Margaret Mead

This 1957-58 photograph of Margaret Mead (Oct. 6 1930 - Nov. 15, 1978) by Ken Heyman was on display at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC.

Margaret Mead began making path-breaking contributions to the study of anthropology with the publication of her first book, Coming of Age in Samoa (1928). In 1954, she became acquainted with photographer ken Heyman who enrolled in her course at Columbia University in New York City. A few years later, the two met again in Indonesia. Mead had returned to the village of Bayung Gedé, in Bali, where she had conducted research from 1936 to 1939. Although Bayung Gedé had changed significantly, she saw many of the same people she had encountered during her earlier trip.

Heyman took this photograph sometime in December 1957 or January 1958. The often re-produced image depicts Mead as she speaks to a Balinese child being held by a woman. This trip turned out to be the beginning of two decades of collaborations between Heyman and Mead, which resulted in publication of several books. -- NPG