Read the first-hand perspectives from the staff who preserve and document the history of the visual arts in America.
National collector Josh T. Franco writes about the large addition to the Emanuel Martínez Papers, illuminating his work with incarcerated youth and involvement in the Chicano movement.
Jacob Proctor, the Gilbert and Ann Kinney New York Collector, highlights the Michèle C. Cone Papers, recently acquired by the Archives. The following essay was originally published in the Spring 2022 issue (vol. 61, no. 1) of the Archives of American Art Journal.
Odette England shares discoveries she and her students made by embracing failure.
Elizabeth Hamilton chronicles an assignment created for the Teaching with Primary Sources workshop that had students look at artists with histories at HBCUs to find connections with their own experiences.
Nathan Rees shares how an assignment using the Archives' Pandemic Oral History Project created connections for his students with contemporary artists and their work.
You can help make digitized historical documents more findable and useful by transcribing their text.
Visit the Archives of American Art project page in the Smithsonian Transcription Center now.
Internship, fellowship, and volunteer opportunities provide students and lifelong learners with the ability to contribute to the study and preservation of visual arts records in America.
