The papers of painter and naturalist, Abbott Handerson Thayer, and the Thayer family date from 1851 to 1999, with the bulk of the material dating from 1881 to 1950, and measure 5.12 linear feet. Thayer's painting career, interest in concealing coloration (camouflage) in nature, and relationships with artists, patrons, family, and friends are documented through correspondence, writings, scattered legal and financial records, printed materials, and a scrapbook. Photographs are of Thayer, his family, studio, and friends, including artists. The collection also contains family papers created by his second wife, Emma Beach Thayer, his son Gerald, his daughters Mary and Gladys, and Gladys' husband David Reasoner, who managed Thayer's estate after his death.

Correspondence of the Century Magazine and its predecessors, Scribner's Monthly, and St. Nicholas Magazine. Also included is material related to the Century War Series.

This collection is an amalgamation of letters written and recieved by prominent figures in 19th and 20th century American Art. Included in the collection is a significant portion of letters from Abbott Thayer to correspondents from his circle of family, friends and art world figures such as Maria Oakey Dewing and Samuel Coleman.

The records of the Carnegie Institute, Museum of Art measure 265.8 linear feet and date from 1883-1962, with the bulk of the material dating from 1885-1940. The collection includes extensive correspondence between the museum's founding director, John Beatty, and his successor, Homer Saint-Gaudens, with artists, dealers, galleries, collectors, museum directors, representatives abroad, shipping and insurance agents, and museum trustees. The collection also includes Department of Fine Arts interoffice memoranda and reports; loan exhibition files; Carnegie International planning, jury, shipping, and sale records; Department of Fine Arts letterpress copy books, and a copy of the original card catalog index to these records.

The personal papers of Charles Lang Freer, the industrialist and art collector who founded the Freer Gallery of Art. The papers include correspondence, diaries, art inventories, scrapbooks of clippings on James McNeil Whistler and other press clippings, and photographs.

The records of New York City's National Academy of Design measure 92.7 linear feet and date from 1817-2012. The records pertain to all three constituents of the tripartite organization consisting of the Academy, a membership body of artists founded in 1825; the school, founded at the same time to promote arts education; and the exhibition program, inaugurated in 1826. Extensive administrative records include minutes, committee files, director files, annual reports, constitutions, and correspondence and subject files of council officers. Exhibition records, also substantive, date to the Academy's first annual exhibition and include gallery and special exhibitions, as well as exhibitions at the Academy's museum, established in 1979. The collection also includes gifts and funding files, especially relating to endowments and prizes; membership records; National Academy Association records; Ranger Fund assignments; extensive files pertaining to the school's administration, courses of instruction, registrations, and attendance; twenty scrapbooks containing clippings and ephemera; Society of American Artists records; correspondence and ephemera from other organizations; transcripts from oral histories with Academy members; extensive photographic material documenting artists, members, the school, exhibitions, buildings, and artwork created by Academy members; artist files containing correspondence, writings, and sketches from those associated with the Academy; and assorted printed material and ephemera.

The records of the Richard York Gallery, a New York gallery specializing in American art from early 1800s to 1950, measure 79.3 linear feet and date from circa 1865-2005, with the bulk of the material dating from 1981 to 2004. Three-fourths of the records are artists' artwork files, documenting the sale and consignment of nearly 6,500 works of art. The gallery's activities are also recorded through correspondence, client files, gallery invoices, inventories, business and financial records, printed materials, scrapbooks, photographic materials of artwork, and estate records for the John Marin estate and Sergio Stella estate (Joseph Stella). An addition of 10.2 linear feet, dated circa 1865 to 2005, includes artists' files arranged alphabetically containing printed material, clippings, exhibition announcements, and scattered correspondence and financial documents.