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Catalog Data

Creator:
McCausland, Elizabeth, 1899-1965  Search this
Subject:
Hartley, Marsden  Search this
Abbott, Berenice  Search this
Hawthorne, Charles Webster  Search this
Henri, Robert  Search this
Henry, Edward Lamson  Search this
Dove, Arthur Garfield  Search this
Kleinholz, Frank  Search this
Morgan, Barbara Brooks  Search this
Stieglitz, Alfred  Search this
Weegee  Search this
Hine, Lewis Wickes  Search this
Inness, George  Search this
Lawrence, Jacob  Search this
Maurer, Alfred Henry  Search this
Weston, Edward  Search this
American Art Research Council  Search this
Federal Art Project (U.S.)  Search this
United States. Farm Security Administration  Search this
Barnard College  Search this
Type:
Scrapbooks
Drawings
Photographs
Place:
New York N.Y. -- Pictorial works -- photographs
Place of publication, production, or execution:
United States
Physical Description:
45 Linear feet
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 15 series: Series 1: Personal Papers, 1838, 1920-1951 (Boxes 1-2, 34; 1.5 linear feet) Series 2: Correspondence, 1923-1960 (Boxes 2-5; 2.9 linear feet) Series 3: General Writings, circa 1930-1954 (Boxes 5-6; 0.9 linear feet) Series 4: Alfred H. Maurer, 1851-1951, bulk 1948-1950 (Boxes 6-9; 3.7 linear feet) Series 5: American Processional, 1949-1951 (Boxes 10-11; 1.8 linear feet) Series 6: Marsden Hartley, 1900-1964, bulk 1944-1964 (Boxes 11-21, OV 37; 10 linear feet) Series 7: Other Research and Writing Files, 1896, 1926-1958 (Boxes 21-25, 31; 4.6 linear feet) Series 8: Subject Files, 1927-1954 (Boxes 25-26; 1.0 linear feet) Series 9: Other Exhibition Files, 1939-1941, 1944 (Box 26; 0.1 linear feet) Series 10: Teaching Files, 1939-1965 (Box 27; 0.5 linear feet) Series 11: Committee Files, 1936-1960 (Box 27; 0.5 linear feet) Series 12: Printed Material, 1923-1953 (Boxes 28-32, 34, OV 38, BV 44-47; 4.6 linear feet) Series 13: Photographs, circa 1905-1950 (Boxes 32-36, OV 37; 1.4 linear feet) Series 14: Art Work, 1887-1942 (Boxes 33-34, OV 39-43; 0.7 linear feet) Series 15: Elizabeth McCausland Material from the Estate of Berenice Abbott, 1920-1995 (Boxes 48-53; 5.4 linear feet)
Access Note / Rights:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Summary:
The papers of art critic, writer, and historian Elizabeth McCausland measure 45 linear feet and date from 1838 to 1995, with the bulk of the material dating from 1920 to 1960. The collection provides a vast accumulation of research data on various artists and aspects of American art, especially the early American modernists and the Federal Arts Projects. Papers include McCausland's extensive research and writing files, particularly on Marsden Hartley, E. L. Henry, Lewis Hine, George Inness, and Alfred H. Maurer. McCausland's correspondence with artists includes a substantial amount with Arthur Dove and Alfred Stieglitz. Her collaborative work with Berenice Abbott on the Changing New York book and series of photographs is well-documented within the collection. Also found are general writings, subject files, files relating to exhibitions, teaching, and committees, photographs, art work, personal papers, and printed material. Additional McCausland material donated later from the estate of Berenice Abbott include biographical materials, project files, writings, and printed materials.
Citation:
Elizabeth McCausland papers, 1838-1995, bulk 1920-1960. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Additional Forms:
The bulk of this collection was digitized in 2008 and 2015 and is available on the Archives of American Art's website.
Materials generally not scanned include some newsclippings and publications that were either too fragile or not relevant, although some publications that appeared to be of interest to her were scanned. Other items that typically were not scanned include McCausland's student records, auction catalogs, proofs and multiple drafts of published articles, copy prints and negatives of photographs made by the Archives, photographs of works of art (except for those in the catalogue raisonne files of the Marsden Hartley series), duplicate material, and any published material that is widely available elsewhere. In some cases, only the cover and title pages for publications were scanned.
Funding:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art
Use Note:
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.
Related Materials:
Related material found in the Archives includes a sound recording from a symposium on Marsden Hartley, of which McCausland was a participant, held at the Portland Museum of Art in 1961. The Frank Kleinholz papers contain a recorded interview of McCausland done in 1944-1945 for radio station WNYC. Some of McCausland's correspondence is found in the G. Alan Chidsey papers; Chidsey served as a trustee of the Marsden Hartley estate. Material separated from the collection includes some issues of <em>Camera Work</em> (Vol. 30, 47, 49/50), which were combined with other issues in an artificial collection created by the Archives at some earlier point.
Biography Note:
Elizabeth McCausland, the art critic and writer, was born in Wichita, Kansas in 1899. She attended Smith College, receiving her Bachelor's degree in 1920 and her Master's in 1922. Beginning in 1923, she worked as a general reporter for The Springfield Republican (Springfield, Massachusetts). After several years, she began to review art exhibitions and soon became an established art critic. In the course of her work, she began to develop friendships with artists, such as Alfred Stieglitz and Arthur Dove. During these early years, she also wrote poetry and designed and printed limited edition publications on her private press.
Language Note:
English .
Provenance:
Elizabeth McCausland donated the bulk of her papers in several installments from 1956 to 1961. An unknown donor, perhaps her literary executor, donated additional papers sometime after her death in 1965. It appears that McCausland originally donated her research files on Marsden Hartley, measuring 10 linear feet, to the Whitney Museum, who then lent them to the Archives for microfilming in 1966, and donated them sometime thereafter. McCausland originally donated files of newspaper clippings and offprints of her articles to the The New York Public Library, who gave them to the Archives in 1968. Additional McCausland material from the estate of Berenice Abbott was donated to the Archives in 2009.
Digitization Note:
The papers of Elizabeth McCausland in the Archives of American Art were digitized in 2008 and 2015. The bulk of the papers have been scanned and total 52,884 images.
Location Note:
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 750 9th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20001
Topic:
Springfield Republican  Search this
Federal aid to the arts  Search this
Art -- History -- Study and teaching  Search this
Modernism (Art)  Search this
Women art historians  Search this
Women authors  Search this
Theme:
Diaries  Search this
Photography  Search this
Women  Search this
Research and writing about art  Search this
Record number:
(DSI-AAA_CollID)7839
(DSI-AAA_SIRISBib)210006
AAA_collcode_mccaeliz
Theme:
Diaries
Photography
Women
Research and writing about art
Data Source:
Archives of American Art
EDAN-URL:
edanmdm:AAADCD_coll_210006