Richard Allen was a movie enthusiast since his youth and began collecting movie posters as a teenager in the 1930s. At a Judith Crist Film week-end around 1970, he learned that half of all films made before 1950 were lost. Allen wondered if this was also true for the movie posters that promoted them. This was the start of a life long passion to find old posters and restore them so they can be enjoyed by generations to come. In 1988, Allen coauthored with Stephen Rebello REEL ART, GREAT POSTERS FROM THE SILVER SCREEN, which was published by Abbeville Press. REEL ART is now in its third printing and continues to be the definitive book on the subject of vintage movie posters. Several exhibitions of Allen’s posters have been held at various venues, most notably one in mid-town New York under the auspices of The American Museum of the Moving Image.
Allen collected thousands of rare posters until he could no longer buy and restore more posters without selling the ones he already owned. At that point, Allen changed the focus of his efforts and began to professionally photograph his collection with high quality images so the international travel, extensive time and massive effort in accumulating the collection would not be lost. Allen continued this activity until his death in 2018 at the age of 97.
Bruce Hershenson has been a poster dealer and collector for decades (having auctioned over $30 million of vintage movie posters since 1990). Like Allen, he recognized the value of preserving the images of these artifacts so they could be studied and enjoyed by future generations. Hershenson proceeded to create his archive, going to great lengths to have as many posters photographed as possible. Just as Allen was doing separately, Hershenson would regularly have the poster professionally restored prior to photography, to ensure the absolute highest quality image.
Bruce is an expert on the history of movie posters, having edited some 43 books on that topic. He has published two multi-volume series entitled The Illustrated History of Movies Through Posters and Vintage Hollywood Posters. He collaborated on some of these volumes with Richard Allen. Bruce is also the editor of several stand alone books, including Best Pictures Movie Posters , Texas at the Movies, and Who Goes There? 1950’s Horror & Sci Fi Movie Posters and Lobby Cards.
In 1997, Hershenson and Allen realized they were duplicating each other’s efforts and joined forces. They combined their holdings into a single archive and since that date have added over 10,000 newly acquired images to the combined archive. They envision this enlarged record as a vehicle by which our motion picture heritage can forever be studied by scholars, professionals, connoisseurs, and myriad other experts in film and media, art and graphic design, communications, popular culture, social history, political science, etc.
Allen learned from Professor Hatch, his 7th grade history teacher, that “history is perhaps our best window to the future.” We anticipate that the Hershenson-Allen Archive will contribute to that end.