ABOUT THE ICONOGRAPHY COLLECTIONS

The Iconography collection represents an on-going project to provide intellectual access to all significant images contained within both collections of images and the images contained in other special collections held by Ruth T. Watanabe Special Collections

Eastman School Photo Archive

At present the collection includes over 4,000 photographic images, the greater part of which are of individuals and objects directly related to the Eastman School of Music. The collection includes many images of the School itself, and most importantly, many which constitute an excellent historical document of the construction of the School. The images of individuals include faculty, staff, students, administration, alumni, and prominent visitors to the School. In addition, the Iconography Archive holds several hundred images unrelated to the Eastman School, but which have been donated to the Sibley Music Library since the Library’s founding in 1904. Those photographs date back to the mid-nineteenth century and include many performers and composers, both those still famous and those now obscure, prominent among whom are European and Russian violinists and composers.

Color photocopying must be outsourced. Color photocopies will be provided at the current rate charged by the nearest commercial vendor (which, as of January, 2009, is Minuteman Press in downtown Rochester), together with a departmental service charge of US$ 2.00 per order

Postcard Collection

This is a collection of 200-300 postcards from the late-nineteenth century to the present, all of which are related to music. The majority of the items are photographic reproductions of famous, or then-famous, composers and performers. Most prominent among the performers are opera singers

Print Collection

This collection constitutes primarily a teaching resource of several hundred graphic prints from approximately the sixteenth-century to the present. All major types of print process (relief, intaglio/engraved, planographic/lithographic, and photo-mechanical) are represented. Almost all of the prints relate to music or musical subjects. Prominent among the items are the Kriehuber lithographs of prominent musicians of the early and mid-nineteenth century.

Louis Ouzer Collection

This is a select collection of the photographs of Rochester photographer Louis Ouzer, whose photographs of musicians have received national recognition and publication. The images include many musicians of national and international stature.

Alexander Leventon Collection

This is a select collection of the photographs by the prize-winning photographer, Alexander Leventon. The collection contains several dozen images of locally and nationally well-known musicians. Although Leventon began his career as concertmaster of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, he became so successful in his amateur pursuit of photography that he switched careers and devoted himself to professional photography.