NEW ACQUISITION: BRIAN LANKER COLLECTION
Special Collections & University Archives is thrilled to announce the recent acquisition of the Brian Lanker Collection, a large and compelling selection of his photography, interviews, and film work. Brian Lanker (1947-2011) was a Pulitzer- prize winning photojournalist and artist based out of Eugene, Oregon, whose repertoire encompassed a wide range of subjects, from Steve Prefontaine to advertising work for Nike and documentary photography for Life Magazine. He was also an artist, and undertook various projects, including a book about dance as well as a book on combat artists from World War II. Perhaps his most notable project, I Dream A World, contained portraits and interviews of some of the most significant Black women in American history.
Brian Lanker garnered recognition in 1973 with his Pulitzer-prize winning photo-essay on natural childbirth appearing in the Topeka Capital-Journal. In 1974 he moved to Eugene to work for the Register-Guard newspaper, where he was the graphics director until 1982. Throughout his career he photographed many people of note, including Rosa Parks, Ken Kesey, and Sugar Ray Leonard. With an indefatigable work ethic, he undertook his first full-length film project in 1998, “They Drew Fire: Combat Artists of WWII,” a highly acclaimed PBS documentary.
The collection housed at the University of Oregon consists of his advertising and editorial work, his documentary film projects, and his artistic output, and includes significant unpublished interviews with the Black women represented in I Dream A World.
Lanker was beloved amongst his peers, both in Oregon and across the world. He passed in 2011 unexpectedly from pancreatic cancer, and is survived by his wife Lynda and their three children, Dustin, Julie, and Jacki. The University of Oregon is honored to be the repository of his significant archive of work, and we hope to make it available for researchers in the coming 1-2 years.
