Beyond the Galleries
There are many discoveries to be found at the Carter beyond what is displayed in the galleries. Often the art works are only the tip of a much larger collection of material, much of it textual and documentary. It is this assortment of letters, diaries, books, clippings, and sketches that make research and analysis of art beyond its immediate visual appeal possible. These items illuminate the artist’s intent, the work’s context in time and place, variations, and changes, without which much of an artwork’s tale is lost.
The recent Carter publication, Chimneys and Towers: Charles Demuth’s Late Paintings of Lancaster, is a fine example of the art research that is possible with supporting documents. Betsy Fahlman and Claire Barry approach Demuth’s work from differing angles but both are able to elaborate upon their discussions of context and content because of their use and study of his archives.
Take a moment during your next visit to the Carter to use our Library and Archives and see what you can discover.
The Museum, the Books, the History
There is a shelf in the Amon Carter Museum library. Upon this shelf rests the history of the museum in book form. Over 180 books representing almost fifty years of museum publishing history are now conveniently located for perusal. From the first exhibition catalog published in 1961 featuring Remington and Russell to the newest book from 2008 entitled The 100 Best Illustrated Letters of Charles M. Russell, the complete history of the museum lies before my very eyes.
But who am I, and why am I blogging for the library? Well, I’m a volunteer. It’s been my job for the past few months to bring this project together, and who knew it would be such a massive undertaking?
Under the guidance of library director Sam Duncan, I began to comb through the large bibliography of Amon Carter publications in order to determine which books the reading room lacked. The quest of locating staff willing to give up their copies in order for the library to have a comprehensive book set then began in earnest. (It was exciting to see the collection grow, slowly filling the space of four large shelves.)
Sam also wanted to make this special book collection more visible. So, he and archivist John Frembling moved the books to a more accessible shelf. Now the books are prominently displayed and shelved in order by publication year. It’s interesting to compare the subject matter as well as the number of books published per decade. I also enjoy comparing the graphic design of the early books to the more recent volumes.
I continue to work in Access on a bibliographic database that will eventually be available on the museum website. The data entry has been one of the more time consuming aspects of the project, as I systematically record the details of each book. I look forward to the day when my work will be accessible by museum staff and the public alike.
I hope you’ll come in and visit the library and explore the Amon Carter publication collection. Feel free to look through the books and make your own conclusions about museum exhibitions through the past five decades or make discoveries of your own. Maybe you’ll see someone, typing away on a laptop with big stacks of books piled around them. That will be me, Dana Harper, volunteer.
Four Jolly Clowns, Mother Hubbard's Party, Elastic Locomotives, Sliced Birds, Grace Hoops, and a Roaming Turtle
An out-of-state patron recently discovered that the library owns a rare 1888 wholesale toy catalog produced by Selchow & Righter in New York. Upon examining the item, we discovered what a fascinating cultural record it is. The catalog certainly speaks about a different time in the United States, but the mix of toys and amusements in the catalog–some benign and some offensive from our current perspective–seems to say that the impulse to entertain ourselves is timeless.
We decided to share this magical publication more widely by digitizing its full contents as a PDF file. It’s a large file, over 20 megabytes, so be patient if you have a slow internet connection. The file is searchable by keyword. Enjoy and please share any discoveries you make.
The library has many other similar catalogs in the collection, and our holdings range from original to reprinted items to material that discusses commercial catalogs.
Ellaraye
Librarians have always been hunters and gatherers, and one of the most gratifying (and often challenging) jobs that the library staff does for our patrons is help track down people, whether subjects of artwork, artists themselves, or owners of artwork. Recently, Curator Jane Myers contacted the library to help her locate the whereabouts of the subject of one of the key portrait paintings in the current exhibition, Intimate Modernism: Fort Worth Circle Artists in the 1940s. Dickson Reeder completed the painting Ellaraye in 1945. Its subject, Ellaraye Whitman, is depicted in a diaphanous white dress with a piece of sheet music on her lap. Jane’s last address for Ms. Whitman was in Fort Worth, but the apartment complex where she lived had been demolished, and the phone number was out of service. After searching several Web-based directories that proved to be dead ends, we found a directory, www.whitepages.com, that listed her as living in Santa Fe, NM. Though the directory listed her address, it did not include a phone number. This particular directory offered the ability to search for neighbors, and we quickly identified a neighbor’s telephone number. Jane subsequently made contact with the neighbor who knew “Ella” very well and offered to pass along that the museum was interested in making contact. Jane later had a telephone conversation with Ella and was able to learn more about the painting and also about Ella’s relationship with the Circle. Here are some notes that Jane has provided from her conversation:
She [Ellaraye] is 83 and … walks with a cane … She remembers posing for the portrait by Dickson Reeder and that she had to sit very still. The white dress she was wearing was her own. She was younger than the rest of the Circle and said she was like a “mascot.” … When I asked her how she became associated with the Circle, she said that she worked at Crump(?) Company in the phonograph department. Charles Richards, a draftsman for Convair, who had gotten to know her (as a customer, I think) said that “Dickson has got to see you!” [i.e. she was very pretty]. She said that both Dickson and Flora were “very gifted.”
Dickson Reeder (1912-1970)
Ellaraye, 1945
Oil on canvas
Louise Hopkins Underwood
The "New" Librarian's Perspective
The library at the Amon Carter Museum has always been an essential resource used by staff and the community researching topics related to American art, photography, and history. It’s the depth and uniqueness of the collection that makes it such a treasure for certainly the DFW area and even larger environs. Many are probably not aware that the library has been around since 1961, the year the museum opened. Over its relatively short history–owing to the care and feeding of many different librarians cultivating its growth over the years–it has reached a level of national prominence. My association with the library actually started “way” back in 1991, thirty years after the first librarian began. The museum hired me straight out of library school to do this really incredible thing, which was to completely recatalog the collection, which meant taking every book off the shelf and creating electronic records that ultimately made way for our current Web-based catalog. Of course at the time, I probably didn’t appreciate the gravity of the opportunity. Before I started my project, the library was completely ensconced in the world of paper finding tools, i.e. an old-timey card catalog. During the course of my three-year term as “Reclassfication Cataloguer,” I pretty much handled the whole book collection–somewhere on the order of 25,000 books. That kind of experience with a collection is clearly unusual, and it equips me with an understanding of the guts of the collection–including the many surprises it contains in terms of subject matter–and perhaps gives me a better view of its future growth. Since that job, I have left the museum a couple of times for other jobs, but I’m freshly back since November and trying my best to continue the tradition of keeping the library collection a vital and relevant resource for our various communities. Today I send out my appreciation and acknowledgment to the librarians before me that have taken on this large responsibility, that have committed to providing the tools to help people form a deeper understanding of the rich visual history our country. Please, if you’re in the museum, drop by the library reading room during our public hours on Wed-Fri and say hello–it would be our pleasure to help you make some discoveries.
Checking out for now,
Samuel Duncan, Library Director
By the way, just so you’ll know that the library staff does have a face, I want to share this likeness:
From the top,
Sam
Mary Jane Harbison
Jonathan Frembling
Finally, for you non-librarians, the “N-Files” refer to the “N” classification of the Library of Congress classification system, the place where you’ll find materials related to art.