Scope and arrangement
The Richard Saunders photographs contain material from the 1940s through the 1970s related to Saunders' career as a photojournalist. The files are arranged into five groups by project or assignment: the Pittsburgh Documentary Project; Freelance; Topic Assignments; Portfolio; and Portraits of Saunders. The first three groups reflect Saunders' career chronologically, following the Pittsburgh Documentary project from 1955 through 1961, his freelance work primarily in the 1960s, and his work for Topic magazine while living in Africa from 1967 through 1976. Saunders' Portfolio and Portrait files contain photographs from throughout his photography career.
The Pittsburgh Documentary Project is one unsorted folder of prints Saunders' made while working with Roy Stryker to document the deindustrialization of the Lower Hill District in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. These photographs date from 1955 through 1961, but individual pictures have not been dated. These files contain solely black and white prints, without any negatives, slides, or contact sheets.
Saunders' Freelance files include prints, contact sheets, slides, negatives, and notes from the 1940s through 1967. Each project is arranged chronologically. The primary coverage during this period includes the photographs of Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam in New York City and Washington, D.C. in the 1960s. Another large project from this period includes coverage of James Farmer and his work as the founder and Director of the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE). A significant assignment held here are a series of celebrity portraits for The New York Times in 1964 and 1965.
The majority of the material in this collection are assignments from Topic magazine. The files are ordered chronologically by the date Saunders photographed the story, which he numbered consecutively throughout the year. The files contain an assortment of negatives, contact sheets, slides, notes, and caption information. Very few enlarged prints are present in these assignment folders.
Some of the Topic assignments include profiles of individuals such as exiled South African journalist Nat Nakasa; Senegalese filmmaker Djibril Diop Mambéty; photographer Moneta Sleet, Jr.; and James Brown's performance in Lagos, Nigeria in 1971. Saunders also covered the second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC '77) in Lagos, Nigeria in 1977.
Saunders' Portfolio contains prints from the 1940s through the 1970s, and provides an overview of his career and photographic eye. These prints are arranged chronologically by project, and several have been mounted on board.
Photographs of Saunders primarily include images of him working between the late 1960s and 1970s. There are also images of Saunders' equipment, and pictures of Saunders as a young man in the 1940s present. These photographs are ordered chronologically.
Arrangement
The collection is arranged chronologically by project.