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Summary:
Research material on William Rimmer compiled by Lincoln Kirstein, 1944-1955, and added to from 1958 on by Richard Sherman Nutt. Included are correspondence, notes and writings, scrapbooks, photographs, and printed materials.
Included are Rimmer family documents and genealogy; Kirstein's (1944-1955) and Nutt's (1958-1971) correspondence regarding Rimmer, mainly responses to Kirstein's requests for information from libraries, museums, relatives, and owners of Rimmer's work; subject files containing correspondence, photographs, writings, notes and printed material on people, places and topics relating to Rimmer, among them the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Whitney Museum, Margaret French Cresson, Henry W. Kent, Cooper Union, Marion MacLean, and others;
writings and notes by Kirstein on Rimmer, including a typescript of his catalog essay for the 1946 exhibition at the Whitney and notes on other artists; a typescript of a poem by Rimmer "The Love Chant"; Rimmer's annotated diagram of a wheel in motion, 1860; a book by Rimmer's daughter, ANIMAL DRAWING: A SERIES OF THIRTEEN PLATES WITH DESCRIPTIVE TEXT DESIGNED FOR THE USE OF STUDENTS BY CAROLINE HUNT RIMMER (Houghton, Mifflin, 1895), and ART ANATOMY (Houghton, Mifflin, 1884, c1887?) by William Rimmer, containing eighty one plates from the original drawings; a scrapbook compiled by Kirstein containing reproductions of catalogs, clippings, printed material, and photographs; photographs of Rimmer's family, including 2 on glass and a tintype; cartes de visites of French royalty; and printed material, 1864-1945, including material kept by Rimmer, articles and booklets about him, 2 clippings, 1898 and 1900 on Rimmer's daughter Caroline, a booklet "Rapport sur une Mission dans l'Amerique du Nord by M. Armand Dumaresq" reporting
on American drawing instruction and including a section on Rimmer and his work at the Cooper Institute and inscribed by Rimmer to his daughter Caroline, 1972; and other printed material compiled by Kirstein.
Citation:
Lincoln Kirstein and Richard Sherman Nutt research material on William Rimmer, 1849-1971. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Biography Note:
Lincoln Kirstein: writer, art historian; Richard S. Nutt: art historian. Dr. William Rimmer: noted 19th century painter, sculptor, and anatomy instructor.
Language Note:
English .
Provenance:
Donated 1985 by Richard Nutt. The materials were mainly compiled by Lincoln Kirstein, who had hoped to write a book on Rimmer. In 1946 he wrote the catalog essay to the exhibit "William Rimmer, 1816-1979" at the Whitney, and in 1955 turned the materials over to Nutt for a catalog raisonne (never published). Both Kirstein and Nutt believe Mrs. Rimmer discarded her husband's papers.
Location Note:
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 750 9th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20001
