Notes to the Researcher

This website provides free access to exhaustive documentation about the 102 paintings featured in the hardback volume Corcoran Gallery of Art: American Paintings to 1945. Each of the 102 documents, known as apparatuses, supports the research and interpretations found in the book’s essays. The apparatuses present information related to the full history of the object and are fully searchable. In addition to basic facts about these physical objects—medium, dimensions, and inscriptions—they also contain comprehensive listings of title(s), provenance, exhibition history, and references, plus technical notes (the summary of a conservator’s physical examination of the painting), data on related works, and information on frames. Except where indicated, each exhibition and reference entry on an apparatus derives from, and corresponds to, a print source; these documents are stored in the Corcoran’s curatorial files, which may be consulted by making an appointment with the Gallery Registrar’s Office. Each apparatus features a color illustration of the painting documented; frames known or believed to be original are reproduced in the illustrations. Most apparatuses are footnoted; short citations in the footnotes correspond to full citations in the References section of the apparatus. The apparatuses were developed over a period when access to web-based research grew rapidly; as a result, while they are extensive they cannot be exhaustive, and will be updated periodically.

Registration to access these apparatuses is free, but required. Your registration allows us to track usership, which is important as we report to our funders and other constituencies. We will not share or sell your contact information.

The abbreviation CGA (for Corcoran Gallery of Art) has been used throughout. The Union List of Artist Names (ULAN), a controlled vocabulary resource managed by the J. Paul Getty Trust, was consulted as a guide to artists’ names (http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabularies/ulan/). We have made every effort to restore to each featured work the original title that the artist gave it, the title used during the artist’s lifetime, or the title under which the object was first exhibited or published. Where the original title of a painting is in a foreign language, it appears in parentheses following the title in English. In rare cases, a painting has been so well known by a certain title that it has been retained to avoid confusion; in others, errors in transcription, spelling, or nomenclature in original titles have been corrected and explained in the endnotes. A portrait that was not given a title by the artist is referred to by the sitter’s proper name at the time of the sitting and is identified as fully as possible. If a female sitter was married at the time of the sitting, her married name appears in parentheses, after the primary title. Honorifics, such as “General” or “President,” and courtesy titles, such as “Mr.,” have been omitted from the titles of all portraits and are instead acknowledged in the accompanying entry. Dimensions for featured works were measured in both inches and centimeters, height before width; those that fall within a range are listed by their largest dimension. Unless otherwise noted, the medium for each painting has been estimated, not analyzed.

The following conventions have been used for dating:

To search within an apparatus, use your browser's search function. However, you must first expand all of the sections within which you wish to search.

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