Jerry Thompson Collection
topic: label: Topic
content: Tishman, Paul
label: Topic
content: Art objects
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: Donated by Jerry Thompson, 2017
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Jerry L. Thompson was born in Houston, Texas in 1945. He studied at the University of Texas and Yale University from 1972 to 1975, where he served as Walker Evans' principal assistant. From 1973 to 1980, Thompson was a member of the faculty of Yale University. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (1977) and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation (also in 1977). 

Thompson has worked as a professional photographer since 1973. His work includes portraits from the Coney Island amusement park of the early 1970s and street work in New York City neighborhoods, but he is best known as a photographer of sculpture. He began photographing sculpture in the mid-1970s. His first major project was to photographthe African works in the collection of the Museum of Primitive Art in New York City. In the early 1980s, Thompson began work for the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC). Under the direction of Lewis I. Sharp, curator of American sculpture and administrator of the American Wing, Thompson served as photographer-in-residence, photographing all the American works of sculpture in the museum's collection. He has also done extensive photography documenting the sculpture of Erastus Dow Palmer, Frederic Remington, John Quincy Adams Ward, and Augustus Saint-Gaudens. His work on the two latter sculptors included their major outdoor public monuments. 

Initially in his career, Thompson used black-and-white 8x10 inch negatives, but eventually began to work with color transparency materials as well.
Thompson has written several books, including "The Last Years of Walker Evans," (1997) published by Thames and Hudson, "Truth and Photography" (2003) published by Ivan R. Dee, and "Why Photography Matters," (2013), published by MIT Press.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 1 Book
label: Extent
content: 86 Transparencies (8 x 10 in)
label: Extent
content: 206 Negatives (photographic) (8 x 10 in)
label: Extent
content: 196 Prints (8 x 10 in)
label: Extent
content: 1 Slides (photographs) (35 mm)
unitdate: label: Date
content: ca. 1980
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, National Museum of African Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: EEPA.2017-002
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Books
label: Type
content: Transparencies
label: Type
content: Negatives (photographic)
label: Type
content: Prints
label: Type
content: Slides (photographs)
scopecontent: label: Content Description
content: Collection contains transparencies, negatives, prints, and slides that depict the Paul and Ruth Tishman collection at a Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition, circa 1980, and (1) copy of the book "For Spirits and Kings: African Art from the Tishman Collection" (1981), edited by Susan Vogel.
relatedmaterial: label: Related Materials
content: This collection is related to the objects in the National Museum of African Art's Walt Disney-Tishman African Art Collection.