Mary Evans Picture Library collection of the week: 2019’s Greatest Hits

The New Year traditionally ushers in the awards ceremony season, so we thought for our first COTW of the year, we’d present our own mini-version, rounding up a selection of collections, which are not only consistently popular with our clients, but are also completely unique and exclusive to Mary Evans.

If you’re a follower of Collection of the Week, you’ll know we represent a wide range of contributors which are both large and small, very wide-ranging or specifically niche. All of them have merit – that’s why we choose to represent them – but the following collections have broad appeal, are only available through us and are therefore worth a revisit. Click on the collection names to see a representative selection of images from each.

The Illustrated London News Collection, consisting of full runs of nine different publications, is an incomparable visual record of the 19th and 20th centuries. While we have around 30,000 images from the archive online, there are hundreds of thousands more in the physical volumes which are housed here at the library. Consisting of the ILN itself, as well as The Sphere, The Graphic, The Tatler, The Sketch, The Bystander, The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, Britannia & Eve and The Illustrated War News, this is our first port of call whenever we are asked to search for people, places of events.

The Grenville Collins Postcard Collection is an eclectic cornucopia of visual delights; something of everything, but nothing you’ll have seen before. Another postcard collection, Pharcide, has a more topographical flavour, with a focus on North America.

If you’re a fan of history programmes, you may have seen Peter Higginbotham on your TV screen as he’s an expert on workhouses, asylums and orphanages. His extensive collection of postcards and photographs documenting this aspect of social history is consistently in demand.

The Ronald Grant Film Archive, the image collection of the legendary Cinema Museum in Kennington, is an excellent resource for film stills as well as more general cinema history, while our exclusive representation of the Studio Canal archive is a magnificent collection of first-class stills and portraits from the best of twentieth century British film.

The Robert Hunt Library specialises in military history, particularly 20th century warfare and conflict, while Onslow’s Auctioneers’ archive of historic posters is an accurate reflection of life in wartime as well as the tastes, interests and aspirations of society through the twentieth century.

If it’s classic art and illustration you’re after, then the Dawn & Peter Cope Collection and the Medici Society are your go-to destination for some of the very best illustrators and graphic artists. Likewise, we are proud to represent two scions of the social photography genre, Roger Mayne and Shirley Baker.

The TP Archive is a delightful melange of fun and fascinating ephemera, while the glamorous Jazz Age Club collection shines a spotlight on the fashion and entertainment of the art deco era. And a final mention to the always-popular London Fire Brigade archive as well as the high-flying Royal Aeronautical Society.

Mary Evans Picture Library newsletter – 9 January, 2020.

Picture credit: 1944: Barry Fitzgerald [Best Supporting Actor, Going My Way], Ingrid Bergman [Best Actress, Gaslight], Bing Crosby [Best Actor, Going My Way], Grauman’s Chinese Theater, 3/16/1945 ©Mary Evans Picture Library 2015