David Muench donated the David Muench Photography records to Cline Library’s Special Collections and Archives (SCA) in 2021. His archival collection largely consists of photographic materials, including original 4×5″ photographic transparencies (mounted and unmounted); 35mm photographic slides (mostly color); black-and-white negatives, contact sheets, and prints; and regular and large format photographic prints (mostly color), including original framed prints. In addition, the collection contains textual materials such as notebooks, personal and business correspondence, maps, magazine clippings and tear sheets, information on Muench’s publications and exhibitions, and other documentation of David Muench Photography Inc. and Muench’s career as a photographer. Some materials document Muench’s selection process for his own photographs, including his musings and notes about different “portfolios” of images he created over the decades, particularly for his website, davidmuenchphotography.com.
The David Muench Photography records also include born-digital materials such as photographs taken by Muench using a digital camera as well as scanned versions of Muench’s film photographs digitized by the family business over the decades. Other born-digital materials include oral history interviews with David Muench and Ruth Rudner conducted by Cline Library staff in 2022 and 2023. SCA staff have added selected digitized and born-digital items from the David Muench Photography records to the Colorado Plateau Digital Collections for public online access.
The David Muench Photography records complement the Josef Muench Photographs, donated to SCA in 2003 after Josef Muench’s death in 1998. Together, these two archival collections constitute a multi-generational visual record of the Colorado Plateau through all its gradual (or not so gradual) changes. Due to David Muench’s numerous collaborations in the region, including his long-standing relationships with Arizona Highways and the National Park Service, materials in the David Muench Photography records speak to environmental and ecological themes in addition to having inherent historical and artistic value.
Materials from the David Muench Photography records are open for access and use on site in the Miriam Lemont Reading Room, located in Special Collections and Archives on the second floor of Cline Library. Interested researchers should review the finding aid for the collection, available online via Arizona Archives Online, to learn more about accessing materials. More information about the David Muench Photography records is available via SCA’s website. Please contact SCA staff with any additional questions.