Project Catalogue Raisonné John Quincy Adams (1873-1933)

The project aims to scientifically record and research the complete works of the Austrian painter with American roots John Quincy Adams (see page About John Quincy Adams) by means of an annotated catalog raisonné.

Objective

The aim of the catalog is to cover and describe all of Adams' works, including short biographies of the sitters, as well as to comment on them in an artistic, social, and biographical context, in order to provide a comprehensive account of the development of Adams' artistic work and its social background. The Cataloque Raisonné is published in English and German under a "creative commons" license (i.e. free use outside commercial purposes) and is freely available to the public. The online format also offers the advantage that the catalog can always be supplemented and expanded. The editor (Arnulf Grübler) and contributing experts work free of charge. The project is purely scientific and has no commercial background. The grandson of the painter, Count Johannes Walderdorff, as well as all public collections in Austria (Belvedere, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, WienMuseum) support this project by providing illustrations of works, online access to Adam's works and assistance with research.

Methodology & data situation

The creation of a catalogue raisonné consists primarily in the systematic collection of information. The archive of the Künstlerhaus Wien contains, in addition to the entry books, where all works that have ever been exhibited in the house are documented, a card index of works by Adams, as well as an extensive collection of photographs, reproductions, and documentation on auctions and owners of Adams' works. These were all digitized and compiled into a database. Furthermore, the information on the three exhibition catalogs of Adams' works in 1917 at the Künstlerhaus, in 1961 at the Heeresgeschichtlichem Museum Wien, and in 1986 at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste Schillerplatz Wien were recorded and entered into the database, as was the catalog raisonné of Alexandra Peyrer-Helmstätt's thesis. A systematic evaluation of all newspaper articles through the unique online archive ANNO of the National Library for references to Adam's works, all auction results from relevant databases (Artnet, Artprice, Lotsearch, Blouin Art Index), and for the period 1900-1945 from the Getty Provenance Index database, were also used for the catalog raisonné database. Particularly valuable were also the personal documents of Countess Harriet Walderdorff (Adam's daughter) from the Künstlerhaus Archive, as well as those of Nikolaus Schaffer and Sylvia Eisenburger, and of Alexandra Peyrer-Helmstätt, which were kindly made available for digitization. Together with systemic online research, these documents resulted in a further expansion of the body of knowledge on works by John Quincy Adams, which currently (1.3.2024) includes more than 500 works. A summary can be found in the table overview below.

The online catalogue comprises as of 1.3.2024 358 entries with 332 illustrations (plus 26 additional symbolic illustrations of works), out of which 104 are currently subject to biographical research and final entries. The complete catalogue of works of the artist also comprises an additional 165 works for which not sufficient information was available to warrant a seperate catalogue entry. These works (with work #) are only summarized in tabular form and can be found here.

For each work there is a unique number attached (JQAW#). The JQAW number consists of three elements: Sujet (G genre, L landscape, P portrait, Z paper drawing), year of creation (e.g. 1908, or 0 when work is undated), as well as a three digit number, e.g.: G_1908_230, P_0_010, L_1916_020, which enables the unique idenditification of each of the 523 works.

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Data situation for the recording of the works of John Quincy Adams

	#	without duplicate	with dimensions	with illustration	undated
KH Entry books	261	<237	0	0	0
KH index cards	130	<105	48	4	n.v.
KH Archive file Adams	90	90	0	90	90
1917 Exhibition	59	59	0	0	59
1986 Exhibition	62	62	61	30	0
APH works catalogue	225	225	107	148	17
Resarch status as of 1.2.2022	526	526	224	290	92
Research status as of 1.3.2024	523	523	268	332	35

Contact

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Dr. Arnulf Grübler

gruebler@iiasa.ac.at
arnulf@chello.at

Tel 1: +43 / 1 / 504 3633
Tel 2: +43 3477 2680

Post:
A-1040 Vienna
Wiedner Gürtel 12/14A