Processing Photocopies, Discovering Originals
by Rachel Garbade
Assistant Archivist, The Museum of Modern Art
In October 2022, I joined the Archives, Library, and Research Collections department at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) as an Assistant Archivist. I focus on processing the backlog that had accumulated in the Archives over the decades, a varied body of materials including both museum records and external donations. While I knew this work would ultimately increase the linear feet to the Archives’ holdings, I could not have foreseen the interdepartmental connections fostered and the magical discoveries made along the way. This was particularly true for an innocuous-seeming stack of over 400 pages of photocopied correspondence between the renowned photographer Edward Weston and MoMA curators Beaumont and Nancy Newhall that I added to the Beaumont Newhall Papers.
First, I’ll start with a bit of provenance. In 1981, photography scholar and Edward Weston expert Amy Conger sent the photocopied letters and postcards to John Szarkowski, who was the Director of MoMA’s Department of Photography at the time. It is not immediately clear why Conger had this material, though she co-authored the 1984 book Edward Weston Omnibus: A Critical Anthology with Beaumont Newhall, who was the founder and first Director of MoMA’s Department of Photography. These photocopies may have been part of her research files, which she may have felt would be similarly useful for researchers at MoMA. They were later transferred to the Library, which subsequently transferred them to the Archives in 2008, where they sat in the backlog until I processed them in 2022.
The series covers the professional and personal relationship between Weston and the Newhalls from 1937 to 1957. The early correspondence covers the first years of MoMA’s Department of Photography, which Beaumont Newhall founded in 1940. While he served in the army from 1942 to 1945, his wife Nancy became Acting Curator of the Department of Photography and helped organize The Photographs of Edward Weston, which was mounted at MoMA from February 11 to March 31, 1946. The correspondence continued after Beaumont Newhall left MoMA in 1946 and, in 1948, was named curator of the George Eastman House (now known as the George Eastman Museum). Both Newhalls continued as scholars, curators, and close confidantes of Weston until his death in 1958.
Though I finished processing this addition to the Beaumont Newhall Papers last November, I was left wondering where the originals might be. Some research turned up a similar collection at the Center for Creative Photography in Arizona — their finding aid noted “These letters are photocopies of the originals which were given to the Museum of Modern Art by Beaumont Newhall.” So, the wonder continued, but I figured I might have to continue chipping away at the backlog before I found the originals. That is, however, until one fated visit to the Archives reading room by the Collection Specialist from the Department of Photography, who had seen the addition on the published finding aid online and wanted to take a closer look. Upon reviewing the photocopies, she returned to her department’s Newhall files and discovered a nearly identical run of the original letters and postcards.
So, I am pleased to report that a few weeks ago, the Department of Photography transferred the originals to the Archives and their processing is underway. Previews of this material are highlighted throughout the article. I count this as a win for strengthening interdepartmental relationships and trekking down the winding roads that lead to the preservation of original, primary source material. In the archives field, where the medium is the message, the importance of discovering the originals cannot be overstated. Of course, this was all possible because of the world’s collective return to “normalcy” following the pandemic; our shuttered reading room reopened on March 1, 2022, and about a year later, this incredible archival discovery was made.
