One of the most influential of American photographers of the 20th Century, Friedlander's lens has chronicled American life for the past 50 years.

Raised in Washington State, Friedlander began taking photographs as a teenager before attending the Art Center School in Los Angeles. He didn't remain in school long: In 1956, he headed for New York, launching his freelance career taking pictures for newspapers and magazines; by the early 1960s, he'd attracted attention for his amusing depictions of city life and irreverent self-portraits. Friedlander landed his first solo show in 1963. Four years later, he participated in an acclaimed 1967 exhibition at the MoMA entitled "New Documents," which also included work by Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand, and Richard Avedon. Friedlander's since gone on to take a wide variety of photos, including portraits of jazz legends like Miles Davis and a controversial series of nudes displayed at the MoMA in 1991—the women, including a young Madonna Ciccone, were featured in contorted, uncomfortable-looking poses, and the show was roundly criticized by feminists who described it as an "unsettling" and "grotesque" collection of pseudo-porn shots.

Friedlander probably remains best known for a set of self-portraits from the 1960s depicting his shadow, his reflection in windows and mirrors, and occasionally his full image. He's also known for his 200-photo trek across the U.S., which became the 1976 book The American Monument. In 2005, a massive Friedlander retrospective at MoMA included nearly 500 works, and the prices for his pieces have been on the rise since. The retrospective traveled to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2008, and to coincide with the retrospective, Freidlander displayed more contemporary works in the America By Car series at the Fraenkel Gallery close to SFMOMA, which then traveled to the Whitney in 2010. [Image via Getty]