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Cornell Gets Large Donation Of Velvet Underground Material
Cornell University is now home to the largest archive of Velvet Underground material held by an institution.
Author and collector Johan Kugelberg has donated 25 boxes of albums, unreleased recordings, handwritten lyrics, posters, fliers and rare photos to Cornell’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections.
Highlights include an oversized poster promoting The Velvet Underground & Nico, which features Andy Warhol’s iconic banana painting on the cover. It’s believed to be the only existing copy.
The band’s frontman was Lou Reed, who died in 2013. Reed graduated from Syracuse University in 1964.
Photo: John Smierciak, File/AP
Performing at the Lollapalooza music festival, in Chicago, Ill.
Musicology professor Judith Peraino says the material will be used for studying the intersection of pop music, pop art, gender, and sexuality studies, sound and media studies, and performance art.
The collection is being cataloged and will soon be accessible to researchers and the public for free.