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Marian Wood Kolisch collection, circa 1972-2008

Overview of the Collection

Creator
Kolisch, Marian W.
Title
Marian Wood Kolisch collection
Dates
circa 1972-2008 (inclusive)
Quantity
7.25 cubic feet, (10 document cases, 1 card file box, 7 flat boxes, 1 oversize folder)
Collection Number
Org. Lot 1048
Summary
Photographic prints, negatives, slides, correspondence, and subject files created by Portland, Oregon, photographer Marian Wood Kolisch. Includes images of Oregonians prominent in culture, politics, and business.
Repository
Oregon Historical Society Research Library
1200 SW Park Avenue
Portland, OR
97205
Telephone: 503-306-5240
Fax: 503-219-2040
libreference@ohs.org
Access Restrictions

Collection is open for research.

Languages
English
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Historical Note

Marian Wood Kolisch (1920-2008) lived most of her life in Portland, Oregon. Her paternal grandfather was Charles Erskine Scott Wood (1852-1944), a soldier, lawyer, poet, painter, and local celebrity who was central to Portland's cultural life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As a young woman Marian Kolisch took an interest in acting. However, financial considerations led her to attend the Katherine Gibbs secretarial school in Boston, and she worked for a time in a law firm after returning to Portland. At the same time she pursued acting on an amateur basis, appearing in productions at the Portland Civic Theatre. In 1943 she married lawyer J. Pierre Kolisch, and the couple lived at first in upstate New York, where they had two daughters, Christine and Leslie. In 1952 the family moved to Portland, Oregon, where Pierre opened his own law firm and the couple had a third child, Pierre, Jr. Although Marian now focused her energies on raising her children, she continued to take an active interest in the arts.

In 1972 Marian Kolisch began a career in photography. She had been a creative individual her entire life but did not find her professional niche until age fifty-two. She studied with prominent photographers, including Ansel Adams and Arnold Newman. Although she experimented with many photographic genres -- including landscape, street photography, and still life -- like Newman, her specialty was environmental portraiture where the subject is photographed in his or her own environment. Using environmental portraiture and recorded interviews Kolisch produced her best known body of work: documentation of Oregon’s creative class. Included in this undertaking were Pietro Belluschi, Thomas Vaughan, John Yeon, Arlene Schnitzer, and LaVerne Krause. Later, she photographed the next generation of creative Oregonians, capturing the likenesses of Gus Van Sant, Henk Pander, and Jamey Hampton, among others. She photographed her last subject, Senator Mark Hatfield, in 2003.

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Content Description

The collection consists primarily of Marian Wood Kolisch's photographic work, including both prints and negatives (plus some original slides). Most of the prints were made by Kolisch herself and represent about 10 percent of her opus. Most of her other work can be found in the contact sheets and negatives. The collection also contains some of Kolisch's correspondence and subject files, including letters from important photographers like Ansel Adams.

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Use of the Collection

Restrictions on Use

The Oregon Historical Society owns the materials in the Research Library and makes available reproductions for research, publication, and other uses. The Society does not necessarily hold copyright to all materials in the collections. In some cases, permission for use may require seeking additional authorization from copyright owners.

Restrictions on Use

Rights of reproduction for some of the materials are held by the Portland Art Museum and certain individuals, including members of the Kolisch family. See collection file for details.

Preferred Citation

Marian Wood Kolisch collection, Org. Lot 1048, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.

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Administrative Information

Arrangement

The collection is arranged in the following series:

  • Series 1: Photographs
  • Series 2: Reference files

Processing Note

In April 2024, the contents of a folder titled "Excerpts from taped interviews" (previously Box 3, Folder 5) were transferred to a sound collection at the Oregon Historical Society Research Library, SR 1759, which consists of the audio recording associated with the excerpts.

Custodial History

Materials in the collection were gathered and preserved by Leslie Kolisch, daughter of Marian Wood Kolisch.

Acquisition Information

Acquired March 2011, Library Accession 27312.

Separated Materials

Two VHS video cassettes were transferred to the Moving Image Collection, Oregon Historical Society: "Interview : Ursula LeGuin," and "Ansel Adams 2002."

Bibliography

Jennifer Strayer, "The late-life career of Marian Wood Kolisch," Oregon Historical Quarterly 13:1 (Spring 2012), p. 62-89.

Related Materials

Oral histories and other audio recordings by and about Marian Wood Kolisch are held in sound collections, the Oregon Historical Society Research Library.

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Detailed Description of the Collection

Names and SubjectsReturn to Top

Subject Terms

  • Artists--Oregon--Photographs
  • Dancers--Oregon--Photographs
  • Musicians--Oregon--Photographs
  • Photographers--Oregon
  • Women photographers--Oregon
  • Women--Oregon--Photographs

Personal Names

  • Kolisch, Marian W.

Geographical Names

  • Portland (Or.)--Photographs.

Form or Genre Terms

  • negatives (photographic)
  • photographs

Collection processed by Jennifer Strayer; finding aid prepared by Jennifer Strayer, Marianna Symeonides, and Geoffrey B. Wexler
2007; 2012

CC0

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