Works & Exhibitions, 1967 - 2016

The Rita Myers Papers documents Myers' art career from her time at Douglass College of Rutgers University, in the late 1960s and into her professional career over the proceeding several decades.

The Works & Exhibitions series, in particular, covers Myers' art and installations. Included in this series are various aspects of Myers' work and process, including a sub-series on the various pieces of art, a sub-series of exhibition correspondence, a sub-series on press and marketing, and a sub-series of various photographs and slides of Myers' work. These sub-series do overlap, as there are documents on various specific pieces throughout, depending on the aspect of the piece or exhibition being documented.

The works sub-series contains material gathered about specific works, including those that may not have been exhibited. This includes notes, proposals, descriptions of pieces, photographs, negatives, and photo proofs. This is where the main ideas, preparation material, and documentation about a piece were collected, primarily outside of context of specific exhibition spaces.

The exhibition correspondence documents Myers work in specific spaces. This includes correspondence between Myers and the exhibition spaces, as well as floor plans, contracts, budgets, and loan agreements. Also found in this subseries are photographs of the exhibition spaces, articles on the exhibits, and artist and curator statements.

The press and marketing sub-series documents publicity of Myers and Myers' exhibitions. Included here are professionally done photographs and headshots of Myers, articles and reviews of Myers' artwork and exhibitions, press books created by Myers, and press releases. There are press clippings, as well as magazines and journals covering Myers' works and exhibitions. Of particular note are the press books that were put together by Myers. These give an overview of Myers' artwork with photographs and descriptions by Myers, providing context to selected pieces of Myers' work.

Also documented in the press and marketing sub-series are exhibition announcements and exhibition catalogs of Myers' works and exhibitions. These document Myers' career from the early 1970s through the mid-2000s.

Also documented in this collection are material related to Myers' academic life. This includes notebooks and material Myers created as a student at Douglass College of Rutgers University, as well as when Myers was a student at Hunter College earning her MA. This includes course notebooks with lecture notes as well as the thesis written by Myers in 1974 titled, An Historical Survey of Mass Communications Research: The Capability of the Mass Media to Motivate Behavioral Change. This thesis was written as part of her coursework at Hunter College. Furthermore, this series documents lectures and teachings done by Myers throughout the years. This includes lecture notes of talks given by Myers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, as well as lecture notes about specific works of art created by Myers.

Furthermore, this collection contains material about the community of artists who were Myers' peers and friends. This series includes primarily essays, articles, and reviews about Myers' art friends. There is limited correspondence found here, however; the majority of the material in this series are catalogs, announcements of exhibitions, and articles that were collected by Myers about her peers. Names of note in this series are Nan Hoover, Dieter Froese, Dieter Kiessling, and Mary Lucier.