Archives Directory for the History of Collecting in America

Archives related to: Garvan, Francis P. (Francis Patrick), 1875-1937

titleFrancis Patrick Garvan papers, [ca. 1913-1956].
repositoryArchives of American Art
descriptionCorrespondence with antique, art and rare book dealers, museums, curators, conservators, Garvan's employees, George Parmly Day, Andrew Keough, and John Marshall Phillips of Yale University regarding the 1930 gift of the [Mabel Brady] Garvan Collection to Yale, the American Art Association-Anderson Galleries, Inc., Francis Bigelow, Robert Ensko, Richard T. Haines Halsey, E. Alfred Jones, Fiske Kimball, William Macbeth, Inc., Wallace Nutting, Richard W. Symonds, and others; auction catalogs, and records from Parke-Bernet and Plaza Art Auction Galleries, 1942-1949; loan records; files regarding the Garvan estate, sales, gifts, and appraisals; inventories; catalog cards, some with photographs; and miscellaneous photographs and printed material.

Co-Creator: Jones, E. Alfred (Edward Alfred), 1872-1943
Keough, Andrew, 1869-1953
Kimball, Fiske, 1888-1955
Nutting, Wallace, 1861-1941
Phillips, John Marshall, 1905-1953
Bigelow, Francis Hill, 1859-1933
Day, George Parmly, 1876-1959
Ensko, Robert
Halsey, R. T. Haines (Richard Townley Haines), 1865-1942
Parke-Bernet Galleries
Plaza Art Auction Galleries
American Art Association, Anderson Galleries (Firm)
extent37.0 linear ft.
formatsCorrespondence Auction Catalogs Estate Papers Appraisals Photographs
accessUnmicrofilmed; use requires an appointment and is limited to Washington, D.C. storage facility.
record sourcehttp://www.siris.si.edu/
finding aidFinding aid (box inventory) available at Archives of American Art offices.
acquisition informationDonated 1981 by Anthony N. B. Garvan and Phil Hoyt for the estate of Mabel Brady Garvan.
updated03/16/2023 10:29:50
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titleAnthony N. B. Garvan Papers, 1944-1984.
repositoryUniversity of Pennsylvania, University Archives and Records Center
descriptionThe Anthony Nicholas Brady Garvan papers, 1944-1984, primarily document the professional and academic activities of Garvan with a smaller grouping of papers relating to family financial investments, his children, and interests in hunting and travel.

The professional correspondence files, 1948-1984, mostly relate to Garvan’s tenure as Department Chair. It should be noted that some correspondence in this series could be considered either personal or professional in nature. Letters between Garvan and Harold Hochschild are exemplary of the overlap of personal and professional interchanges characteristic of this collection. Hochschild and Garvan shared interests in the art and architecture of the Adirondacks. Garvan wrote An Adirondack Winter: Ten Paintings by Jonas Lie, an Adirondack Museum Catalogue, 1971, for works his family donated to a museum founded by the Hochschilds. Hochschild contributed to Garvan’s academic pursuits by establishing the Hochschild Fund for the American Civilization Department. Hochschild, Murray Murphey, and Vartan Gregorian are among the principal correspondents.

Academic Papers, 1944-1983, include rosters of students, courses taught, lists of graded course work, research papers, and requests for letters of recommendation.

A good deal of the collection is devoted to the projects on which Garvan worked. These projects document the different subject matter which became the focus of his exploration of cultural transmission through time and space in industrial America. The Index of American Cultures, the Historical Salvage Council, and historic preservation efforts are included among these projects.

There is material for the various libraries and archives, 1961-1983, for which he served as a board member, in particular the Library Company of Philadelphia. There are files for museum efforts, 1960-1980, including his work for the Smithsonian Institution. Writings, articles, talks, and papers, 1944-1973, finish out the professional papers.

The personal papers include material on his children and their education, 1961-1980; his interest in hunting and dogs, 1950-1981; travel, 1950-1968; finances, 1950-1981; and bibliocards, 1971-1972.

Biography/History:
Anthony Nicholas Brady Garvan was born on October 4, 1917 in Kamp Kill Kare, his family home at Raquette Lake, New York, to Francis Patrick Garvan and Mabel Brady Garvan.

Garvan was a graduate of Hotchkiss School in 1935. He received his B.A. in 1939 and M.A. in 1942 from Yale University. A Ph.D. was awarded from Yale in 1948 after service with the Office of Strategic Services during World War II.

Garvan’s academic career included an Assistant Professorship at Bard College, 1946-1949 and a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, 1949-1950 and a Fellowship in American Civilization at the University of Pennsylvania in 1950. He was appointed Assistant Professor in American Civilization in 1951, Associate Professor in 1956, and Professor and Department Chair in 1960. Garvan’s contributions to the University of Pennsylvania included the pioneering of a masters degree program in Museum Studies. He worked on many projects, like the Index of American Cultures, which offered academic training and jobs for his students.

His professional contributions extended beyond the University of Pennsylvania to an array of prestigious school organizations. Garvan held the position of lecturer at the Henry F. DuPont Winterthur Museum, 1953-1957; head curator at the Department of Civil History and at the Growth of the United States Exhibit Hall at the Smithsonian Institution, 1957-1960; and advisor to the National Portrait Gallery, 1961-1962. He served in a variety of professional capacities for local, regional, and national institutions; he was active on the board of the Library Company of Philadelphia, 1961-1992.

Garvan married Jane Nicomedus in 1940. Their children are Mary Jane, Kathleen Anne, Virginia Brady, Frances Courtney, Anthony Nicholas Brady, Nichola, Christine, and Margaret Blacke. In 1969 Garvan married Beatrice Bronson Lippincott. He died at his home on January 10, 1992 at the age of 74.

Location:
University Archives, 215-898-7024 (non-circulating)

Call Number:
UPT50 G244
extent54 cubic ft.
formatsAdministrative Records Business Papers Correspondence Ephemera Personal Papers
accessContact repository for restrictions and policies.
record sourcehttp://www.archives.upenn.edu/faids/upt/upt50/garvananb.html
finding aidUnpublished finding aid available from the repository. The papers of Anthony N.B. Garvan, Professor of American Civilization at the University of Pennsylvania, are organized into two series, professional papers, 1944-1984 and personal papers, 1933-1981.
acquisition informationGift of Anthony N.B. Garvan in 1988 and Beatrice B. Garvan in 1992 and 1993.
updated11/12/2014 11:30:03
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titleAnthony N.B. Garvan collection, 1827-1980 (bulk, 1827-1889)
repositoryArchitectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania
descriptionMaterials related to Alexander Jackson Davis include two letterbooks, original rendered prints for Rural Residences, architectural drawings and sketches, financial records and 20th century photographs. Garvan also donated a small amount of material related to his other interests, including one architectural drawing by Frank Lloyd Wright published in a September 26, 1938 issue of Life Magazine as "House for a Family of $5,000-6,000 Income." The collection contains correspondence of Anthony Garvan related to the acquisition of materials in the collection, but no materials related to Garvan’s teaching, publications or personal life.

The two Davis letterbooks contain original correspondence received and a small number of copies of correspondence sent. Notable correspondents include: Andrew Jackson Downing, Ball Hughes, Richard Lathers, Louise Davezac Livingston, J. M. Morehead, Samuel F. B. Morse, John Cox Stevens, David L. Swain and Thomas U. Walter. Other notable correspondents are represented by brief or institutional correspondence, including: Asher Benjamin, James H. Dakin, Richard Morris Hunt, Minard Lafever, Ithiel Town and Richard Upjohn.

Projects represented by significant correspondence and/or drawings include several residences as well as institutional projects such as: North Carolina State Hospital for the Insane, Pauper Lunatic Asylum (Blackwell’s Island, New York City), University of North Carolina, Virginia Military Institute and Yale College Alumni Hall. Correspondence in the collection indicates the existence of at least ten projects not identified in the job list by Jane B. Davies, published in 1992 as a chapter, "Works and Projects," in Peck, Amelia, ed. Alexander Jackson Davis, American Architect 1803-1892. Additional projects (from the period of his partnership with Town and Dakin) may be newly identified from financial records in this collection. Some of Davis’s built works are documented with 20th century 8" x 10" black and white photographs by Wayne Andrews. The collection includes a small number of project-related architectural drawings, including original drawings for the Thomas Hunt Residence and lithographs of plans for the Pauper Lunatic Asylum.

The collection contains substantial materials related to Davis’s 1837 publication Rural Residences. Davis continued to revise and enlarge this publication later in his life, altering and painting the prints, adding others not published in the 1837 book and assembling enlarged sets, perhaps in hope of publishing a new edition. In addition to forty-four such prints, thirty-three of them rendered, the collection contains paper folders inscribed with lists, presumably used by Davis to store prints to be assembled into sets. Other materials include a draft of a preface and model specifications.

Personal materials of Alexander Jackson Davis include travel sketches, engravings unrelated to his architectural projects, notes and a small number of letters from family members. There is no material related to Davis’s wife or children.


Biography/History:
Anthony Garvan was Professor of American Civilization at the University of Pennsylvania, 1960-1987, and first chairman of the American Civilization department. His interdisciplinary approach to American culture (including an active interest in American architecture) led to his leadership of the graduate program in Historic Preservation from 1980-1982. Garvan’s personal and professional papers may be consulted at the University Archives.

Garvan’s collection of materials related to American architecture focuses on Alexander Jackson Davis (1803-1892), one of the most influential proponents of the picturesque style for rural American houses. Davis began as a pictorial artist, student of John Trumbull. His skill as draftsman and renderer led to his partnership with Ithiel Town 1829-1935 (and James H. Dakin for a brief period ca. 1832). Davis was actively involved with major architects of his period, including Andrew Jackson Downing and Thomas U. Walter. Davis’s book, Rural Residences, and his contributions to Downing’s books and to Downing’s monthly magazine, The Horticulturist, gave Davis’s romantic country houses wide exposure and his style became very popular. In the 1840s and 1850s, at the height of his career, Davis was busy designing rural and urban residences and romantic suburbs such as Llewellyn Park in New Jersey. Before the Civil War he also designed residences and institutional buildings in the South, including the Capitol of North Carolina (with Town), an insane asylum at Raleigh, NC and buildings for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Davidson College and the Virginia Military Institute. Davis continued practicing architecture until his mid-seventies and then lived in retirement in New Jersey to his death in 1892.


Cite As:
Anthony Garvan Collection, The Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania.

Location:
Architectural Archives, 215 898-8323

Call Number:
105
extentsee finding aid for the size and break down of the collection
formatsCorrespondence Sketches Drawings Photographs Financial Records
accessCollection available for research by appointment only.
record linkhttp://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/faids/aaup/GarvanDavis.pdf
record sourcehttp://www.franklin.library.upenn.edu/
finding aidPrinted finding aid available at the Architectural Archives. For electronic finding aid see Web Link.
updated11/12/2014 11:30:03
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titlePapers of William J. Collins, 1902-1958.
repositorySterling and Francine Clark Art Institute
descriptionWilliam J. Collins was brought on as the first curator of prints and drawings in 1958. He had been the head, since 1939, of the Department of Prints at Knoedler & Co. in New York City, where the Clarks purchased many of their artworks. Collins passed away unexpectedly in 1960.

This collection consists of a number of different types of items. A three-ring binder documents sales of prints, drawings, and etchings to such major early-20th century collectors as Henry Clay Frick, Andrew W. Mellon, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Joseph Widener, and Blanche Adler. Sales date back as early as 1902, so the binder probably belonged to Collins's predecessor at Knoedler's, Norman F. Wells, or perhaps even Wells's predecessor.

Collins kept a number of loose letters and ephemera stored inside its covers. There is also a small bound leather book divided into alphabetically tabbed sections. Most of the pages are blank, but some contain more lists in the same handwriting as the binder. They may also be prints and drawings bought or sold by Knoedler, but the annotations use abbreviations and numbers that are indecipherable.

An A-Z accordion file contained items relating to both the life and work of Collins, including a letter to his father composed after his brother was killed in battle during World War I; a letter from RSC, along with Collins's responses, regarding some prints RSC was hoping to buy; photographs of works Collins was buying or selling; ephemera relating to art shows; and other correspondence.

A black spring binder contains notebook pages with writing in pencil. There are passages that relate to the Bible and to art history. There is some translation from German. There is nothing conclusively identifying this object with Collins and its purpose remains unclear. The remaining items were found in Collins's room at the Williams Inn after he died. These include catalogs and other publications; several small oil paintings perhaps done by Collins; ephemera such as his credit card and Catholic holy cards; and additional correspondence and documents. One folder of materials is labeled James F. Drake, Inc. and contains correspondence between Collins and the rare book dealer regarding obtaining a number of art books for the Clark.

extent.8 linear ft.
formatsPhotographs Correspondence Ephemera Inventories Financial Records
accessContact the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Library for further details.
record sourcehttp://cdm16245.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/
finding aidAvailable online and at the repository (Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Library).
acquisition informationThe binder and the book were acquisitioned in early 2007 after being removed from a collection of items that eventually made up the Realia and the Personal series of the Sterling and Francine Clark Papers. The A to Z file and personal items were accessioned in October 2007, along with records pertaining to the Prints and Drawings Collection.
updated11/12/2014 11:30:10
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titleFrancis P. Garvan Decorative Arts Scrapbooks, 1929, n.d.
repositoryPhiladelphia Museum of Art
descriptionIn addition to a distinguished career in law and a nearly twenty-year tenure as president of the Chemical Foundation, Francis P. Garvan, with his wife Mabel (Brady), were avid art collectors, particularly of American and European decorative arts. These two scrapbooks belonged to Garvan and consist of numerous photographs of European furniture and other decorative art objects, as well as a few architectural elements. Many of the objects, which date from the 15th to 19th century, are identified on the verso, and three have additional descriptive text, such as a magazine article and brochure. The roughly handwritten titles on the covers of each book are somewhat misleading since objects other than furniture are documented in both. A dealer's 1929 cover letter to a photograph of a Queen Anne bedstead is the only dated documentation. Some of the photographs include dealer name notations.

extent2 linear feet
formatsScrapbooks
accessThe collection is open for research
record linkhttp://www.philamuseum.org/pma_archives/ead.php?c=GAR&p=ai
record sourcehttp://www.philamuseum.org/archives/findingaids.html
finding aidAvailable online
updated11/12/2014 11:30:15
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