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INVENTORY OF THE JOSEPH A. BAIRD, JR. COLLECTION
D-231
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Table of contents
Title: The Joseph A. Baird, Jr. Collection
Date (inclusive): 1977-1992
Collection number: D-231
Origination: Joseph A. Baird, Jr.
Extent: 46 linear feet in 45 archives boxes and 2 folio boxes.
Repository:
University of California, Davis. General Library. Dept. of Special Collections.
Davis, California
Shelf location: For current information on the location of these
materials, please consult the Special Collections Department.
Language:
English.
Purchase of the Joseph A. Baird, Jr. Collection was made possible by the
University of California Systemwide Shared Purchase Program. The collection
was deposited in the Special Collections Department, Shields Library, in 1977.
Upon the suggestion of Dr. Baird, the research files of Dr. Elliot Evans were
acquired and added to the collection in 1978. Additional materials were added
in the form of donations and purchases since that time and supplemental files
from Dr. Baird were also interfiled into the collection. Following the death
of Dr. Baird in 1992, the collection was closed, rearranged, and reindexed.
Twenty monographs were extracted from the collection and cataloged for the
Rare Books section of the Special Collections Department. Two monographs
were similarly extracted and cataloged for the Main Library stacks. Also,
thirteen serial publications were extracted and added to the Main Library's
holdings as needed.
The Clyde F. Trudell Collection was extracted and given its own collection
number, D-24.
Collection is open for research.
The Library can only claim physical ownership of the Joseph A. Baird, Jr.
Collection. Users are responsible for satisfying any claimants of literary
property.
The Joseph A. Baird, Jr. Collection, D-231, Department of Special Collections,
General Library, University of California, Davis.
Joseph Armstrong Baird, Jr. was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1922. He
began his studies in art history at Oberlin College where he received a
bachelor's degree and then attended Harvard University where he first earned a
master's degree and finally a doctorate in art and architectural history in
1951. He taught at the University of Toronto (1949-1953) before coming to Davis
in 1953. Beginning as a lecturer in the Art Department, he retired as a full
professor of fine arts in 1985. He continued to work as a consultant and art
appraiser until his death in 1992.
From 1962-1963 and 1967-1970, he was curator and art consultant to the
California Historical Society. Traveling widely, he also taught at other
institutions, including a visiting professorship at the University of Mexico
under the auspices of the U.S. State Department. He was the founder and
long-time owner of The North Point Gallery in San Francisco, which specialized
in master works by American artists and rare historical photographs, until it
was sold in 1985. While he was teaching at Davis, he helped develop art history
programs, organize exhibitions, and develop the art collection on campus.
- Art and Book Dealers, Galleries, Historical Societies, Libraries, Museums and Other Related Institutions in the Bay Area and Nearby. 1962
- Time's Wondrous Changes: San Francisco Architecture, 1776-1915. 1962
- The Churches of Mexico, 1530-1810. 1962
- Historic Lithographs of San Francisco. 1972
- The West Remembered: Artists and Images, 1837 -1973. 1973
- Northern California Art: An Interpretive Bibliography to 1915. 1977
This collection contains biographical information pertaining to primarily
northern California artists and architects of the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. Research notes for two of Dr. Baird's publications,
Catalogue of Original Paintings, Drawings and Watercolors in the Robert
B. Honeyman, Jr. Collection
(1968) and
Historic Lithographs of
San Francisco
(1972), offer additional biographical and art historical
information. His unpublished catalog on the prints in the Honeyman Collection
at the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley is also included.
Extensive card files on individual California artists, compiled by both Dr.
Baird and Dr. Evans, have been combined to document many minor artists. In
addition, copies of the file cards from the Ferdinand Perret Research Library of
the Arts and Affiliated Sciences, now owned by the National Collection of Fine
Arts, Smithsonian Institution, offers another source of information on
California artists. These cards contain biographical facts and selected titles
of works and provenance of artists who were born in and/or worked in California
in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The emphasis is on southern
California artists of the early twentieth century, although many northern
California figures are also included.
A large catalog collection documents the more important exhibitions of
California art. These exhibition catalogs are a source of biographical data,
photographs, and bibliographies of California artists.
Information on particular aspects of California art have been included in the
subject files. The subject files contain a collection of essays and articles on
California art, several bibliographic files which include a bibliography of
California architecture, the West and Western art, and printmaking in
California.
The California architecture files include
Historic American Buildings
Surveys
reports, architectural photographs, on-site notations and
maps, magazine articles, newspaper clippings, and catalogs relating to
specific public and private buildings. Also, included are detailed content
surveys of
The California Architect & Building News for the
years 1879 to 1900 prepared by Dr. Baird's students. Information about
several private collections is also included in this collection.
The collection is lacking in materials on modern artists, photographers, and
sculptors. The Archives of American Art, a bureau of the Smithsonian Institute,
has a west coast area center in San Francisco which includes primary source
material on California art and artists.