Photography Collection

Howard Greenberg Gallery actually presents Diana Walker: Political Party, an exhibition of behind-the-scenes photographs of the past 20 years inside The White House. In a period when the media's access to politicians is tightly controlled, Walker manages to reveal the private moments that humanize our public figures. Her attention to a laugh, a gesture, an attitude reveals the subtleties that make up the true character of her subjects.
For more than two decades Diana Walker was the White House photographer for Time magazine. She has masterfully documented five administrations, from Gerald Ford to Bill Clinton, photographing the nation's First Ladies and the key political players in each administration. Her first photograph appeared in Time in 1976 launching her career as a contract photographer for the magazine in 1979. In 1984 she became one of two White House photographers to cover the Reagan and Bush administrations. At the beginning of George Bush's re-election campaign, Walker was the first photojournalist granted access to exclusively shoot presidential life beyond the scripted formalities of public life.
"I have considered it my job always to try and show who our President is, and hopefully, something about his character. I have strived to keep myself, my own ego, my own political persuasion, out of my pictures. I am looking at the President purely as a man, not Republican or Democrat, watching always for that look, that touch, that relationship which will help better to understand him," explains Walker.
Diana Walker has won numerous awards from the White House News Photographers Association, World Press and the National Press Photographer's Association. In 2003, she also received the Paul Peck Presidential Award, presented by the National Portrait Gallery for her portrayal and interpretation of the Presidency. Her photographs are in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Minneapolis Museum of art, and the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery and National Museum of American History, which held a retrospective of her work in 2003. Selections from that show are touring the U.S. until 2009 in an exhibition organized by SITES, the Smithsonian Traveling Exhibitions Service. Walker's photographic archive resides at the Center of American History at the University of Texas. She is the author of Public & Private: Twenty Years Photographing the Presidency and The Bigger Picture: 30 Years of Portraits.

Diana Walker: Political Party
- 22 November 2008
41 East 57th Street
New York
Howard Greenberg Gallery