E.P. (Edgar Preston) and Constance Richardson papers
name: label: Creator
content: Richardson, Edgar Preston, 1902-1985
label: Creator
content: Richardson, Constance, 1905-
label: Names
content: Archives of American Art
label: Names
content: Castano Galleries (Boston, Mass.)
label: Names
content: Detroit Institute of Arts
label: Names
content: Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum
label: Names
content: Historical Society of Pennsylvania
label: Names
content: Macbeth Gallery
label: Names
content: National Collection of Fine Arts (U.S.)
label: Names
content: National Portrait Gallery (Smithsonian Institution)
label: Names
content: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
label: Names
content: Philadelphia Museum of Art
label: Names
content: White House (Washington, D.C.)
label: Names
content: Peale family
label: Names
content: Allen, Joseph
label: Names
content: Allston, Washington, 1779-1843
label: Names
content: Andrews, Wayne
label: Names
content: Aram, Siegfried F.
label: Names
content: Bishop, Isabel, 1902-1988
label: Names
content: Bostick, William A.
label: Names
content: Bouché, Louis, 1896-1969
label: Names
content: Boyd, Julian P. (Julian Parks), 1903-
label: Names
content: Castano, Giovanni, 1896-1978
label: Names
content: Cohn, Harold
label: Names
content: Copeland, Lammot du Pont
label: Names
content: Culver, Charles B. (Charles Beach), 1908-1967
label: Names
content: Fleischman, Lawrence A. (Lawrence Arthur), 1925-1997
label: Names
content: Flexner, James Thomas, 1908-2003
label: Names
content: Frankenstein, Alfred V. (Alfred Victor), 1906-1981
label: Names
content: Fredericks, Marshall M., 1908-1998
label: Names
content: Freeman, Michael W.
label: Names
content: Garrison, Eve Josephson, 1903-2003
label: Names
content: Groce, George C., 1899-
label: Names
content: Hardy, Jeremiah Pearson, 1800-1889
label: Names
content: Heil, Walter, 1890-1973
label: Names
content: Hopper, Edward, 1882-1967
label: Names
content: Jungwirth, Irene G. (Irene Gayas), 1913-
label: Names
content: Krentzin, Earl, 1929-
label: Names
content: Kuniyoshi, Yasuo, 1889-1953
label: Names
content: Lee-Smith, Hughie (1915-1999)
label: Names
content: Lewis, W. S. (Wilmarth Sheldon), 1895-1979
label: Names
content: Lynes, Russell, 1910-1991
label: Names
content: Marsh, Reginald, 1898-1954
label: Names
content: Mast, Gerald, 1908-1971
label: Names
content: McDermott, John Francis, 1902-
label: Names
content: Middeldorf, Ulrich Alexander, 1901-
label: Names
content: Morse, John D., 1906-
label: Names
content: Moser, Liselotte, 1906-1983
label: Names
content: O'Keeffe, Georgia, 1887-1986
label: Names
content: Oliver, Andrew, 1906-
label: Names
content: Peale, Charles Willson, 1741-1827
label: Names
content: Pleasants, J. Hall (Jacob Hall), 1873-1957
label: Names
content: Ripley, S. Dillon (Sidney Dillon), 1913-2001
label: Names
content: Rockefeller, John D., 1906-
label: Names
content: Rockefeller, Nelson A. (Nelson Aldrich), 1908-1979
label: Names
content: Rutledge, Anna Wells
label: Names
content: Sellers, Charles Coleman, 1903-
label: Names
content: Sheeler, Charles, 1883-1965
label: Names
content: Simper, Fred, 1914-
label: Names
content: Simpson, Corelli C. W.
label: Names
content: Soria, Regina, 1911-
label: Names
content: Spark, Victor D. (Victor David), 1898-1991
label: Names
content: Speck, Walter, 1895-
label: Names
content: Stevens, William B.
label: Names
content: Valentiner, Wilhelm Reinhold, 1880-1958
label: Names
content: Vose, Robert C. (Robert Churchill), 1911-1998
label: Names
content: Watkins, Franklin Chenault, 1894-1972
label: Names
content: Wedda, John
label: Names
content: Woolfenden, William E. (William Edward), 1918-1995
label: Names
content: Wyeth, Andrew, 1917-2009
place: label: Place
content: Detroit (Mich.)
topic: label: Occupation
content: Authors -- Michigan -- Detroit
label: Occupation
content: Art historians -- United States
label: Topic
content: Art -- Collectors and collecting
label: Topic
content: Painting, American
label: Topic
content: Art, American
label: Topic
content: Romanticism
label: Topic
content: Art -- History -- Study and teaching
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: Edith Wilkinson first donated a letter to E. P. Richardson from herself in 1957. E.P. Richardson donated papers to the Archives of American Art in 1958 and 1960 and lent materials for microfilming in 1961. Addition material was donated by Constance Richardson in 1985, and by Martha Fleischman in 2003.
creator: label: Creator
content: Richardson, Edgar Preston, 1902-1985
label: Creator
content: Richardson, Constance, 1905-
setName: label: See more items in
content: E.P. (Edgar Preston) and Constance Richardson papers
abstract: label: Summary
content: The papers of art historian E. P. Richardson measure 28.7 linear feet and date from 1814-1996, with the bulk of the materials dating from 1921-1996.  Within the papers are scattered biographical materials; acquisition files for Richardson's personal art collection; professional and personal correspondence with colleagues, art historians and critics, artists, museums, galleries, and dealers; numerous writings, including manuscripts and research files for his published books, articles, and lectures; general research notebooks and files compiled by Richardson on a wide variety of art-related topics and artists; professional and committee files; as well as a smaller amount of Constance C. Richardson's papers.
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Art historian, museum director, and writer E. P. (Edgar Preston) Richardson (1902-1985) served as director of the Detroit Institute of Arts (1945-1962) and Winterthur Museum (1963-1966).  He was also a board member of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1966-1977 and, in 1954, co-founded the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.    

E. P. Richardson was born in 1902 in Glens Falls, New York and died in Philadelphia in 1985.  He graduated from Williams College in Massachusetts in 1925 and studied painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts for the three years following graduation.  In 1930 he became educational secretary at the Detroit Institute of Arts, was quickly named assistant director in 1933, and served as director from 1945 to 1962.  He left Detroit to take the position of director of the Winterthur Museum, where he remained until 1966.  
Richardson married Constance Coleman in 1931. Born in Berlin, Germany in 1905, Constance Coleman Richardson was an award-winning and widely exhibited realist style painter of American landscapes.  She gave up painting in the 1960s and died in 2002.

While at the Detroit Institute of Arts, E. P. Richardson co-founded the Archives of American Art with Lawrence Fleischman, and served as the Archives' first director.  Richardson was also art advisor to John D. Rockefeller III for over ten years, editor of Art Quarterly from 1938 to 1967, and a member of various boards, including the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Smithsonian Arts Commission, and the National Portrait Gallery.  He authored numerous books including ones on artists Washington Allston and Charles Willson Peale, and The Way of Western Art:  American Romantic Painting (1939), Painting in America:  The Story of Four Hundred and Fifty Years (1956), A Short History of Painting in America (1963), and American Art, an Exhibition of the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, 3d (1976).
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 28.7 Linear Feet
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1814-1996
label: Date
content: bulk 1921-1996
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.richedga
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Photographs
label: Type
content: Manuscripts
label: Type
content: Interviews
label: Type
content: Diaries
label: Type
content: Transcripts
label: Type
content: Sketches
label: Type
content: Lectures
processinfo: label: Processing Information
content: Multiple accretions of E.P. Richardson's papers were merged with several previously separated miscellaneous manuscript collections, including a Christmas card from Carl Ruggles to the Richardsons, a letter from Edith Wilkinson, and a letter from Charles Sheeler.  Constance Richardson's papers had also previously been cataloged separately and was reunited with the original acquisition.  

Once merged, the collection was minimally processed in 2015 by Kelly Nolte with funding provided by the Smithsonian Institution Collections Care and Preservation Fund.  The finding aid was prepared by Kelly Nolte and Barbara Aikens.
altformavail: label: Existence and Location of Copies
content: Portions of the collection and material lent for microfilming are available on 35mm microfilm reels 2803, 267, 3470, D10, and D46 at the Archives of American Art offices and through interlibrary loan. Researchers should note that the arrangement of material described in the container inventory does not reflect the arrangement of the collection on microfilm.
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Photographs
label: Genre/Form
content: Manuscripts
label: Genre/Form
content: Interviews
label: Genre/Form
content: Diaries
label: Genre/Form
content: Transcripts
label: Genre/Form
content: Sketches
label: Genre/Form
content: Lectures
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: The papers of art historian E. P. Richardson measure 28.7 linear feet and date from 1814-1996, with the bulk of the materials dating from 1921-1996.  Within the papers are scattered biographical materials; acquisition files for Richardson's personal art collection; professional and personal correspondence with colleagues, art historians and critics, artists, museums, galleries, and dealers; numerous writings, including manuscripts and research files for his published books, articles, and lectures; general research notebooks and files compiled by Richardson on a wide variety of art-related topics and artists; professional and committee files; as well as a smaller amount of Constance C. Richardson's papers.  

Biographical materials include certificates, awards, and honorary degrees, membership information, personal and family photographs, a few sketches, and a transcript of an oral history Interview with E.P. Richardson conducted by the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1982.  

There are acquisitions files for the Richardsons' personal art collection that invoices, photographs, correspondence with galleries and collectors, appraisals, price lists, and artwork examination forms. 

Correspondence is with colleagues, art dealers, collectors, museums and museum curators, foreign scholars, organizations, galleries, artists, art historians and critics, publishers, editors, librarians, friends, and family.  Topics regard purchasing art for various collections, consultations about art and collecting including authentications and attributions, publishing, general art history, lectures, and personal matters, among other topics.  There is correspondence with the Archives of American Art, Castano Galleries, Lawrence Fleischman, James Thomas Flexner, Alfred V. Frankenstein, George Croce, Walter Heil, Earl Krentzin, Wilmarth Lewis, Russel Lynes, John Francis McDermott, Philadelphia Museum of Art, J. Hall Pleasants, Anna Rutledge, Charles Sellers, Smithsonian Institution, Regina Soria, Victor Spark, William Stevens, Robert Vose, William Woolfenden, and many others.  Scattered correspondence with artists is with Isabel Bishop, Louis Bouche, William Bostick, Eve Garrison, Edward Hopper, Irene Jungwirth, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Hughie Lee-Smith, Reginald Marsh, Gerald Mast, Georgia O'Keeffe, Charles Sheeler, Walt Speck, and John Wedda, among many others. The greatest extent of correspondence is with Andrew Wyeth, Harold Cohn, and Frederick Simper.  There is also personal correspondence with family and friends, and between E.P. and Constance Richardson. 

E.P. Richardson's prominence as an art historian, writer, and expert on collecting is well documented through his prolific writings. Materials include drafts, notes, typescripts, and outlines for articles, exhibition catalog essays, and lectures.  Also found are research files and publishing documentation for Richardson's books, including Washington Allston: A Study of the Romantic Artist in America (1948), Painting in America (1956), Charles Willson Peale and his World (1983), and American Romantic Painting (1944).  There are also miscellaneous notes and four diaries.  Two of the diaries comment on the social and cultural life of Detroit; the authenticity of paintings; Richardson's reflections on contemporary American painting, thoughts about museums, dealers, artists, and art historians (especially Wilhelm R. Valentiner); and travel.

Notebooks compiled by Richardson on a wide variety art-related topics cover nearly six decades. There are also numerous research files organized Richardson about individual artists and art history.  And, the art collector files contain reference materials about art collectors and their collections including Lamont du Pont Copeland, Michael W. Freeman, Nelson Rockefeller, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Allen, and the Marquis de Somerlous.  There are three index card file boxes containing bibliographic data on published books and articles.  

Professional and committee files document Richardson's professional and consulting work for the Art Quarterly, Detroit Institute of Arts, National Collection of Fine Arts, the National Portrait Gallery, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the John D. Rockefeller III collection, Winterthur Museum, the White House, and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 

Constance C. Richardson's papers include business and professional correspondence with various institutions, most extensively with the Macbeth Gallery.  In addition, there is a smaller amount of personal correspondence, photographs and slides of her artworks, printed materials, two illustrated notebooks on her work, and miscellaneous notes.  Also included is Constance's artist palette.
relatedmaterial: label: Related Materials
content: Related collections among the holdings of the Archives of American Art include an interview with E.P. Richardson dated February  6, 1978 conducted by Linda Downs; and several miscellaneous manuscripts that include an E.P. Richardson Letter to Rockwell Kent, June 15 1959;  E.P. Richardson letters to Lawrence Arthur Fleischman, May 13, 1962 and August 22 1954; and a Yasuo Kunioshi letter to E.P. Richardson, July 25 1948. 

Additional E.P. Richardson papers are found at the Detroit Institute of Arts and in the archives of the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum.
separatedmaterial: label: Separated Materials
content: The Archives of American Art also holds material lent for microfilming (reel D46) including E.P. Richardson's research material on Jeremiah P. Hardy. These materials are housed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum Library and are not described in the collection container inventory.