Lynn G. Fayman (1904-1968) was a photographer in San Diego, California. The collection consists of his personal papers, including lecture notes, biographical material, and correspondence; slides, negatives and transparencies; photographs; and film.

Lynn G. Fayman was born in 1904 in Kansas City, Missouri and trained as a landscape architect at Kansas State College. Fayman’s interest in photography began in 1928 while he was abroad studying landscape design in Europe. In 1943, Fayman enrolled in a photography course at the Art Center School in Los Angeles, where he studied under Edward Kaminski. Immediately upon completion of the course, he relocated to San Diego, California, and worked as a photographer for Ryan Aeronautical Company. Fayman was a founding member of the San Diego artists’ collective Allied Craftsmen, and an active participant in the local La Jolla art community, where he established a photography studio. He was initially interested in color photography, experimenting with light, color filters, transparencies, and everyday objects to create abstract color slides. In 1949, Fayman began utilizing the newly available Kodak Flexichrome Process, a multi-step method of making full color prints or transparencies from black-and-white negatives through the hand application of colored dyes. His Flexichrome prints were widely exhibited throughout the 1950s. An amateur filmmaker, he exhibited his abstract film Color in Motion (No. II): The Red Spot at the Cannes Film Festival in 1954, and was further recognized in 1955 by the Photographic Society of America’s Motion Picture Division. Fayman lectured extensively on themes of abstract art appreciation, the history of photography, and creative photography, employing color slide presentations featuring his series of original abstracts. From 1962 to 1964, he collaborated with Helen Palmer and Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss) on three children’s books with photographic illustrations. In 1964, Fayman began studying black and white photography more extensively, creating his notable “Three Leaves” series. He served for 24 consecutive years on the Board of Trustees at the La Jolla Art Center (now the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego) and was recognized as a Fellow of the Photographic Society of America in 1959. He died in 1968.

2 boxes (1 linear foot); 4 clamshell boxes; one flat box.

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