Joe Deal papers

The Joe Deal papers contain biographical materials, correspondence, activity files, photographic materials, audiovisual materials, and memorabilia. The bulk of the collection consists of exhibition information, including contracts, loan agreements, exhibition flyers, invites, and photographic materials from exhibitions. There is little information on Joe Deal’s personal life in the collection. His career is mainly documented through photographic materials chronicling his work as both a professor of arts in photography, and as an artist.

The first series, biographical materials, spans 1966-2009 and includes material about Joe Deal from the beginning of his career until his untimely death of bladder cancer. The series includes information on Joe Deal’s Conscientious Objector status and applications, as well as records of his Selective Service. Records of Deal’s employment can be found in this series and includes his most recent resume. Also in the employment subseries can be found Deal’s hiring paperwork from Washington University, 1989, manuscript materials on his commencement, and miscellaneous talks he gave (1990-1999). Letters to faculty and the RISD community, convocation materials can be found here dating from 1999-2005.

The second series, correspondence, is divided into alphabetical and chronological correspondence from 1972-2010. The alphabetical correspondence consists of letters and other correspondence to and from photographer Joe Deal to friends and business associates. The miscellaneous correspondence consists of three folders of chronological letters, all covering a variety of subjects including Deal’s work, exhibition submissions, and letters to and from friends.

The Activity Files, 1972-2011, is arranged into ten subseries. The first subseries, Fellowships, contains files on National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Awards (1976 & 1979), Guggenheim Fellowship Award (1983) and other miscellaneous awards, documentation of photographic process, and financial records from 1973-2006. The second subseries includes interviews, and consists of cassette tapes of Horst P. Horst interview conducted July 7, 1975. This series also includes audiocassette tapes of an Interview with photographer Anton Bruehl and a radio interview with Joe Deal on Radical Rational/Space Time Idea Networks in Photography March-May 1983. The third subseries consists of an article written by Deal, while the fourth subseries contains writings about Joe Deal. Records of Deal’s symposia and lecture activities are a large portion of the lectures and symposia subseries. The collection includes his teaching materials, some of which can also be found within the photographic materials series. Deal had book deals and designed many exhibition catalogs, which are included in the publications subseries of the Activity Files series. Joe Deal was commissioned to do several projects during his career; this commissioned work is another subseries of the activity files. The Getty Commission was his most extensive work and lasted over a decade. Included in the project files are exhibition materials, clippings from coverage and site documentation, along with his contracts and invoices and a book written on the project, “Between Nature and Culture: Photographs of the Getty Center,” with forward “The Construction of Culture” by Mark Johnstone. Deal was commissioned to document the construction of MOCA in Los Angeles during the Getty commission. Other survey commissions included in the collection are the Los Angeles Survey, Subdividing the Inland Basin, and Deal’s Long Beach Survey. Included in the NEA controversy subseries are letters from Congress, media reports and panel member’s statements. Deal kept records of the NEA grant review guidelines, recipients and compliance contracts prior to the 1990 policy change, and letters written to and received from Anne-Imelda Radice, the new Senior Deputy Chairman of NEA director during the controversy. Also Included in the subseries is a report requested for President Bill Clinton: “The Future of the National Endowment for the Arts.” Of particular interest in the activity files series is the exhibitions subseries, consisting of information on the multitude of solo and group exhibitions between 1972 -2011 which included Deal’s photographic works. Deal exhibited globally and records of his exhibitions are a highlight of the collection. The research files subseries is broken down into two sub-subseries: miscellaneous research information and maps and brochures. Deal’s research included maps and site histories and resulted in projects that included Fault Zone, Karst & Karst, Karst & Pseudo Karst and West & West.

The photographic materials series includes all black and white and color 35mm, 2 ¼ and 4 x 5 negatives and corresponding contact sheets made between 1971 and 2007 related to any of the series or individual prints included in the collection at the CCP regardless if they were ever used to produce exhibition or other prints; with the exception of “Topos” and “Between Nature and Culture” which were projects commissioned by the J. Paul Getty Museum — by contract negatives from these two projects are with the J. Paul Getty Trust. Prints of Joe Deal’s grad projects as well as his classmates are included. This series also includes West & West CD scans found in the prints subseries, but includes both scans of negatives and prints. Deal made three calotypes of Carbon Canyon and three prints of each are included in this series.

The fifth and final series in the collection is memorabilia. The collection consists of rare vintage maps, George Eastman exhibitions from 1967-1977, as well as student exhibition posters and other event posters. Some of this section may be cross-referenced with lectures, symposia and judged exhibitions. Deal also collected the Photographers Baseball Cards series of Mike Mandel (1975), and collected all but 16 of the photographers.