Much Here Is Beautiful

Much Here Is Beautiful brings together, for the first time, photography surveys commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in the years surrounding the 1976 U.S. Bicentennial. Inspired by the legacy of the Farm Security Administration’s photographs during the Great Depression, the NEA envisioned these surveys as an expansive and evocative portrait of the nation during a pivotal chapter in its history. Over the course of eight years, though no surveys were funded in 1975, the NEA funded seventy-two photo surveys, yielding thousands of pictures taken by over 200 photographers. In 1981, the NEA transferred their incomplete archive of nearly 1,000 survey photographs to the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM), including prints from thirteen of the survey projects. Much Here Is Beautiful is the culmination of years of research, drawing on SAAM’s rich photography holdings and uncovering U.S. Bicentennial survey photographs held in collections nationwide, revealing new discoveries and previously unseen works.

This volume is a companion to SAAM's exhibition of the same name, and includes histories for all seventy-two surveys, in addition to hundreds of beautiful reproductions from many of them. This comprehensive index is bracketed by newly commissioned essays by Andy Grundberg; Lindsay Harris; and John P. Jacob and Krystle Stricklin, the exhibition's curators. Collectively, the writing illuminates the history and legacy of these NEA surveys, while offering contemporary contexts in which to consider these projects and the images that emerged from them today.