Correspondence is between Kuh, her mother, friends, and colleagues and discuss her study of art history, her travels, her work at the Art Institute of Chicago, as a corporate art advisor, and as an author. Many letters are illustrated with original artwork including a card from Denise René containing a silkscreen print by Vasarely. There is extensive correspondence with staff of the Art Institute of Chicago, the First National Bank of Chicago, and The Saturday Review.
Additional notable correspondents include Walter and Louise Arensberg, Cosmo Campoli, Serge Chermayeff, Richard Cox, Worden Day, Claire Falkenstein, Fred Friendly, Leon Golub, Joseph Goto, David Hare, Denise Brown Hare, Jean Hélion, Ray Johnson, Gyorgy and Juliet Kepes, Len Lye, Wallace Putnam, Kurt Seligmann, Shelby Shackelford, Hedda Sterne, Clyfford Still, and Kuh's mother, Olga Woolf.
There are also scattered letters from Josef Albers, Ivan Albright, Saradell Ard, Elise Asher, Alfred Barr, George Biddle, Marcel Breuer, Joseph Cornell, Stuart Davis, Edwin Dickinson, Werner Drewes, Elsie Driggs, Jimmy Ernst, Philip Evergood, Lorser Feitelson, Joseph Friebert, Naum Gabo, Lee Gatch, John Davis Hatch, Clinton Hill, Joseph Hirshhorn, Hans Hofmann, Fernand Léger, Seymour Lipton, Carlos Mérida, Reuben Nakian, Isamu Noguchi, Philip Pavia, Daniel Catton Rich, Theodore Roszak, Dorothea Tanning, Lenore Tawney, Jack Tworkov, Dr. Vincent W. Van Gogh, Hugo Weber, Emerson Woelffer, and Robert Jay Wolff.
Collection Restrictions:
Authorization to quote, publish or reproduce requires written permission until 2019. Contact the Archives of American Art Reference Services department for additional information.
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:
Katharine Kuh papers, 1875-1994, bulk 1930-1994. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art
