The Magnes Kicks Off Nancy Lee Katz: A Private Pantheon with Previews and Panel Discussions

On September 2, 2026, the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life officially opened Nancy Lee Katz: A Private Pantheon, unveiling a portrait project that had remained hidden from the public eye for decades.

The opening programs brought together museum leadership and supporters, photography experts, and members of the late artist’s family to mark the first public display of Katz’s complete 133-piece Pantheon, a black-and-white portfolio of 20th-century cultural giants.

The festivities began the evening prior with an exclusive preview for the museum’s Leadership Circle. Moderated by Magnes senior curator Alissa Schapiro, the centerpiece of the evening was an insightful conversation between guest curator Lauren Graves and Katz’s life partner, Michael S. Sachs, who gifted the collection to the Magnes in 2024. During the discussion, Sachs offered a vivid personal account of Katz’s fierce dedication to privacy and her solo craft.

Between 1986 and 2010, Katz sent hundreds of personal letters to figures she admired, asking for just one hour in their studio or home. She worked entirely alone, never sold or published the photos, and stored the finished gelatin silver prints in boxes inside her home until shortly before her passing in 2018. She wanted to focus on her work, Sachs noted in a 2025 essay, rather than being “consumed by chit-chat about the cultural icons she documented.”

Katz approached her sitters out of personal reverence rather than for a commercial assignment, and the portraits on display reflect that rare vulnerability. Instead of formal, staged publicity shots, visitors encounter quiet, working moments: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg balancing on a wooden step stool in her library, Stephen Sondheim lounging on a sofa with his dog, and Louise Bourgeois peering from behind steel bars in her studio.

“Looking at the photographs, she seemed to be able to really put people at ease,” said Graves. “There’s rarely any kind of stiffness. It’s like the sitters are presenting themselves to her, but it feels like their most raw presentation. There’s a certain familiarity in the portraits.”

“There is this constant pressure, not just in the creative industries, to make something commercially viable,” added Hannah Weisman, executive director of the Magnes. “For her to say, ‘Nope, this is about the work itself,’ is a nice reminder that creative practice has value whether you’re putting it online or in galleries or not.”

As the exhibition opened to the public, the Magnes hosted a roundtable panel moderated by Graves, featuring Sachs, master printer Brian Young, and Katz’s sister Virginia Katz. The panelists explored Katz’s intensely private, humble, and dedicated approach—noting how she secured sessions with luminaries like Mstislav Rostropovich, Gordon Parks, and Jasper Johns without ever using her subjects for self-promotion.

As Young noted, “Her photographs exhibit the respect to the subject and the connection between creative individuals. She as the photographer… would always seek to place her subjects in their work environment, in their creative space, with their creations and try to create a kind of synthesis of the art, the individual, within the photograph.”

Additional opening week receptions welcomed media, educators, and the Friends of the Magnes. Beyond the wall prints, visitors can further connect with subjects like musician Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and artist Romare Bearden in the exhibition’s Read, Listen, and Learn section, which features archival speeches, musical recordings, and books.

To display the entire 133-portrait collection within the gallery space, the museum is presenting the show in two successive parts across the 2026–2027 academic year. Featuring 67 portraits, Part 1 is on view now through December 17, 2026. Part 2 opens January 19, 2027, and runs through May 13, 2027, featuring the remaining 66 portraits.

The Magnes is located at 2121 Allston Way in downtown Berkeley between Shattuck and Oxford Avenues. The museum is open Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm and Thursday from 11:00 am to 7:00 pm. Admission is free. Audio descriptions and companion archival audio recordings are available in the gallery.