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This collection has access restrictions. For details, please see the restrictions.
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held in the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in our reading room, and not digitally available through the World Wide Web. See the FAQ section for more information.
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Collection Overview
| Size | 13.5 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 10800 items) |
| Abstract | The University of North Carolina's first art museum, established in 1937, was located in Person Hall and known as the Person Hall Art Gallery. In 1958, a new building was completed with funds from the bequest of William Hayes Ackland. The museum then moved and was renamed the William Hayes Ackland Memorial Art Center; in 1979 its name changed again, to the Ackland Art Museum. The museum was part of the Department of Art, and the department chairman served as its director, until 1974, when the museum became a separate administrative unit. (The bulk of the museum's pre-1974 records are among the Records of the Department of Art). Records include correspondence and other files relating to the administration of as well as programs and exhibitions of the Ackland Art Museum. |
| Creator | Ackland Art Museum. |
| Language | English |
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Information For Users
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Subject Headings
The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.
Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.
These and related materials may be found under the following headings in online catalogs.
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Related Collections
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Historical Information
The University of North Carolina's first art museum, established in 1937, was located in Person Hall and known as the Person Hall Art Gallery. In 1958, a new building was completed with funds from the bequest of William Hayes Ackland. The museum then moved and was renamed the William Hayes Ackland Memorial Art Center; in 1979 its name changed again, to the Ackland Art Museum. The museum was part of the Department of Art and the department chairman served as its director until 1974, when it became a separate administrative unit.
William Hayes Ackland (1855-1940) was a wealthy, self-styled art collector, who bequeathed funds for a museum to be built at Duke University under the stipulation that his tomb, along with a recumbent effigy of himself, be prominently placed in the foyer. Duke refused the bequest, and the University of North Carolina, citing an earlier will naming the University of North Carolina as Ackland's second choice to receive the museum and Rollins College as his third, successfully argued at inquest that the University at Chapel Hill should receive the funds to build the museum.
The Ackland Memorial Art Center was officially dedicated on 20 September 1958. Directors of the museum and their tenures are as follows:
| 1958-1978 | Joseph C. Sloane |
| 1978-1983 | Evan Turner |
| 1983-1986 | Innis Shoemaker |
| 1986-1993 | Charles Millard |
| 1994-2006 | Gerald D. Bolus |
| 2006- | Emily Kass |
Thanks to the Ackland bequest and to subsequent endowments, the museum has amassed an extensive permanent collection that spans the history of European and American painting, sculpture, photography, and the graphic arts from antiquity to the present day. The collection also includes important examples of Asian and North Carolina folk art and is particularly rich in European drawings and prints. In addition, the museum regularly hosts major traveling exhibitions from the United States and abroad.
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Scope and Content
Records include correspondence and other files relating to the administration of as well as programs and exhibitions of the Ackland Art Museum. (The bulk of the museum's pre-1974 records are among the Records of the Department of Art.)
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Series Quick Links
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Series 1. Administrative Files, 1937-1993.
The first and largest series of the Ackland Art Museum records consists of documents pertaining to museum administration. It includes files on accreditation; museum membership and governance; the Ackland Museum building and its renovations; gifts, bequests, and other financial issues; interactions with organizations and institutions outside of the university; the hiring, training, and job requirements of museum personnel; museum publications; publicity; and, to a limited extent, relations with other departments of the university. (For the last item, see especially the Art Department, Bicentennial, Chancellor, Planning, and Provost files).
Several of the files in Series 1 provide chronological summaries of the museum's activities. The Annual Reports list acquisitions, attendance figures, exhibitions, loans, expenditures, major events, and the professional endeavors of the Ackland staff for each academic year from 1958-1959 to 1989-1990. Files under Publicity document the museum's public programs (exhibitions, workshops, performances), as well as major gifts and personnel changes. For records of this kind, see, in particular, Newspaper Clippings (1959-1964) and Press Releases (1980-1990).
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Series 2. Collections, 1959-1991.
The second series pertains to the Ackland Art Museum's permanent collection of art. Correspondence with art dealers, artists, scholars, and private collectors, filed under Acquisitions, documents the scouting, evaluating, and purchasing of objects for the museum, particularly after the beginning of Evan Turner's tenure as director in 1978. Other files in this series deal with the physical maintenance of the collections (Conservation); research into the authorship and historical background of individual works (Curatorial Research); ownership disputes and the selling of unwanted items (Ownership Issues and Deaccessioning); and the lending and borrowing of objects to and from other institutions (Loans).
For selected objects, the Catalogue of the Collection(1971) and The Ackland Art Museum: A Handbook (1983), both filed under Publications in Series 1, contain additional information, including black-and-white reproductions of the works.
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Series 3. Programs and Services, 1969-1992.
Files in this series relate to the Ackland Art Museum's services to the public. These include educational programs and entertainment, such as docent training, guided tours, lectures, summer programs for children, and storytelling in the galleries; the evaluation (though not monetary assessment) of privately-owned art objects by the curatorial staff; exhibitions, curated in-house or borrowed from other institutions; celebrations marking the museum's reopening after its renovation between 1987 and 1990; and, finally, travel tours organized and guided by the Ackland staff. For information on how these events were publicized, see the Publicity files in Series 1 and especially the Newspaper Clippings and Press Releases, which furnish a chronological, if fragmentary, record of the museum's public-oriented programs.
Processed by: University Archives Staff
Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008
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