Suida-Manning Preservation Project Summary

The Suida-Manning Papers consist of personal and professional papers belonging to art historian and collector William Suida (1877-1959), his daughter Bertina (1922-1992), and her husband Robert Manning (1924-1996). This mixed media collection offers a rich set of primary materials, but its unprocessed status and unstable preservation condition prevent it from being open for active research. Much of the collection arrived at the Jack S. Blanton Museum having been thrown pêle mêle into boxes. Due to time and budget constraints, the staff at the Blanton simply transferred the material to filing cabinets, flat boxes, and shelving upon its receipt. The usability and survival of the collection is threatened by this unsuitable housing—over- and undersized items are stored (often without folders) in filing cabinet drawers that are alternately too full or too empty; other materials reside in dirty and damaged legacy letter boxes; still other items are damaged as they shift in folder-less and ill-sized new flat metal-edged boxes. Many items in the collection suffer from planar distortion, embrittlement, dustiness, discoloration, tears, and folds related in part to improper housing. At present, simply using the collection causes damage, since even opening a drawer rips and tears the oversized items contained therein. Accordingly, it is vital that the Suida-Manning Papers be surveyed, rehoused, and moved to proper shelving.

In order to assess and prioritize the preservation needs of is collection, we propose conducting a preservation survey on a stratified random sample of the materials from each of the current container types. The findings of this survey will then allow us to develop and implement rehousing recommendations and transfer the material to appropriately-sized folders, boxes and shelving. For those items judged to be of particular societal and research value, specific conservation treatments will be suggested and undertaken. These preservation actions will help stabilize the collection so that, as intellectual control is established, it can be opened for research.

The Suida-Manning Papers offer an important test case for developing effective preservation assessment strategies for large, unprocessed, mixed media collections. The aspects that make the collection such a preservation challenge—the absence of intellectual control, the diversity of object types, the lack of previous preservation treatment, the problematic nature of its current housing—are precisely those that make the survey tools and tactics developed to treat it so potentially useful for future preservation projects. By devising and testing innovative methodologies—such as using millimeter measurements to identify sample items for surveying collections whose size is unknown—our project will help museums and libraries address the preservation needs of their archival backlogs.

Preserving the Suida-Manning Papers will not only contribute to the field of preservation management, but also benefit researchers in a variety of fields. The collection has enormous research potential for scholars interested in studying European art between 1300 and 1700, the specific paintings of the Suida-Manning art collection, and the institutional history of art collecting and art history, fields in which William Suida and the Mannings were active participants. The collection also stands as an invaluable internal resource for the Jack S. Blanton Museum as it manages the provenance and preservation of the 700 paintings that comprise Suida-Manning Art Collection, one of its most prestigious collections.

Our team of conservators and preservation administrators offers an ideal combination of skill sets for this project. Several team members come from art history/museum backgrounds, the majority have extensive experience with photographic and photomechanical prints (which comprise approximately one half of the collection), and together we have facility with all of the principal languages found in the collection (English, Italian, German, and French). We are passionately committed to the scholarly importance and education potential of the Suida-Manning Papers and accordingly will seek out the most effective solutions to ensure its preservation.