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Stephanie L. Ashley
Scope and Contents
The Ferargil Galleries records date from circa 1900-1963 and document the activities of this New York gallery that dealt primarily in American contemporary art from shortly after its 1915 founding by Frederic Newlin Price (1884-1963) to it's closure in 1955. 18.7 linear feet of records include incoming and outgoing correspondence with artists, dealers, schools and colleges, and museums and other art institutions; artist files; estate and legal records including papers relating to the Arthur B. Davies estate; gallery business and financial records; printed material; scrapbooks; scattered personal papers of Price; artwork; and photographs of artists, exhibitions and artwork.
Correspondence is both incoming and outgoing and documents the day-to-day activities of the galleries, primarily from the 1920s to the 1950s. Significant correspondence with, or relating to, many of the artists represented by Ferargil Galleries can be found here including correspondence with Bartlett Arkell, Thomas Hart Benton, Randall Davey, Hunt Diedrich, Ernest Lawson, Agnes Potter Lowrie, Luigi Lucioni, Barse Miller, Maxfield Parrish, John Pike, Paul Sample, Wells M. Sawyer, Theodore van Soelen and many others.
Artist files consist primarily of material compiled about artists represented by Ferargil Galleries, including biographical information, press releases for exhibitions, and scattered price lists and information about individual works of art.
Estate and legal records include estate inventories for the estates of Lizzie P. Bliss, Arthur B. Davies, and Dan Fellows Platt, and document several legal actions involving Ferargil Galleries. Of particular significance are the records documenting Price's involvement with the estate of Arthur B. Davies, including correspondence with Davies's wife, Virginia, and sales and inventory records for Davies's artwork at Ferargil Galleries and elsewhere.
Business and financial records date primarily from the 1920s and document inventories, sales, insurance, shipping, and taxes for the bulk of the gallery's operating years.
Printed material contains Ferargail Galleries exhibition catalogs and announcements from 1918 to the 1950s in addition to scattered printed material from other galleries and one folder relating to Arthur B. Davies.
Scrapbooks provide a more comprehensive and detailed history of the gallery's exhibitions, through multiple news clippings of press coverage, in addition to catalogs, announcements, and photographs. Of particular note is a circa 1908 photograph of Arthur B. Davies taken by Gertrude Kasëbier.
Scattered personal records of Frederic Newlin Price document Price's work with the Benjamin West Society at Swarthmore College and further reveal Price's interests through an inventory of his art collection and drafts and copies of his writings on artists such as Arthur B. Davies, and on changing trends and tastes in the art world.
A small series of artwork includes 6 pencil sketches, a print, 3 plans, and an Arthur B. Davies exhibition catalog mock-up with pencil sketches, all by unidentified artists.
Gallery photograph files include some photos of artists such as Emil Carlsen, Leon Dabo, Lloyd Parsons, Natalie Van Vleck and Lois Williams, in addition to 13 folders of photos relating to collections and exhibitions, and photographs of artwork.
Language
English
Provenance
In 1958, Frederic Newlin Price donated circa 70 letters to the Archives of American Art and loaned material for microfilming on reels D321-D322. The remaining records were donated anonymously in 1968.
Separated Material
The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming (reels D321-D322, and N68-14-N68-15) including personal and business correspondence with artists and other records. Lent materials were returned to the lender and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Funding
Sponsor
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art
Processing Information
Portions of the collection were microfilmed as separate accessions on reels D42, 777-791, 3470 and 2840; these reels are no longer in circulation. All accessions were merged and minimally processed by Stephanie Ashley in 2011 with funding provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.