Blog Entry #1 - Exhibition Catalogs

(Cover of exhibition catalog for the Renoir exhibition, held at the MFA from October 9, 1985 to January 5, 1986. Photo source: Lisa A. Welter)

What is an exhibition catalog?

Simply put, exhibition catalogs are the primary documentation of a gathering of works of art for a short-term event: a museum or gallery exhibition. Published by the sponsoring institution(s) they contain valuable documentation of the creation of the exhibition and the selection of the works contained therein. As valuable forms of documentation, they are collected by museum, libraries, collectors and museum exhibition visitors. Here are the typical components of an exhibition catalog:

• Exhibition schedule
• Contents page, including name(s) of author(s) who contributed to the catalog entries
• Sponsor's statement
• Lenders to the exhibition
• List of trustees
• Funders
• Director's forward
• Acknowledgements
• Essay(s)
• Catalog entries
• Chronology
• Bibliography (sometimes including exhibition history of work)
• Index

The individual catalog entries can include extensive information about the individual works featured:

• Catalog number
• Artist's name, nationality, dates
• Title of work
• Where created and date created
• Material or medium
• Dimensions
• Signature/inscription information
• Credit line
• Accession number
• Explanatory text
• Provenance
• Bibliography or references
• Exhibition history
• Condition
• Related works
• Remarks

Source: Association of Art Editors. https://artedit.org/style-guide.php#exhibitcat (accessed October 1, 2015).

(Renoir exhibition catalog, page 217; photo source: Lisa A. Welter)

Importance

As one of several "object-based" publications frequently requested by museum curators for research purposes, exhibition catalogs often make up a significant portion of the art museum library collection.

The art museum library "maintains responsibility for acquiring, processing, describing and accessing" documentation related to the institutions exhibitions, in addition to procuring and maintaining a collection of exhibitions held at other institutions. (Bunting, p. 157)

Catalog exchanges

Even smaller art museum libraries can have sizable collections of exhibition catalogs due to the common practice of catalog exchange programs with other museums, libraries and galleries. (Smedstad, p. 94) Exchange programs are often formalized partnerships with other museum libraries, but the cost of participation can be steep:  in addition to the publication costs for the catalog by the museum hosting the exhibition, if participating in an exchange, institutions must pay for packaging materials, postage and the time and labor of the staff member(s) involved in the process.(Tompkins-Baldwin, p. 97) As an example, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Research Library was noted as participating in a “multinational exchange with over 2,000 institutions.” (Rominski, p. 102)

Primary users

• Curators
• Researchers
• Education staff
• Docents
• Exhibition visitors

Access

Several online databases of Exhibition Catalogs to explore: 

The website of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Renwick Museum provides access to a searchable database of catalogues, the Pre-1877 Art Exhibition Catalogue Index. This database “indexes 1,057 exhibition catalogues, broadsides and gallery notices.” 

The Royal Academy of Art Collections has digitized catalogs for their exhibitions from 1870 to 1939. The catalogs are available to browse or search. 

Worldcat, a global union catalog, searches the collections of over 72,000 world wide partner institutions and is a valuable locating tool for exhibition catalogs.

Important issues

Rising publication costs have had many institutions exploring on-line exhibition catalogs or print-to-order exhibition catalogs. Copyright issues and permission fees are further complicated by the demand (and potential cost savings) of on-line exhibition catalogs. Permission fees are often directed for one-time use in the publication of traditional print catalogs; artists and the estates of artists balk at the lack of intellectual control of the images and concerns over reproduction. A concern is that copyright and use issues complicated by on-line initiatives will impact the curatorial process in determining which artists will be included in a planned exhibit, or which are to be avoided. In a Report to the College Art Association regarding copyright, permissions and fair use among visual artists, and the academic and museum visual arts communities, writers noted: 

But with each new innovation a host of new copyright challenges emerges. Old distinctions that traditionally facilitated copyright licensing decisions—noncommercial/commercial; educational/consumer based; scholars/general public—are breaking down. Digital publishing itself is evolving awkwardly around obstacles that include but are not limited to copyright issues, as Maureen Whalen has noted, and there is continued resistance to the notion of digital publishing in academia. (Source: Aufderheide, p. 34)

Still the increased access to exhibition catalogs afforded by union catalogs and digitization projects of collections undertaken by museums and other cultural heritage institutions provides greater access to researchers to the valuable information contained in art exhibition catalogs. Finding solutions that protect the intellectual property of the creators of the works while providing increased access in a digital age will continue to be a contested issue, particularly in the case of living artists and copyrighted works.

Bibliography

Aufderheide, Patricia, Peter Jaszi, Bryan Bello, and Tijana Milosevic. "Copyright, Permissions, and Fair Use among Visual Artists and the Academic and Museum Visual Arts Communities: An Issues Report." College Art Association. February 2014. http://www.collegeart.org/pdf/FairUseIssuesReport.pdf (accessed October 04, 2015).

Bunting, Lynda. "Traces of Exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles." In Art Museum Libraries and Librarianship, edited by Joan M. Benedetti, 93-95. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2007.

Dobrzynski, Judith H. "Do Exhibition Catalogues Have a Future? What is it?" www.artsjournal.com. September 19, 2010. http://www.artsjournal.com/realcleararts/2010/09/exhibition_catalogues.html (accessed October 2, 2015).

Rominski, Barbara. "Exhibition Catalog Exchanges as Part of the Collection Development Program at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Research Library." In Art Museum Libraries and Librarianship, edited by Joan M. Benedetti, 102-105. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2007.

Royal Academy of Art. http://www.racollection.org.uk/ixbin/indexplus?_IXACTION_=file&_IXFILE_=templates/pages/exhibition_list.html (accessed October 3, 2015).

Smedstad, Deborah Barlow. "Art Museum Library Collections and Collection Development." In Art Museum Libraries and Librarianship, edited by Joan M. Benedetti, 93-95. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2007.

Smithsonian Institution. Research: Pre-1877 Art Exhibition Catalogue Index. 2015.

http://www.americanart.si.edu/research/programs/1877/ (accessed 10 02, 2015).

Tompkins-Baldwin, Linda. "Actually Acquiring: Acquisition Strategies for the Small Art Museum Library." By Art Museum Libraries and Librarianship, edited by Joan M. Benedetti, 96-98. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2007.