ARTstor Digital Library
Getty Research Institute: Alexander Liberman Archive
Overview
ARTstor is collaborating with the Research Library at the Getty Research Institute to share approximately 1,500 images of European and American artists from the archive of Alexander Liberman (1912–1999). An influential magazine editor, Alexander Liberman served as art director for Vogue magazine and editorial director of Condé Nast Publications from 1962 to 1994. He introduced modern art to fashion publishing, using art works as backdrops for fashion shoots, commissioning projects from avant-garde artists and leading photographers, and publishing essays by art critics and profiles of living artists. Liberman established close personal and working relationships with many contemporary artists and notable personalities, often photographing and conducting interviews with his subjects in New York and Europe. His archive documents more than 242 major European and American artists, such as Georges Braque, Paul Cézanne, Salvador Dalí, Willem de Kooning, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Wassily Kandinsky, Henri Matisse, Barnett Newman, Pablo Picasso, Robert Rauschenberg, and Mark Rothko. Produced between 1925 to 1998, Lieberman's portraits captured artists at work or in their studios, many documenting works in progress or finished works of art. The collection in ARTstor will represent highlights from the Alexander Liberman photography archive, which comprises more than 148,000 photographic prints, transparencies, negatives and other related materials.
Born in Kiev, Russia, Alexander Liberman studied in London and Paris before emigrating to the United States in 1941. He published several books of his photographs, including: The Artist in His Studio (1960, 1988); Greece: Gods and Art (1968); Marlene: An Intimate Photographic Memoir (1992); Campodiglio: Michelangelo's Roman Capitol (1994); Then: Photographs 1925-1995 (1995); and Prayers in Stone (1998). An artist in his own right, Liberman is best known for his large-scale metal sculptures, which are assembled from industrial materials and often painted bright monochromatic hues. His public sculpture may be seen in over 40 cities worldwide and his work is included in major public collections, such as: The Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, the Storm King Art Center, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Tate Collection, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
The J. Paul Getty Trust is dedicated to furthering knowledge and advancing understanding of the visual arts. Its Research Library collections include over one million books, periodicals, study photographs, and auction catalogs as well as extensive special collections of rare and unique materials in selected areas of art history and visual culture. Predominately works on paper, these collections include rare books, prints, and photographs. Archives, manuscripts, sketchbooks, and albums provide perspectives on artistic production, illuminating intellectual exchanges that fostered creative collaborations. More recent acquisitions focus on art and architecture in Southern California, revealing Los Angeles's significant role in the postwar era.
In addition to the Alexander Liberman archive, the Research Library will also share the Julius Shulman photography archive through ARTstor for scholarly and educational use. Both archives will join two other Getty Trust collections: The J. Paul Getty Museum Collection and the Research Institute's Study Photographs of European Tapestries.
Collection information
| Total size of collection* | 1,500 |
|---|---|
| Percentage of completion | 0% |
* Image totals should be regarded as an approximation until a given collection is 100% complete. Users should also bear in mind that the number of images available to them may vary from country to country, reflecting ARTstor’s approach to addressing an international copyright landscape that itself varies from country to country.
Last updated: November 10, 2010
