This collection is available for use by appointment in the Department of Drawings & Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University. For further information and to make an appointment, please email avery-drawings@library.columbia.edu.
This collection is photograph archive of the works of architectural photographer George Cserna. Images include interior and exterior shots of prominent New York buildings primarily during the 1960s. The collection has been arranged alphabetically by the client or architect of the building. Some of George Cserna's most notable work in this collection includes photographs of Ulrich Franzen's Agronomy Building, Emerson Hall, and Goddard Library at Cornell University; Haines, Lundberg, and Waehler's U.S. Trust Building and Schering-Plough Headquarters; Victor Lundy's I. Miller Store and IBM Headquarters; and I. M. Pei's John Hancock Tower, Mount Royal Bank and Ville Marie Complex, and MIT Chemistry Building. The collection also contains photographs of exhibitions and openings at the Museum of Modern Art in the 1960s and 1970s, such as The Responsive Eye and Toward a Rational Automobile. Finally, the collection has photographic portraits of notable persons including John dos Passos, W.H. Auden, and William Faulkner.
1937-1978
This collection is available for use by appointment in the Department of Drawings & Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University. For further information and to make an appointment, please email avery-drawings@library.columbia.edu.
Permission to publish must be obtained in writing from the Director, Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, 1172 Amsterdam Ave., MC 0301, New York, NY 10027.
Source of acquisition--David Pickman. Method of acquisition--Donated;; Date of acquisition--2007. Accession number--2007.002.
Columbia University Libraries, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library
Processed; Elizabeth Gollnick 2011.
George Cserna was a New York based architectural photographer. Cserna was born in Budapest, Hungary on March 14, 1919. He received a degree from Minta Gymnasium in Budapest, and later studied Etruscology at the University of Perugia, Italy, and law at Budapest University. He emigrated to the United States in 1951. In 1958, he began contributing to Architectural Forum. Cserna's work was featured in Progressive Architecture, Architectural Forum, Art in America, and Fortune Magazine. He received the 1970 AIA Architectural Photography Medal. He taught Architectural Photography at the New School in New York City in 1979 and 1980. Some of George Cserna's most notable work includes photographs of the work of Ulrich Franzen; Haines, Lundberg, and Waehler, Victor Lundy, and I. M. Pei. He also photographed many openings and exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art between 1960 and 1975. While working for Doubleday he took book jacket portraits of notable persons including John dos Passos, W.H. Auden, and William Faulkner.
The subject headings listed below are found in this collection. Links below allow searches for other collections at Columbia University, through CLIO, the catalog for Columbia University Libraries, and through ArchiveGRID, a catalog that allows users to search the holdings of multiple research libraries and archives.
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