Displaying items by tag: historical photographs

The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles is celebrating the 30th anniversary of its Department of Photographs with the exhibition “Convergences: Selected Photographs from the Permanent Collection.” Since 1984, the Getty has seen its collection, which includes both contemporary and historical photographs, grow substantially. The exhibition is inspired by a book of essays by author Lawrence Weschler titled “Everything That Rises: A Book of Convergences.” In his writings, Weschler explores visual associations between a variety of objects, events, and phenomena. He describes them as “uncanny moments of convergence, bizarre associations, eerie rhymes, whispered recollections.”

“Convergences” features a series of 14 groupings of photographs that reveals points of intersection between recently acquired works by contemporary artists and historical photographs in the museum’s collection. The groupings encourage viewers to create connections between images that were made at different times and with different aesthetic intentions, encouraging conversations between new and old as well as the curatorial process as a whole. Together, the groupings reveal the rich diversity of approaches to photography, while establishing threads of continuity throughout the medium’s history.

The New York City Department of Records and Information Services has added 30,000 historical photographs to its extensive online gallery. Among these images are over 2,000 photographs from the NYPD departmental files and Emergency Services Unit, dating from 1928 to 1941. The images depict everything from a plane crash in Brooklyn to Communist Party rallies in Madison Square Garden, a Nazi summer retreat in Long Island, and John F. Kennedy’s ticker-tape parade from the 1960 presidential campaign. The online gallery now boasts 90,000 photographs, the largest collection of New York City historical images in the world.

The never-before-seen pictures were scanned from vintage large-format film and glass-plate negatives, color transparencies, century-old lantern slides, 35mm Kodachromes, and prints in the Municipal Archive. The city plans to eventually digitize its entire collection. 

The photographs can be viewed here.