Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Use Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Preferred Citation

Virginia Division of the Budget, State Capitol Portrait Files, 1936-1962. Accession 27578, State Records Collection, The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.

Acquisition Information

Transferred from Division of the Budget on May 5, 1971.

Biographical/Historical Information

Violet E. MacDougall was born in Canada c.1890. She attended Regina College in Ontario and studied law at George Washington University. From 1918 to 1933 she served as executive secretary to governors Westmoreland Davis, E. Lee Trinkle, Harry F. Byrd and John Garland Pollard. In July 1933 she married Pollard and the following year became a naturalized citizen. In 1934 she assisted her husband in raising $100,000 from private citizens to help establish the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts where she worked as associate director from 1940 to 1956. In addition, she was a member of the Federated Arts Council of Richmond and served as a national Democratic committeewoman from Virginia from 1940 to 1968. She died on 2 January 1977.

Scope and Content Information

The State Capitol Building Portrait files consist of correspondence and biographical information and notes regarding the portraits hanging in the Capitol Building, Governor's Mansion, Supreme Court Building and the Blanton and Finance Buildings. These records were compiled in 1959-1960 by Violet MacDougall Pollard, Art Consultant, under the Division of the Budget. Mrs. Pollard, widow of former Virginia governor John Garland Pollard, initiated a project in the late 1940s to restore labels to portraits in the Capitol but never had time to complete it. In 1959 she decided to resume the project. Arranged alphabetically, the files contain correspondence, newspaper clippings, reference notes and the text of labels related to the portraits in these buildings. Most of the material in these files relates to efforts to establish the name and dates of the painter of each portrait. Correspondence in these files pertaining to this research begins as early as 1936 and continues into 1962 with the bulk between 1959 and 1960. In 1958 Paul P. Kiehart, a New York art conservator, was hired by the Commonwealth of Virginia to examine the portraits. His survey forms, dated January 1959, which are a basic part of these files, describe the condition of each painting as well as proposed treatment. General records include miscellaneous correspondence, artist information and a listing of the appraised value of each portrait. Additional records include information related to the statues of Henry Clay and Edgar Allen Poe, the busts of Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens, the Three Ships painting and the Lady Astor clock, all part of the State Capitol Building series.

Arrangement

Each series is arranged alphabetically.

Organized into four series: Series I. Capitol Building; Series II. Governor's Mansion; Series III. Supreme Court Building; Series IV. Blanton and Finance Buildings.