Vanished no more: Giant of photography Roman Vishniac at The Magnes
Francesco Spagnolo, Curator
Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life
Applications for Fall 2024 are closed for this project.
Roman Vishniac (1897-1990) took some of the most culturally and scientifically important photographs of the 20th century.
In 2018, The Magnes received the unprecedented gift of the Roman Vishniac archive, a collection comprising thousands of images ranging from street photography in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s to comprehensive documentation of Jewish life in Eastern Europe before the Holocaust, to images of New York City (including, most notably, Chinatown) in the 1940s and 1950s, to thousands of scientific images created through innovative microscopic photography.
The Magnes is seeking skilled and motivated undergraduate research apprentices to assist in the work of documenting the collection, identifying and researching each image. The materials include 6,500 photographic prints (1,500 are scientific prints), 20 binders of contact sheets, 10,000 negatives, 40 albums of slides, and 10 linear feet of archival documents. In the Spring Semester 2019, students will have the chance to be the first students at UC Berkeley to participate in this unprecedented multi-year effort.
Role: The Undergraduate Research Apprentice will conduct in-house and online research about the Vishniac Archive of The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life. URAP students will learn museum best practices for collection assessment and cataloging; assisting with inventorying, digitizing, re-housing, researching, fact-checking existing information in museum databases, and cataloging images and archival materials. Research work will be directly supervised by the curator of The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life. The research apprentice will have the opportunity to work “hands-on” with primary sources. The apprenticeship offers a unique chance to learn about collection research, exhibition preparation, and print and online publication work, operating in a collaborative environment and with cutting-edge digital humanities tools and perspectives. Apprentices are expected to work a minimum of six hours per week.
Qualifications: We seek students with good collaborative, communication, and organizational skills, and with strong interest and research skills in European and American history, art history, the history of science, anthropology, zoology, chemistry, and, of course, Jewish studies. We welcome students with language skills that may include Hebrew, Yiddish, German, and Russian. Students who are familiar with digital tools (digitization, image processing, HTML, QR coding, and Drupal) are also welcome to apply, regardless of their language or culturally-specific skills.
Hours: 6-8 hrs
Related website: http://magnes.berkeley.edu
Related website: https://news.berkeley.edu/2018/11/20/vanished-no-more-giant-of-photography-roman-vishniac-finds-a-home-at-berkeley/