An Access Guide To Nickolas Muray’s The Great Tribes Of Africa Collection At George Eastman House

Photographer Nickolas Muray's The Great Tribes of Africa collection consists of approximately seven thousand photographs, negatives and other photographic materials held in the archives of George Eastman House (GEH), International Museum of Photography & Film, Rochester, NY. The collection was created by Muray in 1957 as part of a larger project titled Peoples of The World (1955-60), which is also housed at GEH. Best known for his work as a celebrity portraitist and secondly as a commercial photographer employed by the best-known magazines of the time, Muray's ethnographic project, which he developed in his later years, was left unpublished and did not receive as much attention as his earlier works. This applied thesis project involved the creation of a finding aid for this significant but under-researched collection. It also includes an essay outlining the methodology and rationale for this work completed at GEH over an eleven-month period in 2011-12.