Skip to Main Content

Faking It: Manipulated Photography before Photoshop

February 17 – May 5, 2013
West Building, Ground Floor, Inner Tier Galleries

American 20th Century, Untitled (Man with female "ghost" at the piano), c. 1900, gelatin silver print, Gift of Robert E. Jackson, 2008.134.47

This exhibition is no longer on view at the National Gallery.

Overview: In the first major exhibition devoted to the history of manipulated photographs before the digital age, some 200 works will demonstrate that today's digitally altered photographs are part of a tradition that extends back to the beginning of photography. Featuring visually captivating photographs, the exhibition will trace photographic manipulation from the 1840s through the 1980s and show that photography is—and always has been—a medium of fabricated truths and artful lies.

Organization: Organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Attendance: 104,640

Catalog: Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop by Mia Fineman. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: New York, 2012.

Other Venues: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, October 11, 2012–January 27, 2013
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, June 2–August 25, 2013

Press Event: Faking It: Manipulated Photography before Photoshop
Audio, Released: July 1, 2013, (64:08 minutes)
Truth, Lies, and Photographs
Audio, Released: March 5, 2013, (52:46 minutes)