In 2000, on the hundredth publication anniversary of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the International Wizard of Oz Club established a small office in San Francisco to house the Club’s collections. With that space available, the Club was able to secure appropriate insurance for the collections and to house them in a secure, Class A building.
The office provides the space to hold the collections to date, with room for modest future growth, and has workspace to facilitate the activities of volunteer archivists and cataloguers. The fragility and rarity of much of the collection precludes general access, but the Club responds to specific research inquiries and contributes digital images from the collection to The Baum Bugle and other publications for stated fees.
In addition, the Club lends items to accredited museums and libraries for exhibition, following standard museum and rare-book-and-manuscript-library policies and guidelines.
The opening of the office led to a major gift from Pete Cervenak of Seattle to establish the Rob Roy MacVeigh Endowment, which supports a gallery function in conjunction with the office. In addition, Pete donated a group of original watercolors by Rob Roy MacVeigh, a longtime Oz Club member who was an accomplished artist, cartoonist, and animator. These complement original drawings, proof prints, and other artwork left to the Club as part of the Dick Martin bequest.
When Pete Cervenak died in 2007, he left an additional bequest to augment the MacVeigh fund along with his personal collection of MacVeigh’s original artwork. This generous bequest is sure to improve our goals to preserve, protect, and display artwork from the collection.
The Nature of the Collection
Online Gallery
Access to the Archives
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