Title:: This Century Art Gallery Records 1959-2001

Access and use

Location of collection:
College of William and Mary
Special Collections Research Center
Earl Gregg Swem Library
College of William and Mary
400 Landrum Drive
PO 8795
Williamsburg, VA 23187-8795
Contact for questions and access:
Phone: (757) 221-3090
Fax: (757) 221-5440

Summary

Extent:
5.00
Creator:
This Century Art GallerySherman, RogerShiflett, Glenna GravesWilliamsburg Historic Records Association (Williamsburg, Va.) arrangement
Abstract:
The records of This Century Art Gallery include office, financial, and personal files from various board members and officers, Board Minutes, printed material such as promotional material and newsletters, artist/exhibit information, inventory notebooks, daily logs, and loose papers.
Language:
The records are in: English

Background

Scope and content:

The records of This Century Art Gallery include office, financial, and personal files from various board members and officers, Board Minutes, printed material such as promotional material and newsletters, artist/exhibit information, inventory notebooks, daily logs, and loose papers.

The group of office files that arrived as a unit, already in folders, were kept together and the original file names retained. These Office Files contain many newspaper clippings and promotional printed material. In the front of each Office File folder are 3 subfolders: one each for the original newspaper clippings, the copies of the clippings and original printed material.

The personal files of the Board members and officers included numerous duplications, particularly of monthly financial reports, board minutes and quarterly Bulletins. These records were pulled and combined in date order into the file headings of Treasurer's Reports, Board Minutes or Printed Material - Bulletins. At least 2 copies of each report were kept. If there were notes on any of the reports, it was kept. In a few instances, a board member's or officer's file contained material not duplicated elsewhere. These files were kept intact (except for removal of the duplicated reports) and the name of the board member or officer is noted on the folder as part of the heading. Files of unknown members that had very little material left in them after removing duplicate copies where merged into a folder entitled Board of Directors - Correspondence.

Some files for a specific event (exhibit or show) arrived in notebooks. These files were put into new folders with their original order and heading maintained. New folder headings were created to pull together material on artists, exhibits and shows that were found either loose or scattered through individual files.

Because Roger Sherman had made notes on many of the papers he gathered to help him write the history of the Gallery, they have been left together, but filed within the categories used for the rest of the collection, with his name as part of the folder heading. The exceptions are his actual drafts of the history, which are filed under his name.

Inventory located in Box 1.

Biographical / historical:

This Century Art Gallery - Williamsburg exhibits a wide variety of contemporary paintings, sculpture, and crafts by outstanding regional and national artists. The Gallery, adjacent to Merchants Square and the Historic Area in Williamsburg, Virginia, occupies a unique 1920 Sears Roebuck house that was modernized in the 1980s.

The Gallery is a nonprofit organization that is wholly volunteer-operated. Members give their time generously to manage Gallery business and to run the many programs it offers.

Membership fees and sales help support the Gallery. Major exhibitions open monthly with a preview reception for members and their guests.

The Gallery was named Twentieth Century Gallery when it opened in 1959 and is affiliated with the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

--From the Web site for This Century Art Gallery, July 2007

Acquisition information:
The materials were acquired by Special Collections Research Center from This Century Art Gallery via Glenna Shiflett and Michael Kerby on 03/31/2002.
Arrangement:

The files have been grouped into five categories: Financial, Board Matters, Artists/Exhibits, Office Files (original headings) and Office Files (artificially grouped).