Rona Roob Papers
in The Museum of Modern Art Archives

Overview of the Collection

Arrangement

Series I: MoMA-Related Materials, 1929-2008

Photocopies of correspondence from 1929 regarding Museum financing and the development of a Museum advisory committee.

Facsimiles of newspaper clippings.

1 of 2 folders. Includes correspondence with Rona Roob; photocopies of correspondence between Johnson and Alfred H. Barr, Jr. from the 1930s; and recollections of Johnson during the first years of MoMA.

2 of 2 folders. Partial email interview transcripts, correspondence, and lyrics for a ninetieth birthday song.

Includes MoMA press release announcing the acquisition of the Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Janis Collection.

Includes correspondence and black-and-white photographs.

Includes correspondence and Rona Roob's library school paper titled, "Use of Individual's Papers in Documenting the History of an Institution Namely the Museum of Modern Art."

1 of 3 folders. Primarily photocopies of correspondence between Scolari Barr and Dorothy Miller.

2 of 3 folders. Includes correspondence and "A Brief Autobiography of Marga Barr to 1930."

3 of 3 folders.

See also I.40 and I.41 for correspondence from Margaret Scolari Barr to Rona Roob.

Includes letter from Rockefeller to Margret Scolari Barr and a photocopy of a letter to Rockefeller from Alfred H. Barr, Jr. after the death of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller.

Research photocopies.

Includes correspondence.

Correspondence.

Includes correspondence from Alice Wohl and Pamela Askew; also includes photocopy of letter from Abby Aldrich Rockefeller to Alfred H. Barr, Jr.

1 of 2 folders. Primarily includes research photocopies.

2 of 2 folders. Black-and-white portrait of Barr in MoMA sculpture garden.

Memo from Rona Roob to Waldo Ramussen describing MoMA's historical involvement in Latin America.

View PDF of folder I.24

Original folder also marked: "Nelson Rockefeller; Registrar."

Correspondence.

Press clippings.

Research notes and correspondence.

Photocopy of guest book from 1929 MoMA opening.

Also contains Lillie P. Bliss research material.

Photograph of and notes regarding David McAlpin and the history of the Department of Photography.

This folder was added in 2023.

Rona Roob's annotated copy of Riva Castleman's 1995 "Notes from Monroe Wheeler's Notebooks."

Monroe Wheeler's notebooks and diaries can be found at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Repository at Yale University.

This folder was added in 2023.

Photographs of Alfred H. Barr, Jr.'s study in Greensboro and correspondence from Margaret Scolari Barr to Rona Roob, regarding general updates, visits to the Barrs' Greensboro, VT home, and retrieving Alfred H. Barr, Jr.'s papers for the MoMA Archives.

This folder was added in 2023.

Correspondence from Margaret Scolari Barr regarding general updates; visits to the Barrs' Greensboro, VT home; retrieving Alfred H. Barr, Jr.'s papers for the MoMA Archives; and efforts towards writing "Our Campaigns," a chronology of the Barrs' "campaigns" for MoMA between 1930 and 1944, later published in The New Criterion in 1987.

This folder was added in 2023.

This folder was added in 2024.

This folder was added in 2024.

Series II: Research & Writings, 1906-2013

Subseries II.A: General, 1982-2009

Subseries II.A: General Research Files primarily contains Museum-related research materials collected by Roob over the course of over twenty-five years. Items of particular interest include a small color snapshot of Alfred H. Barr, Jr. at Niagara Falls and a box of index cards with handwritten notes on the life and work of prominent MoMA curator, James Thrall Soby (1906-1979). Also included in this subseries are materials for and photocopies of Roob's reoccurring column in the MoMA Quarterly, in which she discussed MoMA history through an archival lens. The files are arranged chronologically.

1 of 2 folders.

2 of 2 folders. Recording of interview on Sony cassette tapes.

Includes correspondence and "An Autobiographical Preface."

Includes correspondence and research from Lily Harmon.

Includes photocopies of MoMA-related correspondence and a color photograph of Barr at Niagara Falls.

Chronological and bibliographic research notes related to the life and career of James Thrall Soby.

Includes photocopy of Penny Joy Bealle's dissertation, "Obstacles and Advocates: Factors Influencing the Introduction of Modern Art from Germany to New York City, 1912-1933: Major Promoters and Exhibitions." Also includes book précis on Dorothy Miller by Wendy Jeffers.

Includes press clippings, correspondence, research materials, Miller's obituary from The New York Times and memorial tribute material.

A copy of Ilse-Margret Vogel's Bad Times, Good Friends. Contains inscription "...but this copy is for Rona Roob, with good wishes and love, Ilse-Margret Vogel, Bangall, N.Y. October 1st, 1996." For correspondence and clippings that were found inside the book, see II.A.15.

This folder was added in 2023.

Correspondence and clippings that were originally found inside Ilse-Margret Vogel's book, Bad Times, Good Friends, found in II.A.14*.

This folder was added in 2023.

Includes one letter from Betsy Jones to Rona Roob regarding several items she sent for the MoMA Archives. An enclosed annotated photocopy of the letter indicates where those documents, which are now filed in different collections, can be found.

This folder was added in 2023.

Subseries II.B: "Enlightened Patronage", 1999-2013

Dating from 1999 to 2013, Subseries II.B: Enlightened Patronage comprises research and development materials for an unpublished book on female collecting. The book, which was the brain child of Roob and independent curator Wendy Jeffers, proposed to examine "a group of pioneering women whose vision and enlightened patronage quietly revolutionized art collecting during the first part of the twentieth century." Included in this subseries are numerous book proposals and outlines, related symposia and conference proceedings, and publisher correspondence. However, a completed manuscript does not exist. Researchers should also note that the materials in this subseries overlap with those found in Subseries II.C: On Lillie P. Bliss and Subseries II.D: On Collectors and Collecting.

1 of 2 folders.

2 of 2 folders.

1 of 2 folders.

2 of 2 folders. Includes conference and symposium proceedings, exhibition announcements, and correspondence.

1 of 2 folders. Primarily correspondence with publishers. Original folder marked: "Markel, Precis, Rejection Letters."

2 of 2 folders. Publisher correspondence.

1 of 2 folders. Includes conference and symposium proceedings, exhibition announcements, and correspondence.

2 of 2 folders. Includes conference and symposium proceedings, exhibition announcements, and correspondence.

1 of 2 folders.

2 of 2 folders.

Subseries II.C: On Lillie P. Bliss, 1906-2005

Subseries II.C: On Lillie P. Bliss consists primarily of research material for Rona Roob's article, "A Noble Legacy," published in Art in America in 2003, in which she examined the importance of Bliss' posthumous gift of works by Cézanne, Daumier, Degas, Gauguin, Redon, Seurat, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Picasso to MoMA in 1934. Comprised of over one hundred folders, Subseries II.C contains photocopies of archival material related to Bliss' collection and collecting practices; black-and-white and sepia-toned photographs of Bliss and her collection in situ at her Park Avenue apartment; exhibition files from MoMA's 1934 exhibition, The Lillie P. Bliss Collection (MoMA Ex. #34b); correspondence offering editorial feedback; and manuscript drafts. While most of the documents date from the early aughts, an original notebook of Bliss'—which contains handwritten notes and quotations—is also present and stands out as a collection highlight. Materials marked "for further research" can also be found in Subseries II.C and thus signal that Roob had planned to continue writing on Bliss and her promotion of modern art in the United States. Researchers should note that the material in this subseries dovetails nicely with that found in Subseries II.D: On Collectors and Collecting. The subseries is arranged chronologically.

Includes correspondence from Cornelius N. Bliss.

Includes MoMA press release: "The Lillie P. Bliss International Study Center, Notes on Lillie P. Bliss." Also includes: "Battle of Harlem Heights Sept. 16, 1776" by James H. Calendar and "The Addisons" by Elsie Cobb Little.

1 of 2 folders. Includes sepia-toned small portrait of Lillie Bliss. Also includes correspondence.

2 of 2 folders. Black-and-white photographic reproductions.

Includes press clippings and genealogical information from the Virginia Historical Society.

"Anthony Bliss, Culture and Commerce at the Met" The New York Times Magazine, September 20, 1981.

1 of 2 folders. Includes photocopies of photographs of Bliss interiors from the Smithsonian Institution.

2 of 2 folders. Black-and-white reproductions of images of Lillie Bliss' apartment. Note: most photos digitized and on MoMA's internal image database (MAID).

Also includes research material pertaining to Elizabeth Bliss Parkinson.

1 of 2 folders.

2 of 2 folders.

Correspondence and research.

1 of 3 folders.

2 of 3 folders.

3 of 3 folders.

Primarily correspondence sent to Rona Roob after the publication of "A Noble Legacy" in Art in America.

1 of 2 folders. Includes provenance research.

2 of 2 folders. Includes provenance research.

1 of 7 folders. Primarily research photocopies. Original folder also marked: "catalogue Barr notes and Rona Roob notes."

2 of 7 folders. Original folder also marked: "catalogue and miscellaneous correspondence." Primarily research photocopies.

3 of 7 folders. Research photocopies from catalogues on Paul Cézanne, Honoré Daumier, and Edgar Degas.

4 of 7 folders. Research photocopies from The Paintings of Paul Cézanne: A Catalogue Raisonné by John Rewald.

5 of 7 folders. Research photocopies and correspondence primarily on Edgar Degas' Jockeys on Horseback.

6 of 7 folders. Research photocopies on Paul Gauguin, Walt Kuhn, Claude Lorrain, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso.

7 of 7 folders. Research photocopies.

Includes black-and-white reproductions of Bliss and interiors.

Reproductions.

Bibliographic references.

1 of 3 folders. Research photocopies.

2 of 3 folders. Research photocopies.

3 of 3 folders. Research photocopies.

1 of 2 folders. Album with handwritten notes and quotations. Note: extremely fragile; handle with care.

2 of 2 folders. Letters, newspaper clippings, photographs, and carte de visites. Note: materials originally found folded in Lillie Bliss' Notebook (II.C.103*).

Bound scrapbook of newspaper clippings collected by and pertaining to Cornelius Bliss (Lillie Bliss' father). From John Parkinson, who also inserted article about his mother, Eliza Parkinson Cobb.

Subseries II.D: On Collectors & Collecting, 1954-2009

Subseries II.D contains extensive documentation on important collectors and collections of modern art from the twentieth century. This was an ongoing area of scholarly interest for Rona Roob during the course of her career. In many ways this subseries is akin to artist files (files of ephemera on specific artists that are usually found in museum libraries and archives) in that it primarily contains newspaper and magazine clippings, exhibition announcements, and other related ephemera on specific collectors and collections. Female collectors are very well represented in this subseries and scholars concerned with the history of female collecting should note the existence of both general files—with titles like "Women Collectors" and "Notable Women"—as well as more specific ones dedicated to prominent individual collectors including: Alice Pike Barney, Patricia Cisneros, Dominique de Menil, Peggy Guggenheim, Gertrude Stein, and Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. Subseries II.D is arranged alphabetically.

1 of 2 folders.

2 of 2 folders.

1 of 2 folders.

2 of 2 folders.

Includes newspaper clippings and correspondence regarding MoMA acquisitions and collection development.

Includes newspaper clippings on Albert Barnes, Eli Broad, and Henry Clay Frick; also includes small catalogue produced by the Archives of American Art titled, "A Salute to Barbara Fleischman & and the Fleischman Legacy."

Includes magazine clippings on Roz Jacobs and Gertrude Kasebier.

Includes newspaper clippings on Blanche Lazzell, Pierre Matisse, and Eleanor Norcross.

Includes newspaper clippings on Saatchi, Sarah Choate Sears, and Helena Rubenstein.

Includes newspaper clippings on Berta Zucker-Kandel and Jock Whitney.

Original folder also marked "Omaha, Nebraska."

Photocopy of Penrose's "The Pleasures and Miseries of Collecting", Magazine of Art (1952).

1 of 2 folders.

2 of 2 folders.

1 of 2 folders.

2 of 2 folders.

Includes "Collections and Dealers Lists."

Photocopies of Judith Zilczer article from Archives of American Art Journal, vol.14, no. 3, 1974.

Series III: Lectures & Speeches, 1931-2005

1 of 3 folders. Includes transcripts for MoMA staff and trustee committee meeting presentations.

2 of 3 folders.

3 of 3 folders.

1 of 3 folders. Includes "Minutes from the twenty-fourth meeting of the board of trustees of The Museum of Modern Art".

2 of 3 folders.

3 of 3 folders.

Includes lecture transcript and research.

Series IV: Memorial & Posthumous Material, 2014

Bound compilation of articles written by Roob. Originally distributed to members of the Archives, Library, and Research Trustee Committee at semi-annual meeting in 2014, shortly after Roob's death.

Includes transcript of memorial remarks delivered by Michelle Elligott, Chief of Archives, memorial programs, obituary clipping, color photographs, and a copy of Roob's C.V.