Hirsch Library Collections
Collection Overview
The Hirsch Library contains roughly 175,000 volumes devoted to the visual arts. The collection features not only books and periodicals, but you’ll also find an array of online resources, auction catalogs dating from the 19th century, unique artists’ books, museum collection catalogs from around the globe, and artist files covering more than 25,000 artists. The collection complements the MFAH art collections and exhibitions, with additional emphasis on areas of potential growth.
Noteworthy contributions to the library come from the collections of Edgar Peters Bowron, Garth Clark & Mark Del Vecchio, Alfred C. Glassell, Jr., Manfred Heiting, Garth Jowett, Joan Morgenstern, Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation, Anne Wilkes Tucker, and Clinton T. Willour.
For more information about these collections and others, search the library catalog, consult a librarian, and visit the reading room.
Featured Collection: William J. Hill American Art Book Fund
William J. Hill at Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens
William J. Hill, known as Bill to his friends, was a native Houstonian and philanthropist who made substantial contributions to cultural institutions across the city, including the Children’s Museum Houston, the Harris County Heritage Society, the Menil Collection, Project Row Houses, and, of course, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Hill’s contributions to the MFAH were expansive. He served as a board member, and over the decades of his associations with the Museum, he donated more than 800 works to the permanent collection. In the early 1980s, he worked with MFAH leadership to found One Great Night in November, the acquisitions event that has raised more than $18 million. He also founded the William J. Hill Texas Artisans & Artists Archive operated at Bayou Bend’s Powell Library. The searchable online archive documents the lives, work, and products of Texas artisans and artists through 1900.
Through his generous donations to the Hirsch Library in 2012, the library has and continues to purchase a variety of books and periodicals, many of which are part of the rare collection, focusing on American art initiatives of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Among the notable titles are Portrait Gallery of Distinguished American Citizens, with Biographical Sketches (1846) by William Henry Brown, State of Texas (1855) by Maturin M Ballou and First Book of Drawing: For the Use of the Public Schools (1843) by Rembrandt Peale.
Featured Collection: Joan Morgenstern Collection
Matthew Genitempo, Jasper: Special Edition, 2018, Twin Palms Publishers.
Joan Morgenstern is an avid art collector and community volunteer who has actively supported the MFAH for more than three decades. She began collecting photography in 1985 while enrolled in a photography history class at the Museum’s Glassell School of Art. Since then, she has been an inveterate supporter of the photography department and has served as co-chair of the photography subcommittee. She also serves on the decorative arts, design, and craft subcommittee and the libraries & archives committee. She was the founding president of Photo Forum, the photography department’s patron group.
Morgenstern has been active in the Houston photography scene as a major supporter of the Houston Center for Photography and FotoFest. In 2011, the MFAH celebrated Morgenstern’s generosity through the exhibition Beauty, Humor, and Social Justice: Gifts from Joan Morgenstern. In addition to donating a vast collection of photographs to the MFAH, she has also donated or underwritten nearly 500 remarkable photography and decorative-arts publications to the Hirsch Library, most especially books that include a photographic print.
Among the highlights are an exceedingly rare Morris & Co. wallpaper sample book (c. 1915) and a host of deluxe editions such as Robert Mapplethorpe’s A Season in Hell (1986), Linda Connor’s On the Music of Spheres (1996), John Dugdale’s The Clandestine Mind (2000), Kate Breakey’s Small Deaths (2001), Masao Yamamoto’s Omizuao (2003), Bryan Schutmaat’s Grays the Mountain Sends, Pixy Liao’s Pimo Dictionary (2014), and Diana Matar’s My America (2018).
Featured Collection: Clara Diament Sujo’s Library
Clara Diament Sujo and her phalaenopsis at Quinta Jacaranda, Caracas, mid-1960s.
Clara Diament Sujo formed three libraries during her career, and the Hirsch Library is proud to serve as the home of the last one, which she generously donated in 2016.
Sujo is recognized as a critical figure in the field of Latin American art. Over the course of 40 years, her galleries—Estudio Actual (Caracas) and CDS Gallery (New York)—pioneered a broader notion of “Art of the Americas” to interrogate cultural boundaries between North and South. Her groundbreaking work as a gallerist, writer, and critical thinker are reflected in the diversity of her book collection, which comprises nearly 600 monographs, exhibition catalogues, and gallery ephemera.
Some of the most intriguing and rare materials come from Sujo’s own galleries, such as this charming handwritten mock-up of an exhibition catalog for an Adja Yunkers exhibition.
Featured Collection: Brazilian Constructive Books from the Collection of Adolpho Leirner
Adolpho Leirner at home with examples of his Brazilian Constructivism collection.
Over a period of 50 years, São Paulo–based art collector Adolpho Leirner established an incomparable collection of Brazilian Constructive art. Acquired by the MFAH between 2005 and 2007, the collection of 97 artworks from the 1950s and 1960s reflects a moment of rapid modernization in Brazil.
In 2016, Leirner enhanced this acquisition by donating his 200-volume library to the Hirsch Library. His generous contribution adds notable depth to the library’s holdings of Geometric Abstraction and Constructivist art. It complements an important collection of ephemera and correspondence donated as part of the Adolpho Leirner Archive of Brazilian Constructive Art that can be accessed in part through the Museum’s ICAA Documents Project.
Explore the full range of Leirner’s donation to the Hirsch Library:
- Browse titles in the Hirsch Library catalog
- See a visual representation of these titles
- Explore documentation highlighting the connection between published material and the Museum collection
Featured Collection: Ceramics Books from the Collection of Garth Clark and Mark Del Vecchio
In 2007, the MFAH acquired the Garth Clark and Mark Del Vecchio Collection, one of the most important collections of modern and contemporary ceramics in the world. Along with this collection came a significant library that had been built by Clark and Del Vecchio over many years. Their generous donation of more than 2,500 books and periodicals supports further scholarship on the collection specifically and in the field of ceramics in general. Among the highlights are a rich array of gallery catalogs and museum exhibition publications that document the artistic careers of artists such as Robert Arneson, Anthony Caro, Ruth Duckworth, Akio Takamori, Beatrice Wood, and Betty Woodman.
Explore the full range of books donated by Clark and Del Vecchio with a keyword search of the library catalog using “Garth Clark & Mark Del Vecchio” in quotation marks.
Featured Collection: Photography Books from the Collection of Manfred Heiting
Christian Courréges, Untitled, 2000, dye diffusion transfer print, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Manfred Heiting Collection, Museum purchase with funds provided by the Caroline Wiess Accessions Endowment Fund. © Christian Courréges
In 2002, the MFAH acquired the Manfred Heiting Collection, one of the finest encyclopedic photography collections in the world. In connection with this acquisition, Amsterdam-based collector Manfred Heiting generously donated over 3,000 books and periodicals devoted to the field of photography. Among the highlights now in the collection of the Hirsch Library are Man Ray’s La Photographie N’est pas l’Art, William Klein’s Life Is Good & Good for You in New York, Eikoh Hosoe’s Man and Woman, and Andy Warhol’s Index Book.
To discover more books donated by Manfred Heiting, conduct a keyword search of the library catalog using “Gift of Manfred Heiting” in quotation marks.
Featured Collection: Lester Beall’s Library
Image courtesy of the Cary Graphic Arts Collection, Rochester Institute of Technology. Photograph by Dorothy Beall
Acquired by the Hirsch Library in 1973, the Lester Beall Collection forms a crucial cornerstone to the library’s holdings. It features the personal book collection of renowned graphic designer, Lester Beall.
His well-rounded collection speaks at once to his influences, taste, and versatility as a designer. Beall’s success was marked by an exhibition held in 1937 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York which centered on his poster designs for the Rural Electrification Administration—the first time an American commercial artist was recognized with such an exhibition. His cultivated collection includes nearly 1,000 books that date from 1789 to 1971 on topics such as graphic design, typography, photography, printmaking, and the applied arts, as well as important artist monographs and exhibition catalogues—including the first book ever published by the illustrious Bauhaus.
• Discover other publications that inspired and informed Lester Beall
Featured Collection: Books from Clint Willour’s Collection
Clint Willour in the Hirsch Library
Over the course of four decades, Clinton T. Willour made a significant impact on the Texas art scene as a curator, writer, collector, and donor. Willour served as a curator of the Galveston Arts Center for 15 years, and as curator and executive director for another 10 years. While there he exposed Texas audiences to numerous early- and mid-career artists for the first time. His generous spirit and keen eye also greatly benefited the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, through donations or financial contributions that resulted in the acquisition of more than 1,300 works of art and another 2,500 books for the Museum’s Hirsch Library. His enthusiasm for photography is reflected in more than 1,000 books from his collection that now grace the library’s collection.
Featured Collection: Books about Glass from Susanne K. Frantz
Susanne K. Frantz with master glassmaker Lino Tagliapietra (2008)
The Hirsch Library has received a collection of nearly 600 books on modern and contemporary glass, thanks to the generosity of Susanne K. Frantz, former curator of 20th-century glass at the Corning Museum of Glass in New York. During and after her 13-year tenure as curator, Frantz immersed herself in scholarly research about Bohemian glass sculpture with an emphasis on its development between World Wars I and II, and contemporary production. Her significant collection on the production of glass works worldwide will benefit a range of researchers and scholars interested in contemporary glass art.
Among the Hirsch Library’s collections are several highly regarded catalogues by Frantz, including Contemporary Glass: A World Survey from the Corning Museum of Glass (1989), Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová: A 40-Year Collaboration in Glass (1995), and Lino Tagliapietra in Retrospect: A Modern Renaissance in Italian Glass (2008).
Search the Collections
The Hirsch Library’s catalog provides an efficient means to search virtually the entire collection of the Hirsch and Powell Libraries, including books, periodicals, theses and dissertations, artist files, and online resources. These searches can be conducted from work, home, or school via the Internet. For detailed information about items generally not included, such as auction catalogs, commercial gallery catalogs, and museum files, contact the Hirsch Library.
Explore the Rare Collections
Among the holdings of the libraries, you’ll find a growing collection of rare materials that range from the 15th century to the present day. Some highlights include an early edition of Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Artists (1647), considered the first art history publication, in addition to a three volume set by David Roberts, Egypt & Nubia (1842-1849), regarded as one of the finest achievements of 19th-century publishing and lithography. Twentieth-century masterworks that grace our collection include a lavishly bound volume entitled The Art Work of Louis C. Tiffany (1914) that documents a work of art from the museum's collection; numerous books by Ed Ruscha, a pioneer in the creation of artists' books in the 1960s, as well as more recent limited edition publications by master book-maker Keith Smith.
Rare materials can be identified in the Hirsch Library’s catalog by selecting the “Rare” limit. Please schedule an appointment to view these materials.
Books & Periodicals
While the information landscape is rapidly changing around us, books and periodicals still play an important role in art research. You can expect to find hundreds of new book titles each month in the library’s reading room, ranging from exhibition catalogs to monographs to biographies to collection catalogs to catalogues raisonné to artists’ books to the latest issues of more than 250 periodicals.
To find a book of interest, simply search the Hirsch Library’s catalog by author, title, subject, keyword, or any combination of these.
To find a periodical of interest, simply search the Hirsch Library’s catalog by “Journal Title Keyword.” You can also limit your search by “Serials.”
If you want to access specific content within periodicals, the Hirsch Library subscribes to a number of periodical indexes and full-text resources that will allow you to search their contents.
Artist Files
Artist catalogs and ephemera files make up this collection. Artist catalogs are publications ranging from 6 to 50 pages, whereas the ephemera files are made up of content from 1 to 5 pages including newspaper clippings, gallery invitations, curriculum vitae, and artists’ statements. You can identify both artist catalogs and ephemera files in the Hirsch Library catalog by searching for the artist’s last name under “Subject Browse” and then looking for items titled “Artist Catalog File” or “Ephemera File.”
Auction Catalogs
Auction catalogs include holdings dating to the late 19th century. To browse recent acquisitions of Christie’s, Sotheby’s, or Phillips catalogs, visit the Hirsch Library reading room, where three years of catalogs are on view for your convenience. To determine whether specific sales catalogs are available, please contact the Hirsch Library. For access to information about specific lots that have sold at auction, visit the library to use one of the online subscription auction indexes.