Carnegie Institute, Museum of Art records, 1883-1962, bulk 1885-1962

Correspondence is comprised of extensive correspondence between the Museum of Art and over 8700 correspondents, with over 3900 correspondents specifically related to art and artists. Included with the correspondence are related documents, such as telegrams, receipts, lists, programs, reports, and etc.

Correspondents related to the art world include museum staff, artists, collectors, museums, galleries, dealers, shippers, insurance agencies, art directors, associations, societies, clubs, critics, press, and governments. These exchanges include requests related to the museum's permanent collections and traveling exhibitions, including the International; letters regarding the museum's business practices and purchases; loan, sales, and provenance information for specific works of art; and general information and event announcements sent by other art organizations. Much of the correspondence is routine in nature, however, correspondence between the museum's directors and artists, collectors, other museum directors, and dealers contain information on specific works and often include personal references and other unexpected information.

Correspondence between museum staff members under both directors provides the most complete picture of the daily operations, priorities, and immediate concerns of the Museum of Art. Correspondents of note include Board of Trustees and Fine Arts Committee members Samuel Harden Church, William Frew, Alfred Wall, George Shaw, Herbert Dupuy, Henry Porter, William McConway, John Caldwell, Joseph Woodwell, and John Porter. Under John Beatty's directorship, long standing staff members Edward Balken, Helen Beatty, Robert Harshe, Charles Ramsey, August Zeller, and Caroline Lapsley played key operational roles. Under Homer Saint-Gauden's directorship, correspondence between staff members John O'Connor, Henry Nash, Guillaume Lerolle, Ilario Neri, Arnold Palmer, Margaret Palmer, and Charlotte Weidler provide the clearest picture of internal operations at home and abroad. While a small portion of museum staff correspondence can be found duplicated within other series in the collection, this is the primary location museum staff filed letters with individuals of note.

Under John Beatty, almost every single letter received was accounted for in the card catalog and filed. Upon Saint-Gaudens' directorship, many of the general public's letters of inquiry that had previously been filed in Correspondence were moved to Department of Fine Arts (Series 2), under the folder headings 'requests answered' and 'requests received.'

From 1907 to 1940, these files were originally boxed in two year periods, and within that, arranged numerically according to the filing number assigned by the Museum of Art. Records dating from 1895-1906 were boxed separately. During this earlier period, each individual letter was assigned a unique number code, which was recorded in the museum's card catalog index. All records have been rearranged into an alphabetical folder heading order with all the years merged and organized into chronological order.

The correspondence of directors John W. Beatty ( Boxes 15-18) and Homer Saint-Gaudens ( Boxes 121-127) have been scanned, except for a few folders of correspondence between Beatty and Robert C. Hall that was part of an addition received in 2017.