Cross Family Collection Box List

Top: a photograph of Emma Augusta, Henry Clay, and Joel Foster Cross from Box 21 of the collection. Bottom: three sample images from the collection.

The inventory listed in this site consists of 29 boxes and 8 oversized folders of material dating from the late 18th through the early 20th centuries with the bulk of the collection falling between 1870 and 1890. The collection in the Graphic Arts department has over 466 items, many either created, featuring, or owned by one of the three Cross family siblings: Emma Augusta Cross (1850-1933), Henry Clay Cross (1852-1913) and Joel Foster Cross (1846-1925). In addition to pencil sketches, watercolors, oils, pen and inks, there are also boxwood blocks, engraved proofs, photographs, and manuscript material. The brothers Joel Foster and Henry Clay were offered positions with Samuel Smith Kilburn, a wood engraver in Boston in the 1860s which resulted in successful partnerships. While both left in the 1890s, several boxes in this collection exhibit a representative holding of the material produced by the firm Kilburn & Cross. The collection is arranged roughly according to creator, media and size of material; in addition to this information in each folder's heading, users will find a brief description of the piece. Thumbnail images of selected works, with an option to enlarge in a new window, are available for each box. While thumbnail images are not available for every work, those interested in ordering reproductions may visit the Society’s Rights and Reproductions page or email reproductions[at]mwa.org for more information.   To search across the entire collection for a keyword, please use the downloadable PDF. For the complete box listing, visit this link. The AAS also has book material owned by the Cross Family; a page describing the Cross Family Art Archive is available here. The collection was the material documentation for Diana Korzenik's Drawn to Art: A Nineteenth-Century American Dream, winner of the Boston Globe 1986 L.L. Winship Literary Award. The Cross Family Collection and Cross Family Art Archive were the gifts of Diana Korzenik in 1991 and 2000.

 

This site last updated: September 2009

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