"founding collection" is a perfectly acceptable phrase in written English.
It can be used to refer to a collection of things (e.g. books, documents, artifacts, etc.) that have been gathered together from their original source. For example: The library's founding collection was composed of hundreds of rare books from the 17th and 18th centuries.
In the exhibition "Breaking Ground: The Whitney's Founding Collection," the museum revisits its roots.
Philip Ashton Rollins '89 Collection is the founding collection to which others have been and are being added.
The first of them, "Breaking Ground: The Whitney's Founding Collection," is up and running, and what a curious thing it is.
Using Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest, the museum put its founding collection of 232 works of European art before the public.
The Tate has been rich in his work since its founding collection, including the lovely Ophelia, drifting singing to her death, the gallery's single most popular painting.
And galleries that were originally Louise and Andrew Carnegie's bedrooms hold material from the museum's founding collection, assembled by a pair of enterprising sisters, Eleanor and Sara Hewitt.
Since 1942, Houghton's founding collections have been greatly augmented by a curatorial team whose responsibilities are now divided by period or theme.
Astor left money for what became one of the founding collections of the New York City Public Library, but he was clearly no philanthropist -- indeed, his offspring would be more famous for their conspicuous consumption than for their generosity.
Such promotion was the motivation behind the precursor of the Victoria and Albert Museum (for decorative arts) and the Science Museum, both in South Kensington, London; the founding collections were acquired from the Great Exhibition of 1851 the first of the world's fairs.
This latter category, dubbed the Found collection, offers both new mixed-fabrication pieces using old fabrics (from dhurrie rugs, vintage bandannas, Mexican serape blankets) and refurbished vintage pieces, including Swedish medical bags, military surplus gear and U.S. Postal Service mailbags circa 1940.
KS has contributed to study design, data collection and interpretation, manuscript preparation and founds collection.
