Sketchbooks from the Archives of American Art
![[Worthington Whittredge sketchbook of a trip down the Rhine River]](http://www.aaa.si.edu/images/whitwort/thumbnail/AAA_whitwort_9504.jpg "[Worthington Whittredge sketchbook of a trip down the Rhine River], 1849 / Worthington Whittredge, artist. Sketchbook : 1 v. : various media ; 15 x 24 cm. Worthington Whittredge papers. Archives of American Art.")
October 5, 2007 - January 6, 2008
Sketchbooks are as varied as the artists who keep them. Painter Reginald Marsh cut and bound scrap paper to fit the size of his coat pocket, modernist Charles Green Shaw tested abstract shapes in large spiral-bound books, and Oscar Bluemner kept "painting diaries" with the rough outlines of landscapes and copious notes on color arrangements.
More than a thousand sketchbooks in the Archives of American Art form a vast repository of ideas, perceptions, inspirational imagery, and graphic experiments from the mundane to the spectacular. As personal documents, they afford an intimate view of an artist's visual thinking.
Organized around the themes of Landscapes, Studies, Fantasy & Abstraction, and Figure Studies & Observations the exhibit includes over forty sketchbooks from the Archives collections.
Learn more about Sketchbooks at the Archives of American Art: Visual Thinking: A Guide to Sketches & Sketchbooks.
![[Esther Rolick drawing]](http://www.aaa.si.edu/images/roliesth/thumbnail/AAA_roliesth_6450.jpg "[Esther Rolick drawing], 1954 / Mako Oike, photographer. 1 photographic print : b&w ; 25 x 20 cm. Esther G. Rolick papers. Archives of American Art.")
![[Francis Criss]](http://www.aaa.si.edu/images/fedeartp14/thumbnail/AAA_fedeartp14_4034.jpg "[Francis Criss], 1940 Oct. 29 / Max Yavno, photographer. 1 photographic print : b&w ; 25 x 20 cm. Federal Art Project, Photographic Division collection. Archives of American Art.")
![[Grant Wood teaching class outdoors]](http://www.aaa.si.edu/images/rowaedwa/thumbnail/AAA_rowaedwa_19851.jpg "[Grant Wood teaching class outdoors], 1933 / unidentified photographer. 1 photographic print : b&w ; 21 x 26 cm. Edward Beatty Rowan papers. Archives of American Art.")
![[James Montgomery Flagg]](http://www.aaa.si.edu/images/watsforb/thumbnail/AAA_watsforb_3555.jpg "[James Montgomery Flagg], ca. 1930 / Percy Rainford, photographer. 1 photographic print : b&w ; 20 x 24 cm. Forbes Watson papers. Archives of American Art.")
![[Reginald Marsh sketching on the carousel at Coney Island]](http://www.aaa.si.edu/images/marsregi/thumbnail/AAA_marsregi_23868.jpg "[Reginald Marsh sketching on the carousel at Coney Island], n.d. / Gene Pyle, photographer. 1 photographic print : b&w ; 36 x 45 cm. Reginald Marsh papers, 1897-1955. Archives of American Art.")