Briscoe Center Acquires Extensive Print Collection
The Briscoe Center has acquired the Alan L. Paris Photojournalism Collection. Comprised of over 10,000 photographic prints, the collection offers extensive visual documentation of America’s involvement in world affairs as experienced by the public through news media.
“Alan Paris has spent twenty years amassing this phenomenal collection of prints,” said Don Carleton, executive director at the Briscoe Center. “Not only does it contain an impressive array of images both rare and iconic, it includes many original captions that help us to understand how people thought about such images, many of which were published, at the time.”
Paris is a dedicated photograph collector based in New York. Images from various agencies and newspaper morgues make up the bulk of the collection, which includes Pulitzer Prize–winning images, rare German and Japanese newswire photographs, AP dispatches, and aerial photography. The collection covers many of the twentieth century’s key events including World War I and II, the Great Depression, the Vietnam War, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the break up of Yugoslavia.
“Of particular historical value are 156 images by photojournalist Jacques Lowe, whose archives were destroyed in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001,” said Carleton. “Lowe was President John F. Kennedy’s official photographer, and for the center to now have copies of his images that can be utilized for research is something special indeed.”
