Archival Research at the Zenta Dzividzinska Collection at the National Library of Latvia

US-based art historian Maria Garth, a Ph.D. candidate in Art History at Rutgers University, visited the National Library of Latvia in April 2023 to view their collection of Zenta Dzividzinska’s photographic prints, negatives, publications, exhibition materials, handwritten notes, journals, and personal memorabilia.

Maria Garth at the National Library of Latvia. Photo: Katrīna Teivāne, 2023.

The National Library of Latvia in Riga. Photo: Maria Garth, 2023.

The collection holdings include much of Dzividzinska’s archive from about 50 years of her career from the 1960s through the 2000s. The vast collection includes materials pertaining to her studies as an art student, career as a photographer, and career as a graphic designer.

The collection was donated to the library in 2022 by Dr. Alise Tifentale after the end of the 2021 exhibition I Don't Remember a Thing: Entering the Elusive Estate of ZDZ at the Kim? Contemporary Art Center in Riga, Latvia.

With the help of Līga Goldberga, collections expert of photographic collections at the National Library of Latvia, and Dr. Katrīna Teivāne, head of the Konrāds Ubāns Art Reading Room at the National Library of Latvia, Maria was able to view the archival materials for her dissertation research. She previously researched Zenta Dzividzinska and other Latvian and Soviet photographers at the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA, in the Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union.

Maria’s earlier research on Dzividzinska is published in these articles:

Maria Garth, "Soviet Avant-Gardes and Socialist Realism. Women Photographers Bridging the Divide, 1930s-1960s," Journal of Avant-Garde Studies (2022): 1–33, doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/25896377-00102002
Maria Garth, “Issues, Challenges, and Insights: Art Historical Research on Latvian Art and Photography at the Zimmerli Art Museum (USA)” in Mapping Methods and Materials: Photographic Heritage in Cultural and Art-historical Research. Proceedings of the National Library of Latvia 9 (XXIX). (Riga: The National Library of Latvia, 2022): 254-274, https://dom.lndb.lv/data/obj/file/33771027.pdf