Papers concerning Freer's art collecting activities, including correspondence, diaries, art inventories, scrapbooks of clippings on James McNeil Whistler and other press clippings, and photographs. In addition to Freer's own correspondence, the papers include correspondence collected by Freer of James McNeill Whistler and of Whistler collector Richard A. Canfield, correspondence of Freer's assistant Katharine Nash Rhoades, and correspondence regarding Freer's bequest to the Smithsonian Institution.
Correspondence, ca. 1860-1921, includes Freer's correspondence, 1876-1920, with artists, dealers, collectors, museums, and public figures; 30 v. of letterpress books containing copies of letters sent, 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' 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 letters 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 Fenellosa, 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.
Among Freer's correspondents are: Otto Bacher, Bernard Berenson, Siegfried Bing, Laurence Binyon, W.K. Bixby, Sigisbert Chretien Bosch-Reitz, Charles H. Caffin, Colin Campbell, Richard Canfield, William Merritt Chase, Frederick Stuart Church, Alfred Vance Churchill, Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Arthur Wesley Dow, Ernest Fenollosa, Albert Gallatin, John Gellatly, Frederick W. Gookin, Sadakichi Hartmann, Frank J. Hecker, Dikran Kelekian, M. Knoedler & Co., Berthold Laufer, Lien Hui Ching Collection, W.A. Livingstone, Frederick McCormick, Bunkio Matsuki, Gari Melchers, Agnes Meyer, Eugene Meyer, Charles Moore, Yozo Nomura, Rosalind Birnie Philip, Charles A. Platt, Theodore Roosevelt, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the Smithsonian Institution, Joseph Stephens Warring, Thomas Way, Abbott Handerson Thayer, Dwight W. Tryon, Charles Walcott of the Smithsonian Institution, Beatrix Whistler, James McNeill Whistler, K.T. Wong, Yamanaka & Co., and Seaouke Yue.
Arrangement:
All correspondence except letterpress books: arranged alphabetically by correspondent; letterpress books are chonological.
Biographical / Historical:
Art collector; Detroit, Michigan. Collected Asian, American, and European art, including a large collection of works by James McNeill Whistler. Founded the Freer Gallery of Art, which is now part of the Smithsonian Institution.
Provenance:
Selected for microfilming from the Charles Lang Freer papers at the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Microfilmed 1992 by the Archives of American Art with funding provided by the Smithsonian Institution's Office of Fellowships and Grants Research Resources Program. Portions of the correspondence and the letterpress books were previously filmed by the Freer in the 1970 (AAA reels 77, 453-456, and 1217-1232); those reels have been replaced by this microfilming project. See Finding Aid for information on papers not selected for microfilming.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Topic:
Art, Asian -- Collectors and collecting Search this
Art, American -- Collectors and collecting Search this
Letters between Charles Lang Freer and Secretary of the Smithsonian Charles Doolittle Walcott between April 13, 1908 and September 19, 1919. Topics include Freer's evolving bequest to the Smithsonian, his thoughts on the nature and goals of his museum, and the construction of the building in Washington, DC.
Freer accession number F1908.1908.17a
Letters between Charles Lang Freer and Charles D. Walcott
Arrangement:
Organized chronologically under correspondent.
Local Numbers:
FSA A.01 02.1Walcott
Collection Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Collection Rights:
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Genre/Form:
Letters (correspondence)
Collection Citation:
Charles Lang Freer Papers. FSA.A.01. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Gift of the estate of Charles Lang Freer.
An album of photographs of the construction of the Freer Gallery of Art, sent periodically to Charles Lang Freer from the office of the Secretary of the Smithsonian. Scenes include the building site; the groundbreaking ceremony; construction scenes from various angles including from the roof of the Smithsonian Castle, and an aerial view of the nearly completed building.
Photographs of the building in Washington to house the Freer Collection
Biographical / Historical:
Due to illness, Charles Freer rarely visited Washington during the construction of his eponymous gallery. Secretary Charles Walcott sent periodic reports of the building's progress. These reports included the attached photographs, which Freer maintained in a bound album. Although the Freer Gallery did not open until 1923, the photographs in this album end in 1919 on Charles Freer's death.
Local Numbers:
FSA A.01 11.09
Collection Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Collection Rights:
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Walcott, Charles D. (Charles Doolittle), 1850-1927 Search this
Names:
Hewitt, J. N. B. (John Napoleon Brinton), 1859-1937 Search this
Collection Collector:
Hewitt, J. N. B. (John Napoleon Brinton), 1859-1937 Search this
Type:
Archival materials
Scope and Contents:
Relating to efforts to place Hewitt on a contract basis with the B.A.E. Includes portion of letter probably to F. W. Hodge written after May 14, 1909, presenting Hewittʹs case. Also includes comment on Hewittʹs work by J. W. Powell, June 9, 1900; Charles D. Walcott to Senator Charles Curtis, January 16, 1911; copy of a letter, W. J. McGee to Hewitt, July 25, 1909; and J. B. Bottineau to Curtis, February 16, 1910.
Local Numbers:
NAA MS 1647(11)
Collection Citation:
Manuscript 1647, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Indians of North America -- Southwest, New Search this
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
ca. 1870-1910
Scope and Contents:
Most of Stevenson's scientific notes are included as separate items in the series of numbered manuscript and the papers of John Peabody Harrington. This particular set of materials is made up of papers that passed into the hands of the executor of her estate. It consists of a miscellany of letters, notes, legal documents, cartographic materials, genealogical materials, photographs, newspaper clippsing, other printed material, and other types of documents. Although tehc ollection largely concerns Stevenson, it also includes some material of her husband, James Stevenson, and members of her family, especially her father, Alexander H. Evans, a Washington, D.C. attorney.
Many of the documents concern Stevenson's field work among the Pueblo Indians and other official duties with the Smithsonian. some material relates to her activities with the World's Columbian Exposition and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. A few items concern her membership in scientific organizations. Still other documents are of a personal nature, and some are mementoes, especially of James Stevenson. A significant group of documents concern Matilda CoxeStevenson's friendly and, later, very difficult relationship with Clara True.
The photographs include some items of ethnographic interest but it consists largely of portraits of James andMatilda Stevensonand Mrs. Stevenson's relatives. Also included are images in albums apparently gathered by Stevenson as a collector of photographs. They include images of Kit Carson, Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Ferdinand Vandiveer Hayden, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and William Tecumseh Shermn. In the albums are also a nubmer of photographic portraits with unidentified subjects, many of whom appear to be actors and actresses.
Walcott, Charles D. (Charles Doolittle), 1850-1927 Search this
Extent:
1 Photographic print (008 in x 010 in)
Type:
Archival materials
Photographic prints
Photographs
Date:
1894
Scope and Contents:
According to W.J. McGee's copy of this photograph in MS 2003-31, the photographer was H.F. Reid, presumably Harry Fielding Reid.
Local Numbers:
NAA INV.02864600
Local Note:
Black and white photoprint
Place:
West Virginia -- Harper's Ferry
Collection Restrictions:
The collection is open for research.
Access to the collection requires an appointment.
Collection Rights:
Copy prints of original photographs held by the American Philosophical Society, National Geographic Society, and National Archives cannot be copied. Copies may be obtained from these repositories.
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Collection Citation:
Photo lot 33, Portraits of anthropologists, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
