Robert Schoelkopf Gallery records, 1851-1991, bulk 1962-1991

This series comprises records relating to the day-to-day administration of the Robert Schoelkopf Gallery. It provides extensive coverage of the gallery's relationships with a wide variety of clients including gallery owners, art dealers, museums, and art institutions primarily nationwide but also abroad. The series records activities such as appraisals; requests for information from clients and responses to their inquiries; correspondence to and from clients regarding works of art to be taken on approval or purchased; consignment of works of art; and loan arrangements.

The largest group of files in the series contains general correspondence that provides a broad overview of business activities. These files contain the bulk of the letters offering works of art to clients and responding to requests for information, loan, or purchase. The early correspondence files in particular document how Schoelkopf actively targeted particular collectors and institutions in his efforts to launch the gallery as a going concern. The gallery maintained a group of files entitled "Correspondence-Offerings" that contained letters offering works of art to clients. However, many such letters were also contained in files labeled simply "Correspondence," and to avoid redundancy, these two sets of files were combined during processing. The first file of general correspondence contains the lease for the fourth-floor gallery space at 825 Madison Avenue.

More detailed documentation of particular aspects of the gallery's administration can also be found in this series. Files recording appraisals contain estimates of value for works of art that Robert Schoelkopf provided to individuals for insurance purposes. Two additional files document large-scale appraisals that Schoelkopf conducted for the Art Dealers Association of America, including an appraisal of approximately two hundred works by Morgan Russell given by Henry M. Reed to the Whitney Museum of American Art.

The gallery maintained a group of files recording works of art sent out on approval and consignment. They include incoming letters requesting loans from the gallery and replies in the form of memoranda listing works of art sent out, the terms of the loan agreement, or price of the works if purchased. During the 1970s the gallery maintained separate files for consignment of photography, and these records can be found at the end of the group. Additional records relating to photography consignment can also be found in the other approval and consignment files.

Three files in this series document the gallery's involvement with the administration of client estates. Records relating to the estate of Arie K. Fluiter contain several pieces of correspondence with Georgia O'Keeffe discussing whether a painting owned by the Fluiter estate, Red Barn, was an early work of hers.

This series also contains a group of files relating to individual galleries, art dealers, and clients that the gallery apparently retained for a short time. Additional records relating to these clients may be found elsewhere in the series. Arrangement of material within folders in this series is complicated by the fact that dates of final actions taken on items are often hand-written on memoranda and are later than the type-written date of the item. Generally the type-written date was taken as the primary date as this method tended to retain the original order of the material.