ChromaDiverse Secures Ownership to Marbeth Photographic Collection

The heirs of Margaret “Marbeth” Elizabeth Schnare have granted ChromaDiverse, Inc. ownership of The Marbeth Photographic Collection. Marbeth, over her career, photographed Dance Theatre of Harlem, The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Storm King Arts Center, Wave Hill, and singers of The New York Metropolitan Opera Company and New York City Opera.

The Marbeth Photographic Collection is important in documenting the historical significance and careers of performers in opera, ballet, and other cultural organizations. Marbeth’s photography reveals the grittiness of backstage life, to the sharp focused glossiness of performance. With a keen eye, she captured the artist forever in one perfect magical moment in time. Judy Tyrus and Paul Novosel, authors of Dance Theatre of Harlem, A History, A Movement, A Celebration posit that The Marbeth Photographic Collection is beyond compare and is a valuable piece of the world’s cultural treasure.

ChromaDiverse, Inc. (“ChromaDiverse”) is a 501(c)(3) performing arts service organization committed to preserving cultural diversity by helping performing arts organizations protect, preserve, access, and leverage their historical legacies. COO Eric Waldman stated, “We plan to put the Marbeth Photographic Collection through a careful process that includes archive quality digitization, tagging critical metadata and attributes, onboarding to the ChromaDiverse Digital Vault, and building a website that will help make the collection discoverable. This process prevents cultural erasure and environmental degradation.”

The photographic collection was originally housed in the Marbeth residence. Since her passing in 2006, some of the collection has been stored at Dance Theatre of Harlem and at several other locations. ChromaDiverse will oversee the process of onboarding the materials to the ChromaDiverse Digital Vault for preservation and access.

To learn more about ChromaDiverse, visit: www.chromadiverse.org.