1 Film reel (Original (20 min.), sd., col., 16mm.)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Film reels
Date:
circa 1960
Scope and Contents:
Narrator Brian O'Doherty discusses the role the Archives of American Art plays in art historical research through a selection of historical documents which he describes, including a letters, photographs, a sketchbook, diary, and oral history interviews. Dr. Harlan Phillips and E.P. Richardson appear briefly to discuss the Archives.
Publication, Distribution, Etc. (Imprint):
Detroit : The Jam Handy Organization, [ca. 1960].
General:
Presented by the Archives of American Art.
Provenance:
Transferred from 16 mm motion picture film to videocassette (VHS) in 1992. Videocassette was later digitized.
The papers of art historian, art critic, author, librarian and educator Ellen Hulda Johnson measure 61.5 linear feet and date from 1872-2018, with the bulk of the material dating from 1921-1992. The papers include biographical materials; personal and family files; personal, professional, and business correspondence; extensive research and writing files; teaching files; subject files; professional and curatorial files; and artists' files. Johnson's papers reflect the full range of her career, interests, and close relationships with many artists. There is a 0.2 linear foot unprocessed addition to this collection donated in 2021 that includes letters to Ellen Johnson from others, letters from Johnson to Carl Gerber, and a sketch by Johnson. Materials date from circa 1956-1991.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of art historian, art critic, author, librarian and educator Ellen Hulda Johnson measure 61.5 linear feet and date from 1872-2018, with the bulk of the material dating from 1921-1992. The papers include biographical materials; personal and family files; personal, professional, and business correspondence; extensive research and writing files; teaching files; subject files; professional and curatorial files; and artists' files. Johnson's papers reflect the full range of her career, interests, and close relationships with many artists. There is a 0.2 linear foot unprocessed addition to this collection donated in 2021 that includes letters to Ellen Johnson from others, letters from Johnson to Carl Gerber, and a sketch by Johnson. Materials date from circa 1956-1991.
Personal papers consist of biographical materials and personal and family files, including "memorabilia" files compiled by Johnson. Correspondence is a mix of personal, business, and professional correspondence. Significant correspondents include David Saunders (who painted a portrait of Johnson), Claes Oldenburg, Jack Tworkov, Robert Venturi, the American Scandinavian Foundation. A folder of correspondence compiled for the Archives includes letters from Alfred Stieglitz, Wendell Wilkie, Carl Milles, Jim Dine, and Alexander Archipenko.
Extensive and comprehensive writing and research project files include articles, lectures, presentations, manuscripts, notes and notebooks, including her class notebooks from courses she attended in Paris in 1935, and additional notes and notebooks on a wide variety of subjects. The numerous articles, lectures, papers, and drafts were written primarily by Johnson for the College Art Association, the Allen Memorial Art Museum bulletin, and numerous additional publications and presentations; but there are also writings by others included in the research files. Major writing projects and related research files cover Scandinavian art, the Ossabaw Island artist's colony, Cezanne, Eva Hesse, John Frederick Kensett, Claes Oldenburg, Picasso, David Saunders, Athena Tacha, Pop Art, and many other topics. Johnson's research files, manuscripts, correspondence, and photographs for major exhibitions, including one on Eva Hesse (1982) and for her published books including American Artists on Art from 1940-1980 (1982), Claes Oldenburg (1971), Fragments Recalled at 80: The Art Memoirs of Ellen H. Johnson (1993), and Modern Art and Object (1976) are arranged with the writing project files. Johnson's bibliographic index cards are found here as well.
The collection contains extensive teaching files for courses taught by Johnson at Oberlin and as a visiting professor at other institutions; professional and curatorial files reflecting her curatorial career at Allen Memorial Art Museum, as a consultant, jury member, and continuing education courses she later attended, including the Baldwin Lecture Series; and 18 linear feet of artist's files assembled by Johnson.
Arrangement:
The Ellen Hulda Johnson papers are arranged into seven series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Personal Papers, circa 1905-2009 (5 linear feet; Boxes 1-2, 56-59)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1927-2009 (5.5 linear feet; Boxes 3-7, 60)
Series 3: Writing and Research Projects, 1872, 1932-1994 (15.5 linear feet; Boxes 7-20, 56, 61-62)
Series 4: Subject Files, 1930-1993 (5 linear feet; Boxes 21-25, 62)
Series 5: Teaching Files, 1928-1989 (6 linear feet; Boxes 26-31, 62)
Series 6: Professional and Curatorial Files, 1936-1991 (6 linear feet; Boxes 32-37, 56)
Series 7: Artists Files, 1935-1992 (18.3 linear feet; Boxes 37-55, 62)
Series 8: Unprocessed Addition, 1956-1991 (0.2 linear feet; Box 63)
Biographical / Historical:
Ellen Hulda Johnson (1910-1992) was an art historian, critic, and professor who worked and taught at Oberlin College in Ohio for most of her career.
Ellen Hulda Johnson was born in 1910 in Warren, Pennsylvania. She received her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in art history at Oberlin in 1933 and 1935. She worked briefly at the Toledo Museum of Art before returning to Oberlin as the art librarian. In 1940 she started Oberlin's art rental program, the first of its kind in the country. She was appointed to the faculty in 1948 and taught nineteenth and twentieth century art, American art from colonial times to the present, contemporary art, and Scandinavian art. She was a member of the Allen Memorial Art Museum's acquisition committee and was appointed honorary curator of modern art in 1973. She remained at Oberlin her entire career, retiring from teaching in 1977.
Johnson was a scholar of Cézanne, Claes Oldenburg, Eva Hesse, Pablo Picasso, Edvard Munch, John F. Kensett and other modern masters, as well as Scandinavian art. In 1962 she wrote the first important article on Claes Oldenburg and, in 1970, assisted curator Athena Tacha commission his first permanent large sculpture (3-Way Plug) for the grounds of the Allen Memorial Art Museum. She was the first to show the black-striped paintings that established Frank Stella's reputation. Her efforts in promoting acquisitions of young contemporary artists helped make the Allen Memorial Art Museum a leading institution in contemporary art. Her Oberlin lectures on modern art became so popular that they had to be held in the college's largest auditorium and influenced generations of students, many of whom went on to signficant positions in the field. A new wing of the museum designed by Robert Venturi opened in 1977 and was named in honor of Johnson.
Johnson was the author of numerous articles, books, and exhibition catalogs including Cezanne (Penquin, 1967); Claes Oldenburg (Penquin, 1971); American Artists on Art from 1940-1980 (Harper and Row, 1982); and Modern Art and the Object (Thames and Hudson, 1976).
In 1968, Johnson purchased the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Weltzheimer house in Oberlin, and spent a considerable part of her time and money restoring the building where she lived the rest of her life. She bequethed the house and her significant art collection to Oberlin upon her death in 1992.
Related Materials:
Papers of Ellen H. Johnson, 1933-1992, are also located at Oberlin College Archives.
Separated Materials:
Shortly after aquisition, the Archives transferred Ellen Hulda Johnson's vertical file (16 linear feet) of clippings, press releases, and exhibition announcements to the library of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery.
Provenance:
The Ellen Hulda Johnson papers were donated in 1994, 1998, 2019 and 2021 by the estate of Ellen Hulda Johnson via exectutor Athena Tacha.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Washington D.C. Center. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice. Contact Reference 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.
Ellen Hulda Johnson papers, 1872-2018, bulk 1921-1992. 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.
For the Record [motion picture] / presenter, Archives of American Art; director, James Slayden; narrator, Brian O'Doherty, circa 1960. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
5 Items (1 16mm film and 4 videos (ca. 25 min.): 1 U-Matic and 3 VHS, sd., col.)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Sound recordings
Video recordings
Date:
1985
Scope and Contents:
Video documentary on the Archives of American Art, a bureau of the Smithsonian Institution holding original source material and microfilm relating to American artists and art history. The video describes the holdings of the archives, the collecting process and the value of the resources to researchers. Appearing in the video are director Richard Murray, regional collector Robert Brown, curator Garnett McCoy, and other staff, and sculptor George Rickey. The video was made possible by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson, Jr. Charitable Trust.
Publication, Distribution, Etc. (Imprint):
Washington, D.C. : Smithsonian Institution, Office of Telecommunications, 1985.
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Dennis Adrian, 2015 October 8-9. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Al Hansen, 1973 November 6-13. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Stewart Klonis, 1970 Feb. 3. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Marcia Tucker, 1978 August 11-September 8. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Elayne H. Varian, 1975 May 2. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Marcia Kreitman, [circa 1971]. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
The papers of New York painter and art instructor, William Merritt Chase, measure 0.3 linear feet and date from circa 1890 to 1964. Papers include a resolution of the Art Club of Philadelphia on Chase's death, letters, writings by Chase consisting of typescripts of lectures and lecture notes, blank postcards primarily depicting reproductions of artwork, a scrapbook, and photographs of Chase, his family, homes, and studios, and photographs of works of art.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of New York painter and art instructor, William Merritt Chase, measure 0.3 linear feet and date from circa 1890 to 1964. Papers include a resolution of the Art Club of Philadelphia on Chase's death, letters, writings by Chase consisting of typescripts of lectures and lecture notes, blank postcards primarily depicting reproductions of artwork, a scrapbook, and photographs of Chase, his family, homes, and studios, and photographs of works of art.
Letters include a photocopy of a 1901 letter signed by 28 students of the Shinnecock Summer School thanking Chase for a painting; a 1903 postcard to Mr. Harold R. Shiffer from his aunt; a 1912 letter to Chase signed by 32 pupils of the Art Students League thanking him for his efforts on their behalf and acknowledging his "qualities of sympathy, interest, and an understanding of our individual needs;" a 1915 note from an unidentified writer; a 1920 letter to Chase's wife Alice, from Gertrude Abbey, wife of Edwin Austin Abbey, referencing a tile possibly created by Edwin Abbey that Mrs. Chase owns; a 1935 postcard to Chase's daughter Helen from an unidentified writer; and a 1964 letter to Helen Storm from Ala Story in which Story describes a Chase exhibition that he is organizing and apologizes for having given a sketchbook of drawings owned by Helen to the Morgan Library.
Writings include 4 sets of lecture notes (one labeled as being notes for a lecture at Shinnecock), which are a combination of annotated typescripts and handwritten pages, and a typescript of a 1906 "Talk on the Old Masters by Mr. Chase" for the New York School of Art. Also found is a notebook with handwritten notes on a talk Chase gave to students in Philadelphia, presumably at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
Writings by others consist of a six-page typescript entitled "Reminiscences of a Student," by F. Usher De Voll, describing his experiences of Chase as a teacher.
Postcards (blank) include 3 reproductions of works of art by Chase, 8 reproductions of works of art by other artists, and 2 scenic views.
A Chase family scrapbook consists of mounted prints, primarily cyanotypes, that document Chase's travels to Rome, Milan, Gibraltar and the Loire Valley, and visits to major monuments, and also includes images of Chase and his family at leisure during their travels, as well as five family portraits.
Photographs of the Chase family include one of Chase with his son, Dana, and one of Chase with his wife, Alice, both undated. Other family members and friends are generally unidentified but do include Virginia Gerson and possibly Alice Gerson. Also found are four portraits of Chase, four photographs of Chase in his studio, a copy print of students at the Shinnecock Art School in circa 1895, and a copy print of an 1880 Tile Club trip up the Hudson River. In addition to circa 1960 copy prints, photographs include a variety of vintage prints such as albumen cabinet cards, silver gelatin prints, and a tintype.
Arrangement:
Due to the small size of the collection, the papers are arranged as 1 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: William Merritt Chase Papers, circa 1890-1964 (0.3 linear feet.; Box 1, OV 2)
Biographical / Historical:
William Merritt Chase (1849-1916) was one of America's most prominent painters and art instructors in New York, New York and Shinnecock, Long Island, during the late 19th century. One of the first Impressionist landscape painters in the U. S, Chase was also a highly accomplished portrait and still life painter.
Born in Indiana, Chase lived in New York and St. Louis, Missouri, before traveling to Europe and studying at the Royal Academy in Munich. After returning to New York in 1878, he taught at the Art Students League until 1896. His studio in the Tenth Street Studio building became an important gathering place for artists, students and patrons. Chase was also a member of the Tile Club whose members shared an interest in the decorative arts and sought to have their designs translated into ceramic tiles, from 1877-1887.
Chase became one of the most important teachers of American artists around the turn of the century. He opened the Shinnecock Hills Summer Art School in 1891 and taught there until 1902, living in a house at Shinnecock designed by Stanford White. In 1896 he opened the Chase School of Art and also taught at the Brooklyn Art Association in 1887, and 1891-1896, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts from 1896-1909.
Chase was a member of the National Academy of Design, and was president of the Society of American Artists from 1885 to 1895.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming. Reel N69-115 includes an additional family scrapbook, undated, containing photographs of Chase, his wife and children, a notice of sale of the Chase house in Shinnecock Hills, N.Y. designed by Stanford White, and photographs of the house. Found on reel N69-119 are circa two hundred photographs of Chase at work, his wife, his studios in Philadelphia and on 5th Avenue and 10th Street New York City, and numerous snapshots of characters in a tableau vivant that include his family, friends, Mary S. Moore Cross, and others. Reel N69-137 contains letters from Chase to his wife during his travels abroad, one note from John Singer Sargent requesting the use of Chase's studio for the famous party Sargent gave for Isabella Stewart Gardner in 1890, and a six-page typescript, "Reminiscences of a Student," by F. Usher De Voll, and photographs of Chase's studio. Loaned materials were returned to the lenders and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
The papers were received in a series of accessions between 1969 and 2010. A portion was loaned for microfilming by Robert S. Chase and Chapellier Galleries in 1969. Roger Storm, the widower of Chase's daughter Helen, donated lectures and speeches, a 1912 letter, and photocopies of a dinner menu and photos of artwork in 1969. Art collector Fred D. Bentley gave photographic copy prints of Chase's summer home, studio and art school. D. Frederick Baker, the author of the Chase catalogue raisonné, gave two letters, two postcards, the Chase family scrapbook, vintage photographs, and blank postcards in 2010. Baker received the material from Chase's estate via Chase's grandson, Jackson Case Storm.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment.
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:
Art teachers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this