Secondary Works in the Arts
The Society's Y classification comprises modern secondary
works on American fine, decorative, and applied arts from the
colonial era through the American Centennial. The section is
divided into sixty-three subdivisions. Within the fine arts, books
on painting, sculpture, and the graphic arts are emphasized. The
decorative arts subdivision covers a large assortment of subjects:
antiques, brassware, candlesticks and candles, chinaware, clocks
and watches, copperware, costumes, decoration, decoys, firearms,
firebacks, furniture, glassware, ironwork, kitchenware, lamps,
needlework, pewter, pottery, powder horns, quilts, rugs, silver,
stencils, swords, textiles, tinware, and woodenware. Within the
applied arts division are books on bells, buttons, ship models,
signs, stoves, tools, toys, and wallpaper. This classification
also includes material on printed ephemera: advertising, autograph
albums, bookplates, numismatic material, playing cards, political
collectibles, post cards, posters, silhouettes, stamps,
stereographs, trade cards, and valentines. Although a reader might
well expect the Society to collect only secondary works relating to
the art holdings of the institution, the collecting policy is, in
fact, very broad.
Traditionally, scholarship in the fine arts and in the major
decorative arts of furniture, textiles, and silver has been very
strong. In recent years, scholarship in the related fields mentioned
above has been improving, largely in response to the intense
interest in American material culture by individual collectors,
museums, and scholars. Although the Society keeps abreast of
current scholarship, it does not acquire collectors' guides to
prices and similar publications that become dated within months of
publication. Exhibition catalogs are collected as they are
published, and older exhibition catalogs are purchased if they
seem to be significant additions to the literature in the field. James
H. and Georgia B. Barnhill have established a fund for the purchase of
books on American art.
Related to this classification but housed separately is the
collection of art auction catalogs, which in themselves are
useful research tools. This collection is annotated in American
Art Auction Catalogues, 1785-1942: A Union List (New York, 1944),
compiled by Harold Lancour. Biographies of artists are housed in
the biography section of the library; books and pamphlets related
to the fine or decorative arts of a state or smaller geographical
unit are usually cataloged in the local history section. It is,
therefore, impossible to arrive at a total figure for the Society's
holdings related to the arts. As an approximation, however, there
are about 4,500 volumes and pamphlets shelved in this
classification alone.
- Georgia B. Barnhill, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Graphic Arts
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For current information on the cataloging status of this and
other AAS collections, choose "Collection Access" below.
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