An Inventory of Her Papers and Photographs in the Photography Collection
at the Harry Ransom Center
Creator:
Wilson, Laura, 1939-
Title:
Laura Wilson Papers and Photographs
Dates:
1979-2004
Extent:
5 document boxes and 7 oversize boxes (12.2 linear feet)
Abstract:
The Laura Wilson Papers and
Photographs document her work with photographer Richard Avedon from 1979 to 1984,
and resultant exhibitions and publications from 1985 to 2003.
Photojournalist Laura Wilson was born in 1939 and raised in New England. She married
author, editor, and entrepreneur Robert A. Wilson, with whom she has three sons,
Andrew, Owen, and Luke.
Always interested in photography and photojournalism, Wilson photographed her sons
throughout their childhoods, and pored over books by photographers such as Henri
Cartier-Bresson, Jacques Henri Lartigue, and Eugene Smith. Her professional career
began in 1978 when she met photographer Richard Avedon through her husband's
involvement with the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. Wilson worked as
an
assistant to Avedon from 1979 to 1984 while he embarked on the project that
culminated in his landmark exhibition In the American
West at the Amon Carter Museum, and a book of the same title, in 1985. While
in the field, Wilson documented their progress both on paper and film, and in
2003
she published a recollection of their experiences in Avedon
at Work: In the American West.
Since her time with Avedon, Wilson has gained a reputation of her own working as a
photojournalist. Her projects have taken her from photographing the life of a
West
Texas rancher, Watt Matthews, to capturing life in the Hutterite colonies of Montana
over a fourteen-year period.
Wilson is the author of several books including Watt Matthews
of Lambshead (1989), Hutterites of
Montana (2000), and Grit and Glory: Six-Man
Football (2003). Her work has been published in numerous magazines including
Aperture, the New York
Times Magazine, the New Yorker, the
Washington Post Magazine, Texas Monthly, and the Sunday Times
(London). She and her husband reside in Dallas, Texas.
Avedon at Work: In the American West.
Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003.
Hutterites of Montana. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2000.
Scope and Contents
The Laura Wilson Papers and Photographs document her work with photographer Richard
Avedon from 1979 to 1984, and resultant exhibitions and publications from 1985
to
2003.
The collection is organized into two series: Series I. “In the American West: Photographs
by Richard Avedon” Project, and Series II. Avedon
at Work: In the American West.
The first series comprises materials relating to Avedon, his project, and the
resulting exhibition and book. There are notes taken by Wilson while traveling
with
Avedon, project updates submitted to the Amon Carter Museum, subject release forms,
and some correspondence. The bulk of the material is clippings on Avedon and In the American West from 1979 to 2001. Also included
are a few layouts for the exhibition and book, an exhibition catalog, and a
transcript of the In the American West seminar held
at the Amon Carter Museum on September 14, 1985.
Series II. documents Wilson's own publication and includes several folders of
research notes and twenty-four work prints. Of note are the production materials
which consist of a project overview, several typescripts and dummies, and sixty-four
black-and-white publication prints used to make the book. In addition there is
a
small amount of correspondence between Wilson and Avedon and Wilson and her
publishers, two publicity posters, and information on another seminar at the Amon
Carter Museum in 2003.
Separated Material
Audio-visual materials received with the collection (seven sound recordings and two
videos, most of which are interviews with or about Avedon) have been transferred
to
appropriate collections in the Ransom Center. See the Audio-Visual Index at the
end
of this finding aid for additional information.
