Dell buys Magnum Photo print archive valued over $100 million

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.

"Having this incredible collection in Austin is especially exciting to me," said Dell in a press statement. Forbes magazine estimated Dell's net worth at $14.5 billion in 2009. MSD Capital manages more than $10 billion in assets, according to a press release.

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.

"This is a singularly valuable collection in the history of photography," said Thomas F. Staley, director of the Ransom Center, in a statement. The center will promote the collection with exhibitions, research and fellowships. Magnum and MSD will contribute to maintenance and insurance costs. Magnum retains the copyright and licensing rights to all of the images.

Art CollectorsThe deal wasn't far afield for MSD's co-managing partners, Glenn R. Fuhrman and John C. Phelan, who are major contemporary- art collectors and serve on museum boards. Fuhrman is a trustee on the board of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, in Washington. He also founded the Flag Foundation in New York's Chelsea district where he holds art exhibitions. Phelan is a trustee of the Aspen Art Museum, in Colorado, and the New York's Whitney Museum of American Art."Given the technical changes that have taken place in the world of photography, including the digitization of images, a collection of prints like these will never exist again," said Fuhrman in the statement.Photojournalism's HeydayThe deal was initiated by Magnum director Mark Lubell, who had been charged with modernizing an agency that newspapers and magazines long tapped for images to grace their pages. The advent of scanning and digital files increased the rarity value of the agency's physical working prints and made them more salable.Magnum was founded in 1947 during photojournalism's heyday by four photographers: Robert Capa, David "Chim" Seymour, George Rodger and Henri Cartier-Bresson. They structured the agency as a cooperative, owned by the members."Their success helped to produce the principle that photojournalists could be independent and produce their own work," said Peter Galassi, chief curator of the department of photography at New York's Museum of Modern Art.At mid-century, influential and widely circulated newsmagazines like Life were all-powerful. Magnum protected photographers' copyrights and boost their leverage.Fuzzy Finances"Magnum existed as a way to skip the middleman, not just economically but critically and editorially," said New York photography dealer Howard Greenberg. "They would have much more say in how their pictures would be reproduced."The agency, with offices in New York, London, Tokyo and Paris, attracted top talent over the years. The roster includes Elliott Erwitt, Bruce Davidson, Susan Meiselas, Josef Koudelka and Gilles Peress."Out of the history of Magnum, so much of the greatest work in photojournalism was created," said Greenberg.Though the agency has had an impeccable photojournalistic reputation, the financial picture is fuzzier. Lubell has focused on getting the agency in order.Yet he explains that the company was founded not to be a profit center, but to sustain the members."Magnum is not in business to make a lot of money," Lubell said. "Its goal was to help photographers achieve the visual authorship they seek."So what about the new financial windfall?"I told the photographers, 'We should all have a glass of champagne and get back to work,'" said Lubell, pointing out that the agency was named for the bubbly bottle.