The papers of curator and art historian Ruth Fine measure 24.1 linear feet and 22.43 GB and date from 1929 to 2016, with the bulk of the records dating from the 1950s to 2016. Fine's career is documented through correspondence with art historians, museum professionals, and notable figures; files pertaining to writing projects, lectures and speeches, her time at the National Gallery of Art, and research subjects; association and membership records; and printed and digital material. The bulk of the collection is composed of artist and subject files, which include correspondence, printed and digital material, exhibition and writing files, photographs, and some artwork. These records include a significant number of audiovisual recordings, including dozens of interviews with artists and others. Notable within the collection are extensive interviews documenting the works of Romare Bearden, Crown Point Press, and Gemini G.E.L.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of curator and art historian Ruth Fine measure 24.1 linear feet and 22.43 GB and date from 1929 to 2016, with the bulk of the records dating from the 1950s to 2016. Fine's career is documented through correspondence with art historians, museum professionals, and notable figures; files pertaining to writing projects, lectures and speeches, her time at the National Gallery of Art, and research subjects; association and membership records; and printed and digital material. The bulk of the collection is composed of artist and subject files, which include correspondence, printed and digital material, exhibition and writing files, photographs, and some artwork. These records include a significant number of audiovisual recordings, including dozens of interviews with artists and others. Notable within the collection are extensive interviews documenting the works of Romare Bearden, Crown Point Press, and Gemini G.E.L.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged as 10 series.
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1953-2013 (Box 1, 5 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1958-2014 (Box 1, 0.5 linear feet)
Series 3: Interviews, 1970-2009 (Box 1-2, 0.5 linear feet)
Series 4: Writings, 1979-2013 (Box 2, 0.8 linear feet, ER01-ER04; 5.44 GB)
Series 5: Lectures and Speeches, 1963-2012 (Box 3-4, 1.8 linear feet, ER05-ER08; 0.292 GB)
Series 6: National Gallery of Art Administrative Records, 1971-2011 (Box 4-5, 0.8 linear feet)
Series 7: Artist Files, 1947-2016 (Box 5-18, OV 25, 15 linear feet, ER09-ER26; 14.11 GB)
Series 8: Subject Files, 1929-2014 (Box 19-22, 3.5 linear feet, ER27-ER29; 0.604 GB)
Series 9: Association and Membership Files, 1962-2014 (Box 22-23, 0.5 linear feet, ER30; 1.99 GB)
Series 10: Printed Material, 1936-2015 (Box 23-24, 1 linear foot)
Biographical / Historical:
Ruth Fine (1941-) is a curator and art historian most active in Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Fine received her B.F.A from the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts, 1962), an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania (1964), and was a student at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (1961). She was an instructor at the Philadelphia College of Art from 1965 through 1969, and at Beaver College (now Arcadia University) from 1968 to 1972 and 1978 to 1979, and also taught at the University of Vermont (1976, 1977). Fine continued lecturing on a variety of topics throughout her career.
As an artist, Fine's exhibitions include those at the Philadelphia Art Alliance, Beaver College, Ryder University, Bryn Mawr College, Bennington College, and Anna Leonowens Gallery in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She was awarded a grant from the Ingram Merrill Foundation for work in etching (1989), and had studio residencies at The Vermont Studio Center (1992) and the Anni and Josef Albers Foundation (2000).
Provenance:
The collection was donated by Ruth Fine in 2017.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Access to original papers and audio visual material 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.
Ruth Fine Papers, 1929-2016. 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.
The collection is open for research. Use of unmicrofilmed material requires an appointment.
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:
Fendrick Gallery records, 1952-2001. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Kathan Brown, 2017 December 15-18. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
The Crown Point Press records measure 1.0 linear foot and date from 1962-2018. Included are artists' files, printed material, and DVDs of lectures by Kathan Brown.
Biographical / Historical:
Crown Point Press (1962- ) is a workshop and print studio specializing in intaglio print making in San Francisco, California. Crown Point Press was founded by Kathan Brown in Richmond, California. It moved to Berkeley and then Oakland before settling in 1986 in San Francisco.
Provenance:
Donated 2018 by Crown Point Press via Kathan Brown, founder. Additional printed material donated 2019 by Crown Point Press via Sasha Baguskas, Editor and Publications Coordinator.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Use of born digital records with no duplicate copy requires advance notice.
Topic:
Prints -- Technique -- California -- San Francisco Search this
The papers of conceptual and performance artist Tom Marioni measure 6.7 linear feet and 7.37 GB and date from 1970-2017. The collection documents Marioni's career through photographs, address and appointment books, visitor books from performances, exhibitions, and other gatherings, printed material, and digital sound and video recordings of exhibitions and events.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of conceptual and performance artist Tom Marioni measure 6.7 linear feet and 7.37 GB and date from 1970-2017. The collection documents Marioni's career through photographs, address and appointment books, visitor books from performances, exhibitions, and other gatherings, printed material, and digital sound and video recordings of exhibitions and events.
The bulk of the collection consists of photographs that document Marioni's weekly performances of "The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends is the Highest Form of Art," which were held in his San Francisco studio in the 1990s and early 2000s, and digital video recordings of one series of performances at the Hammer Museum in 2010. Also found are snapshots taken at exhibitions, museums, and galleries, and photos of artwork by Marioni.
Printed material includes editions 1-5 of Vision, an art journal published by Crown Point Press for which Marioni served as editor.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as four series.
Series 1: Address and Appointment Books, 1970-2011 (Box 1; 11 folders)
Series 2: Guest Books, 1991-2017 (Box 1-2; 1 linear foot)
Series 3: Printed Material, 1991-2006 (Box 2, OV 13; 11 folders)
Series 4: Photographs, 1970-2012 (Box 2-3, 5-12; 4.5 linear feet, ER01-ER05; 7.37 GB)
Biographical / Historical:
Tom Marioni (1937- ) is a conceptual and performance artist in San Francisco, California, known for his role in the emergence of the conceptual art movement in the 1960s to the mid-1970s.
Marioni was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and from an early age had an interest in music, particularly jazz, and played the violin. He attended the Art Academy of Cincinnati before moving to San Francisco where his art was included in a juried exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Marioni served in the U.S. Army between 1960-1963 and was stationed in Germany, before returning to pusue a career as an artist and educator.
Through his works "One Second Sculpture" (1969) and "The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends is the Highest Form of Art" (1970), and his role in the founding of the Museum of Conceptual Art in 1970, Marioni played a key role in the conceptual art movement, and held several art shows at the Museum of Conceptual Art before its closure in 1984. In weekly Cafe Wednesdays, Marioni's renditions of "The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends is the Highest Form of Art" were performance art shows in which guests were both participants and observers who were asked to follow several rules, drink beer, and interact. The show was held at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 1979, and renditions of the performance have since occurred in museums around the world. In 1989, Marioni established an artists club in his San Francisco studio and began holding Cafe Wednesdays again. In 1999 the name "Cafe Wednesday" was changed to the Society of Independent Artists.
Marioni has had many solo shows throughout his career including exhibitions at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, de Young Museum, and Kunstsaele in Berlin, Germany. Retrospectives of Marioni's work have been held at the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati and Mills College Art Museum in Oakland, and he has completed installations and participated in group exhibitions internationally, including at Y1 Gallery in Stockholm, Sweden, Demarco Gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland, the Lyon Biennale in France, Secession Gallery in Vienna, Austria, and many others. Marioni's work can be found in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Stadtische Kunsthalle in Mannheim, Germany, the Pompidou Center in Paris, and elsewhere.
Provenance:
The collection was donated by Tom Marioni in 2018.
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 born-digital records or 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:
Conceptual artists -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Performance artists -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Tom Marioni papers, 1970-2017. 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 with Kathan Brown conducted 2017 December 15 and 18, by Mija Riedel, for the Archives of American Art, at Brown's office at Crown Point Press, in San Francisco, California.
Biographical / Historical:
Kathan Brown (1935- ) is a printmaker, writer, and founder of Crown Point Press in San Francisco, California. Mija Riedel (1958- ) is a writer and editor in San Francisco, California.
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.
Occupation:
Authors -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Printmakers -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Music sound language theater : John Cage, Tom Marioni, Robert Barry, Joan Jonas : etchings from Crown Point Press / [Kathan Brown, curator ; essays by Kathan Brown, Jackson MacLow, William Spurlock, Peter Frank, Douglas Crimp ; catalogue edited by Robin White ; catalogue designed by Tom Marioni]
