George Platt Lynes collection
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Not requestable
Scope and Contents
The George Platt Lynes collection is made up of photographic materials, artifacts, and press prints.
Series 1 of the George Platt Lynes collection contains 2 ¼” x 2 ¼” negatives with titles by Lynes. Series 2 contains artifacts in their original boxes and sleeves, while series 3 contains press prints of two photographs of interiors by Horst P. Horst.
Dates
- 1933-1936
Creator
- Lynes, George Platt (Person)
Language of Materials
Material in English
Conditions Governing Access
To access materials from this collection, please contact CCP-RefDesk@email.arizona.edu
Conditions Governing Use
It is the responsibility of the user to obtain permission from the copyright owner (which could be the institution, the creator of the record, the author or his/her transferees, heirs, legates or literary executors) prior to any copyright-protected uses of the collection.
The user agrees to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless the Arizona Board of Regents, the University of Arizona, Center of Creative Photography, including its officers, employees, and agents, from and against all claims made relating to copyright or other intellectual property infringement
Biographical Note
George Platt Lynes was born April 15, 1907 in East Orange, New Jersey. After graduation from the Berkshire School in Massachusetts, he was sent to Paris to prepare for college. There he met Gertrude Stein, Glenway Wescott, Monroe Wheeler, and others who had a profound influence on him. He began his career as a photographer taking portraits of his friends. In 1932, the art dealer Julien Levy exhibited his work and soon Lynes closed the bookstore he had run since 1927 to open his own studio. Having moved to commercial work for fashion magazines, Lynes was engaged in 1935 to photograph principal dancers of the American Ballet (now New York City Ballet). He eventually moved to Hollywood where he became chief photographer for the Vogue studios, photographing celebrities of every kind. By 1948, financial difficulties led Lynes back to New York. Here he left commercial work entirely and focused on male nudes, a subject he had pursued from his earliest years as a photographer. Lynes continued to struggle financially and twice declared bankruptcy. In early 1955, he was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, after which he closed his studio and destroyed many of his prints and negatives. He was careful, however, to donate some of his nudes to the Kinsey Institute, which now holds one of the largest collections of Lynes’s work. After a final trip to Europe, Lynes died on December 6, 1955.
Extent
1.5 Linear Feet
Metadata Rights Declarations
- License: This record is made available under an Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Creative Commons license.
Abstract
Negatives and occasional prints made by photographer George Platt Lynes, 1933-1936. The bulk of the collection consists of 2 ¼ inch negatives of various subjects including images made in Spain, France, Holland, and Germany, as well as some nudes and examples of his commercial and fashion work. Also included in the collection are original boxes and negative sleeves.
Arrangement
The Collection is arranged into the following series:
- Series 1: Negatives, n.d., 1933-1936, 1 box
- Series 2: Artifacts, n.d., 1 box
- Series 3: Horst P. Horst press prints, n.d., 1 box
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of Magda Vasillov and Robert Denison, 2001.
Processing Information
Finding aid updated by Meghan Jordan in May 2016 and by Tai Huesgen in November 2020.
- Title
- George Platt Lynes collection 1933-1936
- Author
- Finding aid created by CCP Archives Staff
- Date
- © 2020
- Description rules
- Finding Aid Based On Dacs (Describing Archives: A Content Standard)
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Language of description note
- Finding aid encoded in English
Repository Details
Part of the Center for Creative Photography Archives Repository