The collection documents the work of Charles G. Sheldon, the illustrator who created beautiful images of women for the "Breck Girls" advertising campaign from 1936-1957. Includes photographs of sitters, Breck advertising materials, Breck Company internal publications and newsletters, magazines with cover illustrations by Sheldon, a high school year...

The collection documents the development and evolution of the Breck Girl, a highly successful and long-lived advertising campaign whose hallmark was its vision of idealized American womanhood through correspondence, photographs, paintings, and print advertisements.

The contents of the collection date from 1897 to 1936. The bulk of the collection consists of loose-leaf binders of photo prints of forty-one Cass Gilbert buildings under construction between 1908 and 1936. (This represents less than half of his firm's total output.) The volumes are arranged alphabetically by name of building. A few additional ph...

The Joan Ludman papers relating to Fairfield Porter measure 4.2 linear feet and are dated circa 1910-2003, bulk 1976-2001. The papers primarily document her research for Fairfield Porter: A Catalogue Raisonné of his Prints (1981) and Fairfield Porter: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, Watercolors, and Pastels (2001). There are records concerning "Prints by Fairfield Porter from the Lauris and Daniel J. Mason Collection," a traveling exhibition organized by Ludman. Also found are Ludman's records concerning her authentications of Porter's artwork, and general printed material about Porter. Photographs are of Porter and his work. A 2015 addition includes provenance forms sent to Ludman from artwork owners.

The collection contains approximately 2,500 costume designs in colored pencil and pastels, on tissue paper mounted on mat boards. The designs were created for entertainers such as Liberace, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Dionne Warwick, the Fifth Dimension, Nancy Sinatra, and others. Some were created for the television show Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In.

The papers of Washington, D.C. painter and printmaker Kevin MacDonald measure 8 linear feet, and date from 1958-2006. The collection contains correspondence with friends and colleagues; journals, notebooks, and other writings; printed material; artwork by MacDonald and others; 29 sketchbooks; sound and video recordings; and home movies. Of note are several files regarding his work with the Washington Project for the Arts.

The papers of New York painter William Clutz measure 3.1 linear feet and date from 1930-2016. The collection consists of biographical material, correspondence, personal business records, printed material, photographic material, artworks, and twelve sketchbooks which illuminate the career and artistic development of Clutz, a painter known for depictions of figures in urban settings. The photographic material is particularly robust and includes hundreds of photographs, slides, transparencies, and digital images of Clutz, family, friends, his painting, as well as documentation of exhibition installations. Artwork and sketchbooks in pencil, pastel, and charcoal provide a glimpse into the preliminary stages of his work process.

Edmund Snow Carpenter (1922-2011) was an archaeologist and visual anthropologist who worked extensively with the indigenous peoples of the Canadian Arctic as well as Papua New Guinea. With his colleague and close collaborator Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980), he laid the groundwork for modern media theory. Carpenter is also known for his work as an ethnographic filmmaker and as a collector of Paleo-Eskimo art. The Papers of Edmund Carpenter, circa 1938-2011, document the research interests and projects undertaken by Carpenter in the fields of cultural anthropology, ethnographic filmmaking, media theory, archaeology, and indigenous art.

The papers of illustrator, painter and teacher Jerry Hudson de Leon measure 0.9 linear feet and date from circa 1920s-1980. The papers primarily feature her sketches done in pencil, pen, watercolor and pastel. Also included in this collection are personal letters, various printed materials as well as examples of her illustration work.

The records of the Office of Program Support, National Museum of American Art, 1965-1981, with related records from 1947, were received in the Archives from 1981 through 1994.