Skip to main content

General

 Sub-Series
Identifier: 1

  • Staff Only
  • Please navigate to collection organization to place requests.

Scope and Contents

From the Collection:

The Virginia Myers papers date from 1920 to 2017 and measure 10 linear feet in 32 boxes. The papers are arranged in five series: Personal, University of Iowa School of Art and Art History, Professional, Photographs, and Audio Visual.

Personal series (1920-2014) contains largely correspondence, journals, and other personal or scholastic writings by Myers. The sub-series include General, Biographical, and Education. The series consists of her life as a student at Woodrow Wilson High School and George Washington University, as well as an artist and teacher.

University of Iowa School of Art and Art History series (1945-2015) is made up of the Administrative, the Teaching, and the Intensive Foil-Stamping Workshop sub-series. Committee work, university correspondence, facilities management, and maps, as well as teaching notes and handouts that Myers used during her time as a professor in printmaking and intaglio at the University of Iowa School of Art and Art History are within the Administrative and Teaching sub-series. The Intensive Foil Stamping Workshop sub-series is organized chronologically and contains brochures and correspondence related to the founding and success of the annual summer workshop.

Professional series (1946-2013) includes five sub-series: General, Writings, Exhibitions, Atelier 17, and Iowa Foil Printer. The General and Writings sub-series consists of awards, curriculum vitea, and published and unpublished written works by Myers. Exhibition flyers from various galleries as well as plans and calendars from Myers’ shows, “A Time of Malfeasance,” “Views from Tenacre: The Seasons,” and “Landscape in Iowa,” comprise the Exhibitions sub-series. Copies of French printmakers magazines “Dessins Estampes” and “Nouvelles de L’Estampe” along with Myers’ 1962 French identification cards make up the Atelier 17 sub-series. The Iowa Foil Printer is the largest sub-series and showcases Myers’ development and inventing process for the printer, including manuscripts and notes for her 2002 book “Foil Imaging… A New Art Form” along with drafts and final versions of the printer’s Owner’s Manual and research notebooks titled “The Iowa Foil Printer and How It Came To Be, Volumes 1 and 2.” The notebooks track Myers' invention of the Iowa Foil Printer through correspondence, drawings, diagrams, photographs, and logs of her meetings and experimentation that led to the development of the Iowa Foil Printer. They provide insight into the processes behind the development of the printer, as well as her interactions with the people who helped her create a working prototype. An early prototype of the Iowa Foil Printer completes the sub-series.

Photographs series (1920-2014) comprises of photographs of and/or by Virginia Myers. Artwork, Portraits, People and Places, Professional, and Slides are all sub-series. Joan Liffring-Zug’s portraits of Myers in her studio in the Portraits sub-series and demonstrations of Myers’ invention, the Iowa Foil Printer, in the Professional sub-series are among the photographs. The Slides sub-series cover Myers’ curriculum and lecture presentations, images of artworks, the Iowa Foil Printer, and various locations from her travels.

Audio Visual series (1972-1994) consists of video cassettes, compact discs, audio cassettes, and reel-to-reel audio tapes from Myers life as an artist and inventor.

Dates

  • Creation: 1920 - 2017

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

The papers are open for research.

Extent

From the Collection: 10 Linear Feet (Photographs in Boxes 3, 14, 26-29. Artifacts in Boxes 30, 31, and 32. Slides are in Slide Boxes 13, 14, 15, and 16. 1 U-matic tape shelved in videocassette collection. 7 Videocassettes [V288-V289], shelved in videocassette collection. 17 Audiocassettes shelved in audiocassette collection. 4 Compact Discs shelved in digital collection. 6 reel-to-reel audio tapes. )

Language of Materials

From the Collection: English

Repository Details

Part of the Iowa Women's Archives Repository

Contact:
100 Main Library
University of Iowa Libraries
Iowa City IA 52242 IaU
319-335-5068
319-335-5900 (Fax)