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The United States Information Service, Wellington, has produced a new display of outstanding American photography which is expected to have wide popular appeal.

Fifty-seven photographs show a wide cross-section of American life. Many have won some of America's top photographic contests, while others have been taken by photographers on routine assignments.

The pictures are mounted on four sets of two large freestanding panels and range in size from very large ones three feet in width to small ones only a few inches square.

The photographs have been grouped to give a loose pattern of balance rather than in exact symmetrical arrangements; and in some cases to suggest similarities or to provide contrast. The majority of the photographs are black and white, but there are some striking ones in colour.

Only three of the photographers have been named: Edward Steichen, probably America's most illustrious photographer, who is represented by his famous "The Shad-blow Tree"; Andrew Feininger, another photographer of great renown; and George Silk, a New Zealander who has worked for a number of years of assignment for American magazines such as LIFE and National Geographic.

"The Shad-blow Tree" is one of Steichen's favourite photographs. He made thousands of still pictures of this flowering tree and in 1969 at the age of 90 filmed a movie of it, with wind and rain providing movement.

The caption panel in the display makes the point that although the photographs are of life in America, many could just as easily have been taken in New Zealand.

It also pays tribute to the creative photographer who it says has "proved himself no mere recorder of people and events. In the commonplace has perceived the extraordinary, in the mundane he has found beauty. He shares the painter's ability to explore, to select, to manipulate his medium - not simply to document his universe, but to interpret its meaning."