Mar 21, 2024 - Sale 2663

Sale 2663 - Lot 193

Price Realized: $ 812
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
(ENTERTAINMENT--FILM.) Research files and other papers of film scholar Pearl Bowser. One box of typescripts, manuscripts, copies, and other notes (0.8 linear feet), plus 12 posters in one sleeve; generally minor wear. Various places, circa 1972-2001
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Additional Details

From the early 1970s onward, Pearl Bowser (1931-2023) curated festivals of early Black cinema, published her scholarship on filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, worked with Third World Newsreel, and produced her own documentary films. This archive includes:

A binder of notes from her 1994 documentary, "Midnight Ramble: Oscar Micheaux and the Story of Race Movies."

A partial draft of an anthology of early writing on Black cinema, apparently unpublished.

Transcript of a "Meeting Between Members of the Coordinating Council for African-American Cinema and the Museum of Modern Art," December 1972.

Research notes by Olivia Delgado de Torres for the film "Namibia: Independence Now!", compiled September 1984.

Extensive partial typescript of an academic anthology co-edited by Bowser, "Oscar Micheaux and his Circle: African-American Filmmaking and Race Cinema of the Silent Era" (2001).

Her book "Writing Himself Into History: Oscar Micheaux, His Silent Films, and His Audiences" (2000), signed and inscribed to a family member.

A salesman's sample of Oscar Micheaux's novel "The Story of Dorothy Stanfield," with 16 printed pages and the remainder blank.

Several folders of additional printed ephemera, research notes, and correspondence.

12 promotional posters from film series and festivals staged by Bowser, including two posters for "In Color: 60 Years of Minority Women in Film" (one with 1982 screening info added), 22 x 17 inches, plus a smaller leaflet version (illustrated); 2 posters for her Third World Newsreel film festival headed "Black Film and the Directive Image," 22 x 13 inches, [1985], plus a smaller version; poster for the Black Film Series, 22 x 14 inches, 4-8 December [1973]; two smaller posters for the "Black Film in Retrospect" series, 1973; and 3 montages of early Black film ephemera printed on foam board, about 23 x 18 inches.