Kress Collection Digital Archive
February 24 2021
Picture: kress.nga.gov
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The National Gallery of Art in Washington DC (NGA) have launched a new website to host the digital archive of the Kress Collection. The collection features materials relating to the collection of Samuel Henry Kress (d.1955), who gifted a great deal of art to US institutions. His entire collection consisted of over 3,000 works of art and was dispersed across 90 art galleries and museums. The NGA alone received 376 Paintings, 94 Sculptures, 1,307 Bronzes and 38 Drawings.
As the website explains:
The Kress Collection Digital Archive virtually unites objects in the Kress Collection and illustrates their history, acquisition, condition and care, and distribution. Gallery Archives staff compiled data about objects, related archival materials, object history (acquisitions and distributions), and associated people and organizations (artists, institutions, dealers and collectors, and historians and conservators). High-quality digital images of objects were obtained, and over 10,000 historical and conservation documents and images from the holdings of the Gallery Archives, the National Gallery of Art painting conservation department, and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation Archive have been digitized so far. The significant scope of this resource will support new, complex art historical studies benefiting researchers from various disciplines.
