Scope and Content of Collection

The collection comprises approximately 375 black-and-white and color photographic prints; 7,000 negatives; 150 contact sheets; several multimedia collages using McMillan's photographs; advertisement posters and postcards related to exhibitions by McMillan and other Los Angeles artists; two of McMillan's photo-sculptures; 90 exhibition catalogues designed by McMillan and featuring his photographs; a United States flag used by McMillan in several photography projects; two paper bag photo-sculptures; and papers related to McMillan's career as a photographer and designer. The art world documented in McMillan's photographs features several projects with Ed Ruscha, often posing with his family or in the process of creating art. Other artists and gallerists represented in the images include Larry Bell; Billy Al Bengston; Ed Bereal; Natalie Bieser; Paul Brach and Miriam Schapiro; Judy Chicago; Ronald Davis; Fred Eversley; Joe Goode; Robert Graham; Maren Hassinger; George Herms; Walter Hopps; Robert Irwin; Hoon Kwak; Ron Miyashiro; Clark Murray; Rolf Nelson; Ken Price; Ed Ruscha; Paul Sarkisian; Barbara T. Smith; James Turrell; Diana Vitale; Doug Wheeler; Charles E. White III; Nicholas Wilder; Mason Williams; and Maurice Yanez. In addition to the original photographic materials, the collection contains 90 art books and catalogues McMillan designed and illustrated with his photographs, including for exhibitions at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery at Barnsdall Park; the Armory Center for the Arts; ARCO Center for the Visual Arts; the Newport Harbor Art Museum; Baxter Art Gallery at California Institute of Technology, and other Los Angeles area museums and galleries. The collection also includes two of McMillan's paper bag sculptures, significant to the history of the photo-sculpture movement for having been exhibited with other McMillan items in the seminal 1970 exhibition Photography into Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art.

Arrangement

The collection is arranged in three series:
Series I. Photographs, 1957-2012 (bulk 1960-1976);
Series II. Other artworks, 1959-1968;
Series III. Papers and ephemera, 1960-2014.

Material was originally grouped together in envelopes by McMillan and labeled by subject or project name, in some cases with film format as a secondary category, and these original groupings have been maintained and arranged in alphabetical order by project title or surnames for individuals. Projects with multiple individual artists are arranged alphabetically by the surname of the first-listed subject.