This post was written by our 2024 Library and Archives Intern, Miranda Hynes. Miranda joins us from UT Austin where she is studying Art History and Museum Studies, and will be on the team through August. Stay tuned for more guest posts from her this summer!
As the Library and Archives Intern at The O’Keeffe, I’m currently working on processing the Jan Garden Castro Collection, which includes writing a finding aid for the museum’s archival finding aid database. Jan Garden Castro is the author of The Art and Life of Georgia O’Keeffe, a well-known book about O’Keeffe published in 1985, and the content of the Garden Castro Collection in our archive relates mainly to the research and production of that book.
The Art & Life of Georgia O'Keeffe, Jan Garden Castro, Crown Publishers, 1995
The Jan Garden Castro Collection holds a number of interesting documents, including correspondence with O’Keeffe herself and cassette tape interviews conducted by Castro, including Ansel Adams and other important figures who knew O’Keeffe personally. More broadly, a look through the Garden Castro collection depicts what it was like to write a book about O’Keeffe when she was still alive, from research and interviews to the ever-demanding publishing process. While working to process this collection, I stumbled across several interesting letters, but the most unexpected example is from Margaret Atwood, world-famous author of The Handmaid’s Tale.
Research on and Correspondence with Individuals, bulk: 1973-1993, Jan Garden Castro Relating to The Art and Life of Georgia O'Keeffe. MS-69. Gift of Jan Garden Castro. Georgia O'Keeffe Museum.
In this letter Atwood notes that she attached bound page proofs of The Handmaid’s Tale, which was published that very year in 1985. When Castro received this letter and the manuscript accompanying it, she would have had no idea that she was reading what would soon become one of the world’s contemporary classics. Working in archives, unexpected finds like this are always so exciting. Stay tuned for another post about the completed processing and finding aid for this collection!
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