José María Castañé collection of autographed portraits of political leaders
Overview
Autographed photograph portraits of 20th-century political leaders.
Dates
- Creation: circa 1906-2005
Language of Materials
Materials in Amharic, Arabic, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, English, Farsi, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Khmer, Polish, Portuguese, Romainian, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Urdu, and Vietnamese.
Conditions Governing Access
Collection is open for research.
Extent
1 linear foot (3 flat boxes)Consists of autographed photograph portraits of 20th-century world leaders. Notable individuals include the following: Konrad Adenauer; Yasir Arafat; David Ben-Gurion; Leonid Brezhnev; Fidel Castro; Chiang Kai-shek; Francisco Franco; Mahatma Gandhi; Mikhail Gorbachev; Charles de Gaulle; Adolf Hitler; Emperor Hirohito; Nikita Khrushchev; Mao Zedong; Benito Mussolini; Jawaharlal Nehru; Philippe Pétain; Yitzhak Rabin; Anwar Sadat; Joseph Stalin; Hideki Tōjō; Kaiser Wilhelm II; majority of UK prime ministers and US presidents. NB: Some photographs comprise group portraits with multiple signatures.
Biographical / Historical
José María Castañé is a Spanish businessman and patron of the arts. His collection of artifacts and documents relating to the major conflicts of the 20th century, of which the political portraits form one part, was compiled over some 25 years. A substantial portion of the Castañé Collection was donated to Harvard University's Houghton Library in 2015.
Arrangement
Arranged alphabetically by last name of subject.
Physical Location
b
Immediate Source of Acquisition
2014M-120. Gift of José María Castañé and the Fundación José María Castañé, 2015.
Processing Information
Processed by Michael Austin, 2017.
Source
- Castañé, José María (Person)
- Title
- Castañé, José María, collector. José María Castañé collection of autographed portraits of political leaders, circa 1906-2005 (MS Span 180): Guide.
- Status
- completed
- Author
- Michael Austin
- Date
- 2017 March 9
- Description rules
- dacs
- Language of description
- und
- EAD ID
- hou02798
Repository Details
Part of the Houghton Library Repository
Houghton Library is Harvard College's principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, archives, and more. Houghton Library's collections represent the scope of human experience from ancient Egypt to twenty-first century Cambridge. With strengths primarily in North American and European history, literature, and culture, collections range in media from printed books and handwritten manuscripts to maps, drawings and paintings, prints, posters, photographs, film and audio recordings, and digital media, as well as costumes, theater props, and a wide range of other objects. Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse number of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.
Houghton Library’s Reading Room is free and open to all who wish to use the library’s collections.
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Harvard University
Cambridge MA 02138 USA
(617) 495-2440
Houghton_Library@harvard.edu