Exhibition records of the Contemporary Study Wing of the Finch College Museum of Art, 1943-1975, bulk 1964-1975

Series includes a group of files created at the Contemporary Study Wing to be both a study collection for students of museum practice and a resource for exhibition planning, which are filed under the general artist files heading. The general artist files also contain documents related to contemporary artists whose works were in the Finch College Museum's permanent collection, and printed material on artists who were of interest to Elayne Varian. Many of the general artist files contain only one or two items, usually a résumé, exhibition announcement, and/or photograph of an artwork. A few of the files contain more substantial documentation, including multiple images of artworks, photographs of artists, correspondence, instructions regarding complex artworks, posters, publications by the artist, or artist's statements. Files for Jeff Dell contain 3 motion picture film reels (16 mm), two of which also have two videocassette access copies each (VHS and Digital Betacam). Where present, significant materials in the general artist files are noted in the folder listing.

Also found is an incomplete run of questionnaires for the 1964 New York Arts Calendar Annual, which were completed by artists and often accompanied with printed material relating to exhibitions scheduled for that year. A letter explaining the donation of these records to the Contemporary Study Wing for their research value is filed with this set of records. Questionnaires are found for artists with surnames beginning with A through E, and M through S. The rest of the Arts Calendar questionnaires are not found in the collection. Occasionally artists represented in this part of the series also have a file in the general artist files.

Series is arranged in two sections, the general artist files, and the New York Arts Annual Calendar files. Varian's letters to galleries soliciting artist information are found in the 1964 correspondence of the Administrative Records in Series 1. Unsolicited letters with artist information enclosed can also be found in the correspondence files in that series. Additional records related to works in the permanent collection of the Finch College Museum are also found in series 1. Many of the exhibitions documented in series 4, Exhibition Files, also contain their own run of artist files specific to the exhibition, which tend to contain richer documentation than files in this series.

The bulk of this series has been digitized. Materials which have not been digitized include blank pages, blank versos of photographs, and duplicates, In some cases, exhibition catalogs and other publications have had their covers, title pages, and relevant paged digitized.

The motion picture film "Happy Birthday Felisa" (1968), found in the file for artist Jeff Dell, has been digitized for reference use.