MINNEAPOLIS.- The American Swedish Institute presents Lennart Nilsson: Life, on view through October 8, 2006. Merging science and photography, Lennart Nilsson has advanced the techniques that allow us to see the tiniest of cells inside the human body. The American Swedish Institute is honored to welcome this renowned photographer for “Lennart Nilsson: Life,” an exhibition of the Hasselblad Center, Göteborg, Sweden. This retrospective features some 50 photographs, spanning the photographer’s career. It includes images from his early photo essays, portraits of celebrities and statesmen, Sweden’s royalty, images of human development from “A Child is Born” and science pictures.

An exhibit reception will be held on Wednesday, June 7, 2006 from 5 to 7 p.m. Following the reception, Mr. Nilsson will give an illustrated talk at 7 p.m. The reception and talk are free and open to the public.

Born in 1922, Lennart Nilsson started taking pictures as a teenager. He began working as a freelance photographer in the 1940s and was an early photojournalist for Swedish magazines. He also became known for his captivating portraits of statesmen, cultural icons and royalty. Nilsson worked on contract for Life magazine from 1965-1972. In April of 1965, Life published his pictures of an 18-week-old living fetus. Eight million copies of the issue were sold in three days.

Nilsson went on to publish the groundbreaking book A Child Is Born, which has been published in four editions in more than 20 languages. Pictures from the project were carried into space aboard Voyager I and Voyager II, the unmanned spacecraft launched by NASA in 1977 and still collecting scientific data as they pass out of our solar system to the universe beyond.

More recently, the 83-year-old photographer took the first photographs of the H5N1 avian flu virus using a powerful microscope. The virus samples were provided by the World Health Organization and cultivated at Stockholm’s Karolinska Institute, Sweden’s leading medical facility. Nilsson’s images of the virus were first published in the Swedish daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter last November.

Lennart Nilsson has received prizes and recognition throughout his career, including the Hasselblad Photography Prize, two Emmy awards for his television work and an honorary doctorate of medicine from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, where he is official science photographer. His works are included in such major museum collections as the Modern Museum in Stockholm, the British Museum in London and Tokyo’s Fuji Art Museum. Through medical photography, he continues to explore the mysteries of human life.