The History of the 4x5

Across her 40-year-long career, the photographer Tina Barney has become internationally renowned for capturing her particular milieus—family, friends, and neighbors in Watch Hill, Rhode Island, most notably, but also in New York and Sun Valley, Idaho. On this week’s episode of Time Sensitive, she talks about her new book, The Beginning (Radius Books), and corresponding Kasmin gallery show (on view through April 22), which bring together some of her earliest images, taken between 1976 and 1980; what she views as the underlying sources of nostalgia; the fascinating natures of ritual and tradition; and the small miracles that can exist within a single photograph.

Special thanks to our Season 7 sponsor, L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts.

• [11:20] “China Visit” (2006)
• [16:28] “Marina’s Room” (1987)
• [18:40] Watch Hill, Rhode Island
• [19:16] “The Europeans” (1996–2004)
• [32:01] “Big Pictures by Contemporary Photographers” at MoMA (1983)
• [32:07] “Sunday New York Times” (1982)
• [32:50] “Tina Barney” at MoMA (1990)
• [33:31] John Szarkowski
• [38:43] Sun Valley Center for the Arts
• [47:07] Theater of Manners (1997)
• [47:10] Players (2011)
• [47:12] Tina Barney Rizzoli monograph (2017)
• [47:16] Tina Barney: The Beginning (2023)
• [47:17] Radius Books
• [48:55] Kasmin Gallery
• [51:26] “Waterslide in Fog” (1979)
• [54:39] “The Suits” (1977)
• [54:40] “The Twins” (1977)
• [57:53] ““Amy, Phil, and Brian” (1980)
• [01:00:04] Robert Liebrich