Papers were donated to the Archives by Gifford Beal's descendants in three separate accessions. Beal's sons, William and Gifford R. Beal, Jr., donated sketches and sketchbooks in 1992 and 1993. Richard and Lewis Goff, Margaret Beal Alexander, and Telka Beal donated additional sketches, sketchbooks, and materials from Beal's studio in 2000 through the Cape Ann Savings Bank, facilitated by Kraushaar Galleries.
Margaret Beal Alexander, Beal's granddaughter, also donated personal papers of her grandparents via Kraushaar Galleries in 2000. Additional sketchbooks and a poster illustrated by Beal were donated by Beal's Estate via Kraushaar Galleries in 2007. Two scrapbooks of photographs of works of art were donated by Beal's Estate via Kraushaar Galleries in 2015.
The bulk of the Gifford Beal sketches, sketchbooks, and papers were digitized in 2008 and 2017 with funding provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art. .
Materials not scanned include some of the exhibition catalogs, news clippings, magazines, pamphlets, books, and printed reproductions of artwork by others in the Printed Materials series and Subject Files series. Additionally, some photographs of works of art have not been scanned, and artwork that is too large or too fragile to be handled has not been scanned.
Each accession was processed to a preliminary level upon receipt. The various accessions were merged, arranged, described, and digitized in 2007 and 2017 with funding provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
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Gifford Beal sketches, sketchbooks, and papers, 1889-2001. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
The bulk of the collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website. Use of material not digitized requires an appointment.
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
Painter and muralist Gifford Beal was born in New York City in 1879, the youngest of six children. Beal began his art training at 13, when he accompanied his older brother, Reynolds Beal, to the Shinnecock School of Art for classes with William Merritt Chase. Gifford Beal continued to study with Chase for ten years at Shinnecock, the Tenth Street Studio building in New York City, and the New York School of Art. Beal attended college at Princeton University from 1896 to 1900, and from 1901 to 1903 he also took classes at the Art Students League with George Bridgman and Frank Vincent DuMond. In 1908, Beal married Maud Ramsdell of Newburgh, New York, where the Beal family also had an estate. They had two sons, William (b. 1914) and Gifford, Jr. (b. 1917).
Beal received all of his training in the United States at a time when European art training was the norm among his peers. Beal's earliest subject matter was taken from the familiar worlds of New York City and the Hudson River Valley, where he frequently spent his summers. Later work would depict other summer homes, including Provincetown, Rockport, and Gloucester, Massachusetts. Throughout his career he explored a variety of styles in his approach to these and other representational subjects such as garden parties, the circus, Central Park scenes, and coastal scenes in the Northeast and the Caribbean.
Beal exhibited at the National Academy of Design's annual exhibition almost continuously from 1901 to 1956, was a member of the Academy from 1914, and won at least seven awards given by the Academy over the course of his career. He won his first award in 1903 from the Worcester Art Museum. He exhibited regularly in major annual exhibitions and world expositions, including the Panama Pacific Exposition of 1915, where he won a gold medal.
Gifford and Reynolds Beal exhibited in a two-man show in 1907 at Clausen Galleries, and the two brothers were both eventually represented by Kraushaar Galleries, where Gifford Beal had his first one-man show in 1920. Beal served as president of the Art Students League from 1916 until 1930, the longest term of any president, and taught there in 1931 and 1932.
Beal was commissioned by the Section on Painting and Sculpture of the Works Progress Administration to paint ten murals for the Allentown, Pennsylvania post office in the late 1930s. The Allentown murals depicted American revolutionaries hiding the liberty bell at Allentown. In 1941, he completed two murals in the Department of the Interior building in Washington, DC:
Retrospective exhibitions were held at the Century Club, San Francisco Museum, Des Moines Art Center, and Butler Institute in the early 1950s. Upon his death in 1956, a memorial exhibition was held at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, where Beal became a member in 1943.
The papers of painter and muralist Gifford Beal measure 7.7 linear feet and date from 1889 to 2001. The bulk of the collection consists of artwork, in addition to correspondence, writings, printed matter, including one scrapbook, pictorial subject files, photographs, and two scrapbooks of photographs of works of art. Artwork is primarily in the form of sketches and seventy-eight sketchbooks in a wide variety of media. Among the loose sketches are twenty-eight oil paintings on wood board or panel, and fourteen large pastel drawings on canvas depicting dancing figures in a romantic style. Artwork by other artists in the collection include prints by Arthur B. Davies, Rockwell Kent, and Denys Wortman.
Biographical materials include membership certificates, a marriage certificate, and a travel journal kept by Beal's wife, Maud Ramsdell Beal, on their honeymoon. Personal correspondence consists primarily of love letters between Beal and Maud Ramsdell Beal. Three folders of professional correspondence contain letters from Joseph Pennell (1925); Federal Art Project staff from the Treasury Department including Ed Rowan, Edward Bruce, and Forbes Watson (1938); Walker Hancock (1951); and a series of letters signed "Hyde," from Crow Island, Massachusetts, which may have been written by Edward Hyde Cox (1953-1954).
Also found among the papers are printed materials such as exhibition catalogs, clippings, and reproductions of artwork, both loose and in a scrapbook from the 1920s; subject files containing clippings, photographs, and other pictorial references to common subjects of Beal's artwork; a few personal photographs; and photographs of works of art. Notes and writings are found among Beal's sketchbooks, including one long autobiographical essay which may have been for a lecture, a few diary entries from 1942, and extensive notes on the color, form, and lighting of his sketching subjects. In addition to a scrapbook relating to Beal exhibitions, there are also two scrapbooks containing photographs of works of art.
The collection is arranged as 7 series:
This series contains personal artifacts and documents of Gifford and Maud Beal, including certificates, memorabilia, and a journal.
Membership Certificates include a 1953 American Watercolor Society membership and a National Academy of Design membership from 1914, re-issued in 1942. Maud Beal's travel diary was kept during their 1908 honeymoon to Norway and the British Isles, a December, 1908 trip to Washington, DC, and a 1909 sketching trip to Cold Spring, NY. The journal is illustrated with picture postcards and contains scattered references to Beal's sketching excursions.
This series has been scanned in entirety.
Membership Certificates
Oversized material housed in OV 10
Marriage Certificate
Princeton Alumni Patch
Travel Journal, Maud Beal
Oversized material housed in Box 5
Beal's Correspondence is divided into two groups: letters between Beal and his wife during their courtship and early marriage, and general correspondence.
Letters between Gifford and Maud Beal were written early in their relationship, and are primarily of a personal nature. Beal's letters to his wife contain scattered references to his painting and his experiences in the art world during this period. Two letters from 1906 are illustrated with small cartoons. Scattered third party correspondence of a personal nature is also found among these letters.
General correspondence contains letters from Joseph Pennell (1925); Federal Art Project staff from the Treasury Department including Ed Rowan, Edward Bruce, and Forbes Watson (1938); Walker Hancock (1951); and a series of letters signed "Hyde," from Crow Island, Massachusetts, which may have been written by Edward Hyde Cox (1953-1954). An undated letter from the artist William C. Palmer is filed at the end of the series.
Several postcards with handwritten notes are filed with picture files in the Print Materials and Subject Files.
This series has been scanned in entirety.
Between Gifford Beal and Maud Ramsdell Beal
Between Gifford Beal and Maud Ramsdell Beal
Between Gifford Beal and Maud Ramsdell Beal
Between Gifford Beal and Maud Ramsdell Beal
Between Gifford Beal and Maud Ramsdell Beal
Between Gifford Beal and Maud Ramsdell Beal
Between Gifford Beal and Maud Ramsdell Beal
Between Gifford Beal and Maud Ramsdell Beal
Between Gifford Beal and Maud Ramsdell Beal
Between Gifford Beal and Maud Ramsdell Beal
Between Gifford Beal and Maud Ramsdell Beal
Between Gifford Beal and Maud Ramsdell Beal
General Correspondence
General Correspondence
General Correspondence
The bulk of this series has been digitized. For longer published works, only the covers, title pages, and pages relevant to Gifford Beal have been digitized. Additional printed materials are found in Biographical Materials and Subject Files.
This series contains exhibition catalogs, magazines, newspaper clippings, pamphlets, postcards, and other printed materials related to the career of Gifford Beal.
Exhibition catalogs are for group and solo exhibitions by Beal, with a couple of exhibitions by others represented. A 1938 catalog contains sketches, presumably by Beal, and a few of the other catalogs contain annotations. Single sheets torn from catalogs of group shows are filed at the end of the exhibition catalog file.
Magazines with cover art by Beal include
Exhibition Catalogs
Exhibition Catalogs
Exhibition Catalogs
Exhibition Catalogs
Exhibition Catalogs
Magazines and Poster Illustrated by Beal
Oversized material housed in Box 5 and OV 16
Newspaper Clippings
Oversized material housed in OV 11
Newspaper Clippings
Newspaper Clippings
Newspaper Clippings, Photocopies (1908 and undated)
Pamphlets and Books on Art Subjects
Contains "Mural Installation" by Alexander Abels
Pamphlets and Books on Art Subjects
Periodicals
Periodicals
Postcards with Artwork by Beal
Reproductions of Artwork by Other Artists
Oversized material housed in Box 5
This series contains clippings, photographs, pamphlets, and postcards with images of frequent subjects of Beal's artwork. Contents of files are predominantly printed materials; files containing photographs are noted in the folder listing. The Circus file also contains a large circus poster and numerous programs. The Costume and Horses files contain illustrated reference books. A project file for Beal's Princeton murals also contains photographs, magazine and journal articles, and clippings about the life of engineer Joseph Henry.
Files are arranged alphabetically by subject headings assigned during processing.
The bulk of this series has been scanned with the exception of some printed material concerning artists other than Beal.
Architecture
Contains photographs
Ballet
Oversized Material housed in OV 11
Circus
Contains photographs; oversized material housed in OV 11 and OV 12
Circus
Costume
Oversized material housed in OV 11
Costume
Crowds
Dogs
Elephants
Oversized material housed in OV 11
Horses
Oversized material housed in OV 11
Horses
Marine Subjects
Contains photographs; oversized material housed in OV 10 and 11
Princeton Murals
Contains photographs
Royalty
Oversized material housed in OV 11
Tropics
Miscellany
Oversized material housed in OVs 11 and 12)
This bulk of this series has been scanned. Items which have not been scanned include photographs of works of art; of these, only installation views and one photograph of a mural site have been digitized.
Photographs in this series depict Gifford and Maud Beal, Beal's artwork, and other subjects. Photographs of Beal include a passport photo and an image of him painting, and there is a single wedding photograph of his wife, Maud Ramsdell Beal. Other subjects include a snapshot of friends inscribed "Cosy, Arthur, and Little Dolly Sullivan" at the home of William Merritt Chase, a religious procession in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and a number of unidentified buildings and architectural subjects.
Photographs of works of art include paintings, murals, and sculptures. The sculptures depicted in the photographs of artwork do not appear to have been made by Beal.
Additional photographs are found in Subject Files. See series description for further details.
Beal at Work and Passport Photograph
Wedding Portrait of Maud Beal
Friends at the William Merritt Chase Home in Shinnecock Hills
Gloucester, Massachusetts Religious Festival
Miscellaneous Subjects
Installation and Studio Views
Partially scanned
Murals and Preliminary Sketches for Murals
Oversized material housed in OV 10
Oversized material housed in OV 10
Artwork includes sketchbooks, loose sketches in a variety of media, and prints.
The Artwork series is arranged by type of material into 3 subseries:
The bulk of this series has been scanned. Items which have not been scanned due to size, format or fragility are some large format pastel drawings, rolled mural studies and sketches on carbon paper.
This series contains 78 sketchbooks with pencil, charcoal, pastel, ink, and wash sketches, drawings, and studies.
Subjects are similar to those found in Beal's paintings, with many life drawings, casual sitters (probably family members), circus scenes, marine subjects, genre scenes, cityscapes, landscapes, and buildings. Two sketchbooks contain significant writings: one appears to be a lecture about art education, possibly written around 1925, and the other contains diary entries dated 1942. Scattered annotations regarding color are found throughout the sketchbooks. A sketchbook belonging to Gifford Beal, Jr., contains a couple of sketches by Gifford Beal, Sr. as well.
Where possible, sketchbooks are arranged chronologically, but the majority of dates were estimated during processing, and many remain undated. Date estimates are based largely on women's attire in drawings and the assumption that they were drawn from life and not retrospectively. Each group of sketchbooks is arranged by size, from small to large.
This series has been scanned in entirety.
Sketchbook
Sketchbook
Sketchbook
Sketchbooks
Oversized material housed in Box 5
Sketchbooks
Oversized material housed in Box 5
Sketchbooks
Sketchbook with Autobiographical Writings
Sketchbook
Sketchbooks
18 volumes; oversized material housed in Boxes 6 and 7 and OV 13
Sketchbooks
3 volumes; oversized material housed in Box 7
Sketchbook with Diary Entries
Sketchbook
Sketchbooks
42 volumes; oversized material housed in Boxes 8 and 9 and OV 13
Sketchbooks
Sketchbooks
Sketchbooks
Sketchbooks
Sketchbooks
Sketchbooks
Sketchbooks
Sketchbooks
Sketchbooks
Sketchbooks
Sketchbooks
Sketchbooks
Sketchbooks
Sketchbooks
Sketchbooks
Sketchbooks
Sketchbook by Gifford Beal, Jr. (son)
Oversized material housed in Box 9
Loose sketches are found in a variety of media including pencil, ink, charcoal, pastel, and watercolor, and are generally unsigned and undated. Subjects are similar to those found in sketchbooks, although loose sketches are found on a variety of supports including wood board, carbon paper, and canvas. Most sketches on paper are arranged by broad subject categories, listed in the folder listing. A 1928 sketch signed illegibly by an artist other than Beal is found with Figure sketches. Most of the sketches have been digitized, however, items too large or too fragile to be handled have not been scanned.
Sketches on supports other than paper are filed separately. Sketches on carbon paper seem to have been made as a preliminary process and re-used. Large pastel and ink sketches on board range from studies to finished drawings, including several genre scenes that may have been preliminary drawings for Beal's murals. Oil sketches on board range in size from approximately 3x5 to 11x17 inches and include landscapes, marine subjects, still lifes and figures. Unlike other loose sketches, almost all of the oil sketches on wood board are signed or initialed, and one is dated 1914. Pastel drawings on canvas may have been preliminary drawings, or cartoons, for murals. All depict dancing figures in a romantic style, and one canvas is signed by Beal.
Additional sketches are found in the Print Materials series, and scattered illustrated letters are found in Correspondence.
The bulk of this series has been scanned with the exception of large format pastel drawings, mural studies and sketches on carbon paper.
Figures
Oversized material housed in OV 14
Genre Drawings
Still Lifes
Oversized material housed in OV 14
Landscapes and Architecture
Oversized material housed in OV 14
Marine Subjects
Oversized material housed in OV 14
Hands and Other Studies
Oversized material housed in OV 14
Animals and Circus Scenes
Oversized material housed in OV 14
Mural Studies
Oversized material housed in OV 14, and RD 21-22
Mural Studies for Princeton Murals
Oversized material housed in OV 14
Large Pastel and Ink Sketches on Wood Board
Oversized material housed in OVs 15-16
Oil Sketches on Wood Board
Oversized material housed in Boxes 3-4
Oversized material housed in OV 17, 18, and 19
Oversized material housed in OV 20
Oversized material scanned with Box 2, folder 52
Oversized material scanned with Box 2, folder 52
This series has been scanned in entirety.
Most of the prints are the work of artists other than Beal and are signed. Original prints are found by Arthur B. Davies, Rockwell Kent, Muirhead Bone, and Denys Wortman. Among the unsigned prints, two appear to be antique, and one is a cancellation proof which may have been made by Beal.
Prints by Arthur B. Davies
Oversized material housed in OV 10
Print by Rockwell Kent
Oversized material housed in OV 10
Print by Muirhead Bone
Prints by Denys Wortman
Oversized material housed in OV 10
Unsigned Prints
Oversized material housed in OV 10
Series consists of a scrapbook of news clippings and photographs of artwork documenting Beal exhibitions in the 1920s; two scrapbooks of photographs of works of art, some with notations by Gifford Beal, regarding owner and/or subject of the artwork; and some loose photographs and loose scrapbook pages.
This series has been scanned in entirety.
Scrapbook
Oversized scrapbook housed in Box 7
Fragile: closed to researchers
Scrapbook of Photos of Artwork
Fragile: closed to researchers
Scrapbook of Photos of Artwork
Fragile: closed to researchers
Scrapbook of Photos of Artwork, Loose Items and Pages
Fragile: closed to researchers
Scrapbook of Photos of Artwork, Loose Items and Pages
Fragile: closed to researchers