---
title: "Accession"
description: "The formal act of adding an artwork to a collection’s permanent inventory: the point at which the institution takes on responsibility for the piece."
glossary: "https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary"
source: "https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary/accession"
---

# Accession

> The formal act of adding an artwork to a collection’s permanent inventory: the point at which the institution takes on responsibility for the piece.

Glossary: https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary  
Source: https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary/accession

The record created at accession (artist, title, date, materials, location,
value, condition, maintenance needs) is the backbone of everything that
follows. Decades later, it's often the only authoritative account of where a
work came from and what the artist intended.

Many civic collections grew informally, through gifts and one-off projects,
without a real accession process. That's usually why a city can't say with
confidence how many artworks it owns: nothing was ever formally counted in.

Related terms: [Collection management](https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary/collection-management), [Deaccession](https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary/deaccession), [Provenance](https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary/provenance)

## Mentioned in

- [From Open Data to a Living Guide](https://www.civiccollection.com/blog/from-open-data-to-a-living-guide)
- [How to Evaluate Public Art Mapping Software](https://www.civiccollection.com/blog/how-to-evaluate-public-art-mapping-software)
- [What Happens When Public Art Goes Away](https://www.civiccollection.com/blog/what-happens-when-public-art-goes-away)
- [How to Inventory a Public Art Collection](https://www.civiccollection.com/blog/how-to-inventory-a-public-art-collection)
- [Condition report form](https://www.civiccollection.com/toolkit/condition-report-form)
- [Public art inventory field checklist](https://www.civiccollection.com/toolkit/public-art-inventory-field-checklist)
- [RFP language for procuring a public art guide](https://www.civiccollection.com/toolkit/rfp-language-for-procuring-a-public-art-guide)