Princeton Library Conference to Focus on Photography and the American West
The Friends of the Princeton University Library will host a day-long academic conference entitled “Framing the Frontier: A Day of Lectures in Honor of Alfred L. Bush” on Saturday, April 29, 2006. The conference will focus on the early photography of the American West and contemporary issues surrounding its collection, display, and ownership. In the first panel, Picturing the West, the speakers will explore the place of photography in early expeditions to the West, in the rise of the western cityscape, and in Native American consciousness. The speakers in second panel, Western Americana Photographs in the Archive, will focus on collecting western photographs, their display in exhibitions, and the ethics and politics of photographic images in the age of intellectual property.
The conference will honor Alfred L. Bush, who retired as Curator of Western Americana in December 2002. Bush voraciously collected photographs of the American West during his 45-year tenure at Princeton, ultimately collecting some five thousand photographs that have recently been cataloged by Heather A. Shannon, who will curate an exhibition of these photographs that opens on April 29 as well.
Speakers at the conference, which runs from 9:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. in McCormick 101, include: Ron Tyler, (University of Texas, Austin), Jennifer A. Watts, (Huntington Library), Mick Gidley (University of Leeds), George Miles (Yale University Library), Anton Treuer (Bemidji State University), and Michael F. Brown (Williams College).
The conference will be followed by a lecture by Martha A. Sandweiss (Amherst College) at 4:00 p.m. in 101 McCormick Hall, and the opening of the exhibition “Framing the Frontier: Photographers & the American West, 1850-1920” at Firestone Library’s Main Gallery.
Please register for the conference and reserve a box lunch with Linda Oliveira at (609) 258-3155 or loliveir@princeton.edu.