A Collection in
the Library of Virginia
Accession Number 26567
Library of Virginia
The Library of Virginia 800 East Broad Street Richmond, Virginia 23219-8000 USA Phone: (804) 692-3888 (Archives Reference) Fax: (804) 692-3556 (Archives Reference) Email: archdesk@lva.virginia.gov(Archives) URL: http://www.lva.virginia.gov/
Julia Sully (d. 1948) of Gordonsville, Virginia, was the
great-grandniece of Thomas Sully, the distinguished painter,
and grandaughter of Robert Sully, an eminent artist. She built
a career around the arts, and was prominent in Richmond, Va.,
social and cultural life. She wrote a weekly column, entitled
"The Camera and the Pen Recall Bygone Days: A Weekly Pictorial
Series of Events and Places in Richmond's Past", for the
RICHMOND NEWS LEADER during the mid-1930's, and served as
director of the Art Index Division of the Virginia Commission
on Conservation and Development from 1937-1940. She also
served as chairman of the Richmond Branch of the Women's
Organization for National Prohibition Reform in 1932.
Papers, 1854-1940, of Julia Sully of Richmond, Virginia,
including catalogs, clippings, correspondence, literary
manuscripts, pamphlets, notes, and photographs. The majority
of these papers are Sully's articles written for her weekly
column "The Camera and the Pen Recall Bygone Days,", for the
Richmond News Leader, on artists and their works, as they
concerned Virginia. The newspaper copies of the articles are
not included with these original typescripts.
Topics include the style of such artists as Thomas Eakins,
George Fuller, Winslow Homer, Robert Mills, Claude Monet,
Virginia's William L. Sheppard, Robert Sully, and Thomas
Sully, the controversy over Mordi Gassner's murals on display
at the Richmond Academy of Arts in 1936, Charles Hoffbauer's
Confederate murals at the Confederate Memorial Institute, the
Mariner's Museum in Newport News, Virginia, and an exhibition
at the Richmond Academy of Arts for Leslie Bolling. Sully also
wrote about the Frick collection of art in New York, John D.
Rockefeller's folk art collection at William and Mary College,
the artists of Spain and the Netherlands, and covered numerous
openings at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond,
Virginia.
Of note in the collection are materials relating to the
Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial in Atlanta, Georgia.
Included are correspondence and telegrams from the sculptor,
Gutzon Borglum, to Julia Sully, regarding the controversy over
the memorial which eventually led to Borglum's abandoning the
project and destroying his models. Also included is a founders
roll, an invitation to the unveiling of the Robert E. Lee
carving in 1924, a report of the financial account with
Borglum, a photograph of the memorial, and oversized editions
of the Stone Mountain magazine, Volume 1, No. 3.
Another item of note are the collection of letters
regarding Sully's work as chairman of the Richmond branch of
the Women's Organization for National Prohibition Reform,
1932. These letters concern the organizations work with the
Virginia Democratic party to repeal the eighteenth amendment
of the Constitution.