On June 9, 2009, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) approved $140,400 over two years to arrange, describe, digitize, and make accessible five archives collections that address the administrative and exhibition history of the first 50 years of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

The Guggenheim Museum is an internationally renowned art museum that has played a significant role in the history of art and cultural life in the United States since 1937, yet the history of its founding and subsequent missions, as well as the influence of its first directors, have not been fully examined. This project will document the curatorial direction of the museum’s first three directors—Hilla Rebay, James Johnson Sweeney, and Thomas M. Messer—and illustrate the museum’s scholarly and curatorial contributions to the development of modern and contemporary art through its complete exhibition history from 1939 to 1987 and its Reel to Reel audio collection of lectures and symposia from 1952 to 1990. The collections, comprising 469.1 cubic feet, are: Hilla Rebay records (1939–52); James Johnson Sweeney records (1952–60); Thomas M. Messer records (1961–87); Exhibition records (1939–87); and Reel to Reel collection (1952–90).

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation was established in 1937 as an institution dedicated to the promotion of nonobjective art as well as to the development, presentation, and preservation of Solomon R. Guggenheim’s personal art collection. The Museum of Non-Objective Painting opened in 1939, to promote the ideals of nonobjective art, present exhibitions from the collection, and interpret them for the general public. Twenty years later, the Guggenheim Foundation opened a new, permanent building designed by renowned American architect Frank Lloyd Wright to house and display Solomon’s collection. Today, the mission of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is to promote the understanding and appreciation of art, architecture, and other manifestations of modern and contemporary visual culture; to collect, preserve, and research art objects; and to make them accessible to scholars and an increasingly diverse audience through its network of museums, programs, and educational initiatives.

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives was formally established in 1973 to acquire, preserve, disseminate, and provide access to all historical documentation of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the individuals who helped shape the institution’s unique and important role in New York City and the art-historical community. Through its collections, the Archives documents the development of Solomon R. Guggenheim’s private collection, the activities of the Foundation, and the history of the museum from its inception in 1939 as the Museum of Non-Objective Painting to its present incarnation as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

The five archives collections that will be processed through this project will focus on materials that provide unique insight into how the Guggenheim Foundation and its museum in New York evolved throughout the first 50 years of its history, setting it on the path to becoming the renowned organization that it is today. They will reveal details of the institution’s history, those who shaped it, and its impact on the twentieth century.

View the press release.