Conditions Governing Use

The collection is subject to all copyright laws. Upon donation, Perry assigned to the VMFA Archives all of her available rights of copyright in the materials. Transmission or reproduction of other materials protected by copyright, beyond that allowed by fair use, requires the researcher to obtain permission of copyright holders.

Conditions Governing Access

The collection is open for research.

Provenance

The collection was donated to the VMFA Archives by Regenia Perry in 2021.

Preferred Citation

Regenia Perry Personal Papers (VA-07). Gift of Regenia Perry. VMFA Archives, Richmond, Virginia.

Processing Information

Publications were removed and added to the VMFA Library's holdings. Titles include "Tales of the conjure woman" , "Dear Robert, I'll see you at the crossroads: a project by Renée Stout" , "Harriet Powers's Bible quilts" , "Astonishment and power: Kongo minkisi: the art of Renée Stout" , "Free within ourselves: African-American artists in the collection of the National Museum of American Art" , "Hidden heritage: Afro-American art, 1800-1950" , "Something to keep you warm: the Roland Freeman Collection of Black American quilts from the Mississippi Heartland" , and "Between the lines: 70 drawings and 7 essays" .

Original newspaper clippings are photocopied, with photocopies being integrated into mixed material folders and originals being retained in their own folders.

Biographical / Historical

Regenia Alfreda Perry, African American art historian, was born in 1941 in Virgilina, Virginia. She received a Bachelor of Science degree from Virginia State College (now Virginia State University) in 1961, and went to Western Reserve University (now Case Western Reserve University) in Cleveland, Ohio, where she received a Ph.D. in Art History in 1966. Perry is the first African American woman to hold doctorates in art history and American art. She has published books on African American art, including James Van Der Zee, Photographer (1973), The Folk Tradition in Black American Art (1975), Black Folk Art in America (with John Beardsley, 1982), and Harriet Powers Bible Quilts (1994). She also has taught at numerous colleges and universities, including Howard University (Washington, D.C.), though the majority of her professorial career was spent at Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond, Virginia). Perry also founded Raven Arts, an art consulting firm that represents African American folk artists.

Source: Regenia Perry papers finding aid by the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library at Emory University

Scope and Contents

The collection documents the life, work, and research interests of Dr. Regenia Perry. The collection's inclusive dates are 1907-2019, with the bulk of the material dating from the 1970s-1990s. This collection contains correspondence, ephemera, negatives, photographs, publications, and other manuscript material.

Arrangement

The collection is organized into 2 series, and items are generally arranged chronologically within each series. Items with no date are generally placed at the end of each series. Sub-series are arranged alphabetically by artists' surnames.

Series 1

Biographical, 1941-2015

Series 2

Artists, 1907-2019

Related Material

A large collection of her papers are located at Emory University .

Subjects and Indexing Terms

• African American folk art
• Art -- Collectors and collecting
• Art historians as collectors
• Perry, Regenia
• Perry, Regenia
• Women art collectors
• Women art historians