Restrictions pertaining to the use of these materials may apply (based on contracts/copyright). Access restrictions may also apply if listening copies are not currently available. Listening copies can be made for a fee. Contact reference staff for details.
Collection Citation:
Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 589, Smithsonian Institution. Office of Telecommunications, Productions
Restrictions pertaining to the use of these materials may apply (based on contracts/copyright). Access restrictions may also apply if listening copies are not currently available. Listening copies can be made for a fee. Contact reference staff for details.
Collection Citation:
Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 590, Smithsonian Institution. Office of Telecommunications, Productions
Restrictions pertaining to the use of these materials may apply (based on contracts/copyright). Access restrictions may also apply if listening copies are not currently available. Listening copies can be made for a fee. Contact reference staff for details.
Collection Citation:
Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 589, Smithsonian Institution. Office of Telecommunications, Productions
Restrictions pertaining to the use of these materials may apply (based on contracts/copyright). Access restrictions may also apply if listening copies are not currently available. Listening copies can be made for a fee. Contact reference staff for details.
Collection Citation:
Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 590, Smithsonian Institution. Office of Telecommunications, Productions
1970 poetry reading by William J. Smith, Poet in Residence, Library of Congress, with introduction by Adelyn D. Breeskin, in conjunction with the NCFA's Explorations exhibition, 1/4 inch audiotape, April 12, 1970
Collection Creator::
National Museum of American Art. Office of Public Programs Search this
Container:
Box 1 of 3
Type:
Archival materials
Collection Citation:
Smithsonian Institution Archives, Accession 14-030, National Museum of American Art. Office of Public Programs, Audiovisual Records
Smithsonian Press/Smithsonian Productions Search this
Container:
Box 3 of 7
Type:
Archival materials
Collection Restrictions:
Restrictions pertaining to the use of these materials may apply (based on contracts/copyright). Access restrictions may also apply if listening copies are not currently available. Listening copies can be made for a fee. Contact reference staff for details.
Smithsonian Press/Smithsonian Productions Search this
Container:
Box 3 of 7
Type:
Archival materials
Collection Restrictions:
Restrictions pertaining to the use of these materials may apply (based on contracts/copyright). Access restrictions may also apply if listening copies are not currently available. Listening copies can be made for a fee. Contact reference staff for details.
This accession consists of records documenting the activities of the Renwick Gallery during the tenures of Lloyd E. Herman, Director, 1971-1986; Michael W. Monroe,
Curator-in-Charge, 1986-1995; and Kenneth R. Trapp, Curator-in-Charge, 1995-2003. Topics covered include art organizations; craft fairs and craft schools; correspondence with
museums within and outside of the United States and with artists; the museum shop; exhibitions; repair and renovation of the Renwick Gallery building; special events; and
lectures.
Exhibitions documented include: The Object As Poet; Craft Multiples; Americas: The Decorative Arts in Latin America in the Era of the Revolution; Costumes
from Arab World; The Decorative Designs of Frank Lloyd Wright; Design Is. . .; The Grand Renwick Souvenir Show; Ryijy Rugs from Finland: 200 Years
of a Textile Art; Irena Brynner: Jewelry Since 1950; A Feast of Color: Corpus Christi Dance Costumes from Ecuador; Grass; Arne Jacobsen: Danish
Architect and Designer; An Interior Decorated: Joyce Kozloff; The Designs of Raymond Loewy; Glass by Dale Chihuly: The Cylinder and Basket Series;
Signs of Life: Symbols in the American City; Ronald Pearson: Silver and Gold; Bo'Jou Neefee! Profiles of Canadian Indian Art; French Folk Art;
Figure and Fantasy; A Modern Consciousness: D. J. DePree and Florence Knoll; New Stained Glass; Belgian Lace; Man Made Mobile: The Western Saddle;
Contemporary Textile Art from Austria; The New Fabric Surface: Printed, Painted, and Dyed; 200 Years of Royal Copenhagen Porcelain; Boxes and Bowls:
Decorated Containers by the 19th Century Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshian Indian Artists; Contemporary Nigerian Art: Craftsmen from Oshogbo; Painted Weavings by
Lia Cook and Neda Alhilali; Twills With Titles: H. Theodore Hallman, Weaver Kenneth G. Mills, Poet; Skoogfors, 20th Century Goldsmith; The Woven and Graphic
Art of Anni Albers; Material Evidence: New Color Techniques in Handmade Furniture; Masterworks of Louis Comfort Tiffany; Bound to Vary: Billy Budd, Sailor;
The Boat Show: Fantastic Vessels, Fictional Voyages; Treasures from the Land, Twelve New Zealand Craftsmen and their Native Materials; Harvey K. Littleton
Retrospective Exhibition; Celebration: A World of Art and Ritual; Dan Dailey: Glass, 1972-1987; Material Evidence: New Color Techniques in Handmade Furniture;
Lost and Found Traditions: Native American Art 1965-1985; Clay Revisions: Plate, Cup, Vase; American Art Pottery; Stephen de Staebler: The Figure;
The Goldsmith; Chicago Furniture; The Tibetan Yak in Art and Craft; Contemporary Australian Ceramics; Edward Colonna; Scandinavian Modern
1880-1980; The Animal Image: Contemporary Objects and the Beast; William Harper: Recent Works in Enamel; Georg Jensen, Silversmithy: 77 Artists, 75 Years;
The Harmonious Craft: American Musical Instruments; Cynthia Schira: New Work; Lafayette Square, 1963-1983: Architecture, Preservation, and the Presidency;
Quilts from the Indiana Amish; Russia: The Land, The People, 1840-1910; Frank Lloyd Wright and the Johnson Wax Building: Creating a Corporate Cathedral;
Fanfare: Fans from the 18th Century - 20th Century, Parts I, II, III; Architecture in Silver; The Art of Turned Wood Bowls; The Flexible Medium: Art
Fabric from the Museum's Collection; Threads: Seven American Artists and Their Miniature Textile Pictures; Paint on Wood: Decorated American Furniture Since
the 17th Century; Venini Glass; American Art Deco; New Glass; American Porcelain: New Expressions in an Ancient Art; Good as Gold: Alternative
Materials in American Jewelry; Newcomb Pottery; Clay for Walls; Russel Wright: American Designer; and A Century of Ceramics in the U.S., 1878-1978.
Some of these materials date from the time when the Smithsonian American Art Museum was known as the National Collection of Fine Arts and the National Museum of American
Art. Materials include correspondence, memoranda, trip reports, brochures, staff meeting notes, artists' surveys, images, exhibition catalogs, checklists, postcards, invitations,
brochures, exhibition labels, research materials, architectural drawings, floor plans, and clippings.
This finding aid was digitized with funds generously provided by the Smithsonian Institution Women’s Committee.
Descriptive Entry:
The Doris Holmes Blake papers consist of correspondence, diaries, photographs and related materials documenting in great detail Blake's personal life and, to a lesser
degree, her professional career.
The heavy correspondence she maintained with her mother and daughter, her essays and children's books, and the 70 years' worth of daily journals all attest to her infatuation
with the written word and preoccupation with her inner life. Blake's diaries and family papers stunningly illuminate the contrasts in the daily lives of herself, her mother,
and her daughter.
The papers relating to her professional life are less complete. Although she spent almost 60 years (1919-1978) in association with the entomological staffs of the U. S.
Department of Agriculture and the Smithsonian Institution, published numerous professional papers, produced all of her own illustrations, and illustrated many of her husband's
botanical works as well, this collection contains only a very limited amount of material documenting those activities. The papers do, however, include her extensive correspondence
with fellow entomologists, both in the United States and abroad.
In the course of transferring her husband's papers to the University of Texas, some of Blake's own papers were included as well. They are presently in the collection of
the Humanities Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin and include letters to her parents, 1906-1950; school and college notebooks, papers, essays and drawings;
and clippings, genealogical notes, and miscellaneous family letters and papers.
Historical Note:
Doris Holmes (1892-1978) was born in Stoughton, Massachusetts, to a middle-class grocer and his wife. Essentially an only child (two siblings died in early childhood
and infancy), her natural intelligence, stubbornness, and extremely competitive nature were well fostered by her parents, who steadily encouraged and supported her determination
to excel.
Holmes left Stoughton for Boston University's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in 1909, where she pursued studies in business and the classics, earning her A.B. in
1913. Her business skills led to her association with the Boston Psychopathic Hospital in 1913, initially as a clerk, and later as aide to Dr. Herman Adler. Her interests
in science and psychology led her to an A.M. from Radcliffe College in zoology and psychology in 1917.
After a short time as a researcher at Bedford Hills Reformatory for Women, Holmes married her childhood sweetheart, botanist Sidney Fay Blake. Early in 1919, Doris Blake
found work as a clerk for the Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Entomology under Frank H. Chittenden, and began the entomological studies that would continue for the rest
of her life.
Blake worked her way up to junior entomologist and, when Chittenden retired, continued her work under Eugene A. Schwarz at the United States National Museum. The birth
in 1928 of daughter Doris Sidney (an infant son had died shortly after birth in 1927) was not a sign for her to slow down -- Blake hired a nurse to watch the baby while she
continued to watch beetles. In 1933 her official employment came to an end with the institution of regulations prohibiting more than one member of a family from holding a
government position (Sidney Blake was then working for the Department of Agriculture).
Although no longer on the payroll, Blake continued her taxonomic work on the family Chrysomelides for almost 45 more years, first as a collaborator and then as a research
associate of the Smithsonian Institution. Shortly after her husband's death, Blake traveled to Europe in 1960 on a National Science Foundation grant to revise the genus Neobrotica
Jacoby. She ultimately published 97 papers in various journals (see "Doris Holmes Blake," Froeschner, Froeschner and Cartwright, Proc. Entomol. Soc. Wash., 83(3), 1981, for
a complete bibliography) and continued her active research until shortly before her death on December 3, 1978.
