Description
The Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) of the George Washington University Libraries was formed in 1968 to preserve and share the library’s most valuable materials. The collection’s strengths include social justice, labor and education history, and 20 th century Washington, DC history.
In 2014, when the Corcoran Gallery of Art ceased operations, the art collection was relocated to the National Gallery of Art, and the Corcoran School of Art and Design became part of George Washington University’s Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. In 2016, the Corcoran Trustees invited GW Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center to serve as the permanent home for the institutional archives of the Gallery and the School. Consisting of almost 2,000 boxes of handwritten letters, business records, photographs, posters, ledgers, and thousands of architectural drawings, the Corcoran archives date from 1869 to 2014, spanning almost 150 years of the history of one of Washington, DC’s oldest and most important cultural institutions and most significant repositories of American art.
GW’s SCRC now seeks support for the processing required to make the Corcoran Archives efficiently available, and for the digitization of high priority sections of the collection to facilitate access for researchers in and beyond the field of American art.
The Corcoran began to formalize its archives in the early 1970s in an effort that set a standard for the museum field and resulted in a substantial guide to its archival holdings. Processing slowed after 1983, and the entire collection was packed and moved to a commercial records storage facility in 2007, when the Corcoran closed the archives. The vast majority of the boxes received by the SCRC in 2016 have little or no description, meaning that they are virtually inaccessible.
Demand from a diverse group of researchers has nevertheless been constant. Additional interest was stimulated when SCRC librarians provided online access to samples from the collection, including the diary of the Gallery’s first curator, and the press kit for the planned Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition in 1989. Multiple faculty members have brought classes to the SCRC to work with collection materials related to topics such as art and activism, and war and visual culture. SCRC staff have engaged in the arduous process of making the material available, but the situation is not sustainable.
The aim of the proposed project is to create online finding aids for all categories of the holdings and to digitize high priority selections including: exhibition and biennial catalogues (1897-2014); early Corcoran School copyist materials (1878-1921); early director’s materials (1869-1908); and Board of Trustees minutes (1869-2014).
The project archivist will manage all work related to processing and digitization, with supervision by Special Collections librarians. Two graduate students from GW’s museum studies and American studies programs will assist in all aspects of the work. The content will be uploaded for public access to at least two platforms and may also be inventoried in Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). SCRC staff will publicize the project and coordinate instruction, research, and exhibitions involving the archives. The project archivist will also update the narrative historical notes created in 1983, completing timelines of events, leadership, exhibitions, curriculum shifts, and other key points in Corcoran history.
The preservation and accessibility of all of the Corcoran’s former assets are essential if the legacy of this once-great institution of American art is to endure. The American Art Program made a grant to the National Gallery of Art in 2015 to support the cataloguing of the Corcoran’s former holdings of American drawings, prints and photographs, and their integration into the Gallery’s own collection. This grant would be a significant second step in insuring that the exceptional history and impact of the Corcoran will be known and understood.
Recommendation: That the Directors of the Henry Luce Foundation approve a two-year grant of $158,000 to The George Washington University for the Corcoran Archives project.
Approved by the Board: March 7, 2018