ALLAN SEKULA LIBRARY

A thoughtful and thought-provoking artist, photographer, filmmaker, writer, and teacher, Allan Sekula amassed over decades a 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 15,000-volume 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 link above to explore the collection via the library’s online catalog. 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 by the public; however, most of these titles are commonly available in other libraries.