The papers of art historian, collector, educator, and museum administrator John Davis Hatch measure 24.9 linear feet and date from 1790-1995. Within the papers are biographical materials; correspondence; personal business and legal documents; diaries; research, organization, and teaching files; writings; printed materials; photographs; and works of art (mostly sketches) by American artists. Research files regarding artists and specific subjects comprise the bulk of this collection.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of art historian, collector, educator, and museum administrator John Davis Hatch measure 24.9 linear feet and date from 1790-1995. Within the papers are biographical materials; correspondence; personal business and legal documents; diaries; research, organization and teaching files; writings; printed materials; photographs; and works of art (mostly sketches) by American artists. Research files regarding artists and specific subjects comprise the bulk of this collection.
Scattered biographical materials include an invitation to the Hatch's anniversary party in 1964, short biographical sketches and resumes, certificates, report cards, a silhouette of the Hatch Family circa 1904, and a typecript of a diary written by Olivia Hatch as a child.
Correspondence includes professional correspondence between Hatch and colleagues; letters from family and friends; and some materials regarding exhibitions from the Hatch Collection. The bulk of correspondence spans Hatch's professional career although there are scattered letters from 1915-1943 from Hatch to his parents. Also found are letters addressed to an unidentified "Henry." Correspondence is also found in the research files.
Personal business and financial records consist of inventories, bills, receipts, and other records for artworks purchased, loaned, or donated by Hatch. Also found are records from the J. D. Hatch Associates Cultural Consultants, a draft of Hatch's will, stock and tax materials, and travel papers and passports.
Scattered diaries and journal fragments and a transcript date from 1925-1965. Thirteen "Daily Reflection Journals" date from 1975-1987.
Research files on artists and subjects are extensive, comprising one-half of the collection. Files are varied and may include primary research materials, correspondence, printed materials, notes, and writings. Some of the artists' letters and other materials dated from 1790-early 1800s may have been purchased by Hatch. Among many other items, there is an illustrated letter written by Oscar Bluemner and photographs of Bluemner; primary research materials dating from the early 1800s on John Vanderlyn including a will, receipts, and correspondence; a letter from Rembrandt Peale dated 1830, and an autograph letter from John Trumbull dated 1790. Also found is an index card file.
Organization files contain files and records related to Hatch's affiliations with many cultural organizations. A small amount of teaching and education files consist of Hatch's notes and lectures from the University of Oregon and the University of Massachusetts, and from his continuing education courses he took at St. John's College. Writings and notes include short essays by Hatch, mostly concerning art, exhibitions and museum administration; book reviews; general notes, lists, and reports.
Printed Materials are comprised of exhibition catalogs and announcements, including those from the American Drawing Annual in the 1940s-1950s; printed articles annotated by Hatch; clippings; pricelists; and published works.
A small number of photographs are of Hatch, some by Dorothy Frazer; of his family and friends; and of artists. The bulk of the photographs are of works of art including those owned by Hatch.
Artwork includes two sketchbooks - one by Kenneth Callahan and another by Lloyd McNeill; and additional drawings and sketches by Julian Scott, Henry Kirke Browne, Kenneth Callahan, Ezra Clark, John Cranch, Jasper Francis Crospey, F. O. C. Darley, C. H. Granger, Seymour J. Guy, George Harvey, Edward Lamson Henry, Henry Inman, as well as unsigned or illegible names.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 11 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Information, circa 1900-1980s (Box 1; 8 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1903-1990s (Box 1-3; 2 linear feet)
Series 3: Personal Business and Legal Records, Date (Box 3; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 4: Diaries and Journals, 1925-1987 (Box 3, 23; 1.2 linear feet)
Series 5: Research Files, 1790-1992 (Box 3-13, 20-21, 24; 12.7 linear feet)
Series 6: Organization Files, 1930s-1990s (Box 13-14; 1.0 linear feet)
Series 7: Teaching and Education Files, 1930s-1993 (Box 14-15; 1.0 linear feet)
Series 8: Writings and Notes, 1936-1990s (Box 15; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 9: Printed Material, 1870s-1990s (Box 15-19, 22, 25-26, OV1; 5.9 linear feet)
Series 10: Photographs, circa 1900-1990s (Box 22; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 11: Artwork, 1851-1973 (Box 22; 0.3 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Art historian, collector, educator, and museum administrator John Davis Hatch (1907-1996) worked in the Boston and New England area, as well as the Pacific Northwest, and New York state. Hatch served as director of the Art Institute of Seattle, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Albany Institute of Art and History, and the Norfolk Museum of Art and Sciences.
John Davis Hatch was born in San Francisco, California in 1907. His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were architects and Hatch studied landscape architecture at the University of California, Berkeley. He served as an apprentice to Lockwood de Forest. After abandoning landscape architecture, he accepted a position as director of the Seattle Fine Arts Society (1928-1931) at the age of twenty-one and taught art history courses at the University of Washington.
In 1932, Hatch accepted the position of assistant director of the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum in Boston, Massachusetts. He also directed the federal Public Works of Art Project in New England. Additionally, Hatch served from 1940-1948 as director of the Albany Institute of Art and History and from 1950-1959 of the Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences. Hatch worked as an art advisor for exhibitions at five historically African-American colleges in Atlanta and in San Simeon in California. He founded the American Drawing Annual exhibition.
Hatch conducted extensive research on artists Oscar Bluemner and John Vanderlyn, American silverwork, and American drawing. In addition, Hatch collected American drawings and later donated many of works of art from his personal collection to the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. Aside from his early teaching in Washington state, Hatch taught at the University of Massachusetts and the University of Oregon. He was a member of numerous professional arts-related organizations.
In 1939, Hatch married Olivia Stokes with whom he had four children: Sarah, John, Daniel and James. He died in 1996.
Related Material:
The Archives of American Art holds two oral history interviews with John Davis Hatch: June 8, 1964 conducted by H. Wade White and 1979-1980 conducted by Robert F. Brown. Also found is a separately cataloged photograph of Hatch and Henry Francis Taylor from 1933.
Additional research materials complied by Hatch are located in the Albany Institute of History and Art, the Metropolitan Museum, the library of the National Gallery of Art, and the Senate House, Kingston, New York.
Hatch donated two hundred and seventy American drawings to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
Separated Material:
Four books annotated by Bluemner, a letter from Bluemner, a letter from A. Stieglitz to Bluemner, photographs of works of art, and exhibition materials were removed from the papers and merged with the Oscar Bluemner papers at the Archives of American Art.
Provenance:
John Davis Hatch and the John Davis Hatch estate donated his papers to the Archives of American Art in several installments between 1960-1996. Many of the primary materials relating to John Vanderlyn were acquired by Hatch from a photographer in Kingston, New York who received them from a niece of Vanderlyn. Robert Graham of James Graham and Sons gave Vanderlyn's will to Hatch.
Restrictions:
Use of originals requires an appointment.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Files on ca. 150 American artists and art subjects, selected from Duveen's art reference files. Included are photographs of paintings in other collections, auction and exhibition catalogs, miscellaneous publications.
Files include: Francis Alexander, Washington Allston, William H. Bartlett, Ben-Zion, Thomas Birch, Joseph Blackburn, Ralph A. Blakelock, Charles F. Blauvelt, Peter Blume, Emile Branchard, Albertis D. O. Browere, John G. Brown, Jonathan Buddington, James E. Buttersworth, Carra, Dennis M. Carter, Mary Cassatt, George Catlin, Centurion, Paul Cezanne, Moura Chabor, Marc Chagall, T. Chambers, Jean Charlot, Thomas Cole, John Constable, George Cope, John S. Copley, Ralston Crawford, Jasper F. Cropsey, Arthur B. Davies, Charles Despiau, Roland Detre, Thomas R. Dibble, Enrico Donati, William Doriani, Thomas Doughty, Jessie Drew-Bear, Robert S. Duncanson, Dunlap, Asher B. Durand, George H. Durrie, Frank Duveneck, Evert Duyckinck, Thomas Eakins, Jacob Eichholtz, Louis M. Eilshemius, Charles L. Elliott, Robert Field, Emil Ganso, Pablo Gargallo, Jan Gelb, Paul Gillman, Christian Gullager, George H. Hall, Chester Harding, William M. Harnett, George Harvey, William J. Hays, George P. A. Healy, Edward L. Henry, John Hesselius, Edward Hicks, Thomas Hicks, Holland House, Charles Fevret de Saint-Memin, Winslow Homer, S. A. Hudson, Daniel Huntington, Henry Inman, George Inness, John W, Jarvis, Eastman Johnson, Henrietta Johnston, John Johnston, Hilde B. Kayn, Dikran K. Kelekian, Fitz Hugh Lane, Ernest Lawson, M. F. Lefferts, William R. Leigh, Abraham Lincoln, George B. Luks, Edward G. Malbone, Alfred H. Maurer, Louis Maurer, McKay, Alfred J. Miller, Louis C. Moeller, Samuel F. B. Morse, John Neagle, Donald Organ, Bass Otis, Walter Pach, Charles W. Peale, James Peale, Rembrandt Peale, William Penn, Enoch W. Perry, F. E. H. Philippoteaux, Charles P. Polk, T. B. Pope, Rufus Porter, William M. Prior, Walter Quirt, William T. Ranney, Reinhardt, Frederic Remington, Louisa Robins, Severin Roesen, Thomas P. Rossiter, Peter F. Rothermel, Charles M. Russell, Edward Savage, William Sawitzky, Nikol Schattenstein, Christian Schussele, D. Serres, James Sharples, Morris Shulman, John Smibert, Sergei Soudeikin, Haim Soutine, Frederick R. Spencer, Albert Stewart, Robert Street, William J. Strong, Gilbert Stuart, C. (Charles ?) Sullivan, Thomas Sully, Arthur F. Tait, G. Tirrell, John Trumbull, John Vanderlyn, Pieter Vanderlyn, William Von Schlegell, Samuel L. Waldo, Abraham Walkowitz, George Washington, Elbert Weinberg, Julian A. Weir, Thomas B. Welch, Adolph U. Wertmuller, Benjamin West, Anne Whitney, Arnold Wiltz, William E. Winner, S. Wood, and Thomas W. Wood.
The Saint-Memin, Stuart, B. West and Wertmuller files contain material from Albert Rosenthal relating to the above artists.
Arrangement:
Files are arranged alphabetically by artist and subject, rolls NDU1-NDU3; publications and other miscellany were filmed on rolls NDU4-NDU5.
Biographical / Historical:
Albert Duveen was an art dealer and collector with offices in New York, N.Y., specializing in early American art. He was a cousin to Joseph Duveen (1869-1939), 1st Baron Duveen, president of Duveen Brothers art dealers.
Provenance:
Lent for microfilming 1958 by Duveen.
Restrictions:
The Archives does not own the original papers. Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm.
Painter; Ellenville, New York. E.L. Henry was an American genre artist, specializing in transportation subjects. His career is documented in the book, THE LIFE AND WORK OF EDWARD LAMSON HENRY by Elizabeth McCausland, 1945.
Provenance:
Provenance unknown.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Three letters: one to Mrs. May, April 30, 1872; a letter to Miss Helen, November 11, 1870; a letter to Miss Helen McCleese, August 4, 1869 and an envelope addressed to Miss McCleese, all from Henry.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter; Ellenville, New York. E.L. Henry was an American genre artist, specializing in transportation subjects. His career is documented in the book, THE LIFE AND WORK OF EDWARD LAMSON HENRY by Elizabeth McCausland, 1945.
Provenance:
Transferred 1979 by the Museum of History and Technology to the Archives of American Art.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Painter; Ellenville, New York. E.L. Henry was an American genre artist, specializing in transportation subjects. His career is documented in the book, THE LIFE AND WORK OF EDWARD LAMSON HENRY by Elizabeth McCausland, 1945.
Provenance:
Donated 1956 by James Graham & Sons.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Letters to Gill from artists mostly concerning a fire in Gill's gallery; the receipt of checks; the sale of art works; and the return of unsold pieces.
REEL D8: Letters from George Loring Brown and Alfred Bricher.
REEL D9: Letter from W. S. (William Starbuck) Macy, regarding an incorrect title attributed to a painting on display.
REEL D10: Letters from George Elmer Browne, E. Ritchie Harrison, Edward C. Leavitt, Aaron Draper Shattuck, and George Henry Story.
REEL 2813: Letters from John Bunyan Bristol, Harry Chase, M. F. H. de Haas, H. A. Ferguson, Frederick W. Freer, Edward Gay, Charles X. Harris, William Hart, Jonathan Scott Hartley, Edward L. Henry, W. Ferdinand Macy, George Herbert McCord, Frank Knox Morton Rehn, William Trost Richards, Walter Satterlee, George H. Smillie, William Lewis Sonntag and F. Schuchardt.
Biographical / Historical:
Art dealer; Springfield, Massachusetts.
Provenance:
Letters on Reel 2813 purchased by Archives in 1967. Letters on Reel D8-D10 donated by Charles Feinberg, an active donor and friend of AAA.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm. Contact Reference Services for more information.
1.2 Linear feet ((partially microfilmed on 4 reels))
0.5 Linear feet (Addition)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
1931-1948
Scope and Contents:
Records kept by Adams while Director of the New York State Museum in Albany, mainly relating to his efforts to build the museum's collections. Included are correspondence, notes, printed materials and photographs.
REELS 110-112: Included are files on: the WPA art program, American Artists Congress, and other political art organizations; the Edward Lamson Henry collection, including Elizabeth McCausland's galley sheets of her manuscript on Henry, photos of paintings, comments on her manuscript, and correspondence about other Henry paintings; the sons of John James Audubon, Victor and John Woodhouse; the acquisition of the Thomas Halliday Folk Art Collection, purchased for the Museum by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller; Berenice Abbott's photograph projects, including correspondence with Abbott; the formation of the American Art Research Council; war emergency plans; Anna Hyatt Huntington's gift of her sculpture to the museum, and letters from Lewis Hine, Ralph Pearson, Harry Stone, Albert Duveen, Hermon MacNeil and others.
REEL 1817 (fr. 279-282, 1097-1098) AND SCANNED: Three photographs of Indian painter Albert Martinez Castador (Albert Looking Elk), showing him painting, and on a horse; and one of Joseph Henry Sharp painting in his studio, ca. 1912. Photographers unknown.
REEL 1817 One copy print of a photo of Edward Lansom Henry, previously microfilmed under Photos of Artists II, and since been scanned and returned to the Adams collections.
UNMICROFILMED: Publications relating to the WPA, including: Federal Art Centers of New York; Murals for the Community; Art as a Function of Government: A Survey; The WPA Federal Art Project: A Summary of Activities and Accomplishments; Index of American Design; Five-Boro Directory, Art Teaching Division; Art in Democracy; Index of Research Projects: Volume I; and Federal Sponsored Community Art Centers. Also included are a letter from Samuel H. Friedman to Adams regarding a request for some pamphlets; a press release, December 30, 1938 from the WPA Federal Art Project; and a clipping of an article by Emily Genauer regarding the WPA, August 6, 1938.
ADDITION: Original photographs of Adams, including two taken by Berenice Abbott, 1940s, and eight by Dorian (Dorothy) Keyha, 1949; and files, clippings and correspondence, some of it to Adams' daughter, Harriet, related to Abbott.
Biographical / Historical:
Museum director, scientist (ecology). Director of the New York State Museum from 1926-1943.
Provenance:
Donated by Charles Adams' daughter Harriet Dyer Adams, 1971 and 1998. The 3 photographs on reel 1817, formerly microfilmed with AAA's Photographs of Artists Collection II, were scanned in 2004 and returned to the papers.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm. Contact Reference Services for more information.
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.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of art critic, writer, and historian Elizabeth McCausland measure approximately 45 linear feet and date from 1838 to 1995, with the bulk of the material dating from 1920 to 1995. The collection provides a vast accumulation of 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 from the estate of Berenice Abbott include biographical materials, project files, writings, and printed materials.
McCausland's personal papers consist of appointment books and engagement calendars, scrapbooks, student papers, works printed on her private press, financial records, biographical material, and scattered memorabilia, which together document other aspects of her life apart from her work. Correspondence includes incoming and outgoing letters along with enclosures, dating from McCausland's time as a journalist for The Springfield Republican in the 1920s and 1930s to her time as a freelance writer, art critic, and historian (1940s-1960s) and mostly concerning professional matters. Also included is a substantial amount of correspondence with artists, particularly Arthur Dove and Alfred Stieglitz, and some personal correspondence with her mother. General writings consists primarily of copies of McCausland's speeches and lectures on various art topics in addition to her early poems (dating from the 1930s) and scattered essays and articles.
The most extensive part of the collection is comprised of McCausland's research and writing files pertaining to large research and curatorial projects, such as ones on the artists Alfred H. Maurer and Marsden Hartley (which was begun by the American Art Research Council and subsequently taken over by McCausland), and one for the American Processional exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery in 1950. A wide variety of smaller projects are also well-documented in the series Other Research and Writing Files, including ones on E. L. Henry, Lewis Hine, George Inness, her collaborative work with Berenice Abbott on the Changing New York book and series of photographs. Numerous other artists and art topics are covered as well, such as Arthur Dove, Robert Henri, Jacob Lawrence, Charles Hawthorne, film, and photography. Files for her book Careers in Art (1950), her many speaking and lecture engagements, and editing work are also found in this series. Files consist primarily of correspondence, notes, research material, manuscripts, bibliographies, photographs of works of art, completed research forms for works of art, card index files, and printed material.
Also found are subject files containing printed material, scattered notes and correspondence, and photographs, which may have been used for reference and/or collected in the course of McCausland's research activities; files relating to various exhibitions organized by McCausland from 1939 to 1944, including ones of silk screen prints and modern photography; files relating to courses on art history taught by McCausland, especially the one she taught at Barnard College in 1956; and files stemming from her participation in various art organizations and committees, especially during the time period just before and during the Second World War.
Printed material consists primarily of clippings and tear sheets of McCausland's newspaper articles and columns, which document her contributions to The Springfield Republican from 1923 to 1946, in addition to scattered exhibition catalogs, announcements, books, and miscellaneous publications. Photographs include ones of various artists and works of art, ones from the Farm Security Administration, and ones by photographers, such as Berenice Abbott (including ones from the Federal Art Project book, Changing New York), Barbara Morgan, Weegee, and Edward Weston, among others. Photographs, sometimes annotated or including notes, are scattered throughout her research files. Also included are photographs of McCausland, dating from her childhood. Art work found in the collection includes drawings, prints, and watercolors that were either given to McCausland by the artist or collected by her in the course of her work as an art critic and historian.
Additional material belonging to Elizabeth McCausland and donated by the estate of Berenice Abbott includes biographical material; business and personal correspondence; professional project files and writings, including drafts and research materials related to the book projects Art in America, Conversations with March, and Frank Kleinholz; and printed materials, including reprints of critical essays and articles by McCausland.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 15 series:
Missing Title
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)
Biographical 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.
McCausland moved to New York in 1935, but continued to contribute a weekly art column to The Springfield Republican until it suspended publication in 1946. From the mid-1930s on, she worked primarily as a freelance writer and art critic, contributing articles to publications such as Parnassas, The New Republic, and Magazine of Art. In the latter part of her career, her writings focused more on art history and special studies on artists.
In the late-1930s, McCausland collaborated with the photographer Berenice Abbott on the Federal Art Project book, Changing New York, for which she provided the text to Abbott's now-famous photographs of New York City neighborhoods, architecture, and street scenes. She studied and wrote about photography, including numerous articles on the photographer Lewis Hine (of whose work she organized a retrospective exhibition at the Riverside Museum in 1939), and was appointed to the Advisory Committee of the Museum of Modern Art's Department of Photography in 1944.
McCausland went on to organize other exhibitions, including a show of contemporary work, "The World of Today" (Berkshire Museum, 1939), shows of silk screen prints (Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, March 1940 and New York State Museum, Summer 1940), and a photography show, "Photography Today" (A.C.A. Gallery, 1944). In the late 1930s, she embarked upon a study of "the status of the artist in America from colonial times to the present, with especial attention to the relation between art and patronage," which continued over twenty years (and was never completed) and for which she received a Guggenheim fellowship in 1943.
In addition to her other writing, during the 1940s, McCausland carried out studies on the artists, E. L. Henry and George Inness, which resulted in exhibitions at the New York State Museum in 1942 and the George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum in 1946, respectively and publications (a report on Henry and a book on Inness). From 1948 to 1949, she carried out an extensive study of the painter, Alfred H. Maurer, organizing an exhibition, "A. H. Maurer: 1868-1932," which showed at the Walker Art Center and the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1949, and publishing the biography, A. H. Maurer, in 1951. In 1950, she worked as a special consultant on the American Processional exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery and as editor of the accompanying book. Shortly thereafter, she began a study of Marsden Hartley for a monograph, which was published in 1952, and she helped organize the Hartley exhibition at the University of Minnesota that same year. She continued the Hartley study on larger scale for a planned biography and catalogue raisonne; although she continued to work on it off and on for the next decade, the project was never completed.
McCausland published other books, including Careers in the Arts (1951), and undertook other research and consulting projects, such as photo-editing Carl Sandburg's Poems of the Midwest (1946), conducting surveys of art and advertising for an article in Magazine of Art and of art education for Cooper Union Art School, and contributing yearly articles on art to various encyclopedias. At different times throughout her career, she supplemented her income by taking teaching positions. She taught courses on art history at Sarah Lawrence College from 1942 to 1944 and at Barnard College in 1956, as well as courses at the Design Laboratory (1939) and the New School for Social Research (1946). She also gave numerous lectures and speeches on various art topics, and regularly participated in conferences and symposiums. Towards the end of her career, she was publishing less, but was still involved in many projects, most notably the Hartley study.
McCausland was a tireless promoter of the arts, and often an advocate for artists. Even though her work was well-known among certain art circles, she never received the recognition as a writer that she deserved. Nor was she ever able to free herself from the pressure of writing for a living. Continually suffering from poor health, she died on May 14, 1965.
Related Material:
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.
Separated Material:
Material separated from the collection includes some issues of Camera Work (Vol. 30, 47, 49/50), which were combined with other issues in an artificial collection created by the Archives at some earlier point.
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.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Occupation:
Art historians -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Art critics -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
