement and shadow to suggest the act of photography as a partnership between photographer and subject. In some of his street photography, Friedlander has placed his shadow in his shot alongside or over his subjects, inserting himself in the action of the photograph and record. Friedlander’s presence, sometimes subtle and sometimes overpowering, through his body or shadow, marks photography’s place in their shared life. Maria, Minneapolis (1966/printed 2014) depicts Maria’s side profile twisted over her folded legs on grass, alongside a standing Lee. Maria, Las Vegas (1970/printed 2019) shows Maria staring ahead at the camera through slatted blinds and bright sunshine, while Friedlander’s shadow holding a camera rests below her at a slight distance. In Maria, Scotland (1973/printed 2003), Friedlander’s shadow reaches over Maria’s form, whose gaze is downturned against a wall in warm sunlight. Each entrance of Lee in his portraiture further illuminates the relationship between artist and subject, husband and wife, rendering it more equal and showing its foundation in mutual respect. Other images turn the movement toward Maria herself: on the phone or writing, Friedlander photographs her at a slant, her body angled in opposition to the camera. While not moving in direct parallel, she and Lee are always in the same frame here, bound by the photograph.

 

Glimpses of Maria growing older alongside Lee become more frequent as the visitor arrives at the final frames of the exhibition. An image of Maria in a hospital bed, gazing to her side, is the most recent photograph in the collection, dating to 2024. Directly above, another portrait of her, sitting tilted to the side, shows her eyes closed at the camera’s flash, the light illuminating her now white hair and contemplative expression. Where she had earlier been photographed alongside her children, Anna and Erik, she is now seen solving crossword puzzles with her grandchildren, Ava and Giancarlo. She smiles alongside a Lee making a funny face at her in a selfie on a beach in Oregon. And the final image, in which two shadows stand against a bright wall, completes one of the longest extended portraits in the history of visual art. The exhibition title, Lee Friedlander: Maria, names the two symbiotic sides of each image—in this last, meditative frame, both artist and subject stand side by side.

 

*Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003): 89, 26.

 

**Maria Friedlander, “Introduction,” from Lee Friedlander: Family (San Francisco: Fraenkel Gallery, 2004).