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Cover of The Art of the SNL Portrait by Mary Ellen Matthews

The Art of the SNL Portrait

Mary Ellen Matthews

Published 2025

Matthews has shot the bumper portraits for twenty-five years — the stills between sketch and commercial that nobody thinks of as a body of work until they're stacked in one book. Every host got one idea, executed in an afternoon, on a set built that week. It's the most consistent art direction on television and it flashes by in half a second.