In this recording Dr. John Biggers, Chair of the Art Department at Texas Southern University, discusses his commission for his 1952 mural for Houston’s Blue Triangle YWCA during lecture, A Conversation with John Biggers, November 12, 1992.
Click on photograph to hear audio.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Archives

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Archives Marks its 25th Year
by Lorraine A. Stuart, C.A. and Amy S. Mobley, C.A.

A museum’s archives are its institutional memory. There we find the dreams of the founders and the pathways of ensuing generations that sought to make those dreams into realities.– MFAH Peter C. Marzio’s foreword to the Society of American Archivists’ Museum Archives: An Introduction, 2004.

The MFAH Archives provide an invaluable resource that enhances the operations of the museum, supports research related to the museum’s exhibition history and collection, and chronicles the artistic and cultural development of Houston as well as the larger art community. Now celebrating its twenty-fifth year, the MFAH Archives was established in 1984 with a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC). With more than one hundred years of institutional records measuring 2,900 linear feet, the MFAH Archives functions primarily as an institutional archive. The archives also maintains sixty manuscript collections including such significant ones as the Edith A. and Percy S. Straus Collection Papers, the Manfred Heiting Papers, and the Garth Clark Gallery Archive. The archival photography collection consists of more than ninety thousand analog or digital images documenting exhibition installations, buildings on the MFAH campus, special events, and individuals and organizations associated with the MFAH. Additional holdings consist of 6,900 architectural drawings and 3,100 audio or video recordings. The Archives also oversees an institutional records management program introduced under its auspices in 1994. In its fifteen years of operation, the records management program has “fed” the Archives by the systematic identification and transfer of permanently valuable records. In 2006, a second NHPRC grant allowed on-line cataloguing of the MFAH’s archival collections, viewable under Archives Holdings.

To commemorate the MFAH Archives 25th anniversary, the exhibition Collecting the Past: Twenty-Five years of Documenting Museum History will open October 3 in the Caroline Wiess Law building of the MFAH. The exhibition features items from the archival holdings that chronicle four major areas of the MFAH’s development: the growth of the campus; exhibition history; events; and the acquisition of personal papers. Included in the exhibition is a kiosk featuring selections from the archival audio visual collection. Documents on display include a photograph of the Robert Lee Blaffer Memorial wing completed in 1953, the second of four stages of construction which would expand the original MFAH building over a nearly fifty-year period; the design book of internationally acclaimed architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe for the Brown Pavilion (c. 1968), the fourth addition to the original building, which includes three plans for the installation of art in the expansive main gallery on the upper level; a telegram of appreciation sent by First Lady Lady Bird Johnson to philanthropist and museum life trustee Ima Hogg when house museum Bayou Bend Collections and Gardens opened to the public in 1966.

Photo of Grand Gala Ball, October 7, 1960.
The Grand Gala Ball, an annual which raises funds to support museum operations, has kicked off Houston’s social season every fall since its inception in 1959.

Last updated 5 October 2009

Photograph courtesy of the Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum of Lincoln Memorial University,
Harrogate Tennessee.

The Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum of Lincoln Memorial University

6965 Cumberland Gap Parkway
Harrogate TN 37752
423-869-6304 or toll free 800-325-0900 ext. 6304
michelle.ganz@lmunet.edu

The collection of the Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum is the third largest collection of Lincolniana (materials relating to the life and legacy of Abraham Lincoln) in the world. The documentary resources include a wide-range of historiography and iconography, pertaining to Abraham Lincoln and the American Civil War era. The 19th century sources include rare books, pamphlets, Civil War sheet music, military histories and rosters, manuscript collections, photographs, newspapers, broadsides, and commemorative relics which honor the life and legacy of the "Great Emancipator." Additional sources span the 18th century to the modern era. The Museum collection includes many rare items - the cane Lincoln carried that fateful night at Ford's Theatre, two life masks, the tea set he and Mary Todd used in their home in Springfield, and numerous other artifacts. Approximately 30,000 books, manuscripts, pamphlets, photographs, paintings and sculptures tell the story of President Lincoln and the Civil War period in America's history.

The University Archives and Special Collections (UASC) is dedicated to identifying, preserving and making available the university records, as well as the bibliographic, photographic, and manuscript collections of enduring cultural and historical legacy of Lincoln Memorial University. The UASC serves the missions of the Carnegie-Vincent Library in a collaboration of archival preservation, conservation, cataloging, digitization, collection development, and the provision of access and support for reference and research. The UASC promotes public awareness and appreciation of Lincoln Memorial University’s historical legacy of resources relating to Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War era, and regional Appalachian history. The UASC supports the research needs of LMU faculty, staff, students as well as the community and general researchers.

Last updated 10 July 2009

Museum of Non-Objective Painting. Hilla Rebay records. A0010.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives, NY.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives

345 Hudson Street, 12th floor
New York, NY 10014
archives@guggenheim.org

Formally established in 1973, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives traces the development of Solomon R. Guggenheim's private collection and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, and actively collects materials on the history of the museum in New York from its inception in 1939, as the Museum of Non-Objective Painting on East 54th Street, to its present incarnation as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum on 1071 Fifth Avenue.

The Archives are open to established scholars and doctoral students by advance appointment on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays from 10:30 am to 5:30 pm.

Last updated 10 March 2009