JFK: A Photographic Memoir

From jubilation to grief, the public response to the election and assassination of President Kennedy, from master photographer Lee Friedlander

The public outpouring of support for newly elected President John F. Kennedy in 1960 was exceeded in scope and magnitude only by the manifestations of grief and mourning after his assassination in 1963. These responses had an unusually strong visual component: likenesses of the president were framed in shop windows, pinned to living room walls, and plastered in public spaces across the nation.

Decades after Kennedy’s death, this book observes the public’s reaction to the president’s election and assassination, featuring many photographs published here for the first time. In his travels throughout America during this period, Lee Friedlander (b. 1934) encountered these responses and photographed what he witnessed. From Washington, D.C., to Buffalo to Minneapolis to Los Angeles, Friedlander has captured a moment in American history that galvanized the nation and continues to resonate.

Distributed for the Yale University Art Gallery