It's a long shot, but I'd really like to hear from anyone with photographs of giant pandas from 1937 to 1972, i.e. Su-Lin (Brookfield Zoo, Chicago, 1937-8) to Chi-Chi (London Zoo, 1958-1972). During this period, there were other pandas at Brookfield, the Bronx, London, St Louis, Moscow and at several zoos across China. I am writing a book about the history of the giant panda (see my blog) and would like to include photos of some of these pandas (with permission obviously). Thanks Henry
Desmond Morris' 1966 classic book, Men and Pandas, is a must-source for you and it contains photos of most or all zoo pandas up until that time. I think Morris even wrote another book on the relationship between men and pandas a few years later. I don't know the title and don't have a copy myself but I saw it in the ZSL Library some years ago.
Thanks Baldur. I suppose what I meant is I am after photographs to which people own the copyright (i.e. their own), which they would be prepared to let me reproduce in my book. There are lots of photographs of these famous pandas - like those that appear in Morris and Morris (1966) and their revised The Giant Panda (1981) - but I am trying to see these pandas through the amateur photographs of regular zoo visitors (rather than through the lens of a professional photographer).
I think you'll be hard put to find people still around now who actually photo'd any of those Pandas, except perhaps ChiChi. Though of course they might have inherited photos from a previous generation. As I'm sure you know there are also many postcards of these 'old zoo' pandas both in USA and London, but again this is probably not what you're looking for.
