The Polly Thayer papers were organized and inventoried by curator Dorothy Koval and other art consultants prior to arriving at the Archives of American Art, and most likely do not reflect the original order by Polly Thayer. The Archives has maintained the arrangement imposed by Koval for the bulk of the papers. This collection is arranged as 13 series.
The papers of Boston portraitist and painter Polly Thayer (Starr) (1904-2006) measure 21.6 linear feet and 0.807 GB and date from 1846 to 2008, with the bulk of the materials dating from 1921-2008. The papers document Thayer's personal life and career as a painter, portraitist, and pastel artist. Found within the papers are biographical materials, extensive family papers, correspondence with artists and art venues, interviews, writings, subject files, organization files, exhibition files, art inventory records, printed and digital materials, five sketchbooks, artwork, and photographs.
Biographical material includes a marriage certificate, school records, inventories of possessions, passports, files about the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake in Japan, and a few personal and scattered financial documents such as invoices and receipts for various art related expenses.
Extensive family papers on many of Polly Thayer's immediate and extended family members include obituaries, condolence letters, writings, and printed materials. The most voluminous files are about Polly Thayer's husband Donald Carter Starr, her mother Ethel Randolph Thayer, and her father Ezra Ripley Thayer.
There is limited correspondence with friends and and colleagues, including Royal Cortissoz, Philip Hofer, Tasha Tudor (photocopies), Dorothy Koval, the curator who wrote about Thayer for her first show at Vose Galleries in 2001, as well as two art consultants who helped Thayer inventory her artwork. The bulk of the correspondence is with museums, galleries, and other venues such as the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Copley Society of Boston, and Vose Galleries.
Interviews with Polly Thayer include transcripts as well as sound and video recordings. There is also a sound recording of poet and professor Doris Abramson discussing Catherine Sargent Huntington.
Writings include typescript and handwritten drafts of essays, notebooks, and notes on assorted topics. The bulk of the material was written by Thayer, with a few writings by others.
Subject files are found for people and general interests. The "People" files are collected documents about Thayer's friends, colleagues, artists, and portrait subjects. The files include short biographies, articles, obituaries, a few photographs, two videocassettes and one sound recording. The most voluminous files are on Francis DeLancey Cunningham, the Howe family, Rose Nichols, May Sarton, John Brooks Wheelwright, and Agnes Yarnall. Thayer's "Interests" files consist of articles and clippings on various topics such as animals, humor, and pacifism.
Organization files contain materials related to Polly Thayer's charitable contributions, club memberships and affiliations, including The Chilton Club, Nucleus Club, Religious Society of Friends, and Trustees of Reservations, among others. These files contain seven sound recordings.
Exhibition files contain exhibition catalogs, reviews, clippings, notes, inventory price lists, and other materials about Thayer's solo and group shows.
Art inventory records consist of dismantled binders of inventories that also include photographs of artwork and descriptive information such as the title, medium, and dimensions. There are also photographic inventories of works of art arranged by subject, and several partial art inventories.
Printed materials include two scrapbooks compiled by Polly Thayer's mother containing articles about Thayer, magazines, journals, exhibition catalogs, brochures, exhibition invitations, postcards, clippings, and miscellaneous materials. Digital materials consist of inventories and digitized audio interviews.
Five sketchbooks include figure drawings, portrait sketches, and landscape sketches. Also found are loose drawings of animals, landscapes, and people.
Disbound binders of photographs contain images of works of art that are grouped by subject, including portraits, landscapes, and "mystical/flowers/animals," as well as personal photographs of Polly Thayer and family members, houses, social events, pets, and friends. There is one small disbound photograph album of houses and properties.
Polly Thayer (Starr) (1904-2006) was a Boston painter of portraits, landscapes, and still lifes.
Ethel Randolph Thayer, known as Polly, was born in Boston in 1904, the daughter of Professor Ezra Ripley Thayer, also Dean of the Harvard Law School, and Ethel Randolph Thayer, née Clark. Thayer began her drawing lessons at an early age and later attended the Westover Boarding School in Middlebury, Connecticut. Although she signed some of her early paintings Ethel Thayer, by the end of the 1920s she generally signed her work Polly Thayer. She continued to use Polly Thayer as her brush name after she married, although in 1967 she changed her name legally from Ethel Randolph Starr to Polly Thayer Starr.
After graduating from Westover School, Thayer traveled to China, Korea, and Japan with her brother and mother. While in Japan, the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 struck just as their ship was about to leave Yokohama. In the devastation that followed, their ship was used as a hospital and Polly Thayer assisted with nursing the injured.
After returning home, Thayer began her formal studies at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts from 1923 to 1925 where she took painting classes taught by Philip Hale. She eventually left the Boston Museum and began private painting lessons with Hale. While working under Hale, she painted a large nude, Circles, which was awarded the National Academy of Design's coveted Julius Hallgarten Prize in 1929. She also spent the summer of 1924 in Provincetown studying with Charles Hawthorne and traveled to Europe where she studied at the Académie Colarossi in Paris. She later studied in Madrid and, from 1930-1933, at the Art Students League in New York City.
Thayer's first solo exhibition was held on New Year's Eve, 1930 at the Doll & Richards gallery in Boston. The Globe reviewer declared it "surely settles her status as one of the foremost painters in the country." The success of the exhibition led to numerous portrait commissions --any of them exhibited at Wildenstein gallery in New York City --and launched Thayer's career as a portrait artist. Her portrait subjects include Judith Anderson, Jacques Barzun, Maurice Evans, Lewis Galantiere, Robert Hale, May Sarton, John Wheelwright, and Agnes Yarnall, among others. Additional galleries that subsequently gave Thayer solo shows were the Sessler Gallery in Philadelphia; Contemporary Arts and Pietrantonio Galleries in New York; and in Boston the Guild of Boston Artists, Grace Horne Galleries, Child's Gallery, The Copley Society, the St. Botolph Club and the Boston Public Library.
In 1933, Polly Thayer married Donald Starr, a Boston lawyer and avid sailor. They married in Italy and honeymooned in Paris while he took a break from a sailing trip around the world on his schooner "Pilgrim." They had two daughters, Victoria and Dinah. In 1942 Thayer joined the Society of Friends (Quakers) which became an important part of her life and identity. She was active in many educational, charitable and cultural institutions and local clubs. Thayer had long been fascinated by the dynamics, meaning and variety of visual experience. In 1981 the Friends Journal published her essay "On Seeing," a paper she continued to refine until she was ninety-seven.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Polly Thayer began focusing more on landscapes and still lifes and continued to be prolific artist, exhibiting in numerous solo and group exhibits in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. In her later years she renewed an early affiliation with Vose Galleries which she maintained for the rest of her life. In 2001, she was the only living artist whose work was included in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts exhibition "A Studio of Her Own" and a banner of her portrait of May Sarton hung over the entrance to the Museum.
Polly Thayer (Starr) died on August 30, 2006.
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The Polly Thayer (Starr) papers were donated to the Archives of American Art by Polly Thayer in 1998 and again in 2008 by Thayer via Stephanie S. Wright, executor. A notebook was donated in 2016 by Dinah Starr, daughter of Polly Thayer (Starr) and merged with the rest of the collection.
Polly Thayer (Starr) papers, 1846-2008, bulk 1921-2008. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
This collection was fully processed by Rihoko Ueno in February 2014 with funding provided by the Polly Thayer Starr Charitable Trust. Born-digital materials were processed by Kirsi Ritosalmi-Kisner in 2019 with funding provided by Smithsonian Conservation Care and Preservation Fund.
The Archives of American Art also holds an oral history interview of Polly Thayer conducted May 12, 1995-February 1, 1996, by Robert F. Brown.
The Polly Thayer Starr Charitable Trust holds archival materials and artwork by Polly Thayer.
Biographical material includes Polly Thayer's school records, marriage certificate, inventories of possessions meant for appraisal at houses she owned, journal entries and clippings about the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake from Thayer's trip to Japan, and passports. Also included are financial documents on art-related expenses such as invoices and receipts for framing, printing, and conservation, in addition to printed and digital inventories created by Dorothy Koval for her reference and research of Thayer's papers prior to their arrival at the archives.
Oversized material housed in Box 22, Folder 1.
Family files on the members of the Starr and Thayer family are arranged alphabetically. Found at the end of the series are a few folders on extended family and relatives, including the Clarks, Ripleys and Vintons, all of which are arranged alphabetically. Miscelleanous folders about genealogy are arranged at the end of the series.
Polly Thayer's family files, which include immediate and extended family, are extensive. Several individuals, such as Thayer's parents, Ezra Ripley Thayer and Ethel Randolph Thayer (née Clark), and her husband Donald Carter Starr, have multiple folders. Since there are files on members from the maternal and paternal sides of Thayer's family tree, there are materials on the Clark, Ripley and Vinton families, in addition to the voluminous folders on the Thayers and Starrs. The series includes correspondence, writings, printed materials, condolence letters, memorial plans, estate papers, and obituaries.
A notebook containing the names of servants, their dates of service, and notes about their quality of work.
Transcriptions of selected letters, sometimes partial and sometimes in full, written by Ezra Thayer to his wife Ethel Thayer over the course of a trip.
Oversized material housed in Box 22, Folder 2
This series is arranged as 2 subseries.
This series contains correspondence with friends and colleagues as well as correspondence with museums, galleries, and arts venues.
Following the first file on family history, the files are arranged alphabetically by correspondent with unidentified correspondence at the end of the series.
Correspondence with friends and colleagues is limited. Notable correspondents include Royal Cortissoz, Philip Hofer, Louis Kronenberger, Anne Parrish, and photocopies of letters from Tasha Tudor. The most voluminous folders of correspondence are from curator Dorothy Koval, as well as Wendy Swanton and Margaret Winslow, art consultants who helped organize Thayer's artwork before the Archives received the collection. There are a few letters of inquiry about Polly Thayer's family history for genealogical research from researchers and assorted correspondents.
This subseries is organized alphabetically by the title of the organization, then chronologically with each folder.
Arranged here is Thayer's correspondence with museums, galleries, and arts venues which represented or exhibitedher artwork. Also found is correspondence with organizations that Thayer supported through her patronage. Multiple files are found for The Boston Athenaeum, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Copley Society of Boston, Harvard Law School, and Vose Galleries.
The series is arranged chronologically.
There are four transcripts of interviews with Polly Thayer and two unstranscribed interviews, one digital audio recording and one recorded on VHS videocassette. There is also one sound recording on cassette of Doris Abramson talking about Catherine Sargent Huntington.
This recording contains 5 "Radio Stories" by Jackson Braider, two of which are about Polly Thayer.
Writings by and about Thayer include typescript and handwritten drafts of articles, essays, and speeches, and notes and notebooks.
This series is arranged as 3 subseries.
This series is comprised of Polly Thayer's drafts of papers, articles, letters to the editor, and speeches. Although the bulk of material consists of typescript drafts, folders often contain multiple drafts of writing, some of which are handwritten. Polly Thayer wrote on a range of topics such as art, religion, and politics, as well as several memorial tributes to friends. There is a draft of
This subseries is arranged chronologically. Writings by others are grouped together at the end.
This series is arranged chronologically.
This subseries contains mostly handwritten notes by Thayer that were originally scattered throughout the collection. The subjects of the notes are varied and reference painting techniques and studio ideas, daily tasks and activities, lists, errands, gallery contacts, and general musings.
History of Grace Horne Gallery
Notebooks includes annotated appointment calendars, art class notes, and errand books which inventory possessions and list repairs at several of Thayer's properties. The titles in quotation marks are taken directly from the cover of the notebooks and the rest are general headings based on the subject of the notes. The notebooks often have loose papers or clippings tucked between the pages.
The notebooks are arranged chronologically.
This arrangement of the files in this series reflects historian Dorothy Koval's arrangement of Thayer's papers prior to their arrival at the archives, particularly the files on people. During processing, several unmerged, but related types of file titles and materials were integrated here.
This series is arranged as 2 subseries.
Subject Files are separated into "People" files and "Interests" files. "People" files contain materials such as articles, obituaries, short biographical profiles, and some audiovisual recordings related to Thayer's friends and colleagues. The "Interests" files include articles and clippings on assorted topics such as animals, humor, and pacifism.
This subseries is arranged alphabetically.
This subseries contains material about Thayer's friends, colleagues, fellow artists, and portrait subjects. Materials in this subseries include short biographies, articles, and obituaries. Some of the folders were created by curator Dorothy Koval as part of her and include partial transcripts of interviews with Thayer discussing a particular artist or individual. The most voluminous files are on Francis DeLancey Cunningham, the Howe family, Rose Nichols, May Sarton, John Brooks Wheelwright, and Agnes Yarnall. The materials on Cunningham, Sarton, and Wheelwright are particularly extensive and include multiple folders with biographical materials, correspondence, writings, and printed materials. The subseries contains 2 videocassettes and 1 sound cassette.
Articles and correspondence from Susan Sherman about May Sarton.
Reviews, printed materials, and assorted materials on Margot Peters's biography about May Sarton.
Susan Howe's WBAI radio program had one show titled "The Bostonian" about John Brooks Wheelwright and talks to Quincy Howe, Polly Thayer, Malcolm Cowley, and others.
This subseries contains articles and clippings on a range of topics such as animals, humor, and pacifism. These files were probably used by Polly Thayer for reference on her many interests. Most of the original folder headings were retained.
This subseries is arranged alphabetically by topic.
This series contains materials related to Polly Thayer's charitable contributions, club memberships and affiliations. Included are donation requests, correspondence, clippings, newsletters, events announcements, membership listings, organization charters and by-laws, and printed materials. There are also 6 sound cassettes and one digital audio recording. The Chilton Club, Nucleus Club, Religious Society of Friends, and Trustees of Reservations are a few of the organizations included in the series.
This series is arranged alphabetically by the name of the organization.
Trustees of Reservations staff and children visiting Weir River Farm wishing Polly Thayer happy birthday.
This series holds exhibition catalogs, reviews, clippings, notes, letters of congratulations, and other items related to Polly Thayer's solo exhibitions as well as group shows. Noteworthy exhibitions include "Polly Thayer Starr: Fauna and Some Flora" (1996), which includes a visitor's book and a notebook, and "A Studio of Her Own: Women Artists in Boston 1870-1940" (2001).
The exhibitions are arranged chronologically.
Art inventory records include 15 disbound binders of art inventory lists that include photographs and descriptions of artwork. The records represent art inventory at Polly Thayer's studio at 198 Beacon Street, Boston. Each page has a photograph of an artwork and its inventory number, along with descriptive information such as the title, dimensions, and medium. There are an additional four disbound binders of photographs of the same works of art.
There is also one folder of partial inventories of art which were originally scattered throughout the collection.
All of the art inventory and photographs catalogs were originally compiled and arranged by art consultant Wendy L. Swanton before the collection arrived at the archives. The order created by Wendy L. Swanton was retained.
The 15 disbound art inventory binders are arranged by inventory number, whereas the 4 photographs catalogs contain the same artwork arranged alphabetically by subject. The original subject headings for the photographs catalogs were retained. Some of the photographs in the photographs catalogs were kept in their plastic sleeves which had stickers that presumably indicate artwork that was sold or given away.
There is one folder of miscellaneous art inventories at the end of the series. These inventories were originally scattered throughout the collection and are unrelated to the disbound binders compiled by Swanton.
Printed materials include two scrapbooks compiled by Polly Thayer's mother, Ethel Randolph Thayer, as well as articles about Thayer, magazines, journals, exhibition catalogs, brochures, exhibition invitations, postcards, clippings, and miscellaneous materials.
Materials are arranged primarily by format.
Oversized material housed in Box 22, Folder 3.
Original folder title for folder of articles that mention Polly Thayer, but she is not the main subject.
Oversized material housed in Box 22, Folder 4.
Oversized material housed in Box 22, Folder 5.
There are five sketchbooks of Polly Thayer's drawings. A few of the sketchbooks have annotations or titles on the cover and usually contain a range of subjects such as figure drawings, portraits, and sketches of scenery.
The sketchbooks are arranged chronologically.
Oversized material housed in Box 23, Folder 1.
Oversized material housed in Box 23, Folder 2.
Oversized material housed in Box 23, Folder 3.
This series is arranged chronologically.
Artwork consists of loose sketches and drawings of animals, landscapes, and people. The artwork is in various mediums such as pencil, ink, paint and charcoal. With the exception of one drawing by a fellow art student, all of the artwork in the series is by Polly Thayer.
Oversized material housed in Box 23, Folder 4.
Oversized material housed in OV 25.
Oversized material housed in Box 23, Folder 5.
Oversized material housed in Box 23, Folder 6.
Oversized material housed in Box 23, Folder 7.
Oversized material housed in Box 23, Folder 8.
Oversized material housed in Box 23, Folder 9.
Oversized material housed in Box 23, Folder 10.
The four disbound binders are at the start of the series and are arranged by subject (the original binder titles were retained): portraits of women, portraits of men, landscapes, and "mystical, flowers, animals." The personal photographs are organized by subject, then chronologically within each grouping. Photographs of Polly Thayer are first, followed by photographs of family members arranged alphabetically, and then other subjects. Miscellaneous photographs are grouped together at the end of the series.
Photographs include four disbound binders of photographs of artwork such as portraits of women, portraits of men, landscapes, and "mystical,flowers,animals." The portrait photographs include a label with the sitter's name and sometimes the date and the name of the owner/buyer of the portrait. The other photographs of works of art also have labels with identification information.
Also found are several folders of personal photographs which include portraits of Polly Thayer and family members, houses and properties, social events, pets, and friends. There is also one small disbound photograph album with images of houses and properties.
Oversized material housed in Box 24, Folder 1.
Oversized material housed in Box 24, Folder 1.
Oversized material housed in Box 24, Folder 2.
Portraits of Polly Thayer
Oversized material housed in Box 24, Folder 3.
Photographs of Polly Thayer
Photographs of Polly Thayer
Family Photographs
This folder contains group photographs of Starr and Thayer family members and relatives. Polly Thayer is in some of the photographs.
Oversized material housed in Box 24, Folder 4.
Oversized material housed in Box 20, Folder 21.
Oversized material housed in Box 24, Folder 6.
Photographs of Donald Starr with his parents and siblings.
Oversized material housed in Box 24, Folder 7.
Photographs with Others
Photographs of Donald Starr with Polly Thayer and friends.
Oversized material housed in Box 24, Folder 8.
Oversized material housed in Box 24, Folder 8.
Oversized material housed in Box 24, Folder 8.
The original binder cover was retained b/c there are extensive annotations on the verso with the names of portrait subjects and the names and addresses of the portraits' owners.
The original binder cover was retained b/c there are extensive annotations on the verso with the names of portrait subjects and the names and addresses of the portraits' owners.