The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University has received a significant donation from the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation: 201 black-and-white photographs by Shunk-Kender and photographer Harry Shunk. This is the largest single gift of vintage photographic prints in the museum’s history, enhancing its collection in performance art, conceptual experimentation, and twentieth-century documentation.
“These photographs offer extraordinary opportunities for teaching at Northwestern,” said Lisa Corrin, The Block’s Ellen Philips Katz Executive Director. “They illuminate how artists in Europe and the US were experimenting with performance, movement, and new artistic forms—exactly the kinds of questions our students explore in art history, performance studies, studio art, dance, history, and beyond. We are deeply grateful to the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation for entrusting The Block with this remarkable material. Their generosity ensures that generations of students will learn from these works, engage with them, and build new scholarship from their study.”
The Roy Lichtenstein Foundation initially proposed donating up to 100 photographs from the Shunk-Kender archive in late 2024. However, after Academic Curator Corinne Granof visited the Foundation in New York earlier this year and consulted with faculty across several departments at Northwestern University, the scope of the gift expanded to 201 photographs.
Shunk-Kender was a partnership between Harry Shunk (German) and János Kender (Hungarian), who met in Paris in the late 1950s. Together they documented avant-garde artistic scenes in Paris and New York from the late 1950s through the 1970s. Their work includes portraits of artists such as Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle; documentation of performances by figures like Yves Klein; and images capturing ephemeral artworks that would otherwise be lost to time.
Granof explained that The Block was given access to digital files organized by artist or project and selected works that would strengthen existing collections or support university teaching. The selection process focused on documenting ephemeral works relevant to Northwestern’s curriculum—including those by Charlotte Moorman, Dick Higgins, John Cage—and adding representation for artists not yet present in university collections such as Yayoi Kusama and John Baldessari.
Among notable pieces included are multiple views of Yves Klein’s “Anthropométrie de l’époque bleue” (1960), Yayoi Kusama’s “Anatomic Explosion” (1968), studio portraits of Andy Warhol, dance photographs featuring Merce Cunningham, early images of Japan’s Gutai Group, portraits of Leon Golub, materials related to Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE), as well as extensive documentation from Pier 18—a collaborative waterfront project involving experimental performances photographed exclusively by Shunk-Kender.
“These are wild, totally 1970s performances—high-risk, physical, experimental,” Granof said about Pier 18. “The performances took place without audiences…they are known only through the Shunk-Kender documentation. The photographs were absolutely integral to the project.”
This acquisition connects directly with previous collaborations between The Block Museum and Northwestern University Libraries—such as exhibitions on Charlotte Moorman—and expands resources for research into avant-garde art movements documented within both institutions’ archives.
“These new photographs deepen these strengths and expand teaching opportunities across campus,” Granof said. “Students can see how performance photography and conceptual art were unfolding together across Paris and New York…how new forms of artmaking reflected changing times.”
The donated works will be accessible for research through dedicated study centers at The Block Museum. Future exhibitions or public programs may further showcase selections from this collection.
“We are grateful to the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation for expanding the resources available to our students and faculty,” Corrin said. “These photographs now enter a lively campus ecosystem where they will continue to be looked at questioned and reinterpreted by new generations of thinkers.”
