Addenda to the John (Hans) and Trude Schiff Collection

This collection is described in four series that are divided based on subject and format. Items in this collection predominantly consist of photographic prints and negatives taken by John D. or Trude Schiff of various artists.

Portraits of artist Ludwig Bemelmans and his Madeline illustration works were captured. Madeline is a book series that was created by Ludwig Bemelmans. The series follows the daily adventures of Madeline, a 7-year-old girl attending a boarding school in Paris with eleven other girls, under the care of their teacher, Miss Clavel. The first book was published in 1939 and proved to be a success, so Bemelmans wrote many sequels in the 1940s and 1950s. The series continues to sell copies worldwide.

The collection also contains prints of Katherine Dreier’s Living Room, as well as photographic prints of Marcel Duchamp's Twine installation. Katherine Sophie Dreier was an influential figure in New York City in the early 20th century and studied art at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. She was head of the New York City's German-American Committee of the Woman Suffrage party in 1915 and a close friend of artist Marcel Duchamp. Duchamp influenced her work, which is best represented in her painting 'Abstract Portrait of Marcel Duchamp' (1918) that is now held at the Museum of Modern Art. In 1920 they cofounded the Société Anonyme, which organized numerous exhibitions of European and American modern art. Dreier made Duchamp an executor of her estate.

Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) was a French artist who became an US citizen in 1955. His work and ideas had considerable influence on the development of post-WWII Western art. He was the first artist to create "ready-mades," or found objects, in modern art. 'Fountain' (1917) is probably the most well-known example of this involving a porcelain urinal signed "R.Mutt". The painting 'Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2' (1912) is said to have greatly influenced Katherine Dreier's cubist style.

John D. Schiff's photographic print of Marcel Duchamp's 'His Twine' (1942) installation view of First Papers of Surrealism exhibition at the Whitelaw Reid Mansion in Manhattan, NY can be found in this collection. For the opening of the First Papers of Surrealism exhibition, Duchamp told a group of children to play throughout the event, and to explain that they were playing on Duchamp’s instructions. Around a mile of string was woven throughout the exhibition space in a web-like fashion. The crisscrossing twine prevents complete engagement with works by other artists displayed on the walls. The complex assembly of this installation art comments on Duchamp's tiredness of surrealism. However, Schiff's prints can be misleading: though the photographic print suggests a separation between viewer and art, Duchamp’s twine installation was more permeable and the art on display more accessible than many believe it to have been.

Additionally, there are several unlabeled negatives with subjects such as art exhibits, artworks, and natural subjects such as plants and animals. There is also a small amount of correspondence and documents in this collection as well.