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Wayne Thom Photographer negatives, photographs, and other material

 Collection
Identifier: 6105

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Wayne Thom Photography Collection

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Scope and Contents

The Wayne Thom Photographer negatives, photographs, and other material contains the record of Wayne Thom's prolific career as an architectural photographer and graphic designer. The bulk of the collection consists of Thom's professional photographic work, beginning with his earliest work from 1968 and extending until his retirement in 2012. Also included in the project work are non-architectural projects, such as portraits and landscape, and included are records of his graphic design work, which primarily consisted of office stationery and publicity brochures for architectural firms, for many of which he also did photographic work. The collection also contains, in Thom's office files, certificates and awards of achievement, publications in which Thom's work appeared, his planners and diaries, and his original client list and project index.

Dates

  • Creation: 1968-2015

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

COLLECTION STORED OFF-SITE. Advance notice required for access. The collection consists primarily of negatives that cannot be viewed. The prints in the collection are primarily photographer's (small) proofs. Researchers should begin with the digitized portion of the collection in the USC Digital Library (see link to Digital Material).

Conditions Governing Use

All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Manuscripts Librarian. Permission for publication is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.

Biographical note

Wayne Thom was born in Shanghai in 1933, and grew up in Hong Kong and Vancouver. He briefly studied photography at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, ultimately graduating from Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara in 1968. His work, which spans over 5 decades, documents modern architecture throughout the Western United States and the Pacific Rim and North America, with the bulk of his work documenting the greater Los Angeles area. Thom is the recipient of many awards and honors, including being named a Fellow of the American Society of Photographers (1980), recipient of the Modern Masters Award of the Los Angeles Conservancy (2015), and life membership in the Professional Photographers of America. He has worked with many of the 20th and 21st centuries' significant modern architects, including A. Quincy Jones (whom Thom considered a mentor), William Pereira, Bennie Gonzales, Arthur Erickson, John Portman, Gio Ponti, Skidmore Owings & Merrill, and Bing Thom.

Extent

186.81 Linear Feet (296 boxes)

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

The Wayne Thom Photographer negatives, photographs, and other material contains the record of Wayne Thom's prolific career as an architectural photographer and graphic designer. The bulk of the collection consists of Thom's professional photographic work, beginning with his earliest work from 1968 and extending until his retirement in 2012. Thom was born in Shanghai in 1933, and grew up in Hong Kong and Vancouver. He breifly studied photography at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, ultimately graduating from Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara in 1968. His work, which spans over 5 decades, documents modern architecture throughout the western United States and the Pacific Rim, with the bulk of his work documenting the greater Los Angeles area.

Organization

The collection is organized into three series: Project Files, Graphic Design, and Office Files.

Thom occasionally rephotographed a project; these are given the same suffix as the original, with the prefix representing the year in which the project was reshot. For example, Glendale High School was photographed twice, once in 1969 and again in 1970. The project numbers for these two are 6911-0211 and 7006-0211. Since they have the same suffix, they appear adjacent to each other in the finding aid.

Acquisition

Purchased from Wayne Thom, in 2015.

Related Materials

A. Quincy Jones papers, 1942-1979, Collection no. 1692, UCLA Library Department of Special Collections, University of California, Los Angeles

Welton Beckett papers, circa 1929-1969, Collection no. 0000132, Architecture and Design Collection. Art, Design & Architecture Museum; University of California Santa Barbara

William Pereira and Associates records, Collection 0326, Special Collections, USC Libraries, University of Southern California

Arthur Erickson fonds, Reference number AP022, Canadian Center for Architecture

Gin Wong papers, Helen Topping Architecture and Fine Arts Library, USC Libraries, University of Southern California

William Pereira, ed. by James Steele, with a contribution by Ray Walston, including photographs by Julius Shulman and Wayne Thom, Los Angeles: University of Southern California, Architectural Guild Press, 2002

General

For the projects that were shot entirely in digital format or for which no negatives or prints were found but digital images exist, links to the USC Digital Library are included. For projects that were shot in both analog and digital formats, please use the general link to the Wayne Thom collection in the USC Digital Library to search. Thom digitized select images from early projects; these are also available in the USC Digital Library and can be found by searching the main collection.

Processing Information

This inventory was built using Thom's original client index, which he converted into electronic format. This was imported in its entirety. Not all projects were represented in Thom's files, but their entries remain in the inventory, as a record of Thom's business.

Related Names

Subject

Subjects

Digital Material

Finding Aid & Administrative Information

Title
Finding aid for the Wayne Thom Photographer negatives, photographs, and other material
Status
Completed
Author
Michael Q. Hooks, Kirsten Mandt, Sue Luftschein
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin

Repository Details

Repository Details

Part of the USC Libraries Special Collections Repository

http://libraries.usc.edu/locations/special-collections
Contact:
Doheny Memorial Library 206
3550 Trousdale Parkway
Los Angeles California 90089-0189 United States

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Finding aid description and metadata are licensed under an Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.