Rare Books
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Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
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Rare Books
641379
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Rare Books
641724
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Rare Books
23757
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Manuscripts
This collection contains research files of English art historian R. B. Beckett, chiefly consisting of study photographs and clippings collected from the late 1940s to early 1960s documenting the works of John Constable and other English artists including William Blake, Thomas Gainsborough, Thomas Rowlandson, J. M. W. Turner, and Richard Wilson. In addition there are also images and clippings related to English portraiture, as well as sporting and comic images. The artist research files contain study art photographs and clippings, with some occasional correspondence and notes and manuscripts by Beckett. Six artists (Blake, Constable, Gainsborough, Rowlandson, Turner, and Wilson) are distinguished as their own subseries, and their files typically contain study photographs, article clippings, some scattered manuscripts and correspondence, and exhibition catalogues. The largest of these are the John Constable files (Boxes 3-9), which includes seven boxes of study images. Other art images in the collection are arranged either in the "Artists (various)" subseries (Box 13) or in the "Portrait artists" subseries (Boxes 14-15). While some of the images are professional photographs acquired from museums, most of the images are clippings from British magazines such as The Connoisseur and Burlington. Most of the images are not annotated or only contain brief handwritten identifications typically of the artist, painting title, date, dimensions, etc. Overall there are very few manuscripts by Beckett in the collection. Exceptions consist of a sketchbook from the late 1920s containing pencil sketches of landscapes by Beckett and a few documents. The correspondence is chiefly from galleries, museums, and publishers related to Beckett's research and publications.
mssBeckett
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Manuscripts
The collection deals primarily with the professional and personal activities of Samuel Brooks Morris, a civil engineer of note in Southern California who was most active from the 1930s into the early 1960s. The collection deals with local (Pasadena and Los Angeles), state and national engineering concerns, largely related to water reclamation, dams, hydrogeology, water litigation, and a wide range of related technical publications. The material consists of a highly diverse mix of manuscripts and printed materials, including correspondence, maps, notes, charts, fliers, and brochures, often interspersed within each folder. The correspondence is primarly to and from colleagues, but also includes discusion with government officials at all levels from local to national. The collection includes a small number of photographs, located in appropriate sections of the collection by subject.
mssMorris, Samuel papers