Week after week, Saturday Night Live’s longtime resident photographer Mary Ellen Matthews makes magic happen with her inventive, irreverent, and truly original photography for the “bumpers”—portraits of the host or musical guest that transition the show to and from commercial breaks. These bumpers are collected for the first time in The Art of the SNL Portrait, a new monograph published by Abrams on the occasion of the show’s 50th anniversary.

The bumper is an integral part of SNL’s identity, as essential as “Live from New York!” or the opening monologue. For the past two decades, following in the footsteps of her predecessor and mentor Edie Baskin, Matthews has evolved the bumpers, mining art history and pop culture to create celebrity portraits that are simultaneously sublime, silly and smart: Steve Carrell as Andy Warhol, Megan Thee Stallion towering over New York, The Rock hugging a rock, Dave Chappelle relaxing with himself, Jennifer Lopez looking gorgeous, five Larry Davids trying to screw in a lightbulb.

Pentagram’s Emily Oberman and team designed the book in a process that was deeply collaborative with Matthews and editor Alison Castle. (Oberman previously worked with Matthews on title sequences for SNL and with Castle on the design of Saturday Night Live: The Book for Taschen.)

The group reviewed nearly 4,000 bumpers from Matthews’ archive to reach the final 200-plus featured in the book. Given the quantity of incredible images, the challenge was narrowing down and building a thoughtful flow. Utilizing a lay-flat binding, many spreads are full bleed, designed to the proportions of a TV screen—as Matthews originally envisioned the bumpers.

The SNL logo appears in some but not all of the images, hinting at how the bumpers originally looked on the show. For maximum impact, the individual portraits run without identifying captions; instead, this information can be found in a key in the back of the book, along with behind-the-scenes commentary from Matthews about many of the shoots.

The book’s endpapers picture the bulletin board in SNL founder and executive producer Lorne Michael’s office, where pinned-up images from his favorite bumpers have layered up over the years. (Michaels contributes the book’s foreword.) The flow of images is punctuated with sections focusing in depth on Matthews’ process, including a conversation with editor Alison Castle on how the portraits come together; a “case study” with comedian John Mulaney on what it’s like to work on a photoshoot; and a look at the bumpers Matthews created for “SNL at Home” during the pandemic lockdown, which featured still lifes of objects around her apartment or her beloved dog Daphne.

Matthews' photos are known for their electric pop color that blasts through the TV screen. The designers wanted to recreate this for the book and translate RGB images originally used for broadcast to print, which required many rounds of proofing to get the colors exactly right in every single image.

Matthews has said the secret of her shoots is “creating an environment that is not taking itself too seriously,” and the book’s cover hints at the madcap mini-worlds she creates for each portrait. The front features Andy Samberg dressed as an olive in a giant martini glass; on the back Scarlett Johansson sips a martini. 

The title type is neon yellow, punched up with a spot neon PMS that gives it a fluorescent RGB glow, set against a full holographic foil wrap. The book’s typography is set in Headline Gothic, a bold sans serif that ties into the SNL identity.

“I am so glad I got to make this book with these fabulous, smart people,” Matthews says. “They were with me every step of the way, and captured the joy I strive for in my work, in a book I am so proud of.”