Miscellaneous art exhibition catalog collection, 1813-1953, bulk 1915-1925

Scope and Contents

The collection comprises circa 770 items, dating from 1813-1953, the bulk of which are exhibition catalogs from New York City art galleries for the first two decades of the twentieth century, representing exhibitions of mainly modernist art. Catalogs for exhibitions held in Boston (mainly pre-1900) and a few other cities are also present. Included are several rare catalogs, notably one for the "Eight" held at Macbeth Gallery in 1908. Besides catalogs, the collection also contains exhibition announcements, gallery publications, and other printed material. The collection is especially relevant for the study of early American modernism, and is useful in understanding the role of art galleries, exhibitions, the art market, and the exhibition catalog itself, in American art.

Provenance

The bulk of the collection was donated 1979 by the American Antiquarian Society, who presumably assembled them from various sources. Others were received individually, while many are annotated in the hand of Walt Kuhn and are presumed to have originally been part of his papers in the Archives. In 2005, additional catalogs were integrated, some of which are presumed to have been removed from various collections over the years.

Related Material

Researchers may find duplicate or related items in galleries' records held at the Archives of American Art. Additional or duplicate catalogs may appear in AAA's Catalog of Exhibition Catalogs (1979).

Processing Information

The Archives created this artificial collection of art exhibition catalogs over a number of years, beginning in the late 1970s. A finding aid to the collection was created some time after microfilming and then encoded according to the EAD (Encoded Archival Description) format in 2005 by Christina Lehman. Additional updates to the collection were made in 2011 by Erin Kinhart. Additional updates to the finding aid were made by Stephanie Ashley in 2024.