 This is one of the most iconic and well-known images of Roman Vizhniki when on his book a vanished world What does the image mean and what does and what does the book mean? They have a global significance, but they're also very particular Yeah, so he's from Visni Apsa, which is in Carpathian Ruthenia, which is sort of Ukraine today and was Divided up between various new countries after World War one and it's iconic because I mean the portraiture is just perfect the way it's sort of centered and the way he's both leaning the hand on the cane and His head in his hands and sort of this deep thoughtful Pose and he's a you know, he's an elder of this. He's an elder of this community and so You know, it signifies of course this community itself For Vishniak Vishniak represent the this you know this part of the community is sort of deeply religious and deeply pious Roman Vishniak once he arrives in the United States sets up the studio in the studio photography or travels to Princeton to To take portraits of Albert Einstein Who apparently stated that is portrait by portraits by Vishniak were among his favorites and It's a different type of both Jewish American and global iconography here, right? Right? But there's two things They're both at this particular point relatively elderly Jewish men From different parts of Europe very clearly, but both Learned in their own way. They're both deep in thought and so there are you wouldn't expect someone from this You know this village elder essentially of the small town elder from the shtetl and I said to have much in common But the way Vishniak has portrayed them. I think one can say that they actually do have something in common and of course We know that both of their worlds came to to an end Yes, and I remember when I exhibited these images I in fact put them one next to the other for a very same reason Roman Vishniak Takes many many photographs of storks It's something that could be surprising But if we relate this to materials in the Vishniak archives things he wrote we see that There is not only a poetry in in how he describes a Living animal, but there is really a humanist gaze on science That will also see reflected in a more scientific taxonomic gaze on human beings So he's a man of the two cultures combined Science and humanities he writes about the stork that the wings of the planing bird are the prototype of our aeroplane wings gliding and sailing birds were the models for inventors and He talks about the struggle of the flight of the stork in Details in his notes and these notes are in his archives type written at the same time with the same setting type setting as reflections on Paris the city of Paris being looked at from the point of view from the eyes of a gargoyle in Notre-Dame and as well as Reflection on the toils of of the European Jews He writes about Jews in the same way that he writes about stork and their and their struggle in flight And he writes four million human beings different to despair by humiliation suffering and destitution Hope to be saved if not for themselves then for their children that they may grow up to live and work in a better world He doesn't express any knowledge of the systematic extermination of European Jewry But needless to say he's fully aware of the systematic persecution of European Jewry So we're at a point yet where for him personally That knowledge is not there And then there's still sort of a glimmer of hope and perhaps you know tied to the glimmer of hope You know with the with the picture of the stork that the stork will still be able to make its ascent and Remain in the air So he still sees a possibility at this particular point and doesn't realize that there is none a Man of the two cultures combined science and humanistic Scientific and humanistic gaze all at once Roman vision who was a pioneer in microscopic photography the vision Collection now with the Magnus includes around 1500 prints plus negatives and other materials and his own reflections about animals and Also microscopic objects which are photographed in stark contracts with his black and white photos in color And that we hope will unleash Numerous paths of research on the use of Berkeley campus many of his photographs depict children He'd voted a whole book to Jewish children, but he photographs children in many communities in many ways and Especially children who are also readers kind of like his photographs of Eastern Europe and Jewish children in the header What's a header John? Like it's sort of the religious elementary school But almost I mean there's a Disproportionate representation of Jews reading both children and adults and even the picture of Einstein is reading So Jews as sort of a reading civilization is the way he he wished to portray them And Irrespective of what country they're in or where they're from whether they're from Germany like Einstein or whether You know Carpathian Ruthenia or whether they're now in America Reading what looks like an English language book. They're nonetheless reading in New York Just as it did in Europe vision turns his gaze to Immigrant communities This is just a short set of many negatives and prints I've worked at it in Chinatown, New York City in 1940 and they're among the first External documents of visual documents of Chinatown at the time and they show both the breadth of his interests but also the the depth in which he's able to pursue the focus of Documenting marginalized people around the world Roman visionic Travel to Israel several times and what we're looking at here are slides of a trip done in October November of 1967 shortly after the Six-Day War we have no prints in the archive But we have many many transparencies many many slides He gives a wide-ranging even in just this few Images a one ranging wide-ranging portrait of Israel and especially Jerusalem the old city which had just been Acquired reacquired for access to Jews after the Six-Day War and also there there is again the the topic of Elderly Jewish or in this case even Samaritan men with with ritual texts and and and bearded elderly men And also one of the things that's most noticeable is that he's known of course for these stunning and Striking black-and-white photos and these are in color So it sort of represents a dawn as it were a brightness of a possible future as opposed to The recording the sort of visual recording of photographs of a civilization that's on the brink This is a civilization on the brink of a new future And so these seem to be you know these are in color And so they're also very striking but there are these very intimate portraits again of both Jews and non-Jews And self-portraits as well and so So we see him in in action roaming the the the roads of Israel What's interesting and very important about these images is that there's no real public documentation of vision in Israel So it just this gives us a sense of the potentiality of this archive And how many more roads we need to take in order to document the extraordinary work of this photographer