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Title: Harry Lunn papers
Date (inclusive): 1855-1999, bulk
1965-1999
Number: 2004.M.17
Creator/Collector:
Lunn, Harry H.
(Harry Hyatt), 1933-
Physical Description:
88.6 Linear Feet
(190 boxes)
Repository:
The Getty Research Institute
Special Collections
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles 90049-1688
Business Number: (310) 440-7390
Fax Number: (310) 440-7780
reference@getty.edu
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10020/askref
(310) 440-7390
Abstract: The Harry Lunn papers document the
business dealings of the print and photography dealer from the mid-1960s until his death in
1998, and provide a glimpse into the workings of one of the creators of the photography art
market during the second half of the twentieth century.
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described in this inventory through the
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Language: Collection material is in English
with some French.
Harry Hyatt Lunn, Jr. was born in Detroit, Michigan on April 29, 1933 to Harry Hyatt and
Flora S. Lunn. The senior Lunn, a civil engineer for Detroit Edison and amateur architect,
designed the family home based on a Cotswold cottage – a certain anomaly in the otherwise
post-war neighborhood in which they lived. Lunn was educated in Detroit public schools and
attended the University of Michigan on a Regents-Alumni Scholarship, graduating with an
honors degree in economics. During his senior year at Michigan Lunn was editor-in-chief of
the
Michigan Daily, the university's student newspaper. Prior
to the beginning of the school year he attended the National Student Association (NSA)
annual meeting in his capacity as incoming editor, and the following year (1954-1955) he was
elected president of the organization. The NSA, a confederation of American college and
university student governments, was founded at the University of Wisconsin in 1947. From the
early 1950s until 1967, the NSA's international program and some of its domestic activities
were secretly underwritten by the Central Intelligence Agency. Following his year as NSA
president Lunn was recruited by the CIA and traveled throughout Southeast Asia as a member
of an International Student Conference (ISC) delegation for the next year and a half. He
then served in the army from 1956 to 1958, before becoming a research analyst in the United
States Department of Defense. During this time he took part in the activities of the
anti-communist Independent Research Service at the 1959 Vienna Youth Festival.
Lunn was posted to the political desk at the US Embassy in Paris in 1961, and then worked
at the Agency for International Development (AID) on President John F. Kennedy's Alliance
for Progress, before becoming executive secretary of the Foundation for Youth and Student
Affairs (FYSA) in 1965. The FYSA was a front organization established by the CIA to fund and
control the activities of student organizations such as the NSA. In 1967, the NSA's ties to
the CIA via the FYSA were revealed in an exposé by Ramparts magazine, and Lunn's name was
mentioned. The CIA's subsequent withdrawal of its financial backing threw the NSA into an
organizational and financial crisis, and with his cover blown, Lunn resigned from the
FYSA.
Lunn then made a foray into the real estate business, selling Capitol Hill properties
before turning to an earlier interest from his days at the US Embassy in Paris when he had
begun collecting and selling fine prints. Rather than collecting prints by well-known
artists, Lunn's strategy had been to purchase less costly work by emerging artists. He also
amassed an inventory of prints by the Danish artist Lars Bo who gave him one print for every
two that he sold. In 1968 Lunn opened his first gallery in Washington, D.C. on Capitol Hill,
soon moving it to Georgetown and thence to 406 Seventh Street NW. Lunn Gallery and the
company he formed, Graphics International, initially specialized in late-nineteenth and
twentieth century fine prints. Lunn became the agent for all of Marlborough Gallery's
multiples and graphics in 1970, and in 1971 he acquired the inventory of two important print
dealers - Felix Landau Gallery (Los Angeles) and the estate of New York dealer Peter
Dietsch. With this large stock at his disposal Lunn was able to consign and sell wholesale
to other dealers without impinging on his own retail business.
A pivotal moment came for Lunn in 1970 when he saw a photographic print of Ansel Adams's
Moonrise, Hernandez, N.M., his first contact with Adams's
work. In an oft-told story, he was so struck by the graphic qualities of the photograph that
he immediately resolved to have an Adams exhibition. During his initial Adams exhibition,
which opened in January 1971, Lunn sold $10,000 worth of photographs, an astounding sum for
photographs at the time. He next exhibited a stellar selection of Man Ray photographs. By
1973, feeling that the fine print market price structure had peaked, Lunn converted his
remaining Landau and Dietsch print inventories into photographic stock. While the Hill and
Adamson album he purchased at auction in 1973 formed the basis of his nineteenth-century
material, he also began acquiring large quantities of photographs by photographers who had
worked primarily during the early-to-mid-twentieth century. In the 1970s, he bought 5,500
photographic prints each from the Lewis Hine and Walker Evans archives, 1,000 of Ansel
Adams's last prints, and 1,600 Robert Frank prints. In partnership with Marlborough Gallery
he purchased the stock of prints that Berenice Abbott had made from Eugène Atget's
negatives, as well as Abbott's inventory of her own work. Through Marlborough he became the
exclusive representative for George Brassaï, and he also represented the Diane Arbus
estate.
In tandem with the exclusivity these vast holdings represented, Lunn's business strategy
was what he candidly termed the "creation of rarity." Lunn realized that most buyers desired
the same few iconic images, and also that the number of existing vintage photographs was
necessarily finite. He created demand among what was initially a small number of photography
collectors by working with photographers or their estates to limit their prints of any given
image to a relatively low number of editions. This limited material would sell out and go
off the market, making formerly less-desirable images more valuable. Conversely, should the
same limited material come back on the market, its prices would rise accordingly. To further
control supply and demand Lunn also limited the number of prints he released yearly from his
holdings of various artists' estates.
Lunn was also influential in the creation of markets for a then-younger and often
controversial generation of photographers ranging from Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres
Serrano to McDermott & McGough and Pierre et Giles to Joel-Peter Witkin and Wouter
Deruytter. He met Mapplethorpe in the late 1970s, and in 1981 Lunn Gallery hosted a
Mapplethorpe retrospective. Between 1978 and 1981 Lunn, in partnership with the Robert
Miller Gallery, published Mapplethorpe's X, Y, and Z Portfolios.
Lunn was instrumental in the formation of many notable photography collections including
those of the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal and the Gilman Paper Company in
New York. He advised and sold frequently to private clients such as Sam Wagstaff and Manfred
Heiting as they assembled their respective collections. His museum clients included such
major institutions as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA); the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the
National Gallery of Art, Washington; the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; the Cleveland
Museum of Art, the Musée d'Orsay, the J. Paul Getty Museum; and the San Francisco Museum of
Modern Ar (SFMoMA)t, yet he also dealt with and lent to smaller regional and local museums,
university art galleries, other arts organizations, and commercial galleries.
Lunn closed his last gallery in July 1983, and for the remainder of his career operated as
a private dealer, first based in Washington, D.C. After 1985, he moved between his New York
and Paris apartments. In the 1980s and 1990s,he intensified his participation at the leading
international art expositions and frequently organized exhibitions for other commercial
galleries. In 1973, Lunn became the first photography dealer to be elected to the Art
Dealers Association of America (ADAA). He was among the first three photography dealers to
exhibit at the ADAA's annual Armory art show and the first photography dealer to exhibit at
the Basel International Art Fair. In 1979, Lunn became a founding member of the Association
of International Photography Art Dealers, Inc. (AIPAD), and remained actively involved in
its annual trade fair and with networking among its membership. Lunn's shrewd business
acumen was complimented by both his deep love of photography and by his generosity of
spirit. His championing of photography as an art form was passionate and sincere. To this
end he encouraged other photography dealers in their endeavors, seeing them not as
competition but as colleagues whose existence strengthened the photography market.
Lunn married Myriam Dosseur in 1963. They had three children, Alexandra, Christophe, and
Florence. Lunn suffered a massive heart attack in 1998 at age 65 while boarding a train to
his home in Normandy, France, lapsed into a coma, and died in Paris shortly thereafter.
Open for use by qualified researchers, except for audio visual material, which is
unavailable until reformatted, and sealed material in Box 176.
Contact
Library Reproductions and
Permissions
.
Harry Lunn Papers, 1855-1999, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no.
2004.M.17.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa2004m17
Acquired in 2004.
Collection processed by Beth Ann Guynn, Linda Kleiger, and Lilly Tsukahira.
Scope and Content of Collection
The Harry Lunn papers document the business dealings of the print and photography dealer
from the mid 1960s until his death in 1998, and provide a glimpse into the workings of one
of the primary creators of the photography art market during the second half of the
twentieth century. The records document Lunn's early dealings as he was beginning to sell
fine art prints through the establishment of his Lunn Gallery and his firm Graphics
International (later Lunn Ltd.) and his return to operating as a private dealer. Not
incidentally, they chart the rising popularity of photography as a fine art commodity.
Series I, Artists files, 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 that
artist's work.
Series II, Client files, contains general files for Lunn's extensive international roster
of clients, as well as documentation of appraisals, consignments, and exhibition loans. His
clients included major museums and corporations, yet he also dealt with smaller museums,
university art galleries, other arts organizations, and commercial galleries of all sizes,
and had a large roster of private collectors with modest collections.
Series III, Auctions and art fairs, is concerned with the business transactions, both
buying and selling, that took place through auction houses or at the national and
international art fairs at which Lunn exhibited or had a booth, often on a yearly basis.
The business files in Series IV encompass the history of the firm as it becomes a
corporation, raises capital through stock offerings, and ultimately repurchases the shares
and operates with Lunn as the sole stockholder. Included are corporate records, financial
statements and tax returns, inventory lists, financial statement working papers, bank
records, and a large volume of receipts for travel, business promotion and other business
expenses.
Series V, Gallery operations, contains files that detail the operations of the specific
kind of business that was Lunn Ltd. Included are materials related to sales, purchases, and
inventory such as invoices, ledgers, quarterly and monthly sales reports, art purchases, and
inventory lists. Operations of a daily nature are documented in files containing
advertising, press releases, gallery reviews, exhibition and price lists, office expenses,
and employee matters.
The clippings files in Series VI include topics such as the art market, both in general and
on photography in particular; collectors and collecting; arts funding; and gallery reviews,
openings, and notices. A small number of serials and newsletters are also related to these
topics.
Series VII contains materials relating to Lunn's professional life and covers his work both
with student organizations in the 1960s and as an art dealer, with a small amount of
material pertaining to his real estate business. Included are files on professional
organizations of which he was a member; notes and texts for lectures and articles he
delivered or wrote; clippings and articles about his activities as an art dealer; and
biographical information.
Series VIII consists of a small amount of personal papers, many of which overlap with
Lunn's professional life as it was intertwined with his private life. Included are materials
documenting banking and tax matters and personal gifts of artwork to institutions, and a
small amount of mostly personal correspondence. Photographs include copies of portraits of
Lunn made by a number of photographers including Michael Howells, Berenice Abbott, Wouter
Deruytter, Robert Mapplethorpe, Yousuf Karsh, McDermott & McGough, and Pierre et Giles,
and a few family snapshots.
The collection is comprised of eight series:
Series I. Artist files, 1901-1999,
undated;
Series II.
Client files and related materials, 1965-1998, undated;
Series III.
Auctions and art fairs, 1974-1998;
Series IV:
Business files, 1965-1998;
Series V:
Gallery operations, 1949-1998;
Series VI:
Clippings and serials, 1855-1998, undated;
Series VII:
Professional activities, 1960-1998, undated;
Series VIII:
Personal papers, circa 1899-1998, undated.
Nègre, Charles,
1820-1880
Serrano, Andres, 1950-
Talbot, William Henry Fox,
1800-1877
Witkin, Joel-Peter, 1939-
Kainen, Jacob
Karsh, Yousuf, 1908-2002
Mapplethorpe, Robert
Nadar, Félix, 1820-1910
Deruytter, Wouter
Beato, Felice, 1832-1909
Brassaï, 1899-1984
Disdéri, André-Adolphe-Eugène,
1819-1889
Arbus, Diane,
1923-1971
Atget, Eugène, 1857-1927
Abbott, Berenice, 1898-1991
Adams, Ansel, 1902-1984
Hill, David Octavius,
1802-1870
Frank, Robert, 1924-2019
Howells, Michael
Hine, Lewis Wickes, 1874-1940
Cameron, Julia Margaret,
1815-1879
Charnay, Désiré, 1828-1915
Evans, Walker, 1903-1975
Du Camp, Maxime,
1822-1894
Lunn Gallery
Pierre et Gilles
McDermott &
McGough
Graphics International Ltd
Lunn Ltd
Photographs -- Collectors and collecting -- United States -- 20th
century
Photographs -- Collectors and collecting
Prints -- Collectors and collecting
Art galleries, Commercial -- United States
Art -- Collectors and collecting -- United States -- 20th
century
Art dealers -- United States -- 20th century
Photographs, Original
Photographic prints
Compact discs
Color slides -- 20th century
Videocassettes
Color transparencies -- 20th century
Lunn, Harry H.
(Harry Hyatt), 1933-