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Words on Pictures

Words on Pictures: Romana Javitz and the New York Public Library's Picture Collection

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The history of the use of visual mateials and photography in the arts, the sciences and in commerce cannot be told without Romana Javitz and the story of her 40-year career as the supervisor of the New York Public Library’s Picture Collection.  The New York Public Library’s Picture Collection has been circulating photographs, clippings, prints and postcards to the public for over 105 years. It is a free picture reference service used by many important industries that need visual resources for their work.  Still operating out of t he Stephen A. Schwarzman Building at 42 nd  Street,   the Picture Collection remains an important resource for teachers and historians, designers and illustrators, as well as artists and photographers. It is, at almost 1.5 million images, considered an encyclopedia of pictures that encapsulates the age of mechanical reproduction.  The texts presented in Words on Pictures highlight the career of Javitz, who, as superintendent of the Picture
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Discovering the Legacy of Romana Javitz

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     Romana Javitz (1903-1980), a visionary in the use of visual resources, led the New York Public Library's Picture Collection from 1929 to 1968. Her pioneering work laid the foundation for using pictures as factual documents rather than simply as artistic representations. Javitz’s approach emphasized the utility of images for educational, historical, and cultural documentation, distinguishing her from traditional views that regarded pictures primarily as objects of aesthetic appreciation.    Javitz inherited the Picture Collection during a time of rising demand for accessible images due to the growth in publishing, advertising, and design industries. She championed a unique cataloging approach, moving beyond artist or aesthetic categorization to organizing images by subject. This shift allowed diverse users—from artists to historians—to access visual materials tailored to their functional needs. Javitz’s inclusive and non-judgmental cataloging reflected her belief that images fr
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Dorothea Lange's American Country Woman series and the NYPL Picture Collection

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  Dorothea Lange's American Country Woman series and the NYPL Picture Collection  In 1964, while working on her retrospective exhibition for the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Dorothea Lange contacted Javitz about placing what became three sets of photographs of her work in the Picture Collection files: A portfolio of what Lange called The American Country Woman ; another a series on the Amana Society of Iowa, made while on a 1941 Guggenheim grant; and a third group a selection of over 200 exhibition prints and working proofs presented as a gift.   Lange understood the mission of the Picture Collection and wanted her legacy of photo-documentation to be a permanent part of it. Lange wrote to Javitz in 1965 about the American Country Woman series:  “There are about sixteen personages in the box and in many cases as accompaniment to the Women is a photograph of where she lives, her habitation. I have worked on these photographs for years, on and off, and they are captioned and in s
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Words on Pictures: A speech by Romana Javitz to the Massachusetts Library Association, Boston. 1943

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"Identification marks on wings of army pigeon"  The New York Public Library Digital Collections . 1918. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/18f36040-c2f6-0138-c9f3-0b13222c6397 Below is an extended excerpt from Javitz's speech, entitled Words on Pictures , given at the  Massachusetts Library Association, Boston, Massachusetts, on January 28, 1943.   At the peak of her career, Javitz encapsulates her far reaching and prescient vision into the use and misuse of pictures in everyday society. Much of it still applies today. The photographs following are intended to show examples of pictures reflecting the subjects discussed.  ~~~      "The mounting flood of pictures is permeating all of our lives, and its impact leaves deep impression on our minds. This unexploited pool of power can be tapped to produce ideas, stimulate processes of thinking and provoke action...       These pictures are not art, they are not pictures on exhibition, they are pictures at work. They
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The Moving Picture as an Art Form

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Aelita Queen of Mars . Dir.  Yakov Protazanov 1919-1920.  Wallach Picture Collection archives. NYPL.   In 1933 the Picture Collection presented the exhibition, The Moving Picture as an Art Form.  Installed and designed by Javitz and co-curated with Jay Leyda , it was one of the first exhibits to address the idea that motion pictures were emerging as a unique art form. Over 20,000 visitors came to see the exhibit during the 3 months it was held there. It would later travel to the Hudson Library branch and to Chicago and other cities.  The Picture Collection amassed its collection of stills through direct contact with the movie producers, filmmakers and actors from the industry who used the Picture Collection for research.  The nearby Broadway theaters and movie houses also donated stills, lobby cards and posters.  Most of these holdings are now part of the Billy Rose Theater Division . See below for more about how the Picture Collection's movie "stills" collection was empl
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Television and the NYPL Picture Collection

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From the Annual Report of the NYPL Picture Collection, July 1948 thru June 30, 1949 "The gamut of subjects asked for at the Picture Collection is astounding, particularly as neither idle curiosity, nor hobby spurred the requests. Pictures on widely separate subjects were necessary for a Television broadcast to materialize, for men's ties to be manufactured, for an architect to landscape a cemetery, for a surgeon to give a paper on stumps." ... "Television with its requirements for rapidly organized productions began to use this collection heavily. Several hundred changes of costume are prepared weekly, research must be done quickly and since there is no other source from which pictures on the whole history of fashion may be borrowed, these files became indispensable." Excerpt From: Anthony T. Troncale. Words on Pictures: Romana Javitz and the New York Public Library's Picture Collection. Television programs - CBS  Toast of the Town  with (front row, l to r)
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