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The Ida Kar collection of photographic prints is comprised of 124 gelatin silver prints
dating from 1953 to 1964. The collection consists largely of portrait photographs
featuring
prominent men and women associated with the arts, including painters, sculptors, authors,
poets, playwrights, composers, and museum directors. The collection is subdivided
into four
lots: Loose prints, 1953-1962 (37 items); Exhibition prints from Ida Kar: Artist with a camera, 1953-1962 (77 items); Loose prints of
the Whitechapel Art Gallery (London) exhibition in situ, 1960 (6 items); and Photographs
of
Ida Kar by other photographers, 1960-1964 (4 items). |
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Comprising over half the collection is a group of oversize, mounted exhibition prints
by
Kar from a show, titled Ida Kar: Artist with a camera,
held at The University of Texas' Art Museum in October and November of 1966. These
photographs, with the exception of 12, are from a series of limited edition prints
Kar
selected for her Whitechapel exhibition. These photographs capture Kar's signature
style of
photographing her subjects in their familiar surroundings relying largely on the natural
light of the location, as well as her belief "that a picture naturally dictates its
right
size and shape" whether that be 20 × 24 inches or over 6 feet. Kar photographed the
majority
of her subjects in Great Britain, but she captured 21 in France and an additional
12 in the
USSR. Notable sitters include Henry Moore, Somerset Maugham, T. S. Eliot, Brendan
Behan,
Noel Coward, Cecil Beaton, Man Ray, Marc Chagall, Georges Braque, Hans Arp, Le Corbusier,
Alberto Giacometti, and Jean-Paul Sartre among others. |
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The following item list is arranged by accession number. Titles were taken from print
versos (when present), from Gernsheim's inventory (Inventory 16, Contemporary
Photographers), or from exhibition inventories. A subject index, sorted alphabetically
by
surname, is featured at the end of this inventory. |
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Scholars seeking additional information on Ida Kar will find several published sources,
as
well as Helmut Gernsheim's notes and clippings, in the Photography Collection. |
