This accession consists of materials related to the development, research, and production of exhibitions at the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), both at the Mall museum site and at the George Gustav Heye Center (GGHC) in New York, New York. Exhibitions covered include The Art of Being Kuna: Layers of Meaning Among the Kuna o...

This accession consists of records documenting exhibitions produced by the Office of Exhibits Central (OEC) for various Smithsonian Institution units. Exhibitions documented in this accession include "Speak to My Heart: Communities of Faith and Contemporary African American Life;" "Caribbean Visions: Contemporary Paintings and Sculpture;" "In ...

This accession consists of records documenting the activities of the Renwick Gallery during the tenures of Lloyd E. Herman, Director, 1971-1986; Michael W. Monroe, Curator-in-Charge, 1986-1995; and Kenneth R. Trapp, Curator-in-Charge, 1995-2003. Topics covered include art organizations; craft fairs and craft schools; correspondence with m...

These records document the work of the Department and its curators in the late 1960s and in the 1970s, with some material dated as early as 1961. The files include correspondence concerning proposed and rejected works of art, some administrative actions, and the Department's relationship with other museums. The majority of the records con...

This record unit consists of administrative files of the Department and documents the activities of its curators, Rand, Mecklenburg, Truettner, and Breeskin. The files contain information about Department relations with other National Museum of American Art (NMAA) offices concerning loans, shipments, requests for information, conservation, ...

Personal papers of Robert O. Muller, a Connecticut-based art dealer and collector who, over the course of seventy years, assembled one of the world's finest collections of Japanese prints from the late 1860s through the 1940s. The papers include Muller's correspondence relating to Japanese art, files relating to his and his wife's 1940 honeymoon in Japan during which he forged many contacts with Japanese artists and art dealers and purchased thousands of prints, subject files, catalogs, business transactions, magazine and newspaper clippings, photographs, and notes and drafts for a planned book.

The papers of artist, photographer, museum director, anthropologist, and writer Robert Bruce Inverarity are dated circa 1840s-1997 and measure 12.7 linear feet. Biographical information, correspondence, writings and notes, subject files, art work, scrapbooks, sound recordings, printed material and photographs are found within the papers. They document Inverarity's work as Director of the Federal Art Project in Seattle and Director of the Art and Craft Project for the State of Washington, as well as his other professional work. Nineteenth century material consists of a Japanese print, printed material, and photographs.

The papers of New York art collector Chester Dale measure 8.4 linear feet and date from circa 1883-2003. Dale amassed one of the world's most complete collections of nineteenth and twentieth century French art, was a collector of eighteenth century American portraitists, and a patron and collector of twentieth American artists including George Bellows and Mary Cassatt. The bulk of the collection dates from 1920 to 1970 and documents Dale's activities through biographical material, correspondence, memoirs and other writings, purchase, sales and estate records, printed material, scrapbooks, and photographs.

The Smithsonian Institution Festival of American Folklife, held annually since 1967 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was renamed the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 1998. The materials collected here document the planning, production, and execution of the annual Festival, produced by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage (1999-present) and its predecessor offices (1967-1999). An overview of the entire Festival records group is available here: Smithsonian Folklife Festival records.

The collection documents the customs and culture of black gospel song and its performance in 19th- and 20th-century America. Dr. Reagon collected photographs, sheet music, and other primary and secondary sources chronicling the development and legacy of this medium, from the Civil War to the Civil Rights movement, from blues to Gospel to classical to jazz. Among the subjects included in this collection are trailblazers such as Charles Tindley, Thomas A. Dorsey, Rosetta Tharpe, Duke Ellington, and Nathaniel Dett. Noted performers are the Fisk Jubilee Singers, the Harmonizing Four, the Hampton University Choir, and the Chick Webb Orchestra.