Terra Foundation Center for Digital Collections

Welcome to the Terra Foundation Center for Digital Collections, a virtual repository of a substantial cross-section of the Archives' most significant collections. Since 2005, over 270 archival collections have been digitized and posted online, comprising over 3 million images. In addition, over 16,000 documents have been individually cataloged and are accessible through the Search and Browse interface. We invite you to browse and to visit again: content is continuously added.

Learn more about the Background on the Terra Foundation Center for Digital Collections.

Funding is generously provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art. 

Major support for digitization has been provided by the Walton Family Foundation with additional funding from The Alice L. Walton Foundation, The Brown Foundation, Inc., Estate of Maryette Charlton, Barbara G. Fleischman, Martha J. Fleischman, Frederick Hammersley Foundation, The Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz Foundation for the Arts, Roy Lichtenstein Foundation, Charles Moorman IV, Vital Projects Fund, The Widgeon Point Charitable Foundation, and Wyeth Foundation for American Art. 

Chiura Obata papers

Black and white photograph of Chiura Obata teaching a children's art class at Tanforan Art School, August 1942

Chiura Obata papers were digitized in 2020, and total 3,019 images. Chiura Obata (1885-1975) was a Japanese-American artist and educator. Born Zoroku Sato in Okayama prefecture in Japan, in 1903 he immigrated to the United States. In 1932, he began teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, but was forced to relocate to Tanforan detention center with his family in 1942 as a result of Executive Order 9066. There, he and his fellow artists established a successful art school with over 900 students. After the Obatas were moved to Topaz War Relocation Center, Obata founded the Topaz Art School there. Released in 1943 for his own safety in the wake of controversy and an attack, he moved with his family to St. Louis, Missouri for a time. In 1945 he was reinstated at Berkeley, and continued to exhibit his work. Obata became a naturalized citizen in 1954, and in 1965 he received the Order of the Sacred Treasure Emperor's Award for promoting good will and cultural understanding between the United States and Japan.

Yasuo Kuniyoshi papers

Black and white photograph of Yasuo Kuniyoshi painting while lying on the floor, 1945?

Yasuo Kuniyoshi papers were digitized in 2019-2020, and total 17,710 images. Yasuo Kuniyoshi (1889-1953) was a Japanese-American painter, printmaker and photographer in New York, N.Y. Born in Okayama, Japan, he came to the United States in 1906. By 1930 Kuniyoshi had established himself as an internationally-known painter and graphic artist, and taught In New York City at the Art Students League and the New School for Social Research. He also served as the first president of the Artists Equity Association, and was active in several social organizations, especially Japanese American organizations, like the Japanese American Committee for Democracy. Although Kuniyoshi was barred from becoming a citizen due to American immigration laws at the time, he viewed himself as American and took an active role in the war effort during World War II.

Jaime Davidovich papers

Black and white photograph of Jaime Davidovich working at Stechert-Hafner, Inc. bookstore, 1964

Jaime Davidovich papers were digitized in 2020, and total 2,620 images. Jaime Davidovich (1936-2016) was a conceptual and performance artist born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He taught art in Argentina for a time before moving to the United States, where he worked as a graphic designer and began experimenting with video art. Davidovich created the nonprofit organization, Artists Television Network (ATN), which produced television shows for Manhattan's public access channel using the name SoHo Television. Davidovich's avant-garde variety show, The Live! Show, was the organization's most well-known production.

Mel Casas papers

Color photograph of Mel Casas standing in a doorway looking at papers, circa 1977

Mel Casas papers were digitized in 2020, and total 1,030 images. San Antonio painter and educator Mel Casas (1929-2014) was a founder of the Chicano art movement and a key member of the art collective Con Safo. Originally named El Grupo, the group's mission was to empower Chicano artists who were largely overlooked in the mainstream art world. Casas taught at San Antonio College, serving as the chair of the art department there until his retirement. His work can be found in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the San Antonio Museum of Art, and other collections worldwide.

 

Emily Hall Tremaine papers

Black and white photograph of Emily Hall Tremaine standing by a car, circa 1930s

Emily Hall Tremaine papers were digitized in 2019, and total 13,577 images. Art collector Emily Hall Tremaine (1908-1987) lived in New York City and Madison, Connecticut, and was known for having assembled one of the most noteworthy collections of post World War II art focused on modernist, pop, and contemporary artists. The collection would eventually number over four hundred works of art and range from paintings by Picasso, Kandinsky, and Georges Braque to works by Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein, and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Parish Gallery records

Black and white photograph of Norman Parish standing in gallery space with paintings on the wall

Parish Gallery records were digitized in 2019, and total 10,972 images. Parish Gallery (established 1991-closed 2013) was a gallery in Washington, D.C. Founded by artist Norman Parish (1937-2013), the gallery was known for exhibiting artwork by African American and international artists. Parish dedicated the gallery to showing the works of underrepresented artists of all backgrounds, though the primary focus was the members of the African diaspora.

Cinque Gallery records

Black and white photograph, taken during the summer of 1969, shows attendees at an Cinque Gallery exhibit opening, including cofounders Norman Lewis (standing in a black suite at far right) and Romare Bearden (farther left, talking to an unidentified man).

Cinque Gallery records were digitized in 2019, and total 1,043 images. The Cinque Gallery was a nonprofit art gallery in New York City founded by African American artists Romare Bearden, Norman Lewis, and Ernest Crichlow in 1969. It was established to exhibit the work of both new and established African American artists, and to provide community educational programs. Ruth Jett was appointed Executive Director of Cinque Gallery in 1982. Cinque sponsored more than 350 exhibitions in a number of New York City venues, as well as traveling exhibitions in the New York and New England areas before closing in 2004.

Photographs of Karl Francis Theodore Bitter and Gustave Gerlach

Photograph depicts artists including Fritz Hoffman and Joseph Gerlach with Joseph Sibbel at Joseph Sibbel Studio. The group stands in front of sculptures

Photographs of Karl Francis Theodore Bitter and Gustave Gerlach were digitized in 2019, and total 471 images. Karl Bitter (1867-1915) was an Austrian-born sculptor active in New York City. He exhibited his works at worldwide expositions and examples of his sculpture and memorials can be found throughout the United States. Sculptor Gustave Gerlach (b. 1866) was a pupil and colleague of Bitter's and was also active in New York City.

Weir Family papers

Photo is a portrait of Julian Alden Weir standing against an easel in his studio

The Weir Family papers were digitized in 2019, and total 675 images. The New York and Connecticut Weir family of artists included painter and West Point professor Robert Walter Weir (1803-1889); his sons John Ferguson Weir (1841-1926), a painter, and Julian Alden Weir (1852-1919), an American Impressionist and founding member of “The Ten”; and granddaughter Edith Weir (Perry) (1875-1955), who was a miniature painter.

Frederick Carl Frieseke papers

Photo is a portrait of Frederick Carl Frieseke seated.

The Frederick Carl Frieseke papers were digitized in 2019, and total 157 images. Impressionist painter Frederick Carl Frieseke (1874-1939) lived in New York and Paris before becoming a leading figure of the second generation of Americans at Giverny, France. Frieseke studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League, New York City. He moved to France in 1898 where he lived until his death in 1939.

William Ordway Partridge papers

Photo is a handwritten letter from Thomas Shields Clarke to William Ordway Partridge.

William Ordway Partridge papers were digitized in 2019, and total 222 images. Parisian-born sculptor, author, and poet, William Ordway Partridge (1861-1930) was known for his sculptures of famous writers, artists, political figures, and poets. In addition to busts of writers and artists and many distinguished New York figures, he executed a large bronze of Alexander Hamilton in Prospect Park, Brooklyn.

Roy De Forest papers

Photo is a portrait of Roy De Forest with his arms crossed in front of one of his paintings of two dogs

The Roy De Forest papers were digitized in 2019 and total 8,903 images. Roy De Forest (1930-2007) was a painter, sculptor, and educator in Port Costa, California. A notable figure in the funk art movement, he coined the term "nut art" to describe art that embraced humor and created a fantasy world.

Woman's Building records

Photo shows people standing around the entrance to the Woman's Building during the opening celebration.

The Woman's Building records were digitized in 2019 and total 56,467 images. The Woman’s Building played a key role as an alternative space for women artists energized by the feminist movement in the 1970s. The records document the ways in which feminist theory shaped the Building's founding core mission and goals.

Marcia Marcus papers

Photograph of Marcia Marcus

The Marcia Marcus papers were digitized in 2019 and total 12,391 images. Marcia Marcus (1928- ) is a figurative painter working in New York, New York. Marcus studied at New York University, Cooper Union, and the Art Students League. Since 1951, she has been the subject of over a dozen solo shows and participated in many group exhibitions. Marcus was a 1962-1963 Fulbright fellow, and was the recipient of many other grants throughout her career including a Esther and Adolph Gottlieb grant and a National Endowment for the Arts grant.

National Academy of Design Collections

Photograph of Morse code inventor, Samuel Finley Breese Morse

Four collections donated by National Academy of Design were digitized in 2019 and total 5,093 images. These collections include the papers of Henry Ward Ranger (1858-1916), a painter whose bequest to the NAD benefited the Smithsonian Institution's National Collection of Fine Arts; the papers of founding member of the NAD and Morse code inventor, Samuel Finley Breese Morse (1791-1872); the papers of miniaturist and founding member of the NAD, Thomas Seir Cummings (1804-1894); and the photographs of works of art by George Inness (1854-1926) compiled by his wife Julia G. Smith (1853-1941) as an authentication resource and donated to the NAD.

Jeff Donaldson papers

Head and shoulders, black and white portrait of Jeff Donaldson.

The Jeff Donaldson papers were digitized in 2018 and total 18,712 images. Jeff Donaldson (1932-2004) was an African American artist and educator who worked in Chicago and Washington, D.C. He was a leading figure in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s and promoted the "TransAfrican" aesthetic. Donaldson co-founded the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC) Visual Art Workshop and the AfriCOBRA artist collaborative. Donaldson was also a professional painter, exhibiting in over a hundred and fifty group and solo exhibitions, and wrote critical essays for arts publications.

Exhibition records of the Contemporary Study Wing of the Finch College Museum of Art

Black and white photograph of Elayne Varian speaking to Sol Le Witt during public installation of artwork at Art in Process V exhibition at Finch College Museum of Art.

The Exhibition records of the Contemporary Study Wing of the Finch College Museum of Art were digitized in 2018, and total 31,303 images. The Contemporary Study Wing of the Finch College Museum of Art was established in 1964 as an extension the Finch College Museum of Art in New York City. Its mission was to educate art history students at the Manhattan women's college who were interested in working with contemporary art. The Contemporary Wing's Art in Process shows brought the process of art-making into the gallery. Hundreds of contemporary artists were shown at the Contemporary Wing in the eleven years of its existence.

James Carroll Beckwith papers

Photograph from the James Carroll Beckwith papers

The James Carroll Beckwith papers were digitized in 2018, and total 7,853 images.  James Carroll Beckwith (1852-1917) was a portrait and landscape painter in New York, New York and a member of the National Academy of Design. Beckwith gained widespread recognition for his portraits and among his subjects are the artist William Merritt Chase and President Theodore Roosevelt. Beckwith is also known for created skillful copies of Old Masters paintings which he saw in galleries across Europe during his time abroad.

Total Records: 315