Annika Öhrner, Konstvetenskapliga institutionen, Uppsala University

2010-2011

The project emanates from the study of two archives, one after the artist Siri Derkert (1888-1973), and the other from the art historian and art educator Carlo Derkert (1915-1994), recently donated to the National Library of Sweden (KB acc. 2009_93 resp. acc. 2009_94). According to the object defined in the research plan, the project will serve to "secure the archives, inform about them and make them publicly available". This object remained throughout the project.

Results

- Securing of the archives

The archives have been ordered, attribuated, documented, conserved and, to a certain extent, digitalized.
The organizing and attribution of manuscripts on paper, has been successful. Letters and hand notes have been conserved when necessary, documents that had glued together were been taken apart, paperclips and other similar objects have been removed. Letters from Siri Derkert have sometimes contained of drawings, and in case they have been classified as artefacts, been separated from the archive and returned to the donators. Many of Siri Derkerts' hand notes are undated and unclassified, something which future research must resolve. Many documents from public bodies and associations are furthermore included in the archive as Fogelstads kvinnliga medborgarskola, Fredshögskolan, Svenska Kvinnors Vänsterförbund and Konstnärernas Riksorganisation.

Some documents have presented difficulties as handwritings hard to read, and notes with no headings or dates. Documents from Carlo and Siri Derkerts are sometimes overlapping, as when notes from both of them are found on the same sheet of paper, or as when the son has transcribed writings by his mother. These cases have been judged individually. The archives also contains of smaller collections from members of their closest family. Some documents from the young Siri Derkerts' love, the Finnish Swede Valle Rosenberg (1891-1919), the artist Bertil Lybeck (1887-1945, Siri Derkerts' husband 1921-24), as well as Bertil Lybecks' and Siri Derkerts' daughters Liv (1918-38) and Sara (1920-2006) are incorporated in the archive of Siri Derkert. They have been placed in separate boxes, where the signum of the main archive is maintained. Furthermore, documents from other individuals have earlier been assembled within the archive, in connection with publications and exhibitions by Carlo Derkert. A collection of letters from an artist friend of Siri Derkert, Ninnan Santesson (1891-1969), was imbedded in her archive. KB could acquire also these letters from Santessons' family, so that now documents with detailed account of Parisian and Swedish art life now are secured for the public (KB acc. 2010_25). For further reading, see Annika Öhrner, "Ett konstnärsarkiv", Rohdin & Öhrner, 2011.

Extensive work has been done on the ordering, attribution and digitalization of parts of the collections of photography. Early on, the decision was made to separate photos of art works from documentary photos of persons, and digitalize the latter. Through cross reference and comparisons most of the persons on these photos have been able to identify. A smaller part of the images, mostly ancient family portraits, have remained unable to identify.

An important result from the project has been its role as a test bank for identification of images within collections of personal manuscripts and letters. Earlier, photos in those archives were unable to detect, they were included without individual signification under the head of the archive. To facilitate the researchers' access to these photos, a model had been developed that contains both the signification of the archive in Ediffah, and an individual number for each document. Through the digitalisation of this archives' extensive number of photographs (3000 photos) in one sequence, instead as normally in connection with the ordering of individual images by researchers, this model could be tested. The test was successful, and in the future, many photos that earlier could be obtained only through Ediffah, will also be detectable through Libris. It is an important step towards making images in archives accessible for researchers. KBs' department for audio visual media, have ordered and attributed a smaller collection of sound tapes, sound- and videocassettes in this archive.

- Catalogues
After the ordering and attribution, catalogues have been created and presented in digital data bases, thereby being accessible for researchers and the public. The database Eddifah presents catalogues over archives with personal manuscripts, and audio visual documentation is catalogued in SMDB.

- Information about the archive within the scientific community
An extra initiative outside the initial research plan was made, to disseminate and analyse the archive within the scientific community. Seven researchers were invited by KB to study the archive and contribute to a research anthology (Rohdin, Mats & Öhrner, Annika, (red.) Att alltid göra och tänka det olika. Siri Derkert i 1900-talet, Kungliga Biblioteket, Stockholm, 2011). This made up an ideal synergy with the research for the large retrospect exhibition of Siri Derkert at Moderna Museet (2011-05-28 - 2011-09-04) and the catalogue (Öhrner, Annika (red.) Siri Derkert, Stockholm: Moderna Museet, 2011) and a seminary (Perspective on Siri Derkert, 2011-06-01).
A research seminary about Carlo Derkert was arranged at KB (2011-11-03), and a selection of the contributions will be published in a future issue of Biblis, see the separat bibliography.

The project has been running without any larger technical or methodological problems.
During the analysing phase, issues regarding copyright in connection with the organizing of the researchers' access to images and written documents occured. As for example, images could only be accessed by the researchers at site in the library through a hard desk at a computer with no internet connection.

At the end phase of the project, some problems regarding certain publishing of documents in printed matter and on the internet arose. At the advice of the lawyers at KB, extensive work made to search the author for his or her written consent, in every single case. The demand for such consent when it came to historical documents with anonymous authors, could result in time consuming search for authors, and it also limited the amount of documents that actually could be published on the web in the cases no author was found. Photographs made by unknown authors, should be able to publish with a restriction, as an alternative to not let it be published at all, to reach it proper audience among researchers and the public. From a research perspective, a clearance of these matters is called for. A rigoruos securing of copyright already in the research phase, should be omitted as it is not an efficient as use of re manual resources and research time.

Several units at KB have been involved in the project. The main responsible for the ordering of the archive has been Karin Sterky, employed for the project, and Katinka Albom (The unit for Manuscripts, Maps and Pictures). The work not the least regarding the photographic material, has been followed by other units. The model for identification of photographs will be used in upcoming ordering of personal archives. The analysing phase of the project was also well integrated in the project, as a result of the fact that PhD Mats Rohdin (Research Department) was included in the work. The researchers were using all kinds of documents, not only letters and manuscripts, but photographs, films and sound recordings and thereby also cooperated with the Audiovisual Media Department. The good experiences from the co-operations within the organization will be transmitted into future projects.

New Research Quetions

The project has raised discussions among the researchers and the institutions (Moderna Museet and KB) how modern and contemporary personal archives can be secured, as well as oral accounts from living actors within the art life could be gathered and preserved. Dialogues have been initiated on how future co-operations could structurally secure such archives.

Different types of implementation of the results of the project

The research implementations have been described above, and a publication list is attached. The research seminars have been not only open to, but also marketing to, the general public.
The project has continuously been demonstrated towards visitors at KB, such as researchers, students, and archivists and librarians.
KB has shown documents in monters and displays in the entrance hall, where many visitors are passing. A web publication has been available at the KB homepage.
Moderna Museets' Siri Derkert retrospective where documents were presented and a large amount of documentary photographs were displayed, was visited by 85 000 visitors.
A film on Siri Derkert, directed by Per Forsgren for SVT K-Special, is under production and will be finished during 2012. It presents a number of documents from the archive.