Internship Experience: Researching Arturo Schomburg as an Art Collector

This post continues NYPL intern Leonie Smith’s two-part series of reflections on her work at the Photographs and Prints Division at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Read the first post here.  

During the second half of my internship at the Schomburg Center’s Photographs and Prints Division, I was assigned to assist my supervisor Jack Patterson, an archivist in the Division, with research in Arturo Schomburg’s papers. The Division had been undertaking research to identify which materials in their collection were acquired by Schomburg himself.

The Schomburg Center started out as the Division of Negro Literature, History, and Prints, which was originally located at the 135th Street Branch Library beginning in 1925. The Library purchased Arturo Schomburg’s collection of books and other materials, including prints, in 1926. Arturo Schomburg was the Curator of the Division from 1932 to 1938. Gaining an understanding of where the collection used to be stored between those years became an important outlet for researching the historical knowledge of him as a curator and collector. For the Photographs and Prints Division, assisting in the process of accessing and retrieving Schomburg’s personal collection of prints, specifically lists of lithographs and etchings that were sold or gifted during his period has curator, became a major key to gaining more knowledge on the decision making he took, as well as using the information found as a guide to what is already accessible in the Division.

As I spent more time at the Schomburg Center, I became more fascinated with who Arturo Schomburg was and how he became such a notable figure in the Black community for our scholars and art historians. I began by exploring both the Research and Reference and Manuscripts and Archives Divisions to look through his papers, which sparked my curiosity and made me want to learn more about his backstory as curator and established collector. I wanted to know what motivated Schomburg most to collect, and later lead a center filled with so much knowledge of the Black diaspora. I began looking through the NYPL library catalog, because in addition to the Photographs and Prints’ initiative of using the center’s archives to learn and expand their understanding of Schomburg as curator, this encouraged me to start researching more on him myself. 

While on the search, I came across the book  Diasporic Blackness: The Life and Times of Arturo Alfonso Schomburg written by Vanessa K. Valdes. In this book Valdes discusses the struggles Schomburg faced early on in his search for more Black representation of art collectors, researchers and scholars. Anti-Black propaganda spread in the West motivated him to dive deeper in collecting and researching more Black scholars to combat racist rhetoric. Looking through microfilm became an exhilarating experience. Inserting the microfilm into the film reader granted me the pleasure of viewing most of Arturo Schomburg’s papers during his time as curator. What I found most fascinating about looking through the film and physical documentation were all the letters sent back and forth about his collection. Reading all the letters, receipts and gifts, and Schomburg’s networking with other institutions, was inspiring to read. One document I found during the search was a receipt of a series of lithograph prints sent to Arturo Schomburg in 1934 from the Old Print Shop in New York. By identifying the lithograph name and year acquired to the Schomburg collection, Photographs and Prints was able to match up all the information on this receipt with the actual prints found in the Division's vault. The use of the receipt created a visual guide to learning about which prints were directly owned by Schomburg. 

All in all, working with the Photographs and Prints Division has been an unforgettable experience that created the space for me to learn and grow as an artist and researcher. I am proud to know all the work I have done here will forever live in the Center and be a part of history.