Search History

Holdings Information

    • Author/Creator:Williams, Jonathan, 1929-2008.
    • Title:Jonathan Williams photographs.
    • Published/Created:circa 1951-2007, bulk circa 1951-circa 1997.
    • Physical Description:32.1 linear feet (63 boxes)
    • Links:View a description and listing of collection contents in the finding aid
      View a selection of digital images in the Beinecke Library's Digital Images Online database
    • Yale Holdings

       
    • Notes:Associated material: Jargon Society Collection, 1950-2008 (PCMS-0019), The Poetry Collection, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York.
      In English.
      Purchased from James S. Jaffe on the Ezra Pound Archive Fund, 2006-2007.
    • Organization:Organized into six series: I. Photograph Albums, 1977-2007. II. Polaroid Prints, 1976-1994. III. Color Transparencies, circa 1951-circa 1997. IV. Black and White Negatives, circa 1951-circa 1988. V. Copy Photographs, circa 1978-circa 1993. VI. Electronic Files, 2006.
    • Access and use:This material is open for research. Box 64 (computer disk): Restricted fragile material. Reference copies of electronic files may be requested. Consult Access Services for further information.
    • Biographical / Historical note:Jonathan Williams was a poet, publisher, and photographer. He was born Jonathan Chamberlain Williams in Asheville, North Carolina, the only child of Thomas Benjamin Williams (1898-1974) and Georgette Chamberlain Williams (1904-2000). Williams was educated at St. Albans School, Princeton University, and Black Mountain College, and studied art and design at the Institute of Design in Chicago. Books of poetry by Williams include An Ear in Bartram's Tree (1969), Blues and Roots/Rue and Bluets (1971), The Loco Logodaedalus in Situ (1972), and Elite/Elate Poems (1979), while his books of photography include Portrait Photographs (1979) and A Palpable Elysium: Portraits of Genius and Solitude (2002). In 1951, Williams founded the Jargon Society, a small-press publisher that publishes poetry, experimental fiction, photography, and folk art. As a poet and publisher, Williams was associated with the Black Mountain Poets. He also served as a contributing editor to the photography journal Aperture. Williams and his partner of forty years, poet Thomas Meyer (born 1947), lived their summers at Corn Close, a seventeenth-century shepherd's cottage in Dentdale in the Cumbrian hills of England and their winters at Skywinding Farm on Scaly Mountain, near Highlands, North Carolina.
    • Summary:The Jonathan Williams Photographs include portraits of persons in his social circle, principally poets, painters, writers, artists, and friends, as well as images of outsider art and artists, architecture, gravesites, and landscapes, circa 1951-circa 1997. The collection includes photograph albums of Polaroid prints, as well as loose Polaroid prints, color transparencies, black and white negatives, copy slides, and copy negatives. Overall, the images in the collection document Williams' work as a photographer, as well as his social network, interests, and activities. The collection also includes information about individual photographs provided by Williams and his partner, Thomas Meyer, 2006-2007.
    • Format:Visual Material
    • Indexes/Finding aids:Finding aid available.
    • Cite as:Jonathan Williams Photographs. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
    • Subjects:Meyer, Thomas, 1947-
      Williams, Jonathan, 1929-2008.
      Jargon Society.
      Architectural photography.
      Artists--United States--Portraits.
      Authors, American--Portraits.
      Landscape photography.
      Outsider art--United States--Pictorial works.
      Poets, American--Portraits.
      Portrait photography.
      Sepulchral monuments--Pictorial works.
      Dentdale (England)--Pictorial works.
      Great Britain--Pictorial works.
      North Carolina--Pictorial works.
    • Subjects (Local Yale):LGBTQ resource.
    • Genre/Form:Black-and-white negatives.
      Born digital.
      Diffusion transfer prints.
      Photographic prints.
      Photograph albums.
      Slides (photographs)
      Transparencies.
    • Also listed under:Meyer, Thomas, 1947-