Extent:

25.25 Linear Feet (56 boxes)

Scope and content:

The series contains files for artists whose work was sold by Lunn, and whom in certain cases, such as photographers Berenice Abbott, Ansel Adams, Robert Frank, and McDermott & McGough, and printmakers Lars Bo and Jacob Kainen, Lunn represented exclusively or for a substantial length of time, and in doing so shaped the market for these artist's work. The files span from Lunn's early days as a dealer to his untimely death, and include printmakers, whose work he dealt in primarily under Graphics Ltd. and photographers, whose work he sold through Lunn Gallery and Lunn Ltd., as well as art works such as windows and furniture designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and African sculpture.

Lunn was equally passionate about both nineteenth- and twentieth-century photography, and work by most photographers of note as well as by many lesser-known names passed through his hands. Felice Beato, Julia Margaret Cameron, Désiré Charnay, André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri, Maxime Ducamp, Hill and Adamson, Félix Nadar, Charles Nègre, and William Henry Fox Talbot were just some of the well-known nineteenth-century photographers whose work he dealt in. Lunn Gallery and Lunn Ltd. had extensive holdings of works by early- to mid-twentieth-century photographers including Lewis Hine, Ansel Adams, Robert Frank, Walker Evans, Berenice Abbott and Eugène Atget. He was the exclusive representative for George Brassaï, and he also represented the Diane Arbus estate. In addition to promoting established photographers Lunn also championed and published the work of a younger, and often controversial, generation of later-twentieth-century photographers which included Robert Mapplethorpe, Andres Serrano, McDermott & McGough, Pierre et Giles, Joel-Peter Witkin, and Wouter Deyrutter. Files on all of these artists can be found in this series.

While many artists are represented by a single, inclusive file (in some cases these files contain only copy photographs and are so noted), files for those artists with whom Lunn had extensive dealings may include such materials as biographical information, curriculum vitae, reviews, and ephemera such as exhibition announcements and brochures; correspondence files; business files; files for contracts, inventories and price lists, clients, copy prints and photocopies, and materials generated by Lunn Gallery; and exhibition files and files for special projects such as portfolios or books.

The series also contains occasional thematic files such as photographs categorized by medium, format, or century.

Arrangement:

The series is arranged alphabetically by artist, or in a few cases by subject.

Contents

Access and use