The world's greatest-ever photo exhibition is 70 years old (and you can still go and see it today!)

Photographer Edward Steichen (standing, center), director of photography at New York's Museum of Modern Art, assembles some of the photographs to be included in the Family of Man exhibition at the museum. The exhibition includes 500 photographs by more than 280 photographers in 68 countries. New York, January 25, 1955.

The Family of Man exhibition has a legendary status in the history of photography. It was first put on in the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1955, so celebrates its 70th birthday this year.

The idea of the exhibition was the ambitious plan of celebrated photographer Edward Steichen. Steichen had made a name for himself as a top fashion photographer in the 1920s and 30s, and then ran the US government's Naval Aviation Photographic Unit during war, before becoming Director of MoMA's photographic department.

Steichen's idea for The Family of Man was to invite entries from around the world that celebrated the “the gamut of life from birth to death” - celebrating the universal aspects of the human experience through the medium of photography.

Almost two million photographs were submitted - an incredible number back in the days when you couldn't simply email a file, and physically had to send in a print (which would not be returned).

In the end, 503 images – all in black and white, by 273 photographers from 68 different countries – were selected from the amateurs and professionals who had submitted their work. 

Some of the best-known photographers of the time were in this selection. Ansel Adams, W Eugene Smith, Lee Miller, Richard Avedon, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, August Sander, Alfred Eisenstadt, Dorothea Lange... the contributor list reads like a rundown of the best photographers ever.

You can still by The Family of Man catalogue new today with its 503 photographs for $35/£25 (Image credit: Future)

After its initial run in New York, the exhibition toured the world for the following eight years and was seen by more than 10 million people.

I have got to know the exhibition well through a book of all the photographs that was published by MoMA to accompany the exhibition, and which has been regularly reprinted. My copy was printed in 2006, but you can still buy a new copy today for $35/£25 (with secondhand copies often costing a lot less).

More staggering still, you can actually still see the exhibition itself as all the photos are now now on permanent display in Clervaux Castle in Luxembourg – the country where Steichen was born, before he emigrated to the USA with his family aged 10.