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Federal Art Project at the Southwest Museum Records
MS.252  
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Table of contents What's This?

box 1

Administrative records 1936-1937

Physical Description: 0.4 Linear Feet1 box

Scope and contents

This series contains papers from 1936-1937 regarding the administration of the Federal Art Project carried out at the Southwest Museum and the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science and Art between 1936 and 1937. Papers include correspondence, instructions, personnel reports, and other notes and records.
 

Photographic Field Notes and Files 1936-1939

Physical Description: 5.45 Linear Feet

Scope and contents

This series of the Federal Arts Project records includes Photographic Field Notes, Photographic File Notes, negatives and photographs created for this endeavor. Photographic File notes describe all newly created negatives. Photographic Field Notes document field serial numbers and headquarter serial numbers, subject, ownership, location, local accessories number, source, chronological date, dimensions, exhibit label information, color notes, and miscellaneous data. The field notes form also includes photographic data, such as photographer, date and time of photograph, size, film used, filter, diaphragm stop, exposure, and miscellaneous photographic data. The photographs created for this project are of clothing in the Southwest Museum and the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art and of artifacts at the Southwest Museum. Some photographs are of the line drawings depicting patterns for clothing. Some of the WPA employees are also documented in these photographs.
box 2

Mounted photographs 1936-1939

Physical Description: 0.4 Linear Feet

Scope and contents

This collection of photographs has been mounted on colored board and includes captions. The photographs were taken during Federal Art Project contracts, from 1936-1939, and include copies of photographs found in other parts of the collection. These mounted photographs with typed captions feature both Headquarter and Field Serial Numbers.
box 3, box 4, box 5, box 6

Photograph project binders 1936-1937

Physical Description: 1.75 Linear Feet

Scope and contents

This subseries consists of eight binders of Photographic Field Notes and Photographs depicting the clothing and accessories documented in the project, as well as employees creating works for the project.
  • Binders S1-S3: Spanish California Costumes
  • Binder S4: Women's Dresses and Men's Shirts - Women's dresses, Native American; Men's Shirts includes Plains, Southwest and Northwest Coast material
  • Binder S5: Headdresses and Leggings - Headdresses: Contents include hair roaches, Apache Ceremonial Headdress, Pueblo Tableta, Plains War Bonnets, Jemez Mask, Crow Headdress; Leggings: Includes Plains, Pueblo
  • Binder S6: Pipe and Pipe Bags, Cradleboards, Hides - Pipes and Pipe Bags; Cradleboards: Includes Plains, Pueblo; Hides (decorated): Includes Kicking Bear's "Battle of Little Big Horn", quilled, painted
  • Binder S7: Pottery and Kachinas
  • Binder S8: Southwest Museum artists who created dioramas and murals
box 1, box 7, box 8, box 9, box 10, box 11, box 12, box 13

Photograph project files 1936-1937

Physical Description: 3.3 Linear Feet

Scope and contents

This subseries includes Photographic Field Notes, Photographic File Notes, and other photographs and notes not contained in the binders. Files for photographed items sometimes contain typed sheets of information which record Field Serial Numbers and Southwest Museum accession numbers, descriptions of collection items, and job numbers or copies of job cards. [Location of the job cards is currently unknown.] These files may contain extensive hand-written or typed notes on the collection items.
oversize-box PORT.12, oversize-box PORT.13, oversize-box PORT.21, oversize-box PORT.30, oversize-box PORT.49, oversize-box PORT.52, oversize-box PORT.76, oversize-box PORT.84, oversize-box PORT.106

Works of Art on Paper 1936-1937

Physical Description: 25.2 Linear Feet

Scope and contents

This series contains chalk drawings, ink drawings, maps, oil paintings, and water colors depicting artifacts and clothing in the Southwest Museum collection as well as historical figures and imagined scenes from historical California and contemporary Native American culture in the Southwest. Artists whose work is contained in this collection are Galileo Cortez, Gladys Cox, Emery Gellert, Francis van Halle, Marie Hyde, Helen Jordan, Faye Mardis, Evelyn Hunt Nadeau, Albert Rader, Helen Robinson, and John Wardman.
Faye Mardis and Gladys Cox created ink drawings on linen-backed paper of patterns for apparel items in the Southwest Museum and Los Angeles Museum collections. These patterns were created as instructional tools for other FAP artists to make replicas for miniature figures in the Southwest Museum's dioramas.
Some of the subjects of the oil painting portraits by van Halle are Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, Kit Carson, General John C. Fremont, Pio Pico, and Fray Junipero Serra. Watercolors and other line drawings depict examples of artifacts in the Southwest Museum's collection, such as pottery and basketry. Other paintings and drawings depict scenes of life to be used as reference or for dioramas.