Digital archives. Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives are accessible online through SIRIS, the Smithsonian Institution Research Information System.
Los sistemas de información de los museos americanos son, como ya he comentado muchas veces, francamente buenos, muy por encima de los museos y bibliotecas españolas.
Se puede pensar que es una cuestión de medios pero yo creo que es mas una cuestión de voluntades, de capacidad de estar al día.
Pues bien gracias a ellos les informo de la existencia de un archivo digital especializado en África, poco frecuente de encontrar en la web.
The Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives at the National Museum of African Art is a research
and reference center with over 300,000 still photographic images documenting
the arts, peoples and history of Africa over the past 120 years. Eliot
Elisofon (1911-1973) was an internationally known photographer and filmmaker.
He created an enduring visual record of African life from 1947 to 1973.
Mr. Elisofon bequeathed to the museum his African materials, which included
more than 50,000 black-and-white photographs and 30,000 color transparencies
Como complemento de la labor de este fotógrafo
Fotografías de los años 40 y 50 de este fotógrafo
Harry Ransom Center. The University of Texas at Austin
“To Help The World To See”
An Eliot Elisofon Retrospective
.........In his early days with LIFE, Eliot Elisofon had no problem being "the world's greatest photographer," or any variation thereof, if he felt that it would help him get the pictures he wanted. Continually energetic and creative, he would use any legitimate means–a combination of imagination, pragmatism, inventiveness, perseverance, integrity, thoughtfulness, taste, and sheer will–to come back with the photographs he needed. And, in doing so, he created and defined the characteristics of the world-class photojournalist of mid-twentieth century America. .
To me, photography has been a challenge; to produce images that are meaningful but not dogmatic, to be artistic but not arty. It has served me as a vehicle to pay tribute to other arts: to photograph the sculpture of Africa and the temples of Egypt and India. It has also permitted me to experiment with color, a method developed principally in my own time, and to participate in its liberation from crass quasi-reality. Finally, photography has enriched my life. It has enabled me to travel … to almost every corner of the globe, using my camera as a magic carpet to see and study the meaning and beauty of civilizations and environments besides my own.
Eliot Elisofon
Popular Photography, 1962