The University of Massachusetts Amherst
Robert S. Cox Special Collections & University Archives Research Center
CredoResearch digital collections in Credo

Denny, Walter A.

(Not fully processed)

Thin Veneer: The People of Bosnia and Their Disappearing Cultural Heritage

1953-1996
2 boxes 0.5 linear feet
Depiction of Bosnian baker at his shop, ca.1955
Bosnian baker at his shop, ca.1955

UMass Amherst faculty members Walter Denny (Art History) and Joel M. Halpern (Anthropology) collaborated in 1997 on an exhibition in the University Gallery exploring Bosnian multiculturalism prior the Yugoslav civil war. Denny, a specialist in Islamic art, and Halpern, an ethnographer whose research in the Balkans began in the early 1950s, assembled dozens of images from eight photographers depicting Bosnia from the nineteenth century to the start of the civil war, illustrating both the past history of the region and then-current attempts to erase that history in the name of cultural purity. The final part of the exhibition included a set of prints first exhibited in Sarajevo in 1992 comprising creative reactions to the war by Bosnian artists.

This small collection consists of 38 matted prints, 20×24″, that were part of the Thin Veneer exhibition in April through June 1997. All were taken by Halpern during field work in Bosnia betwee 1953 and 1996.

Gift of Betty Siersma, Jan. 2008

Subjects

Bosnia--Photographs

Contributors

Halpern, Joel M. (Joel Martin), 1929-

Types of material

Photgraphs