The name of Mary Evans, who has died aged 74, will be familiar to many who have peered at the captions accompanying historical images in newspapers, magazines and books. The Mary Evans Picture Library has supplied photographs, illustrations and engravings to publications for more than 40 years. Mary brought to the company a passion for collecting, an exceptional eye for an image and a shrewd business mind.
That the library survives in such rude health, when so many small picture libraries have fallen by the wayside or been taken over by corporations, is a testament to Mary and the values she instilled in those she employed. She was determined that the library should remain an independent, family-owned business and an employer of local people. That it also became recognised worldwide as one of the leading sources of historical imagery was the icing on the cake.
She was born Mary Lander in London, the youngest of four sisters. The family lived in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, before moving to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) when she was seven. It was in Africa that she developed her lifelong interests in music and art (she was an accomplished pianist and painter of watercolours), and horse-riding and dogs. When she was 14, her parents announced they were returning home, so Mary took a job in a bank to pay the cost of repatriating her canine companion.
The education begun at high school in Salisbury (now Harare) was continued back in Berkhamsted. In her late teens, Mary met Hilary Evans, an advertising copywriter who shared her love of art. They married in 1956 and became avid collectors of old books and pictures, visiting book and ephemera fairs across Europe. A friend admired their growing collection and suggested that they turn their hobby into a business. The Mary Evans Picture Library was born in 1964; the first invoice – three guineas, for a picture used in a BBC documentary – still graces a wall in the library.
Quickly outgrowing their first house, Mary and Hilary moved into a Victorian property on the edge of Blackheath, south London, where they converted the basement into what would become the library's first formal home. By 1968, the voluntary efforts of friends and family had been overwhelmed by the demand for pictures and so a full staff was employed. There were further moves in the following decades, with the library eventually settling into its current home, in All Saints' parish hall, Blackheath.
In the library's early days, the work consisted of sending out "blue cards" to which pictures had been glued. Usually these were copies created with a photo-mechanic transfer machine, but tight deadlines often meant that original pictures had to be sent out. Cataloguing and filing images for easy retrieval was extremely time-consuming. Eventually, copy prints were replaced by photographic transparencies, which would themselves be rendered obsolete by the advent of digital technology. Today the library has a staff of 14 and the Mary Evans website holds half a million images.
Mary was involved in all manner of local community initiatives. In recent years she lamented the demise of family-owned businesses, replaced by coffee shops and estate agents. "I used to be on first-name terms with every shop owner in the village," she would say. "I still haven't met Mr Starbuck."
Her picture collection provided Mary with inspiration for a string of short stories, mainly romantic adventures, the most successful of which, Spaghetti à la Christophe, was widely syndicated after being published in Honey magazine. She and Hilary collaborated on several books, each one illustrated with pictures they had acquired. Among these were The Party That Lasted 100 Days: The Late Victorian Season (1976) and The Man Who Drew the Drunkard's Daughter: The Life and Art of George Cruikshank (1978). They also compiled the Picture Researchers' Handbook (now in its seventh edition), which has become the definitive guide to global image sources.
In 2003 she achieved a lifelong ambition by acquiring the famous Thomas Fall collection of historical dog pictures, an addition that has proved immensely popular with publishers, especially in the US. Images from her unmatched collection of children's books now form a staple of the library's stock.
Mary was instrumental in the foundation, in 1975, of the British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies, from which she received a lifetime achievement award in 2007. She was also involved in setting up the Picture Research Association.
Mary was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease four years ago. Even when her short-term memory failed, she remained full of anecdotes about the early years of the library and the colourful cast of characters that passed through its doors.
She is survived by Hilary, their daughter Valentine and three grandchildren.
• Caroline Mary Evans, picture librarian and writer, born 5 May 1936; died 29 June 2010