Recent Additions

Special Collections are actively developed collections.

The College continues to receive donations that support teaching, learning, and research at the College. The Seymour Adelman Fund is an an endowment that allows us to purchase work that grows the collection in support of our departmental priorities. Currently, these priorities are to support teaching and to diversify the representation of artists, authors, and subjects in the collection.

Bethany Collins, The Odyssey: 1990/1851/1980/2002/2000

detail of work by artist Bethany Collins. Zoomed in to reveal erasure of text and remaining text "“but he continued to grieve for his native land, dragging his steps up and down along the shore of the sounding sea in great distress.” — Bethany Collins, The Odyssey: 1990/1851/1980/2002/2000 (2020), detail. Graphite and toner on Somerset paper. Seymour Adelman Fund Purchase, 2022.6.19.1-5.

Bethany Collins is an artist in residence at the College. She visited in April 2022 for a site visit ahead of her solo exhibition and performances in spring 2023. This series of work will be installed long term in Carpenter Library following the exhibition.

Photographs from College Communications

Photograph of the interior of a banker's box, filled with CD-Rom disks. — One of 13 boxes transferred to the College Archives by College Communications.

The College Archives recently received its first transfer of born-digital photographs from College Communications, along with several boxes of printed photographs. This is the beginning of born-digital records entering the College Archives.

New Additions to The College News Archive

A student researcher looks through a large plastic bin full of back issues of The College News. — Special Collections student worker Marion Hamilton '23 goes through a bin of back issues of The College News transferred to the archives by The Bi-Co News.

As offices relocate, bits and pieces of the archival record often come to light. Thanks to outreach from the editors of The Bi-Co News, we were able to fill in several missing issues in the college's archive of The College News.

**Glenn Ligon, Extract (2021)**

Ink-saturated black serif text extracted from James Baldwin — Glenn Ligon, Extract (2021), aquatint with photogravure. Seymour Adelman Fund Purchase, .

Works by Adama Delphine Fawundu, Myra Greene, Maren Hassinger, Steffani Jemison, and Marcia Kure

Seen from behind, a young Black girl's silhouette looks out at a painting titled "American Progress." — Adama Delphine Fawundu, Interrogations of Progress (2018), archival pigment print. Seymour Adelman Fund Purchase, 2021.6.89.

Read .

Kris Graves from series American Monuments, portfolio of 16 photographs (2021)

Photograph by Kris Graves from series American Monuments, taken at protests in Richmond, VA, 2020 — Kris Graves, George Floyd projection, Richmond, Virginia, 2020 from series American Monuments (2021) Archival pigment print, 16 x 20 in. Seymour Adelman Fund Purchase, .

This acquisition deepens our collection of works by Kris Graves begun in 2016.

Works by Ellie Ga

Close up photograph of capped bottle with scrolled paper inside — Ellie Ga, Bottle #430, Zandvoort, Netherlands (Wim Kruiswijk archive), 2017, C-print, 16 x 16 in. Seymour Adelman Fund Purchase, 2021.6.82.

Also purchased:
Ellie Ga, Pharmakon, 2013, Letterpress on paper, 19 x 12 in. Seymour Adelman Fund Purchase, .
Ellie Ga, The Deck of Tara, 2011, 52 unique playing cards and booklet in wooden box, 1 1/2 x 4 1/2 x 3 1/4 in. Seymour Adelman Fund Purchase, .

Ellie Ga is an artist in residence at the College. She visited virtually during the COVID lockdown in 2021 and in person in December 2022. She will continue her artist's research here in 2023.

Learn more about artist's residency

Bryn Mawr’s Trans Men and Transmasculine Alumni Oral History Collection

This collection contains nine oral history interviews with trans men/transmasculine alumni conducted by Anderson Witiak '22, as part of his Impact Center Fellowship. It helps preserve the histories of the trans alum, offers a guide to current and future trans men and transmasculine students who may feel lost or out of place, and explores the legacies of transmasculine at Bryn Mawr and other historically women’s colleges.

Learn more about Impact Center Fellowships here.