ALLAN SEKULA LIBRARY

A thoughtful and thought-provoking artist, photographer, filmmaker, writer, and teacher, Allan Sekula amassed over decades a 15,000-volume library that informed his prolific body of work and reflected his wide-ranging personal and professional interests in such topics as contemporary art and photography, social justice, economic disparities, consumerism, the history of the workers’ movement, and the destruction of natural and built environments. In 2015, the Clark library acquired the library through the generous gift of the artist’s widow, art historian and professor Sally Stein. The collection, as shelved in the Manton Research Center Reading Room, is both an archive that maintains Sekula’s organization of the material in his personal and work spaces and a visually stunning art installation that allows varying levels of interpretation of format and content.

Use the top link at right to explore the collection via the library’s online catalog. Catalog records not only record where books were originally shelved in Sekula's home - e.g. study, front bedroom, garden shed - but also allow the researcher to virtually browse the shelves to see in what order the books were shelved; clicking on the call number of a book will bring up the surrounding books in accession number order.

Materials with the location “Rare Book Room” can be made available on demand. Materials with the location “Reading Room” are in an area that can be seen but not accessed; however, most of these titles are commonly available in other libraries.