Bruce Conner photograph collection, circa 1935-circa 2008

Summary

Creators:

Connor, Bruce

Abstract:

Contains portraits, snapshots and professional photographs documenting the life, activities and artwork of Bruce Conner.

Extent:

5 boxes and 9 oversize folders (ca. 925 photographic prints, ca. 100 xerographic prints and 10 slides), 2 boxes (ca. 350 negatives) and 25 negatives ; b&w and color; 48 x 34 cm or smaller. 5 digital objects (5 images)

Language:

Collection materials are in English

Background

Scope and content:

Contains portraits, snapshots and professional photographs documenting the life, activities and artwork of Bruce Conner. Portraits depict Conner from childhood through his later years. Also depicted are family members, friends and associates, including his wife Jean, his son Robert, artist Jay DeFeo, poet Michael McClure, actor Dennis Hopper and friend Vivian Kurz. Many of his exhibitions are documented, as are numerous artworks. Also includes many film stills. In addition to photographs, the collection also includes several xerographic reproductions of Conner’s collages, drawings and other works.

Collection includes work by numerous photographers, including Edmund Shea, Larry Keenan, Frank English, Robert A. Haller, Erni Burden and Geoffrey Clements.

Collection does not include original artwork by Bruce Conner.

Biographical / historical:

Sculptor, filmmaker, collagist, painter, draftsman, photographer, conceptual artist.

Born in McPherson, Kansas, in 1933, Bruce Conner spent his childhood and young adulthood in nearby Wichita. Upon graduating from Wichita High School East, Conner went on to study art at Wichita University and University of Nebraska, where he met his wife-to-be, Jean Sandstedt. He continued art studies at the Brooklyn Art School and the University of Colorado. In 1957, at the urging of his childhood friend, the poet Michael McClure, and attracted by stories of a vibrant art and literary scene that included visual artists Jay DeFeo, Joan Brown, and Jess, and poets Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Philip Whalen, and Philip Lamantia, Conner and his wife, Jean, moved to San Francisco. He subsequently became a key figure in the city's legendary Beat community. After brief sojourns to Mexico City, 1961-1962, where his son, Robert was born, and Brookline, Massachusetts, 1963-1964, Conner resettled in San Francisco where he continued to live and work until his death.

-Biographical note by Dean Smith, Bancroft Library

Acquisition information:

Series 1: transferred from the Bruce Conner correspondence concerning Jay DeFeo's "The Rose" (BANC MSS 98/32 c) with additions from the Auerhahn Press records (BANC MSS 71/85 c) and from the Bruce Conner papers (BANC MSS 2000/50 c).

Series 2-4: transferred from later additions to the Bruce Conner papers received in 2011.

Physical location:

For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the Library's online catalog.

Rules or conventions:

Finding Aid prepared using Describing Archives: a Content Standard

Location of this collection:

UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library

University of California, Berkeley, The Bancroft Library

Berkeley, CA 94720-6000, US

Contact:

510-642-6481

bancref-library@berkeley.edu

Website