Recordings in this series are mostly interviews of artists conducted by Butterfield between 1971 and 1987. Also found are slide talks, class discussions, and lectures given by artists, which are assumed to have been recorded by Butterfield in most cases. Artists of the United States who are associated with the Light and Space movement in sculpture are highly represented, as well as artists of the new crafts movement and contemporary West Coast artists in particular. Also among the recordings are recorded performances by John Cage, Joe Goode, Newton and Helen Harrison, Jim Roche, and George Greene.
Butterfield's interviews were mainly conducted for specific writing projects, either for articles, reviews, published artist interviews, catalog essays, or books Butterfield was writing. Some interviews were conducted over the phone. Some recordings are editing sessions in which Butterfield consults with her subjects during the editing process for a specific article or interview to be published. Multiple, extensive interviews are found with artists Sam Francis and Robert Irwin. A few interviews conducted by others are found, including a radio interview of Henry Hopkins regarding the Clyfford Still bequest to SF Moma, interviews by Henry Hopkins of Joe Goode, Philip Guston (in a recording of a public Q&A), Walter Hopps (with Jan Butterfield), and possibly Milton Resnick, and an interview with Ursula Schneider conducted by Lorri Surrihan. A transcript is found for the interview by Henry Hopkins with Walter Hopps. Additional transcripts, usually highly edited from the recorded version, are found among the published interviews in the Writings series. Most of the lectures found in this series take place in Texas and California, including multiple lectures that took place at the Berkeley Art Museum, the Northwood Experimental Artists Institute in Dallas, Texas, and the San Francisco Art Institute. In all, the series contains 107 sound tape reels, 97 cassettes, and 1 videoreel.
Panel discussions include two notable recordings that Butterfield seems to have acquired from Milton Resnick during his solo exhibition at the Fort Worth Art Center in 1971. These include a 1959 appearance of Edward Dugmore and Milton Resnick at Southern Illinois State University, and a 1961 debate between Ad Reinhardt and Milton Resnick which later became known as "The Attack," held at "The Club" in New York City. Also found are recordings of a 1976 conference at UCLA entitled "Space and Place" which included talks by Lloyd Hamrol, Richard Serra, Robert Irwin, and others.
Arrangement:
Interviews, lectures, and performances are filed in alphabetical order by their subject's name, and multiple recordings for a single subject are filed chronologically under his or her name. Recordings listed in this series are interviews conducted by Jan Butterfield unless otherwise indicated in the folder listing. Often physical tapes contained multiple recordings, and where an additional recording of a different subject is found on a single physical tape, it is noted with the main entry for that tape, and cross referenced under the additional artist's name alphabetically in the item list. Panel discussions are arranged chronologically at the end of the series.
Additional artist interviews conducted by Michael Karp in the early 1990s are found in the Pacific Enterprises files of series 3, Project files. Additional sound recordings are also found in the Waterfront Project files of series 3, the Lapis Press files of series 3, and in series 7, sound and video recordings.
Collection Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
Collection Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Collection Citation:
Jan Butterfield papers, 1959-1998. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Council on Library and Information Resources "Hidden Collections" grant program.
