Expanding Knowledge: Collective Memory in the Ruth G. Waddy Sketchbook

Words by Beth Ann Whittaker and Richelle Munkhoff, Plain Sight Archive

In 2011 the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) acquired a sketchbook once belonging to Ruth G. Waddy (1909-2003). Waddy was an LA-based artist, educator, and activist dedicated to making Black arts visible and valued.

The sketchbook is unique because it does not highlight her own artistic practice; rather it is a collection of work by others and therefore representative of Waddy’s commitment to supporting an ecosystem of artists nationally and internationally. Comprised of 123 pages, the sketchbook includes approximately 110 different artists. Waddy carried it on her travels from 1968 until the early 1980s – creating a significant piece that documents important Black artists and creativity across this era. 

Varnette Honeywood, Ruth Waddy at Work: Building a Nation of Black Artists, 1981. [1] Reproduced with permission.

Leon Leonard, [Ruth Waddy] Seated at Table, 1968. [2] Reproduced with permission. 

LACMA has done a fantastic act of preservation by acquiring the sketchbook, photographing every single page, making those digitally available, and celebrating it in both a blog post and a video. And yet, for us, this sketchbook is emblematic of deep structural issues of visibility and access within the archive universally. 

Because the sketchbook is understood in the archive as a single object, the other 110 artists are obscured. Currently none of the artists in the sketchbook are searchable on LACMA’s public-facing collections database.³ So it appears to the public that the museum lacks artwork by most of these artists – when the opposite is true. It is complicated, but for vulnerable legacies, visibility is imperative. 

This crux is emblematic of the dynamics within larger institutions that house multi-artist archives. When an individual artist’s papers are acquired and processed, the focus naturally centers on that person. Yet, the many other individuals and communities present in the collection — through letters, photographs, and other materials — often vanish from view, since they are not named in the collection index.⁴ Pieces of their legacies are preserved, but remain invisible. The institutional intention may be quite the opposite – as we see in the case of Ruth Waddy’s sketchbook. But structures of information management too often reinforce a hierarchical system of neglect. 

The archive houses what makes history. Who is looking, who has access, and what they see shapes the story.

When parts of the record remain unseen, the story narrows. This is especially true for women, artists of color, and anyone who has not been a traditionally prioritized figure.

For underattended legacies, piecing together fragments of information becomes a struggle — especially when those fragments are scattered across multiple institutions whose records remain closed to one another, and when many pieces go uncatalogued or untagged.  Even when legacies are valued — by family members or other memory keepers — connecting that knowledge work to researchers and to the interested public can be difficult. 

We created the non-profit Plain Sight Archive in order to address these challenges directly through an accessible online platform. Our transformative tool connects dispersed archival fragments, building networks of relational data so each piece can speak to the others — building knowledge exponentially. By forging pathways of dialogue between institutions, legacy holders, memory workers and other archives, our tool dissolves traditional barriers and offers possibilities for intersection and inclusive collaboration. 

Technology alone does not solve the issues we confront.

Currently, no amount of digitization or AI-powered searching can put a name to an “unidentified artist” in an archival document or photo.

[Sybil Atteck], Art Gallery, Salvatori Bldg., Frederick St., Port of Spain, ca. 1970. [5] Reproduced with permission.

For example, of the roughly 35 unidentified artists within the Ruth Waddy sketchbook, we have identified ten. Among them view 73 is by the artist Sybil Atteck (1911-1975). We had met Atteck’s nephew, Keith Atteck, who is actively working to document her life and work. Because her artwork and name were familiar to us, we instantly recognized the partial signature and style. Born in Trinidad and Tobago, Atteck was a founding member of the Trinidad Art Society in 1943, the first of its kind in the region. She travelled widely, studying and exhibiting abroad in the UK, Peru, the US, Italy, and the Caribbean. Atteck was the first British Caribbean and Trinidadian artist to exhibit at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1955. Due to Keith Atteck’s efforts and knowledge, there was a retrospective of Sybil Atteck’s work in 2023 at the Art Gallery of Burlington, Ontario, Canada. 

Atteck’s sketch is one of a number by Caribbean artists, clearly grouped together, created during a trip that Ruth Waddy took to the region around 1970. The sketchbook is thus a snapshot of relationship building across time and place, demanding that we consider it as an act of creative community rather than the work of a single artist. The very creation of the book itself is an output of deep personal relationships and efforts to further meaningful action. 

Another featured artist, Evangeline Juliet “E.J.” (Vangie) Montgomery (1930-2025), gifted the blank sketchbook to Waddy as a birthday present. Her inscription alludes to what they will accomplish together with Dr. Samella Lewis the following year. 

To Ruth, May this year be the greatest Happy Birthday Jan. 7, 1968. Have your friends fill up this book in 1968 and get us published in “69”. A new thing to think about. 
-Vangie 

All three women were artists, educators, and activists dedicated to their communal vision and endeavor. The sketchbook is a precursor to the foundational Black Artists on Art volumes (1969, 1971 and 1976), compiled and published by Waddy and Lewis.

Wesley Hall, Vangie For Ruth, ca. 1970. [6] Reproduced with permission.

Black Artists on Art, Volume 1, rev. ed. (1976) and Volume 2 (1971). [7]

Waddy reflects on how the publication of these seminal volumes came to be in her oral history housed at UCLA: “[Montgomery] said, ‘Ruth, you know all the artists, and Samella has all the scholarship… Now I think that you and Samella should do a book together.’” ⁸ 

Lewis also reflects on the moment this project was conceived in her oral history facilitated by the Getty: 

I was at E.J. Montgomery's house, along with Ruth Waddy. The three of us were sitting on E.J.'s carpet in the living room, and we started talking  about the lack of visibility of black artists in this country and how we really should try to do something about it. This just came up as conversation. It wasn't something that I planned or they planned; it just came up after dinner, and we weren't even drinking. We were just sitting there talking, and we were concerned about the museums and the galleries and the books.⁹ 

This sketchbook was developed with purpose and intention; the lives of Waddy, Montgomery, and Lewis were dedicated to documenting and celebrating these artists. So the fact that there are unidentified names – even in one of the best examples of how an archival piece can be preserved – is profoundly troubling. Waddy knew every contributing artist, but as the book became separate from Waddy’s person and memory, pieces of that knowledge disappeared. 

Plain Sight Archive prioritizes identifying the unidentified and uncatalogued in the primary record. Our approach is always the same: identify who, find more, connect the dots. Gathering and attending to these pieces expands the visible archive toward fully inclusive history. 

By creating an open archive, we aim to transcend traditional boundaries, fostering collaboration and honoring the interconnection of historical and cultural heritage. This collaborative framework will empower individuals and organizations alike to access, contribute to, and learn from a rich and expansive repository of collective memory, ensuring that these vital legacies continue to thrive and inspire future generations.

Samella Sanders Lewis, Untitled (Couple), 1970. [10] Reproduced with permission.

Roland Welton, Lady Bird Cleveland, Loîs Mailou Jones, Dana Chandler,
Jr., Jewel Simon, Romare Bearden and Joanna Lee. Ruth G. Waddy
Sketchbook, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gift of the
Azzi-Lusenhop Black Arts Movement Collection and purchased with funds
provided by Robert and Kelly Day, the Modern and Contemporary Art
Council, and the Elliot and Kimberly Perry Collection, M.2011.33.3.
Photo © Museum Associates/LACMA.

1. Ink, graphite, marker, and wash on paper, in the Ruth G. Waddy Sketchbook, View #111. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gift of the Azzi-Lusenhop Black Arts Movement Collection and purchased with funds provided by Robert and Kelly Day, the Modern and Contemporary Art Council, and the Elliot and Kimberly Perry Collection, M.2011.33.116. Photo © Museum Associates/LACMA.

2. Ink on paper, in the Ruth G. Waddy Sketchbook, View #3. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gift of the Azzi-Lusenhop Black Arts Movement Collection and purchased with funds provided by Robert and Kelly Day, the Modern and Contemporary Art Council, and the Elliot and Kimberly Perry Collection, M.2011.33.3. Photo © Museum Associates/LACMA. 

3. The curatorial department at LACMA has detailed information on each page of the sketchbook. They have generously shared a pdf of this with us. Of the roughly 110 artists, 23 remain absolutely unidentified, either because there is no signature or only an illegible signature exists. A further 13 artists have legible or semi-legible signatures, but further information is needed to determine who they are. Our point here is that the 74 known artists are invisible to a public search of LACMA’s collections. 

4. Names and other identifiers can also be lost across time, as often happens even within family records.

5. Marker on paper, in the Ruth G. Waddy Sketchbook, View 73. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gift of the Azzi-Lusenhop Black Arts Movement Collection and purchased with funds provided by Robert and Kelly Day, the Modern and Contemporary Art Council, and the Elliot and Kimberly Perry Collection, M.2011.33.77. Photo © Museum Associates/LACMA. Artwork © Estate of Sybil Atteck.

6. Graphite on paper, in the Ruth G. Waddy Sketchbook, View 63. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gift of the Azzi-Lusenhop Black Arts Movement Collection and purchased with funds provided by Robert and Kelly Day, the Modern and Contemporary Art Council, and the Elliot and Kimberly Perry Collection, M.2011.33.66. Photo © Museum Associates/LACMA. 

7. Lewis, Samella S. and Ruth G. Waddy, ed., Black Artists on Art (Los Angeles: Contemporary Craft). Volume 1 (1969, rev. ed. 1976) Volume 2 (1971). 

8. African-American Artists of Los Angeles: Ruth G. Waddy, transcription of interview by Karen Anne Mason, 28 July 1991, Oral History Program, UCLA (Los Angeles: Regents of the University of California, 1993), p. 122. 
https://dn790006.ca.archive.org/0/items/waddyafricanamer00wadd/waddyafricanamer00wadd.pdf

Audio can be found at: https://oralhistory.library.ucla.edu/catalog/21198-zz0008zm60?counter=8

9. Image and Belief: Samella Lewis, interviewed by Richard Candida Smith, Art History Oral Documentation, Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities (Los Angeles: The J Paul Getty Trust, 1999) Session Three: 20 MAY, 1997 [Tape V, Side One], p. 200. Transcription Getty Research Institute Digitized Version (Internet Archive)  https://archive.org/details/imagebeliefsamel00lewi/page/n21/mode/2up 

10. Black and blue marker on paper, in the Ruth G. Waddy Sketchbook, View 83. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gift of the Azzi-Lusenhop Black Arts Movement Collection and purchased with funds provided by Robert and Kelly Day, the Modern and Contemporary Art Council, and the Elliot and Kimberly Perry Collection, M.2011.33.87. Photo © Museum Associates/LACMA. 

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