Libraries and Centers: Margery Somers Foster Center: Projects: Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series Collection:
Scope and Content Note

The Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series Collection, an active collection, documents the Series, the artists who exhibited in it, and contemporary women artists in general, from the beginning of the Series in 1971 to the present. It is currently approximately 40 cubic feet in size. New materials are added, and this finding aid updated, on a regular basis. Media represented include paper, photographic prints and slides, videocassettes, and computer disks.

The collection consists of three distinct subgroups: the Contemporary Women Artists Files, the Women Artists Series Exhibited Artists Files, and the Women Artists Series Operational Files. These subgroups are not further divided into series.

The Contemporary Women Artists Files (CWAF) subgroup (approx. 10 cubic feet) consists of background materials related to over 1500 artists who submitted to the Series but were not chosen for exhibition. Materials include correspondence, resumes, artist statements, slides, clippings, and exhibition announcements, checklists and catalogs. The files were established in 1994 with the intention of documenting contemporary women artists on a large scale; materials submitted prior to 1994 were transferred from the Operational records retrospectively. Most of the material dates from 1980 to the present, although some goes back as far as the early 1970s.

The Exhibited Artists Files subgroup (approx. 12.5 cubic feet) consists of materials related to the artists who have exhibited in the Series from 1971 to the present. Most of the materials were generated from or collected to support specific exhibitions and other Series activities, but some are general background materials unrelated to a Series activity. Included are correspondence, resumes, artist statements, slides and slide lists, photographic prints, exhibition announcements, checklists and catalogs, press clippings, Series operational records pertaining to specific solo exhibitions, and a small number of VHS videocassettes and 3-1/2" floppy disks.

The Operational Files subgroup (approx. 9 cubic feet) consists of the operational records of the Series from 1971 to 2002 (currently), exclusive of most records related to specific artists, which are located in the Exhibited Artists Files. Materials include operational records related to exhibition planning and implementation, production of the catalogs and other publications, finances, budgets and fundraising, public programs, publicity, and staffing.

Most of the material in the three subgroups is in paper media, including a number of bound exhibition catalogs and several public comment books. Clippings on newsprint and any Post-It notes of research interest have been or are currently being photocopied and the originals discarded. Much of the Operational Files material exists only as photocopies on acid-free paper due to previous preservation initiatives. Photographic materials consist mostly of black-and-white prints of various sizes and 35mm color slides, with color prints, color transparencies, and black-and- white and color negatives found in less significant numbers. Some documents contained on PC- formatted disks have been printed and the printouts have been filed alongside the disks; documents on Mac-formatted disks, zip disks and some PC-formatted disks have not yet been printed. The Contemporary Women Artists Files and the Exhibited Artists Files are housed in filing cabinets. The Operational Files are housed in manuscript boxes.