Josephine Powell

Josephine Powell (May 15, 1919 – January 19, 2007) was an American photographer, traveller, and a collector of Anatolian ethnographic objects and textiles.

Education Josephine Powell was born in New York City into a well-to-do family.

Travels First she worked in Tanganyika, and later in Munich, where she purchased two cameras at the PX: a Leica and a Rolleiflex. After, for many years, Josephine Powell was based in Rome, during this time. Initially she regarded these cameras as works of art; after two years she started taking amateur photographs and developed a talent for photography. Her photographs would appear in more than 150 books and scientific publications. Several of her architectural photographs appear in Thames & Hudson's landmark survey Architecture of the Islamic World and Islamic Art, Literature, and Culture.

Powell relocated to Istanbul in 1973.

Shortly before her death in January 2007, much of her Turkish collection of textiles and artifacts was donated to the Vehbi Koç Foundation. Tens of thousands of Powell's photographs and associated field notes were also part of her willed donation to the Koç Foundation, and now are part of Koç University's Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations. Other photographs (about 20,000) of ethnographic interest from her travels from 1951 to 1975 are at Harvard University, which she donated in 2002 to the Fine Arts Library at Harvard.

Josephine Powell died at home in Istanbul on January 19, 2007. She was 87. She is buried in the Feriköy Protestant Cemetery in Istanbul.

Exhibitions 2012: "What Josephine Saw", the opening exhibit, curated by Kimberly Hart, at Koc University’s Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations, Istiklal Caddesi, Istanbul. It included rare video of Ms. Powell in a 2006 interview by the Istanbul-based journalist Andrew Finkel on behalf of the Textile Museum in Washington.

Publications

Writings by Powell H. Böhmer, with J. Powell and S. Atlıhan: Nomads in Anatolia. Encounters with a Vanishing Culture. Ganderkesee, Remhöb, 2008. Transl. of: Nomaden in Anatolien. G. Mandersloot, J. Powell & R. Bolland Firozkohi: Een Afghaans reisjournaal. Rotterdam, Museum voor Land- en Volkenkunde, 1971. No ISBN

Monographs on Powell K. Hart: What Josephine Saw. Twentieth Century Photographic Visions of Rural Anatolia. Istanbul, Koç University Press, 2012. J. Vos: Josephine Powell (1919-2007). Traveller, Photographer, Collector in the Muslim World. Amsterdam, KIT Publishers, 2008. K. Hart: Giving Back the Colours. Josephine Powell Collection. Istanbul, Vehbi Koc Foundation and Sadberk Hanim Museum, 2007. K. Hart: Josephine Powell Collection. Kilim Ornekleri: Examples from Kilims. Istanbul, JP Morgan Chase Bank, Vehbi Koç Foundation and Sadberk Hanim Museum, 2007.