Exhibition Records of the Harvard Art Museums, 1905-2008

These records were created by museum staff in the course of planning and installing exhibitions and subsequently collected by the Archives. They pertain primarily to exhibitions held in the Fogg Museum, the Busch-Reisinger Museum, and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, but they also include materials related to traveling or off-site exhibitions. The records range in date from 1905 to 2008 and include correspondence on a wide range of topics, exhibition proposals, photographic prints and negatives, object lists, loan forms, press releases, clippings, invitations, posters, labels and wall text, memoranda, exhibition catalogues and drafts of catalogue essays. The records include materials created by students enrolled in the course "Museum Work and Museum Problems,"who organized exhibitions as part of their studies. Some correspondence with artists, related to their works on exhibition, is included.

The folders have been re-housed into archival folders and boxes. Folders and their contents have been kept in their original order, and overstuffed folders have been divided among several folders for the sake of preservation and numbered to indicate that they represent a part of a larger whole (for example: "folder 1 of 2"). The original folder titles have been retained; any added information has been enclosed in square brackets by the processing archivist. The folders are filed alphabetically by title and in most instances the papers within each folder are filed in either chronological or reverse chronological order.

Acidic documents have been isolated with archival paper and in some cases enclosed in mylar. Fragile materials have been enclosed in mylar. Oversize materials have been filed in oversize storage; separation sheets indicate their removal. These oversize materials may be consulted upon request, and their location is indicated in the detailed container list that follows. Some of the collection suffered water damage in a flood of the archives in 1998; as a result, many of the papers are wrinkled, some ink has run, and some are stuck together and in need of treatment by conservators.

It should be noted that the titles and dates of exhibitions, as provided in folder names, are not always complete or accurate. In many instances exhibitions were known by several different titles and there are discrepancies among various sources (correspondence, posters, catalogues and invitations) as to the correct title. The opening and closing dates of many exhibitions also differ from what is indicated by the folder titles. Often exhibitions were extended and lasted longer than originally planned. In some instances exhibitions occurred in several stages, with some or all of the objects on view being exchanged for other objects in the course of the exhibition.