The Art of the SNL Portrait
4.3 | 216 ratings
Price: 14.98
Last update: 02-27-2026
Product details
- Publisher : Harry N. Abrams
- Publication date : March 4, 2025
- Language : English
- Print length : 272 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1419782533
- ISBN-13 : 978-1419782534
- Item Weight : 4 pounds
- Dimensions : 9.6 x 1.2 x 11.55 inches
- Best Sellers Rank:#496 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- Portrait Photography
- Celebrity Photography
- Television Comedy
- Customer Reviews:4.34.3 out of 5 stars(216)
Top reviews from the United States
- CharlieFor the SNL fanIf you love SNL, this is a great book of the creative process of Mary Ellen Mathews. Beautiful pictures of the cast and hosts.
- OliviaArt!The Art of the SNL Portrait succeeds quite well as a celebration of Mary Ellen Matthews’ work. It offers strong visual moments, satisfying behind-the-scenes insight, and captures something of the weekly creative challenge that is often invisible to viewers. If you care about how SNL looks, how its visual identity is made week by week, this book is a gem.
- Kat PhillipsStunning photos with a mid book layoutThe photos are STUNNING but 2 things kept this from being 5 stars for me:
1. A lot of the photos are two page spreads with the subject’s face lost in the gutter (center spine) of the book. What could have been gorgeous 2 page photos end up looking strange because half the image is hidden and it distorts the persons face. Considering the price of the book and quality of the photos I wasn’t expecting such a glaring layout misstep.
2. There are no captions on any photo so if you want to know who is in the photo you have to go to the index at the back of the book and look them up. Not a huge deal - just more of a nuisance
Overall it’s worth getting for the ICONIC photos I’m just surprised such a pro photographer would allow the layouts I experienced - Darla DeeDon’t just look, read this book too!Don’t just look at the pictures, read the text in this book too! There are so many wonderful surprises from the commentary of Lorne Michaels and Mary Ellen herself, especially towards the back of the book. Look for the index of photos. It’s amazing.
- preillyBook SNLAwesome ????
- OliversMamaAmazing photos, terrible layoutI was really looking forward to this book, but kind of underwhelmed. The layout was disappointing as others have said and I feel like better pictures could’ve been included rather than some of the ones that were chosen. Overall still cool to have.
- KellySNL Fan must haveAwesome book!! Great for SNL fans
- Daniel HagertyPoor design ruined what otherwise would have been a nice bookI love SNL bumper photos and was excited to give this as a gift. Was really disappointed that many of the great photos were spread over two pages, which centered the most interesting parts in the gutter. We couldn’t even tell who some of the people in the pics were. I would not waste money on this.