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John Albok photograph collection

Call Number

PR 1

Date

1928-1997 (bulk, 1930-1980), inclusive

Creator

Albok, John, 1894-1982

Extent

10.63 Linear feet (12 boxes)

Language of Materials

This collection is primarily visual. Any text is likely to be in English.

Abstract

Photographs of New York City street scenes and events

Biographical Note

John Albok was born in Munkacs, Hungary (present-day Ukraine) in 1894. The oldest of eleven children, he learned to be a tailor at age 13. He wanted to be an artist, however, and satisfied his artistic leanings through photography using a Kodak Brownie acquired in a trade for a pair of binoculars. During World War I he was drafted into the Hungarian Army and while behind the lines he photographed emaciated Russian captives.

After the war Albok learned that while he'd been away his two sisters had died of starvation and his father had committed suicide. Shattered, he decided to emigrate, leaving for the United States in 1921. Soon after he arrived in New York City he opened a tailor shop at 1392 Madison Avenue, at 96th Street, where he lived until his death. He photographed street scenes through his shop window and developed them at night, turning his shop into a darkroom.

Albok soon married a woman named Elona and had a daughter, also Elona. In 1929 a portrait of his daughter won him the Eastman Kodak Amateur Photo Contest. However, throughout the 1930s he was known only to his neighbors, who often paid him for family portraits, pet portraits, photographs of Hungarian events, or other neighborhood get-togethers. Then, in 1937, Albok was discovered by noted curator Grace Mayer (1901-1996) after he won a weekly photo contest sponsored by the New York Herald Tribune. In 1938, Mayer, who was instrumental in the re-discovery of Jacob Riis and built the photograph collection at the Museum of the City of New York, arranged to have Albok's work exhibited at MCNY in a show titled "Faces of the City."

After the show Albok's career picked up steam. His photograph subjects included leisure time in Central Park, the 1939-1940 World's Fair, New York street scenes during World War II, and later Greenwich Village and the Russian Orthodox Church, specifically St. Nicholas Cathedral on East 97th Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues. Albok had an aesthetic fascination with children, animals, and leisure activities; the majority of the New-York Historical Society's collection revolves around these subjects.

Albok died of cancer at Mt. Sinai Hospital on January 10, 1982, at the age of 87, a day before a retrospective of his work, "Tailored Images," opened at the Museum of the City of New York. At the time of his death he was survived by his wife and daughter. During his life his work had been exhibited at museums and galleries across the country and had been the subject of two films: "John Albok's New York," (1966) nominated for an Emmy, and "John Albok, Master Tailor," done for Swedish television (1979). After his death his work continued to be displayed in museums, galleries, as greeting cards, and on television. Numerous articles in art magazines and journals have also been written on Albok.

Arrangement

This collection is organized in three series:

Series I. Prints
Series II. Negatives
Series III. Documents

Scope and Contents

The John Albok Collection almost exclusively comprises photographs of New York City, especially Manhattan. The collection is divided into three series: Prints; Negatives; Documents. As a whole the collection spans 1928-2006, but the primary years are 1930-1980, when virtually all the photographs were taken. The decades with the largest number of prints are the 1940s and 1950s.

Albok's fondest subject was Central Park, and the Society's Albok collection has hundreds of prints and negatives of the park from the late 1920s up until 1980. The Central Park pictures depict a variety of activities: picnics, artists, sports, birds such as herons, ducks, and pigeons, and winter snowfall among them. Many also depict the Central Park Conservatory Garden, opened in 1937, that runs along northern Fifth Avenue, a few blocks from where Albok lived. The remaining Central Park pictures are of trees, flowers and the reservoir. Albok also photographed numerous street scenes throughout the decades, particularly of his East Harlem neighborhood. His earlier neighborhood photographs delineate the Italian demographic of the area before the post-World War II Hispanic influx that led to the nickname Spanish Harlem or "El Barrio." Aside from East Harlem photographs there are also photos of 1960s Greenwich Village and landmarks such as Rockefeller Center, the United Nations, the Guggenheim Museum, and one photo of the Empire State Building. Other subjects include the 1939-1940 World's Fair, the Russian Orthodox Church, various Hungarian functions, animals, children, portraits done in his tailor shop/studio, and a few miscellaneous pictures that include skyscapes, building interiors, Mayor Fiorella LaGuardia at Madison Square Garden and Louis Lefkowitz at a soccer match. The Hungarian pictures include Hungarian picnics in Bohemian Park, Queens, and New Jersey. The New Jersey pictures were taken mostly at Bugacs Puszta, a farm in Dayton, New Jersey. According to Ilona Vitarius, the Bugacs Puszta was the first New York and New Jersey Hungarian Charity Association, founded in 1901. Bugacs may be a reference to "Bugac," small area of central Hungary; Puszta is the Hungarian word for steppes. Albok gave money to the organization and even made a 16mm film of its underprivileged children camps. The New-York Historical Society does not have this film footage.

Despite living in New York City for 60 years, Albok's known work includes few pictures taken outside Manhattan. The Society's Albok collection has little of other boroughs - none of Staten Island, a few of the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, only the World's Fair and Bohemian Park in Queens, none of the Bronx. One oversized print is identified as Westchester county. The parade images the Society has are mainly of Labor Day parades. Albok did photograph numerous other labor demonstrations and parades, including May Day rallies in Union Square during the 1930s, however the Society does not have these prints. The Society's collection also has no prints of the 1964 World's Fair, none of any major city parades such as Easter, Thanksgiving Day, St. Patrick's Day, World Series or other sporting celebrations, or parades for dignitaries or visiting heads of state. It is unknown if Albok took such pictures. Overall the Society's Albok pictures of downtown are mainly of art sales in and around Washington Square Park and capture little of the folk scene of Greenwich Village. In addition, of the few pictures related to Vietnam in the collection, all but one are of pro-intervention rallies.

Access Restrictions

Materials in this collection may be stored offsite. For more information on making arrangements to consult them, please visit www.nyhistory.org/library/visit.

Use Restrictions

Taking images of documents from the library collections for reference purposes by using hand-held cameras and in accordance with the library's photography guidelines is encouraged. As an alternative, patrons may request up to 20 images per day from staff.

Application to use images from this collection for publication should be made in writing to: Department of Rights and Reproductions, The New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, New York, NY 10024-5194, rightsandrepro@nyhistory.org. Phone: (212) 873-3400 ext. 282.

Copyrights and other proprietary rights may subsist in individuals and entities other than the New-York Historical Society, in which case the patron is responsible for securing permission from those parties. For fuller information about rights and reproductions from N-YHS visit: https://www.nyhistory.org/about/rights-reproductions

Preferred Citation

This collection should be cited as John Albok Photograph Collection, PR 1, Department of Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections, The New-York Historical Society.

Location of Materials

Materials in this collection may be stored offsite. For more information on making arrangements to consult them, please visit www.nyhistory.org/library/visit.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Gift of Ilona Albok Vitarius, 1984-2006.

Separated Materials

The color slides from Series II are stored separately in Box 12 in cold storage and require advance notice to view.

Related Materials

The Department of Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections holds copies of two monographs on Albok: John Albok, 1894-1982; Through the Eye of the Needle, and John Albok: For the Children.

Albok's complete archive is estimated at 15,000 prints, of which approximately 1,400 are at New-York Historical Society. Museum of the City of New York, Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives at New York University, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the New York Public Library are other notable repositories for his prints. Several of Albok's photographs of New York soccer matches are at the National Soccer Hall of Fame, and Ilona Albok Vitarius still retains other prints and negatives.

Collection processed by

Jason Steinhauer

About this Guide

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-08-21 15:47:31 -0400.
Language: Description is in English.

Edition of this Guide

This version was derived from albok.xml

Repository

New-York Historical Society
New-York Historical Society
170 Central Park West
New York, NY 10024