The collection includes extensive bodies of photography related to the wider art world, much of it contained within gallery archives, the papers of scholars, curators and critics, artists’ archives, or the archives of photographers who focused on artists, the making of their work, and its display. These sometimes comprise thousands of slides, gelatin silver prints, negatives and transparencies, all of which provide invaluable records of gallery activities, museum installations, artists’ performances, teaching practices, or the social ambience of diverse art communities.
Image: Ugo Mulas (Italian, 1928-1973). Protest at the Venice Biennale, Galleria dell’Ariete records. 1968. Gelatin silver print. Getty Research Institute, 990058. © Ugo Mulas Heirs. All rights reserved.
Collections documenting the art world created or assembled by individuals include those collected by Bernard Karpel of exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art and other New York venues. The GRI’s collections by West Coast photographers are particularly strong, include Wallace Berman’s photographs of artists and literary figures from the 1950s and 1960s, and the archives of Michael Lubliner and Jerry McMillan both of which document the Los Angeles art scene in the 1960s and 1970s. The Harry Shunk and Shunk-Kender photograph collection comprises depictions of artists from the European and North American art worlds from the 1950s to the 1980s, including many performance artists. Photographs documenting Chinese and Japanese bronzes held at the Musée Cernuschi in Paris around the turn of the twentieth century represent an example of the GRI’s collections devoted to museum installations.
Gallery archives contain substantial photographic holdings offering insight into exhibitions and the market. These include photographic albums belonging to the Duveen Brothers, important dealers in the history of the collecting of European art in the United States, as well as extensive photographic documentation belonging to M. Knoedler & Co., the firm which helped establish the collections of leading American museums. The Guiseppe Panza papers contain photographs documenting a collector’s involvement in American postwar art, while the Galleria dell’Ariete records concerning the sale of Italian art in the United States contain installation and portrait photographs by Ugo Mulas and Hans Namuth. Art historians’ papers with extensive photography holdings related to either teaching or publication include those of Pierre Courthion, Horst De la Croix, Oleg Grabar, Ernst Kitzinger, and Barbara Rose.
The GRI preserves artist’s archives containing extensive photographic documentation. These include the papers of Robert Irwin, Allan Kaprow, Yvonne Rainer, and Carolee Schneemann, all of which retain important visual records of artworks, installations, or performances. Curators’ archives with significant collections of photography are those of Douglas Cooper and Harald Szeemann, both numbering many thousands of images. Artists’ organizations holding large bodies of photographic material includes the records of Experiments in Art and Technology and the Los Angeles Woman's Building.