The National Gallery of Art receives major collection of works from American photographer Mitch Epstein

Today, the National Gallery of Art announced that it has received a landmark gift of 1,261 photographs by Mitch Epstein, one of the most important living American photographers, from the artist and his wife Susan Bell. Representing the full scope of Epstein’s five-decade career, the acquisition establishes the National Gallery as the most significant institutional repository for his work and notably strengthens its holdings in contemporary American photography. Over the course of his prolific career, Epstein has created an expansive body of work utilizing both richly saturated color and black-and-white with technical precision. His photographs examine American communities and the issues that affect them, from economic change to environmental crisis to civic protest, as well as probing more personal narratives, including his identity as the grandson of East European immigrants and life in his adopted hometown of New York City. “Mitch Epstein’s photography offers a sweepin