Jan Butterfield papers, 1950-1997

This series contains handwritten and typewritten drafts, notes, research, correspondence, photographs of works of art, and other documentation related to Butterfield's book projects, articles, catalog essays, and publicity writings.

The most extensive project in this series is Butterfield's book , represented here in multiple drafts, galleys, photographs of works of art, editorial correspondence, records related to later exhibitions of the artists represented in the book, and records of an exhibition of artist portraits created for the book by the photographer James McHugh. Extensive files of photographs of works of art by the artists included in the book are also found in the photographs series. Note that the first two drafts in the series bear earlier titles, , and , but are the same work.

Book projects on the artists Fletcher Benton and Leonard Cutrow are also documented in this series in correspondence, business records, photographs of works of art, and scattered typescript and printout draft writings. Butterfield does not take an author credit for these projects, but she seems to have been involved in their editing and production to different degrees. A book on outdoor sculpture in San Francisco by Warren Radford is found in draft form and appears to have been edited by Butterfield. The draft is filed at the end of the series under "writings by others".

Articles by Butterfield found in this series are mostly in the form of typescript drafts, some hand-corrected. Photocopies of Butterfield's published articles are filed with Printed Materials. Articles about artists or galleries are arranged by the subject's name. Other articles are listed in the series by title.

Many of the files relating to catalog essays by Butterfield contain extensive documentation related to the artist subjects, including multiple drafts, photographs of works of art, and research gathered about the artist or subject matter in the form of printed materials, artist biographies and CVs from galleries, notes, and correspondence. The file for Richard Shaw also contains an interview transcript, presumably for the 1981 interview by Butterfield found In the Interviews series.

Some of Butterfield's work as a publicist for artists and galleries is filed under publicity writings, which include drafts of press releases, exhibition reviews, photographs of artwork, research, and occasionally correspondence with the artist. A large amount of material is found related to Peter Erskine's project "Secrets of the Sun" (1992) including two videocassettes (VHS). An additional videocassette (VHS) is found with publicity writings for the artist Anne Labirola.

Many of the writings are based on recorded interviews that can be found in series 1, Interviews and Lectures. A variety of material related to Butterfield's work on books published by Lapis Press is found in series 3, Project files, which also contains additional publicity writings by Butterfield. Extensive writings by others on the artist George Herms are found in series 4, Personal Business Records. Many of Butterfield's writings that appeared in print are found in series 5, Printed Materials. Additional photographs of works of art by the artists about whom Butterfield wrote are found in series 6, Photographs.