Billionaire Michael Dell’s investment firm, MSD Capital LP, has acquired about 185,000 vintage photographic prints from the Magnum Photos agency in what is thought to be among the largest photo transactions in history.
While no price was disclosed, the collection has been insured for more than $100 million, according to a knowledgeable source who declined to be identified.
MSD Capital will lend the photos for five years to the Harry Ransom Center, a humanities research library and museum at the University of Texas at Austin. Dell, chairman and chief executive officer of computer maker Dell Inc., which is based in Round Rock, Texas, is an Austin resident and University of Texas dropout.
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Ransom is among the leading acquirers of research materials from the 19th and 20th centuries. Among its holdings are the Watergate Papers, Norman Mailer’s archives and page proofs from James Joyce’s “Ulysses.” The Magnum archive includes the work of 103 photographers, images dating from the 1930s to 1998 that in some case are as much photojournalism as fine art. They chronicle world events such as the Spanish Civil War and the U.S. civil-rights movement.
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