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Fonds consists of nine notebooks kept by Kathleen Munn as a student at the Art Student’s League in New York City and at the Summer program in Woodstock, NY. The books contain a meticulous record of her exposure to ideas about artistic theory, philosophy and art history. Undated drawings, prints and unbound notes are also included, and a group of ‘arts-and-crafts’ inspired decorative designs. The fonds contains more than 1800 pencil drawings executed as studies for her mature work on the subject of the Christian Passion. Photographs of eight of these completed drawings are included. Fonds is comprised of the following series: 1. Notebooks 2. Life drawings and studies 3. Studies for ‘The Passion’

Notebooks document Munn’s student life in New York City and at the Art Students League Summer School in Woodstock. She recorded her lecture notes, essays containing reviews and summaries of books read, notations regarding books of interest, sketches, anatomical drawings, copies of historical works of art, poems, and occasionally ephemera. Under the tutelage of her teachers at the Art Students League – Andrew Dasburg, Max Weber, A.S. Baylinson, Stanton Macdonald-Wright and Henry L. McFee, she embraced modernism and gained exposure to literary, artistic and musical influences of her day. The notebooks show her to be an avid reader with a keen interest in the intellectual life of her time and in the artistic expression of other cultures and epochs. There is a particular delight in pattern and an underlying search for explanation and order. On the front pastedown of Notebook No. 8 she wrote, “Perfect beauty is the expression of perfect order, balance, harmony, rhythm. Beauty is a supreme instance of order intuitively felt, instinctively appreciated”. The notebooks are undated, with the exception of No. 5.

Cloth covered notebook with lined pages and printed cover titled ‘Students MSS Book’ filled with writing and a few small sketches in pencil and ink. Front and back endpapers are also filled with writing. The notes appear to have been taken from readings, not lecture notes, as they are in paragraph form and occasionally have page references. Some of the subjects include Wagner, Fetichism, Maeterlinck’s ‘Wisdom and destiny’, Edmund Gosse’s ‘Ibsen’, pictorial composition, Cubism, modern painting, Matisse, Monet, Gauguin, Renoir and many other artists.

Cloth covered burgundy notebook, untitled, with lined sheets, filled with writing as above. The latter part of the book contains discussions of European cities - London, Munich, Berlin, Cracow - visited during Munn’s European tour in 1920. Other entries include discussions of Denman Ross’ theories of colour and design, architecture of the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Renaissance, Byzantine, Romanesque and Gothic, entries on Nietzsche and Gaudier-Brzeska, Japanese flower arrangement. They show that she was aware of Blast, the Vorticists, Kandinsky, and other modern painters and musicians. Notes and drawings on perspective are included, and a discussion of “Science and art drawing” by J. Humphrey Spanton. Two leaves have been torn out.

Notebook with paper covered boards, cloth backstrip, disbound. Two New York addresses are written down in the first few pages, one at 215 West 57th Street, the other at 161 East 63rd Street. This notebook is more casual and fragmentary, containing notes that may have been taken at lectures and are interspersed with rough drawings in pencil. There are a number of loose pages inserted, and an envelope with stamps dated 1915. The notes are a mixture of art-related topics (specific artists suggest an art history class: Titian, El Greco, etc.), and scraps of poetry, a number of these on the subject of love.

Notebook covered in blue cloth with a dark red backstrip The stitching is intact and the sheets are unlined. Contains 6 pages of designs on oiled tracing paper tipped into the book. Drawings accompany a summary of E.A. Batchelder’s The principles of design and A.H. Munsell’s A colour notation. Also included are summaries of Denman’s Ross’ writings, two books on Japan, and reviews of several novels, including Roderick Hudson by Henry James. Much of the book has been written back-to-front.

Notebook is bound in worn limp red leather and contains lined pages. Many of the entries are dated. Contains summaries of books on aesthetics, with occasional quick pencil sketches. Books read include Burnett on painting; Design, the making of patterns; Paul Cezanne his life and art by Vollard; The painter’s palette by Denman Ross; Clive Bell’s Art; Sir Joshua Reynold’s Discourses with Roger Fry’s introduction, and entries on ‘negro art’, theosophy and a number of artists including Brancusi, Seurat and others. Two leaves have been fully removed and one sheet has been partially removed.

Notebook is bound in black speckled paper- covered boards with cloth backstrip, worn and largely disbound. Addresses on the front free endpaper include that of Albert Barnes. Pages are unlined. A number of rough pencil sketches, most of a cubist nature, are included, and summaries include The aesthetic attitude by Langfeld; the Picabia issue of The little review (Spring 1922); Projective ornament by Claude Bragdon; On a composition by Gauguin by Roger Fry; Dynamic symmetry in composition as used by the artist by Jay Hambidge, etc. Four oiled tracing paper sheets with notes and drawings have been loosely inserted.

Notebook is bound in black speckled paper covered boards with cloth backstrip. A number of notes and printed articles are loosely inserted. The pages are unlined and stitching is loose. Two full-page pencil drawings of a domestic scene and 3 full-page charcoal drawings are included within the book. Inserted items include an article on Georges Seurat by Walter Pach, articles on health and digestion, a list of lectures and demonstrations, brochure for a free concert at the Met. This notebook contains a combination of essay-style reviews and short notes, perhaps from lectures. There are reviews of Modern French painters by Jan Gordon, A primer of modern art by Sheldon Cheney, The science of eating by Alfred W. McCann, and Cezanne by Tristas L. Klingson.

Notebook is bound in black paper-covered boards with a red backstrip. Binding is shaken but intact. The artist’s name and the address 320 Spadina Road, are written onto the front pastedown, along with penciled notes. This notebook contains primarily drawings of patterns and motifs from Indian, Japanese, Greek, Assyrian, Peruvian, Egyptian and primitive art, some drawn on onionskin paper and tipped into the book. Most are pencil drawings with a few in coloured pencil. Decorative borders, flower arrangements, drawings of sculpture and pottery are included.