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Peter Burr, Sunshine Monument

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Manuscript Collections 

Whitney Manuscript Collections encompass primary materials generated by external organizations or individuals that supports research complementary to the Museum’s collections and programming.


The Sanborn Hopper Archive at the Whitney Museum of American Art

Donated by the Arthayer R. Sanborn Hopper Collection Trust, this collection consists of about 4,000 items including more than 300 letters and notes from Hopper to his family, friends, and colleagues; twenty-one notebooks in Hopper’s own hand; and ninety notebooks by Hopper’s wife, Josephine Nivison Hopper; as well as extensive archival material relating to Hopper’s artistic career and personal life, such as photographs, personal papers, and dealer records. The Sanborn-Hopper Archive will be open to scholars by appointment after the collection is catalogued, processed, and researched, as the Whitney plans to explore potential exhibitions, programs, and publications making use of the Archive’s extraordinarily rich materials.

Finding Aid  Digital Collection

Funding for the processing of the Sanborn Hopper Archive is generously provided by the Leon Levy Foundation. 

The Avant-Garde Reference Files of Barbara Moore, c. 1960–2015

A collection of printed matter, ephemera, announcements, brochures, artists’ books, and editions collected by art historian, writer, former rare book dealer, and director of the Peter Moore Photography Archive for sixty years, Barbara Moore. Significant materials relate to the international activities of artists, publishers, and alternative spaces working across performance art, conceptual art, mail art; video and multimedia; and artists’ groups from the 1960s to the early 2000s. Materials also include original drawings and handmade objects, as well as media in multiple formats.  

Lloyd Goodrich Artists Correspondence, 1917–1978

Forming an illuminating portrait of Lloyd Goodrich’s social world and art interests, this varied collection consists of letters, postcards, holiday cards, invitations, and exhibition notices that the former director of the Whitney and his wife Edith exchanged with artists, collectors, Museum staff, and other friends.

Florence Rubenfeld’s Collection of Archival Material for Clement Greenberg: A Life, 1935–1999

Materials generated by writer Florence Rubenfeld during a decade of research supporting the writing and publication of Clement Greenberg: A Life (New York: Scribners, 1998) by art critic Florence Rubenfeld. Materials include the author’s notebooks, correspondence, transcripts of interviews, audio recordings, and articles.

Finding Aid 

Francis M. Naumann Research Collection for How, When and Why Modern Art Came to New York by Marius de Zayas, 1910–1936

Assembled by editor Francis M. Naumann for the publication of How, When and Why Modern Art Came to New York (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996), this collection centers on Marius de Zayas, an influential yet largely behind-the-scenes participant in the new avant-garde art scene in New York and Paris in the 1910s and early 1920s.