Library Collections

The Jean Outland Chrysler Library is a premier resource for artists, historians, scholars, and students. In addition to the extensive collection of art books, the Library holds the following collections:

• Exhibition catalogs
• Individual artist files from local artists like A.B. Jackson to internationally-known artists like Pablo Picasso.
• National and international serials
• Fine and Decorative Art Periodicals
• Auction catalogs
• Walter and Jean Chrysler Archive
• Chrysler Museum Institutional Archive
• Irene Leache Memorial Archive
• Norfolk Society of Arts Archive
• Myers Family Archive

The archival materials have not been digitized yet and are not searchable online. For details on specific resources or to make an appointment to view materials from these collections, please contact the Jean Outland Chrysler Library at 757-664-6205.

Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. and Jean Outland Chrysler Archive
The archives of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. (1901–1988) and Jean Esther Outland Chrysler (1921–1982) offer a glimpse into their collecting practices, personal and professional connections, and the history of the Chrysler Art Museum in Provincetown, Massachusetts, before the collection moved to Norfolk in 1971.

Chrysler Museum of Art Institutional Archive
The institutional archives of the Chrysler Museum of Art provide a unique resource that documents the life of the Museum from its beginnings as the Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences to the present day. These archives include past and present bulletins, exhibition catalogs, photographs and negatives, promotional materials, and more. Our scrapbook collection of historical newspaper clippings documents the formation of the Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences and the Chrysler Museum of Art from the early 1920s through the mid-1980s.

Irene Leache and Norfolk Society of Arts Archives
These archives house the papers and items of individuals and organizations that led to the formation of the Norfolk Museum, including the handmade books of Irene Leache and Anne Cogswell Wood, co-founders and teachers of the Leache-Wood Seminary, a local women’s school established in 1871); and the Norfolk Society of Arts (established in 1917).

Myers Family Archive
As a complement to the Myers House, the Myers archives encompass the papers of Moses and his family, which include five generations of family correspondence and business papers from the late eighteenth century to the early twentieth century, a rare and extensive bound sheet music collection, and a library of books owned by the earlier generations of the family. Moses Myers (1752–1835), an early American entrepreneur and leading citizen, built his Federalist townhouse c. 1792 to accommodate his growing family and display his social prominence. The primary source documents paint an exceptionally accurate picture of the late Federal period and the life of Norfolk’s first permanent Jewish residents and of all who dwelled in the house.