Grace Albee Collection
The Albee Collection, formed by Washington-area collectors Julius and Marjorie Cohn, contains approximately 150 prints by this American wood engraver, one of the strongest assemblages of her work in institutional hands. The prints are supplemented by a number of working drawings, original woodblocks, and some of the artist's tools.
Boyer Family Collection
The Boyer Collection's approximately 400 prints,
drawings, and other works of art document the activity of Pittsburgh artists
Ernest W. Boyer, his wife, Louise Miller Boyer, and their daughter, Helen King
Boyer. Of special interest are the large assemblage of drypoints pulled from
anodized aluminum plates by Louise and Helen Boyer, whose work pioneered the
use of this printmaking technique and constitutes an important contribution to
the history of twentieth century American printmaking. Many of the original
aluminum plates are preserved in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American
History.
Gift of Helen King Boyer in memory of her parents
John DePol Collection
The collection of the work of this major
American book illustrator and printmaker includes more than 150 wood engravings
and drawings, together with a wide variety of printed materials, for the most
part with illustrations by the artist. These include a substantial number of
his well-known celebrations of Benjamin Franklin and his work.
Gifts (in part) of Don Wesely and the artist
Werner Drewes Collection
The library holds some 67 prints by this
German-born printmaker, including both monochrome and color-printed works
ranging in date from the early 1930s to the mid-1980s.
Gifts (in part) of Charles Quest and Wolf Drewes
James W. Elder Collection
The Elder Collection comprises approximately 450
self portraits created by more than 330 different artists. The images are for
the most part prints in various media, but the collection also includes a
limited number of drawings, pastels, watercolors, and oils. The principal focus
of the collection is on American artists of the twentieth century, and it
includes work by a large number of well-known individuals, among whom must be
mentioned Milton Avery, Thomas Hart Benton, Billy Morrow Jackson, Rico Lebrun,
Louis Lozowick, and Fritz Scholder. Artists from the Washington, D.C., area
such as Werner Drewes, Prentiss Taylor, and Frank Wright form an important
subgroup. Also present are a limited number of self portraits of European
artists, including Giorgio di Chirico and Kathe Köllwitz. A major exhibit
at the Athenaeum in Alexandria, Virginia, was mounted from the Elder Collection
in 1984. The Elder Collection was acquired in part on funds from the
Fairchild endowment. The 26 self portrait oils and other paintings in the
collection were the gift of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Marshall.
Isac Friedlander Collection
The Friedlander Collection, the largest
available institutional collection in this country of the artwork of this
native of Latvia, includes more than 250 prints, drawings, and other works of
art. Friedlander's work, especially his powerful wood engravings, emphasizes
the imagery of his native Riga, the urban spectacle of New York during the
Depression, and the sufferings of his fellow Jews in the Holocaust.
Gifts (in part) of Gilda Friedlander and the estate of
Marga Friedlander
The Jesuit Collection
Formed over the past decade and a half by the
efforts of Joseph A. Haller, S.J., the Jesuit Collection concentrates on
American fine prints of the first half of the twentieth century. Broadly
inclusive, it aims at providing a good representative survey of American
printmaking in its central period. Nonetheless, its approximately 1,800 prints
include very strong holdings of the work of such printmakers as John Taylor
Arms, Peggy Bacon, J. J. Lankes, Kenneth Hayes Miller, Joseph Pennell, and
Grant Wood. Among the large number of other printmakers represented, attention
should be called to significant holdings of works by John Steuart Curry, George
O. "Pop" Hart, Lester Hornby, Marguerite Kumm, Allen Lewis, Frederick
Mershimer, Gabor Peterdi, Karl Schrag, and Reynold Weidenaar.
In part, gifts of various donors
Norman Kent Collection
The collection consists of more than 200 woodcuts and linocuts, together with a number of original drawings and a variety of finished output in several reproductive mediums. Kent's principal subject is the architecture, villages, and towns of the western part of New York State, where he lived and taught for most of his life.
Barry Moser Collection
The collection of work by this well-known
contemporary wood engraver and book illustrator, driving force behind the
influential and successful Pennyroyal Press, includes nearly 50 separate
prints, drawings, illustrated broadsides, and related items covering his work
from the early 1970s to the very recent past. The prints and other materials in
the collection are supported by a number of books illustrated by Moser,
including many of the most significant Pennyroyal imprints.
Gifts (in part) of Patricia G. England, Judith S. McCabe,
and other donors
Murphy Collection
This collection, formed by the late Philadelphia
collector James Patric Joseph Murphy, includes more than 190 examples of prints
in lithography, etching, drypoint, and wood engraving, executed chiefly by
American printmakers during the period from 1930 to 1955. The principal
strength of the collection is a series of 38 lithographs by Thomas Hart Benton.
Among other artists particularly well represented are Federico
Castellón, Asa Cheffetz, Adolf Dehn, William Gropper, Joseph Hirsch,
Luigi Lucioni, Thomas W. Nason, and Umberto Romano. The Murphy prints are amply
supplemented by a sizable body of correspondence between the collector and
various artists as well as by a series of candid photographs of artists, many
of them autographed (in the James P. J. Murphy Papers).
Charles F. Quest Collection
The archive of works by Quest includes
approximately 200 separate prints, but these are far outnumbered by hundreds of
drawings, watercolors, pastels, oils, and works in other media which bring the
total resources of the collection to well over 1,500 pieces, documenting the
artist's work over a period of five decades. Also included are original
matrices for works in relief and intaglio processes, as well as examples of his
work in stained glass.
Gift of the artist
Philip Reisman Collection
The Reisman Collection includes 60 of the
artist's 63 known prints, providing a powerful and politically charged look at
his favorite subjects, the people of New York. The etchings are supplemented by
the 50 surviving original plates.
Gift of Mrs. Louise Reisman
Prentiss Taylor Collection
The approximately 65 lithographs in the Taylor
Collection give a broad survey of the changing visual interests of this
Washington printmaker and teacher over his nearly five-decade career as mentor
to the greater Washington art community.
Gift in part of Roderick Quiroz
Lynd Ward Collection
The Ward Collection, by far the largest
assemblage of his work in any institution, includes more than 1,500 paintings,
drawings, sketches, and prints, a substantial number of them never published
or, in the case of the prints, of great rarity. The artist's entire career is
well represented, as is the range of media in which he worked. Of particular
note are the 21 surviving engraved blocks for his Song Without
Words (1936), gift of the artist, and the surviving proofs and
block for an unpublished "woodcut" narrative, tentatively titled by Ward
Hymn for the Night (ca. 1942-43).
Gift of Nanda Ward and Robin Ward Savage
Washington Print Club Collection
The collection, transferred from the Martin
Luther King Library to Georgetown in 1992 and added to since then, represents
an attempt to give a permanent home to copies of the prints illustrated on
covers of the club's quarterly newsletter and, thereby, to create an ongoing
survey of local printmaking. The collection includes examples by Sam Gilliam,
Percy Martin, and Tom Nakashima, among others.
Gift of the Washington Print Club
Doniger Piranesi Collection
The collection of some 1,180 prints, bound in 21
large folio volumes, consists of an early, probably proof, state of the
complete Firmin-Didot edition of Piranesi's works printed in Paris in
1835-1839. The Doniger set, among the finest extant, was formerly in the
private library of Pope Gregory XVI, during whose reign the Piranesi plates
were acquired from Firmin-Didot for the Vatican. The library also holds, for
the University Art Collection, earlier impressions of a number of the prints in
Piranesi's best-known architectural series, the Vedute di
Roma.
Gift of William Doniger in memory of Katherine Dimock
Doniger
Menke Print Collection
The Menke Collection is an eclectic gathering of
several hundred prints dating from approximately 1650 to 1950; it includes a
few original drawings, watercolors, and paintings as well. Especially strong
in European topographical and city views (of the Rhineland most of all), it
also includes good series of the caricature prints of Daumier, Cham, and
the Vanity Fair artists together with a few important single
images by such artists as M. C. Escher and Hiroshige.
Gift of Eric F. Menke
William E. C. Morgan Collection
The library holds what is undoubtedly the
strongest extant collection (49 of 53 known prints) of the work of English
metal engraver and etcher William E. C. Morgan, whose brilliant beginnings in
the 1920s were thwarted by failing eyesight a decade later. The collection also
includes a number of original drawings, trial proofs, and printmaking tools.
Gifts (in part) of Annette Wuthrich-Morgan and Mr. and Mrs.
Daniel W. Strishock
John and Margaret Rackham Collection
The Rackham Collection comprises primarily
British prints of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, principally in the
various intaglio print processes. It is broadly representative in scope, but
its more than 200 images include examples by a number of outstanding
printmakers, including Stanley Anderson, Frank Brangwyn, David Cameron, Robert
Gibbings, Augustus John, E. S. Lumsden, James McBey, John Martin, John Everett
Millais, William Strang, and C. F. Tunnicliffe.
Gift of John and Margaret Rackham
Other Fine Print Acquisitions
Over the past few years the library has benefited from a number of gifts of fine prints, totalling more than 200 examples, principally by American and British artists and dating from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. These gifts have included works by a number of printmakers, including Valenti Angelo, Francesco Bartolozzi, Leonard Baskin, John Sell Cotman, Winslow Homer, Robert Rauschenberg, and Victor Vasarely, to name only a few. Principal donors include Mrs. Henry M. Abbot, David Allen, Susan Anderson, George M. and Penelope C. Barringer, Patricia G. England, Joseph E. and Jeannine Jeffs, Mr. and Mrs. Murray Lebwohl, Rev. Paul F. Liston, Judith McCabe, Mr. and Mrs. Victor Morgan, Jack B. Pierson, Mr. and Mrs. Herbert J. Sanborn, Leslie and Alice Schreyer, Donald Smith, Prentiss Taylor, and Vic Zink.
OTHER GRAPHICS COLLECTIONS
Editorial Cartoon Collection
The work of more than 30 American cartoonists, ranging from pre-World War I drawings by Thomas Nast and Oscar Cesare to fairly recent works by Ed Valtmann, Jeff MacNelly, and Tony Auth, is represented in the collection, which includes more than 200 original cartoons. Most of these works relate to national--and frequently political--issues and are the work of cartoonists for major dailies or syndicates. Of special interest are groups of cartoons by John Baer, Gene Basset, Jim Berryman, Oscar Cesare, Robert Clark, Bill Crawford, Gib Crockett, John Stampone, and H. M. Talburt. Major donors to the collection include Gene Basset, Malcolm C. McCormack, and Art Wood, but the list of donors to the collection includes more than 20 individual cartoonists and others.
Eric Smith Collection
The Smith Collection, which comprises the
original editorial cartoons drawn by Georgetown alumnus Eric McAllister
Smith (primarily for the Annapolis Capital-Gazette), includes the
greater part of Mr. Smith's output since 1972. The collection now includes more
than 4,800 items. A collection of this size will sustain not merely the study
of Smith's work as a cartoonist but also that of a unique viewpoint on
Annapolis and Maryland state issues throughout the period covered. The cartoons
are partially indexed by subject and date.
Gift of the artist
Other Cartoon Holdings
A fair percentage of the political collections
held by the library, including such examples as the Robert F. Wagner Papers and
the McCarthy Historical Project Archive, have amongst their materials one or
more-- or many--original editorial cartoons. Of particular importance is a
recent gift of 21 examples for the Harry L. Hopkins Papers, all of them
featuring Hopkins in the image, by such cartoonists as Rube Goldberg, Roy
Evans, and Ed Duffy.
Gifts of Diana Hopkins Halsted and others
Poster Collections
A number of collections (Virginia Murray Bacon, de Garczynski Family, and others) contain posters of greater or lesser interest. Four groups of posters, however, deserve special notice:
the O'Connor Railroad Collection has an
extensive group of English and Continental railroad posters dating from the
1920s to the 1950s (gift of
Margaret M. O'Connor);
a group of posters by Lance Hidy and Barry Moser (gift of Patricia G. England); and
the Georgetown University Archives has a small but apparently unique set of sports posters by John L. Sheridan (for Georgetown athletic contests at the turn of the century) which the library has republished in facsimile.
Aline Fruhauf Collection
The library's holdings of prints by this
well-known Washington artist are supplemented and enhanced by a series of 17
encaustic paintings, portraits of local Washington musical figures of the 1950s
and 60s, being the major portion of the set of 28 portraits as originally
conceived by the artist.
Gift of Erwin P. Vollmer
Adolf Schaller Collection
The past two decades have seen the production of
television series and motion pictures that have considerably enhanced the
concept of "space art" beyond its original sense of imaginary drawings
accompanying science fiction narratives. Among the acknowledged modern masters
of the craft is Adolf Schaller (b. 1956), selected as one of three prime
artists for Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" series. The library now owns 15 of
Schaller's color airbrush originals.
Gift of Robert Edmund
ARCHIVAL RESOURCES
The Carbonneau Papers document the inception and
production of Henry Hart's A Relevant Memoir (1977), the history
of the Equinox Cooperative Press founded largely through the initiative and
energy of Lynd Ward. The collection includes letters from Ward and others.
Gift of Mr. Carbonneau
1976-1983 * 0.75 linear foot
Samuel W. Everett Papers
The Everett collection consists largely of
architectural and technical drawings, genre drawings, and other art-related
items created by Dr. Samuel W. Everett, one of the founding faculty and
professor of anatomy of Georgetown's School of Medicine. The collection also
includes printed ephemera from the early days of the "Medical Department of
Georgetown College."
1817-1851 * 0.25 linear foot
The career of the Latvian-born printmaker and
illustrator, Isac Friedlander, is well documented in his surviving papers,
which include copies of exhibit catalogs in which his works were included (and
frequently illustrated); news cuttings concerning his work and prizes he won;
and correspondence with fellow artists, groups, and institutions. Of particular
note among his correspondents are John Taylor Arms and Arthur Heintzelman. A
prolific etcher and wood engraver, Friedlander came to the United States in
1929 to settle in New York.
Gift of Marga Friedlander
ca. 1928-1982 * 2.50 linear feet
Violet Oakley Papers
The collection includes correspondence,
manuscripts, and exhibit catalogs documenting many facets of the career of this
American muralist and illustrator, a student of Howard Pyle. Besides drawings
by Oakley and a few by her friend, the artist Edith Emerson, the papers are
also supplemented by a small group of books from Oakley's library, many with
presentation inscriptions from their authors.
Gift of Nicholas B. Scheetz
ca. 1918-1966 * 1.50 linear feet
The collection of this St. Louis printmaker and
muralist, an art professor at Washington University, includes exhibit catalogs,
materials relating to his exhibits and prizes, and correspondence with Clare
Romano, Lynd Ward, and officials of the Society of American Graphic Artists,
among others.
Gift of Dorothy Quest
ca. 1904-1990 * 7.50 linear feet
Lynd Ward-May McNeer Papers
The Ward-McNeer Papers document the entire
artistic career of the well-known American printmaker and illustrator Lynd
Ward, from his student days at Columbia through the period of his "woodcut
novels" (Gods' Man, 1929, and others) to his establishment as one
of the premier book illustrators in this country. They also provide insight
into political and labor activities among American artists in the 1930s and
1940s and include the extant records of the Equinox Cooperative Press, founded
by Ward and a few associates in 1932. Among correspondents must be mentioned
John Taylor Arms, Fritz Eichenberg, Allen Ginsberg, Granville Hicks, Stewart
Holbrook, Rockwell Kent, Llewellyn Powys, and Art Young.
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Ward
1925-1981 * 23.00 linear feet
Don Wesely-John DePol Papers
The documentary portion of this collection,
which also includes a complete set of the materials produced by DePol and
Wesely, provides evidence of how a long series of "keepsakes" and other
items--all wood engravings by DePol with text by Wesely--were produced and
published under the auspices of two financial printing firms for which the two
men worked. Also included are materials for publications which never were
finished: texts by Wesely and/or proofs of wood engravings by DePol.
Gift of Mr. Wesely
1974-1981 * 1.00 linear foot
PHOTOGRAPHIC COLLECTIONS
Still Photography
The photographic holdings of the Special
Collections Division are both extensive and important. The main photographic
collections are described in detail under their appropriate subjects: the
Quigley Photographic Archive, the Ernest LaRue Jones Collection, the Barnes
Collection, the Brosnan Collection, and others. Recent acquisitions that
strengthen photographic resources are the relevant portions of the Engert
Papers, the T. M. Wilson Papers, the Hein Papers, and the Sullivan Papers (each
also described elsewhere). Altogether, more than 60 of the library's
collections as well as the University Archives contain important photographic
components, and the total number of images held approaches 300,000. These range
in date from the 1840s to the present and include examples of virtually every
known photographic process. Included in the collections are examples of work by
Matthew Brady and Alexander Gardner, by Ansel Adams and Margaret Bourke-White,
and portfolios by Ralph Gibson and Garry Winogrand, the gift of Rudolph
Demasi.
Quigley Photographic Archive
The Quigley archive is, properly speaking, the
photo "morgue" of Quigley Publications, active under various titles since 1915
in motion picture industry trade publishing (Motion Picture Herald,
Motion Picture Daily, and others). Primarily an assemblage of publicity
photos, the archive is a unique national resource for photographs of motion
picture industry people: producers, directors, animators, and their colleagues.
Actors and actresses figure less prominently, but are well represented among
the approximately 55,000 black-and-white photographs and 3,500 negatives
ranging in date from about 1906 to 1972. Of special interest also are smaller
files of photographs devoted to motion picture studios, theaters, and recording
and projection equipment.
Gift of Martin S. Quigley
The Quigley Papers document in some detail the
creation and later history of the Production Code adopted in 1930 by the Motion
Picture Producers and Distributors of America as well as the formation and
activities of the Legion of Decency, the Catholic Church's organization that
sought to exercise moral restraints on Hollywood productions. Among the more
important correspondents are Joseph Breen, Will Hays, Howard Hughes, Eric
Johnston, Stanley Kubrick, Archbishop John T. McNicholas, and Francis Cardinal
Spellman. The original corrected typescript of the Production Code itself is
supplemented by a number of typescript screenplays, including one for the film
version of Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita, and by copious
material on the Legion of Decency in the papers of Wilfrid Parsons, S.J.
(described under The Society of Jesus).
Gift of Martin S. Quigley
1917-1970 * 4.50 linear feet
Terry Ramsaye Papers
The papers of the long-time (1931-1949) editor
of Motion Picture Herald include correspondence, manuscripts, and
information files covering virtually all aspects of the American motion picture
industry from its beginnings to 1950. Assembled in part to document Ramsaye's
A Million and One Nights (1926) and his unpublished Shadow
Play - The Pictures at Mid-Century, the files contain letters by Thomas
Armat, Billy Bitzer (D. W. Griffith's cameraman), Will Hays, and many others,
as well as important original photographic materials such as clips from early
films (1895-1897) and portraits of cinema pioneers and early movie houses.
Gift of Helene Ramsaye
1895-1986 * 5.00 linear feet
Even though the group of Armat papers at
Georgetown is little more than a fragment, Armat's place in cinematographic
history (as the inventor of the motion picture projector) makes them worthy of
mention. Besides printed items and non-print memorabilia, the collection
includes important letters to Armat from Thomas Edison and Orville Wright,
among others.
Gift of Mrs. C. Brooke Armat
ca. 1911-1928 * 0.25 linear foot
Quigley Deposit Collection
This collection comprises the most complete runs
extant of Quigley publications: Motion Picture Herald and its
antecedents (1915-1972); Motion Picture Daily (1930-1972);
International Motion Picture (Television) Almanac (1930 to date);
and Fame (1937-1970). Allied to these are a partial rough
subject index to Motion Picture Herald; a complete card file
index to film reviews published in Motion Picture Daily; and a
card file containing mounted copies of reviews of features and shorts from
Motion Picture Herald from about 1920 to 1972. The deposit
collection is backed up by complete microfilm versions of the major
publications.
Deposited by Martin S. Quigley
Department of Defense Film Collection
The collection consists of files from the
liaison office of the Defense Department dealing with the film and television
industry, including hundreds of scripts submitted to DOD in hopes of gaining
official cooperation (loan of war material, primarily) or acceptance for work
contracted out, together with relevant correspondence and internal DOD
memoranda concerning action taken on specific requests. While the military-film
industry connection is interesting, the eventual primary value of the
collection will be in the many hundreds of film and television scripts
themselves, which offer a detailed insight into the way Hollywood and the
television industry have dealt with military themes and subjects over an
extended time period.
Gift of the Department of Defense
1948-ca. 1960 * 43.50 linear feet
Lawrence Suid Collection
The Hollywood film industry's relations with the
armed services are the subject of the several hundred taped and transcribed
interviews in the Suid Collection. Issues such as military cooperation with
film makers and military influence on scriptwriting and production decisions
are explored in detail with producers, writers, directors, and military liaison
personnel from 1945 to the late 1970s.
Gift of Mr. Suid
MUSIC COLLECTIONS
Leon Robbin Collection of Music Manuscripts and Letters of Composers
By the terms of an agreement concluded at the
end of 1994, Mr. Robbin has agreed to transfer to Georgetown over a period of
years his collection of approximately 700 classical musical manuscripts and
letters written by composers. To date, items donated to the library include
manuscripts by Cadman, Donizetti, Gounod, Liszt, Massenet, Mendelssohn,
Palestrina (later copy), Rossini, Johann Strauss, Thomas, and von Suppé,
together with letters by Gounod, Liszt, and Mendelssohn.
Gift of Mr. Robbin
ca. 1775-1924 * 0.50 linear feet
The Robinson Papers center on three of their
creator's great interests: the history of western Maryland and West Virginia,
as shown in the files relating to his Tableland Trails;
genealogy, reflected in various family compilations; and music, as shown in
the files documenting the history of the Mountain Choir Festival, which
Robinson inaugurated in 1934. Correspondents of note include John Dos Passos,
T. S. Eliot, Roy Harris, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Leopold Stokowski, among
others.
Gift of Ariel D. Robinson and Muriel Franc
1793-1967 * 25.00 linear feet
The Bakman Papers provide extensive
documentation of Bakman's career as a director of opera productions over a
period of two decades. They include production files, reference and information
files, libretti and scripts, musical scores, and blueprints and renderings for
stage sets, as well as correspondence, costume design sketches and other
related materials.
Gift of Mrs. Richard L. Bakman
1891-1991 * 27.00 linear feet
Comprising seven boxes, eleven linear feet of material, the Lawrence Gilman Papers consist of correspondence, manuscripts, and printed matter relating to the life and career of Lawrence Gilman (1878-1939). The grandnephew of Johns Hopkins' University's first president Daniel Coit Gilman, Lawrence Gilman was a noted music critic for the "New York Herald-Tribune," annotator of orchestral programs for the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and radio commentator for broadcasts of New York Philharmonic concerts.
Purchase
1901-1948 * 11.00 linear feet
Anton Gloetzner Collection
The Gloetzner Collection comprises a number of
musical manuscripts and related materials by this nineteenth century professor
of music at Georgetown. More importantly, the collection includes a copyist's
manuscript, 1825, of the first two movements of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony,
displaying some differences from the published version.
Gift of Mr. Gloetzner
1825-ca. 1910 * 0.50 linear feet
The personal papers of music critic Paul Hume, including correspondence from illuminati of the music world.
Includes scripts for programs hosted by Hume at WGMS-FM radio (Washington,
D.C.), as well as both manuscripts and clippings files of articles he wrote as music critic for the Washington Post.
The collection also includes several files of research material amassed by Hume and his wife Ruth during the writing of their book on the famous Polish pianist Ignace Jan Paderewski. These include copies of correspondence by Paderewski as well as by notable individuals in his circle.
Gift of the Hume family
1871-1997 * 17.50 linear feet
Other Music Holdings
Three other collections contain substantial materials of potential importance to the music historian:
in the Biddle Family Papers (described under Literature & Linguistics), brief manuscripts by Aaron Copland, William Grant Still, and others, together with related correspondence, especially from Still; and
in the James P. J. Murphy Papers, a large number of letters, signed musical quotations, and signed photographs by a wide variety of twentieth century American and European composers and musicians.