This is a guest post by Nancy Groce, Senior Folklife Specialist at the American Folklife Center.
The American Folklife Center is delighted to announce that it has acquired the collection of the acclaimed documentary photographer Tom Pich. This unique collection is centered around outstanding visual portraits of the more than 260 traditional artists who have received the National Heritage Fellowship—America’s highest honor in the folk and traditional arts—from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).
Originally from New York City and now living in Connecticut, Pich is a graduate of the School of Visual Arts, where he majored in photography. He began his career in the 1980s earning a living in corporate, sports, and magazine photography—work that he continues today “to pay the bills.”
In 1991, Pich saw a National Geographic article profiling several recipients of the NEA’s National Heritage Fellowship. Intrigued, he contacted and arranged to meet with Dr. Daniel Sheehy—then-director of the NEA’s Folk and Traditional Arts Program. Sheehy encouraged Pich to photograph the Fellows, but also told him that there was no money available to hire a photographer. Undeterred, Pich began photographing National Heritage Fellows voluntarily, spending his own time and money to do so. For more than three decades, Pich has generously donated his images to the NEA for use in publications, exhibits, and websites. He has also shared his photographs, without charge, with the NEA Fellows and their families. Pich’s photos of National Heritage Fellows have been exhibited at such notable sites as the Kennedy Center, the Russell Senate Office Building, numerous Smithsonian Museums, Lincoln Center in New York City and, of course, the Library of Congress.
Pich’s photographs are iconic. He captures a seminal image of each Fellow that incorporates elements of that artist’s tradition and environment into each portrait. He often travels to each Fellow’s home and spends several days talking with them about their lives and their art, while familiarizing himself with their surroundings, before taking his remarkable portraits.
In 2018, Pich’s work formed the basis of the visually stunning book Folk Masters: A Portrait of America, paired with an engaging text written by former NEA Folk and Traditional Arts Director, Barry Bergey. Pich and Bergey also spoke about the book at the Library of Congress in 2018, as part of the AFC’s Benjamin A. Botkin Lecture Series. In addition to photographs, Pich’s collection includes interviews he conducted with Barry Bergey, in which the photographer shares memories of his visits with many of the folk artists featured in their book.
Pich’s work is well-known throughout Washington DC’s cultural community. For example, Hope O’Keeffe, Supervisory Attorney-Advisor in the Library’s Office of the General Counsel, was delighted to hear about the Library’s acquisition of Pich’s materials and wrote:
Before coming to the Library, I spent 13 years at the National Endowment for the Arts. My high point every year was always the magical National Heritage Fellows concert. Between concerts, though, we had Tom Pich’s extraordinary pictures to remind us to keep celebrating these living national treasures. I am thrilled to have come full circle: now the Library will preserve and share Tom’s work with the world.
Pich is delighted that his images have found a home at the American Folklife Center. He says:
Excitement is what I feel when talking about my experiences from my visits with an extraordinary group of people. I am honored to be part of their history and will be forever grateful to the folks at the Library of Congress who have recognized the past 32 years of my fieldwork. I am thrilled to know that my photographs, videos, and interviews with these extraordinary artists—all of whom so greatly enrich America’s cultural landscape—will be preserved at the Library of Congress for future generations.
Pich let us know that he plans to continue documenting future NEA Fellows—we hope to be the home of his future work, too. For now, the AFC is thrilled to add his collection to our archives. The outstanding quality of his photographs—not to mention the geographic, ethnic, and artistic/disciplinary diversity of the photographed artists—will enrich the AFC archives enormously. Once accessioned, his images will inform researchers and enhance future LOC programming, publications, and outreach activities. Look forward to seeing a lot more of Tom Pich’s documentary artistry!
Collection Connection:
The Pich Collection complements several existing AFC’s holdings, including the National Council for Traditional Arts (NCTA) Collection (AFC2001/019); the Bess Lomax Hawes Collection (AFC2014/008), and supplements AFC’s 2023 Research Guide: NEA National Heritage Fellowship Awardees: Resources at the American Folklife Center.