International Center of Photography Library
Queering the Collection, 2019, a collaboration between GenderFail and the ICP Library from the publisher "Throughout 2018, the ICP Library collectively produced more than six in-house library installations and events considering representation in libraries at large. The success of this initiative resulted in an increase of the ICP Library’s holdings of queer, gender non-binary imagemakers,… Continue reading Notes on Queering the Collection(s) @ the ICP Library
This post is to celebrate this year the 100th birthday of Swiss documentary photographer and photojournalist Werner Bischof (April 26th 1916, Zürich – May 16th 1954, Trujillo). His parents wanted him to be a teacher, before he subscribed and successfully graduated in General Studies of Photography, with Hans Finsler at Zürich’s School of Applied Arts.… Continue reading A detour to Werner Bischof’s From Incas to Indios
This is a chart to assist an emerging artist with identifying whether they are hitting their mark or not. It surfaced in a pile of donated clippings some years ago and was greeted with much hilarity by the artists who work in the library and use it. If anyone knows the author of this, we… Continue reading How to Know When You have Become a Successful Artist
As I was logging some archives today, I came across an interesting letter handwritten by someone named Hans to someone named Anna. The letter describes Hans’ difficulties in regaining entry to Russia to continue an assignment for the German magazine STERN, and goes on to detail his frustrations with what was happening in the world of photojournalism at the… Continue reading Hans‐Jurgen Burkard
Here is a miniature "book" found in the library [2 by 3 inches] - a promotion/prospectus for potential advertisers, giving some sense of what this new magazine, Sports Illustrated, would be like. What it looks like it will be like is a lot of saturated color photographs, which makes this little treasure like an artist's book… Continue reading Baby Sports Illustrated
The motto of the New York Times is "All the news that's fit to print," and so, we discovered this amazing clip in our files announcing the capture on color film of a hummingbird...something that seems so banal to us in the 21st century, but was worthy of attention in the Times when it happened.
"You appreciate the way it frees you to climb the heights of creativity, with the assurance that at the moment of truth, you and your Nikon are one." This Nikon camera ad from Modern Photography that some observant New Yorker contributor discovered and re-presented, is delightfully like the provocative advertising depicted in "Mad Men," down to the… Continue reading An Artist…and the moment of truth
The photo school term has begun and all the new students are now roaming New York with their cameras. These are the halcyon days of image discovery. But it is here that we would all do well to remember The Hippocratic Oath of a Photographer as written by M.F. Agha for U.S. Camera way back… Continue reading Hippocratic Oath of a Photographer
The Photo League vertical file, new to the ICP Library, contains charmingly hand-lettered, illustrated announcements and invitations as well as press clippings, course brochures, letters to members, and other ephemera outlining the history of this significant cooperative of socially-minded photographers based in New York in the 1930s and ’40s. The Photo League was founded in… Continue reading The Photo League
Two brochures showed up recently in the vertical files for photography competitions. America’s Many Faces was organized by Edward Steichen for the National Urban League in 1960. He convened a panel of experts to plan the exhibition, including photographers Margaret Bourke-White, Barbara Morgan, and Gordon Parks, eminent cultural anthropologist Dr. Margaret Mead, and even architect… Continue reading Un-Contested Winners from the Library’s Vertical Files
Monsters & Madonnas 