Spotlight on 2017 Katzenberger Art History Intern: Michelle Ibarra and “Art Students League & Artists Files”
Michelle Ibarra, 2017 Katzenberger Intern, reviewing archived materials from the Art Students League under the mentorship of her advisor, Anne Evenhaugen.
Michelle Ibarra, one of the 2017 Katzenberger Art History Interns, is learning a lot in her placement at the Smithsonian Libraries branch in the American Art and Portrait Gallery Library. This unit recently received a significant collection of ephemera from the Art Students League of New York, which was founded in 1875 and remains one of the most venerable art schools in the country. The League has been home to hundreds of major American artists as students and teachers, including Thomas Eakins, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Norman Rockwell, and Jackson Pollock.
Under the mentorship of Anne Evenhaugen, Head Librarian at AA/PG, Michelle is processing the League collection to integrate it with the existing Art & Artists Files collection physically and online, creating a finding aid for the material, and recommending highlights in the League material for future promotion, blog posts, and exhibitions. Michelle will also have the opportunity to work with primary source materials related to 19th and 20th century American art, conduct research at SI Libraries, hone her research and writing skills to determine files’ highlights, determine Library of Congress Authorized names using metadata to enhance accessibility, collaborate with different departments within the Libraries, and highlight important art materials that will be valuable to scholars.
Michelle is a graduate from Florida State University‘s Art History program with minors in Museum Studies, History, and Anthropology. This is her second year as a Katzenberger Intern, as she spent last summer at the Center for Folklife documenting their material culture collection. She has a great love for traveling and Disney, as well as a fascination with intercultural visual and material exchange. Her goal is to become a curator of American History and material culture, and Native American history and material culture in particular.
Her mentor, Anne Evenhaugen is the head librarian for the Smithsonian American Art and Portrait Gallery Library. Anne manages the day-to-day operations of the large research library, which contains rare and unique books and a large ephemera collection. She also supervises acquisitions and special projects in support of the mission of the American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery. Anne holds degrees in art history and library science from Mary Washington College, the University of Maryland and Stockholm University in Sweden.