The Nancy Holt Estate records are arranged as 11 series. Series 1: Biographical Material, 1912-2014 (0.6 linear feet; Box 45, OV 64) Series 2: Correspondence, circa 1966-2014 (7.5 linear feet; Boxes 45-52, 63) Series 3: Writings, Calendars, and Notebooks, 1947-2013 (2.6 linear feet; Boxes 40-42, 52-53, OVs 43-44, 65) Series 4: Interviews, 1973-2007 (0.3 linear feet; Box 53) Series 5: Project Files, circa 1900-2014 (bulk 1970-2000) (14.3 linear feet; Boxes 3-10, OVs 11-31, RDs 32-39, 69-71) Series 6: Business and Professional Files, 1967-2013 (2.5 linear feet; Boxes 53-55, 63, OVs 64, 66-67) Series 7: Subject Files, 1835, circa 1960s-circa 2013 (1.6 linear feet; Boxes 55-57, 63, OVs 65-66) Series 8: Printed Material, 1964-2013 (2 linear feet; Boxes 57-59, 63, OVs 65-66, RD 68) Series 9: Artwork by Others, circa 1960s-circa 2006 (0.1 linear feet; Box 63) Series 10: Robert Smithson Estate and Legacy, circa 1961-2013 (3.1 linear feet; Boxes 59-62, OV 66) Series 11: John Weber Gallery Records Concerning Robert Smithson, circa 1960-circa 2001 (2 linear feet; Boxes 1-2)
Access Note / Rights:
Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Researchers interested in accessing born-digital records or audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more information.
Summary:
The Nancy Holt Estate records measure circa 66.6 linear feet and date from 1835, and circa 1900-2014, with the bulk of the material dating from 1960-2000. The records offer extensive documentation of Holt's career and include biographical material, personal and professional correspondence, writings, calendars and notebooks, Holt's project files including for unrealized projects, general business and professional files, subject files including source material, and printed material documenting Holt's professional activities from the 1960s to 2013. Also included are files Holt maintained related to her stewardship of Robert Smithson's estate and other records related to his life and work, and the John Weber Gallery records concerning Robert Smithson. These consist of the gallery's inventory and slide records of Robert Smithson's drawings and sculptures, including earthworks. The collection total also includes 30.0 linear feet of unprocessed records including 18.0 linear feet of Holt's photographic material; 1.0 linear feet of Holt's preliminary project plans and sketches; 2.0 linear feet of financial records; 9.0 linear feet of Holt's annotated library and 1.1 linear feet of three photograph albums, photographs, two scrapbooks, drawings, 2 inch. video news reel of Robert Smithson's death from WKRG-TV, book of ceremonies for the Ritual Order of the Rainbow Girls, and sorority dance cards.
Citation:
Nancy Holt Estate records, 1835, circa 1900-2014. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Additional Forms:
The John Weber Gallery records concerning Robert Smithson (Series 11) were digitized in 2021 and are available on the Archives of American Art website. Negatives of the master slides (1 folder) have not been digitized.
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.
Items created by Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson copyright held by Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Requests for permission to reproduce should be submitted to ARS.
Related Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds the Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt papers, an interview with Nancy Holt conducted 1992 July 6 by Scott Gutterman for the Archives of American Art, an interview with Nancy Holt conducted 1993 August 3 by Joyce Pomeroy Schwartz for the Archives of American Art, and the James Cohan Gallery records relating to Robert Smithson.
Biography Note:
Nancy Holt (1938-2014) was an environmental and installation artist, sculptor, filmmaker, and photographer, based in New York, New York. She was best known for her large-scale public land art installations including her seminal work Sun Tunnels (1973-1976) located in the Great Basin Desert, Utah. Her work engaged with the natural environment and the celestial realm, tracing the rotation of the earth and the movement of the sun and stars. Holt was also fascinated by mechanical systems such as those used for heating, drainage, and ventilation, and her functional sculptural installations explored the relationship between architecture and the built environment.
Holt was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, grew up in New Jersey, and graduated from Tufts University in 1960 with a degree in biology. She moved to New York City later that year where she met the artist Robert Smithson, to whom she was married from 1963 until Smithson's death in 1973.
Holt's landmark work Sun Tunnels was executed in 1973-1976 in Utah's Great Basin Desert, where Holt and Smithson had purchased surrounding land specifically to ensure an unimpeded view of the horizon. Holt went on to produce many site-specific outdoor works including 30 Below (1980), Dark Star Park (1984), Solar Rotary (1995), and Up and Under (1998). Her exploration of what she termed Systems Works included Catch Basin (1982), Flow Ace Heating (1985), and Spinwinder (1991).
Holt's photography was essential in the development of her ideas. In Missouri Ranch Locators: Vision Encompassed (1972) she used photography in her development of "seeing devices," creating eye-level steel pipes to direct viewers to a specific site in the surrounding landscape, and developing a concept that was central to Sun Tunnels and other works. Her book Ransacked, Aunt Ethel: An Ending (1980) documented through text and photographs the abuse and theft her aunt was subjected to at the end of her life. In Time Outs (1985) Holt used photographs of football games taken from a television screen to create a book born out of her childhood love of TV sporting events.
Holt's work can be found in the collections of major institutions including the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, and the Museum für Gegenswartkunst, Germany. Her permanent installations can be found at public institutions including Miami University Art Museum, Southern Connecticut State University, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, Western Washington University, and University of South Florida.
In 2012 Nancy Holt was made a Chevalier of the of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government. In 2013 she was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Sculpture Center in New York. Holt received five National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, two New York Creative Artist Fellowships, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of South Florida, Tampa.
Holt lived in Galisteo, New Mexico, from 1995-2013. She died in New York City in 2014.
Language Note:
English .
Provenance:
Bequest of Nancy Holt, 2014.
Digitization Note:
This site provides access to the papers of Nancy Holt in the Archives of American Art. The John Weber Gallery records concerning Robert Smithson (Series 11) were digitized in 2022, and total 3,813 images.
Location Note:
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 750 9th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20001
