Scope and Contents

The collection consists of twenty silver gelatin prints, as described on the container list attached. These are exhibition-quality prints, matted, signed by the artist, with subject identification. The prints are arranged in no particular order, but are numbered according to the list. Note that each print therefore has an individual museum catalog number, e.g., 1991.0886.01- unlike the majority of Archive Center collections--and these numbers should be referenced in exhibition and loan transactions.

Arrangement

Collection is arranged into one series.

Biographical / Historical

Barbara T. Beirne hold a Master of Fine Arts in Photography form Pratt Institute, Brooklyn New York, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts form Marymount College, Tarrytown, New York. She has been a free-lance photographer, working extensively for non-profit organizations, corporations and newspapers, has shown her work in many solo and group exhibitions, and has been photographer and/or author of a number of children's books (see bibliography, She photographed the subjects of this portfolio for a book by J. and R. Morrison, From Camelot to Kent State.

Ms. Beirne has been a teacher and lecturer in numerous school and libraries in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and at this writing is an adjunct professor of photography at County College of Morris, Randolph, New Jersey.

Historical

In 1985, Joan Morrison and her son Robert K. Morrison conducted approximately one hundred oral history interviews with a wide variety of Americans about their experiences during the 1960s. They also collected photographs of the interviewees--pictures taken during the 1960s and other taken at the time of the interview. Portions of some of these interviews and the photographs are published in their 1987 book, mentioned above. Some of the new photographs, taken by Barbara T. Bierne, were exhibited at the Bridge Gallery, The New School, New York City, from Oct. 2 to Oct 31, 1998. The Morrison collection of audiotapes, transcripts, and other materials form this project was donated to the Archives Center as Collection no. 359. Later in 1991, Barbara Beirne donated twenty exhibition quality, matted photographs from this project (the Morrison Collection was received first, and the earlier number for the Beirne Collection is due to the recycling of an unused number). These prints apparently were made in 1989 and were included in the New School exhibition.

Author and photographer, A Pianist's Debut. Carlrhoda Books, 1990. Author and photographer, Under the Lights. Carlrhoda Books, 1988.

Photographer, What Do You Mean I Have a Learning Disability? Walker Publishers, 1991.

Photographer, Water is Wet. G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1985.

Photographs in: Joan and Robert K. Morrison. From Camelot to Kent State: The Sixties Experience in the Worlds of Those Who Lived It. New York: Times Books, 1987.