Holger Cahill papers, 1910-1993, bulk 1910-1960

Object Details

Place of publication, production, or execution

United States

Physical Description

15.8 Linear feet

Arrangement

The collection is arranged into nine series: Series 1: Biographical Material and Personal Papers, 1931-1988 (Box 1; 19 folders) Series 2: Correspondence Files, 1922-1979, 1993 (Boxes 1-2; 1.5 linear ft.) Series 3: Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project, 1934-1970 (Boxes 2-14, 18, MMs009; 10.75 linear ft.) Series 4: Writings, Lectures and Speeches, 1916-1960 (Boxes 14-15, 18; 1.0 linear ft.) Series 5: Minutes of Meetings and Panel Discussions, Non-FAP, 1939-1947 (Box 15; 5 folders) Series 6: Notes and Research Material, 1935-1970 (Boxes 15-16; 0.25 linear ft.) Series 7: Artwork, undated (Boxes 16, 18; 2 folders) Series 8: Printed Material, 1910-1985 (Boxes 16-17; 1.8 linear ft.) Series 9: Photographs, circa 1917-1960 (Box 17; 6 folders)

Access Note / Rights

The microfilm of this collection has been digitized and is available online via the Archives of American Art website.

Summary

The papers of Holger Cahill (1887-1960) date from 1910 to 1993, with the bulk of the material dating from 1910-1960, and measure 15.8 linear feet. The collection offers researchers fairly comprehensive documentation of Cahill's directorship of the Works Progress/Projects Administration's (WPA) Federal Art Project (FAP) in addition to series documenting his work as a writer and art critic. Material includes correspondence, reports, artist files, scrapbooks, printed material, and photographs.

Citation

Holger Cahill papers, 1910-1993, bulk 1910-1960. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Additional Forms

The papers of Holger Cahill in the Archives of American Art were digitized in 2004 from 20 reels of microfilm, and total 30102 images.

Funding

Funding for the digitization of the microfilm of this collection was provided by Jane Blumenfeld.

Use Note

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 Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.

Biography Note

Holger Cahill was born Sveinn Kristjan Bjarnarson in Iceland in a small valley near the Arctic Circle, on January 13, 1887. His parents, Bjorn Jonson and Vigdis Bjarnadottir, immigrated to the United States from Iceland sometime later in the 1880s. In 1904, his father deserted the family, forcing Sveinn to be separated from his mother and sister to work on a farm in North Dakota. He ran away and wandered from job to job until settling in an orphanage in western Canada, where he attended school and became a voracious reader.

As a young man, he worked at many different jobs and attended night school. While working on a freighter, he visited Hong Kong, beginning his life-long interest in the Orient. Returning to New York City, he eventually became a newspaper reporter, continued his studies at New York University, and changed his name to Edgar Holger Cahill. In 1919 he married Katherine Gridley of Detroit. Their daughter, Jane Ann, was born in 1922, but the couple divorced in 1927.

Cahill met John Sloan circa 1920, and they shared a residence. Cahill also wrote publicity (until 1928) for the Society of Independent Artists, through which he made many friends in the arts. From 1922 to 1931, he worked under John Cotton Dana at the Newark Museum, where he received his basic experience in museum work, organizing the first large exhibitions of folk art.

From 1932 to 1935, he was the director of exhibitions for the Museum of Modern Art. In 1935, Cahill was appointed director of the Works Progress/Projects Administration (WPA) Federal Art Project (FAP), until its end in June 1943. In 1938, Cahill organized a countrywide exhibition "American Art Today" for the New York World's Fair. He also married MoMa curator Dorothy Canning Miller in that year.

Profane Earth , Cahill's first novel, was published in 1927, followed by monographs on Pop Hart and Max Weber, miscellaneous short stories, and a biography of Frederick Townsend Ward, entitled A Yankee Adventurer: The Story of Ward and the Taiping Rebellion . Following the end of the Federal Art Project, Cahill wrote two novels, Look South to the Polar Star (1947) and The Shadow of My Hand (1956).

Holger Cahill died in Stockbridge, Massachusetts in July 1960.

Language Note

English .

Provenance

The Holger Cahill papers were donated to the Archives of American Art through a series of gifts by Cahill's widow, Dorothy C. Miller, between 1964 and 1995.

Digitization Note

The papers of Holger Cahill in the Archives of American Art were digitized in 2007 from 20 reels of microfilm. The papers have been scanned in their entirety, and total 30,077 images.

Location Note

Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 750 9th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20001

Data Source

Archives of American Art

Record number

(DSI-AAA_CollID)6730

(DSI-AAA_SIRISBib)208855

AAA_collcode_cahiholg

Creator

Cahill, Holger, 1887-1960

Subject

Brown, Samuel Joseph

De Rivera, José Ruiz

Hopkins, Harry Lloyd

Halpert, Edith Gregor

Abbott, Berenice

Rowan, Edward Beatty

Scaravaglione, Concetta

Speck, Walter

Ward, Lynd

Weisenborn, Rudolph

Morris, Carl

Segal, George

Olds, Elizabeth

Roosevelt, Eleanor

Knaths, Karl

Miller, Dorothy Canning

American Federation of Arts

Artists' Union (New York, N.Y.)

Cartoonists Guild

Federal Art Project (U.S.)

Federal Theatre Project (U.S.)

Federal Music Project (U.S.)

Index of American Design

American Council of Learned Societies

New York World's Fair (1939-1940 : New York, N.Y.)

Shakers

American Artists' Congress

United States. Work Projects Administration

The Design Laboratory (New York, N.Y.)

Treasury Relief Art Project

United States. Works Progress Administration

Type

Prints

Government records

Interviews

Scrapbooks

Photographs

Slides (photographs)

Photograph albums

Drawings

Place

United States -- Economic conditions -- 1918-1945

United States -- Social conditions -- 1933-1945

Theme

New Deal

Research and writing about art

Topic

Federal aid to the public welfare

Art and state

Federal aid to the arts

New Deal, 1933-1939

Public officers

Theme

New Deal

Research and writing about art

Record ID

AAADCD_coll_208855

Usage

Usage conditions apply