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Liberman (Alexander) Photography Archive
2000.R.19
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Contributing Institution:
Special Collections
Title: Alexander Liberman photography archive
Creator:
Liberman, Alexander, 1912-1999
Identifier/Call Number: 2000.R.19
Physical Description:
337 Linear Feet
(405 boxes, 4 flat file folders, 19 framed items)
Date (inclusive): 1911-1998
Abstract: The archive contains photographs by Alexander Liberman, Russian-born photographer,
art director of
Vogue magazine, and editorial director of Condé Nast publications. Included in the collection are
approximately 8,000 photographic prints, 50,000 transparencies, 90,000 negatives, 38 books of contact prints, and prints mounted
for exhibition. The
predominant subjects are artists and other cultural figures, and European historical sites. Also included are personal photographs
of family and
friends.
Physical Location: Request access to the physical materials described in this inventory through the
catalog record for this collection. Click here
for the
access policy .
Language of Material:
English .
Scope and Content of Collection
The collection contains photographs by Alexander Liberman taken between 1925 and 1998, including approximately 8,000 photographic
prints, 50,000
transparencies, 90,000 negatives, 38 books of contact sheets, and loose prints mounted on foam core. The subjects of the photographs
fall primarily into
two groups: contemporary artists and cultural figures, and European historical sites. The collection documents over 242 major
European and American
artists, such as Georges Braque, Cézanne, Salvador Dali, Willem de Kooning, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti,
Wassily Kandinsky, Henri
Matisse, Barnett Newman, Pablo Picasso, Robert Rauschenberg, and Mark Rothko. Among the images are portraits of the artists
at work or in their studios,
photographs of their work in progress, and documentation of finished artworks. A smaller group of photographs documenting
historical and architectural
sites focuses on Greece, France, Italy, and Spain are also included and intermixed alphabetically among the artists files.
Some photographs depict
Liberman's family and friends. Production materials for some of his photographic books are included, as are images for Barbara
Rose's book
Alexander Liberman (1981). Also present are photographs by other photographers such as Irving Penn, some dating as early as
1911.
Arranged in six series:
Series I. Artists and personalities, 1911-1995, undated;
Series II. Publications, circa 1925-1998; Series III. Prints in edition for exhibition, circa 1994-1996;
Series IV. Benrubi returns, circa 1940-1995;
Series V. Places, 1960-1972, undated;
Series VI. Negatives, contact prints and scrapbooks, 1936-1972, undated.
Biographical / Historical Note
Russian-born artist Alexander Liberman was the influential art director of Vogue magazine from 1943 to 1962, then editorial
director of Condé Nast
publications until 1994. As an artist, Liberman worked in paint, large-scale sculpture, and photography. He photographed contemporary
artists and other
cultural figures, friends, family, and historical sites from about 1925 until 1998. He published several books of his photographs,
including
The Artist in His Studio (1960, 1988),
Campodiglio: Michelangelo's Roman Capitol (1994), and
Then: Photographs 1925-1995 (1995).
Preliminary processing by Alan Tomlinson under the supervision of Jocelyn Gibbs. Two boxes of photographic material were received
in 2003 and 2004. In
2010 Emmabeth Nanol researched the dates for images in Series II.A and Series VI.A and added them to the finding aid, along
with the number of unique
images in each folder. In 2012, Emmabeth Nanol rearranged the finding aid under the supervision of Andra Darlington. Box 47A
is sealed for conservation
purposes.
Gift of the Alexander Liberman estate, 2000.
Alexander Liberman photography archive, 1911-1998, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 2000.R.19.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa2000r19
Open for use by qualified researchers.
The repoistory holds the Alexander Liberman papers, 1953-1997, undated, Special Collections accession number 2003.M.30. Also
held by the repository are
the Barbara Rose papers, 1940-1993 (bulk 1960-1985), Special Collections accession number 930100 which contain Rose's interview
of Liberman (Box 11,
C79) and a research file on him (Box 2, Folder 11).
Contact
Library Reproductions and
Permissions
.
Selected photographs of artists and personalities were digitized between 2011-2012 with support from ARTstor.
Connect to selected digitized images from Series I. Artists and
personalities.
Helen Frankenthaler transparencies from Series I. Artists and personalities were digitized in 2017.
Connect to digitized images .
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Painters -- Portraits
Celebrities -- Portraits
Sculptors -- Portraits
Portrait photography
Art, Modern -- 20th century
Artists' studios
Artists -- Portraits
Transparencies
Rome (Italy) -- Buildings, structures, etc. -- Pictorial works
Capitoline Hill (Italy) -- Pictorial works
Photographs, Original
Photographic prints
Negatives (Photographs)
The artist in his studio
Campodiglio : Michelangelo's Roman capitol
Then : photographs 1925-1995
Kandinsky, Wassily, 1866-1944
Liberman, Alexander, 1912-1999
Matisse, Henri, 1869-1954
Ernst, Max, 1891-1976
Giacometti, Alberto, 1901-1966
Duchamp, Marcel, 1887-1968
Picasso, Pablo, 1881-1973
Rothko, Mark, 1903-1970
Newman, Barnett, 1905-1970
De Kooning, Willem, 1904-1997
Cézanne, Paul, 1839-1906
Braque, Georges, 1882-1963
Rauschenberg, Robert, 1925-2008