Historiography of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology

The Modern Period

The History of Collecting and Display

Visual Sources

	Giuseppe Bracci, hand-colored etching 90-B2863

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Printed editions and manuscripts of historical, theoretical, and critical writings range from treatises and early biographies of artists to research files in the 19th and 20th centuries. Scholars' archives are integral to research and study concerning the writing of art history. Travel diaries record monuments, collections, and events that shaped the world of art. Critics' papers bear witness to the central subjects and debates of each period.

	Agnes Martin photographed by Alexander Liberman, 1973. 2000.R.19

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Concentrated collections from the late 19th century through the postwar period contain original correspondence and project files of artists, architects, critics, and photographers. Intersecting collections document the international character and collaborative nature of the modernist movements from romanticism and realism to futurism, the Bauhaus, Dada, surrealism, abstract expressionism, and Fluxus. Special media include period photographs, films and recordings, posters and multiples, and over 5,000 contemporary artists' books.

	Salomon Kleiner, Christophori De Pauli pharmocopoei ..., 1751. 86113

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Archives and publications include early inventories and catalogs of private collections and museums with related documents on the history of taste and the business of art. The burgeoning art market in the 19th and 20th centuries can be studied in archives of collectors, dealers, and galleries. Dealers' stock books provide significant information on the provenance and prices of important works of art in leading American and European museums. Conservators' archives shed light on the evolution of restoration practice.

	Mosquée de Sidi Bou Medine, albumen print, 1860s. 2003.R.7

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Taking in the special language of images and emerging fields of visual culture and visual studies, the collections include study photographs of art from antiquity to the present, optical devices and games, prints and drawings, and architectural drawings and models. Special collections photographs feature travel albums, archaeological monuments and sites, panoramas and views, cartes de visite, and international expositions; early texts and examples of processes support study of the practice and techniques of photography.