The personal papers of Charles Lang Freer, the industrialist and art collector who founded the Freer Gallery of Art. The papers include correspondence, diaries, art inventories, scrapbooks of clippings on James McNeil Whistler and other press clippings, and photographs.
Scope Content:
The personal papers of Charles Lang Freer, the industrialist and art collector who founded the Freer Gallery of Art. The papers include correspondence, diaries, art inventories, scrapbooks of clippings on James McNeil Whistler and other press clippings, financial material, architectural drawings, and photographs.
Correspondence, circa 1860-1921, includes Freer's correspondence, 1876-1920, with artists, dealers, collectors, museums, and public figures; letterpress books contain copies of Freer's outgoing letters, 1892-1910; correspondence collected by Freer of James McNeill Whistler, and his wife Beatrix, 186?-1909, with Lady Colin Campbell, Thomas R. Way, Alexander Reid, Whistler's mother, Mrs. George W. Whistler, and others; correspondence of Whistler collector Richard A. Canfield, 1904-1913, regarding works in Canfield's collection; and correspondence of Freer's assistant, Katharine Nash Rhoades, 1920-1921, soliciting Freer's letters from his associates, and regarding the settlement of his estate.
Also included are twenty-nine pocket diaries, 1889-1890, 1892-1898, 1900-1919, recording daily activities, people and places visited, observations, and comments; a diary kept by Freer's caretaker, Joseph Stephens Warring, recording daily activities at Freer's Detroit home, 1907-1910. Inventories, n.d. and 1901-1921, of American, European, and Asian art in Freer's collection, often including provenance information; vouchers, 1884-1919, documenting his purchases; five volumes of scrapbooks of clippings on James McNeill Whistler, 1888-1931, labeled "Various," "Peacock Room," "Death, etc.," "Paris, etc.," and "Boston...London" ; three volumes of newsclippings, 1900-1930, concerning Freer and the opening of the Freer Gallery of Art.
Correspondence regarding Freer's gift and bequest to the Smithsonian Institution, 1902-1916; and photographs, ca. 1880-1930, of Freer, including portraits by Alvin Langdon Coburn and Edward Steichen, Freer with others, Freer in Cairo, China and Japan, Freer's death mask, and his memorial service, Kyoto, 1930; photographs of artists and others, including Thomas Dewing, Ernest Fenollosa, Katharine Rhoades taken by Alfred Stieglitz, Rosalind B. Philip, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Abbott H. Thayer, Dwight Tryon, and Whistler; and photographs relating to Whistler, including art works depicting him, grave and memorial monuments, works of art, the Peacock Room, and Whistler's memorial exhibition at the Copley Society.
Organization of the Papers:
This collection is organized into twelve series.
Series 1: Genealogical and Biographical Data
Series 2: Correspondence
Series 3: Diaries
Series 4: Freer Colleague Materials
Series 5: Art Inventories
Series 6: Financial Materials
Series 7: Exhibition Loan Files
Series 8: Biblical Manuscripts and Gold Treasure Files
Series 9: American School of Archaeology in China
Series 10: Printed Material
Series 11: Outsize Material
Series 12: Photographs
Biographical Note:
1854 February 25 -- Born in Kingston, New York
1873 -- Appointed accountant and paymaster of New York, Kingston and Syracuse Railroad by Frank J. Hecker (1846-1927)
1876 -- Moves to Indiana to work, with Hecker, for the Detroit and Eel River and Illinois Railroad
1880 -- Moves to Detroit, participates in organization of the Peninsular Car Works with Hecker
1883 -- Becomes vice president and secretary of Peninsular Car Company when it succeeds Peninsular Car Works
1883 -- Begins collecting European prints
1884 -- Peninsular Car Company constructs plant on Ferry Avenue
1887 -- Meets Howard Mansfield (1849-1938)
1887 -- Acquires proofs of 26 etchings, Venice, Second Series(1886), by James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903)
1887 -- Purchases a small Japanese fan attributed to Ogata Korin(1658-1715)
1887 -- Buys land on Ferry Avenue
1889 -- Meets Frederick Stuart Church (1826-1900) and Dwight William Tryon (1849-1925) in New York
1890 -- Commissions Wilson Eyre (1858-1944) to design house on Ferry Avenue, Detroit, Michigan
1890 -- On first trip to London, meets James McNeill Whistler(1834-1903)
1892 -- Moves to Ferry Avenue house
1892 -- Tryon and Thomas Wilmer Dewing (1851-1938) undertake decoration of reception rooms
1893 -- Lends American paintings to World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago
1893 -- Purchases first piece of Chinese art, a small painting of white herons by an anonymous Ming dynasty (1368-1644) artist
1894 -- Begins yearlong trip around the world, which includes visit to the Whistlers in Paris and first trip to Asia, stopping in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), India, China, and Japan
1896 -- Meets Matsuki Bunkyo (1867-1940) in Boston
1899 -- Takes part in consolidation of railroad-car building companies then retires from active business
1900 -- Attends Exposition International Universelle in Paris
1900 -- Buys villa in Capri with Thomas S. Jerome
1901 -- Meets Siegfried Bing (1838-1905) in Paris and Ernest Fenollosa(1853-1908), who visits Freer in Detroit
1902 -- Meets Dikran Kelekian (1868-1951)
1902 -- Spends summer in Britain building Whistler collection
1902 -- Views Whistler's, Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room
1904 -- Purchases Whistler's Peacock Room
1904 -- Offers his art collections and funds to build a museum in which to house them to the Smithsonian Institution
1905 -- Smithsonian committee visits Freer in Detroit
1906 -- United States government formally accepts Freer's gift on January 24
1906 -- Freer signs Deed of Gift to Smithsonian Institution on May 5
1907 -- On second tour of Asia, meets Hara Tomitaro 1868-1939) in Yokohama, Japan
1908 -- Takes third trip to Asia, specifically to West Asia to study Rakka ware
1909 -- Tours Europe to study art museums
1909 -- On fourth trip to Asia, attends memorial ceremony for Fenollosa (d.1908 September) at Miidera, Japan, and meets Duanfang (1861-1911) in China
1910 -- On last trip to Asia, visits Longmen Buddhist caves in China
1911 -- Suffers stroke
1912 -- Lends selection of objects for exhibition at Smithsonian Institution
1913 -- Meets Eugene (1875-1957) and Agnes E. (1887-1970) Meyer
1913 -- Commissions Charles Adams Platt (1861-1933) to design museum building in Washington
1914 -- Meets Katharine Nash Rhoades (1885-1965) in Detroit
1915 -- Settles in New York City
1915 -- Site of future Freer Gallery of Art is determined
1916 -- Platt's plans for Freer Gallery are approved by Smithsonian Regents and Commission of Fine Arts and ground is broken in September
1918 -- After falling ill in Detroit, Freer travels to New York for treatment
1918 -- Work on the museum building is delayed by the war
1919 -- Freer appends codicil to will permitting acquisitions of Asian, Egyptian, and Near Eastern (West Asian) art
1919 -- Dies in New York City on 25 September and is buried in Kingston, New York
1919 -- Construction of Freer Gallery completed
1920 -- John Ellerton Lodge (1876-1942) is appointed director of the Freer Gallery
1923 -- Freer Gallery opens to the public on May 9
1930 -- Memorial ceremony for Freer is held at Koetsuji, Kyoto
Charles Lang Freer was an American industrialist who founded the Freer Gallery of Art. He was a well-known collector of Asian art, and strongly supported the synthesis of Eastern art and Western art. One of his most famous acquisitions was James McNeill Whistler's Peacock Room.
Index:
Index to cross-referenced correspondents in the series Charles Lang Freer correspondence
Beal, Junius E. -- See: -- Warring, Joseph Stephens
Black, George M. -- See: -- Saint-Gaudens, Augustus
Board of Education (Kingston, New York) See: Michael, M. J.
Bonner, Campbell See: University of Michigan
Boughton, George H. See: Yardley, F. C.
British Museum See: Binyon, Laurence; Hobson, R. L.
Brown, Harold H. See: Art Association of Indianapolis
Buchner, Evelyn B. See: Knoedler, M., and Company
Buckholder, C. H. See: Art Institute of Chicago
Butler, S. B. See: Unidentified correspondents
Carnegie Institute See: Balken, Edward Duff; Harshe, Robert B.
Carpenter, Newton H. See: Art Institute of Chicago
Caulkins, Horace James See: Pewabic Pottery
Chao, Shih-chin See: Gunn, Chu Su
Chicago & North Western Railway Co. See: Hughett, Marvin
Clark, Charles Upson See: Clark, Arthur B.
Cleveland Museum of Art See: Whiting, Frederic Allen
Columbia University See: Braun, W. A.; Gottheil, Richard; Hirth, Friederich
Commission of Fine Arts See: Moore, Charles
Corcoran Gallery of Art See: Minnigerode, C. Powell
Crocker, Anna B. See: Portland Art Association
Dannenberg, D. E. See: Karlbeck, Orvar
De Menoncal, Beatrice See: Lien, Hui Ch'ing Collection
De Ricci, Seymour See: Ricci, Seymour de
Defnet, William A., Mrs., See: Franke, Ida M.
DeMotte See: Vigouroux, J.
Detroit Institute of Arts See: Detroit Museum of Art
Detroit Publishing Company See: Livingstone, W. A.
Detroit School of Design See: George Hamilton; Stevens, Henry
DeVinne Press See: Peters, Samuel T.; Witherspoon, A. S.
Dyrenforth, P. C. See: Philip, Rosalind Birnie
Eddy, Arthur J. See: Philip, Rosalind Birnie
Eggers, George Williams See: Art Institute of Chicago
Farr, Daniel H. See: Robinson and Farr
Farrand School (Detroit) See: Yendall, Edith
Field Museum of Natural History (Chicago) See: Laufer, Berthold
Flagg, Frederick J. See: Allen, Horace N.
Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University See: Forbes, Edward; Pope, Arthur Upham; Sachs, Paul J.
French, M. R. See: Art Institute of Chicago
Fu, Lan-ya See: Pang, Lai-ch'en
Fujii, Yoshio See: Yoshio, Fujii
Gerrity, Thomas See: Knoedler, M., and Company
Goupil Gallery See: Marchant, William
Gray, William J. See: Barr, Eva
Great Lakes Engineering Works See: Hoyt, H. W.
Grolier Club See: Philip, Rosalind Birnie
Heinemann, W. See: Philip, Rosalind Birnie
Holden, Edward S. See: West Point, U. S. Military Academy
Hudson, J. L. See: Weber, William C.
Hutchins, Harry B. See: University of Michigan
Hutchins, Charles L. See: Art Institute of Chicago
Kelekian, H. G. See: Kelekian, Dikran G.
Kent, H. W. See: Metropolitan Museum of Art
Lee, Kee Son See: Li, Chi-ch'un
Levy, John See: Schneider, A. K.
Library of Congress See: Rice, Richard A.; Wright, Helen
Louvre (Paris, France) See: Midgeon, Gaston
Matsuki, Z. See: Matsuki, Kihachiro
McKim, Mead and White See: White, Stanford
Mills, A. L., Colonel See: Saint-Gaudens, Augustus
Miner, Luella See: Lien, Hui Ch'ing Collection
Minneapolis Institute of Arts See: Breck, Joseph; Van Derlip, John R.
Monif, R. Khan See: Rathbun, Richard
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston See: Lodge, John Ellerton
Naser, Katen & Nahass See: Katen, K.
Nordlinger, Marie, Miss See: Meyer-Riefstahl, Marie
Panama Pacific International Exposition See: Moore, Charles C.; Trask, John E. D.
Peabody Museum See: Morse, Edward Sylvester
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts See: Trask, John E. D.
Saint-Gaudens, Augusta H. See: Saint-Gaudens, Augustus
Saint-Gaudens, Homer See: Saint-Gaudens, Augustus
Samurai Shokai See: Nomura, Yozo
San Francisco Art Association See: Laurvik, J. Nilsen
Scribner's, Charles, Sons See: Van Dyke, John C.
Shaw, Wilfred B. See: University of Michigan
Shirae, S. Z. See: Yamanaka and Company
Smith College See: Clark, Arthur B.
Smithsonian Institution See: Holmes, William Henry; Rathbun, Richard; Ravenel, Walcott, Charles D.
Society of Arts and Crafts (Detroit) See: Plumb, Helen
Societe des Beaux-Arts See: Reid, Alexander
Stevens, George W. See: Toledo Museum of Art
Stratton, Mary Chase Perry See: Pewabic Pottery
Tanaka, Kichijiro See: Yamanaka and Company
Tuttle, William F. See: Art Institute of Chicago
Union Trust Company (Detroit) See: Philip, Rosalind Birnie
United States Military Academy See: West Point, U. S. Military Academy
University of Chicago See: Zug, George Breed
University of Pennsylvania, Univ. Mus. See: Gordon, George Bryon
Ushikubo, D. J. R. See: Yamanaka and Company
Wallis & Son See: Barr, Eva; Thompson, C. Croal Ward, Clarence See: Oberlin College
Warren, Edward K. See: Philip, Rosalind Birnie
Warring, Stephen See: Warring, Joseph Stephens
Watkin, Williams R. T. See: Philip, Rosalind Birnie
Watson, Margaret, Miss See: Parker, Margaret Watson
Whistler, Anna See: Stanton, Anna Whistler
Whiting, Almon C. See: Toledo Museum of Art
Williams College See: Rice, Richard A
Wright, F. G. See: Orbach and Company
Yatsuhashi, H. See: Yamanaka and Company
Index to cross-referenced correspondence in the series Whistler correspondence
Bell, William See: Unidentified correspondents
Brown, Ernest See: Painter Etchers' Society, Committee
Cowen, John T. See subseries: Charles Lang Freer Correspondence
Ford, Sheridan See: Reid, Alexander
Haden, Francis Seymour See: Painter Etchers' Society, Committee
Haden, Francis Seymour, Lady See: Haden, Deborah Whistler
Leighton, Frederick, Baron See: Campbell, Lady Colin
Moore, Albert See: Reid, Alexander
Morley, Charles See: Pall Mall Gazette
Morris, Harrison S. See: Reid, Alexander
Pennell, Joseph See: Miscellaneous typescripts
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts See: Reid, Alexander
Prange, F. G. See: Reid, Alexander
Societe des Beaux-Arts See: Reid, Alexander
Society of Portrait Painters See: Reid, Alexander
Stevens Fine Art See: Reid, Alexander
Studd, Arthur See: Miscellaneous typescripts
[Vanderbilt?], George, Mrs. See: George, Mrs.
Whistler, William McNeill, Mrs. See: Whistler, Nellie
Whistler Memorial Committee See: Miscellaneous typescripts
Related Material:
The Archives of American Art microfilmed portions of the Freer papers in 1992. The microfilm is available at the Archives of American Art's Washington D.C. office, the Freer Gallery of Art Library, and through interlibrary loan.
Provenance:
Gift of the Estate of Charles Lang Freer.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Topic:
Art, American -- Collectors and collecting Search this
Art, Asian -- Collectors and collecting Search this
Charles Lang Freer Papers. FSA A.01. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of the estate of Charles Lang Freer.
The photographs document prehistoric through 17th century A.D. architecture in India, Java, and Burma (now Myanmar), including religious and secular structures and engineered works. There are also landscapes showing the sites of early structures in Kashmir. Structures shown include bridges, Buddhist temples (with sculptures), dwellings (such as caves and huts), pagodas, ruins, and walls (with sculpture). The photographs also include an informal portrait of a young girl, group portraits of men and women washing in the Ganges River, and some contemporary landscape shots. Some items with description, location, and name of building or site. The collection is compiled from photographs taken by various photography studios, including Johnston and Hoffman and Lala Deen Dayal and Sons.
Arrangement:
Organized by photography studio, then by original photograph number.
Local Numbers:
FSA A1989.01
Provenance:
The Milton S. Eisenhower Library, Johns Hopkins University Gift; 1989.
Milton S. Eisenhower Library South Asian Architecture Photographs. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of the Milton S. Eisenhower Library, Johns Hopkins University, 1989.
Lantern slides and stereopticons, black and white and hand-colored, assembled by Chaplain Oliver (he appears in several), depicting monuments and scenes, especially in Beijing, such as Ming tombs, temples, the Summer Palace, landscapes, place views, military soldiers, Chinese people, Western visitors, and daily life. Also includes images of the Great Wall and the Forbidden City. Four boxes of the slides are housed in original wooden slide cases with Chaplain Oliver's name and the subject of the slide within painted on the cover. Many slides are numbered on the mount ; some credit the Hui Wen Photo Department, Tiensin Hui Wen Academy.
Arrangement:
Slides organized in 10 boxes; arranged by scene
Biographical / Historical:
Colonel Alfred C. Oliver Jr. graduated from Princeton University in 1917, and subsequently became an U.S. Army Chaplain, serving in both the First and Second World Wars. Oliver spent two years in China from 1930-1932. In 1942, he was taken prisoner of war by the Japanese in the Phillipines. Upon surviving the Bataan death march, he was kept imprisoned until his release in 1945. Over the course of his life, he was stationed at Walter Reed Army Hospital (Washington, D.C.) , in Hawaii, and in Fort Harrison, Indiana, where he became involved in the Civilian Conservation Corps. He co-authored with Harold M. Dudley a book entitled "This new America: the spirit of the Civilian Conservation Corps" (1937) regarding his experience in this work. He retired from the U.S. Army in 1946.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Genre/Form:
Lantern slides -- 1900-1950
Citation:
Chaplain A.C. Oliver Jr. Lantern Slide Collection, FSA.A1997.06. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Identifier:
FSA.A1997.06
Archival Repository:
Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives
The collection primarily contains prints, engravings, and books. The majority of the collection highlights the Indian subcontinent from the 16th to the 20th centuries through the lens of Europeans. It contains depiction of the subcontinent's peoples, cultures, monuments, religious sites, and religious practices as seen in Dutch, English, French, German, and Italian publications. Among this collection are also some representations of people from other parts of the world.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into seven series, beginning with the initial gift in support of the 2014 exhibition, Strange and Wondrous: Prints of India from the Robert J. Del Bontà Collection. Each series represents a grouping selected by the donor and follows the donor's original curation of the material. E or engraving numbers reflect the donor's numbering system.
Series 1: Original gift supporting the exhibition, Strange and Wondrous: Prints of India from the Robert J. Del Bontà Collection in 2014 focusing on ascetics and mendicants.
Series 2: Prints and Engravings relating to the rulers including Timurid and Mughal rulers
Series 3: 16th-17th century prints
Series 4: Engravings and prints from around the world
Series 5: English engravings depicting India
Series 6: Dutch and French engravings of voyages across the world
Series 7: French engravings depicting monuments of India
Biographical / Historical:
Dr. Robert J. Del Bontà was born in 1949. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1978. From 1993 to 2000 he was a research associate and guest curator at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. He also curated major exhibitions for the Berkeley Art Museum; the University of Michigan Museum of Art; the Portland Art Museum; and the New Orleans Museum of Art. He writes and lectures on a wide range of subjects relating to South Asian art including paintings, prints, photographs, popular art, sculptures, and architecture. More recently, he also writes about European prints pertaining to Europe's perception of India and Indo-Portuguese art.
Del Bontà began to collect prints related to South Asia while completing his doctorate in South Asian art history at the University of Michigan in the 1970s. The Robert J. Del Bontà collection contains prints and books depicting people, cultures, religious customs, gods and goddesses, and architecture of Asia, with a specific emphasis on South Asian art.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Permission to reproduce and publish an item from the Archives is coordinated through the National Museum of Asian Art's Rights and Reproductions department. Please contact the Archives in order to initiate this process.
The Myron Bement Smith collection consists of two parts, the papers of Myron Bement Smith and his wife Katharine and the Islamic Archives. It contains substantial material about his field research in Italy in the 1920s and his years working on Islamic architecture in Iran in the 1930s. Letters describe the milieu in which he operated in Rochester NY and New York City in the 1920s and early 1930s; the Smiths' life in Iran from 1933 to 1937; and the extensive network of academic and social contacts that Myron and Katharine developed and maintained over his lifetime. The Islamic Archives was a project to which Smith devoted most of his professional life. It includes both original materials, such as his photographs and notes, and items acquired by him from other scholars or experts on Islamic art and architecture. Smith intended the Archives to serve as a resource for scholars interested in the architecture and art of the entire Islamic world although he also included some materials about non-Islamic architecture.
Scope and Contents:
The Myron Bement Smith Collection consists of two parts, the papers of Myron Bement Smith and his wife Katharine and the Islamic Archives. The papers include some biographic material about Myron but little about his wife. Information on his academic and professional experience is sketchy and his diaries and appointment books often contain only sporadic entries. The papers contain substantial material about his field research in Italy in the 1920s and his years working on Islamic architecture in Iran in the 1930s. Correspondence comprises the largest and most potentially useful part of the papers. Letters describe the milieu in which he operated in Rochester, NY and New York City in the 1920s and early 1930s; the Smiths' life in Iran from 1933 to 1937; and the extensive network of academic and social contacts that Myron and Katharine developed and maintained over his lifetime.
The Islamic Archives, formally entitled The Archive for Islamic Culture and Art, was a project to which Smith devoted most of his professional life. It includes both original materials, such as his photographs and notes, and items acquired by him from other scholars or experts on Islamic art and architecture. Most of the latter consists of photographs and slides. Smith intended the Archives to serve as a resource for scholars interested in the architecture and art of the entire Islamic world although he also included some materials about non-Islamic architecture. The core collection of the Archives consists of Smith's original photographs and architectural sketches of Iranian Islamic monuments made during his field research in the 1930s. He meticulously photographed the interior and exterior of monuments, including their decorative detail. Some of the photographic materials subsequently loaned, purchased, or donated to the Archives may enable scholars to document sites over time but in many cases the materials are poorly preserved or reproduced. A notable exception to this is the glassplate negatives and prints of 19th century Iranian photographer Antoin Sevruguin.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into 2 major series with further subseries. A third series inventories the outsized and miscellaneous materials.
Series 1: Papers
Subseries 1.1: Biographic Materials
Subseries 1.2: Professional Experience
Subseries 1.3: Notebooks, Journals and Appointment Books
Subseries 1.4: Correspondence
Subseries 1.5: Published and Unpublished Materials
Subseries 1.6: Italy Research 1925, 1927-1928
Subseries 1.7: Iran Research 1933-1937
Subseries 1.8: Katharine Dennis Smith Papers and Correspondence
Series 2: The Islamic Archives
Subseries 2.1: Islamic Archives History, Collection Information
Subseries 2.2: Resource Materials Iran
Subseries 2.3: Resource Materials Other Islamic World and General
Subseries 2.4: Myron Bement Smith Architectural Sketches, Plans and Notes, Iran, 1933-1937
Subseries 2.5: Myron Bement Smith Iran Photographs, Notebooks and Negative Registers
Subseries 2.6: Country Photograph File
Subseries 2.7: Lantern Slide Collection
Subseries 2.8: Myron Bement Smith 35 mm Color Slides
Subseries 2.9: Country 35 mm Color Slide File
Subseries 2.10: Myron Bement Smith Negatives
Subseries 2.11: Country Photograph Negatives
Subseries 2.12: Antoin Sevruguin Photographs
Series 3: Outsize and Miscellaneous Items
Subseries 3.1: Map Case Drawers
Subseries 3.2: Rolled Items
Subseries 3.3 Items in Freezer
Subseries 3.4 Smithsonian Copy Negatives
Biographical Note:
Myron Bement Smith was born in Newark Valley, New York in 1897 and grew up in Rochester, New York. He died in Washington D.C. in 1970. He showed an early interest in drawing, and after graduation from high school, he worked as a draftsman for a Rochester architect. He served in the US Army Medical Corps in France during World War I and on return again worked as an architectural draftsman. He studied at Yale University from 1922 to 1926, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. During summer vacations, he worked as draftsman or designer for architectural firms in New York City. After graduation, he received a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation grant and spent two years in Italy doing research on northern Italian brick and stone work. He used photography as an tool for his research and published several well-illustrated articles. On return he joined an architectural firm in Philadelphia and in 1931 became a registered architect in New York. He enrolled in Harvard University graduate school in 1929 pursuing a Master of Fine Arts degree.
In April 1930, Smith was appointed Secretary of the newly created American Institute for Persian Art and Archaeology founded by Arthur Upham Pope and located in New York City. He had no prior academic or work experience in Islamic art or architecture, and his job entailed designing publications, arranging lectures, organizing exhibitions and fund raising. That summer he arranged an independent study course at Harvard University on Persian art and subsequently studied Persian language at Columbia University and attended graduate courses at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. His work and academic credentials enabled him to compete successfully for a research fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies in 1933 to study Iranian Islamic architecture.
Accompanied by his new bride Katharine Dennis, Smith left for Iran in 1933. They suffered a horrendous motor vehicle accident in Iraq en route and required a lengthy recuperation in Lebanon and Cyprus. The Smiths eventually arrived in Isfahan, Iran, where they established their "Expedition House," as Smith called it, in a rented faculty house at Stuart College. Smith's research consisted of meticulous photographic documentation of Islamic monuments and architectural sketches and drawings of many of them. He concentrated on the Isfahan area but also documented monuments elsewhere in Iran. Smith outfitted his station wagon as a combination camper and research vehicle in which he and his staff traveled widely. Katharine sometimes traveled with him but generally she remained in Isfahan managing the household and logistics for the "expedition." The Smiths left Iran in 1937.
Smith published several articles about Iran's Islamic monuments based on his field research and in 1947 completed his PhD thesis for The Johns Hopkins University on the vault in Persian architecture. His professional career from 1938 until his death in 1970 consisted of a series of temporary academic positions, contract work and government or academic sponsored lecture tours and photographic exhibits. He had a long lasting relationship with the Library of Congress where he served as an Honorary Consultant from 1938 to 1940 and again from 1948 to 1970; from 1943 to 1944 he was Chief of the Iranian Section at the Library. Despite his lack of published material, Smith was well-known among academic, government and private citizens who worked, traveled or were otherwise interested Iran and the Islamic world.
Smith developed an extensive network of professional and social contacts that dated from his early student days and increased markedly during his time at the Persian Institute and later in Iran. He kept in touch with them and they touted him to others who were interested in Iran or Islamic art and architecture. This network served him well in realizing his ambition of creating a resource for scholars that relied on photographs to document Islamic architecture. The Islamic Archives began with his own collection of photographs from his Iran research and grew to include all manner of photographic and other materials not only on the Islamic world but also other areas. Creating and managing the Archives became the main focus of Smith's professional life and career. In 1967 he received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to revise his PhD thesis as a publishable manuscript but died before he could complete it.
Related Materials:
The Antoin Sevruguin Photgraphs
Ernst Herzfeld Papers
Lionel B. Bier Drawings
Lionel D. Bier and Carol Bier Photographs
Provenance:
Gift of Katherine Dennis Smith, transfered from National Anthropological Archives.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
The Myron Bement Smith Collection, FSA A.04. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of Katherine Dennis Smith.
This collection consists mainly of the stock records of J.T. Tai & Co. The majority of stock records are organized by stock number in four series: YT numbers, A numbers, CT numbers, and JT numbers. Stock records for objects sold to buyers who did significant business with J.T. Tai & Co. were often removed to binders dedicated to that purchaser. Series two consists of these binders. Consignment records document objects consigned to J.T. Tai & Co., both sold and returned to owners. Series four through six (Sales Slips, Conservation Records, and Photographs) are small groupings of limited materials. Sales slips document sales by J.T. Tai & Co. in chronological order. Each line-item records date, buyer, brief description, stock number, and price of a sale. Conservation Records document conservation work J.T. Tai commissioned or facilitated, typically through correspondence. The photographs provide visual documentation of stone sculptures.
Arrangement:
Arranged in six series: Series 1: Stock Records, Series 2: Collector & Institution Binders, Series 3: Consignment, Series 4: Sales Slips, Series 5: Conservation Records, and Series 6: Photographs.
Biographical / Historical:
TAI Jun Tsei (Dai Runzhai 戴潤齋 1911–1992; born Dai Fubao), or J.T. Tai as he was known in the West, was an incredibly important dealer in Chinese antiquities who shaped American collections of Chinese art throughout the second half of the twentieth century. Indeed, he ranks second only to C.T. Loo in defining the meaning of Chinese art for Western institutions and scholars alike.
Tai began his career at his uncle's small antique store in Wuxi, China. Between 1945 and 1949, Tai regularly sold antiquities sourced in rural China to Lu Wu Antiques Company, an export company that C.T. Loo operated with Wu Qizhou. Lu Wu Antiques exclusively supplied Loo's western business, C.T. Loo & Company with galleries in Paris and New York. Upon the establishment of the People's Republic of China, the government attempted to arrest J.T. Tai for illegally exporting objects. Coming very close to being captured, he and his wife, Pingying Tai (1915–1998), escaped dramatically to Hong Kong, where they slowly reclaimed Mr. Tai's collection from Shanghai. In early 1950, Tai immigrated to New York City with the help of C.T. Loo and established himself as an independent dealer by the fall of 1950. Tai's business flourished and he played an instrumental role in shaping several American collections of Chinese art, Avery Brundage and Arthur M. Sackler were his most important clients. Upon Tai's death in 1992, J.T. Tai & Company ceased doing business.
The collection contains materials related to Louise Cort's book "Shigaraki: Potters' Valley" (1979), concerning ceramics manufactured in the Shigaraki area of Japan. Primarily research-related, the collection includes her dissertation, research notes, index card files, originals and copies of source materials, drawings/sketches, and photographic materials (primarily black and white, some color; formats include prints, contact sheets, and negatives). Also included are post-publication materials, including royalty statements and related correspondence, clippings of reviews, correspondence, and other materials related to Cort's ongoing interest in Shigaraki.
Biographical / Historical:
Louise Allison Cort was born in 1944 in Ohio to parents John Shaw Cort Jr. and Mary Yunck Cort. Her interest in Asian ceramics began after traveling to Japan in 1961 as part of her high school's exchange student program. She was particularly interested in the everyday wares used by her host mother. While in college, she took an intensive Japanese language course, and traveled to Tokyo for further language study in graduate school. She received her Bachelor of Arts in English from Simmons College, with a minor in art history. Cort then received her graduate degree from Oxford University, studying Japanese art history. In March 1968, she traveled to Shigaraki for the first time, inspired by the Shigaraki ceramics she had seen in her visits to Japanese museums. She returned multiple times to research Shigaraki's history, ceramics, and modern life. For over three years, Cort lived in Kyoto while doing research for her book, Shigaraki, Potters Valley. Later, she traveled to India for a year and a half to research earthenware.
From 1969 to 1976, she served as Assistant Curator of Oriental Art at the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University. She then worked as an Associate for Research at the Fogg from 1978 to 1981. In 1985, she began her work at the Freer Gallery of Art as a Museum Specialist, serving in that role until 1989. From 1989 to 1994, she was Assistant Curator, and then moved to Associate Curator from 1994 to 1995. Cort then held the position of Curator of Ceramics from 1995 until her retirement in 2018. She remains curator emerita. As a scholar, her interests focused on historic and contemporary Asian ceramics, as well as other craft traditions. She published her first book, Shigaraki, Potters Valley, in 1979. Her book was reprinted in 2000. Cort has published numerous other articles and books relating to Japanese, Southeast Asian, and South Asian art. These include Temple Potters of Puri (with Purna Chandra Mishra) in 2012 and Around Chigusa: tea and the arts of sixteenth-century Japan (with Dora Ching and Andrew Watsky) in 2017. She received the Koyama Fujio Memorial Prize and the Smithsonian Distinguished Scholar Award in 2012 for her contributions to research on Japanese ceramics.
Citation:
Louise Allison Cort Collection. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Ambassador Raymond A. Hare (1901-1994) created this collection to document the architecture, cities, and landscapes of the Middle East, including Afghanistan, Egypt, Greece, Iraq, Jordan, Israel and Palestine, Iran, Syria, Turkey, and Yemen.A photograph album of 90 silver-gelatin photographs depicts minarets in Cairo, Egypt, with annotations in Arabic and English describing the date and title of each minaret. Two portfolios of photographs presented to Ambassador Hare in 1965 by the senior staff of the U.S. Agency for International Development Mission to Turkey to commemorate his service as Ambassador to Turkey from 1961-1965. Included are 52 matted photographs, many signed by the photographer Ara Guler and dated and captioned, documenting the art and architecture of the Seljuks and the Armenians at the Armenian center of Ani. The slides, 1930s - 1960s, created by Hare document Islamic architecture and people and place views of North Africa, Turkey, Egypt, and Syria.
Arrangement:
Slides are arranged by county and city or country and subject, then by Hare's use of the materials. The prints are mounted in the albums in original order.
Biographical / Historical:
Ambassador Raymond A. Hare was born in 1901 in Martinsburg, West Virginia and raised in Manchester, Iowa and Boothbay Harbor, Maine. He received a B.A. from Grinnell College in 1924 and joined the Foreign Service in 1927. He retired in 1966 and throughout his career Hare served as U.S. ambassador to Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Republic. He also served as the director general of the U.S. Foreign Service (1956-1958) and was affiliated with the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C. as its president (1966-1969), national chairman (1969-1976), and chairman emeritus starting in 1976. As an amateur photographer, Hare documented Islamic architecture during his extensive travels in the Middle East, especially in Egypt, Syria, and Turkey. Ambassador Raymond A. Hare died of pneumonia on February 9, 1994.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Permission to reproduce and publish an item from the Archives is coordinated through the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery's Rights and Reproductions department. Please contact the Archives in order to initiate this process.
Permission to reproduce and publish an item from the Archives is coordinated through the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery's Rights and Reproductions department. Please contact the Archives in order to initiate this process.
Raymond A. Hare Photographs, FSA.A1989.03. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of Raymond A. Hare, 1989.
London, C. Whiting Beaufort House, Strand, 1868-1875
Scope and Contents:
Photographers represented include J.C.A. Dannenberg, R.H. DeMontmorency, E. Godfrey, W.W. Hooper, H.C. McDonald, J. Mulheran, G. Richter, Shepherd & Robertson (later as Bourne & Shepherd), B. Simpson, B.W. Switzer, H.C.B. Tanner, C.C. Taylor, and J. Waterhouse.
Taken in the 1850s and 1860s, these photographs portray the people of many castes, culture groups, and occupations in India, posed individually and in groups. Indian culture groups portrayed include Bhogta, Bhoti, Chero, Dombo, Gond, Gujarati, Ho, Kachari, Kishangarh, Kota, Lepcha, Mishmi, Munda, Naga, Pahari, Paithan, Rajput, Saora, Singpho, Thakur, Tharu, and Toda. Peoples portrayed are from parts of India and surrounding areas, now in Afghanistan, Burma, Iran and Pakistan, such as Assam, Bareli, Behat, Cachar, Chittagong, Delhi, Hazara, Hisar, Kohat, Lahore, Madras, Munjpur, Mysore, Palamau, Shahabad, Shahjahanpur, Sikkim, and Sind.
Occupations illustrated include barbers, blacksmiths, carpenters, charcoal carriers, farmers, fish vendors, horse dealers, interpreters, landlords, mendicants, merchants, officials, priests, warriors, and water carriers. Activities shown include dancing and knitting. Artifacts and material culture documented include books, buildings, devotional objects, tools, and weapons such as bows, clubs, shields, guns and spears.
Arrangement:
The collection is composed of 8 bound volumes with 470 albumen photoprints mounted alongside text. Photographs are arranged by region, with culture group and region, some also with name and occupation of subjects.
Biographical / Historical:
John Forbes Watson and John William Kaye assembled this ethnologic study collection from photographs made by British photographers in India. The collection documents the caste and culture groups of India for a British India Office multi-volume publication. A graduate of Aberdeen University in England, John Forbes Watson (1827-1892) served as an assistant surgeon in the Bombay Medical Services from 1850 to 1853. While in India, Watson began to research Indian agricultural resources. In 1858, he became reporter on the products of India for the India Office in England. A year later, he became director of the India Office's India Museum, devoted to promoting trade in the British Empire. While there, he published several monographs on Indian plants and textiles. In 1867, he was appointed keeper of the museum, and served in that capacity until he retired in 1879.
John William Kaye (1814-1876) was secretary of the India Office's Political and Secret Department.
Local Numbers:
FSA A1990.03
Provenance:
Purchase 1990 A1990.3
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Citation:
The People of India. FSA.A1990.03. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., Purchase.
43 stereographs from the early twentieth century were produced by the Underwood & Underwood Studio depicting various scenes and people from Meiji Japan, 3 stereographs from the 1867 Exposition Universelle in Paris, France, and two black and white postcards from Japan. Specific Japanese locations depicted include: Yokohama; Mississippi Bay and the Mikado Cliffs; Tokyo; Mt. Haruna, Ikao; Kyoto; Hiroshima; Lake Chuzenji.
Arrangement:
0.5 linear foot
Biographical / Historical:
The cards were most likely assembled by Ms. Smith's father, A. Hyatt Mayor (1901-1980), art historian, writer, and Metropolitan Museum of Art Curator of Prints from 1946-1966.
Underwood & Underwood was an early photographic studio who produced steroscopic and photographic images from 1881 to the 1940s. Founded in Ottawa, Kansas by brothers Elmer Underwood and Bert Elias Underwood, the studio worked in Ottawa, Baltimore, and New York City. They sold box sets of photographs and set up distribution offices throughout the world. Underwood & Underwood covered major news events like the Boer War and the Great War.
Local Numbers:
FSA A2002.02
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Genre/Form:
Stereographs
Postcards
Citation:
Martha Smith Collection of Stereographs and Postcards. FSA.A2002.02. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Identifier:
FSA.A2002.02
Archival Repository:
Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives
2 Copies (Two copies: one bound and one loose., 29 x 22 cm.)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Copies
Reports
Photographs
Place:
China
Japan
Angkor Wat (Cambodia)
Date:
1915
Scope and Contents:
A report prepared by archaeologist and art historian Langdon Warner on his travels of 1913-1914 to investigate the founding of an American school of Chinese archaeology to be established in Beijing. Warner's travels included Europe, Japan, Korea, China and Indo-China. Warner spoke with scholars, administrators and officials, and travelled to museums and archaeological sites. Warner traveled with his wife. The report contains two parts; the first being a summary of his travels, and the second, a series of recommendations for the proposed school.
Biographical / Historical:
Langdon Warner was an archaeologist and historian of Asian art in the first half of the 20th century. He was born on August 1, 1881 in Cambridge, Massachusetts and educated at Harvard University, which he graduated from in 1903. Between acting in various positions at museums across the country, most notably the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Nelson-Atkins Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Harvard Fogg Museum of Art, he travelled extensively in Asia. Including an 1913-14 trip sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution to explore the possibility of founding an American School of Chinese Archaeology in Beijing. Accompanied by his wife, their journey included visits to Europe, Japan, Korea, China, and Indochina. He spoke with scholars, administrators, and officials, and travelled to museums and archaeological sites. He compiled a two-part report: a summary of his travels and a series of recommendations for the proposed school.
During World War II, Warner taught a course on Japanese language, culture, and history to Civil Affairs Officers and acted as a Special Consultant for the U.S. Army's Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives program, the so-called "Monuments Men." He created the Official List of Monuments for Japan, China, Korea, and Thailand. Warner spent the summer of 1946 working as an Expert Consultant to the Arts and Monuments Division of the Civil Information and Education Section under the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers. Upon his return to Massachusetts, he resumed working at the Fogg Museum of Art until his retirement in 1950. During his career, he wrote numerous books on Asian art such as The Enduring Art of Japan, The Long Old Road in China, and Japanese Sculpture of the Tempyo Period: Masterpieces of the Eighth Century. Warner died on June 9, 1955 in Cambridge, Massachusetts and was posthumously awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasures by the Japanese government for his efforts to preserve Japanese art and monuments during and after the war.
Local Numbers:
FSA A1994.07
Other Archival Materials:
Landon Warner Papers, circa late 18th century-1987 (bulk 1900-1959). Houghton Library, Harvard University
Langdon Warner Photograph Collection, 1903-1950. Houghton Library, Harvard University.
Langdon Warner Records, 1916-1929 (bulk 1917-1923). Philadelphia Museum of Art Archives.
Dwight William Tryon (1849-1925) was a noted American landscape painter whose painting style is associated with American tonalism. His paintings gained international recognition from the 1880s through the 1920s. Charles Lang Freer was his primary patron. Tryon taught art at Smith College and became head of the Art Department. The Tryon papers, dating from circa 1872 to 1930, document Tryon's professional and personal life and include correspondence, photographs, a sketchbook, and newspaper clippings.
Scope and Contents:
The Dwight William Tryon papers span circa 1872 to 1930 and measure .5 linear feet. The collection contains: nineteen photographs, a sketchbook, a letter, and five newspaper clippings.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into 4 series: Series 1: Photographs, circa 1872 - 1915, no date, Series 2: Sketchbook, 1887-1888, no date, Series 3: Correspondence, June 17, 1895, Series 4: Newspaper Clippings, 1923, 1925, 1930, no date
Biographical / Historical:
American landscape painter Dwight William Tryon was born in Hartford, CT on August 13, 1849. When Tryon was about 2 years old, his father Anson Tryon was killed in a hunting accident and he was raised at his maternal grandparents' home. At the age of fourteen, Tryon began work as a machinist at Colt's Firearms Factory in Hartford to support his mother and himself. He enrolled in evening classes at Hannum's Business School and developed calligraphic skills which supplemented his income.
In 1864 Tryon became a bookkeeper and clerk at Brown and Gross, the finest booksellers in Hartford and a gathering place for local literary people such as Harriet Beecher Stowe and Mark Twain. During his ten-year appointment there, Tryon self-studied art using the bookstore's large stock in art books and made weekend sketching trips to the Connecticut River. In 1872 Tryon was appointed Secretary of the Hartford Art Association and began exhibiting his works. In 1873 he exhibited at the National Academy of Design in New York. In that year he married Alice Hepzibah Belden whom he had met in the bookstore.
In December, 1876, the Tryon family moved to Paris, France to pursue art with financial support from the Cheney family, wealthy silk manufacturers in South Manchester, CT. Tryon received formal training under Jacquesson de la Chevreuse, a Barbizon painter Charles-Francois Daubigny, and others. He also attended the École des Beaux-Arts.
On returning to the United States in 1881, Tryon took a studio in New York and taught for several years. In the following year, he became a member of the Society of American Artists. Throughout the 1880s when the Barbizon paintings were highly regarded, Tryon's French-inspired American landscape paintings received international as well as national acclaim, winning him numerous medals and awards. In 1899, Tryon was awarded the Webb prize by the Society of American Artists for The First Leaves, a recognition given annually to the best landscape painting by a young American artist. In the same year, Tryon sold his first painting to Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), a Detroit industrialist and collector, who became Tryon's principal patron.
From 1886 to 1923, Tryon taught at Smith College, MA, as Professor of Art and took charge of the Art Department. He advised on the college's art collection and acted as the department's representative in the New York art world. Tryon resigned from the College in May 1923, and in June of the same year he received an honorary Master of Arts degree from Smith College.
In 1887, the Tryon family built a house ("The Cottage") in Padanaram, a coastal village in South Dartmouth, MA, where they would spend every year from spring to autumn until his death. In Padanaram, Tryon made sketches which he developed into paintings in his New York apartment during the winter months. Tryon also took immense pleasure in fishing and sailing in Padanaram.
In 1904, the Montross Gallery in New York held a one-man show on Tryon's painting, and in 1913 they launched Tryon's Retrospective Exhibition. In 1923, the Freer Gallery of Art opened in Washington, D. C., including a permanent collection of Tryon's paintings.
Tryon died of cancer at his summer house on July 1, 1925, at the age of 75. Upon his death, Tryon bequeathed a large number of his works to Smith College. In September of the following year, the Tryon Gallery at Smith College opened.
1849, August 1st -- Born, Hartford, CT. Son of Anson Tryon and Delia O. Roberts Tryon
[1851-1852] -- Anson Tryon is killed in a hunting accident
1863 -- Machinist at Colt's Firearms Factory, Hartford
1864 -- Begins work as a bookkeeper and clerk at Brown and Gross, Hartford
1872 -- Appointed Secretary of the Hartford Art Association
1873 -- Exhibits at the National Academy of Design
1873 -- Marries Alice Hepzibah Belden
1876-1881 -- Studies art in Paris with Jacquesson de la Chevreuse, Charles-Francois Daubigny, and at the École des Beaux-Arts
1881 -- Returns to the United States and settles in New York
1882 -- Becomes a Member of the Society of American Artists
1886-1923 -- Professor of art at Smith College, Northampton, MA
1889 -- Awarded the Webb Prize for The First Trees by the Society of American Artists
1889 -- Sells his first painting to Charles Lang Freer
1891 -- Elected Associate of the National Academy of Design
1913 -- Retrospective Exhibition
1923 -- Freer Gallery of Art opens, including a permanent collection of Tryon's paintings
1923 -- Retires from Smith College and is conferred an Honorary degree of M.A.
1925, July 1st -- Dies at his summer house in South Dartmouth, MA
1926 -- The Tryon Gallery at Smith College opens
Related Material:
Charles Lang Freer papers housed in the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives include Tryon's correspondence.
Nelson and Henry C. White research material housed in the Archives of American Art include Tryon's correspondence, notes, and photographs.
Alfred Vance Churchill Papers housed in Smith College Archives include Tryon's correspondence.
The Freer Gallery of Art and Smith College Museum of Art are major repositories that house Tryon's work.
Provenance:
An anonymous donor and Linda Merrill donated Tryon's papers to the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives in 1989.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Permission to reproduce and publish an item from the Archives is coordinated through the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery's Rights and Reproductions department. Please contact the Archives in order to initiate this process.
Dwight William Tryon papers, FSA.A1989.02. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of an anonymous donor and Linda Merrill, 1989.
73 Items (Letters, written in ink, ball point, graphite, typewriter)
26 Items (Stamps)
3 Items (Photographs)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Correspondence
Place:
USA -- Tennessee -- Nashville
Date:
1831-1979
Scope and Contents:
This collection is an amalgamation of letters written and recieved by prominent figures in 19th and 20th century American Art. Included in the collection is a significant portion of letters from Abbott Thayer to correspondents from his circle of family, friends and art world figures such as Maria Oakey Dewing and Samuel Coleman.
Arrangement:
Organized alphabetically by author.
Biographical / Historical:
Beginning in his youth Thomas Brumbaugh collected autographed correspondence. Mr. Brumbaugh's collecting instincts resulted in a unique collaborative collection providing a glimpse into the lives of a variety of 19th and 20th century American artists, such as Abbott Thayer. Brumbaugh was a professor of fine arts at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, and author of many articles on American art and artists.
Local Numbers:
FSA A2009.06
Other Archival Materials:
Thomas B. Brumbaugh research material on Abbott Handerson Thayer and other artists, 1876-1994 (bulk 1960s-1994); Also located at Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
6.15 Cubic feet (consisting of 14 boxes and 1 flat box.)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Slides
Notes
Photographs
Place:
Shanghai (China)
Singapore
Date:
1928-2008
bulk 1945-1982
Summary:
The Helen D. Ling Papers, dating from 1928-2008 with the bulk of material dating from 1945-1982, measure 6.15 cubic feet and include biographical material, research, writings, correspondence, printed material, and audiovisual material related to Ling's life and work as a collector and dealer of Asian art.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Helen Ling measure 6.15 cubic feet and date from 1928 to 2008, with the bulk of material dating between 1945-1982. The papers largely relate to Ling's personal life, research, and collections of Chinese objects. The papers include biographical material, research, writings, correspondence, printed material, and audio recordings.
Arrangement:
The Helen D. Ling papers are organized into six series: Series 1: Biographical Material; Series 2: Diaries; Series 3: Research Files; Series 4: Writings and Notes; Series 5: Correspondence; Series 6: Printed Material; Series 7: Audiovisual Material; Series 8: Lectures; Series 9: Sales Records
Biographical Note:
Helen Dalling Ling was born Helen Dalling on July 28, 1901 in Uhrichsville, Ohio, and grew up in Everett, Pennsylvania. Ling was an American collector, dealer, and connoisseur of Asian art and antiques.
In 1925, Ling attended an American Baptist Foreign Mission picnic where she met Tien-Gi (Ti-Gi) Ling, a Chinese research chemist who was studying for his master's and subsquent doctorate in industrial chemistry from Brown University and Cornell University, respectively. Ling traveled to Shanghai by herself in 1928 to see if she could live in China, as marrying Ti-Gi would strip her of her American citizenship. Content in Shanghai, she and Ti-Gi married several months after her arrival in the spring of 1928.
The pair lived throughout South China, Hong Kong, and Singapore where she held various positions including as an English teacher and secretary. The couple had one son, James G. Ling, in 1930. Ling became interested in antiques prior to moving abroad, and eventually opened an antique shop in Shanghai in 1938 called the Green Dragon. When the Lings moved to Singapore in 1951 after escaping the Communists in Shanghai, Helen Ling opened another shop under her own name which she operated until her death on May 15th, 1982. Ling was very active in the field of Southeast Asian art, regularly giving lectures and was regularly featured in publications on her expertise in Asian art. She co-founded and served as the first president of the Southeast Asian Ceramic Society, Singapore in 1971. Ling was thrust onto the global stage when her friend, Jim Thompson, co-founder of Thai Silk Company Limited disappeared while visiting her and Ti-Gi at there home, Moonlight in 1967. Thirty-four Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery collection items were once part of Ling's personal collection, and were either sold or donated to the museum after her death by her family.
Provenance:
Gift of Ann S. Ling.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Permission to reproduce and publish an item from the Archives is coordinated through the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery's Rights and Reproductions department. Please contact the Archives in order to initiate this process.
Helen D. Ling Papers, FSA.A2019.04. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of Ann S. Ling.
Sponsor:
Funding for partial processing of the collection in 2017 was supported by a grant from the Smithsonian Institution's Collections Care and Preservation Fund (CCPF). Processing of an accretion in 2022 was supported by a grant from the Smithsonian Institution's American Women's History Initiative (AWHI).
4 Linear feet (consisting of 8 legal document boxes)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Photographs
Notes
Correspondence
Place:
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Date:
1979-2015
Summary:
The Shirley Z. Johnson Papers, dating from 1979-2015, measure 4 linear feet and include an inventory, correspondence, and research files related to Johnson's collection of Chinese textiles.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Shirley Z. Johnson measure 4 linear feet and date from 1979-2015. The papers largely relate to Johnson's collection of textiles. The papers include inventories, object files, correspondence, and research files.
The inventories and object files document Johnson's textile collecting and include book lists, images, documentation, and research organized by individual object.
The correspondence files include letters, notes, emails, news clippings, interview notes, museum object lists, press releases, and notes related to the holdings of museums, art dealers. They also contain information related to imperial robes and the individual Yan Yong, a scholar and Deputy Director of the Court History Department and the Head of the Division of Textiles at the Palace Museum in Beijing, China.
Research files comprise printed material, articles and speech drafts, and notes related to Chinese textile research. Topics represented in the records include sumptuary laws, symbolism in religious traditions in China, rank badges in various Chinese military branches, and instructions for dating textiles.
The original container numbers established by the creator are documented with their corresponding files.
Arrangement:
The Shirley Z. Johnson papers are arranged in six series.
Series 1: Inventories
Series 2: Correspondence with Collectors
Series 3: Correspondence with Dealers
Series 4: Correspondence with Museums
Series 5: Correspondence with Curators
Series 6: Research Files
Biographical Note:
Shirley Z. Johnson is a scholarly collector, antitrust attorney, and autism advocate.
Ms. Johnson's first Asian art collection consisted of imperial Chinese textiles about which she wrote an article in Arts of Asia, (1995). Some textiles have been given to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art, the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery (Freer|Sackler), others have been loaned to it and, as of 2019, have been promised as a gift. Her interest in Chinese textiles began in 1979 when she visited China and purchased four pieces: two from Chinese people seated on the ground among the stone animals leading to the Ming tombs and two rank badges from an antique store on Lui Li Chang street in Beijing.
Beginning around 1992, she became interested in Japanese metal work, when she spotted a piece she liked of the Meiji period (1868 – 1912) at Orientations Gallery in New York. Thereafter, she collected metal art of that era until 2006, when she began collecting work of living metal artists. She gave her collection of Meiji metal work to The Walters Art Museum in 2019 (along with Japanese cloisonné and prints) and has promised her collection of contemporary metal art to the Freer|Sackler, along with extensive archives relating to each piece and interviews with about 100 metal artists beginning in 2006.
She served on the Board of The Textile Museum from 1989-2003 and on the Board of the Freer|Sackler from 2004-2012 and from 2017 to 2021.
Ms. Johnson had published several articles on Asian art: "Tomobako: Functional Beauty," Impressions, 42 Part One 2021; "Japanese Metal Art: An Enduring Tradition," Arts of Asia, May-June 2017; "Chinese Ancestor Portraits in the Sackler's Collection," Arts of Asia, July-August 2003; "A Textile Collector's Approach to Collecting," Arts of Asia, July-August 1995.
Her legal specialty was antitrust law. She worked as a trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division, was counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Antitrust Subcommittee, and entered private practice in 1976 until she retired in 2009.
She graduated from the University of Michigan law school in 1965 with a Juris Doctor degree and was a member of The Order of the Coif. Previously she received a bachelor's degree in Political Science, summa cum laude, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
In 2004, she founded a unique social skills program for children with autism at the West Burlington, Iowa School District involving classroom guidance, luncheon and after-school groups and a summer camp. Each activity involved both autistic and neurotypical children. The program was called the TRI Project, standing for Intense, Inclusive, Individual.
Provenance:
Donated by Shirley Z. Johnson in 2015. Addition donated by Shirley Z. Johnson in 2019.
Restrictions:
Collection is restricted until 2140.
Rights:
Permission to reproduce and publish an item from the Archives is coordinated through the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery's Rights and Reproductions department. Please contact the Archives in order to initiate this process.
Shirley Z. Johnson Papers. FSA.A2016.06. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of Shirley Z. Johnson, 2015.
Sponsor:
Funding for partial processing of the collection was supported by a grant from the Smithsonian Institution's Collections Care and Preservation Fund (CCPF).
7.8 Cubic feet (consisting of 12 boxes and 9 oversized flat file folders.)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Maps
Photographs
Notes
Place:
Detroit (Mich.)
Turkey
Istanbul (Turkey)
Berlin (Germany)
Michigan
Date:
circa 1877-1947
Summary:
The Mehmet Aga-Oglu Papers, dating from approximately 1877-1947, measure 7.8 cubic feet and include writings and notes, photographs, and maps related to Dr. Aga-Oglu's work Corpus of Islamic Work, which was never published due to Dr. Aga-Oglu's death in 1949.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Mehmet Aga-Oglu measure 7.8 cubic feet and date from 1877 to approximately 1949. The papers largely relate to Aga-Oglu's research and writings for his unpublished work Corpus of Islamic Metalwork. The papers include manuscript drafts, research files, printed material, maps, and photographs.
The manuscript drafts include handwritten drafts, citations attached or written onto drafts, and revision notes for his unpublished manuscript. Content includes material related to metalliferous mines, precious and base metals, and traffic of metals in Islamic and non-Islamic countries, as well as unlabeled writings related to astrolabes and synthetic protective coatings for metals.
Research material represents a majority of the records, and consists of accumulated research notes, citation lists, and object sketches. Subjects of the research material are related to metallurgy, iconography, metals commonly used in metalwork, geology and mining, and histories of metalwork in ranging locations or eras.
Printed material contains published articles from periodicals, a bulletin from the Detroit Institute of Arts, catalogues of scholarly publications available for purchase, and reviews of Aga-Oglu's published works.
Graphic materials present in the collection include maps depicting areas such as the Middle East, the northern Arabian Peninsula, and Northern India during different eras, and hand traced maps with marked metalliferous mine locations; and a substantial number of photographs of objects and artworks.
Arrangement:
The Mehmet Aga-Oglu papers are arranged in five series.
Series 1: Manuscript Drafts
Series 2: Research Files
Series 3: Printed Material
Series 4: Maps
Series 5: Photographs
Biographical Note:
Dr. Mehmet Aga-Oglu was an Islamic art historian and professor born on August 4, 1896 at Erivan in Russia Caucasia.
In 1916, Dr. Aga-Oglu was awarded a Doctor of Letters in the history, philosophy, and languages of Islamic countries from the University of Moscow. Following his graduation, Dr. Aga-Oglu traveled through Turkistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Asia Minor studying Islamic art. Dr. Aga-Oglu returned to academia in 1921 at the University of Istanbul where he studied the history of Islam and the Ottoman Empire.
During his time as a student at the University of Istanbul, he traveled extensively to European universities as a part of his program of study. This included studying Near Eastern art and architecture under Dr. Ernst Herzfeld in Berlin; classical and early Christian archaeology and Western art at the University of Jena; and completing his art history studies in Vienna. Dr. Aga-Oglu was awarded a Ph.D in philosophy in 1926.
Dr. Aga-Oglu was appointed curator by the Department of the National Museum in Istanbul in 1927. In 1929, the city of Detroit recruited Dr. Aga-Oglu to build the Department of Near Eastern Art at the Detroit Institute of Arts. In 1933, he was appointed as Chair of the History of Islamic Art at the University of Michigan. He joined the university first as a Freer Fellow and Lecturer and then later became a professor.
Dr. Aga-Oglu's accomplishments during his tenure included representing the University and the Detroit Institute of the Arts at the Millennium Celebration of Firdausi and the Congress of Orientalists in Tehran in 1934; organizing an exhibition of Islamic art at the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco in 1937; founding and serving as editor of the periodical Ars Islamica; and serving as a Visiting Professor at the Summer Seminar of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Princeton University in 1935 and 1938.
Following his departure from the University of Michigan in 1938, Dr. Aga-Oglu primarily focused on research and writing. His publications include Persian Bookbindings of the Fifteenth Century, History of Islamic Art, and Safawid Rugs and Textiles. From 1948 to 1949, Dr. Aga-Oglu consulted for the Textile Museum in Washington D.C.
Beginning in 1940, Dr. Aga-Oglu planned, researched, and wrote drafts of his unpublished work Corpus of Islamic Metalwork. His project was intended to be a multi-volume work, but was not completed. Dr. Aga-Oglu died on July 4, 1949.
Provenance:
Donated by Dr. Kamer Aga-Oglu in 1959.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Permission to reproduce and publish an item from the Archives is coordinated through the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery's Rights and Reproductions department. Please contact the Archives in order to initiate this process.
Mehmet Aga-Oglu Papers. FSA.A.10. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of Dr. Kamer Aga-Oglu, 1959.
Sponsor:
Funding for partial processing of the collection was supported by a grant from the Smithsonian Institution's Collections Care and Preservation Fund (CCPF).
60 Prints (color, various sizes, all mounted on board.)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Prints
Photographs
Color prints (photographs)
Place:
India
Date:
circa mid-20th century
Scope and Contents:
60 color photographic prints, mounted on board, from the mid-20th century by Lewis S. Callaghan. Images depict various scenes of India, including people, architecture and the landscape.
Arrangement:
Organized in 2 flat boxes.
Biographical / Historical:
Photographs were originally part of the Freer Gallery Art Study Collection and were transferred to the Freer-Sackler Archives in 1991.
Local Numbers:
FSA A1991.02
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Color prints (photographs) -- 20th century
Citation:
Emily Callaghan photographs. FSA.A1991.02. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Identifier:
FSA.A1991.02
Archival Repository:
Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives
The papers, 1899-1962, of editor, lexicographer, author, and lecturer Everett Edward Thompson (1876-1962) primarily document his 1905 trip to Indonesia and subsequent lectures delivered from 1913-1919 and 1956. Portions of the papers are photocopies. Included are obituaries; a portrait photograph dated 1899; portions of a travel journal; announcements, notes, and 132 glass stereopticons assembled in preparation for lectures on Indonesia; a letter; printed material and clippings related to language and the Webster-Merriam dictionaries; and a handwritten copy of Irene Kuhn's 1961 news article on the early history of U.S. field teaching in the Philippines.
Scope and Contents:
The papers, 1899-1962, of editor, lexicographer, author, and lecturer Everett Edward Thompson (1876-1962) primarily document his 1905 trip to Indonesia and subsequent lectures delivered from 1913-1919 and 1956. Portions of the papers are photocopies. Included are obituaries; a portrait photograph dated 1899; portions of a travel journal; announcements, notes, and 132 glass stereopticons assembled in preparation for lectures on Indonesia; a letter; printed material and clippings related to language and the Webster-Merriam dictionaries; and a handwritten copy of Irene Kuhn's 1961 news article on the early history of U.S. field teaching in the Philippines. Total: 151 items
Arrangement note:
Series 1: -- Biographical Data
Series 2: -- Portrait Photograph
Series 3: -- Travel Journal
Series 4: -- Lecture notes and announcements
Series 5: -- Letter
Series 6: -- Printed Matter
Series 7: -- Lantern Slides
Biographical Information:
Editor, lexicographer, author, and lecturer Everett Edward Thompson was born in Springfield, Massachusetts in1876. He received an A.B. degree from Amherst College in 1899. From 1901-1905 Thompson fufilled an appointment to a government teaching position in the Philippines. In 1905 he traveled from Manila to Singapore, and then to Burma, India, Ceylon, Java, the Straits Settlements, and Japan. From 1905 to 1909 he was part of the editorial staff of the G&C Merriam Company, publisher of the Webster-Merriam dictionaries, Springfield, Massachusetts. In 1907 he married Emily Lecretia Bettes and two years later in 1909 received an M.A. from Amherst College where he wrote a thesis on, "The Spanish Element in the English Language." From 1910-1920 Thomspon served as editor of foreign language textbooks, American Book Company, New York City. In 1920 he received honorary doctor of letters (Litt. D) from Syracuse University. That same year Thompson rejoined the Webster dictionary editorial staff of G&C Merriam Company, Springfield, Massachusetts where he remained until 1949. Everett Edward Thompson died 1962 March 24 in Springfield, Massachusetts.
1876 June 20 -- Born in Springfield, Massachusetts
1899 -- Received A.B. degree from Amherst College
1901-1905 -- Appointed government teaching position in the Philippines
1905 -- Traveled from Manila to Singapore, and then to Burma, India, Ceylon, Java, the Straits Settlements, and Japan
1905-1909 -- Joined editorial staff of the G&C Merriam Company, publisher of the Webster-Merriam dictionaries, Springfield, Massachusetts
1907 -- Married Emily Lecretia Bettes
1909 -- Received M.A. from Amherst College. Thesis on, "The Spanish Element in the English Language."
1910-1920 -- Editor of foreign language textbooks, American Book Company, New York City
1913 -- Birth of son Ronald
1920 -- Received honorary doctor of letters (Litt. D) from Syracuse University
1920-1949 -- Re-joined the Webster dictionary editorial staff of G&C Merriam Company, Springfield, Massachusetts
1962 March 24 -- Died in Springfield, Massachusetts
Provenance:
The collection was donated to the National Museum of Asian Art Archives by Everett Edward Thompson's son, Ronald Thompson, in 1991.
Everett Edward Thompson Papers, FSA.A.1991.05. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. Gift of Ronald Thompson, 1991.
Lantern slides, undated, some hand-tinted, assembled by the Foreign Missions Library of New York City to document missionary activities in Iran, probably during the early part of the twentienth century. Included are images of missionaries and evangelists, Fiske seminary, The American High School for Boys in Tehran, the Memorial School for Boys in Tabriz, the Red Cross, orphans, place views and architecture, a house interior, daily activities such as rug weaving and plowing, livestock, and people such as Kurdish women and a dervish. The slides are hand-colored and black and white, and many are captioned.
Arrangement:
Images divided into the following section: market scenes, daily living, carpets, missionaries, the Red Cross, hospitals, schools, orphans, pre-Islamic rock reliefs, buildings, railroads, city views, villages, caravans and caravansaries, animals, farmers and fields, mountains, women and men.
Biographical / Historical:
The Iran Mission was established by the U.S. Presbyterian Board of Mission in 1870, taking over the work of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Hundreds of the organization's missionaries were stationed in Iran. The first missionary to arrive was Justin Perkins (1805-1869), active in Persia from 1835 to 1869, establishing the Nestorian Mission at Urmia. Samuel Martin Jordan (1871-1952) arrived in Iran in 1898 and spent 43 years there, establishing among other institutions the Alborz High School (American College of Tehran). The Mission's functions were transferred to the Evangelical Church of Iran in 1965, until missionaries were ultimately removed from the country in 1969.
Local Numbers:
FSA A1991.04
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Wenley, A. G. (Archibald Gibson), 1898-1962 Search this
Extent:
3 Boxes
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Field notes
Photographs
Maps
Place:
China
Beidaihe (China)
Yun'gang Caves (China)
Date:
1924-1926
Scope and Contents:
This collection consists of the field journals and maps created by A.G. Wenley when he accompanied Carl Whiting Bishop on his archaeological expedition to China on behalf of the Freer Gallery from 1924-1926. The journals are typewritten, with photographs and captions depicting the different sites Wenley visited. There are also duplicate copies with annotations on several of the entries.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged into 2 series: Series 1: Journals, 1924-1926, bulk 1924-1925, Series 2: Maps, no date
Biographical / Historical:
Archibald Wenley worked for the Freer Gallery of Art from 1924 until his death in 1962. From 1942 to 1962 he was the Director of the Freer Gallery of Art.
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