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Architecture Exhibition records

 Collection
Identifier: 23.4.4

  • Staff Only
  • No requestable containers

Scope and Contents

The records document architecture exhibitions held at the Rhode Island School of Design, Museum of Art, 1939-1943, and the use of exhibition materials by the Museum's Department of Education, 1940-1953. The bulk of the records document the 1939 Rhode Island Architecture exhibition and its subsequent use as a loan exhibition by the Department of Education. Records include correspondence, photographs and exhibition photograph panels, printing blocks, and publications.

Dates

  • Creation: 1939-1953
  • Creation: Majority of material found within 1939-1943

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

The use of certain documents and collections may be restricted. Please consult the Archives staff for further details.

Conditions Governing Use

Permission to publish, reproduce, or quote from archival materials must be obtained in writing from the Archives. The researcher assumes full responsibility for use of material and for conformity to all applicable laws, including copyright.

Biographical / Historical

The Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art held the Rhode Island Architecture exhibition 1939 June 18-December 5. Architectural historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Jr. developed the exhibition under Director Alexander Dorner with Museum Assistant Barbara Wriston. The exhibition surveyed three hundred years of Rhode Island buildings with much of the photographic material coming from Antoinette Dowling's 1937 work "The Early Homes of Rhode Island" and the Historic American Buildings Survey. Dowling, Norman M. Isham, and others provided assistance in gathering materials and photographs.

The exhibition's photograph panels came under the purview of the Museum's Education Department, which loaned them to local and national educational and civic institutions. Additional visiting architecture exhibitions administered by Writson were held at the Museum, particularly during Education Director Lydia Powel's tenure, 1943-1944. The Rhode Island Historical Society acquired the panels sometime after 1953 and transferred them to the RISD Archives in 2011.

Extent

10 Linear Feet

Language of Materials

English

Abstract

The records document architecture exhibitions held at the Rhode Island School of Design, Museum of Art, 1939-1943, and the use of exhibition materials by the Museum's Department of Education, 1940-1953.

Arrangement

Organized into four series:

  1. I. Administrative files, 1939-1943, 1952
  2. II. Photographs, 1939-1942
  3. III. Exhibition photographs, 1939, 1953
  4. IV. Halftone Copper Printing Blocks, 1939

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Records were transfered from the Museum of Art and the Rhode Island Historical Society.

Related Materials

The Museum of Art Exhibition photograph collection holds twenty-four negatives taken by Nicholas Romano in 1939. There are fourteen 8x10 installation negatives and eighteen negatives (5x7 and 8x10) of labels.

The Fleet Library at RISD holds lantern slides of Rhode Island buildings and maps prepared by architect and historian John Hutchins Cady during the 1930s, some of which were used for a lecture titled "The Architectural and Civic Development of Providence," given under the sponsorship of the Community Art Project. See the Community Art Project records, 1932-1943.

Title
Guide to the Architecture Exhibition records1939-1953 bulk 1939-1943
Author
Finding aid prepared by Douglas Doe.
Date
2013 March 22
Description rules
Finding Aid Based On Describing Archives: A Content Standard (Dacs)
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin

Repository Details

Part of the Rhode Island School of Design Archives Repository

Contact:
Fleet Library at RISD
20 Washington Place
Providence RI 02903 USA