Guide to Best Practices in Artists’ Studio Archiving Released

Guide to Best Practices in Artists’ Studio Archiving Now Available

Artists' Studio Archives

Artists’ Studio Archives: Managing Personal Collections & Creative Legacies is a guide for artists, their assistants, and others managing and preserving an artist’s studio archives. The guide is based on real-life scenarios and best practices in archiving and preservation and will aid artists in every career stage, from emerging artists to late-career artists, the yet-to-be-discovered and the well-established. Case studies and direct quotes from artists and their assistants, archivists, and researchers offer glimpses into managing and using artists’ archives. The exercises included in Artists’ Studio Archives help jump-start the documentation and archiving process through goal setting and establishing realistic timetables.

“Artists often tell me that their work ‘speaks for itself,’ but trust me, curators, conservators, and researchers always want more information. Your photographs, records, and recollections are significant to understanding a work of art, its place in history, a movement, and even within your own body of work.” – Carolyn Kastner, Curator, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum

The authors wish to thank the following organizations and institutions that provided funding for the research and publication of Artists’ Studio Archives and the resulting Archiving for Artists workshops: The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), The Joan Mitchell Foundation, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA). Please consult our website (www.artiststudioarchives.org) for more information about this initiative and to access supporting resources.

Thanks for sharing with colleagues and artist friends and family members!

Artists’ Studio Archives authors:
Neal Ambrose-Smith (Artist, Educator, and Independent Consultant, New Mexico)
Joan E. Beaudoin (Assistant Professor in the School of Library and Information Science, Wayne State University)
Heather Gendron (Director, Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library, Yale University)
Eumie Imm-Stroukoff (Emily Fisher Landau Director of the Georgia O’Keeffe Research Center)

For questions about Artists’ Studio Archives: Managing Personal Collections & Creative Legacies, please contact Heather Gendron (heather.gendron@yale.edu).

Heather Gendron
Director, Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library
Yale University
T 203.432.2642