Esther Born collection

All of the materials in this collection relate to Born’s “Picturesque Mexico” project. Series one contains Born’s travel notebook, which is a three-ring binder consisting of miscellaneous materials written and collected by Born. These materials relate to her travel in Mexico to photograph the modernist architecture, between 1935 and 1936. Contents have been removed and placed into 11 folders. Series two contains 6 folders of research materials, which include an interview, letters, photocopies and lists, and other miscellaneous materials. Series three features a copy of the monograph The New Architecture in Mexico. Series four holds two scrapbooks of almost 200 Mexican post cards, some with typed descriptions.

The fifth series contains the negative inventory notebook that were conducted by Ernestina Osorio on December 8, 2000. Each page describes one negative and contains information about size, location, date, and unique identifying number. Numbers range from 36A-104 to 36A-329 (5 x 7 inch negatives) and from 36B-201 to 36B-783 (2.5 x 3.5 and 4 x 5 inch negatives), plus descriptions of unnumbered negatives. Note: this inventory has not been matched with the negatives in the Born Collection at CCP.

The sixth series consists of one box of photographs and study prints by Born. The seventh series contains two boxes of negatives, which are further divided into subseries and sub-subseries based on topic and are arranged at the envelope/item level. These negatives bear identifications in Born’s handwriting, and are still housed in the original sleeves. The final series includes three color transparencies on glass plates. Each plate is 5 x 7 inches and fragile.