Aperture Announces the Publication of Highly Anticipated Book by the Celebrated Photographer Tyler Mitchell

“Across his portraits and still lifes, the subjects of Tyler’s photographs appear to inhabit a world of his own brilliant creation, shaped by themes of memory, nature, community, and freedom.”—Anna Wintour

New York, September 3, 2025—Aperture announces the publication of Tyler Mitchell: Wish This Was Real, the definitive early-career survey by one of the most acclaimed photographic artists working today. Since his rise to prominence in the worlds of art and fashion—including his iconic covers of Vogue magazine and his photography for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition Superfine: Tailoring Black Style—Mitchell has created images of beauty, utopia, and the American landscape that expand the imaginary of Blackness in the twenty-first century.

Wish This Was Real is published on the occasion of a major solo exhibition of Mitchell’s work at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris on view from October 15, 2025, through January 25, 2026. At Burlington Arcade in London, from September 12 through October 3, 2025, Gagosian will present works from Portrait of the Modern Dandy, Mitchell’s visual essay developed for the Met’s Superfine catalog.

Mitchell’s artistic practice is animated by dreams of paradise and transcendence against the backdrop of history. Wish This Was Real is a comprehensive look into the subjects driving his work, from his genre-bending portraits made in the United States, Europe, and West Africa to his photographs printed on diaphanous fabrics and sculptures that reference domesticity and Black intellectual heritage. Offering new perspectives by leading writers on his long-standing themes of self-determination and the extraordinary radiance of the everyday, Wish This Was Real shows how photography can be rooted in a collective past while evoking imagined futures. “I hope this book is a way of reflecting on my growth over the past decade and how I’ve moved through and across different spaces, staying true to the ideas and images that matter most to me,” Mitchell says.

Tyler Mitchell: Wish This Was Real features a foreword by Anna Wintour, editor in chief of Vogue, and contributions by Sophie Cavoulacos, associate curator in the Department of Film at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Brendan Embser, senior editor at Aperture and cocurator of Wish This Was Real; the artist Rashid Johnson; the poet Robin Coste Lewis; Sarah Lewis, the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities and associate professor of African and African American studies at Harvard University; Drew Sawyer, the Sondra Gilman Curator of Photography at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Rachel Tashjian, fashion writer for The Washington Post; and Salamishah Tillet, the Henry Rutgers Professor of African American studies and creative writing at Rutgers University–Newark and a contributing critic at large for The New York Times. A French-language edition of Wish This Was Real will be published by Atelier EXB. A range of public programs and book signings with the artist will be held in New York, London, and Paris, with details available at aperture.org/events.

Tyler Mitchell: Wish This Was Real was made possible, in part, through lead support from Coach. Tyler Mitchell: Wish This Was Real was made possible, in part, through lead support from Coach. Aperture gratefully acknowledges additional support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. For their generous contributions, Aperture also wishes to thank Dr. Kathryn Beal, David Dechman and Michael Mercure, Béryl and Rex Hamilton, Pamela Thomas-Graham, Michael Hoeh, Cathy M. Kaplan, and Yesim and Dusty Philip. The book is available at aperture.org/books.

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Tyler Mitchell (born in Atlanta, 1995) is a Brooklyn-based artist, photographer, and filmmaker. He received a BFA in film and television from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2017. Mitchell’s work has been published widely in magazines, including Aperture, Dazed, i-D, Interview, M le magazine du Monde, Vanity Fair, Vogue, W magazine, WSJ Magazine, and ZEITmagazin. His work is in numerous private and public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, Studio Museum in Harlem, and Brooklyn Museum, all in New York; National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; and National Portrait Gallery, London. In 2018, Mitchell was commissioned to photograph Beyoncé for Vogue, making history, at the age of twenty-three, as the first Black photographer to shoot the magazine’s cover. Mitchell’s first solo exhibition, I Can Make You Feel Good (2019–20), was presented at Foam, Amsterdam, and at the International Center of Photography, New York. He is the photographer of the catalog for Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, the Costume Institute’s spring 2025 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. His solo exhibition Wish This Was Real opened at C/O Berlin in 2024 and toured to the Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki (2024–25) and Photo Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland (2025), followed by Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris (2025–26) and Foto Arsenal Wien, Vienna (2026).

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About Aperture
Aperture is a nonprofit publisher that leads conversations around photography worldwide. From its base in New York, Aperture connects global audiences and supports artists through its acclaimed quarterly magazine, books, exhibitions, digital platforms, public programs, limited-edition prints, and awards. Established in 1952 to advance “creative thinking, significantly expressed in words and photographs,” Aperture champions photography’s vital role in nurturing curiosity and encouraging a more just, tolerant society.

Aperture’s programs and operations are made possible by the generosity of our board of trustees, our members, and other individuals, and with major support from 7G Foundation, Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation, Charina Endowment Fund, Documentary Arts, Ford Foundation, Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, Marta Heflin Foundation, Ishibashi Foundation, Joy of Giving Something, Anne Levy Charitable Trust, Henry Luce Foundation, Mailman Foundation, MurthyNAYAK Foundation, Grace Jones Richardson Trust, San Francisco Foundation, Thomas R. Schiff Foundation, Jane Smith Turner Foundation, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Stuart B. Cooper and R. L. Besson, Kate Cordsen and Denis O’Leary, Thomas and Susan Dunn, Agnes Gund, Michael Sonnenfeldt, Jon Stryker and Slobodan Randjelović, National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and New York State Council on the Arts, with support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

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Press contacts:
Lauren Van Natten, publicity@aperture.org