Macbeth Gallery records, 1947-1948, bulk 1892-1953

This subseries contains a rich collection of photographs of many of the artists whose work was handled by the Macbeth Gallery. As revealed in the gallery's correspondence files, artists occasionally wrote to the gallery enclosing pictures for what was known as Macbeth's "Rogue Gallery," presumably a file of photographs maintained for publicity purposes. A substantial number of the photographs are original silver gelatin and platinum prints; there are also several daguerrotypes and an original photo postcard. Many of the photographs are autographed and some are addressed to the gallery. Many of the photographs were taken by commerical studios such as Alman & Co., De Vos, Haeseler, and Peter A. Juley, and several were taken by Gertrude Käsebier.

The photographs are arranged alphabetically by artist with two group photographs at the end of the subseries showing a group of artists in the Sherwood Studio Building in 1889 (Willard Allen, Carleton Chapman, Herbert Denham, Sam Isham, Willard Metcalf, Robert Reid, Robert Van Boskerck, Thomas Sullivant, and Harry Watrous); and the group of artists known as "The Ten" (Frank W. Benson, William Merritt Chase, Joseph R. DeCamp, T. W. Dewing, Childe Hassam, W. L. Metcalf, Robert Reid, Edward Simmons, Edmund C. Tarbell and Julian Alden Weir) taken in 1908 on the occasion of their exhibition at Durand-Ruel, Inc. Folders may contain original prints in addition to copy prints and any accompanying or identifying information. The photographs of artists have been digitally scanned and may be viewed on the AAA Digital Collections Database.

This subseries contains an exterior photograph, and a negative, of the gallery's first location at 237 Fifth Avenue; three photographs of the gallery's interior during an Albert Pinkham Ryder exhibition in January 1955 and a photograph thought to be of a group of people attending a Macbeth Galler "Smoker," ca. 1921. Also found is an interior photograph of the Lilienfeld Galleries in 1954 and an undated interior of an unidentified gallery.

At the beginning of this subseries is a disbound record book maintained by the gallery to record purchases of early American miniatures. The book contains photographs of each miniature, arranged alphabetically by artist, and includes notations on the portrait subject, and from whom and when it was purchased.

The subseries also contains a group of scrapbooks of photographs of works sold by the gallery, and stating the date of sale and buyer. Each scrapbook has an index, arranged alphabetically by artist, of the photographs included. Books 1 to 4 and 16 to 18 are complete while books 5 to 15 have had the majority of the images removed. Scrapbook 9 is completely empty except for the index and Scrapbook 7 is missing.

The rest of the series is comprised of photographs of artwork, many of which were removed from the scrapbooks described above. These photographs are arranged alphabetically by artist. The majority of the photos are undated; however, those that come from the scrapbooks in the collection are arranged at the back of the folders chronologically by date of sale in order to link them to the scrapbook indices.

The artist most heavily represented in the photograph files is Winslow Homer. The gallery evidently maintained separate scrapbooks recording sales of Homer's work (labeled here for clarity as Scrapbooks One to Four) and these can be found here in addition to four folders containing photographs of Homer's work and related records. The first of these four folders contains miscellaneous photographs from scrapbooks. Those with dates of sale linking them to the scrapbooks in the collection are in chronological order in the back of the folder. The second folder contains photographs of works that are of questionable origin or are merely attributed to Homer. The third folder contains unidentified or unlabeled works by Homer. The fourth folder contains miscellaneous information on Homer exhibits and gallery collections of his work including photographs and lists of his work owned by galleries and museums.

The Homer Book One contains loose scrapbook pages with attached photographs of artwork which are arranged alphabetically by title; Homer Book Two is a scrapbook of photographs of watercolors only, arranged alphabetically by title. The pages also include details about ownership and sales of the works. Some of the photographs are missing.

Box 14 contains loose pages from a third scrapbook of photographs of oil paintings in the same alphabetical arrangement as Book Two. Book Four contains loose scrapbook pages with attached photographs of drawings by Homer, again arranged alphabetically by title.