Texas Art Project


Manuscript Collections about Texas Art

The MFAH Archives serves as the official repository for the Texas Art Project, a component of the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art.

In 1977, with funding from the Brown Foundation, Inc., the MFAH launched the Texas Art Project to recover manuscript collections of artists, art galleries, and art organizations active in Texas since 1875. Early in the project, an affiliation was established with the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art.

The MFAH maintains the microfilmed records of more than 400 artists, galleries, and organizations. The project ultimately identified, gathered, processed, and microfilmed nearly 700 reels of archival material pertaining to Texas art, thereby preserving a detailed history of the state's art community and making the information accessible for research. Catalogue records for the manuscript collections were created by the Archives of American Art and are available online through SIRIS, the Smithsonian Institution Research Information System.

Hill Texas Artisans & Artists Archive

Learn more about Texas artists at the William J. Hill Texas Artisans and Artists Archive, which features archival information on artists who created ceramics, furniture, textiles, metalworks, photographs, and works on paper during the 19th century.