The Art of the Snl Portrait

The electric spirit of Saturday Night Live as captured by longtime resident photographer Mary Ellen Matthews

Andy Samberg in a giant martini glass. Billie Eilish peeking out of a pile of snow. Kevin Hart writing his own cue cards. Paul Rudd as Paul McCartney. Sarah Silverman dusting the NBC marquee. Alec Baldwin as the Godfather.

These are just a few examples of Matthews’s bold, dynamic, and playful celebrity portraits that for over two decades have artfully highlighted the hosts and musical guests who help bring the show to life.

Week after week, photographer Mary Ellen Matthews makes magic happen on Saturday Night Live with her inventive, irreverent, and truly original photography for the ＂bumpers＂--portraits of the host or musical guest that transition the show to and from commercial breaks.

Published on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of SNL and exquisitely designed by Pentagram, this book is the first collection of Mary Ellen’s remarkable body of work as well as a celebration of America’s longest-running comedy TV show.

Includes:
* More than 200 color portraits and behind-the-scenes photographs
* A foreword by SNL founder and executive producer Lorne Michaels
* Mary Ellen Matthews in conversation
* A thumbnail index of all the images with captions by the photographer

A New York Native, Mary Ellen Matthews has been a top entertainment portrait photographer for over two decades. She has created colorful, iconic images of every well-known personality of the age. Since 1999, she has been the photographer for Saturday Night Live, where she has been responsible for creating (and re-creating each season) the distinctive look of the show’s still images.

Alison Castle is the editor of numerous books on photography, film, and design, including The Stanley Kubrick Archives, Linda McCartney: Life in Photographs, Saturday Night Live: The Book, and Jacques Tati: The Complete Works.

Emily Oberman is an award-winning multidisciplinary designer whose work encompasses brand identity, motion graphics, publications, packaging, advertising, and digital. She is a partner in the New York office of Pentagram, the acclaimed international design studio, where her clients have included Saturday Night Live, Warner Bros., Netflix, Amazon, and many more.