This short account is meant to give a brisk bibliographic tour of a few routes that lead to the current MoMA Library exhibition, Scenes from Zagreb: Artists Publications of the New Art Practice.

Q. Why am I reading this?
A. Because we updated the MoMA Library’s FAQs:

Library Access FAQ
Library Collections FAQ
DADABASE FAQ
Art Research FAQ
MoMA Research FAQ

Libraries can contain unexpected treasures. Who would have guessed that the Frick Art Reference Library possesses a collection of seventy-four photographs of artists in their Paris studios circa 1885 to 1892? The photographs were given to the Library in 1940 by the American polar artist Frank Wilbert Stokes (1858–1955). Stokes had much earlier (1916–19) tried unsuccessfully to persuade Henry Clay Frick (1849–1919) to visit his studio and buy some of his paintings.  

The recently completed NYARC digitization project “Documenting the Gilded Age: New York City Exhibitions at the Turn of the 20th Century,” was the product of a collaboration between the Frick Art Reference Library and the Brooklyn Museum Libraries and Archive. Like many collaborative digital projects, “Documenting Gilded Age” exposed both the challenges and unique opportunities that come from transforming physical items – in this case rare, ephemeral exhibition catalogs – into digital form.

After spending the past six months processing the Art & Project/Depot VBVR Gift as Project Cataloger to the MoMA Library it seems timely to report on the venerable cache of materials. These materials are incorporated to the library collection as a gift from Adriaan van Ravesteijn, co-founder of the preeminent gallery for Conceptual Art in Amsterdam, Art & Project, which ceased operations in 2001 after 30 years of programming. The Art & Project/Depot VBVR Gift arrived at the library summer 2010, with materials reflecting relationships with the artists represented in the gallery program, including materials ranging from rare exhibition catalogs and artists’ books to monographs and ephemera.

Australia is about as far from New York as one can travel.  However, the three NYARC libraries have a small but important collection of materials about Australian art that brings the country from down under to the United States. In May and June 2011, the Frick Art Reference Library acquired 150 Australian exhibition catalogs. The majority of these catalogs are not widely available, with the Frick being the only library in the United States to own copies of some of the titles. Added to works about Aboriginal and post-WWII Australian art at the libraries of the Brooklyn Museum and The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Frick’s recent acquisition helps to form a high-quality consortial collection related to art in Australia.

My colleague Lauren Adelman stopped by the reference desk a while back. What do you have on murals, she asked.  I knew this would be interesting. Lauren works with MoMA’s Community and Access Programs, partnering with organizations involved with the criminal justice system.  This is part of her broader work as New York Director of Artistic Noise.  I was right: she was working with young men at the Bronx Residential Center to create a mural for their main entryway.

NYARC is pleased to announce that all of the Frick Art Reference Library Photoarchive’s research database records created since 1996 (and all future records created both for the existing collection and for new acquisitions) may now be accessed via NYARC’s online catalog Arcade.