Rachel McMasters Miller Hunt's botanical collections of books, art, manuscripts, and portraits are known for their depth and fine quality, reflecting her enthusiasm and expertise in plants, gardens, books, and history. She was determined that her collections be "living" resources—not only preserved but also curated actively and used productively in the service of science and scholarship. To those ends, we continue to develop and enhance the collections at Hunt Institute, working to make them accessible and to preserve them for the future. We have an international audience and a small but growing group of interested donors. You can help to strengthen our collections and programs through material and/or monetary gifts.
Donor Recognition
In addition to acknowledging donations by letter, we mention them in our Bulletin and on our Web site, and in pertinent exhibition catalogues. Of course, donors who wish to remain anonymous could be listed as such or may decline any official mention.
Material Gifts
The Art Department collects excellent quality botanical watercolors, drawings (pastel, ink, graphite, and pencil) and prints, preferably in good condition, from all time periods. We receive artworks from galleries, collectors, artists and publishers. We are particularly desirous to acquire artworks accepted to our triennial International Exhibitions of Botanical Art & Illustration and subsequent travel shows. Some authors and illustrators are surprised that we welcome and catalogue all of the artworks produced for a publication, such as the 121 ink drawings for Janice Glimn-Lacy and Peter B. Kaufman’s Botany Illustrated: Introduction to Plants, Major Groups, Flowering Plant Families (New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1984).
Be assured your gift will be preserved in a museum environment with proper temperature, humidity, lighting and security controls. Also, your gift will be included in exhibitions and travel shows as appropriate and available in our world-renown collection for study by artists and scholars in perpetuity. Artists need not be concerned about our releasing their images for outside publication since the Hunt Institute never assumes copyright.
Photomechanical reproductions, laserprints or other facsimiles are not catalogued but deposited in an ancillary collection. If you are considering a specific gift, please describe it to us and mail a photograph before sending the original so that we can consider it for inclusion in our collection.
Donor Arrangements
Our letter of acknowledgment will include a list of the material received. Any artworks deemed of insufficient quality will, of course, be returned to the donor.
We are not permitted by the IRS, nor are we sufficiently knowledgeable, to make appraisals on items donated to us; however, if we are aware of a prior comparable sale, we will be pleased to share that information.
Monetary Gifts
Monetary donations to Hunt Institute’s Art Department are tax deductible. Two special funds include monies independent of fiscal year restrictions:
Anne Ophelia Todd Dowden Art Acquisition Fund
This fund is named in honor of the late artist Anne Ophelia Todd Dowden (1907–2007). A 1930 graduate of Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University), Anne Ophelia is considered America’s leading botanical artist of the past century. After working as a teacher and a textile designer, Anne Ophelia turned her attention to botanical illustration in the 1950s, embarking on another career. She worked from specimens to achieve correct and exacting details in her artworks and with botanists to ensure accuracy. Fascinated by the natural world and its connections, especially pollination, she wanted to educate, interest and engage the public about plants. To this end, she illustrated nine books and wrote and illustrated eleven for which she also did the design, layout and the publication preparation herself decades before desktop publishing. Her passion for botanical art, science and education made her so special and inspired a generation of artists. She also maintained numerous contacts with botanists, artists, and botanical gardens, and whenever she spotted new artistic talent, she made recommendations to the Hunt Institute.
The naming of this acquisition fund after Anne Ophelia is a fitting tribute to her legacy. Our restricted budget hampers the acquisition of works by artists, particularly those new to our series of International Exhibitions. Unlike funds in our regular budget, which are contingent on the fiscal year, monies in the Anne Ophelia Todd Dowden Art Acquisition Fund will remain available until needed. The purchase of artworks from this fund will enable us to support and recognize artists working in the genre of botanical art.
Our collection includes Anne Ophelia’s bequest of over 450 artworks from which we have organized several exhibitions and travel shows. In donating her artworks to the Institute, Anne Ophelia wanted them to be preserved, but she also wanted them to be accessible for study by botanical artists. This fund will allow us to preserve artworks by the current generation of botanical artists and make them available for study by the next.
Individuals, as well as botanical art societies and other organizations, may find this fund an attractive way to support the Hunt Institute. We are very pleased to thank Lotte H. Blaustein and the American Society of Botanical Artists for the first donations to this fund. For further information write James J. White, Curator of Art, Hunt Institute.
The General Art Department Fund provides for exhibition materials, conservation, and catalogues. An immediate need is to replace the ultraviolet-filtered Plexiglas on each of our travel exhibitions. Mat board and Plexiglas are required for each in-house exhibition. Some other examples include rehousing our USDA Forest Service Collection, Hitchcock-Chase Collection of Grasses, and various collections, such as those by 19th-century artists Edward Donovan (England) and Isaac Sprague (United States). Estimates on materials for each of these are about $1500. Still other collections are our North American exploring expedition annotated proof plates in need of cleaning and repairing; also our 18th-century French botanist Michel Adanson collection containing thousands of woodcuts requiring extensive treatment. An important use of gifts to this fund is toward exhibition catalogues, which may cost $20,000–25,000. Contributions can be assigned to special projects, such as digitization and databasing projects, equipment or software, technical consultants, or additional project staff to do scanning, indexing, data input, transcription, or translation.
Memorial Gifts
Memorial gifts are also welcome. Your specified credit line can follow the title of the artwork on our exhibition label and in our catalogue and be included in the Web database of the collection of artworks in the Hunt Institute.
Other Types of Contributions
There are other ways that you can help. If you see botanical artists’ biographies and obituaries, drop a note to our Curator or Archivist about them. A splendid contribution is your informing others of the Hunt Institute’s role in botanical art and encouraging them to visit. Customized tours, including the current exhibition or emphasizing various aspects of the collections, can be arranged.
Please don't hesitate to confer with us about any proposed gift, including its use and acknowledgment. We appreciate your involvement, and we thank you for your interest. |
