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Brenneis (Jon) Photograph Archive
BANC PIC 2002.171  
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Collection Details
 
Table of contents What's This?
  • Access to Collection
  • Conditions Governing Use
  • Preferred Citation
  • Immediate Source of Acquisition
  • Organization of the Collection
  • Arrangement
  • Biographical / Historical Note
  • Scope and Content

  • Language of Material: English
    Contributing Institution: The Bancroft Library
    Title: The Jon Brenneis photograph archive
    creator: Brenneis, Jon
    Identifier/Call Number: BANC PIC 2002.171
    Physical Description: 124,000 photographs (57 boxes (negatives), 14 boxes (photographic prints and transparencies), 3 oversize boxes (photographic prints), 1 box (transparencies))
    Date (inclusive): 1940-1990, bulk 1946-1985
    Abstract: The professional photographic archive of freelance photojournalist Jon Brenneis of Berkeley, California. Covering a wide range of news, popular culture, and human interest stories, chiefly from 1948 into the 1980s, particular strengths are science and technology, high tech companies of the San Francisco Bay Area, and corporate and business history focused on Bay Area companies.
    Physical Location: Many of the Bancroft Library collections are stored offsite and advance notice may be required for use. For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the library's online catalog.

    Access to Collection

    Collection is open for research; access requires advance notice.

    Conditions Governing Use

    Jon Brenneis's copyright in this material has been assigned to the Regents of the University of California, for the benefit of The Bancroft Library.
    In addition to copyright considerations, the reproduction of some materials may be restricted by terms of University of California gift or purchase agreements, donor restrictions, privacy and publicity rights, licensing and trademarks. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright 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 owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user. All requests to reproduce, publish, quote from, or otherwise use collection materials must be submitted in writing to the Head of Public Services, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley 94720-6000. See: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/reference/permissions.html .

    Preferred Citation

    [Identification of item], Jon Brenneis photograph archive, BANC PIC 2002.171,The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

    Immediate Source of Acquisition

    The Jon Brenneis photograph archive was given to The Bancroft Library by Jon Brenneis on March 27, 2002.

    Organization of the Collection

    This collection is organized into series:
    1. Photographer's Favorites
    2. University of California Subjects
    3. Life Magazine Negatives
    4. Time and Fortune Magazine Negatives
    5. Various Subjects and Clients

    Arrangement

    The collection is arranged in groupings created by the photographer. Within each grouping (or "series"), arrangement tends to be by photographer's filing code number, which is approximately chronological. Some series, particularly of photographic prints, are grouped by subject rather than chronology or filing code.

    Biographical / Historical Note

    Jon Brenneis (1921-2013) was a freelance photojournalist and commercial photographer based in Berkeley, California. Born John Martin Brenneis, Jr., he was an alumnus of the University of California at Berkeley (class of 1942). He served in the U.S. Marine Corps as a photographer during World War Two (1942-1946), and continued in his profession upon returning to civilian life. His first civilian assignment was for Life magazine in 1946, photographing chinchillas. The same year, he began doing work for Standard Oil of California. Time Inc. and Standard Oil continued to be clients for decades. In addition, Brenneis produced work for countless other national publications and California companies. In the late 1940s, he collaborated with former Marine Corps photographers to form “Cal-Pictures” (originally “Cal Pix”), building a darkroom and lab to process their own film. Brenneis was a successful photographic innovator, finding ways to make compelling images of cutting edge advances in science and technology, particularly in his frequent contributions to Scientific American. He often photographed internationally for clients such as Chevron. In the 1980s, Breinnes’s work shifted toward travel photography, but his work for corporate clients continued on a limited basis. Jon Brenneis retired in 1993.

    Scope and Content

    The Jon Brenneis archive consists of approximately 124,000 photographs spanning his forty-year career as a professional photographer. Brenneis's worked encompassed the San Francisco Bay Area and ranged across the United States and sometimes internationally. He photographed for Life Magazine in the late 1940s and 1950s, and was a frequent contributor to Time, Fortune, and Scientific American magazines. His work ranges from human interest stories to popular culture to politics, but it is his documentary and promotional work for Bay Area corporations and industries that is most voluminous and perhaps most historically significant. His clients included Chevron and Standard Oil, Crown Zellerbach paper company, Kaiser Industries, the Southern Pacific Railroad, Bank of America, the Bay Area Rapid Transit system, and numerous others. His work documenting science, technology, and the “high tech” industry from the mid-1950s through the 1980s is particularly noteworthy. Major clients included Hewlett-Packard and IBM, but Brenneis also documented scientific work (particularly nuclear physics) at the University of California, Berkeley and at the Stanford Linear Accelerator. Other University of California subjects on both the Berkeley and Davis campus are also numerous. Brenneis’s photographs frequently appeared in Scientific American, and this diverse work covered medicine, nuclear physics, lasers, computers, micro-electronics, fiber optics, windmill generators, barn owls, primates, and rice culture in California, among many other topics.
    Brenneis's international travel photography is not included in the archive at the Bancroft Library. Researchers should note that negatives are lacking for many stories, particularly for early magazine work, and that prints are present for a small proportion of his jobs.

    Subjects and Indexing Terms

    Banks and banking -- California -- Photographs
    Computer industry -- California -- Photographs
    Electronic industries -- California -- Photographs
    High technology industries -- California -- Photographs
    Oil industries -- Photographs
    Paper industry -- California -- Photographs
    Executives -- Portraits
    Nuclear physicists -- Portraits
    Scientists -- California -- Portraits
    Bank of America -- Pictorial works
    Chevron Oil Company -- Pictorial works
    Crown Zellerbach Corporation -- Pictorial works
    Hewlett-Packard Company -- Pictorial works
    International Business Machines Corporation -- Pictorial works
    Kaiser Industries Corporation -- Pictorial works
    Kaiser Permanente -- Pictorial works
    San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (Calif.) -- Pictorial works
    Southern Pacific Company -- Pictorial works
    Standard Oil Company -- Pictorial works
    Stanford Linear Accelerator Center -- Pictorial works
    University of California, Berkeley -- Pictorial works
    University of California, Berkeley. Department of Physics -- Pictorial works
    University of California, Davis -- Pictorial works