When Two or More Are Gathered Together

The expanded reprint of the celebrated 1976 photography book by Neal Slavin, a pioneer of full-color group portraiture, shedding striking light on hierarchies and social dynamics in the United States.

Neal Slavin began making group portraits in the early 1970s, intrigued by the social dynamics of groups and the motivations behind their formation. While the portraits themselves were mostly posed, Slavin asked his subjects to position themselves, allowing natural hierarchies and indications of status to emerge. When the series was first published in 1974, it was recognized as an instant reference in the emerging field of color photography, a field that included photographers such as Stephen Shore and William Eggleston. Considered something of a rant, but presented as a serious social experiment, When Two or More Are Gathered Together was noted for its surprising insights into American social life. Fifty years on, the United States is grappling with deep social divisions and political turmoil.
This expanded fiftieth-anniversary edition of When Two or More Are Gathered Together returns to the question of social unity in the United States, and includes new subjects – dogs, fencers and chambermaids – some of whom were photographed only in 2023. An essay by art historian Kevin Moore sheds historical light on this corpus of early color photographs, more relevant and current than ever.