A New Face

When it was first published in 1958 in honor of Minnesota’s centennial celebration of statehood, acclaimed photographer John Szarkowski’s The Face of Minnesota spent eight weeks on The New York Times bestseller list and helped define a photographic aesthetic that influenced generations of artists. The book captured something essential about Minnesota and its people and sold well for a decade, but went out of print in 1968.

Szarkowski died last year, but he’d been working with the University of Minnesota to reissue his landmark book, using contemporary digital scanning and printing technology, for the state’s 150th birthday. The result is a gorgeous coffee-table book that includes a forward by New York Times editorial writer Verlyn Klinkenborg and an afterword by MacArthur Fellow Richard Benson.

The book also contains some of the finest black-and-white and color photography ever snapped—farms, landscapes, various rural outposts, and plenty of Minnesotans from all walks of life—as well as Szarkowki’s original musings on the Minnesota character and the photographer’s elusive art. The book is a must-have for anyone interested in the history of Minnesota or the photographic arts in general. It’s a forgotten masterpiece that another generation of Minnesotans now has a chance to discover.

The Face of Minnesota, by John Szarkowski, University of Minnesota Press, 320 pages, $49.95