Inventory of the Max Belcher Photography Collection, 1969-1998
[top]Descriptive Summary
TitleMax Belcher Photography Collection,
1969-1998
Creator
Max Belcher
Extent
9 Linear Feet
1419 Items
Repository
1419 Items
Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University
Language
English.
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Administrative Information
Access RestrictionsAll materials in the collection are available for study and research in the Library, except those specifically designated as access-restricted. At present, the only access-restricted materials are the five exhibition quality, fine prints from the project "American People: Portraits of the Philadelphia Community in the Dominican Republic." Patrons may view these images rendered as exhibition images. If, upon viewing these exhibition images, a patron identifies a specific need to view the corresponding fine prints (e.g., for consideration for an exhibition), Library staff can permit the patron to view the fine prints.
Use Restrictions
The copyright interests in this collection have not been transferred to Duke University. For more information, consult the copyright section of the Regulations and Procedures of the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library.
All items in the collection are open to researchers except five exhibition quality, fine prints from the project, "American People: Portraits from the Philadelphia Community in the Dominican Republic." Photocopies of each of these prints have been placed with the color photographs in the subseries for study by Library patrons.
Publishing requests should be directed to Mr. Belcher, who retains the copyright on all materials in this collection. Stipulations regarding the exhibition and reproduction of materials in the photography series vary according to the type of image in question, and are summarized below. The designation of specific images as professional, exhibition, study, reading-room-only or undesignated images may be determined by consulting Mr. Belcher's notes on individual photos and contact sheets.
Professional and Exhibition Images:
Exhibition: Request permission from Mr. Belcher.
Reproduction: The Library may make viewing copies, photocopies or slides for the purposes of research, teaching, private study or scholarly illustration.
Study Images:
Exhibition: May be used in exhibitions only within the Library itself, and only when appropriate language is used to describe the place of these study images within Mr. Belcher'soeuvre.
Reproduction: The Library may make viewing copies, photocopies or slides for the purposes of research, teaching, private study or scholarly illustration.
Reading-Room-Only and Undesignated Images:
Exhibition: These images may not be exhibited within or beyond the Library at any time whatsoever.
Reproduction: Pen and ink renditions of images so marked are the only allowable form of reproduction. Reading-room-only and undesignated images may not be reproduced in any photographic, electronic or digital form, or by other means for any purpose whatsoever.
Contact Sheets:
Specific images on contact sheets have been identified as professional, study, or reading-room-only images, or remain undesignated. Stipulations on exhibition and reproduction of individual contact sheet images are dependent on the specific designation of the images in question.
Exhibition Quality, Fine Prints:
Exhibition: These prints may be displayed within or beyond the Library, at the Library's discretion.
Reproduction: The fine prints in this collection are restricted from general research use and thus are not to be reproduced. However, these images are duplicated in the collection as exhibition images, which may be reproduced according to the stipulations above. Requests for fine prints not in the Library's possession for use in exhibition, as well as requests for reproductions of fine prints for publication, should be directed to Mr. Belcher.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Max Belcher Photography Collection, Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University.
Provenance
The Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library acquired the Max Belcher Photography Collection in 1995 and 1997. While the collection is owned by the Library, Max Belcher retains the copyright to his work.
Processing Information
Processed by Lisa Gayle Hazirjian with Alexander X. Byrd, Karen Jefferson, and Diane Sutton
Completed August 30, 1998
Encoded by Don Sechler
This finding aid is NCEAD compliant.
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Biographical Note
Max Belcher was born in 1944 in Philadelphia. Ten years later, his father, an African American raised in North Carolina, and his mother, a Lithuanian/Polish Jew, emigrated with their son to Liberia. As a teen, Belcher began working in broadcasting, taking a position as a staff announcer for the Liberian Broadcasting Corporation. His experiences in Africa convinced him of the potential for low-cost instructional films to improve the lives of local people by helping to spread practical information on such topics as agriculture and health. Thus, in 1964 he returned to the United States to pursue a college education and acquire filmmaking skills.
Belcher's plans were quickly thwarted by the escalation of the Vietnam War. Feeling that the draft was inevitable, Belcher enlisted in the U.S. Marines, serving as a military broadcasting specialist in the U.S., South Vietnam, and at Armed Forces Radio and Television Service in Okinawa. After his tour of duty he settled in New York City, where he took a full-time job as a production assistant at NBC News and enrolled in college. He began his studies at Columbia University in 1968 but quickly transferred to the New School for Social Research, where a filmmaking instructor encouraged him to grow accustomed to seeing the world through the lens of a still camera. That training, initially intended to develop his skills as a filmmaker, introduced Belcher to the expressive potential of photography. Continuing his liberal arts studies at the New School, he also enrolled in a photography class at the School of Visual Arts. At the same time he began shooting experimental photos in and around New York City, often choosing friends, landscapes and local architecture as his subjects. Finishing his studies in 1971, he returned to Liberia with camera in hand, embarking on what would become his first major project as a professional photographer.
Since that time, Belcher has developed into one of the nation's premiere living photographers. His photographic interests in portraiture and vernacular architecture have developed in conjunction with the thematic exploration of racial identity, emigration and history that run through his work in Africa, Asia, North America, the Middle East, and the Caribbean. He has had numerous one-man shows in the eastern United States and has contributed to group exhibits across the U.S. and in Vietnam and Soviet Armenia. Belcher's photography is held both by private collectors and in the permanent collections of galleries and museums in the United States, Canada, and Vietnam. He has received major support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Lila Wallace/Reader's Digest Fund, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Kenan Charitable Trust, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. His publications include House and Home: Spirits of the South (1994), A Land and Life Remembered: Americo-Liberian Folk Architecture (1988), both held by the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, and For Kids' Sake (1985). He has also taught black-and-white photography to beginning, intermediate and advanced students in Massachusetts, and is a frequent lecturer in New England. He currently resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts with his wife, Ellie Mandel.
[top]Collection Overview
Materials in this collection, 1969-1998, have been organized into two series, Printed Materials and Photography.
The Printed Materials Series is limited to a half-dozen documents related to Belcher's work as a photographer. The Photography Series includes 1,027 contact sheets (860 black-and-white, 167 color), 381 photographs (239 black-and-white, 142 color), and 5 color fine prints spanning nearly three decades of Belcher's professional work as a photographer. This series is divided into 11 project-based subseries, which have been arranged chronologically by the start date of each project. Descriptions of each subseries may be found below. Within each subseries, black-and-white work precedes color work, and contact sheets precede photographs. Individual items in the photography series bear specific technical and identifying information, usually marked by Belcher on the backs of contact sheets and photographs.
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Subject Headings
These are searchable subject entries for this collection. Performing a search on these subjects in the Duke University Libraries online catalog will bring up other related research materials.
- Belcher, Max.
- Photographers.
- Photography.
- Documentary photography.
- Portrait photography.
- Architectural photography.
- Afro-Americans--Portraits.
- Racially mixed people--United States.
- United States--Photographs.
- Liberia--Photographs.
- Vietnam--Photographs.
- Dominican Republic--Photographs.
- Photographs
- Contact sheets
 | List of Series in Collection | |||||||
 |  | PRINTED MATERIALS SERIES, 1994-1998 | ||||||
 | | PHOTOGRAPHY SERIES, 1969-1996, undated (1413 items) | ||||||
Detailed Description of Collection
Box 1PRINTED MATERIALS SERIES, 1994-1998
(6 items)
This series includes Belcher's curriculum vitae, a summary of his American People project in the Dominican Republic, an exhibition brochure and three news articles related to his photography. Additional exhibit literature catalogued separately in the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library includes A Land and Life Remembered: Americo-Liberian Folk Architecture,
House and Home: Spirits of the South, and Claiming Place: Biracial American People.
Box 2
PHOTOGRAPHY SERIES, 1969-1996, undated (1413 items)
The photography in this collection represents Belcher's work from his first forays into photography in New York City between 1969 and 1971, up to his most recent projects in Vietnam, the Dominican Republic and the United States. This series is organized by project subseries, which are arranged chronologically by the beginning date of each project. Within each subseries, black-and-white work precedes color work, and contact sheets precede photographs. Subseries descriptions describing collection holdings for each project follow the restrictions note below. For information about specific contact sheets and photos, researchers are advised to consult Belcher's own notes on his work, usually found on the back of individual contact sheets or photographs.
1969-1971, In and Around New York City, (104 items)
This subseries includes 104 contact sheets (97 black-and-white, 7 color) from Belcher's photographic work during 1969-1971 in and around New York City. Many shots are from Belcher's days as a student at the New School for Social Research and as a production assistant at NBC News in New York. The work includes portraits, landscapes, still lifes, cityscapes, architecture and a variety of experimental images.
Black-and-White Contact Sheets
Box 3
Black-and-White Contact Sheets
Box 4
Color Contact Sheets
Box 5
1971-1973, 1977-1978, 1982-1983, Liberia, (331 items)
This subseries explores the relationships between migration, identity and history in the Americo-Liberian experience. Belcher's interest in this topic derived from his upbringing as a Philadelphia-born American who was raised in Liberia for ten years beginning in 1954. The earliest work in this series, completed between 1971and 1973, represents some of Belcher's first professional work as a photographer. The subseries includes additional fieldwork done in the years 1977-78 and 1982-83, featuring Americo-Liberian architecture and portraiture of indigenous Liberians and Americo-Liberians. The exhibit catalog, A Land and Life Remembered: Americo-Liberian Folk Architecture, available in the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, provides more information about this project. His subsequent project on Southern Architecture (below) took Belcher back to the origins of Americo-Liberian architecture in the vernacular architecture of the American South. These examples of cultural memory and historical continuity are discussed in both A Land and Life Remembered and House and Home: Spirits of the South, also held by the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library. Belcher returned to the themes of migration, identity and history in his later work in Samaná, Dominican Republic (below). The subseries includes 210 black-and-white contact sheets, 89 black-and-white photos, 22 color contact sheets and 10 color photos.
Black-and-White Contact Sheets
Box 6
Black-and-White Contact Sheets
Box 7
Black-and-White Contact Sheets
Box 8
Black-and-White Contact Sheets
Box 9
Black-and-White Contact Sheets
Box 10
Black-and-White Photographs
Box 11
Black-and-White Photographs
Box 12
Black-and-White Photographs
Box 13
Color Contact Sheets
Box 14
Color Photograph
Box 15
1973, 1975-1982, 1984-1985, 1988, undated, Ancillary: Other Work (186 items)
The 165 contact sheets and 21 photos, all black-and-white, in this subseries include experimental shots documenting Belcher's early and continuing work with various grades and makes of film, paper and photographic equipment. The images document a range of Belcher's photographic improvisations and studies, as well as attempts at capturing various textures, scapes, and light; and at composing with different angles and in varied photographic settings. Thus, the subseries documents the development of Belcher's photographic signature and style. The images include portraiture, architecture, landscapes and cityscapes, and were shot in Massachusetts,
Florida and Michigan.
Black-and-White Contact Sheets
Box 16
Black-and-White Contact Sheets
Box 17
Black-and-White Photographs
Box 18
1979-1986, Massachusetts: Work in Schools, (196 items)
The materials in this subseries include extensive portraiture work completed during three public schools residencies in the environs of Boston, Mass.
Washington Community School
The Massachusetts Council on the Arts sponsored Belcher's work as artist-in-residence, 1979-1980 and 1980-1981, at the Washington Community School in Lynn, MA. The work from this residency consists primarily of portraiture of elementary- and upper-school students, with a handful of shots of architecture, landscapes and other subject matter. The subseries includes 80 black-and-white contact sheets, 9 black-and-white photos and 1 color contact shee
Black-and-White Contact Sheets
Box 19
Black-and-White Contact Sheets and Photographs
Box 20
Color Contact Sheets
Box 21
Somerville Media Action Project (SMAP)
In 1984, Belcher received support for his work on the Somerville Media Action Project (SMAP), in Somerville, Mass., through a one-month artist-in-residence program sponsored by the Massachusetts Cultural Council. These selections from his SMAP work feature portraits of local teenagers, as well as a variety of other cityscape images. This subseries contains 18 contact sheets and 9 photos, all black-and-white
Black-and-White Contact Sheets
Box 22
Black-and-White Contact Sheets and Photographs
Box 23
Jamaica Plain High School
Sponsored by the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities and by the National Endowment for the Arts, Belcher was artist-in-residence, 1984-1986, at Jamaica Plain High School in Jamaica Plain, Mass.. The 73 black-and-white contact sheets, 12 black-and-white photos, and 3 color contact sheets consist overwhelmingly of portraiture of teenagers, with a few contact sheet images of architecture and landscapes.
Black-and-White Contact Sheets and Photographs
Box 24
Black-and-White Contact Sheets and Photographs
Box 25
Color Contact Sheets
Box 26
1983, Israel,
(98 items)
This subseries includes street work, portraiture, architecture, and town and landscapes made during Belcher's 1983 study in and around Israel. It contains 86 contact sheets and 12 photos, all black-and-white.
Black-and-White Contact Sheets
Box 27
Black-and-White Contact Sheets
Box 28
Black-and-White Contact Sheets and Photographsx
Box 29
Black-and-White Photographs
Box 30
1985, 1987, 1989, 1992, undated, Southern United States,
(41 items)
This subseries consists of a range of street work, architecture, and town and landscapes shot in New Orleans, La., West Palm Beach, Fla., and several locations in North Carolina,
South Carolina and Georgia. It includes 14 black-and-white contact sheets, 12 black-and-white photos, 8 color contact sheets, and 7 color photos.
Black-and-White Contact Sheets and Photographs
Box 31
Black-and-White Photographs
Box 32
Color Contact Sheets and Photographs
Box 33
1986-1987, Southern Architecture,
(89 items)
The Southern architecture photographs in this subseries were made to complement Belcher's project on Americo-Liberian architecture (above). They include images of churches, grave markers, houses, plantations and other 19th and 20th century architecture. The shots were taken in Lowndes County, Ga.;
Bourbon,
Clark,
Fayette,
Logan and Woodford Counties, Ky.;
Alamance,
Bertie,
Chowan,
Gates,
Northampton, and Perquimans Counties,
N.C.;
Williamsburg and York Counties, S.C.; and Isle of Wight and Southampton Counties,
Va.. The subseries contains 29 black-and-white contact sheets, 59 black-and-white photos, and 1 color photo. The Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library also holds a copy of the exhibit catalogs, House and Home: Spirits of the South and A Land and Life Remembered, which feature work from this project.
Black-and-White Contact Sheets
Box 34
Black-and-White and Color Photographs
Box 35
1990, Canada,
(32 items)
This subseries includes images of vernacular architecture in New Brunswick and Quebec,
Canada. These shots were taken during two trips in June and August 1990, supported by a Summer Research Grant from the Kenan Charitable Trust at Phillips Academy,
Andover, Mass., where Belcher taught. The subseries consists of 7 black-and-white contact sheets, 1 black-and-white photo, 18 color contact sheets, and 6 color photos.
Black-and-White Contact Sheets and Photographs
Box 36
Color Contact Sheets and Photographs
Box 37
1991-1992, 1995-1996, undated, American People: Portraits from the Philadelphia Community in the Dominican Republic, (254 items)
Returning to the major themes of Belcher's earlier work in Liberia (above), this subseries explores the relationships between migration, identity and history by documenting African-American emigration to and life in Samaná, Dominican Republic. Specifically, the photographs portray the descendants of U.S. slave- and free-born blacks who emigrated from Philadelphia to Samaná in 1824and 1825as part of a migration organized by the Haitian Emigration Society. For a fuller description of this project, see Belcher's one-page description of his work in Samaná, included in the printed materials series. The subseries includes 51 black-and-white contact sheets, 4 black-and-white photos, 96 color contact sheets, 98 color photos, and 5 exhibition-quality, fine color prints. Restrictions: This subseries contains five exhibition-quality, fine prints that are access-restricted. Photocopies of each of these prints have been placed with the color photographs in the subseries. If, upon viewing these images, a patron identifies a specific need to view the corresponding fine prints (e.g., for consideration for an exhibition), Library staff can permit the patron to view the fine prints.
Black-and-White Contact Sheets
Box 38
Black-and-White Photographs
Box 39
Color Contact Sheets
Box 40
Color Contact Sheets
Box 41
Color Photographs
Box 42
Color Photographs
Box 43
Exhibition Quality, Fine Color Prints
RESTRICTED: Photocopies of these prints are located at the beginning of Box 41 for viewing by researchers.
Box 44
1994, Vietnam,
(41 items)
This subseries consists of images composed during Belcher's field work in Vietnam during January, 1994. The 30 contact sheets and 11 photos, all black-and-white, include architecture and portraiture, primarily of female veterans of the Northern Vietnamese Army who served during the period of conflict with France and the United States.
Black-and-White Contact Sheets and Photographs
Box 45
Black-and-White Photographs
Box 46
1994-1995, undated, Claiming Place: Biracial American Portraits,
(32 items)
The photographs in this subseries explore biracial and multiracial identity among young American adults born in the 1960s. This work was exhibited as part of a larger project on racial identity undertaken in conjunction with social anthropologist Marion Kilson and professor of art Theresa Monaco, and supported by grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council,
Learning Society Inc.,
Salem State College and Emmanuel College. The subseries includes 12 contact sheets and 20 photos, all color. For more on this project, researchers are encouraged to consult the exhibit brochure, Claiming Place: Biracial American People, available in the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library.
Color Contact Sheets
Box 47
Color Photographs
