Nancy Lee Katz: A Private Pantheon
Exhibition Text
Nancy Lee Katz: A Private Pantheon
Dear Mark Di Suvero,
I am a photographer working on a book of photographic portraits. My portraits are of people who have contributed to society. Could you give me one hour in your studio for a portrait? I can be available at your convenience.
— Nancy Lee Katz, 2010
Nancy Lee Katz (1947–2018) spent 25 years building a photographic pantheon—a “temple” of images dedicated to figures she deeply admired. Between 1986 and 2010, she sought out and photographed nearly 200 of her era’s leading artists, writers, and thinkers, though she never made her prints into a book. Intensely private, Katz pursued this project not for commercial gain or social access, but out of deep respect for her sitters’ achievements.
Each portrait session was a direct and thoughtful encounter. For Katz, photography functioned as a form of connection rather than extraction—an intentional, collaborative process grounded in respect, presence, and shared creative attention. Katz often documented her subjects in their own studios or workplaces, inviting them to stand with the tools of their craft—an instrument, a camera, a canvas, a desk.
In the photographs, Katz’s camera engages both the subjects’ public roles and their more private selves. Through her lens, she transforms authority and celebrity into personal, attentive encounters. At times, Katz focuses her camera closely on her sitters, creating a sense of intimacy, while in other moments she frames them to appear almost absorbed by their surrounding space, as if the architecture mediates the encounter. This balance
of nearness and distance gives the portraits a quiet intensity. Each portrait grants its subject equal stature within Katz’s remarkable Pantheon.
This exhibition presents, for the first time, the entirety of Nancy Lee Katz’s Pantheon. It spans the academic year and unfolds in two parts (Fall and Spring).
As her exclusive printer, Brian Young collaborated closely with Katz for decades. Working in his darkroom, Young printed on gelatin silver paper from Katz’s original negatives almost all of the photographs presented here. Shamus Clisset printed fifteen images digitally on gelatin silver paper.
Michael S. Sachs donated a complete set of small-format Pantheon photographs to the Magnes and loaned the large-format prints for this exhibition.
Credits
Lauren Graves, Guest Curator
Alissa Schapiro and Hannah Weisman, Coordinating Curators
Andrea Calderon, Registrar
David Sullivan, Head Preparator
Carole Jeung, Designer
Special thanks to Michael S. Sachs, who has made this exhibition possible through his generous gift of Nancy Lee Katz’s Pantheon (2024.1), loan of additional prints, and gracious consultations.
Audio descriptions are made possible thanks to guidance and feedback from Gary Dunning and the Blind Posse, with technical assistance from Khurram Qureshi.
Nancy Lee Katz
Nancy Lee Katz (1947–2018) was a prolific photographer who spent her life documenting people and places. Katz was born to a Jewish family in Los Angeles and traveled extensively in her youth, exploring Europe and Morocco before beginning work as an assistant film editor and still photographer. From 1986 to 2010, she created a remarkable pantheon of portraits, focusing on artists, musicians, writers, and thinkers whose work she respected, though she never sold nor published her prints. She also pursued music, art, and travel, documenting traditional cultures worldwide. Katz’s independence and passion left a lasting mark on those who knew her.
Passport photo of Nancy Lee Katz, 1978
Courtesy of Michael S. Sachs
The Pantheon
“The swift tact that puts you in communion with the model, makes you size him up, grasp his habits and ideas in accordance with his character, and allows you to render…the intimate resemblance.”
— Nadar (1820–1910), 1857
In the mid-19th century, the French photographer and caricaturist Nadar (born Gaspard-Félix Tournachon) set out to create a visual pantheon of his era’s cultural luminaries. His ambitious Panthéon Nadar gathered writers, actors, and artists into a collective portrait of creative life in France. Nadar’s project drew on the deeper history of the pantheon itself—from the ancient Roman temple dedicated to “all gods.” Reimagined through photography, his Panthéon reflected a belief that the medium could reveal what he called an “intimate resemblance.”
More than a century later, Katz pursued a parallel vision. Over 25 years, she photographed figures from the worlds of art, music, literature, and public life. Her portraits form a modern pantheon, a community of individuals united by the depth of their contributions and Katz’s profound respect. The 133 photographs that comprise her Pantheon were selected by the photographer and her life partner, Michael S. Sachs, in the weeks leading up to her death.
Louise Bourgeois, 1986
Visual artist
Printed by Shamus Clisset, Laumont Photographs
Courtesy of Michael S. Sachs
The Photographer’s Eye
Photographers hold a special place within Katz’s Pantheon. She often turned her lens toward fellow practitioners, approaching them with a directness that suggests both kinship and mutual recognition. In these portraits, a camera sometimes rests in a sitter’s hands, serving as both an emblem and a subtle barrier between the two artists. Various photographers stand before their own prints, meeting Katz’s steady gaze on equal ground.
Katz worked simply and independently and never had an assistant. Often using a Hasselblad medium-format camera and two small lights, she created images of quiet clarity and psychological presence. The pared-down setup allowed Katz to focus on the sitter, foregrounding the exchange between artists and emphasizing shared understanding and respect.
William Wegman, 1993
Photographer
Printed by Shamus Clisset, Laumont Photographs
Courtesy of Michael S. Sachs
Music and Movement
From the world of music, Katz photographed composers, conductors, and performers, often with striking spareness. In many of these works, the frame tightens around the sitters’ faces and hands, isolating their expressions and gestures. The portraits are focused, drawing attention to the physicality of performance.
This group of photographs projects a sense of dynamism and potential movement: a bow poised above strings, fingers suspended over keys, a conductor’s hands shaping sound in the air. Though silent, the images seem to vibrate. Katz’s close perspective invites us to imagine the music just beyond the frame, transforming still photography into a space of resonance, rhythm, and embodied performance.
Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, 1994
Violinist
Courtesy of Michael S. Sachs
In the Studio
Studios were the primary stage for Katz’s portraits of painters, sculptors, designers, and architects. Rather than isolating her subjects, Katz photographed them in the spaces where their ideas took material form. Surrounded by canvases, artistic tools, and works in progress, each sitter appears inseparable from the world they have created.
Sometimes the vast expanse of the studio stretches behind them. At other times, Katz moves in close, framing the artist against the bold geometry or texture of their work. In these images, there is a palpable kinship between the maker and their creation, a sense of ease and authority within their own studio. They reveal a vision of artistic practice, carefully observed and preserved by Katz’s attentive eye.
Romare Bearden, 1987
Visual artist
Printed by Shamus Clisset, Laumont Photographs
Dorothea Rockburne, 1990
Visual artist
Printed by Shamus Clisset, Laumont Photographs
John Baldessari, 1993
Conceptual artist
Courtesy of Michael S. Sachs
The Intelligentsia
Katz’s photographic subjects extended beyond the arts to encompass the leading thinkers, writers, and public figures of her time. She captured Supreme Court Justices surrounded by the weight of their libraries, intellectuals whose larger-than-life personas dominated the frame, as well as contemplative writers captured deep in thought. In each image, Katz engaged with the subject’s public role and expressed the individuality beneath it, showing the figure people knew and also the personality they carried privately. Through her lens, Katz transformed familiar authority and celebrity into intimate, revealing encounters.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 1994
Supreme Court Justice
Courtesy of Michael S. Sachs
