By Holly Stuart Hughes

Magnum Photos has sold its archive of more than 185,000 press prints to Michael Dell, the founder of Dell Computer, and two other investors for an undisclosed amount, the agency announced today. Under the terms of the sale, the prints were moved in December 2009 from Magnum's New York office to the Harry Ransom Center, the humanities library at the University of Texas in Austin.

The collection includes prints made from the 1930s to the 1990s from images by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Raymond Depardon, Josef Koudelka, Bruce Davidson, Rene Burri and other Magnum members. Before Magnum began digitizing its archive in 1998, the press prints were circulated among magazines as a way to promote licensing of photo stories or single images. The coding and labels on the back of each print trace the sales history of the print and detail usage terms. Many also contain handwritten notes from the photographer to the darkroom printer or the Magnum archivists. 

MSD Capital, the investment fund managed by John Phelan and Glenn Fuhrmann and funded by Dell, has purchased only Magnum’s press prints, not licensing or resale rights to the images. Mark Lubell, director of Magnum’s New York office, says the agency still holds all negatives and contact sheets. However, he says the Ransom Center is planning to exhibit the images within the next two years, and will be able to produce a catalogue.

At a time when Magnum has seen its traditional sources of licensing revenue from magazines and newspaper decline, the sale provides that agency with working capital. “We have several major innovations we’re planning,” says Lubell.  The sale, he adds, “gives Magnum a very big push in helping reinvigorate the distribution of stories.” Among the changes planned are system upgrades that will allow the agency to upload images faster, with more data, and more inexpensively. The agency is also looking for ways to fund photographers’ projects that can be used in many media, and hopes to build "a business model where sponsors and the general public can support that work." 

Lubell says the photographers in Magnum Photos, which is a cooperative, voted in 2006 to authorize him to pursue buyers for the press print collection. Lubell says he met with several institutions, but recommended the Ransom Center, whose extensive photography collection includes an 1828 photo by Joseph Nicephone Niepce believed to be the first photograph, because of its “fantastic preservation department” and the curators’ enthusiasm for the collection’s historical value. “They immediately saw its potential as a study collection, and can bring it to a much broader audience than just the photo community,” he says. The prints will also be available for study by students from the University of Texas photojournalism and business schools, and from the departments of history and anthropology. 

Lubell also approached several potential investors but wanted assurance the collection would not be sold piecemeal. Dell, Fuhrman and Phelan are each collectors of painting and photography and according to Lubell, saw the press print collection as “an amazing piece of history.” Lubell adds, “What they have expressed is, ‘We see ourselves as custodians of the collection.’ ”

In addition to the money set aside for Magnum’s capital improvements, a portion of the sales price is also going to Magnum photographers who had images in the press print archive. According to Lubell, members of Magnum Photos approved a system by which funds from the sale are awarded in amounts proportionate to the number of prints each photographer had in the press print archive.