The 17th-20th Century Correspondence and Documents consists of letters, documents, and various forms of correspondence relating to notable names and celebrities from between 1618 and 1981.
The Eleanor Merritt Collection holds printed materials, lectures, records, news clippings, audio-visual materials, and correspondence related to Eleanor Merritt's life-long career as an artist, teacher, and advocate for community arts organizations. Materials focus on Merritt's life in Long Island, New York and Sarasota, Florida. Her formative years are captured in essays while a college student, planning notebooks as an art history teacher, and printed materials documenting her early artistic career. Her involvement with the arts community primarily pertains to her work with the Women's Caucus of Art (WCA), Women of Color (WOCA), the Petticoat Painters, Community Art in Public Paces (CAPP), Florida Artists Group, Pierian Spring Academy, and as a docent and board member of The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. There are a significant number of art history lecture outlines and source materials on African American, Feminist, and minority artists.
This collection contains original silhouette and sketch works of art by Wisdom, works published in newspapers, and the rough draft and final copy of his unpublished manuscript, Around The World On Scissors. It also contains several volumes of Wisdom's diaries and handwritten observations of his life, as well as photographs of Wisdom.
The Walter Gaudnek Collection comprises manuscript materials, original works, posters, and photographs that chronicle the life and artistic development of Dr. Walter Gaudnek, a University of Central Florida art faculty member. Ranging from 1945 to the present, the collection focuses on the artist and gives voice to Gaudnek's fans and critics alike. World events such as the 1972 Olympic Games, the Holocaust, and the September 11th attacks are featured in the collection through his work both as a commissioned artist who is witness to the event (Munich Games) and as an artist expressing his deep emotions for human tragedy.
