This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
The scattered papers of painter and arts administrator Elizabeth Nottingham Day measure 0.2 linear feet and date from circa 1910 to 1956. Largely concerning the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project, the papers include correspondence, photographs, printed material, and writings. Also found are reports and writings concerning the Federal Art Galleries in Lynchburg and Big Stone Gap, Virginia.
Portions of the collection are available on 35mm microfilm reel D/NDA/D available at Archives of American Art offices. Researchers should note that the arrangement of the material described in the container inventory does not reflect the arrangement of the collection on microfilm.
Elizabeth Nottingham Day (1907-1956) was a painter, educator, and arts administrator born in Salisbury, North Carolina. She was director of the Federal Art Gallery at Big Stone Gap and at Lynchburg and was the assistant state art supervisor for the Works Progress Administration, Federal Art Project in Virginia. She married Horace Day and together they were co-directors of the art department at Mary Baldwin College.
Horace Talmadge Day, the widower of Elizabeth Nottingham Day, donated his wife's papers in 1964.
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Due to the small size of this collection the papers are arranged as one series.
The collection was microfilmed after receipt on 35mm microfilm reel D/NDA/D. It was processed, and a finding aid prepared by Jayna Josefson in 2022 with support from the Smithsonian American Women's History Initiative.
The Archives of American Art also holds the Horace Talmage Day papers, 1929-1965.
Elizabeth Nottingham Day papers, circa 1910-1956. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Correspondence is with various arts institutions in the state of Virginia. Among the photographs are one of Day and her husband Horace painting outdoors taken by Beverley Studios, 1948; one of Ella Graham Agnew; and a photo of an exhibition, likely at one of the Federal Art Galleries. Printed material includes exhibition catalogs and clippings. Writings and essays concern such matters as church art, trends in contemporary American art, humor in art, on "seeing" landscape painting, and James J. Sweeney's exhibition in 1950.
Also found are reports, printed material and writings concerning the WPA-FAP in Virginia and the Federal Art Galleries in Lynchburg and Big Stone Gap, Virginia.