A Finding Aid to the Macbeth Gallery Records, 1838-1968, bulk 1892 to 1953, in the Archives of American Art Stephanie Ashley, Erin Corley, and Jetta Samulski Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Getty Grant Program. Digitization of the scrapbooks was supported by a grant from the Smithsonian Institution Women's Committee. Correspondence, financial and shipping records, inventory records, and printed material were digitized with funding provided by the Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz Foundation for the Arts, the Terra Foundation for American Art and The Walton Family Foundation. 2004 Archives of American Art 750 9th Street, NW Victor Building, Suite 2200 Washington, D.C. 20001 https://www.aaa.si.edu/services/questions https://www.aaa.si.edu/ Table of Contents Collection Overview ........................................................................................................ 1 Administrative Information .............................................................................................. 1 Historical Note.................................................................................................................. 2 Scope and Content Note................................................................................................. 4 Arrangement..................................................................................................................... 5 Names and Subjects ...................................................................................................... 5 Container Listing ............................................................................................................. 6 Series 1: Correspondence Files, 1838-1968............................................................ 6 Series 2: Financial and Shipping Records, 1892-1956........................................ 269 Series 3: Inventory Records, 1892-circa 1957..................................................... 278 Series 4: Printed Material, 1838-1963................................................................. 282 Series 5: Scrapbooks, 1892-1952........................................................................ 287 Series 6: Reference Files, 1839-1959................................................................. 348 Series 7: Miscellaneous Material, 1912-1956...................................................... 351 Series 8: Photographs, circa 1880-circa 1968..................................................... 352 Macbeth Gallery records AAA.macbgall Collection Overview Repository: Archives of American Art Title: Macbeth Gallery records Identifier: AAA.macbgall Date: 1947-1948 1838-1968 (bulk 1892-1953) Creator: Macbeth Gallery Extent: 131.6 Linear feet Language: English . Summary: The Macbeth Gallery records provide almost complete coverage of the gallery's operations from its inception in 1892 to its closing in 1953. Through extensive correspondence files, financial and inventory records, printed material, scrapbooks, reference and research material, and photographs of artists and works of art, the records document all aspects of the gallery's activities, charting William Macbeth's initial intention to lease his store "for the permanent exhibition and sale of American pictures" through over sixty years of success as a major New York firm devoted to American art. The collection measures 131.6 linear feet and dates from 1838 to 1968 with the bulk of the material dating from 1892 to 1953. Administrative Information Provenance The bulk of the Macbeth Gallery records were donated and microfilmed in several installments between 1955 and 1966 by Robert G. McIntyre and Estate. Additional Macbeth Gallery printed material was donated by Phoebe C. and William Macbeth II, grandchildren of William Macbeth, in 1974. Related Material Among the holdings of the Archives of American are a small collection of scattered Robert McIntyre's papers and 9 items of William Macbeth's papers. Macbeth Gallery exhibition catalogs are also available in the American Art Exhibition Catalog collection and the Brooklyn Museum Records, both loaned and microfilmed collections. An extensive collection of Macbeth Gallery exhibition catalogs are also held by the Frick Art Reference Library and the Watson Library of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Alternative Forms Available Digitization of the Macbeth Gallery records began in 2015 is being completed incrementally. Microfilm is available for portions of the collection on reels NMc1-NMc81, 439-441, 2564-2667, 3091-3092, 3094, and 2820-2823, at Archives of American Art offices and through interlibrary Page 1 of 378 Macbeth Gallery records AAA.macbgall loan. Researchers should note that the arrangement of the papers no longer matches the arrangement of the microfilm. Processing Information The records were partially filmed in the order in which they were received on microfilm reels NMc1-NMc81, 439-441, 2564-2667, 3091-3092, 3094, and 2820-2823. All portions were merged and arranged according to archival standards by Stephanie Ashley, Erin Corley and Jetta Samulski in 2003 and 2004. The archival arrangement does not match the order of the microfilm. The scrapbooks in Series 5 were digitized in 2005. The digitization of Series 1.1: Correspondence, Series 2: Financial and Shipping Records, Series 3: Inventory Records, and the publication Art Notes, was initiated in 2017. Preferred Citation Macbeth Gallery records, 1838-1968, bulk 1892 to 1953. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Restrictions on Access Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Fragile original scrapbooks are closed to researchers. Terms of Use The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information. Historical Note The Macbeth Gallery was established in 1892 by William Macbeth, a Scotch-Irish immigrant who had spent ten years with the print dealer Frederick Keppel before he opened his doors to the art-buying public at 237 Fifth Avenue in New York. Despite the prevailing interest in foreign art at that time, particularly in that of the Barbizon and Dutch schools, Macbeth was determined to dedicate his gallery to "the permanent exhibition and sale of American pictures, both in oil and water colors." Although some of the gallery's earliest exhibitions were of work by European artists, the business soon became the only gallery in continuous operation that kept American art permanently on display. In the January 1917 issue of Art Notes, Macbeth recounts those early days remembering that "The opening of my gallery......was a rash venture under the existing conditions, and disaster was freely predicted." Nevertheless, he struggled through the financial crisis of 1893 and persisted with his devotion to American art; slowly the market for his pictures grew more amenable. Macbeth moved to more spacious quarters at 450 Fifth Avenue in 1906 and two years later undertook what was to become the major event in the gallery's early history: the 1908 exhibition of "The Eight," featuring work by Arthur B. Davies, Willam J. Glackens, Robert Henri, Ernest Lawson, George Luks, Maurice Prendergast, Everett Shinn, and John Sloan. "The Eight" were an unlikely combination of social realists, visionaries and impressionists eager to challenge the dominating influence of the National Academy. The exhibition received an immense amount of publicity and instantly entered into art history as a successful assault on tradition. Despite the splash that the exhibition made and its implications for the future of American art, nothing that the gallery did subsequently indicated that Macbeth intended to capitalize on its significance. It is true that Macbeth supported many artists later considered leaders in American art when the public would pay no attention to them because of their modernist tendencies; Arthur B. Davies, Paul Dougherty, Maurice Page 2 of 378 Macbeth Gallery records AAA.macbgall Prendergast, Theodore Robinson, and F. Ballard Williams all held their first exhibitions at his gallery. Nevertheless, neither Macbeth nor the gallery's two successive proprietors, Robert G. McIntyre (William's nephew) and Robert Macbeth (William's son), who joined the gallery in 1903 and 1906 respectively, ever developed a true interest in modern art. The November 1930 issue of Art Notes summarizes their collective disdain for modernism, stating: "We believe that, by and large, modern art is amusing. We are heretical enough to believe that much of it was started for the amusement of its creators and that no one was more surprised than they when it was taken seriously by a certain audience to whom the bizarre and the unintelligible always makes an appeal." So while the Macbeths and McIntyre cetainly championed American artists and insisted they deserved as much recognition as the Europeans, their deepest and most abiding interest was undoubtedly the established artists of the 18th and 19th-centuries and those of the early 20th- century who continued