Max Epstein Photographic Archive
The Collection
Organization
Using the Photographs
- The Max Epstein Photographic Archive is a collection of reproductions
of painting, sculpture, drawings, architecture, photography and decorative
arts of Eastern and Western art dating from the neolithic period to the twentieth
century. It is a part of the Department
of Art History's research facilities, and as such is open primarily to
the faculty and the students of the University of Chicago. It is also open
to visiting scholars in accordance with the admission
policy of the Regenstein Library where the collection is housed.
The Archive is named after Max Epstein (1875-1954), a business executive and philanthropist who in 1937 founded the collection by donating a large number of photographs acquired from the famous Art Library of Sir Robert Witt, a photographic archive now at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. The Archive has since increased its holdings through purchases and additional gifts.
The core of the Archive is approximately 168,000 mounted photographs. Most are black and white, 8 x 10" photographs which have been ordered from various museums' reproductions departments. The collection has especially strong holdings in Western and Eastern European Medieval art and architecture, in particular French romanesque sculpture and architecture, and in Renaissance and Baroque art, with particular emphasis on prints and drawings. Also worth mentioning are the 5,000 photographs documenting the art works distributed by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation to art museums in the country in the 1960s; among these are ca. 3,000 of works now in the National Gallery in Washington. There are also important photographs of University of Chicago buildings and of the Columbian Exposition. Among the over 760 photographs of Frank Lloyd Wright's buildings are rare photos of the Robie House under construction and of the Midway Gardens. The collection of reproductions of Eastern art is also of particular interest; it includes works from the Islamic world, India, China and Japan. The Archive also has a small section of photographs of artists.
The Epstein Archive also hosts other important visual materials for research:
- WPA Survey of Connecticut Houses (1930s)
During the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) undertook a little-known statewide census of old and distinctive buildings in Connecticut. The survey focused on domestic structures built prior to1850, but a few notable, late Greek Revival houses are also included. Arranged by town, the survey is nearly complete. Each building is described in detail on one page, and the description is accompanied in most cases by at least one photograph.
- Bartsch Illustrations: A collection of 17,000 4 x 6" photographs
of Old Master prints in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum and the
British Museum. The pictures complement the commentary in the Illustrated
Bartsch, a standard reference work (f NE90.B33 stacks). The complete
collection of over 50,000 images is now available in ARTstor.
- Papal medals. A photographic survey of medals from the 16th century
to the middle of the 18th century, based on the collection in the British
Museum. Approximately 3,000 4 x 6" photographs.
- The Decimal Index to the Art of the Low Countries (D.I.A.L.). More
than 14,000 postcard size photographs, constituting an iconographic survey
covering the 14th to 18th centuries.
The mounted photographs, together with the other collections, make more than 740,000 images available for study and research. This figure makes the Epstein Archive one of the largest and most comprehensive university visual resources collections in the country. The collection provides access to images often unavailable through published sources. In addition, a significant portion of the Archive's collection is comprised of photographs of various ages which are extremely rare and of significant historiographic value. As such, the collection provides a service to scholars which cannot be duplicated by other means, either in its breadth of represented objects, or in the multiplicity of views and details provided of individual monuments.