The artist’s archive goes to the National Gallery of Art
Zander Galerie is delighted to share that the National Gallery of Art received a landmark collection of 1,261 photographs by Mitch Epstein. The archive represents the full trajectory of Epstein’s fifty-year career, positioning the National Gallery as the world’s foremost institutional repository for his work.
The collection covers Epstein’s work from early street photography to later explorations of the American landscape and civic identity. It preserves his vital visual chronicle of the United States and for future generations. The gift includes master sets and portfolios from major series, early street photographs and others made during road trips through the United States.
Mitch Epstein (*1952, Holyoke, Massachusetts) helped pioneer fine-art color photography in the 1970s, along with William Eggleston and Stephen Shore. His photographs are in numerous major museum collections, including New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Whitney Museum of American Art; The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.; and the Tate Modern in London. Epstein has been inducted into the National Academy of Design (2020) and was awarded the Prix Pictet (2011), Berlin Prize (2008), and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2002).
Several of Epstein’s large-scale works from the series Old Growth, American Power and Hoh Rain Forest are on view in the exhibition American Arbor at Zander Galerie Cologne through 22 May 2026.