AMNH Art Survey
Scope and Contents
The Art Survey is an inventory of artwork throughout the Museum. It is not exhaustive: numerous additional artworks are documented in the library catalog after the survey's completion. Additional research on artworks in the Museum is in progress.
Dates
- Record Keeping: 1991 - 1992
Creator
- Sweimler, Joel D. (Compiler, Person)
Biographical / Historical
According to Nina Root’s “Biography of a Museum Library,” Marion Carr, the head of the Membership department, began to collect, store, and record the location of artwork in the Musuem in the 1950s. The Museum's art came from multiple sources: created as parts of exhibitions, commissioned for Museum founders and trustees, and through donation. After her retirement in 1974, the collection of artworks, portraits, and memorabilia was transferred to the Library. Some departments (notably Ornithology and Vertebrate Paleontology) continued to maintain administrative control of their art collections. In 1992, Joel Sweimler completed an inventory of the art throughout the Museum—on exhibit and in storage—as part of an National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grant. The inventoried works were added to a database and later the library catalog. Since then, Library staff have continued efforts to better record the administrative control, conservation work, and up-to-date location information for artworks in the Museum, both in the Art Survey and beyond.
Extent
1459 Items (This is a survey of 1459 artworks, each entry has its own extent record. Entries describe individual or multiple, related artworks.)
Language of Materials
English
No linguistic content; Not applicable
Creator
- Sweimler, Joel D. (Compiler, Person)
- Author
- Joel Sweimler
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the Museum Archives at the Gottesman Research Library Repository
American Museum of Natural History
200 Central Park West
New York NY 10024 USA
(212) 769-5420
[email protected]