New York Times Photographer Bill Cunningham’s Archive Acquired by The New York Historical

The New York Historical has acquired trend photographer Bill Cunningham’s archive of tens of 1000’s of photographs together with images, negatives, slides, contact sheets, prints, correspondence, and ephemera.

One of the late twentieth century’s most influential trend-spotters and magnificence authorities, the New York Times journalist and photographer was often seen on the town’s streets, at trend exhibits, and at elegant soirées capturing photographs of New York’s trend innovators and cultural glitterati. Included within the archive are On the Street images courting again to the Seventies and 80s, three a long time of Met Gala images, depictions of trend exhibits in New York and Paris, and personalised notebooks.

“Bill famously turned fashion photography into cultural anthropology,” said Louise Mirrer, president and CEO, The New York Historical. “He is unique among American chroniclers of social life in New York. Preserving the Bill Cunningham archive at The New York Historical is particularly fitting, and meaningful, as his relationship with the institution stretches back to his early career as a milliner, when he carried out his research in our Patricia D. Klingenstein Library.”

Cunningham (1929-2016) was a trend photographer for the New York Times, recognized for his candid road pictures. He moved to New York in 1948, initially working in promoting after which hanging out on his personal to make hats below the identify ‘William J’. After serving a tour within the US Army, he returned to New York and commenced writing for the Chicago Tribune. While working on the Tribune and Women’s Wear Daily, he started taking images of trend on the streets of New York. The Times first revealed a gaggle of his impromptu footage in December 1978, which quickly grew to become a daily sequence.

The majority of the archive are images from the late Nineteen Sixties to the 2010s. The topics vary from road trend, events (together with one at Studio 54 in 1979), weddings, galas, and advantages. Notebooks from Paris within the Nineteen Sixties embody sketches and present notes. There are additionally paperwork associated to his millinery efforts, the William J. Collection, together with receipts and textile swatches in addition to scrapbooks and information clips.

The Archive joins a major assortment of Cunningham’s private belongings which are a part of The New York Historical’s assortment, together with the bicycle that he rode across the metropolis, his first digicam (an Olympus Pen-D, 35mm), and his signature blue jacket. Hats and scrapbooks from his millinery line, William J. are additionally a part of the gathering, together with choices from Facades, his eight-year photographic undertaking documenting New York City’s architectural and trend historical past, which was on view at The New York Historical in 2014.

An in-depth exhibition celebrating Cunningham’s profession and that includes the archive and Museum assortment is within the works and will likely be on show at a future date.