Theater of Manners

A cursory glance at Tina Barney's first monograph, Theater of Manners, finds a simple set of family snapshots. A closer look, though, reveals that these color photographs, deeply saturated in light and expertly reproduced, are in fact a carefully organized survey into the realm of familial and social relationships. The offhanded quality of the images is not accidental. Barney has a strong eye for the family tableau: children sprawled over the furniture in a formal parlor, shirtless and tan adult brothers tending the barbecue, young cousins in matching double-breasted jackets, Aunt Shirley in a floral dress in the center of a flower-wallpapered room.