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Newhall (Beaumont and Nancy) Papers
920060
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Title: Beaumont and Nancy Newhall papers
Date (inclusive): 1843-1993 (bulk 1929-1993)
Number: 920060
Creator/Collector:
Newhall, Nancy Wynne
Creator/Collector:
Newhall, Beaumont
Physical Description:
150 Linear Feet
(268 boxes, 3 flat file folders)
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: The archive documents the work of
Beaumont and Nancy Newhall, two key figures in the history of photography, through
correspondence, extensive research files, published and unpublished writings, and
photographs, slides and audiotapes. Beaumont Newhall's papers (136 lin. ft.) date from ca.
1843-1993, Nancy Newhall's papers (14 lin. ft.) date from ca. 1920-1989.
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Language: Collection material is in
English
Biographical / Historical Note
Beaumont Newhall is perhaps the first champion of the study of photography as art, and of
its history. He was born in Lynn, Massachusetts in 1908 and graduated from Harvard
University in 1932. After an internship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Newhall became
the Librarian at the Museum of Modern Art. In 1937, at the request of Director Alfred Barr,
Newhall organized the museum's first exhibition of photographs. His
History of
Photography
, published for the exhibition, introduced formal criteria for judging
photography as a fine art. Revised five times and translated into several languages, it
remains a widely read textbook on the history of photography.
In 1940 Beaumont Newhall became the first Curator of Photography at the Museum of Modern
Art. He was drafted in 1942 and sent to North Africa and Italy in a photo-reconnaissance
division. In his absence Nancy Newhall, whom he had married in 1936, served as Acting
Curator. Beaumont Newhall resumed his Curatorship after the war, but resigned in 1945 over
artistic differences with the new director, Edward Steichen.
In 1948, Beaumont Newhall became the first Curator of Photography at the George Eastman
House, and then served as its Director from 1958 to 1971, building a significant photography
collection. After his retirement, Newhall accepted a position as Visiting Professor of Art
at the University of New Mexico, where he helped to establish the first doctoral program in
the history of photography at an American university. He died in 1993.
In his long career, Beaumont Newhall authored numerous articles and reviews of books about
photography. In addition to
History of Photography, he wrote
Masters
of Photography
(with Nancy Newhall, 1958),
The daguerreotype in
America
(1961),
Frederick Evans (1964),
Latent image: the
discovery of photography
(1967) and
Focus: memoirs of a life in
photography
(1993). He also published a book of photographs,
In plain
sight: the photographs of Beaumont Newhall
(1983)
Nancy Newhall (Nancy Wynne Parker) was born in Lynn, Massachusetts in 1908. She graduated
from Smith College, where she showed talent as a writer and painter, and married Beaumont
Newhall in 1936. After serving as Acting Curator of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art
(1942-45), she wrote articles about photographers, edited and introduced photography books
by Ansel Adams, Paul Strand, Edward Weston, and others, and collaborated with Ansel Adams on
several books about the American West, including
Yosemite Valley (1959),
Death Valley (1954),
The Tetons and Yellowstone (1970), and
This is the American Earth (1960). With Minor White, she founded the
magazine
Aperture. She died in 1974, struck by a falling tree while rafting
down the Snake River with Beaumont.
Open for use by qualified researchers, except the audiotapes that have not yet been
reformatted.
Contact
Library Rights and Reproductions .
Beaumont and Nancy Newhall papers, 1843-1993 (bulk 1929-1993), Getty Research Institute,
Research Library, Accession no. 920060.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa920060
This collection was acquired in 1992, and supplements were received in 1993 and 1996.
Additional material was moved into the collection from Special Collection Accession nos.
920082, 940082, 930036, and 93.R.23.
Michael Baker began processing the collection in December 1995 and nearly completed it in
August 1996. He compiled a draft of this finding aid and Annette Leddy extensively edited
the front essays. Kelly Nipper completed processing and re-housing the collection, and
revised the finding aid in 1999. Jocelyn Gibbs and Alan Tomlinson completed the final
editing of the finding aid.
Selected audiovisual material has been digitized. Access is available only to on-site
readers and Getty staff:
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/920060av
Scope and Content of Collection
The Beaumont and Nancy Newhall papers (ca. 150 linear feet) comprehensively document the
professional lives of these two key figures in the history of photography. The Newhall
marriage is portrayed through the letters they sent to each other during World War II and in
later correspondence and letters of condolence to Beaumont upon Nancy's accidental death.
Correspondence also offers profiles of major photographers who were their friends, such as
Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Paul Strand, and Alfred Stieglitz, profiles amplified by
snapshots and journal accounts. There is exhaustive documentation of the Newhalls'
professional lives, including Beaumont's daily journals, minutes of meetings, notes,
records, and correspondence. These disclose the drama behind such achievements as the
founding of the Departments of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art, N.Y. (MoMA) and
George Eastman House, and the establishment of the country's first doctoral program in the
history of photography, and essentially offer a history of the struggle for institutional
acceptance of photography as a fine art form. Beaumont and Nancy Newhall's published and
unpublished manuscripts, in typescript and clippings, span seven decades. Books from
Beaumont Newhall's library have been transferred to the Getty Research Library.
The archive is arranged in nine series:
Series I. Research files, 1843-1993;
Series II. Personal files,
1929-1993;
Series III. Correspondence, 1934-1993;
Series IV. Beaumont Newhall writings, 1925-1993;
Series V. Lectures,
1934-1992;
Series VI. Beaumont Newhall photographs, 1885-1984;
Series VII. Nancy Newhall papers, ca.
1920-1989;
Series VIII. Theses and publications, 1976-1987;
Series IX. Oversize, 1852-1984
Steichen, Edward
Porter, Eliot
Newhall, Nancy Wynne
Sheeler, Charles
Smith, W. Eugene
Stieglitz, Alfred
Talbot, William Henry Fox
Strand, Paul
Vogel, Hermann Wilhelm
Weston, Edward
Weston, Brett
White, Minor
Newhall, Beaumont
Morgan, Barbara Brooks
Lange, Dorothea
Gernsheim, Helmut
Evans, Frederick H.
Emerson, P. H. (Peter Henry)
Coburn, Alvin Langdon
Cartier-Bresson, Henri
Anschütz, Ottomar
Brady, Mathew B.
Moholy-Nagy, László
Adams, Ansel
Salzburg Seminar
Southworth & Hawes
University of New Mexico
Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.)
George Eastman House
Friends of Photography
Photographers
Motion pictures -- History and criticism
Photography -- Collectors and collecting
Photography, Artistic
Photography -- Periodicals
Photography -- Exhibitions
Tintype
Photography -- Processes
Cameras
Black-and-white slides
Audiotapes
Diaries
Color slides
Ephemera
Photographs, Original
Photographic prints
Adams, Ansel
Newhall, Nancy Wynne
Newhall, Beaumont
Hagemeyer, Johan