Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation
This page contains the latest information on Hunt Institute's activities, exhibitions and publications. Please bookmark this page and visit often.
Publication prices
Current publication pricing is not reflected on the Publication pages. We are upgrading our Web site and apologize for any inconvenience. To inquire about prices or to place an order, please contact the Institute (412-268-2434; huntinst@andrew.cmu.edu).
Hunt Institute receives National Film Preservation Foundation grant
The Institute has been awarded preservation project funding from the National Film Preservation Foundation (NFPF) to preserve Walter Hodge's film of Peru in the 1940s. The award will be used to clean, conserve and make both a film copy for preservation and a digital copy for access.
NFPF grant press release PDF
Hunt Institute Sponsorship Program
Rachel McMasters Miller Hunt’s botanical collections of books, art, manuscripts, and portraits are known for their depth and fine quality, reflecting her enthusiasm and expertise in plants, gardens, books, and history. She was determined that her collections be “living” resources—not only preserved but also curated actively and used productively in the service of science and scholarship. To those ends, we continue to develop and enhance the collections at Hunt Institute, working to make them accessible and to preserve them for the future. We have an international audience and a small but growing group of interested donors. You can help to strengthen our collections and programs through monetary and/or material gifts.
Donor Recognition
We gratefully recognize donations in a variety of ways, such as with a letter of thanks, mention in our Bulletin and on our Web site, and through the use of donor bookplates. Of course, donors who wish to remain anonymous could be listed as such or may decline any official mention.
Monetary and Material Gifts
Monetary donations to Hunt Institute are tax deductible. Monetary gifts may be applied to our general operating fund or to the endowment generously established by the Roy A. Hunt Foundation to provide ongoing support for Hunt Institute. In addition to building the collections, gifts can be used for archival storage supplies, conservation and repair of collection material, digitizing and databasing projects, and production of publications. If you would like to expedite a current project or enable us to begin one, please let us know; special project support is always welcome. Or consider giving to one of the following funds:
Anne Ophelia Todd Dowden Art Acquisition Fund
This fund is named in honor of the late artist Anne Ophelia Todd Dowden (1907–2007). A 1930 graduate of Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University), Anne Ophelia is considered America’s leading botanical artist of the past century. After working as a teacher and a textile designer, Anne Ophelia turned her attention to botanical illustration in the 1950s, embarking on another career. She worked from specimens to achieve correct and exacting details in her artworks and with botanists to ensure accuracy. Fascinated by the natural world and its connections, especially pollination, she wanted to educate, interest and engage the public about plants. To this end, she illustrated nine books and wrote and illustrated eleven for which she also did the design, layout and the publication preparation herself decades before desktop publishing. Her passion for botanical art, science and education made her so special and inspired a generation of artists. She also maintained numerous contacts with botanists, artists, and botanical gardens, and whenever she spotted new artistic talent, she made recommendations to the Hunt Institute.
The naming of this acquisition fund after Anne Ophelia is a fitting tribute to her legacy. Our restricted budget hampers the acquisition of works by artists, particularly those new to our series of International Exhibitions. Unlike funds in our regular budget, which are contingent on the fiscal year, monies in the Anne Ophelia Todd Dowden Art Acquisition Fund will remain available until needed. The purchase of artworks from this fund will enable us to support and recognize artists working in the genre of botanical art.
Our collection includes Anne Ophelia’s bequest of over 450 artworks from which we have organized several exhibitions and travel shows. In donating her artworks to the Institute, Anne Ophelia wanted them to be preserved, but she also wanted them to be accessible for study by botanical artists. This fund will allow us to preserve artworks by the current generation of botanical artists and make them available for study by the next.
Individuals, as well as botanical art societies and other organizations, may find this fund an attractive way to support the Hunt Institute. We are very pleased to thank Lotte H. Blaustein and the American Society of Botanical Artists for the first donations to this fund. For further information write Lugene Bruno, Curator of Art, Hunt Institute.
Ronald L. Stuckey Endowment for the Preservation of Botanical History
In 2003 Dr. Ronald L. Stuckey, professor emeritus of botany at The Ohio State University, established the Ronald L. Stuckey Endowment for the Preservation of Botanical History at the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation. This fund will help us to acquire and preserve photographs, biographical sketches, and obituaries of botanists, as well as books on botanical history and bibliography. We are grateful for Dr. Stuckey’s long-time interest in Hunt Institute, its collections and its mission. We welcome additional contributions to this fund from others who share our commitment to the preservation of botanical history.
Material gifts of artworks, books, papers, etc., are greatly appreciated. For more information about the types of material gifts that we are able to accept, please see the Archives, Art, Bibliography, and Library pages on the graphics site. Material not suitable for the collections will be returned promptly to the donor, or the donor can choose for the Institute to sell the items to raise funds, to offer them to another library, or (for published materials) to include them in the Institute’s duplicate sales.
We are happy to provide a letter of acknowledgment and a list of the material received, along with short descriptions if needed, but we are not permitted by the IRS, nor are we sufficiently knowledgeable, to make appraisals on items donated to us. If you have retained the purchase receipts connected with your gift(s), these might serve your tax purposes in lieu of an appraisal.
Memorial Gifts
Memorial gifts are also welcome. For example, books purchased through your contribution can be marked with a donor bookplate upon request, acknowledging your gift in memory of or on behalf of someone.
Other Types of Contributions
There are other ways that you can help. Take our biographical record forms to distribute at scientific or botanical art meetings to help swell our biographical files. If you see botanical biographies and obituaries, drop a note to our Archivist about them. Send us notices about botanists that appear in newspapers, magazines and other regional or non-botanical publications. If you know of a group that will be meeting in or visiting Pittsburgh, suggest that they contact us about a group visit to Hunt Institute.
Please don’t hesitate to confer with us about any proposed gift, including its use and acknowledgment. We appreciate your involvement, and we thank you for your interest.
Archives Collection List
On the graphics site, finding aids for individual collections have been linked from the Archives Collection List for Michel Adanson (1727–1806), Paul Hamilton Allen (1911–1963), an Anonymous collector of Narcissus, William Andrew Archer (1894–1973), Liberty Hyde Bailey (1858–1954), Peter René Oscar Bally (1895–1980), Rudolph Beer (1873–1940), Charles Edwin Bessey (1845–1915), Bernard Boivin (1916–1985), Botanical Garden of Padua, Botanical Society of America—Pacific Section, Adolphe Théodore Brongniart (1801–1876), Joachim Camerer (1534–1598), Harold Trevor Clifford (1927–), 11th International Botanical Congress (Seattle, 1969), David Grandison Fairchild (1869–1954), Gesellschaft Deutscher Naturforscher und Aerzte, Edward Lee Greene (843–1915), Frederick Joseph Hermann (1906–1987), Hunt Botanical Library, John Hutchinson (1884–1972), Hugo Iltis (1882–1952), Nicolaus Joseph von Jacquin (1727–1817), Jean Francois De Galaup (Comte) de La Perouse (1741–1788), George Hill Mathewson Lawrence (1910–1978), John Bernhard Leiberg (1853–1913), Willem Daniel Margadant (1916–1997), Mildred Esther Mathias (1906–1995), Franz Carl Mertens (1764–1831), Philip Miller (1691–1771), Benjamin Yoe Morrison (1891–1966), Christiaan Hendrik Persoon (1761–1836), David Prain (1857–1944), Joseph Rock (1884–1962), Velva Rudd (1910–1999), Norman Hudson Russell (1921–), William Edwin Safford (1859–1926), Arthur Moreland Scott (1888–1963) and Charles Swingle (1899–1978). More finding aids will be added soon. PDFs of thumbnails of individual and group portraits and biographical citations for many of the above subjects have been added to the individual collection pages.
Current & Coming Events
What We Collect: Recent Art Acquisitions, 2007-2012
22 March-30 June 2013
What We Collect Press Release PDF
Open House 2013
In conjunction with What We Collect: Recent Art Acquisitions, 2007-2012, the Hunt Institute will hold its annual Open House on 23 and 24 June. We will offer talks, tours and opportunities to meet one-on-one with our staff to ask questions and see items in the collections. On 23 June Curator of Art Lugene B. Bruno will present "Botanical wall charts" about the Hunt Institute's collection of instructional wall charts that were produced in Europe and circulated around the world from the late 19th to the early 20th centuries. On 24 June in "From field to folio: Stories behind botanical publications" Assistant Librarian Jeannette McDevitt will display some of Hunt Institute's special items and speak about the dramas, disasters and absurdities that went on behind the scenes before these beautiful books could come to fruition. We encourage everyone to consider visiting us during this Open House. It will be a good time to see the exhibition before it closes and to have an inside look at our collections and our work. A schedule of events is available on our Open House page. We are looking forward to your visit.
Travel Exhibitions
Currently, there are no bookings for our travel exhibitions.
Please contact the hosting institution to confirm the booking dates and to receive more information. To schedule an exhibition, please contact the Curator of Art at lbruno@andrew.cmu.edu.
24(1) Bulletin of the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation
Contents: "News from the Art Department: Wildflower exhibition opens"; "In Memoriam: Madeleine Ly-Tio-Fane (1928–2011)"; "Open House 2012: Schedule of events"; "Hunt Institute staff."
For a list of our publications, see Publications and Posters.
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GENERAL INFORMATION
About the Institute
Associate Membership
Contact Us
Frequently Asked Questions
News and Events
Publications
Staff
DEPARTMENTS and COLLECTIONS
Departments
Department Services and Charges
History of Collections
Rachel McMasters Miller Hunt
SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
Special Collections
AWARD
Lawrence Memorial Award
Text-Only Site Guide - Full Graphics Pages
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