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Fish (Richard) Collection
URB.RF
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Contributing Institution:
Special Collections & Archives
Title: Richard Fish Collection
Creator:
Fish, Richard, 1919-2005
Identifier/Call Number: URB.RF
Extent:
65.16 linear feet
Extent:
679.91 Megabytes
Date (inclusive): 1934-2005
Date (bulk): 1934-2005
Abstract: Richard Fish was born in Los Angeles,
California on February 25, 1919. He earned a bachelor's degree in Cinematography and
Journalism at the University of Southern California in 1940, served in the United States
Army during World War II, and later attended the California School of Fine Arts in San
Francisco. The Richard Fish Collection documents his career as a professional photographer
with a focus on residential and commercial architecture and landscape design, art and
artists, writers and composers, celebrities and public figures, and natural land and
waterscapes. The collection consists of records, documents, correspondence, diagrams, maps,
promotional material, publications, notes, photographic material, audio recordings, and
ephemera.
Language of Material: English
Richard Fish was born in Los Angeles, California on February 25, 1919. His father, Benjamin
Fish, worked in the motion picture distribution business, initially for his brother Samuel
Goldwyn, and later for other companies. The family frequently moved and Fish spent his
grammar school years in Seattle, Washington, then moved to Cleveland, Ohio. Later, the
family moved to Chicago, Illinois where he attended Hyde Park High School. In his last
semester of high school his family moved to Beverly Hills, California. At Beverly Hills High
School, Fish wrote for the Beverly Hills High Lights and the Beverly Hills Citizen. He
graduated in 1936.
Following high school, Fish attended the University of Southern California, where he
graduated with a Cinematography and Journalism degree in 1940. He worked for Lockheed
Aircraft Company in Burbank before being drafted in 1944. Fish served as a United States
Army Technician, fourth grade, and was stationed in Germany. While in the Army, he met Boris
Kremenliev, who later became a composer and professor of Ethnomusicology at the University
of California, Los Angeles. Fish was discharged from the Army in June 1946.
In 1947, Fish began attending the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco (now the
San Francisco Art Institute) where he studied with Ansel Adams, Minor White, and other
renowned photographers. In 1948, Kremenliev invited Fish to photograph composer Arnold
Schönberg and his family for a German music magazine. Many of Fish's Schönberg photographs
were featured in an exhibition celebrating the opening of the Schönberg Institute, which was
located on the campus of the University of Southern California. An exhibition of these
photographs was also presented in August, 2007 at the Arnold Schönberg Center in Vienna.
Fish began working for the Los Angeles Times in 1953. In March 1959, the Times sent him to
photograph homes in the historic San Angel neighborhood of Mexico City, which marked the
beginning of his interest in home and landscape design photography. Over the next several
decades, Fish also experienced a growing interest in capturing images of painters,
sculptors, musicians, composers, actors, and writers, and over the years photographed
Robinson Jeffers, Rico Lebrun, Peter Voulkos, José Luis Cuevas, Lorenzo Castelnuovo-Tedesco,
Jean Arthur, Richard Chamberlain, Bruce Dern, and Igor Stravinsky.
Over his long career, Fish photographed and wrote articles for a variety of publications,
including Los Angeles Times Home Magazine, Sunset, Better Homes and Gardens, House and
Garden, House Beautiful, Home, Chicago Sun-Times Magazine, Garden Design, Southern
California Home and Garden, and T.V. Guide. He photographed many celebrities and public
figures, including Ed Asner, Eva and Zsa Zsa Gabor, Eddie Albert, Larry Hagman, Michael
Landon, Jacqueline Smith, Liz Claiborne, Frances and Sidney Brody, Robert Wagner and Natalie
Wood, and Sobey Martin.
Richard married his wife Marie on April 29, 1972. The couple traveled widely throughout
the 1970s and 1980s, both nationally and abroad. Many of his most beautiful and interesting
architectural and landscape photographs are those he took while visiting Asia, Europe, and
the Netherlands.
Fish was a member of the American Society of Magazine Photographers and served as
President of the Los Angeles chapter of the organization. He received the Merit Award from
Philadelphia First, The Art Directors Club for a 1980 magazine editorial in TV Guide.
Richard Fish passed away on December 8, 2005, at the age of 86.
The
Richard Fish Collection documents the career of
professional photographer Richard Fish. His early work demonstrates the influence of mentors
Ansel Adams and Minor White, whose technical and philosophical approaches to photography
imbued Fish's work with a sense of artistic and emotional depth throughout the 1940s and
1950s. Although Fish spent much of his career in commercial photography, he continued to
produce work that seemed to surpass the simplicity of the objectified image. Throughout his
mid-career years, he focused on residential and commercial interiors, exteriors, and
landscapes, exploring the use of light, space, texture, and color. With a critical eye for
staging and styling, Fish captured a vibrant era in the history of home and commercial
architecture, landscape, and interior design, during which self-expression and individuality
were hallmarks. Fish also wrote articles which featured the owners of homes he photographed
that were published alongside his photographs. In later years, Fish utilized his
photographic skills in the areas of commercial advertising and the television industry, and
returned to some of his early interests such as landscapes, seascapes, and historical
architecture. The collection is arranged into six major series:
Client
Files
(1955-2004),
Work Orders (1952-1988),
Subject Files (1950-2002),
Publications
(1959-2003),
Administrative Files (1959-2005), and
Personal Files (1890, 1934-1940, circa 1980-circa 1998).
Series I,
Client Files, documents the relationships between
Richard Fish and his clients. His client base was primarily located in California, and
consisted of individuals, families, architects, construction firms, landscape designers,
interior designers, television studios, film studios, recording studios, celebrities,
artists, publishers, or marketing firms. The series consists of three subseries:
Records, Documents, and Correspondence (1955-2004),
Photographic Material (1961-2001), and
Recorded
Interviews
(circa 1970-circa 1989).
Records, Documents, and
Correspondence
includes client job orders, contact information, correspondence,
invoices, consent forms, floor plans, design diagrams, blueprints, architectural renderings,
biographical information, fact sheets, newspaper clippings, and article drafts.
Photographic Material consists of photographic prints, negatives,
proof sheets, and transparencies related to specific clients. Highlights of this subseries
are photographs of film and television actors in their homes, such as Eddie Albert, Richard
Chamberlain, Joseph Cotton, Mike Farrell, Burgess Meredith, Jean Arthur, James Cagney,
Dennis Hopper, Ed Asner, Hope Lange, Bonnie Franklin, and Michael Landon. Also included are
photographs of the home and landscape design work of Walt Young, Galper Baldon Associates,
Isabelle Greene, Julie Heinsheimer, and Takeo Uesugi and marketing photographs for
commercial clients such as First Pacific Bank, General Electric, and Mc Donald's.
Recorded Interviews consists of fifteen interviews conducted by
Fish, primarily with television actors and actresses in the 1970s and 1980s. Highlights
include interviews with James Whitmore, Richard Thomas, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Redd Foxx, and Ed
Asner. This series is arranged alphabetically by the surname or company name of the
client.
Series II
, Work Orders, documents Richard Fish's work, using
his original system for recording work orders, associated contact information, and
photographic material. The series consists of two subseries:
Records and
Notes
(1952-1988) and
Photographic Material (circa
1952-circa 1988).
Records and Notes consists of six notebooks and
collated notes in which Fish recorded scouting trips and photo shoots by assigning each a
work order number. Researchers may utilize this original numeric system to locate
photographic material found elsewhere in the collection. Details contained in this subseries
may also provide clues for locating more information about clients and specific subject
matter.
Photographic Material consists of photographic prints,
negatives, proof sheets, and transparencies, as well as a small amount of accompanying
notes. This subseries documents the subject content associated with each work order number
and contains a broad range of material, including residential home interiors, landscape
design, gardens, decks, pools, and other water features. Images also feature families and
individuals engaged in leisure activities, government and commercial building interiors and
exteriors, art and artists at work, landscapes, seascapes, cityscapes, advertising,
promotional material, and candid and posed photos of artists and celebrities in their homes.
This series is arranged in ascending numerical order.
Series III,
Subject Files, documents Fish's professional
interests and areas of research. The series consists of two subseries:
Records and Research Material (1951-2002) and
Photographic
Material
(1950-1991). Subseries A,
Records and Research
Material,
contains articles, brochures, clippings, press releases, artists
catalogs, memoranda, marketing material, and research notes which primarily focus on
artists, writers, composers, home design, gardens, pools, and travel. Subseries B,
Photographic Material, consists of photographic prints, negatives,
proof sheets, and transparencies. This subseries includes images of modern residential and
commercial interiors, landscapes, water features, patios, decks, historic landmarks,
religious architecture, cultural spaces, cityscapes, landscapes, children with animals,
museums, and tourist attractions. Locations include those in and around California and the
US to foreign countries, including Mexico, Japan, China, Spain, England, New Zealand, and
Sweden. Also included in this subseries are portraits of artists such as José Cuevas and
Rico Lebrun, composers Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco and Arnold Schönberg, and poet Robinson
Jeffers. This series is arranged alphabetically by topic.
Series IV,
Publications, documents Fish's published work in
home and garden design magazines, women's magazines, newspapers, entertainment guides, and
commercial advertising, including
Los Angeles Times Home
Magazine,
Sunset,
Garden Design,
Perfect Home, Ladies Home Journal
T.V. Guide, and Peridian Group literature. The series consists
of two subseries:
Magazines and Marketing Material (1959-2003)
and
Photographic Material (1960-1998). Subseries A,
Magazines and Marketing Material, includes full and partial issues of
magazines with photographs and articles authored by Fish, as well as brochures, reports, and
other types of marketing material featuring his photographs. It primarily focuses on the
work of well-known architectural, interior, and landscape designers, and the homes of
celebrities such as Eva Gabor, Eddie Albert, Jaclyn Smith, and Burl and Dorothy Ives.
Subseries B,
Photographic Material, consists of photographic
prints, negatives, proof sheets, and transparencies that are known to have appeared in
publications. Noteworthy subjects included in this subseries are television shows such as
the "Addams Family," "Gunsmoke," "Peyton Place," and "Lost in Space." Researchers should be
aware that published but unidentified photographic material may also appear in Series I,
Client Files, Series II, Work Orders, or Series III, Subject Files. This series is arranged
alphabetically by the title of the publication, company name, or type of material.
Series V,
Administrative Files, documents the Fish's
professional life, detailing his affiliations with clients, publishers, and designers. This
series includes client contact lists and card files, photo shoot release forms and
descriptions of locations, job registers and invoices, general correspondence, samples of
stationary and business cards, and copyright/ownership stamps. This series is arranged
alphabetically by topic or format of the material.
Series VI,
Personal Files, documents Fish's education, early
writings , interest in historical photography methods, and family traditions. This small
series consists of diplomas, certificates, a Christmas card, family photographs, a high
school scrapbook, an antique negative glass plate holder, and photographs of Richard
Fish.
Series I: Client Files, 1955-2004
Subseries A: Records, Documents, and Correspondence, 1955-2004
Subseries B: Photographic Material, 1961-2001
Subseries C: Recorded Interviews, circa 1970-circa 1989
Series II: Work Orders, 1952-1988
Subseries A: Records and Notes, 1952-1988
Subseries B: Photographic Material, circa 1952-circa 1988
Series III: Subject Files, 1950-2002
Subseries A: Records and Research Material, 1951-2002
Subseries B: Photographic Material, 1950-1991
Series IV: Publications, 1959-2003
Subseries A: Magazines and Marketing Material, 1959-2003
Subseries B: Photographic Material, 1960-1998
Series V: Administrative Files, 1959-2005
Series VI: Personal Files, 1890, 1934-1940, circa. 1980-circa 1998
This collection is open for research use.
Copyright for unpublished materials authored or otherwise produced by the creator(s) of
this collection has been transferred to California State University, Northridge. Copyright
status for other materials is unknown. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected
by U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.) beyond that allowed by fair use requires the
written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be
commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owners. Responsibility for any
use rests exclusively with the user.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Marie Fish. 12/15/2006. 2008
2008
For information about citing items in this collection consult the appropriate style manual,
or see the
Citing Archival Materials
guide.
Holli Teltoe, 2014