Zolnay, George Julian, 1862 or 1863-1949 Search this
Extent:
0.2 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Photographs
Sketches
Place:
Museum directors -- Washington (D.C.)
Date:
1879-1955
Summary:
The artists' files of William Henry Holmes, curator and director of the Smithsonian's National Collection of Fine Arts (now the Smithsonian American Art Museum) in Washington, D.C., measure 0.2 linear feet and date from 1879 to 1955. The artists' files consist mostly of correspondence, but also include a few photographs, artwork in the form of sketches, and printed material. There is also one file relating to Holmes' affiliation with the Washington Water Color Club.
Scope and Contents:
The artists' files of William Henry Holmes, curator and director of the Smithsonian's National Collection of Fine Arts (now the Smithsonian American Art Museum) in Washington, D.C., measure 0.2 linear feet and date from 1879 to 1955. The artists' files consist mostly of correspondence, but also include a few photographs, artwork in the form of sketches, and printed material. There is also one file relating to Holmes' affiliation with the Washington Water Color Club.
Notable artists represented in the files include R.N. Brooke, William B. P. Closson, James Earle Fraser, Vinnie Ream Hoxie, Reuben Le Grand Johnston, John LaFarge, Gari Melchers, Thomas Moran, Henry Moser, Hobart Nichols, Violet Oakley, Joseph Pennell, Joseph Henry Sharp, Mary Vaux Walcott, Carl F. Weller, Max Weyl, Irving R. Wiles and George Julian Zolnay.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged as 1 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Artists' Files, 1879-1955 (0.2 linear feet; Box 1)
Biographical / Historical:
William Henry Holmes (1846-1933) was a curator, museum director, artist, scientific illustrator, archaeologist, geologist, and anthropologist. He served in various positions in the Smithsonian Institution, and finally as director of the Smithsonian's National Gallery of Art (now the Smithsonian American Art Museum) from 1920-1932.
Holmes was born in Harrison County, Ohio in 1846. In 1870, he graduated from McNeely Normal School in Ohio and, after a short time of teaching at that school, moved to Washington, D.C. in 1871 to study art under Theodore Kaufmann. Thanks to his artistic skills, he was soon hired by Smithsonian paleontologist Francis B. Meek to do scientific drawings. In 1872, Holmes joined the geological survey of Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden, as an artist and topographer of the survey of Yellowstone National Park and surrounding area, and other regions in the west. In 1879, Holmes went to work for the newly founded U.S. Geological Survey. There he worked as a geologist and chief of scientific illustration. In addition to art and geology, his interests and expertise expanded into archaeology and anthropology.
Holmes worked as chief curator at the Field Columbian Museum (now the Field Museum of Natural History) in Chicago before returning to the Smithsonian in 1897, where he served as curator of anthropology and chief of the Bureau of American Ethnology. In 1910, he became chairman of the Division of Anthropology. In 1920, Holmes became director of the Smithsonian Institution's National Gallery of Art (now the Smithsonian American Art Museum), a position he held until 1932. William Henry Holmes died one year later.
Related Materials:
Collections about William Henry Holmes are also located at other Smithsonian Institution archival units, including the National Anthropological Archives and Smithsonian Institution Archives.
Provenance:
These files were transferred from the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American Art Library (now the Smithsonian American Art Museum) to the Archives of American Art in two installments in 1981 and 1992.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
21.95 cu. ft. (17 record storage boxes) (3 12x17 boxes) (4 16x20 boxes) (6 3x5 boxes)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Books
Clippings
Manuscripts
Ephemera
Black-and-white negatives
Black-and-white photographs
Color photographs
Artifacts
Place:
British Columbia
Canadian Rockies (B.C. and Alta.)
Date:
1720-1929, 1944, 1995
Descriptive Entry:
This accessions consists of the personal correspondence of Charles D. Walcott, his family, and his extended family, as well as genealogical materials, family Bibles,
photographs, medals, and other materials related to the Walcott family. The correspondence documents the personal relationships between the immediate Walcott family, as well
as the extended family, mostly relations and ancestors of Helena Stevens Walcott. Photographs consist of both personal photography, and photography from field research expeditions.
Of note are eight boxes of lantern slides used by Mary Vaux Walcott to illustrate American wildflowers. The medals encompass awards presented to Charles D. Walcott, most notably
the Mary Clark Thompson Medal, presented by the National Academy of Sciences. Materials include correspondence, images, negatives, albums, medals, school records, wedding
registers, legal documents, family Bibles, articles, clippings, and ephemera.
Historical Note:
Charles Doolittle Walcott (1850-1927) was born in New York Mills, New York. He attended Utica public schools and the Utica Academy, but never graduated or pursued further
education. He had an early interest in natural history, and began his professional career in 1876 when he was appointed as an assistant to James Hall, New York's state geologist.
In 1879, he joined the newly formed United States Geological Survey (USGS) as an assistant geologist. Shortly after his appointment, Walcott began to do field work in Utah.
Field work would continue to define his life, and later sites included the Appalachians, New England, New York, several Mid-Atlantic states, western and southwestern United
States, and eastern Canada. From 1882 to 1893 he worked with the Survey's invertebrate Paleozoic paleontological collections, and in 1893 he was appointed Geologist in charge
of Geology and Paleontology. He also served as an honorary curator of invertebrate Paleozoic fossils at the United States National Museum (USNM) from 1892 to 1907, and as
Acting Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in charge of the USNM from 1897 to 1898. In 1894 Walcott was appointed Director of the USGS and served until 1907
when he resigned from the USGS and was appointed Secretary of the Smithsonian, a position he would remain at until his death.
During Walcott's administration at the Smithsonian he oversaw the completion of the National Museum Building (now the National Museum of Natural History) in 1911. He also
convinced Detroit industrialist Charles Lang Freer to donate his extensive Asian art collection and money for a building during his lifetime rather than after Freer's death,
as was originally intended. He also set up the National Gallery of Art (predecessor to the Smithsonian American Art Museum) as a separate administrative entity in 1920.
Despite his responsibilities as Secretary, Walcott found time to continue his research and collecting of fossils from the Cambrian and Ordovician periods, with primary
focus on the Canadian Rockies. In 1909 he located Cambrian fossils near Burgess Pass above Field, British Columbia. The following season he discovered the Burgess shale fauna,
which proved to be his greatest paleontological discovery.
In 1872, Walcott married Lura Ann Rust. Their marriage was relatively short, as Rust died in 1876 from an undiagnosed illness. In 1888, he married Helena Stevens. Charles
and Helena had three children: Charles Doolittle (born 1889), Sidney Stevens (born 1892), Helen Breese (born 1894), and Benjamin Stuart (born 1896). Helena and the children
often accompanied Charles on fieldwork excursions. Unfortunately, in 1911 Helena was killed in a train accident in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Charles Doolittle Walcott Jr. (often
referred to as "Charlie") died in 1913 while a student at Yale University, after suffering from multiple severe ear infections. In 1917, Benjamin Stuart (often referred to
as Stuart), was killed in action while serving as a pilot in the l'Escadrille de Lafayette in France during World War I. In 1914, Walcott married Mary Morris Vaux, an accomplished
naturalist. In 1925, the Smithsonian published her illustrations of American wildflowers in five volumes. Also in 1925, Helen Breese Walcott married Cole Younger. On February
9, 1927, Charles D. Walcott passed away.
For a more detailed history of Charles D. Walcott, please see Record Unit 7004: Charles D. Walcott Collection 1851-1940 and undated.
Wild flowers of America. 400 flowers in full color based on paintings by Mary Vaux Walcott, with additional paintings by Dorothy Falcon Platt; edited with an introd. and detailed descriptions by H.W. Rickett
