NEW YORK, NY.- Internationally acclaimed American artist Tina Barney burst on the scene in the early 1980s with her provocative yet intimate photographs capturing the domestic lives and social rituals of East Coast upper-class families. In choosing color over black and white, and producing large-format prints, she broke with the traditions of established fine art photography at the time. Her unflinching, honest portrayal of her subjects, many of whom are family and friends, remains completely original.

Tina Barney, the definitive book on the now legendary photographer, includes color and black-and-white photographs spanning more than three decades. Straddling the fine line between candid and staged photography, Barney’s complex tableaux suggest rich narratives or, as she has written, the “synchronization of psychological, emotional, and sociological plots that bind a family together.”

This retrospective survey highlights the artist’s most renowned works as well as her more recent projects. The book begins with Home, her personal record of the various waves of cultural and social shifts that have occurred since the artist began taking pictures in the mid-1970s: though many trends have come and gone, so much has remained the same.

The second section includes images taken Abroad. These photographs shot in grand, interior settings, highlight the cultural and social differences between the European and American upper classes. The Performance chapter is a combination of editorial, fashion, and theatrical assignments, as well as nudes and commissioned portraiture. Small Towns is devoted to a series that Barney developed while driving around Rhode Island and Connecticut between 2005 and 2012, each work evidence of the patriotic rituals in which families take part. This project also marks the first time that the artist’s models were complete strangers. The next chapter, Athletic Rituals, Barney’s foray into shooting with a digital camera, reflects her interest in the people performing the activities—as opposed to the sports themselves—and the complex settings that offer the potential for a surreal or contradictory dialogue between subject and context.

The final section of the book, YOUTH, brings Barney’s career full circle. In this recent series, she photographed the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of her original subjects—sometimes in the same locations, styles of dress, and poses as their predecessors in the 1980s and 1990s.

Long awaited, Tina Barney will appeal to Barney’s extensive fan base, including contemporary art lovers and photography book collectors.

Tina Barney began her career in the mid-1970s when she started photographing in color with a large-format view camera. Her iconic images are in the permanent collections of numerous institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, among others. Recent solo exhibitions include The Europeans at the Frist Center in Nashville, the Barbican Centre, London, and at the Museum of Art, Salzburg. Peter Galassi is a former chief curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art, in New York.

“The wonder of it all is that that black box, no matter what size or make, has managed to mystify me for so much of my life. When we look at ourselves in the mirror, we really can’t see what we look like. The only way we can examine ourselves, or the history of our lives, is through photography.” —Tina Barney, from the introduction