Words on Pictures

  I am honored to announce that the electronic edition of the Archives of American Art Journal’s Spring 2025 issue containing “Pictorially Yours”: The Correspondence of Joseph Cornell and Romana Javitz, is now at the University of Chicago Press. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/735900 Written by myself and Diana Kamin, the essay explores the influence of visionary librarian Romana Javitz on the work of artist Joseph Cornell. Javitz was superintendent of the New York Public Library’s Picture Collection, a comprehensive image repository used by working artists and designers, from 1928 to 1968. Cornell, who is most well-known for his surrealist box constructions and collages, was a long-time user of the Picture Collection and a close confidant and admirer of Javitz. The essay draws on correspondence from the Cornell papers at the Archives of American Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Cornell Study Center, and the privately held Javitz estate, as ...

Reading war news aboard streetcar. San Francisco, California. 1941.  John Collier.  The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York  Public Library. Pictures at War Did you know that the New York Public Library's Picture Collection was a key resource for the Armed Forces during World War II? Here is an excerpt from the Annual Report for 1943: "The enemy loomed large as the most popular subject in picture requests during the year. Since a soldier is taught to bayonet the enemy and not some undefined abstraction, he must learn to recognize that enemy; a bombardier must be able to visualize the appearance of the factory which is to be his target; a designer of camouflage must have the specific knowledge of the shape of forests in the battle area as seen from the air. War leaders require pictorial surveys preceding decisions of strategy and action. Direct information for the use of the Army, Navy and Marine Corps was...