Archive of American Art

Archive of American Art
Name	Archive of American Art
Caption	Archive of American Art reading room
Formation	1954
Type	Nonprofit research archive
Headquarters	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Washington, D.C.
Location	Smithsonian Institution
Fields	American art, artists' papers, oral history

Archive of American Art

The Archive of American Art is a research archive and oral history repository dedicated to documenting the history of visual arts in the United States. Founded in 1954 and affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution, the Archive collects, preserves, and provides access to primary-source materials connected to artists, galleries, museums, collectors, critics, dealers, and patrons. The Archive supports scholarship on figures ranging from Winslow Homer and Mary Cassatt to Jasper Johns and Jean-Michel Basquiat, and institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

History

The Archive was established amid mid-20th-century efforts to preserve documentary records of American cultural life, initiated by figures connected to the Smithsonian Institution, the National Gallery of Art, the Phillips Collection, the National Endowment for the Arts, and private collectors like Paul Mellon and Philip Johnson. Early collectors sought materials from artists including Georgia O'Keeffe, Edward Hopper, Grant Wood, Alexander Calder, and Thomas Hart Benton. During the 1960s and 1970s the Archive acquired papers from dealers such as Julian Levy and Peggy Guggenheim, and from critics like Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg. Later expansion incorporated records from galleries including Leo Castelli Gallery, museums such as the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Guggenheim Museum, and archives connected to movements represented by Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Minimalism, and Photorealism.

Collections

The Archive's holdings comprise manuscripts, correspondence, diaries, photographs, scrapbooks, financial records, exhibition catalogues, and object files related to artists like Alexander Calder, Louise Bourgeois, Helen Frankenthaler, Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, Eva Hesse, Marisol Escobar, Romare Bearden, Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, Alfred Stieglitz, Walker Evans, Lee Krasner, Arshile Gorky, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Agnes Martin, Richard Diebenkorn, Johns, Basquiat, Faith Ringgold, Alice Neel, Jacob Lawrence, Kara Walker, Cindy Sherman, Nan Goldin, Brice Marden, Judd, Ellsworth Kelly, David Smith, Isamu Noguchi, Paul Strand, Man Ray, Morton Feldman, Philip Guston, Artemisia Gentileschi, Ellen Gallagher, Elizabeth Catlett, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, George Bellows, John Sloan, Charles Sheeler, Joseph Cornell, Beauford Delaney, Alison Saar and many more. Collections also include gallery archives from Kraushaar Gallery, Gagosian Gallery, Sperone Westwater, and institutional records from the Art Students League of New York and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

Oral History Program

A signature initiative is the Oral History Program, recording interviews with artists, curators, dealers, patrons, and critics such as Judy Chicago, Faith Ringgold, Louise Nevelson, Robert Motherwell, I.M. Pei, Richard Serra, Sonia Boyce, Maya Lin, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Sol LeWitt, Hamilton Fish, Helen Levitt, Garry Winogrand, Nanette Carter, Betye Saar, and Maya Deren. These interviews document practices associated with movements represented by archives from the Hudson River School to contemporary biennial networks tied to the Venice Biennale and the Whitney Biennial. The program complements manuscript collections by preserving firsthand testimony about studios, exhibitions at venues like Tate Modern, the Centre Pompidou, and the Art Institute of Chicago, and events such as the Armory Show.

Research and Access

Scholars consult the Archive's holdings for dissertations, monographs, exhibition catalogues, and provenance research concerning works held by institutions like the National Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and university collections at Yale University and Harvard University. The Archive provides digitized oral histories and finding aids to users researching figures such as Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, Isamu Noguchi, Eero Saarinen, Louis Sullivan, Daniel Chester French, John Singer Sargent, Charles Demuth, Thomas Eakins, and Winslow Homer. Access policies facilitate on-site research in locations including Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and through inter-institutional loans with the Smithsonian American Art Museum and library partners like the Library of Congress.

Exhibitions and Public Programs

The Archive organizes exhibitions and public programs highlighting subjects from its collections, collaborating with institutions such as the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the Brooklyn Museum, and the New-York Historical Society. Past exhibitions have featured themes tied to figures like Mary Cassatt, Thomas Eakins, Jacob Lawrence, Louise Bourgeois, Mark Tobey, Paul Cadmus, Alice Neel, and social histories linked to movements displayed at the Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Public programming includes symposia with curators from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, panels featuring critics such as Rosalind Krauss and Michael Fried, and educational partnerships with the Cooper Hewitt and the Frick Collection.

Governance and Funding

The Archive operates under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution with oversight from a board that includes trustees, curators, and representatives from donor families, foundations like the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Getty Foundation, and funding bodies including the National Endowment for the Humanities and philanthropic supporters such as the Rockefeller Foundation. Governance involves collaborations with academic partners at Columbia University, New York University, University of Pennsylvania, and arts organizations including the Art Dealers Association of America and the College Art Association. Continuous fundraising, grants, and endowments sustain preservation, digitization, and public access initiatives.

Category:Archives in the United States Category:Smithsonian Institution Category:Art history