Archiving the Regional

Abstract

This essay reconstructs the story of the Archives of Maine Art, from its founding at Colby College in 1961 to its rediscovery by the author in 2015. It asks how this regional archive went from being instrumental to a major exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the talk of the national arts scene to occupying the dustbin of history. By reading the Archives of Maine Art in relation to the history of the Archives of American Art, Sheehan reveals the work that regional histories performed in the mid-twentieth century and reflects on their critical revaluation in the late-twentieth century. She calls for an enlightened regionalism that embraces the transnational and global dimensions of the term “region” and repositions it as central to American art history’s current, outward-looking state.