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Even more remarkable is the collection of historic photographs that was, until recently, housed inside. From his office on the Palouse, Wilcox reached clientele throughout the United States and abroad while building a substantial personal collection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI never met a photograph I didn\u2019t like,\u201d said Wilcox, who nevertheless developed a discerning eye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The photographs he collected consist of hundreds of images exceptional for their quality, subject matter, or as examples of various photographic techniques. Photographs produced from 1880 to 1920 are abundant, but the collection also includes more modern images, such as portraits of Soviet and American actors from the 1950s. The result is a beautiful and varied group of images that span the history of photography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In October, Wilcox donated most of the collection, along with his extensive library, to Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections (MASC).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Kean Wilcox Photograph Collection will join more than a million historic photographs in MASC. The Wilcox Collection is a unique addition to MASC for the varied photographic processes represented. MASC will make the collection available to researchers and the public and hopes to use the images in classes on the history of photography and related subjects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wilcox began collecting photographs in 1977, one year after completing a master\u2019s degree in applied industrial arts at San Diego State University. His early collecting focused on Civil War portraits. In these images, Union and Confederate soldiers sat for the camera, often in uniform posing with guns, sabers, drums, or other mat\u00e9riel<\/em>. A photographer would produce a positive image directly from the camera and hand it to the sitter. These photographs were frequently given to family members back home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wilcox served four years in the Marine Corps and partly credits his service for stoking his interest in the genre. \u201cCollecting Civil War portraits helped me to explore and share my personal feelings of pride and patriotism that weren\u2019t necessarily shared by the general public during the Vietnam War era,\u201d Wilcox wrote in a 2022 article for Military Images<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His collecting had a practical as well as a personal aim. Wilcox taught photography courses at Palomar College in San Marcos, California, for almost 10 years. His growing collection allowed students to learn about historic photographic processes firsthand. In 1985, Wilcox completed a sabbatical at the California Museum of Photography, gaining expertise in identifying various photographic processes and cataloging the images for the museum.<\/p>\n\n\n \u201cAfter the sabbatical leave, I was hooked,\u201d said Wilcox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eventually, Wilcox began selling photographs and showing his own work at juried photography shows. He stopped teaching and moved to the San Juan Islands in 1990. Soon afterward, he completed a Master of Fine Arts at WSU in 1993 while transitioning into buying, selling, and trading historic and artistic images full time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this period, Wilcox became increasingly interested in fine art photography produced between 1880 and 1920. The images he accumulated include examples of a remarkable photo printing process known as the Woodburytype. Woodburytypes are renowned for their superb quality and make up the bulk of the collection donated to WSU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Walter Bentley Woodbury announced his new photo printing technology in an 1865 article in the British Journal of Photography<\/em>. At that time, photographers captured images on paper, glass, and metal plates for decades, but no one had developed a viable method to reproduce photographs on a large scale. Photographs were by and large single, unique items, and publishers looking to illustrate their texts continued to rely on metal or wood engravings. Woodbury\u2019s method changed that paradigm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In \u201cA History of the Woodburytype,\u201d Barret Oliver writes that Woodbury\u2019s new printing process was \u201cswift, less expensive and \u2026 capable of faithful reproduction \u2026\u201d compared to other processes. Woodburytypes had, in addition, \u201cinherent visual beauty\u201d that seemed, to the untrained eye, \u201cexactly like true photographic prints.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n These qualities are what drew Wilcox toward Woodburytypes. \u201cThey were just perfect images, every single one,\u201d he said. \u201cEach image was absolutely flawless with no fading.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wilcox also became interested in Woodburytypes for their unique context. \u201cEvery Woodburytype \u2026 was published in something or about something,\u201d Wilcox noted. Publishers used the images to illustrate scientific papers, news articles, literary works, and more. \u201cI thought, \u2018Here\u2019s not only an interesting picture and photographer but also the week\u2019s news.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n We now take for granted the dozens or hundreds of printed photographs we see every day, not to mention images ubiquitous in the digital sphere. The Woodburytypes now housed in MASC are remnants from the beginnings of a technological innovation that shaped the information ecosystem of the modern world.<\/p>\n\n\n Cheaper, faster technologies eventually displaced the Woodburytype, and the last functioning Woodburytype press was sold for scrap metal in 1928. But no photo printing techniques have since surpassed its superb quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In his \u201cHistory of Photography,\u201d Josef Maria Eder characterizes Woodburytype prints by their \u201csoft gradations,\u201d \u201csuperb rendering of middle tones,\u201d and \u201cmodulated shadows.\u201d These qualities are evident in the examples now at MASC. Oliver writes that they are the apex of quality in photomechanical printing, saying, \u201cThe quality has never been surpassed by subsequent developments.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In donating his remarkable collection to WSU, Wilcox has ensured that anyone who wishes can view these remarkable images and examples of other photographic processes for themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI am grateful for Kean\u2019s generous donation,\u201d said Interim Dean of Libraries Trevor Bond. \u201cThis superb collection will be an important resource both for teaching the history of photographic processes and for the content of the images, particularly the documentation of British colonialism, London street life, and French culture at the end of the 19th century.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI may not be around to see it,\u201d reflected Wilcox, who is battling cancer, \u201cbut [the collection] is going to be around to show people what photography is as I know it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/libraries.wsu.edu\/friends\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2025\/01\/Street-Life-in-London_cropped_reduced.jpg\")
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