Sarah Mundy
Scope and Contents
The records of New York City Grace Borgenicht Gallery date from circa 1953 to 1996 and measure 18.2 linear feet. The records include administrative files, correspondence, financial and legal records, exhibition files, printed material, two scrapbooks, and photographic negatives of artwork. The majority of the collection consists of artists' files.
Administrative files focus on advertising, events, gallery renovation, artists' insurance, and writings about the gallery. Correspondence concerns galleries, artists, works of art, and gallery prints and includes correspondence with the Library of Congress, Hokin Gallery, and Raab Gallery in Berlin. Exhibition files are found for exhibitions of Milton Avery, Paul Burlin, Stuart Davis, and Wolf Kahn, and several artists from Germany, Japan, Korea, Mexico, and Canada, as well as for international art fairs. Artists' files mainly contain correspondence with galleries and patrons regarding the artists and their work, and with artists. Files are found for Milton Avery, Charles Biederman, Ilya Bolotowsky, Martin Chirino, Stuart Davis, Jose De Rivera, Roy Gussow, Philip Grausman, and Wolf Kahn, among many others. Financial and legal records include sales and operations ledgers, artists' contracts, and documents concerning arts organizations. Printed materials consist of exhibition announcements and catalogs. Two scrapbooks include clippings and other printed materials. Also found are photographic negatives of artwork.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Owner Grace Borgenicht Brandt originally lent material for microfilming in 1963. She donated additional papers in 1996.
Separated Materials
The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming (reel D112) including 72 letters from artists Leonard Baskin, Edward Corbett, Sidney Gordin, Wolf Kahn and Elbert Weinberg. They are addressed to gallery director Grace Borgenicht (Grace Borgenicht Brandt), and regard the artists' their work, travels, exhibition plans, and other activities. Also included is a photograph of Brandt and a resume. Loaned materials were returned to the lender and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Related Materials
Also found at the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Grace Borgenicht Brandt conducted by Dorothy Seckler on January 10, 1963.
Funding
Sponsor
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Smithsonian Institution Collections Care and Preservation Fund
Processing Information
The collection was processed to a minimal level and a finding aid prepared by Sarah Mundy in 2015, with funding provided by the Smithsonian Institution Collections Care and Preservation Fund. The Archives of American Art has implemented minimal processing tactics when possible to increase information about and access to more of our collections.
Minimal processing included arrangement to the series, subseries, and folder levels. Generally, items within folders were simply verified with folder titles, but not arranged further. Folders within boxes may not be numbered. The collections was rehoused in archival containers and folders, but not all staples and clips were removed.