Mary Evans, Founder of Mary Evans Picture Library, has died.
An announcement was made on the Mary Evans homepage this morning.
‘Mary Evans 1936-2010
It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Mary Evans. Along with her husband Hilary, Mary founded the Library in 1964.
By this time Mary and Hilary were already avid collectors of old books, pictures and ephemera covering a wide range of subjects. While showing off their collection to a friend one day, it was suggested that they might turn their hobby into a business, and so the Mary Evans Picture Library was born.’
Read the full announcement on The Mary Evans website.
Alan Smith from Topfoto sent us his reflection of Mary’s contribution to the picture industry:
“A major thing Mary did in 1975 with Hilary was to share their knowledge with us all and to publish An International Guide to Picture Sources, the first of the many editions of The Picture Researchers Handbook. This helped picture libraries and publishers and researchers throughout the world, perhaps the first example of the spirit of cooperation which is now common since he arrival of Bapla and Cepic.”
Martin Humphries: I was very saddened to hear of Mary’s death yesterday. She and Hilary greatly helped Ronald when he set up the Ronald Grant Archive with invaluable information advice and support and continued to do so throughout the rest of her life until the Alzheimers took over. The Picture Researchers Handbook was an invaluable tool to us all. She will be much missed.