Pepperdine Libraries Adds Leigh Wiener and Frederick R. Weisman Museum Collections to Digital Collections

Pepperdine Libraries has announced the addition of two new digital collections to its growing list of online resources. Scholars worldwide can now easily access photos from influential twentieth-century photographer Leigh Wiener and a selection of digitized artworks previously displayed at the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art. 

“The addition of both collections to the Pepperdine Libraries portfolio of digital resources will bolster our ability to support student learning and research,” says Mark Roosa, dean of Pepperdine Libraries.

The Leigh Wiener Digital Collection contains photographs from the exhibition Leigh Wiener: The Artist at Work, which was on view in the Payson Library Exhibit Gallery from January 9, 2020, through August 8, 2021. The photographs seen in the exhibition and in the digital collection offer intimate snapshots of Hollywood legends, Jazz Age greats, United States presidents, and other leading figures in twentieth-century America. The collection uniquely captures what it means to be an artist—from both sides of the camera. Throughout his fifty-year career, Wiener captured iconic images that appeared in hallmark publications including the Los Angeles Times, Life, Time, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated.

Librarians began working with Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art staff several months ago to explore how to share the museum’s holdings with a broader audience. The result is the Highlights from the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art Collection, which brings the museum’s showcases of historical and contemporary art by nationally recognized artists, particularly art of California to a global audience. With a bulk of the Weisman’s collection in storage to make way for rotating exhibits, preserving digital photographs of the artworks gives researchers from across the globe access to artworks that aren’t seen on a daily basis. The digital selection of featured artworks is also the first digital collection for Pepperdine Libraries built with CollectionBuilder, an open-source tool for creating digital collections and exhibit websites. 

To learn more about the collections, visit the Pepperdine Libraries website.