Highlights from the Eliot Elisofon Collection

Smithsonian National Museum of African Art– Nov 20, 2013

These images are from the exhibition Africa ReViewed, the Photographic Legacy of Eliot Elisofon at the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution.

See related:

• The Stephen H. Grant Postcard Collection Digitization Project | Stephen H. Grant September 7, 2021
• Postcard Mass Digitization at Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art September 7, 2021
• Postales Salvadorenas del Ayer, 1900-1950 (Spanish and English Edition): Stephen Grant September 7, 2021

The Stephen H. Grant Postcard Collection Digitization Project | Stephen H. Grant

https://stephenhgrant.com/stephen-grant-postcard-collection-smithsonian-digitization/

The Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives is a research and reference center devoted to the collection, preservation and dissemination of visual materials that encourage and support the study of the arts, cultures and history of Africa. The archives collections contain approximately 500,000 items, including rare collections of glass plate negatives, lantern slides, stereographs, postcards, maps and engravings. The Elisofon Archives staff works with art historians, anthropologists, photographers, filmmakers and other specialists in acquiring and preserving these visual resources.

Read less (182 Less Words)
Eliot Elisofon was an internationally known photographer and filmmaker whose enduring visual record of African life from 1947 to 1972 was published in magazines such as Life and the National Geographic. As a filmmaker, he worked on film and television projects including the Black African Heritage Series (1972), a four-part documentary on African arts and cultures. Elisofon’s association with the National Museum of African Art began as a founding trustee in 1964. Upon his death in 1973, Elisofon donated his African materials to the museum, including over 50,000 black-and-white negatives and photographs, 30,000 color slides, and 120,000 feet of motion picture film and sound materials. The bequest became the foundation for the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives.

In addition to the collection of Eliot Elisofon, major collections include over 5,000 black-and-white photographs taken by Constance Stuart Larrabee in South Africa between 1936 and 1983, over 10,000 slides depicting Yoruba art and culture by Henry Drewal and Margaret Thompson Drewal, and a historical collection of over 13,000 postcards. Special collections include late 19th- and early 20th-century photographic albums with significant anthropological and historical research value.

National Museum of African Art
950 Independence Avenue, SW
Washington, D.C. 20560

The Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives is a research and reference center devoted to the collection, preservation and dissemination of visual materials that encourage and support the study of the arts, cultures and history of Africa. The archives collections contain approximately 500,000 items, including rare collections of glass plate negatives, lantern slides, stereographs, postcards, maps and engravings. The Elisofon Archives staff works with art historians, anthropologists, photographers, filmmakers and other specialists in acquiring and preserving these visual resources.

Eliot Elisofon was an internationally known photographer and filmmaker whose enduring visual record of African life from 1947 to 1972 was published in magazines such as Life and the National Geographic. As a filmmaker, he worked on film and television projects including the Black African Heritage Series (1972), a four-part documentary on African arts and cultures. Elisofon’s association with the National Museum of African Art began as a founding trustee in 1964. Upon his death in 1973, Elisofon donated his African materials to the museum, including over 50,000 black-and-white negatives and photographs, 30,000 color slides, and 120,000 feet of motion picture film and sound materials. The bequest became the foundation for the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives.
In addition to the collection of Eliot Elisofon, major collections include over 5,000 black-and-white photographs taken by Constance Stuart Larrabee in South Africa between 1936 and 1983, over 10,000 slides depicting Yoruba art and culture by Henry Drewal and Margaret Thompson Drewal, and a historical collection of over 13,000 postcards. Special collections include late 19th- and early 20th-century photographic albums with significant anthropological and historical research value.

The Stephen Grant Postcard Collection Digitization Project
Postcard Mass Digitization at Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art
The Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives (EEPA), National Museum of African Art is pleased to announce The Stephen Grant Postcard Collection Digitization Project, a collaborative cataloguing and digitization project with the Smithsonian’s Digitization Program Office (DPO). We anticipate making this collection fully accessible to the general public in late 2020 or early 2021.

Collected by donor Stephen Grant, this postcard collection consists of over 7500 historic postcards from Egypt, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea and Senegal produced during the golden era of postcards, c. 1900 – 1920s. The collection features a range of subjects and provides evidence of early photographic processes and printing techniques that allowed the mass circulation of postcards inside and outside Africa. Many postcards carried stamps and hand-written messages sent to friends and family in Europe and the United States. Bearing the names of African photographers and studios long forgotten, these postcards have become key visual resources in excavating the hidden histories of African photography.

The EEPA Historic Postcard Collection consists of over 20,000 postcards from every country and region of Africa. We continue to build this collection with the support of individual donors like Stephen Grant. If you are interested in donating your old postcards of Africa to the National Museum of African Art, please contact us at elisofonarchives.si.edu. Thank you for your support!

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Access to Photographic Archives
Records of the collections of the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives are accessible online through the Collections Search Center.

Permissions to Reproduce

Image files from the National Museum of African Art (NMAfA) of the Smithsonian Institution (SI) are made available for noncommercial, personal or educational use only. Please read the Rights and Reproductions policy here.

Hours
Open by appointment only
Tuesday–Thursday, 10 a.m.–4 p.m.

Contact information
Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives

National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution
P.O. Box 37012 MRC 708
Washington, DC 20013-7012
202.633.4690
202.357.4879 (fax)

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Location

National Museum of African Art
950 Independence Avenue, SW
Washington, D.C. 20560
Pioneering Women Photographers in Africa, 1930s-1970s
Pioneering Women Photographers in Africa, 1930s-1970s

We are excited to announce a major project the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, National Museum of African Art, is starting: In support of the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative, we will be digitizing and describing 14 collections created by women photographers in Africa! All of the women photographers were trailblazers in their respective fields and professions – art, anthropology, architecture, art history, geography, photojournalism, travel – and used photography as a tool for documentation, ethnographic field research, or ‘salvage photography’ to produce fleeting glimpses of what were perceived as rapidly ‘vanishing’ cultures and ways of life. These women exercised different cultural and social sensitivities when it came to photographing indigenous peoples in local and domestic settings.

Learn more about the project at SI.com

New story! Part six: Pioneering Women Photographers in Africa:
Marli Shamir
1. Introduction
Introduction
Constance Stuart Larrabee and friend photographing among Ndebele women,
near Pretoria, South Africa, 1936
2. Constance Stuart Larrabee
Constance Stuart Larrabee
Constance Stuart with Ndebele men, South Africa, circa 1936-1945,
EEPA 1998-060866
3. Natalie Knight & Suzanne Priebatsch
Natalie Knight and Suzanne Priebatsch
Ndebele bride wearing beaded neck and leg rings,
South Africa, circa 1977-circa 1983,
EEPA 2012-010-0100
4. Marvin Breckinridge Patterson
Pioneering Women Photographers in Africa
Marvin Breckinridge Patterson filming at Great Zimbabwe ruins, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe)
Photograph by Olivia Stokes Hatch, 1932
EEPA 1985-009-0050
5. Marilyn Hammersley Houlberg
Marilyn Hammersley Houlberg
Houlberg seated with André Pierre in the artist’s home, Haiti,
March 2005, EEPA 2012-004-2770.
6. Marli Shamir
Marli Shamir and Peul (Fula) woman
Marli Shamir and Peul (Fula) woman, Mopti, Mali, 1970, EEPA 2013-009-0322

Mission Statement
To inspire conversations about the beauty, power, and diversity of African arts and cultures worldwide.
Location, Hours, and Admission
950 Independence Avenue, SW
Washington, D.C. 20560
202.633.4600
202.357.4879 (fax)
Email
Wednesday-Sunday Open 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Monday-Tuesday Closed
Admission is FREE!

See related:

• The Stephen Grant Postcard Collection Digitization Project 
• Postcard Mass Digitization at Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art 

Postcard Mass Digitization at Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art

Smithsonian’s Digitization Program Office

Apr 13, 2020

Please enjoy this short video showing production of our digitization project of the Stephen Grant postcard collection at the National Museum of African Art’s Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives. @Smithsonian’s Digitization Program Office @Smithsonian NMAfA @Smithsonian

Postales Salvadorenas del Ayer, 1900-1950 (Spanish and English Edition): Stephen Grant

This bilingual book tells the history of Salvadoran postcards from 1900 to 1950. It gives details about the importers and their families, with vivid descriptions of the places where the photographs were taken. It captures the country’s atmosphere at the time. UN AMENO TRATADO HISTORICO DE LAS POSTALES SALVADORENAS DE INICIO DE LOS 1900, DETALLANDO A LOS IMPORTADORES Y SUS FAMILIAS, UBICACION DE LAS FOTOGRAFIAS Y AMBIENTACION DEL MOMENTO.

Review

El libro de Stephen Grant, erudito trabajo que aunque responde a una afición (o pasión) personal, constituye un valioso documento histórico.
–Gilberto Aguilar Aviles

A valuable addition is a section with biographies and business histories of prominent postcard publishers, photographers, and distributors.
–Lewis Baer, Postcard Collector

This terrific work is huge, glossy, marvellously written, and presented, and a sheer delight to look at. It’s scholarly yet attractive, detailed but easy to dip into.
–Brian Lund, Picture Postcard Monthly, Nottingham, England

Los salvadoreños estamos obligados a estudiar nuestra historia que nos permiten crear la propia identidad de nuestra sociedad como nación; su libro nos permite lo anterior.
–Carlos Quintanilla Schmidt, Vice-President of El Salvador

Se destaca su originalidad y profesionalismo con el que se dedica a años de historia de éste país.
–Eugenia López, Directora, Archivo General de la Nación

From the Author

Stephen H. Grant is an internationally acclaimed author who has written about old picture postcards in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. By profession an educational specialist with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Grant started collecting picture postcards when on assignment to Ivory Coast, in West Africa, in the early 1980s. Since, he has published books and articles on the old postcards of Egypt, Guinea, Indonesia, and El Salvador. Through his publications and exhibits, Grant has opened the eyes of thousands of readers to the magic of postcards, as unsuspectedly rich historical testimony of bygone eras.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Fundacion Mari­a Escalon de Nunez; First Edition (January 4, 1999)
• Language ‏ : ‎ Spanish, English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 328 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 999232001X
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-9992320013
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds

#WorldClimateMarch

oxfaminternational– Sep 7, 2021

Our world is in crisis. From extreme weather to terrible hunger, the climate crisis is an amplifier of existing inequality. We are all connected globally in our fight for climate justice and we are demanding immediate and drastic action from our governments and corporations. Join us in the World Climate March by pledging to march 2000 steps (=1.5km) for climate justice

On Developing a Vision for a Better Society

New Economic Thinking

Premiere in progress. Started 43 minutes ago

Gisele Huff, education policy specialist and president of the Gerald Huff Fund for Humanity, along with john a. powell, director of UC Berkeley’s Othering & Belonging Institute, talk about the motivations and process behind the soon-to-be-released report, “Convening on Automation, Opportunity, and Belonging: Vision and Foundations for a Better Society.”

Cecil Rhodes and Other Statues: Dealing Plainly with the Past: Robert Calderisi

Like the Pharaohs he admired, Cecil John Rhodes (1853-1902) hoped to be remembered for 4,000 years. Barely 120 years later, many people want him expunged from history altogether. A major figure in the British Empire, he has been the subject of a bitter international controversy. This book sheds new light on a complicated story, relates the history of the Rhodes Scholarships, and suggests common-sense rules for commemorating contested figures as diverse as Robert E. Lee and Mahatma Gandhi.

The author writes as well::

I have written it with [the Rhodes] community in mind, to shed new light on a complicated story and in the hope that selection committees and prospective candidates will also find it helpful. It is the shortest book on Rhodes since the 1950s, but includes a detailed history of the Scholarships and common-sense suggestions on how to handle contested legacies as diverse as those of Robert E. Lee and Mahatma Gandhi.

I have been a life-long supporter of Canada’s social democratic party (the New Democratic Party) and spent my entire career trying to promote a better life for Africans. I hope that those values will be evident in the book as it relates parts of the story that have sometimes been overlooked.

All proceeds from the book will be donated to the Scholars Fund, which supports the Warden’s discretionary budget to help current Scholars meet unforeseen needs.

Sincerely,

Robert Calderisi
(Quebec and St. Peter’s, 1968)

Selected brief comments:

Book Review 1:

“It reads like a dream. At once masterful, thoughtful, and accessible.” — Nigel Biggar, Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology, Christ Church College, Oxford

Book Review 2:

“Important, timely, and politically electrifying.” — Edwin Cameron, Former Justice of South Africa’s Constitutional Court

Book Review 3:

“I could not put it down. I admire how you manage to combine a judicious and balanced approach while writing a book that is so exciting.” — Timothy Radcliffe, OP, Blackfriars, Oxford

Book Review 4:

“Taut, clearly written, packed with information, judicious, personal, and direct.” — Robert Baldock, Former Managing Director, Yale University Press, London

Book Review 5:

“Well done. A cool forensic account. Very timely.” — Michael Holman, Former Africa Editor, Financial Times

About the Author

A former director of the World Bank and 1968 Quebec Rhodes Scholar, Robert Calderisi studied history in Montreal, economics at Oxford, and African history at the University of Sussex. He has lived and worked in Africa for more than thirty years and is the author of two critically acclaimed books: The Trouble with Africa: Why Foreign Aid Isn’t Working (2006) and Earthly Mission: The Catholic Church and World Development (2013).

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Gatekeeper Press (July 9, 2021)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 302 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1662916450
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1662916458
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.3 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.69 x 8.5 inches

See related:

• Why “Rhodes Must Fall” (RMF) Is Too Small: Rhodes Scholars and “The Overview Effect”