Words on Pictures

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

The Gift: Photographs from the Federal Art Project     In 1943 the New York Public Library’s Picture Collection was the beneficiary of a gift by the U.S. government of over 42,000 photographic prints covering many of the  Federal Art Project  programs initiated by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930’s.  These included prints from Berenice Abbott’s  “Changing New York”  series (a Master set and many duplicates), the Federal Music Project, the Index of American Design and the Photographic Division which was assigned to document activities like classes at community art centers which were established across the country. Another set of photographs included were from t he  Farm Security Administration   series. Altogether an important and content-filled assortment of American history from the 1930's and early 1940's.  Harlem Community Art Center - Changing New York, a Federal Art Project     "One of the young artists who will be present at the Contempora