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Komor (Mathias) Photographic Archive
89.P.5
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Title: Mathias Komor photographic archive
Date (inclusive): 1935-1978
Number: 89.P.5
Creator/Collector:
Komor, Mathias,
1909-1984
Physical Description:
10.2 Linear Feet
(23 boxes)
Repository:
The Getty Research Institute
Special Collections
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles 90049-1688
reference@getty.edu
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10020/askref
(310) 440-7390
Abstract: Assembled by Mathias Komor, an art
dealer in New York City from the 1930s until his death in 1984, the collection documents
objects that passed through one of the first New York dealers to handle ancient and
ethnographic art.
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Language: Collection material is in
English .
In 1974, the J. Paul Getty Museum began assembling a "photo library" by consolidating the
visual resources of each existing curatorial department. By the early 1980s, the Photo
Archive was actively acquiring large collections of photographs from commercial and private
sources and scholars' archives that contained a photographic component. In 1983, the nearly
one million photographs of the Photo Archive were incorporated into the Research Institute's
Special Collections.
Open for use by qualified researchers. For further information, consult the
Guide to
the Photo Archive and Database
.
Photographs and permission to publish must be obtained from copyright holder(s). For
further information, contact
Library Reproductions
and Permissions
.
Mathias Komor photographic archive, circa 1940-1984, The Getty Research Institute, Los
Angeles, Accession no. 89.P.5.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa89p5
Jan Bender created the collection inventory in 2012 and Ann Harrison completed the finding
aid.
Scope and Content of Collection
Assembled by Mathias Komor, an art dealer in New York City from the 1930s until his death
in 1984, the collection documents objects that passed through one of the first New York
dealers to handle ancient and ethnographic art. Much of this material is now in public and
private collections in the United States. The Komor archive is comprised of photographs of
objects and some miscellaneous archival and ephemeral material. These are the only surviving
records of the Komor Gallery and do not include business records.
The bulk of the archive, Series I, is comprised of photographs of Classical, Near Eastern,
and Egyptian antiquities; ethnographic objects from Africa, Meso-America, and Oceania;
Japanese, Chinese, Indian, and Southeast Asian art; European sculpture, decorative arts, and
drawings. Photographers include Richard Averill Smith, G.D. Hackett, Peter A. Juley &
Son, Raymond Fortt Studios, and R.H. Hildyard. Most photographs document objects that went
through the Komor Gallery, while others were added for study or comparative purposes. Many
of the photographs are not annotated.
In addition to the photographs, the collection also includes a small quantity of other
material forming Series II. Included here are scholarly correspondence; 17 drawings of
various subjects; 54 rubbings; two architectural plans of Komor's New York gallery; several
manuscript versions and galleys of the printed text of Komor's 1951 exhibition catalog,
Imperial porcelains of the Ming dynasty, 1368-1644 A.D.; a manuscript on
Chinese ceramics; a manuscript by Alan Priest on a Chinese landscape scroll; and
clippings.
Arranged in two series:
Series I. Photographs, 1972, undated;
Series
II. Miscellaneous papers, 1935-1978, undated.
Komor, Mathias, 1909-1984 --
Photograph collections
Art, Indic
Art, African
Art -- Oceania
Art, Southeast Asian
Sculpture, European
Drawing, European
Classical antiquities
Art, Japanese
Art, Chinese
Indian art -- Mexico
Decorative arts -- Europe
Indian art -- Central America
Middle East -- Antiquities
Egypt -- Antiquities
Imperial porcelains of the Ming Dynasty
Negatives
Slides (photographs)
Transparencies
Black-and-white prints (photographs)
Rubbings
Peter A. Juley
& Son
Hildyard, R.H.
Komor, Mathias,
1909-1984
Raymond Fortt Studios
Hackett, G.D.
Smith, Richard
Averill