Descriptive Summary

Title: Davison Art Rooms Exhibition Catalogs Collection, 1928-1949

Collection Number: 1000-45

Extent: 1 half-size Hollinger box (0.2 cubic ft.).

Abstract: Catalogs from Wesleyan University’s first art gallery.

Administrative Information

Access Restrictions: none.

Preferred Citation: [Item], Davison Art Rooms Exhibition Catalogs Collection, Collection 1000-45, Special Collections & Archives, Olin Library, Wesleyan University, Middletown CT.

Publication Rights: All rights reside with the repository. For permission to reproduce or publish, please contact Special Collections & Archives.

Processed by: Jeffrey Makala, 2001.

Scope and Contents Note

The Davison Art Rooms were created at the opening of Olin Memorial Library in 1928 as a tribute to George W. (Wesleyan class of 1892) and Harriet Baldwin Davison. Three rooms on the south side of the third floor of Olin Library were dedicated to the exhibition of prints and works of art. The Davisons had gradually and quietly begun donating parts of their print collection to the university at this time, and these gifts formed the basis of some of the first exhibitions of the Davison Art Rooms. The Davison Art Rooms were closed and their contents transferred to the newly-constructed Davison Art Center for its opening in 1952.

This collection contains exhibition catalogs and exhibition lists from the Davison Art Rooms. Arrangement is chronological.

Related Materials

• Davison Art Center Exhibition Catalogs Collection, 1952-, Collection 1000-21.
• Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery Exhibition Catalogs Collection, 1973-, Collection 1000-48.

Container List

Box	Folder
1	1	1928-1938
		Loan Exhibition of Paintings and Etchings. May 17 – June 18, 1928.
		Loan Exhibition of Fine Prints by Dürer and Rembrandt from the Collection of Mr. And Mrs. George W. Davison. May 17 – June 18, 1928.
		Exhibits, Olin Memorial Library. May 21 – June 2. June 14, 15, 16, [1929].
		Art Exhibitions at Wesleyan University: Lectures and Announcements. 1933-1934.
		Includes Roman Baroque Church Facades. November 15 – December 1, 1933.
		The Urban Vernacular of the Thirties, Forties, and Fifties: American Cities Before the Civil War. Photographs by Berenice Abbott. 1934.
		Romanesque Churches of Apulia: Photographs from the Kingsley Porter Collection. November 1934.
		Wesleyan University Architectural Exhibitions: French Houses of the Early Fifteenth Century. June 1935. Catalog by Henry-Russell Hitchcock.
		Landscape Prints: Four Exhibitions of Prints Loaned from the Collection of Mr. & Mrs. George W. Davison: I. October 15 - November 15, 1937.
		Catalog of paintings by Lilla Cabot Perry. November 7 – December 6, 1937.
		Prints of Architecture: Four Exhibitions of Prints Loaned from the Collection of Mr. & Mrs. George W. Davison: II. December, 1937.
		Wesleyan Print Collection: Commencement 1938: 500 Years of Prints. 1938.
		Wesleyan Print Collection: Contemporary American and European Prints from the Collection and a Loan. October 13, 1938.
		Loan Exhibition of Watercolors from a Selection of Fine Arts of the United States Treasury Department. November 2-15, 1938.
		Wesleyan Print Collection: Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century Engravings, Woodcuts, Etchings. December, 1938.

1	2	1939-1940
		Etchings by Rembrandt and his Contemporaries. January, 1939.
		Loan Exhibition of Etchings and Drawings by John Taylor Arms. April, 1939.
		Wesleyan Print Collection: Exhibition of Prints by Whistler and His Contemporaries. Commencement, 1939.
		Wadsworth Antheneum: Prints of the Seventeenth Century. 1939.
		Loan Exhibition of Modern and Old Prints. Commencement, 1940.
		Significant Prints: Old and Modern. October, 1940.
1	3	1941
		Prints by Goya and his Contemporaries. February, 1941.
		Drypoints by Philip Kappel. May 16-30, 1941.
		Prints by Rembrandt and Whistler: A Comparative Exhibition. Commencement, 1941.
		Paintings and Prints by Russell T. Limbach. Until October 13th [1941].
		Engravings and Etchings by William Hogarth. Until November 5th, 1941.
1	4	1942-1949
		Etching Since the Sixteenth Century. February, 1942.
		Oil Paintings and Watercolors, Bill Darr. April, 1942.
		A Gift of Prints in Honor of George W. Davison. Commencement, 1942.
		A Collector’s Favorite Prints: Selections from the Wesleyan Print Collection. [Selected by George W. Davison]. Commencement, 1942.
		Contemporary British Prints. October 3 – November 8, 1942.
		Sea Paintings by Frederick J. Waugh, N. A. from the Collection of Mr. & Mrs. Ernest E. Quantell. June, July, 1945.
		The Wesleyan University Print Collection [catalogue of holdings]. May, 1949.