Words on Pictures

Marion . Subject heading: Curiosity. engraving, ca. 1850. Stahlstich v. Carl Mayer’s Kunst-Anstalt in Nürnberg. The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. Curious? For the nominal cost of $4.99 you can get the ebook Words on Pictures: Romana Javitz and the New York Public Library's Picture Collection.  Covering the years 1916 to 1965, Words on Pictures is an excellent resource for the study of the use and dissemination of printed visual resources during of the age of photo-mechanical reproduction.   The story of the Picture Collection cannot be told without the story of Romana Javitz (1903-1980) who was head of the Picture Collection from 1928-1968. A pioneering librarian whose career spans the rise of print media, cinema and the mass circulation of illustrated magazines and newspapers across the globe. In three interviews included in the publication Javitz reveals a mastery of the semantics of photograp

    Newsstand, 32nd Street and Third Avenue, Manhattan. (1935). Berenice Abbott (1898-1991) The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. Retrieved from http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47d9-4f7ea3d9- e040-e00a18064a99 Image ID 482798 By 1941 Romana Javitz was at the top of her field and was known world-wide as an authority on the use of pictorial materials. Many institutions, cultural organizations and corporations began clamoring for guidelines to organize their own burgeoning collections of visual materials.  So i n 1941, NYPL director Harry M. Lydenberg approached the Carnegie  Corporation for funds to allow Javitz time off from her regular duties to craft a  manual for the classification and arrangement of picture collections. In order to  proceed, Javitz, writing to Franklin F. Hopper, who succeeded Lydenberg as director i n 1941, insisted that she would need to first write: “a comprehensive

Reaching the People: The Picture Collection's Farm Security Administration Photographs Grandmother from Oklahoma and her pieced quilt. California, Kern County (1936). Dorothea Lange (1895-1965). This Dorothea Lange photograph is one of several carefully selected images from the Farm Security Administration series that are reproduced in my new book, Words on Pictures: Romana Javitz and the New York Public Library’s Picture Collection. (Photo|Verso: New York) Javitz was a close friend and colleague of the head of the FSA’s Historical Section, Roy D. Stryker. Stryker’s mission was to get the photographs of the conditions wrought by the Great Depression out to the public and the Picture Collection was the perfect venue. Not only did over 40,000 photos eventually find their way into the circulating stock, complete exhibitions were also prepared and distributed throughout the NYPL Branches, department stores and other sites. In one instance Stryker assembled a large print ex

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

  NYPL Picture Collection Source Files   Words on Pictures: Romana and the New York Public Library’s Picture Collection .  edited by Anthony T. Troncale. New York:  Photo | Verso Publications, LLC , 2020.    ISBN 978-1-7346409-0-8 (hardcover)   Identifiers ISBN    978-1-7346409-1-5 (ebook) Picture Collection Source Files The Picture Collection began sourcing their files soon after Javitz became its Superintendent in 1929.  If an illustration was clipped from a book or portfolio the plate would be assigned a Source Number which would lead you back to a catalog card listing its provenance, bibliographic information, or if it was a gift or purchase.  Today this source file index and its accompanying index to periodicals that have been clipped are valuable research tools. Courtesy, New York Public Library, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs. Picture Collection. #photography, #visual arts, #photographers, #visualresources, #librarians, #documentation

Romana Javitz, ca. 1950. photo: Sol Libsohn (Yampolsky Coll.) Headline: "Library not art snob, picture chief says".  Toronto Globe & Mail, November 30, 1946 Romana Javitz was interviewed by the Toronto Globe & Mail, November 30, 1946 while she was attending the annual conference of the Special Libraries Association where she gave a speech. The below excerpt of the interview perfectly encapsulates her position on visual literacy as something bigger than art, broader than aesthetics, and the Picture Collection's populist approach to selection. " Library not art snob, picture chief says " “Since the development of the camera in 1839, we have available to us a picture of almost every aspect of the history of man”, said Romana Javitz, head of the picture service of the New York Public Library. “We can see pictures of man’s wars, his triumphs, the kind of food he likes, the women he loved, the kind of dances he did and the kinds of houses in which h