This is a small collection of correspondence, biographical materials, and 5 photographs taken by Horace Bristol in California in the 1930s.

Photographer Horace Bristol is best known for his images of Depression era migrant families that inspired Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, compelling battle scenes of World War II, and portraits of post-war Japan and Southeast Asia. Bristol was born in 1908. He was raised in Whittier, California, attended the Art Center of Los Angeles, and began to teach himself photography while studying architecture in Munich and travelling through Europe with his wife, Virginia. In 1933 Bristol moved to San Francisco with his wife and two sons to pursue a career in photojournalism. His studio was close to a gallery run by Ansel Adams, and through Adams he came to know many photographers, including Edward Weston, Peter Stackpole, and Willard Van Dyke, and also became close friends with Imogene Cunningham and Dorothea Lange.

3.0 Linear feet

Property rights reside with the University of California. Literary rights are retained by the creators of the records and their heirs. For permission to publish or to reproduce the material, please contact the Head of Special Collections and Archives.

Collection open for research