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Photographs, postcards, engravings, sketches, art tools, correspondence, pamphlets, recipes and newspaper clippings belonging to Blanche Lazzell, a West Virginia born leading American artist of the inter-war years. The collection reflects her development as an artist from her student days at West Virginia University to the end of the Korean War. Addenda include correspondence, genealogy, published material, photos, prints, drawings, news clippings, and mementos of Blanche Lazzell. Addenda topics include Lazzell family history, Blanche's art and artistic influences, and the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). See Historical Note for information on Blanche Lazzell.

Correspondence, manuscripts, documents, memorabilia, photographs, journals, drawings, and sketchbooks of David Hunter Strother (1816-1888), a nineteenth century illustrator and writer for Harpers Magazine whose pseudonym, "Porte Crayon", was a household word. Other highlights of his career, all of which are reflected in this collection, are authorship of Virginia Illustrated (1857) and Charleston and its Resources (1878), his work as illustrator for Blackwater Chronicle (1853), service during the Civil War as a Union officer, stint as a newspaper editor, and Consul-Generalship to Mexico (1879-1885). According to Strother's biographer, Cecil D. Eby Jr., his writings linked the two traditions of literature in the south, "the genteel romanticism of the sentimental novelists and the earthy realism of the frontier humorists." In 1872-1875 Strother wrote The Mountains, which Eby considers the first important presentation of West Virginia in literature. The collection includes roughly 590 drawings and sketches, 44 volumes of journals, and several boxes of correspondence. An addendum of 2015/06/13 includes one drawing. An addendum of 2007/02/08 includes correspondence, newspaper clippings, announcements, and photographs regarding Strother and related families of the Eastern panhandle of West Virginia. An addendum of 2021/06/04 contains an abridged transcription by Cecil D. Eby Jr., of Strother's diary, 1879-1880, when Strother was General Consul to Mexico. For contents of the addenda and link to the digital collection: Drawings of David Hunter Strother, please see the Scope and Content Note.

Papers, news clippings, programs, photos, certificates, and artwork of West Virginia artist, Grace Martin Taylor, who taught in Charleston at Mason College, and later at Morris Harvey. Her art, in several media including oils and watercolor, is modernist in style, showing a preference for abstraction. Also included is some material regarding her daughter, Lucie Anne Mellert, and her promotion of Taylor's art.

Artwork, photography, and papers of James Edward Davis, an artist born in Clarksburg, West Virginia. Davis studied art at Princeton University and had a prolific and varied artistic career, being particularly noted for his experimental abstract films involving color, light, and movement. This collection contains paintings, sketches, mobiles, photographic prints, transparencies, memoirs, notes on Frank Lloyd Wright and John Marin, and other material. There are addenda to this collection, which include memoirs and other writings, correspondence, material regarding Julia Davis and John W. Davis (relatives of James Davis), and other material. See "Scope and Content Note" and "Historical Note" for further information regarding this collection.

Photographs of the artwork (including sculpture, paintings, drawings, screens, and murals) of Josephine Mather Aull (1908-1971), a member of the WVU faculty and Morgantown artist. Of the 98 photographs in this collection, 62 are mounted in an album, 24 are unmounted and are either enlargements or different views of works included in the album, and 12 are unmounted photographs of works not included in the album.

Correspondence, sketches, illustrations and papers of a magazine illustrator, Leslie Thrasher (1889-1936) originally from Piedmont, WV (on microfilm). Best known for the humor in his illustrations, his career started in 1912 after he had finished attending the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia and the Ecole de Grande Chaumiere in Paris. During World War I he was part of the camouflage regiment of the 40th. Engineers, U. S. Army, serving in France where he was wounded by poison gas at the battle of Belleau Wood. At the height of his career in the 1920s and 1930s he did many magazine covers for the Saturday Evening Post and Liberty Magazine as well as advertisements for Fisk Tire and Cream of Wheat among others. Thrasher is often compared as an artist to his rival and friend Norman Rockwell and more than likely would have been as famous as Rockwell if he had not died in 1936 as a result of an accidental fire at his home on Long Island, NY. He is also noted for often using his hometown scenes, relatives and friends as models for his illustrations. Most of the correspondence is that of his daughter, the donor, and involves exhibits and sales of his art. Addendum of 2021-04-16 includes one complete copy of "The Saturday Evening Post" of 3 October 1936 featuring a cover with artwork by Leslie Thrasher (in flat storage box).

Four oil on canvas board studies of wildflowers by Hill. A resident of Charleston, Hill exhibited with the Allied Artists of West Virginia during the 1930s and 1940s.

The Marriage Certificate of Perley Reed and Elizabeth Dee Frost, telegrams recieved by Elizabeth and Perley, as well as newspaper clippings celebrating their engagment. Elizabeth's certificate of intitiation into The Delta Kappa Gamma Society in 1965. There are also 6 artworks by Reed, who was a hobbyist painter. The artworks are: Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau Oil on canvasboard, 30 x 24, 1966
A Soldier's Farewell, Oil on canvasboard, 20 x 16, 1963
Matterhorn, Oil on canvasboard, 24 x 30, 1967
Romance in Old Paris, Oil on canvasboard, 24 x 16, 1957
Meditation, Oil on canvasboard, 20 x 16, 1961
Awakening, Oil on canvasboard, 24 x 18, 1962 Images of the artworks located in the West Virginia & Regional History Center and Martin Hall are available in digital format.