Message-Id: <199905051339.GAA35208@dns.ccit.arizona.edu> Date: Wed, 5 May 1999 09:42:46 -0400 From: Tamara Swora-Gober <mailto:tswo@LOC.GOV> Subject: LC National Digital Library Program announces release of Gottlieb To: mailto:IMAGELIB@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
Attached is an announcement of a new collection from the National Digitial Library at the Library of Congress. Our apologies for any duplication as this message is being sent to a number of lists. From: mailto:ndlpcoll@loc.govThe Library of Congress National Digital Library Program and the Music Division announce the release of the on-line collection "William P. Gottlieb: Photographs from the Golden Age of Jazz" at the American Memory web site at
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wghtml/wghome.html
In 1995 the Library of Congress purchased the collection with financial support from the Ira and Leonore S. Gershwin Fund, and the National Digital Library Program has created the on-line presentation in collaboration with the Music Division.
The William P. Gottlieb Collection, comprised of over sixteen hundred photographs of celebrated jazz artists, documents the jazz scene in New York City and Washington, D.C. from 1938 to 1948. An ardent jazz fan, Mr. Gottlieb began working for The Washington Post after college and convinced his editor to let him write a weekly jazz column -- perhaps the first in a major newspaper -- in addition to his assigned duties. The Post could not afford to provide a photographer for the column, so Mr. Gottlieb purchased a Speed Graphic press camera and taught himself the art of photography in order to illustrate his articles. After his position with the Post, he worked as a writer-photographer for Down Beat magazine from 1946 to 1948. His work also frequently appeared in other periodicals such as Record Changer, Saturday Review, and Collier's. During the course of his career, Mr. Gottlieb took portraits of prominent jazz musicians and personalities, including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, Earl Hines, Thelonious Monk, Stan Kenton, Ray McKinley, Coleman Hawkins, Ella Fitzgerald, and Benny Carter.
The on-line collection provides access to digital images of all sixteen hundred negatives, approximately one hundred annotated contact prints, and over two hundred photographic prints that show Mr. Gottlieb's preferred cropping. The web site also includes digital images of Down Beat magazine articles in which Mr. Gottlieb's photographs were first published.
Other special features of the on-line presentation are audio clips of Mr. Gottlieb discussing specific photographs, articles about the collection from Civilization magazine and the Library of Congress Information Bulletin, and a "Gottlieb on Assignment" section which showcases Down Beat articles about Thelonious Monk, Dardanelle, Willie "The Lion" Smith, and Buddy Rich.
Approximately 1,600 negatives and color transparencies, 64 framed exhibition prints, 950 reference prints, and accompanying contact prints compose the collection. The bulk of the negatives are black-and-white nitrate or acetate film cut into three sizes: 2-1/4 x 2-1/4, 3-1/4 x 4-1/4, and 4 x 5 inches. Contact prints are 3-1/4 x 4-1/4 inches or less and are often annotated with cropping, burning, and other special instructions. Gottlieb divided his photographs into two separate series. Series A contains many of the most frequently published images while Series B consists of less popular, but not necessarily lower quality, photographs. Uncropped 8 x 10-inch reference prints of Series A are available in the Music Division Reading Room. The Prints and Photographs Division houses the negatives, color transparencies, and contact prints, but the Music Division Reading Room handles reference work related to the collection.
The Gottlieb Collection receives much use by library patrons both on-site and off-site and is accessed regularly by journalists, book editors, museum curators, artists, and producers of multimedia documentaries. The photographs have been exhibited in more than 150 venues in the United States and abroad, including the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. (which has acquired a print of Duke Ellington), the Library of Congress as part of the permanent American Treasures exhibit, the Deutsche Bank on Fifty-second Street in New York City, the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm, Sweden, and the Navio Museum in Osaka, Japan. Mr. Gottlieb's work has been featured in countless books and articles, used as nearly 250 record album covers, utilized in television documentaries and major motion pictures, and distributed as posters, calendars, and T-shirts. In 1994 the United States Postal Service selected Mr. Gottlieb's portraits of Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Mildred Bailey, and Jimmy Rushing for a series of postage stamps commemorating jazz singers.