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Creator
Giard, Robert
Call number
MssCol 5983
Physical description
0.42 linear feet (1 box)
Language
English
Preferred Citation
Robert Giard notebooks, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library
Repository
Manuscripts and Archives Division
Access to materials
Request an in-person research appointment.

Robert Giard (1939-2002) was an American photographer best known for his portraits of LGBTQ+ writers, artists, and activists. Giard kept written records of his photo shoot sessions with sitters, memorializing in detail his impression of each individual person and the experience of photographing them. The Robert Giard notebooks, which date from 1986 to 1999, comprise seven notebooks containing Giard's portrait session notes.

Biographical/historical information

Robert Giard was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1939. Giard received a Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in English literature, from Yale University in 1961 and a Master of Arts degree in Comparative Literature from Boston University in 1965. After college Giard moved to New York City and taught at the New Lincoln School, a private experimental coeducational institution.

In 1974, Giard and his life partner, Jonathan Silin, an early childhood educator, moved to Amagansett, Long Island. There he began a career as a self-taught photographer, using beach landscapes and stately Hamptons houses in the quiet off-season as subjects, before branching out to nudes and portraiture. Giard remained based in Amagansett for the remainder of his life.

In 1985, after attending Larry Kramer's play, The Normal Heart, and citing the AIDS crisis as an urgent impetus, Giard set out to document the lives of as many LGBTQ+ creative people as he could. Giard began photographing New York City-based gay male writers he knew personally, but soon made connections throughout the wider queer literary and cultural scenes around the country, taking care to include lesbians, bisexuals, and gender non-conforming people of various ethnic and racial backgrounds. The project grew to include over 600 portraits and became known as Particular Voices, which culminated in a published book of photographs (1997) and an exhibition at New York Public Library (1998) of the same name. Although Giard initially focused on authors and playwrights, he eventually broadened the scope to include poets, filmmakers, performance artists, visual artists, and activists. Giard kept his portraits formally simple and preferred to photograph people in their own homes, often traveling great distances for shoots.

In 1996, Giard began photographing grant recipients of the Thanks Be to Grandmother Winifred Foundation, which awarded small grants to women aged 55 and older. Concurrently, Giard continued creating portraits for the ongoing Particular Voices project.

Giard died of a heart attack onboard a bus while traveling from Minneapolis to Chicago in 2002.

Scope and arrangement

The Robert Giard notebooks, which date from 1986 to 1999, comprise seven notebooks containing notes Giard recorded about his portrait sessions. One year into the Particular Voices project, in which he strove to photograph as many LGBTQ+ creative people as possible, Giard began keeping regular detailed notes. Among Giard's approximately 650 portrait subjects are well-known and obscure LGBTQ+ authors, playwrights, poets, performances artists, filmmakers, visual artists, and activists. Prominent individuals appearing in these notebooks include Edward Albee, Ann Bannon, Alison Bechdel, Rafael Campo, George Chauncey, Quentin Crisp, Samuel R. Delaney, Martin Duberman, Leslie Feinberg, Charles Henri Ford, Allen Ginsberg, Barbara Gittings, Jewelle Gomez, Harry Hay, Essex Hemphill, Andrew Holleran, Holly Hughes, Gary Indiana, Arnie Kantrowitz, Larry Kramer, Lisa Kron, Tony Kushner, Dick Leitsch, Audre Lorde, Phyllis Lyon, Del Martin, Eileen Myles, Esther Newton, Minnie Bruce Pratt, James Purdy, Adrienne Rich, Sylvia Rivera, Vito Russo, May Sarton, Barbara Smith, Kay Tobin, Kitty Tsui, and Shay Youngblood.

The first notebook, which covers 1986 and 1987, also includes an explanation of Particular Voices and retrospective notes on the first portraits shot the previous year. In each notebook, Giard typically recorded the name of the sitter, the date, time of day and location where the photo shoot happened, Giard's impressions of the person or people he was photographing, what they looked like, how they behaved, how cooperative they were, what their living spaces were like, and what they talked about as Giard worked. In some instances Giard explains how he made contact his subjects.

Within the container list below, see the Scope Notes section for each notebook, which lists the names of individuals mentioned therein. Names are listed in order of appearance. Some individuals appear multiple times in a single notebook and some appear in multiple notebooks. Occasionally the notebooks contain names of those who ultimately declined to have their portraits taken and a few people are mentioned tangentially. Notebooks six and seven, which cover 1994 through 1999, intermingle both Particular Voices and Thanks Be to Grandmother Winifred portrait sitters.

Giard traveled to various cities and regions throughout the United States, usually by plane, train, or bus, to visit his sitters in their homes. The notebooks also serve as travel diaries of a non-driver, as Giard occasionally recorded his transit-related details and observations in them.

Administrative information

Source of acquisition

Donated by Robert Giard in 1999.

Processing information

Processed by Heather Halliday in 2024.

Related Material

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs at New York Public Library holds a collection of photographic prints of Robert Giard's portraits. The Robert Giard papers, call number YCAL MSS 702, are held at The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.

Using the collection

Location

Manuscripts and Archives Division
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, New York, NY 10018-2788
Brooke Russell Astor Reading Room, Third Floor, Room 328

Alternative form available

A complete set of photocopies of these notebooks is located in Box 6 of the Robert Giard papers, call number YCAL MSS 702, held at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.