 |
|
WHAT'S NEW?
Purchase College |
OUR DOORS HAVE OPENED AT SUNY PURCHASE
After five years working behind-the-scenes preserving and cataloguing our collections, a large portion of the images by Gordon Parks, Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner and many other masters of photography are now available to the public at Suny Purchase.
The summer of 2009 was spent renovating a 2,000 square foot space in the Purchase College Library. We have now moved in all of our photography collections and have ample space to archive and work with the images. It is a secure, climate controlled archive and we are surrounded by students and faculty eager to help with our ongoing work and already proposing projects of their own.
We have wonderful new space at the Purchase Library and the Neuberger Museum and have been warmly welcomed into the SUNY system by President Tom Schwarz. As one of our board members recently said, "This marks our real beginning." Students and professors have begun working with us on innovative ways that the collections can be integrated into the curriculum.
An active student intern program has been put into place and we will become a working archive for students who major in museum arts. We also cover part of the tuition for an outstanding photography student each year. Before long, I think we will become widely known as one of the most actively used photography collections - a truly interactive public resource.
This was the dream of Phil Kunhardt and Gordon Parks - to permanently preserve the work and get it into the hands of "the people." We have built a safe place that is run with pride and a great deal of care. Our goal is to inspire the next generation the same way that Gordon and Phil inspired us.
Chiara Marinai |
So many individuals have generously supported our behind-the-scenes preservation work. And that need continues as we unpack new collections, like that of Life photographer Ed Clark which arrived from Florida last month. But beyond preservation, we now will begin to create exciting educational programs - exhibitions, books, websites, scholarships, and events that will extend our reach to people around the world.
Chiara Marinai is the first recipient of the Nikon/Gordon Parks Scholarship. The grant helps cover the tuition for a student at Purchase College/SUNY in the School of Art and Design. "What an incredible man," said Chiara about Gordon Parks. "The scholarship has motivated me to work harder on what I love most: photography." Chiara has also volunteered to work as an intern at the foundation.
Below, Gordon Parks' longtime assistant Johanna Fiore works with one of four interns from the college cataloguing Gordon's negatives.
|
The Ed Clark Collection
Graham Jackson plays 'Goin Home' for President Roosevelt for the last time, 1945 |
Ed Clark may not be a household name, but his photographs helped define a generation. Ed was a LIFE photographer and a close friend of Gordon Parks and Phil Kunhardt for many years. His widow, Joyce Clark, has donated all of his work to the Foundation.
Ed Clark is best known for his iconic image that summed up a nation in mourning. Marine band member Graham Jackson played the accordion at the funeral of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation Announces its New Division, "The Gordon Parks Foundation" to Preserve the Legacy of Gordon Parks
The Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation (MKF) announced that it has created a new division called The Gordon Parks Foundation, which will be dedicated to the preservation of photographer, author and film director Gordon Parks ground-breaking creative work. Parks is known to many for his photo essays in Life magazine, his direction of the 1971 film Shaft, and for his autobiography The Learning Tree.
Parks was a poet, a composer and in 1969 became the first African American to direct a major Hollywood production, which was a film adaptation of The Learning Tree. Gordon Parks died in March 2006 and was a very close friend of MKF Founder and former Life magazine managing editor Philip B. Kunhardt, Jr., who died just two weeks later.
Parks and Kunhardt first met as colleagues at Life magazine in the early 1950s were they became close friends sharing the same passion for photography. Through the years their friendship grew and now their love of photography and the arts will be carried on through MKF and the Gordon Parks Foundation. The Gordon Parks Collection will be managed by Peter Kunhardt, the son of Philip B. Kunhardt, Jr.
"It is an honor to preserve the work and legacy of Gordon Parks who was not only an American treasure but a friend," said Peter Kunhardt, President of The Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation. "I am pleased that my father's vast collection and his best friend's work will be preserved together."
"This is exactly what Gordon hoped for," said Gene Young, his former wife and executor of his estate. "His work will be in good hands and we are all going to work hard to make it available for future generations."
|
|
|
|
|
