Collection Guide
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Tress (Arthur) photographs
M2214
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Table of contents
Language of Material:
English
Contributing Institution:
Department of Special Collections and University Archives
Title: Arthur Tress photographs
creator:
Tress, Arthur
Identifier/Call Number: M2214
Physical Description:
2 Linear Feet
(58 prints in two boxes)
Date (inclusive): 1965-1983
Abstract: Prints by American photographer Arthur Tress.
Open for research. Note that material must be requested at least 36 hours in advance of intended use.
While Special Collections is the owner of the physical and digital items, permission to examine collection materials is not
an authorization to publish. These materials are made available for use in research, teaching, and private study. Any transmission
or reproduction beyond that allowed by fair use requires permission from the owners of rights, heir(s) or assigns.
[identification of item], Arthur Tress photographs (M2214). Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford
University Libraries, Stanford, California.
Arthur Tress (Nov. 24, 1940- ) has had an extremely active career and is well published, with much of his work incorporating
his role as both director and photographer. His photographs engage a rich visual symbolism, often presenting dream-like, childhood
states. He has also documented San Francisco in the 1960s and composed and photographed fantasy toy stage settings, such as
the Teapot Opera. Over his career his work has been constantly inventive, often playful, always psychologically probing. Born
in Brooklyn in 1940, Tress began his photography career as a teenager, photographing the dilapidated buildings and denizens
of Coney Island. Early on he developed an interest in ethnographic photography and the production of photographic narratives,
which led to a commission from the New York State Council on the Arts to produce Open space in the inner city; ecology and
the urban environment (1971). His book, The Dream collector (1972), with staged photographic work based on his interviews
with children and employing these same children to perform their dreams is now considered a classic in the photobook literature.
With Theater of the mind (1976) Tress moved to adult fantasies and begins a period of overtly erotic work. In Facing up (alternatively
titled Phallic phantasy, (1980), Tress moved to overtly gay photographic work. In more recent years Tress has continued in
the “directorial mode,” and worked in color with miniature stage settings, producing The Teapot opera and the Fish tank sonata.
He continues to actively photograph and exhibit.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Anonymous gift ; 2017. Accession MSS 2017-111.
58 approximately 8" x 10" prints by photographer Arthur Tress. Most of the prints are on double weight gelatin silver paper
and are dry mounted on board.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Photography, Artistic
Tress, Arthur