Detroit industrialist Charles Lang Freer (1854â€“1919), donated his collection of Asian and American art of the Aesthetic Movement to the nation in 1906 to form the Freer Gallery of Art of the Smithsonian. Freer is unique among collectors in the degree in which he kept detailed records of his correspondence and the purchase vouchers for all 9,000 objects in the original Freer bequest. Freerâ€™s papers, held in the museumâ€™s Archives, include copies of his outgoing correspondence (kept in fragile letterpress books) and all received letters from more than 500 individuals and institutions related to his acquisitions, exhibitions and research activities. Freer wrote to such influential dealers, artists, scholars and collectors as Sigfried Bing, James McNeill Whistler, Bernard Berenson, and H. O. Havemeyer, and to historical figures such as President Theodore Roosevelt. These carefully maintained records provide researchers an opportunity to place other Asian art collections in an historical context that will create new scholarship not only in art history, but also aesthetics, international trade, diplomacy and American history. In the 1980s, the correspondence and purchase records were organized and made available through an online finding aid, which is currently the primary mode of access for researchers. At the same time, por-tions of the Freer papers were recorded on microfilm, although quality was poor and only 2 sets were made. Digitizing and making publicly available this collection would be invaluable to researchers from multiple disciplines because it would, for the first time, offer an integrated approach to Freer research, serving to make connections impossible through standard physical access.
Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
Mr. David Hogge
1876 - 1919
Freer's travels and correspondence encompassed large portions of Asia and the Middle East, including China, Japan, India, Egypt, Syria and Europe.