Recollection: Thirty Years of Photography at The New York Public Library

Photography at NYPL traces its origins back to the opening of the Astor Library in 1849, a decade after Louis Daguerre announced the first commercially viable photographic process to the world. Photographs have been part of the Library ever since, whether collected as supporting reference matter for various divisions or as original source material based on depicted subjects. “Photography” as a distinct research category and collecting division, however, was not formally recognized until thirty years ago.

In 1980, the Library officially launched the Photography Documentation Project to record original photographic material throughout the Library and in 1982, the Photography Collection was established. Thousands of photographs were transferred into the collection, which today comprises 500,000 photographs by 6,000 photographers. This exhibition celebrates thirty years of photography at the Library with a selection of portraits that have become part of the Photography Collection (whether through transfer, donation, or purchase) since 1980.

Among the more than 90 photographers whose work will be shown are Berenice Abbott, Vito Acconci, Diane Arbus, Eugène Atget, Richard Avedon, Margaret Bourke-White, Brassaï, Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, André Kertész, William Klein, Duane Michals, Irving Penn, August Sander, Cindy Sherman, Stephen Shore, and William Wegman.