The papers of sculptor Beniamino Bufano measure 2.7 linear feet and date from circa 1910 to 1972. The collection sheds light on the artist's career through personal and professional papers, printed materials, photographic materials, and scrapbooks that contain primarily letters, clippings, and photographs.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of sculptor Beniamino Bufano measure 2.7 linear feet and date from circa 1910 to 1972. The collection sheds light on the artist's career through personal and professional papers, printed materials, photographic materials, and scrapbooks that contain primarily letters, clippings, and photographs.
Personal and professional papers include scant biographical materials, letters of approval and disapproval regarding the placement of St. Francis of Assisi in California, a framed letter from Bufano to Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin, writings by Bufano on peace, and a proposal for the San Francisco Art Commission's Open Air Art Exhibit that was drafted by Bufano while serving as commissioner. This series also includes photographs, negatives, and transparencies of Bufano, his studio, and artwork.
Printed materials include articles and clippings about Bufano's art, controversies he was involved in, and his lifestyle; reproductions of Bufano's work; travel ephemera; and miscellaneous printed materials including topics of interest to Bufano.
Scrapbooks were compiled after Bufano's death by his friend and volunteer assistant William Goetz. They include clippings and writings about Bufano, letters, writings by Bufano, press releases for unveiling ceremonies, fact sheets relating to Bufano's travels, and photographs of Bufano working, his artwork around the San Francisco area, scenes from his studio, and Bufano working with others, including Goetz.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 3 series.
Series 1: Personal and Professional Papers, circa 1943-1970 (Box 1; 8 folders)
Series 2: Printed Materials, 1922-1972 (Box 1, 4; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 3: Scrapbooks, circa 1910-1972 (Box 1-4; 2.2 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
Italian-born sculptor Beniamino Bufano (1898-1970) was active primarily in San Francisco for most of his career. Bufano was known for his large-scale monuments and modernist work which often featured smooth and rounded animal forms.
Bufano was born in San Fele, Italy, and moved to New York in 1901. He studied at the Art Students' League under James Fraser, Herbert Adams, and Paul Manship. In 1914, Manship invited Bufano and Robert Treat Paine to work in San Francisco on sculptures for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, and in 1915 Bufano won first prize in an art exhibition held by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. Bufano married in 1918 and moved to California where he met art patrons Sara Bard Field and Charles Erskine Scott Wood. This patronage allowed Bufano to travel to China, where he studied glazing and became friends with Sun Yat-Sen, India, Cambodia, and elsewhere for the next several years; he was profoundly influenced by his experiences on this and subsequent trips.
Bufano returned to San Francisco in 1921 and taught at the San Francisco Art Institute until 1923 when he founded the short-lived Davinci School of Allied Arts. In 1925 he launched a solo exhibition at the City of Paris Galleries which, over the next eight years, traveled to other locations in the Uninted States and abroad including Paris, London, Berlin, and Moscow.
During this time, Bufano spent two years in Paris where he completed St. Francis of Assisi, which he intended to give to the City of San Francisco and which became perhaps his best known and most controversial work.
In the 1930s Bufano was employed by the Works Progress Adminstration's Federal Arts Project, during which time he completed some of his abstracted bronze and stone animals and a statue of Sun Yat-sen. In 1946 he established Bufano Studios Inc., also known as Bufano Society for the Arts, with a nine-person board of directors.
Also an educator, Bufano lectured on art over the radio and in classrooms, and in the 1960s taught at the University of California at Berkeley and the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. He held a position on the San Francisco Arts Commission from 1944-1948, serving as commissioner in 1947.
Provenance:
The collection was donated by Pauline B. Goetz in 1997.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
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.
Occupation:
Sculptors -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Citation:
Beniamino Bufano papers, circa 1910-1972. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
The processing of this collection received Federal support from the Smithsonian Collections Care and Preservation Fund, administered by the National Collections Program and the Smithsonian Collections Advisory Committee.
Found here are biographical materials that include writings by others, a copy of Bufano's death certificate, and scant information about his career; letters of approval and disapproval of the placement of St. Francis in California; scant writings by Bufano on peace; and a proposal for the San Francisco Art Commission's Open Air Art Exhibit, drafted by Bufano while he was serving as commissioner. The Bulganin letter concerns Bufano's stainless steel statue, A Little Child Shall Lead Them, which Bufano hoped to have installed at the United Nations headquarters in New York as a gift from Russia. Also found here are photographs, negatives, and transparencies of Bufano, his studio, and artwork. Additional photographs can be found in Series 3, Scrapbook 3.
Collection Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
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:
Beniamino Bufano papers, circa 1910-1972. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
The processing of this collection received Federal support from the Smithsonian Collections Care and Preservation Fund, administered by the National Collections Program and the Smithsonian Collections Advisory Committee.
Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America Search this
Type:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Irena Brynner, 2001 April 26-27. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
The Emmy Lou Packard papers measure 9.5 linear feet and date from 1900 to 1990, and focus on the career of painter, printmaker, muralist, and sculptor Emmy Lou Packard. Also found are extensive materials relating to Packard's personal and professional relationship with muralist Diego Rivera and painter Frida Kahlo, with whom Packard lived for one year in Mexico. Papers include correspondence, financial records, notes, writings, exhibition files, photographs, and printed material. Also found is a motion picture film documenting a mural/mosaic project that Packard did with the children at Hillcrest Elementary School in San Francisco, 1956.
Scope and Contents note:
The Emmy Lou Packard papers measure 9.5 linear feet and date from 1900 to 1990, and focus on the career of painter, printmaker, muralist, and sculptor Emmy Lou Packard. Also found are extensive materials relating to Packard's personal and professional relationship with muralist Diego Rivera and painter Frida Kahlo, with whom Packard lived for one year in Mexico. Papers include correspondence, financial records, notes, writings, exhibition files, photographs, and printed material.
Biographical materials include resumes, personal forms, and certificates. Correspondence is with family, friends, and colleagues, including muralist Anton Refregier, songwriter Malvina Reynolds, and composer John Edmunds. There is one letter from Dorothea Lange. Also found is correspondence with various political and arts organizations, such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Russian magazine Soviet Woman. Much of the correspondence discusses personal relationships and political and art-related activities. Additional correspondence with and concerning Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo is arranged in Series 6.
Personal business records found within the papers include studio real estate and rent records, insurance records, price lists for artwork, consignment records, and miscellaneous receipts. There is one interview transcript of an interview with Packard for the Radical Elders Oral History Project. The papers include a series of notebooks/diaries, address lists, and other notes.
Packard's reference files and personal papers documenting her professional and close personal relationship with Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo are arranged into a separate series. They include her research files for a planned book on the two artists, personal letters between Packard and the couple, as well as several interesting photographs. Also found in this series are notes, writings, and printed materials relating to Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and other Mexican artists, such as Covarrubius, Juan O'Gorman, and Pablo O'Higgins.
The collection also includes typescripts and additional writings by Packard and others. Artwork consists of orginal drawings and prints by Packard and others not directly associated with projects. Exhibition and project files for many of Packard's commissioned projects are also found within the collection, including her files for the restoration of Anton Refregier's Rincon Annex Post Office mural in San Francisco and the Coit Tower murals in San Francisco. Many of the project files contain correspondence, reports, contracts, printed material, photographs, and artwork. Also found is a motion picture film documenting a mural/mosaic project that Packard did with the children at Hillcrest Elementary School in San Francisco, 1956.
The papers also include photographs of Packard, her family, residences, artwork, friends, and colleagues, including Cesar Chavez, Juan O'Gorman, Malvina Reynolds, Charles Safford, Ralph Stackpole, and Tennessee Williams. Two scrapbooks are found, as well as additional printed materials such as clippings and exhibition announcements and catalogs. There are also two artifact items, a vinyl record of Malvina Reynolds and a political campaign button.
Arrangement note:
The collection is arranged into 15 series.
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1942-1985 (Box 1; 1 folder)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1919-1990 (Box 1-3; 2.6 linear feet)
Series 3: Personal Business Records, 1945-1985 (Box 3; 21 folders)
Series 4: Interview Transcript, 1979 (Box 3; 1 folder)
Series 5: Notes, 1900-1985 (Box 3-4, 10; 1.1 linear feet)
Series 6: Reference Files on Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, 1929-1986 (Box 5, 10, OV 11; 0.9 linear feet)
Series 7: Writings by Packard, 1953-1984 (Box 6; 17 folders)
Series 8: Writings by Others, 1955-1984 (Box 6; 19 folders)
Series 9: Artwork, 1921-1976 (Box 6; 10 folders)
Series 10: Exhibition Files, 1950-1964 (Box 6, OV 11; 5 folders)
Series 11: Project Files, 1953-1985 (Box 6-7, 10, OV 11; 1.8 linear feet)
Series 12: Photographs, 1914-1982 (Box 8, 10; 0.8 linear feet)
Series 13: Scrapbooks, 1947-1950 (Box 8, 10; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 14: Printed Material, 1936-1988 (Box 8-9, 10; 1.0 linear foot)
Series 15: Artifacts, 1984 (Box 9-10, OV 11; 2 folders)
Biographical/Historical note:
Emmy Lou Packard was born in Imperial Valley, California on April 15, 1914, to Walter and Emma Leonard Packard. In the late 1920s she lived with her family in Mexico City where she became acquainted with Diego Rivera, from whom she received regular art criticism and encouragement. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley and completed courses in fresco and sculpture at the California School of Fine Arts in 1940. That year and the next, Packard worked as a full-time painting assistant to Rivera on his 1,650 square-foot fresco at the World's Fair in San Francisco. During this project, Packard became very close to Rivera and Frida Kahlo and returned to Mexico with them and spent a year living with the couple.
From then on, except for in 1944-1945 working for a defense plant, Packard worked and grew in various aspects of her art. In addition to her work in fresco, Packard is known for her work in watercolor, oil, mosaic, laminated plastic, concrete, and printmaking, both in linocuts and woodblocks. She received numerous commissions that included installations for ships, hotels, and private homes for which she executed large woodcuts and mural panels. During the 1950s and 1960s, Packard was hired to restore several historic murals, most notably the Rincon Annex Post Office mural by Anton Refregier and the Coit Tower murals in San Francisco.
Between 1966 and 1967 she was commissioned by architects to design and execute a number of concrete and mosaic pieces, one of which went to the Mirabeau Restaurant in Kaiser Center, Oakland. She also designed and executed a mural for the Fresno Convention Center Theater during that same period. In 1973-1974, she designed and supervised a glazed brick mural for a public library in Pinole, California.
Packard had one-woman shows at the San Francisco Museum of Art, Raymond and Raymond Gallery (San Francisco), Addison Gallery of American Art (Andover, Mass.), Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts, Pushkin Museum (Moscow), and March Gallery (Chicago). Emmy Lou Packard died in 1998.
Related Archival Materials note:
Also found in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Emmy Lou Packard conducted by Mary Fuller McChesney in 1964.
Provenance:
Emmy Lou Packard donated her papers to the Archives of American Art from 1984-1988. An additional 16mm reel of motion picture film donated in 2023 by Donald Cairns, Packard's son.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Researchers interested in accessing audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more information.
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.
Occupation:
Painters -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Sculptors -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Muralists -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Topic:
Printmakers -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Mural painting and decoration, American Search this
Mural painting and decoration, Mexican Search this
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Researchers interested in accessing audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more 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:
Emmy Lou Packard papers, 1900-1990. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Researchers interested in accessing audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more 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:
Charles W. White papers, 1933-1987. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Henry Luce Foundation. Funding for the digitization was provided by the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation and the Alice L. Walton Foundation.
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more 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:
Robert McChesney papers, 1913-2006. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more 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:
Hassel Smith papers, circa 1900-2004, bulk 1930-1995. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Getty Foundation and funding for digitization was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Researchers interested in accessing born-digital records or audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more 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:
Amy Jones papers, 1910s-2015. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
The processing of this collection received Federal support from the Smithsonian Collections Care and Preservation Fund, administered by the National Collections Program and the Smithsonian Collections Advisory Committee.
An interview of Irena Brynner conducted 2001 April 26-27, by Arline M. Fisch, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, in Brynner's home and studio, New York, New York.
Brynner speaks of her childhood in Vladivostok in Primorski Krai, Russia; her artistic family including her cousin Yul Brynner; fleeing from Russia to Darian (on the southern tip of the Liaotung peninsula, in the Kwantung Leased Territory of Manchuria); her art studies in Lausanne, Switzerland; her father's illness during World War II; moving with her mother to San Francisco in 1946; her studies with Ralph Stackpole and Franz Bergman in San Francisco; her relationship with architect Frank Merwin; teaching art in Catholic schools in San Francisco; her decision to make jewelry after seeing Claire Falkenstein's sculpture; working as an apprentice to Caroline Rosene and Franz Bergman; forming the Metal Arts Guild with Bob Winston, Merry Renk, Florence Resnikoff, Margaret De Patta, and others; and introducing forging and three-dimensional jewelry in the Metal Arts Guild. She also talks about her move to New York City in 1957; acting as her own agent; "open-air art shows" in San Francisco; her first show at Walker & Eberling; starting her own shop; teaching at the Craft Students League and at MoMA's Institute of Modern Art, at Victor D'Amico's invitation, circa 1962; her friendships with students and clients; her book, "Jewelry as an Art Form" (New York : Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1979) and its influence; learning to work with a Henes water welder; the treatment of women artists in America; her move to Geneva, Switzerland, in 1972, and the difficulties of starting a shop there; and her return to New York and reestablishing her career in the United States. Brynner also discusses her interest in singing, her voice lessons, her public performances of Russian classical music, and her health.
She comments on the intuitive development of her jewelry; the influence of Margaret De Patta; learning wax techniques from Bob Winston at Mills College; her progression from geometric to organic forms; her large-scale sculpture; her invention of "wrap-around earrings"; her use of niobium in the 1980s; drawing inspiration from Antonio Gaudi, Alberto Jaccometti, and others; involvement with the community of artists in the San Francisco Bay Area; the Society of North American Goldsmiths (SNAG); craft periodicals; her exhibitions at the Little Gallery of the Museum of Contemporary Crafts, the Musée de l'horlogerie et de l'émaillerie in Geneva, the Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C., and others; her work in museum collections; serving as a juror; and writing her memoir. Brynner recalls Georg Jensen, Grete Daniels, Trudy Jeremias, Aaron Faber, David Campbell, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Irena Brynner (1917-2003) was a jeweler from New York, New York. Arline M. Fisch (1931- ) is a metalsmith from San Diego, California.
General:
Originally recorded on 4 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 7 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hr., 41 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
The collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website.
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:
Hugo Gellert papers, 1916-1986. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art
Found are two books illustrated by Fritzi Brod, A Child's Book of Birds and Decorative Design; photographs of works of art; two resumes; and a mixed media scrapbook.
The scrapbook contains clippings and scattered other printed materials on Brod, her activities, and the Chicago art scene. Of note are articles written by C. J. Bulliet, exhibition announcements (1932-1967), five exhibition catalogs (1938-1977) and a 1944 press release on Brod's watercolor exhibition at the Norlyst Gallery. Clippings are about events in Brod's career and include extensive coverage of early events such as the Little Gallery (which closed in 1933) and Chicago's first open air art fair in Grant Park in 1932, an event that raised much controversy. The scrapbook is equally important for information about Brod's career and art events in Chicago.
Collection Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
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:
Fritzi Brod papers, 1932-1977. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Processing of this collection received support from the Smithsonian American Women's History Initiative.
