Anna Rimel
Scope and Contents
The Art Foundry and Art Foundry Editions records measure 25.7 linear feet and 0.891 GB and date from circa 1975 to circa 2007. Records include administrative files; correspondence with artists, collectors, dealers, galleries, and others; eight gallery appointment books and fourteen notebooks; exhibition files; extensive artists' files; financial and legal materials; sculpture production and inventory files; and photographic and digital materials.
Administrative records document the daily operations of the Art Foundry and AFE. Correspondence is with artists, galleries, art collectors and dealers, patrons, and others.
The appointment books and notebooks document daily operations within the Foundry administrative offices, including phone messages and daily appointments, and also include notes and conversations regarding various artists' ongoing sculptural plans and projects. Entries have been made by Dwight Hackett, artists, and other staff members.
The bulk of the collection is comprised of artists' files representing over 132 artists, which may include scattered correspondence and notes; scattered exhibition materials; financial materials; photographic materials; digital materials; and sketches and plans for various sculptural productions and projects. Artists include Terry Allen, Larry Bell, Lynda Benglis, Judy Chicago, Lesley Dill, Una Hanbury, Luis Jimenez, Allan Houser, Maya Lin, Andrew Lord, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Gabriel Orozco, Tom Otterness, Michael Rees, Fritz Scholder, Peter Shelton, Kiki Smith, Valeska Soares, and Richard Tuttle, among many others. Seven CD-Rs contain material related to artists Terry Allen, Charles Arnoldi, Lesley Dill, and Michael Rees.
Financial and legal materials include invoices and financial statements, consignment agreements, and miscellaneous legal documents.
Sculpture production and inventory files document casting guidelines and costs incurred; casting logs and records; sculpture production records for various artists; and inventory cards and photographs and digital documentation for various projects and works.
The collection contains hundreds of snapshots and Polaroids that depict the collaborative atmosphere Hackett was able to create at Art Foundry. There are also slides, negatives and nine photograph albums.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
The Art Foundry and Art Foundry Editions records were donated by Dwight Hackett in 2014.
Funding
Sponsor
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Smithsonian Institution Collections Care and Preservation Fund.
Processing Information
Multiple accessions were merged and archivally processed, and a finding aid prepared by Anna Rimel in 2016 with funding provided by the Smithsonian Institution's Collections Care and Preservation Fund. The Archives of American Art has implemented accelerated processing when possible to increase information about and access to more of our collections. For this collection, accelerated processing included arrangement to the series, subseries and folder levels, adhering to the creator's original arrangement as much as possible. Generally, folder contents were simply verified with the original folder titles, but items within folders were not arranged further. All materials were rehoused in archival folders and boxes for long-term stability, but staples and other fasteners have not all been removed. Born-digital materials were processed by Kirsi Ritosalmi-Kisner in 2019 with funding provided by Smithsonian Collection Care and Preservation Fund.