Archive Project
Fifty years of looking, brought into one record.
The Eve Sonneman Archive Project is a multi-year effort to document, digitize and organize the complete body of work: the diptychs that began in the early 1970s, the Sonnegrams, the Polaroids, the paintings and watercolors, and the books, catalogues and correspondence that surround them.
Why an archive
The work is held by more than forty museums, from MoMA and the Metropolitan to the Centre Pompidou and the National Gallery of Australia, and has been the subject of 77 solo exhibitions. The record of that work has never been assembled in one place. Negatives, prints, Polaroids and paintings sit in the studio and in storage; exhibition histories exist as catalogues and clippings. The archive makes the whole visible, to scholars, curators and to the artist herself.
What it involves
A physical inventory of every object in the studio. High-resolution digitization of prints, negatives and works on paper. A catalogue record for each work: title, date, medium, dimensions, edition, exhibition history and provenance. A dated chronology of exhibitions, grants and publications, verified against primary sources. And a public, searchable view of the collection on this site.
Where it leads
The archive is the groundwork for a catalogue raisonné of the photographs and for future exhibitions and loans. It is being built so that it outlasts any one website, platform or custodian.
Progress
Who is involved
The project is led by the artist with a small working group, in partnership with the School of Visual Arts, New York. SVA staff in curatorial practice advise on the documentation, and SVA students participate through supervised internships.
The archive is built on open, portable records so that it can move with the work wherever it is held in future.
Support the project
The archive is funded privately and through grants. Support covers digitization, conservation materials and cataloguing time. Institutions, foundations and individuals interested in supporting a phase of the work, or in lending or acquiring work for exhibition, are invited to get in touch.
Contact the projectBrowse the archive
A working view of the collection as it is catalogued: searchable by series, medium and year. Records are added as the documentation proceeds.