by Pat Whatley
The family of Michael Peto recently visiting Dundee for a family re-union, came to the University to view the Peto collection for the first time since it was gifted to the University in the early '70s. The collection, one of the University's many teaching and research collections, is situated in the Tower building and has undergone substantial sorting, indexing and re-housing to prevent damage and decay of the photographic media in the ensuing years.
Michael Fodor, who is a graduate of the University, and his family were delighted to see the progress that has been made in the management of the collection, which has also included the digitisation of over 20,000 of the 128,000 photographs. The family was also able to identify early family photographs within the collection. The collection has recently received extensive media coverage due to the presence of formerly unseen photographs of the Beatles. The family were fully supportive of the current auctioning of a Beatles print, produced from an original negative, for the campaign to raise funds for the flagship Institute for Cardiovascular Research (TICR). It is particularly appropriate as Michael Peto died on Christmas day 1970 following a heart attack.
The collection is diverse in nature and has a range of subjects including world personalities of politics and the arts, the Royal Ballet backstage, India, Korea and other countries photographed during an overseas assignment with the Save the Children Fund. He also photographed many ordinary people, in whom he strove to capture 'the basic serenity of human form'. For more information on the collection please contact the University Archivist, Patricia Whatley on 345587.
Image Fodor 06 - Michael Fodor, a graduate of the University and who donated the Peto Collection to the University, as a young boy with his step-mother, Ilona and her sister.
Image Fodor 07- Michael Peto at a trade fair in Budapest c1936, with his future wife, Ilona, who was a professional embroiderer.