Archives Directory for the History of Collecting in America
Archives related to: Resor, Helen Lansdowne, 1886-1964
| title | Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Papers, 1927-1984 | repository | The Museum of Modern Art |
| description | The Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Papers are composed of files kept during Barr's tenure at the Museum of Modern Art, including personal and professional correspondence with museum officials, curators, writers, historians, critics, art associations, foundations, magazines, artists, and collectors such as John Canaday, Stanton Catlin, Camilla Gray, René d'Harnoncourt, John Hightower, Roland Penrose, and James Thrall Soby. Office files cover staff, exhibitions, publications and collections of MoMA, and abstract art, cubism and futurism (some related to Barr's book Cubism and Abstract Art, 1936.) There are files present on the Foundation for Arts, Religion and Culture (ARC), Barr's travels, lectures, speeches, exhibitions, publications, political controversies, and artists and collections in the U.S.S.R.; writings, including travel notebooks regarding his trip to Russia, 1959, visits with Pablo Picasso, 1956, and Henri Matisse, 1952; exhibition catalogs, clippings and printed material; and photographs. Also included are materials collected by Margaret Scolari Barr, including Alfred's obituaries, A Memorial Tribute, 1981, an invitation and guest list to the memorial service, and condolence letters; and photocopies of autograph letters, ca. 1920s-1970s, from the Barr collection sold to Arthur A. Cohen in 1975. Biographical Note Alfred H. Barr, Jr. spent nearly his entire professional career with The Museum of Modern Art; following is brief chronology of his decades-long association with the Museum. Location MoMA Museum Archives |
| extent | 95 linear ft. (55 boxes) |
| formats | Administrative Records Correspondence Ephemera Writings Subject Files |
| access | The records are open for research and contain few restricted materials. Contact museum archivist for an appointment. |
| record link | http://moma.org/research/archives/EAD/Barrf.html |
| record source | https://library.nyarc.org/permalink/01NYA_INST/ai54l4/alma991009761919707141 |
| finding aid | Finding aids in the repository. |
| acquisition information | Transferred from Barr's office, gifts of Margaret S. Barr, 1975-1980, and gift of Andrew W. Barr, 1986. Forms part of: Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.). Archives. Records. |
| updated | 03/16/2023 10:30:00 |
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| title | Department of Circulating Exhibitions Records, 1931-1990 | repository | The Museum of Modern Art |
| description | The processed papers of the the Department of Circulating Exhibitions include 147 linear feet of correspondence, research notes, published materials, lists, large-format scrapbook albums, photograph albums, photographs, photographic panels, record album, display book, and ephemera pertaining to departmental administration and the organization and circulation of exhibitions. 73 linear feet of records are stored in 20 10.25x12.5x15.5" storage boxes; 102 5" document boxes; 17 2.5" document boxes; 1 3x5x12" and 2 4.5x6x8" index card boxes. The remaining 74 linear feet include 49 16x13x4" large-format albums containing press clippings, photographs, promotional and other materials pertaining to individual exhibitions circulated by the department; 1 10x12" photograph album; 57 8.5x11" photograph albums; 2 bundles (32x43.5"; 20x25") of photographic panels; 1 12" acetate record album; and 1 21x23.5x5" particle-board display book. During processing, we discovered records of exhibitions that traveled but that were not listed in the Museum's files; working folders for exhibitions that had been proposed but were ultimately cancelled; exhibitions listed in Museum records for which no documentary material exists; records for international circulating exhibitions containing foreign artwork that were circulated nationally and to Canada, or that were transferred from the Department of Circulating Exhibitions for international circulation; and Educational Program projects that were transferred to the department for circulation. The inclusive dates for these records is 1931 through 1969. This predates the official establishment of the Department in 1933 and ends with the reorganization of the Department of Circulating Exhibitions into the Exhibition Program in 1969. The Department of Circulating Exhibitions collaborated with all curatorial departments within the Museum in order to insure a diverse program of exhibitions covering a wide range of media - painting, sculpture, prints, photography, graphic and industrial design and architecture. As a result, the records include correspondence from staff important to the early history of The Museum of Modern Art, including Alfred H. Barr, Jr., René d'Harnoncourt, Dorothy C. Miller, James Johnson Sweeney, James Thrall Soby and Monroe S. Wheeler, among others. Also included are the administrative records of the first director of the department, Elodie Courter. These papers reveal the Museum's role as a promulgator of modern art in this country, both through its innovative program of circulating exhibitions to other institutions, as well as its role in educating several generations of art students, as well as the general public, through its collaborations with the Museum's Educational Program. They also reflect the Museum's support of U.S. interests abroad during and immediately following World War II. For example, the Department of Circulating Exhibitions prepared numerous exhibitions for the United States Office of War Information for European tour during the 1940s, including the survey exhibitions America Builds and Modern American Architecture Additionally, during this period, more than two dozen exhibitions of photographs and government war posters were prepared for national tour that focused on such timely issues as wartime housing, internment of Japanese-Americans and the cultural impact of the war. Similarly, the department was instrumental in establishing a program of cultural exchange with Latin America through its collaboration with the Office of the Coordinator for Inter-American Affairs in Washington, D.C., for which it organized exhibitions of Latin American art for circulation in this country as well as exhibitions of American art and architecture for tour in Latin America. This later served as the model for the Museum's International Program which began in 1953. These papers are also an important source of general art historical information. For instance, the pioneering Museum of Modern Art exhibition Cubism and Abstract Art, which was held at the Museum in Spring 1936, was circulated nationally in 1936-37; the files contain, for example, autographed letters to Alfred H. Barr, Jr. from Alexander Calder, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Marcel Duchamp, Alberto Giacometti, Jacques Lipchitz and Piet Mondrian, as well as other artists whose work was included in the exhibition. Other original documentation includes lecture notes by the art critic Meyer Schapiro, which were prepared for the retrospective exhibition Picasso: Forty Years of His Art, circulated in the early 1940s; and László Moholy-Nagy's panel sketches for the 1942 exhibition How to Make a Photogram. Historical Note From the beginning, the Museum of Modern Art's trustees intended that the Museum should be more than a repository or an exhibition gallery for modern art and that it should promote an understanding of the most vital art being produced in the time to the widest possible range of individuals and institutions. In 1931, two years after it was founded, the Museum organized its first exhibition of modern architecture and what was to become its first traveling exhibition, The International Exhibition of Modern Architecture. The trustees assumed responsibility for half of the cost of the show, on the condition that the balance could be raised among other participating institutions. An illustrated pamphlet outlining the plan and the importance of the exhibition was sent to museums throughout the country and eleven institutions subscribed. During 1931 the Museum had assembled sixty color reproductions with commentary by Museum director Alfred H. Barr, Jr. for a group of New York secondary schools. This exhibition, A Brief Survey of Modern Painting, was so well received during the first year of the tour which began in October 1932 that a duplicate show was prepared, which traveled for nine years. These two exhibitions prepared the way for the Department of Circulating Exhibitions, officially established in 1933, which supplied exhibitions of modern art to other institutions. Elodie Courter, a member of the Museum staff, became Secretary of Circulating Exhibitions in November 1935 and played an active role in the development of that department. She was named director in 1939, a position she held until 1947. During that period, the number and variety of the Museum's traveling exhibitions increased, until the roster of circulating exhibitions encompassed all the fields included in the Museum itself: industrial design, the graphic arts, theater arts, photography, and film, in addition to painting, sculpture, and architecture. Among the most widely-seen exhibitions circulated by the department in its first five years were Machine Art, 1934-38; Paintings, Watercolors and Drawings by van Gogh, 1936; and Portrait of the Artist's Mother" by James Abbott McNeill Whistler, 1933-34. In addition, the department adapted and circulated during its first decade Museum exhibitions such as American Folk Art, 1932-33; Cubism and Abstract Art, 1936-37; Fantastic Art, Dada and Surrealism, 1937; Photography: 1839-1937, 1937-38; Six Modern Sculptors, 1936-38; and, in the 1940s, Ancestral Sources of Modern Painting, 1941-46; Latin American Contemporary Art, 1942-43; Modern Architecture for the Modern School, 1942-46; and Picasso: Forty Years of His Art, 1940-43. In 1939 a grant was obtained from the Rockefeller Foundation to enable the Museum to expand its program of exhibitions specially prepared for smaller educational institutions. During the next four years, a large number of inexpensive exhibitions, including original works as well as color reproductions, was assembled and offered at nominal fees to the exhibitors. High-quality color reproductions enabled the Museum to introduce to the public works that would otherwise have been too costly to pack and ship or perhaps impossible to obtain on loan; exhibitions such as these proved ideal for educational institutions. Among the most widely-circulated of these exhibitions were A Brief Survey of Modern Painting, 1931-39; How Modern Artists Paint People, 1943-48; Paintings and Drawings by Vincent van Gogh, 1935-42; and What Is Modern Painting?, 1944-54. When, in 1943, the Rockefeller Foundation grant was exhausted, the Department of Circulating Exhibitions and the Museum's Educational Program, under the direction of Victor d'Amico, combined facilities to provide further material for use in secondary and elementary schools. This program was later modified to include multiple exhibitions consisting of lightweight panels on which color reproductions, photographs or diagrams were mounted; teaching portfolios, which were designed for classroom use and offered to educational institutions at a special reduction; and slide talks, which included both color and black-and-white slides as well as an accompanying text. These materials also played an important part in the continuation of the Museum's exhibitions program during World War II, when the circulation of large-scale exhibitions was necessarily curtailed. Many of the exhibitions that were prepared for circulation during the war period focused on topics that were an adjunct to the war itself, for example, Camouflage for Civilian Defense, 1942-44; Road to Victory, prepared in multiple editions for circulation in 1943-44; The Arts in Therapy, 1943-46; War Posters Today, 1942-44; "Yank" Illustrates the War, 1943-44; and the large-scale exhibition Airways to Peace, which was circulated in 1943-44. Exhibitions were also prepared in cooperation with the Office of War Information (OWI) for purchase and circulation abroad. In 1952, a grant from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund made possible a five-year project, the International Circulating Exhibitions Program, expanding the scope of the Museum's traveling exhibitions to include Europe and Latin America. Porter A. McCray, then director of the Department of Circulating Exhibitions, was appointed director of the newly formed International Program. Twenty-two of the first twenty-five exhibitions prepared under this project were circulated outside the United States; the remaining three, devoted to arts of other countries, circulated in the United States. In 1969, the administration of exhibitions presented in New York and of those circulated by the Department of Circulating Exhibitions were consolidated into one department, the Exhibition Program. This new department was directed by Wilder Green. From 1972 to 1996 Richard Palmer was director of the Museum's Department of Exhibition Program. |
| extent | 147 linear feet |
| formats | Correspondence Photographs Scrapbooks Printed Materials Research Files |
| access | The records are open for research and contain no restricted materials. |
| record link | http://www.moma.org/research/archives/EAD/CEf.html |
| record source | https://library.nyarc.org/permalink/01NYA_INST/ai54l4/alma991009769179707141 |
| finding aid | In the repository and on the repository's web site |
| updated | 11/29/2022 15:49:50 |
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| title | James Thrall Soby Papers, ca. 1930-1970, bulk ca. 1930-1960. | repository | The Museum of Modern Art |
| description | Correspondence, general files, research notes, articles, photographs and negatives, manuscripts, clippings, ephemera, and family papers. Arrangement Arranged in 8 series: I. Subject Interest Material: Artists and Movements 1930s-1960s. II. Writings. IIA. Museum. IIB. Non-Museum. III. Museum Matters, 1940s-1970s. IV. JTS collection: ca. 1930-1979. V. Personal/Family. VI. Confidential Material. VII. Giorgio de Chirico. VIII. Addenda; Subject material arranged alphabetically. Related collections Related papers are housed in other Departments of the Museum. Biographical/historical note Author, art critic, editor, collector, patron, connoisseur, and MoMA director and trustee. |
| extent | 24 linear ft., 3 v. |
| formats | Correspondence Notes Ephemera Transcript Manuscript |
| access | The records are open for research and contain few restricted materials. |
| record link | http://www.moma.org/research/archives/EAD/Sobyf.html |
| record source | https://library.nyarc.org/permalink/01NYA_INST/ai54l4/alma991003535889707141 |
| finding aid | online and in respository |
| acquisition information | Received from the Estate of James Thrall Soby, 1980, and as a gift from Mr. and Mrs. Arthur A. Cohen, 1981. |
| updated | 11/29/2022 15:49:50 |
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| title | Collectors Records, 1929-1987 | repository | The Museum of Modern Art |
| description | The processed Collectors Records are contained in ten 5" document boxes (4 linear feet) and include correspondence; lists of private collections; notes about collections (frequently in Barr's handwriting); press clippings; photographs; and exhibition announcements, invitations, and brochures. The records date from 1929 through 1987; the majority of the material dates from the 1950s and 60s. The bulk of the Collectors Records consists of correspondence between Museum staff and collectors. The principle staff correspondent is Barr, but the Record Group also includes material from Dorothy C. Miller (Curator, 1943-1967; Senior Curator, 1968-1969), and Betsy Jones (Executive Secretary 1952-1962; Executive Secretary and Assistant Curator, 1963-1966; Associate Curator and Executive Secretary of Collections, 1967-1969). Correspondence with the collectors participating in the Visits to Private Collections series and lists of the collections visited are also included. Historical Note During his tenure as Director of Museum Collections, Alfred H. Barr, Jr., and his staff maintained files on private collectors and collections (ca. 1947 through ca. 1967). This documentation reflects the Museum's interest in private collections from which it could potentially borrow, purchase, or receive gifts or bequests to enhance the Museum's collection. A Committee on the Museum Collections, established by the Board of Trustees in May 1944, consisted of approximately ten members, all of whom were collectors and/or Museum staff members. The founding members of the Committee were: Alfred H. Barr, Jr., William A. M. Burden, Stephen C. Clark, A. Conger Goodyear, Mrs. Simon Guggenheim, Bartlett H. Hayes, Jr., Mrs. Sam A. Lewisohn, Miss Agnes Rindge, James Thrall Soby (Chairman), James Johnson Sweeney (Vice Chairman), Edward M. M. Warburg, and Mrs. George Henry Warren, Jr. The Committee, which replaced the Acquisitions Committee, advised the Board of Trustees on which works to acquire, by gift or purchase, for the Museum's collection. Several members gave works of their own and/or financial contributions for purchases. Documentation on the collections of nearly all of the Committee Members can be found in this Record Group. An annual series, Visits to Private Collections, was organized by the Department of Membership as a special privilege for Contributing Members. Members were invited to spend three afternoons a year touring the private homes and collections of select collectors, who were frequently members of the Committee on the Museum Collections. This series was suggested by a Membership Committee member in 1939, and the program lasted through 1966. Documentation for this program can also be found throughout the Record Group. After Barr's retirement in 1967, the Committee on the Museum Collections was divided into five separate committees, each one focusing on a curatorial department: Painting and Sculpture; Prints and Illustrated Books; Photography; Architecture and Design; and Film. These five committees exist to the present day. Related Collections at MoMA and Elsewhere For related collections see also, The Museum of Modern Art Archives, Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Papers, Series 1. Personal Correspondence; the James Thrall Soby Papers, Series III: Museum Matters; the Dorothy C. Miller Papers, Series III: Museum Matters; the Public Information Scrapbooks; catalogues of private collections and PASITMOMA in the Library; Object Files in the Department of Painting and Sculpture; and lenders records in the Department of the Registrar. Preferred Citation Collectors Records, [folder]. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York. |
| extent | 4 linear feet |
| formats | Clippings Correspondence Ephemera Photographs Administrative Records |
| access | The records are open for research and contain no restricted materials. |
| record link | http://www.moma.org/research/archives/EAD/CollectorsRecordsf.html |
| record source | https://library.nyarc.org/permalink/01NYA_INST/ai54l4/alma991007920159707141 |
| finding aid | In the repository and on the Web site. |
| acquisition information | The Collectors Records were compiled and maintained by Barr and his staff until his retirement in 1967, when they were brought under the aegis of the Department of Painting and Sculpture. They became part of the Museum Archives holdings in 1998 and were processed in June 1998. |
| updated | 11/29/2022 15:49:50 |
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| title | Early Museum History: Administrative Records. 1930-1950. | repository | The Museum of Modern Art |
| description | The Papers concern the early activities of many of the Museum's programs, such as the Armed Services Program, Art in America radio program and subsequent book, film library, circulating exhibitions, lectures, Veteran's Art Center; and committees such as the Advisory Committee, Education Committee, Garden Committee, and Reception Committee. The Museum's involvement with Latin America (Series II) and television (Series III) is also documented. Correspondents include such collectors and dealers as, for example, Walter C. Arensberg, Bernheim Jeune & Cie., F. Valentine Dudensing, Durand-Ruel, Grace Horne, Julien Levy, J.B. Neumann; and such personalities as Nicolas Calas, Leo Frobenius, Naum Gabo, Lincoln Kirstein, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Location MoMA Museum Archives |
| extent | 11 linear feet |
| formats | Administrative Records Business Papers Correspondence Ephemera Notes |
| access | The Papers can be consulted by appointment at The Museum of Modern Art Archives, 11 West 53rd Street, New York, NY 10019, (212) 708-9436. Access to Committee Minutes is limited. |
| record link | http://www.moma.org/research/archives/EAD/EarlyMuseumHistf.html |
| record source | https://library.nyarc.org/permalink/01NYA_INST/ai54l4/alma991009763299707141 |
| finding aid | Finding aid in the repository. |
| acquisition information | The Papers [1930-51, 1958 (3 filing units related to the Museum fire), and 1950-63 (2 filing units of correspondence from Allen Porter)] perhaps served as the central files for the Museum during its early years. They include papers from various Museum staff members, notably John E. Abbott, Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Alan R. Blackburn, Jr., Thomas W. Braden, René d'Harnoncourt, Thomas D. Mabry, Jr., Allen Porter, James Thrall Soby, Julian Street, Jr., James Johnson Sweeney, Ione Ulrich, and Monroe Wheeler. Minutes found in these Papers have been added to the Museum Archives Committee Minutes Record Group. |
| updated | 11/29/2022 15:49:50 |
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| title | J. Walter Thompson Company. Biographical Information, 1916-1998 (bulk 1960s-1980s) | repository | Duke University Library |
| description | The J. Walter Thompson Company (JWT), founded in 1864, is one of the oldest and largest enduring advertising agencies in the United States. The J. Walter Thompson Company Biographical Information collection includes articles, clippings, press releases, internal memoranda and other printed materials that pertain to the lives and careers of over 3,000 managers, executives and staff members of JWT. Extensive files exist for some notable JWT executives, including Don Johnston, Helen and Stanley Resor, Norman Strouse, James Walter Thompson, and James Webb Young. |
| extent | 21 Linear Feet |
| formats | Clippings Ephemera Photographs |
| access | Collection is open for research. However, collection may contain materials to which the Acknowledgment of Legal Responsibilities and Privacy Rights form applies. Patrons must sign this form before using this collection. Also, all or portions of this collection may be housed off-site in Duke University's Library Service Center. Consequently, there may be a 24-hour delay in obtaining these materials. Please contact Research Services staff before visiting the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library to use this collection. |
| record source | http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/rbmscl/jwtbiofiles/inv/ |
| finding aid | UNPROCESSED COLLECTION. CATALOGED FROM ACCESSION RECORDS. Container list in repository. |
| acquisition information | The J. Walter Thompson Company Biographical Information collection was received by the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library as a transfer in 1986 and in 2002. |
| updated | 11/12/2014 11:30:01 |
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