Scope and Contents
The papers consist of photographs, correspondence, diaries, financial papers, and printed materials documenting Robert Giard's career as a photographer and personal life, spanning the years 1972 to 2002. The bulk of the papers contain photographic prints by Giard in several sizes of various subjects, including portraits of gay and lesbian writers, landscapes, nudes, still lifes, and portraits of the Thanks Be To Grandmother Winifred Foundation grant recipients.
Dates
- 1972-2002
Creator
Conditions Governing Access
The materials are open for research.
Conditions Governing Use
The Robert Giard Papers is the physical property of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Literary rights, including copyright, belong to the authors or their legal heirs and assigns. For further information, consult the appropriate curator.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Purchased from Jonathan G. Silin on the Eugene G. O'Neill Memorial Fund, 2004, 2018. Gift of Jonathan G. Silin, 2011, 2019.
Arrangement
Organized into two groupings: I. February 2005 Acquisition, 1972-2002. II. October 2011 Acquisition, 1988-2001.
Extent
50.34 Linear Feet (271 boxes)
Language of Materials
English
Catalog Record
A record for this collection is available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog
Persistent URL
Abstract
The papers consist of photographs, correspondence, diaries, financial papers, and printed materials documenting Robert Giard's career as a photographer and personal life, spanning the years 1972 to 2002. The bulk of the papers contain photographic prints by Giard in several sizes of various subjects, including portraits of gay and lesbian writers, landscapes, nudes, still lifes, and portraits of the Thanks Be To Grandmother Winifred Foundation grant recipients.
Robert Giard (1939-2002)
Robert Giard was an American photographer, born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1939. He received a Bachelor of Arts from Yale University in 1961, and Master of Arts in Comparative Literature from Boston University in 1965. In 1972 he began to take photographs, focusing on landscapes and portraits of his friends, artists, writers, and nudes. His monograph Particular Voices: Portraits of Gay and Lesbian Writers, published by MIT Press in 1997, contains a selection from over 500 portraits he had taken in the previous decade. In 1996, Giard was commissioned to document the 321 grant recipients of the Thanks Be To Grandmother Winifred Foundation. The grant recipients were women over the age of 54 whose projects benefitted adult women. From 1996 to 2001, Giard traveled across the U. S. to photograph each year's grant recipients. He died in 2002 of a heart attack.
Processing Information
This collection received a basic level of processing, including rehousing and in some instances minimal organization, at the time of acquisition. Further organization, rehousing, and description were carried out in 2013.
This collection is comprised of material formerly classed as: Uncat MSS 765 and Uncat MSS 1274. Various acquisitions associated with the collection have not been merged and organized as a whole. Each acquisition is described separately in the contents list below, according to month and year of acquisition.
The finding aid for this collection is compiled from individual preliminary lists for each acquisition that were created at or around the time of receipt by the library. The preliminary lists were migrated to comply with current archival descriptive standards and merged into a single file in 2007-2008. As part of the migration, modifications were made to the formatting of individual lists; however, the content of the lists was neither modified nor verified. Box 271 contains print-outs of original inventories of 16" x 20" photographs. These inventories contain detailed information not found in this finding aid and originate from a data export of a FileMaker Pro Database acquired with the collection.
As a rule, descriptive information found in the Collection Contents section is drawn in large part from information supplied with the collection and from an initial survey of the contents. Folder titles appearing in the contents list below are often based on those provided by the creator or previous custodian. Titles have not been verified against the contents of the folders in all cases. Otherwise, folder titles are supplied by staff during initial processing.
This finding aid may be updated periodically to account for new acquisitions to the collection and/or revisions in arrangement and description.
- Gay authors -- United States -- Portraits
- Giard, Robert
- LGBTQ resource
- Lesbian authors -- United States -- Portraits
- Older women -- United States -- Portraits
- Photographers -- United States -- 20th Century
- Photographers -- United States -- Archives
- Photographic prints
- Thanks Be to Grandmother Winifred Foundation
- Title
- Guide to the Robert Giard Papers
- Author
- by Andrea Benefiel and Molly Wheeler
- Date
- 2007-05-16
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description note
- Finding aid written in English.
Part of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Repository
Location
121 Wall Street
New Haven, CT 06511
Opening Hours
Access Information
The Beinecke Library is open to all Yale University students and faculty, and visiting researchers whose work requires use of its special collections. You will need to bring appropriate photo ID the first time you register. Beinecke is a non-circulating, closed stack library. Paging is done by library staff during business hours. You can request collection material online at least two business days in advance of your visit, using the request links in Archives at Yale. For more information, please see Planning Your Research Visit and consult the Reading Room Policies prior to visiting the library.