5 Collecting as Preservation
[C]ollecting is the accumulation of tangible things.
—G. Thomas Tanselle, from “A Rationale of Collecting” (1998)1
This chapter explores the nature of private and institutional collecting and its relationship to preservation. The intersection of preservation and collecting will be considered from the vantage point of librarian and art collector Jean Brown, as well as some of her forerunners who also gathered materials in new areas or had new approaches to collecting. Brown collected Dada and Surrealist art and their offshoots, Fluxus, mail art, and concrete poetry.2 Her materials pose many preservation challenges as items representing these art movements were ephemeral in composition or conception, or both. Her collection anticipates some of the problems inherent in digital media. Since some of the Fluxus and other forms of art were seen by their own creators as ephemeral, the ethics of collecting it—the necessary prelude to its preservation—raises two challenges: Should we save art that artists are willing to let die? And, how should we preserve it?
But first, what is collecting? There are many definitions and thousands of books written about it.3 I have selected G. Thomas Tanselle’s definition of collecting to begin this chapter because it is succinct and descriptive. He has intentionally left out the motivations for and end results of collecting. His justification is that no definition could fully “encompass all the causes and all the results of collecting.”4 It is an appropriate definition for this chapter because cause and effect are not primarily of interest here; what is important is the fact that the activity of collecting results in the creation of holdings that find their way into—or are built within—institutions and are subsequently studied, used, and preserved. Collecting is at the core of heritage institutions, and the nature of particular collections differentiates one institution from another. Collections define an academic institution, especially when they support classroom teaching, research, symposia, exhibitions, and other pursuits. Preservation makes collecting possible and collecting makes preservation necessary. Also, collecting itself is a form of preservation.
Tanselle’s elegant essay “A Rationale of Collecting” stands out in a crowded field. Of the writing of books and articles on collecting there is no end. This fact was brought home to me when I was doing research at the Getty Research Institute Library. More than five hundred books on the collecting and provenance of books and art line one wall.5 This wall’s range is not all that the library holds: other materials on the subject are in special collections, in the general stacks, and in storage, but it was striking to see so many books on the subject shelved in one place. A recent Online Computer Library Center (OCLC)6 WorldCat subject search on “collecting” retrieved millions of records. Book collecting is the largest category (over seven million hits) followed by art collecting (over six million). Even when the search is refined to winnow copies of the same titles, there remains a large number of items on the subject. There are scholarly journals devoted to the subject (such as The Book Collector and the Journal of the History of Collections) and many organizations, clubs, and societies—scholarly and hobbyist. But it is not just literature about collecting that interests us. Antiques Roadshow and a host of other television shows such as American Pickers and Market Warriors appeal to treasure hunters—or those just curious about the value of objects in their possession. Those who want to buy and sell objects or build collections can turn to a seemingly infinite online marketplace where eBay, viaLibri, BookFinder, AbeBooks, Amazon, and many other relevant Internet sites reside.
Collecting is about more than buying and selling things. Objects in general, and collections in particular, are part of our identities. Tanselle quotes a section of Lord Eccles’s book On Collecting in which Eccles describes how during the London blitz in 1940–1941, people whose homes were bombed regretted the loss of their things far more than the loss of their houses. Similarly, a colleague whose home was destroyed in the 1992 Siege of Sarajevo observed that she missed her family photo albums the most. In losing the albums she lost an important part of her family history. Survivors of natural disasters often express similar sentiments when they are interviewed by the media. For most people dwellings are merely protective, and they are acquired “all at once.” But possessions and collections are built over many years, or even generations, the result of hundreds of individual decisions, each one of which reflects someone’s personality, desires, and values. It is no wonder, then, that collections usually mean more to their owners than do the buildings that house them.
We are deeply connected to our things, as Sherry Turkle illustrates in Evocative Objects: Things We Think With.7 The chapters are essays written by her colleagues about objects of significance to them. The objects include stuffed animals, jewelry, appliances, musical instruments, tools, and comics. The variety is matched by the variety of stories about them. Turkle notes that the meaning of objects “shifts with time, place, and differences among individuals.”8 There is a distinction between cherished objects and collections: all collections are made up of objects, but a group of objects is not necessarily a collection. A collection is an accumulation of “tangible things” with a purpose. It is possible to cherish each item in a collection, but sometimes it is the collection as a whole that is treasured.
Collections can lead to the recapturing of family histories. In The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance, Edmund de Waal describes his quest to learn about his Russian-German-French-English-Dutch-Jewish ancestors—and the tragedies that they endured before and during World War II. His journey began with a netsuke collection that he inherited from his great-uncle Ignace Ephrussi (Iggie), in Tokyo. The netsuke were purchased in the 1870s in Paris by Iggie’s cousin Charles Ephrussi who collected Japanese objects, among many other things. This remarkable collection of small carved items, which were easy to hide, survived wars and many relocations—a poignant remembrance of the many losses and upheavals endured by de Waal’s family. The Ephrussi family history is inextricably related to their netsuke collection.
Every collection tells us something about the culture in which it was created—and the collectors. Objects convey layers of information. And while some may judge a collection of early printed books or Old Master paintings to be more “valuable” than a collection of nineteenth-century greeting cards, or outsider art (created by artists with no formal training, outside the established art world), we can learn from the old and the new, and the prestigious and the modest. Every collection, no matter its fiscal value, contains information of many kinds: about the creators of the objects, the times in which the objects were made or collected, the reasons why people create and collect, the institutions that are often the final repositories of objects and collections and the scholars who use them, the things they say or write about them, and so on. Of course, what is valued at any given time must also be measured against prevailing tastes. And tastes change constantly, in books, in art, in fashion, in scholarship, and in most areas of collectibles. The value of an object is sometimes inverse to what might be expected; a quilt by an unknown craftsperson might command a higher price than an etching by a well-known artist. Changes in scholarship have an impact on the value of a collection to a scholar, and much contemporary scholarship depends on collections of ephemeral objects. There are many measures of the value of an object—or a collection.
This last point is worth expatiating on. There is an inherent contradiction in collections of ephemera—objects that by their very nature, from their original conception and manufacture, were not meant to last, let alone be collected. (Though not all ephemera was intended to be transient; for example, baseball cards or paper dolls were ephemeral items that were designed to be kept.9) But people by their basic nature want to preserve things that have meaning to them. They may see this meaning as having a purpose to others as well, but that might not be the reason for their collecting. People’s reasons for collecting are not germane here; the fact that they collect is germane. And the fact that these collections wind up in institutions and become the objects of research is central to this discussion, which is to show that even the humblest materials can become central to scholarship. Individual items may not tell us much, but when they are assembled into coherent groups—collections—their potential for imparting knowledge becomes great. And the contradiction that I spoke of—the perpetuation of large numbers of items originally conceived of having only short lives—has created long-term markers of culture.
Some collectors are visionary and they recognize the significance of objects before others do. One example is Electra Havemeyer Webb (1888–1960). She was born to a wealthy family, and her parents, Henry Osborne (H.O.) and Louisine Havemeyer, were avid collectors of Impressionist and Asian art, as well as many other areas that were popular in the late nineteenth century. (The bulk of their collection was bequeathed to the Metropolitan Museum in 1929; see figure 5.1.) Electra developed her own interest in collecting as a child and was a serious collector by 1911, long before Henry Francis du Pont, Henry Ford, and others were collecting in related areas of American material culture.10 An early acquisition was a cigar store Indian, and that was the beginning of her life-long fascination with Americana. From her husband’s family’s extensive properties in Vermont, she was able to acquire land and buildings in which to house her collections.
Louisine Havemeyer and Her Daughter Electra, 1895, by Mary Cassatt. Pastel on wove paper, 24" × 30 1/2". Photography by Bruce Schwarz. Permission of the Shelburne Museum
Electra Havemeyer Webb took pleasure in collecting and preserving objects as well as advancing knowledge. One way to promote preservation and scholarship is to leave one’s collection to a museum. The great size of Webb’s holdings made that impossible, so in 1947 she created the Shelburne Museum, with a large and diverse collection that included weathervanes, circus paraphernalia, trade signs, quilts, hunting decoys, and carriages, housed in a number of buildings and on the grounds. Many of these objects would certainly have been discarded had Webb not acquired them—this is preservation at its most basic. Because of her stature and diligence, and her ability to acquire so much, she bestowed legitimacy to a new area of collecting. As I have said, amassing groups of ephemeral items can yield important collections, offering endless possibilities for scholars of material culture. Museums and libraries—and other kinds of institutions with such holdings—prove to us that our cultural heritage is worth saving, regardless of how “high” or “low” the materials in the collection are.
There have probably been collectors for as long as there have been items to collect. The Renaissance inspired many members of ruling families, nobility, and the church to collect, and some of these collections were placed in the public domain. In Italy in particular, there are many municipal holdings that were started by prominent families centuries ago; some of their names are still familiar to us, such as Medici, Farnese, and Borghese. (In the United States, collecting is a more recent preoccupation, in part because most early European settlers to the United States had neither the time nor the means to be serious collectors.)
One type of collection, the Wunderkammer, also known as a Cabinet of Curiosities, was particularly popular in Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (figure 5.2), though there are examples through the nineteenth century, including in the United States. They are well described by Florence Fearrington, a collector of books on the subject, who has curated several exhibitions about them.
Cabinet of Curiosity, Prague, 2016. Photo courtesy of Erica Ruscio, photographer
A Wunderkammer is a room of wondrous things both natural and artificial (i.e., man-made), a chamber of objects noteworthy for their beauty, or their rarity; or their artistic or scholarly or monetary value.… they declined in the later eighteenth century, when a more systematic approach to the accumulation of natural and man-made objects developed.… Wunderkammer creators can be roughly divided into two main classes: (1) the nobility, and (2) physicians, apothecaries, and professional and amateur students of natural history.11
The collectors of these “rooms” and “cabinets” often categorized—and drew connections between and among—the items. They were seen as microcosms of the world. Some of these collections were intentionally gathered for research and study. In many cases, the collectors created catalogs, guides, and essays. (The Grolier exhibit that Fearrington curated included 137 such catalogs or guides.) Wunderkammers are precursors of museums, botanical gardens, and even circus freak shows.12 Related to the Wunderkammer is the Kunstkammer, whose focus was on art rather than on natural history. As Fearrington’s definition suggests, the original impetus of the Wunderkammer was to collect marvelous things gathered from nature. This attitude—wonder, marveling—made these collections of interest and were the reason for collecting in the first place. But human-made objects could elicit these same responses, and for most Wunderkammers, works of art found their way into these collections.
In 2014 the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston opened a new Kunstkammer Gallery, which includes precious objects, fine and decorative art, and exotic materials. The curators have filled the room with exquisite human-made objects and natural wonders, at the same time creating an intimate space that holds many treasures. iPads have been placed in the gallery to make it possible for visitors to see the fine details of the objects. Since such rooms were meant to show off the collecting prowess of the owner, the MFA has filled the room with fine objects including items that would have been popular during the height of the Kunstkammer craze, such as miniature paintings, furniture, clocks, automatons, and precious stones.13
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Book collecting has a long and colorful history. Catalogs of private collections were often compiled by the collector, or by the collector’s heirs or executors for estate sales. Tales of eccentric collectors abound, including accounts of voracious collectors whose desires outstrip their resources. Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792–1872) is most often cited for his excesses as a collector; he amassed a collection of some hundred thousand books and manuscripts and, despite his considerable wealth, he could not always pay for them (figure 5.3). His collection was sold in numerous lots from the late nineteenth- to the early twenty-first century. While he considered bequeathing his collection to the British government, he never got beyond preliminary discussions, in large part because of the unreasonable restrictions that he wished to place on access to his materials.
“Portrait of Sir Thomas Phillipps,” 1860. Permission of the Grolier Club, New York City. The collector poses with two items at the sale of the Rev. John Mitford’s manuscripts on July 9, 1860: a tenth-century Horace (Phillipps MSS no. 15363), now in the Houghton Library, Harvard University; and a thirteenth-century copy of the gospels in Armenian [Phillipps MSS no. 15364], now in the Chester Beatty Collection, Dublin. The Grolier Club Library’s copy of the photograph, which was taken shortly after the sale, is annotated by Sir Thomas with a description of the manuscripts.
As much as Phillipps loved to amass materials, he believed that he had a preservation role to play by saving manuscripts from being broken apart—still a commonplace practice in his day (and not unknown today). One of his justifications for collecting so much was that he thought he could save that much more. As A. N. L. Munby and Nicolas Barker show, Phillipps’s aim was “to have one copy of every book in the world.”14 Phillipps has been described as greedy, bigoted, and vain. Nonetheless, he amassed one of the greatest book collections in history.15 As I have said, the collector’s motives are not my focus in this chapter. But in Phillipps’s case they are germane since he saw himself as a preservationist. It was anathema to him to see a butcher wrapping meat for his customers in leaves of vellum. For him—and ultimately for us—even scraps of manuscripts contained information. Our cultural heritage is that much richer through his preserving these historical items. Preservation takes many forms. In Phillipps’s case, his collecting went far beyond the eccentric tendencies of some of the collectors depicted in Nicholas A. Basbanes’s A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Biliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books.
Sometimes a “gentle madness” crosses the line into another type of collector: the thief. Many items have been stolen from libraries and museums for the purpose of personal collecting. The most notorious book thief was Stephen C. Blumberg, who stole more than 23,000 books worth millions of dollars from libraries across the United States and Canada to enlarge his own specially created library in Ottumwa, Iowa. He was arrested in 1990. During his trial it came out that Blumberg sought to rescue and preserve the items that he stole. Basbanes included an essay on Blumberg in his book Gentle Madness because, although Blumberg was indeed a thief, his real aim was not financial gain but to have his own collection of remarkable, valuable books and manuscripts. In his case, stealing and building a great collection were one and the same activity.16 This is but one example of ethical lapses in “collecting.”
With far fewer resources than Phillipps, Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) similarly never seemed to have enough money for all the books he wished to acquire. Unlike Phillipps, who purchased books by the shelf and the shop, Jefferson was selective about his purchases. He sold his books—the largest personal collection in the United States—to the Library of Congress to replenish its collection of some three thousand volumes that were destroyed when the British burned the Capitol in 1814.17 Jefferson sold his books for far less than he paid for them; he could not afford to give them away. True to his passion for collecting, after the sale he immediately began assembling a new library. In relation to preservation, he is best known for his observation, in a 1791 letter to Ebenezer Hazard, that America needed to have books in “a multiplication of copies, as shall place them beyond reach of accident.”18
Jefferson’s interest in book collecting never flagged. Toward the end of his life he was involved with the creation of the University of Virginia Library, selecting books and even designing the beautiful, stately rotunda that housed them (figure 5.4).19 He was the rare collector who not only developed subject categories and a classification scheme for organizing his books, but also designed the spaces to house them. “I cannot live without books,” Jefferson said. Sadly, his personal library did not outlive him for long: to pay off his considerable debts, his heirs sold his books at auction.
The Rotunda, University of Virginia (exterior and interior), 2016 and 2018. Photos courtesy of Jane Penner, photographer
Figure 5.4 (continued)
John Carter describes collectors in England who planned for the eventual donation of their collections to the British Museum, public libraries, or universities. This example of public spiritedness was also followed by less wealthy collectors such as David Garrick, the actor whose collection of plays went to the British Museum.20 Carter rightly points out that some wealthy collectors are less disposed “to afford such public beneficence.”21 Their collections get passed down to heirs, or are purchased by dealers, or are auctioned off. This catch-and-release approach to collecting may be the preference of the collector, or the necessity of the heirs. But many institutions have been—and will continue to be—the beneficiaries of the generosity of collectors. Some of the greatest special collections in institutions were the result of the efforts of private collectors.
Great private collections have often been acquired by libraries directly (by gift or purchase from the collector) or indirectly through auctions or dealers. Library and museum curators have built superb collections item by item as well as by acquiring outside collections. Collection building is often a collaborative effort among institutions, private collectors, booksellers, auction houses, librarians, and others. Many museum and library directors have written about institutional collecting.22
With regard to the collectors considered in this chapter, Electra Havemeyer Webb started her own museum and Thomas Phillipps’s books were sold at auction. One of Thomas Jefferson’s libraries was sold to the Library of Congress while his final library was dispersed at auction. Jean Brown’s collection of some six thousand items was sold to the J. Paul Getty Center in 1985. Like the other three collectors, she had a distinctive approach to her avocation.
Jean (Levy) Brown (1911–1994) was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of a rare books dealer. She developed an early interest in art history, though she eventually became a librarian when she moved to Springfield, Massachusetts, in search of work. In 1936 she married Leonard Brown, an insurance agent from Springfield, and the couple made their home there.23 (See figure 5.5.)24 The Browns collected new art, purchasing Dadaist and Surrealist art before they discovered the Fluxus movement, which included visual artists, poets, composers, and designers, and was an outgrowth of Dada and Surrealism. A noteworthy aspect of the Browns’ collecting is that they acquired not just art objects, but also manifestos, newspapers, posters, and other ephemera that documented the movement (although there is a fine line as to what constitutes the art and what constitutes its documentation). Eventually Jean Brown also collected artists’ books. She became friends with George Maciunas, the leader of Fluxus. The Getty finding aid for the collection describes Jean Brown’s approach:
Jean Brown, n.d. Photo courtesy of Jonathan Brown
Brown’s primary goal was to assemble a study collection. She acquired comprehensively on the topics mentioned above. This included standing orders with some small presses to acquire all of their output. Her early appreciation of books lead [sic] naturally to an interest in artists’ books. If an artist’s work interested her she asked the artist to create a book for her archive. In the early 1970s, her son Jon sent notices about the archive to every art history graduate program. Scholars and graduate students with valid research interests were invited to use the collection.25
Leonard Brown died in 1971 and Jean moved into a Shaker seed house in Tyringham, Massachusetts. The house, itself a work of art, became a gathering place for Fluxus artists. She developed close relationships with artists whose work she collected, including George Maciunas, Dick Higgins, Ken Friedman, and Peter Frank. Some of them, in Brown’s upstairs workroom, created works for the archive. It is tempting to think of this Shaker dwelling as seeding Fluxus creativity.
Jean and Leonard’s son, Jonathan Brown, gives a vivid description of his parents’ collecting. They were early collectors, by Springfield standards, of contemporary art. Their passion for it led them to the art galleries of New York City where they met and befriended many contemporary artists. After acquiring a copy of Robert Motherwell’s The Dada Painters and Poets, they decided to collect the documents and publications of Dada and Surrealism.26 Brown describes his parents as engaged and engaging collectors. One also gains that impression from studying their archive at the Getty.
There have been a number of challenges associated with preserving Fluxus materials: the works of art might be on poor or fragile materials; mail art (creating small scale art works and sending them through mail) may have been damaged en route to its destination; items of “new” media become obsolete. A more subtle problem is the complexity of preserving performative art. If an event was not filmed or taped, then we are reliant on posters, programs, or flyers that advertised those performances. Yet these may not accurately capture what actually happened at the event. For example, artists who never performed might be listed on a program, or those not listed might have performed. While this is true for any live event, it is particularly true given the improvisational nature of Fluxus art. The role of people who participated in Fluxus is as important as is hearing from those who actually attended the events.27 While those who participated in or observed Fluxus happenings can still be interviewed, the media used to record the interviews will also need to be preserved.
There are also preservation and conservation challenges with the Fluxus art works. A partial listing of the items at the Getty reveals why: there are event scores in mixed media, and idea boxes, games, sound recordings (including cassette tapes), moving images, and video recordings. Each of these media has its own requirements for proper storage and handling. (Some approaches to the challenges of new media are considered in chapter 7, “What Are We Really Trying to Preserve?”)
Jean Brown played a performative role in the Fluxus movement as mentor, hostess, and collector. The Getty collection includes clips of Brown in her home with Fluxus objects. Her collection is particularly rich for students of Fluxus, because it invites us to be part of the movement as well. I dwell on Brown’s collection here because it reveals some of the challenges we as preservers of cultural heritage face, and issues touched on throughout this book: the nature of collections and their collectors; the vicissitudes of the world; the tremendously varying kinds of things collected; institutional challenges; and much more. In its own way, collecting is a microcosm of the larger world of preservation.
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In Tanselle’s definition of collecting, there is one gap that limits a full consideration of preservation and collecting—the exclusion of “intangible things.” He explains that people may collect memories for which there can be no physical possession, and that there is a difference between “an internal repertoire of ideas and an external grouping of tangible materials.”28 However, memories become stories, rituals, and traditions, and there are aspects of the intangible that can be collected since these can be recorded in analog media.
For example, a storyteller is a collector of stories. In oral cultures, stories (or histories) may be passed from generation to generation and preserved only in their transmission. In fact, family stories are passed down orally between generations even in cultures that record their histories in a tangible form. Preservation ends when the last person in a family or tribe dies—unless someone is around to record that history. In such cases, the heritage becomes tangible—if it is preserved.
There are inherent differences between oral and written cultures. The oral tradition is performative, so each rendering of a story is different from the previous version. Once a story is recorded or written down, it becomes fixed; what is preserved represents only one version, or performance, of the story. Thus it is not possible to determine what the “original” version is, if the concept of “original” even makes sense. What may be lost on the listener (or reader of the transcript) is the knowledge that there are inherent variations in oral transmission.29
Recordings of oral traditions are collected by institutions of many kinds. In some circumstances, restrictions may need to be placed on use of and access to the recordings, out of respect for the customs of a particular tribe, for example, or because the recordings were made illegally, and therefore some people think they should be destroyed. There are ethical issues that must be addressed when recordings are made without (or even with) the knowledge of the person or people being recorded. The point is that in some cases, people may wish to have their histories or customs preserved for posterity. The preservation of a recording makes it possible to preserve intangible culture in a tangible medium—though in most cases only one version is being preserved, and the medium is not a 100 percent faithful record of the intangible culture.
UNESCO adopted the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2003. It states: “Cultural heritage does not end at monuments and collections of objects. It also includes traditions or living expressions inherited from our ancestors and passed on to our descendants, such as oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals, festive events, knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe or the knowledge and skills to produce traditional crafts.”30
Furthermore, the convention states that intangible cultural heritage becomes heritage only when the communities, groups, or individuals who “create, maintain and transmit it”31 recognize it as such. This community-based perspective means that there are many people who have a right to weigh in on their cultural heritage. A diversity of voices leads to many points of view. These perspectives relate directly to collecting and preservation. Who gets to decide what is collected? And who determines what is preserved? These key questions are part of a much larger picture. There are also ancillary questions: who will do the actual collecting? Who will store (i.e., preserve) it all? At whose expense? For how long? To what end? Who will [be permitted to] use a collection? How will it be used? And so on.
Intangible culture becomes tangible if it is recorded in some way. As mentioned earlier, the intangible can become tangible. But the tangible can also become intangible. For example, anything created can be destroyed; and something that is created or presented online can disappear. We usually refer to analog or digital objects that may disappear as ephemeral, but items intended to be permanent can also disappear. Collecting may or may not be a hedge against disappearance.
Collecting is the accumulation of tangible and intangible things. It may not ensure preservation, but it is the necessary first step. We are what we collect—and preserve.
This chapter has looked at collecting, with a focus on essentially small things: books and manuscripts. Though a single book may be seen as a monument (the Book of Kells, Gutenberg’s forty-two-line bible, the First Folio of Shakespeare’s works), and although even a single document may also be called a monument (the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence), we do not generally think of books and manuscripts as monumental. But collections certainly are. One or even ten items could have great research value. But many libraries have amassed large collections in particular subjects, be it first editions, journals, children’s books, publications on arctic exploration, or any other area—clearly these are monumental resources. Hence, collections can have world-class possibilities for scholars, and their preservation is key to our accessing cultural heritage on a monumental scale.
Notes