Colorized Photo of Albert Einstein

Colorized Photo of Albert Einstein. Like the best archival images, it needs almost no explanation — the frame tells its own story.

Albert Einstein became, almost against his will, the first scientific celebrity of the photographic age. After British astronomers confirmed his general theory of relativity in 1919, newspapers made his face world-famous, and photographers followed him for the rest of his life — which is why so many candid, humanizing pictures of him exist.

Most photography of the period chased celebrities and headlines, which makes surviving images of daily routine all the more precious. This is what the world actually looked like when nobody thought it was worth remembering.