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Joseph S. Trovato papers

Creator:
Trovato, Joseph S., 1912-1983  Search this
Names:
Armory Show (1913: New York, N.Y.)  Search this
Armory Show 50th anniversary exhibition (1963 : Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute)  Search this
Hamilton College (Clinton, N.Y.)  Search this
Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute. Museum of Art  Search this
Burchfield, Charles Ephraim, 1893-1967  Search this
Duchamp, Marcel, 1887-1968  Search this
Soby, James Thrall, 1906-1979  Search this
Extent:
2.9 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Sound recordings
Video recordings
Date:
circa 1875-1992
Summary:
The papers of Joseph S. Trovato measure 2.9 linear feet and date from circa 1875-1992. They illustrate his career through correspondence, exhibition files, personal business records, printed and photographic material, and artwork.
Scope and Contents:
Correspondence is between Trovato, friends, colleagues, organizations, and galleries. Writings include lectures and research notes, as well as other writings by Trovato. Exhibition files include materials for the Armory Show, Olympics in Art (1980), and various other exhibitions. Personal business records contain materials related to Trovato's time at Hamilton College and the Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute. Printed materials contains exhibition catalogs, monthly publications, and clippings. Photographic material is of artwork, and artwork includes wallpaper samples designed by Charles Burchfield.
Arrangement:
This collection consists of seven series.

Series 1: Correspondence, circa 1940-1989 (.8 Linear feet: Box 1)

Series 2: Writings, circa 1937-1973 (.4 Linear feet: Boxes 1-2)

Series 3: Exhibition Files, circa 1947-1992 (.2 Linear feet: Box 2)

Series 4: Personal Business Records , circa 1939-1982 (.9 Linear feet: Boxes 2-3, OV 5)

Series 5: Printed Material, circa 1952-1976 (.4 Linear feet: Boxes 3-4)

Series 6: Photographic Material, circa 1875-1963 (.1 Linear feet: Box 4)

Series 7: Artwork, circa 1962 (.1 Linear feet: Box 4)
Biographical / Historical:
Joseph S. Trovato (1912-1983) was a painter and museum administrator who worked mainly in New York.

Trovato was born in Guardavalle, Italy before immigrating to the United States. He took part in the Armory Show for several years and helped to organize the Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute's Olympics in Art (1980) exhibition. He taught classes at Hamilton College and did work for the Work Progress Administration in the 1940s. From 1964-1965 he completed twenty-four oral history interviews in partnership with the Archives of American Art.

Trovato died in 1983 in Utica, New York.
Related Materials:
The Archives also hold an oral history interview with Joseph S. Trovato conducted 1979 July 29, by Robert Brown, twenty-four oral history interviews conducted by Trovato 1964-1965 in partnership with the Archives of American Art, and the 1913 Armory Show, 50th anniversary exhibition records.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming (reel 2018) including exhibition catalogs and material relating to the Armory Show-50th Anniversary Exhibition arranged by Trovato for the Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, New York, in February 1963. Loaned materials were returned to the lender and are not described in the collection container inventory. Exhibition catalogs were returned to Trovato.
Provenance:
Papers were lent for microfilming in 1980 by Joseph S. Trovato, and all except exhibition catalogs were subsequently donated 1981 and 1991 with unmicrofilmed material by Trovato's widow, Mrs. Ruth O. Trovato.
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:
Museum administrators -- New York (N.Y)  Search this
Painters -- New York (State) -- Clinton  Search this
Genre/Form:
Sound recordings
Video recordings
Citation:
Joseph S. Trovato papers, circa 1875-1992, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Identifier:
AAA.trovjose
See more items in:
Joseph S. Trovato papers
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9bb4ad5d8-38e3-4e61-89a5-36395351ffeb
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-trovjose

Lillian and Frederick Kiesler papers

Creator:
Kiesler, Lillian, 1910?-2001  Search this
Names:
Anthology Film Archives  Search this
Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts  Search this
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation  Search this
Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.)  Search this
University of Iowa, Museum of Art  Search this
Whitney Museum of American Art  Search this
Adnan, Etel  Search this
Andres, Jo  Search this
Arnaud, Leopold, 1895-1984  Search this
Bartos, Armand P., 1910-  Search this
Bultman, Fritz, 1919-1985  Search this
Buscemi, Steve, 1958-  Search this
Castelli, Leo  Search this
Copley, Alfred L.  Search this
Diller, Burgoyne, 1906-1965  Search this
Dlugoszewski, Lucia, 1931-2000  Search this
Dorazio, Piero, 1927-  Search this
Dorazio, Virginia Dortch  Search this
Dreier, Katherine Sophie, 1877-1952  Search this
Dubuffet, Jean, 1901-  Search this
Duchamp, Marcel, 1887-1968  Search this
Hawkins, Erick  Search this
Hodges, Alice  Search this
Hofmann, Hans, 1880-1966  Search this
Holtzman, Harry  Search this
Howe, George, 1886-1955  Search this
Kamler, Richard  Search this
Kiesler, Frederick  Search this
MacIver, Loren, 1909-  Search this
Meredith, Burgess, 1907-1997  Search this
Milius, Tom  Search this
Miller, Henry, 1891-  Search this
Mondrian, Piet, 1872-1944  Search this
Montgomery, Chandler  Search this
Owen, Jane Blaffer, 1915-2010  Search this
Purdy, James  Search this
Takaezu, Toshiko  Search this
Tawney, Lenore  Search this
Zogbaum, Wilfrid, 1915-1965  Search this
Extent:
49.1 Linear feet
0.001 Gigabytes
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Gigabytes
Scrapbooks
Sound recordings
Diaries
Interviews
Scripts (documents)
Motion pictures (visual works)
Date:
circa 1910s-2003
bulk 1958-2000
Summary:
The papers of New York artist Lillian Kiesler and architect and sculptor Frederick Kiesler measure 49.1 linear feet and 0.001 GB and date from circa 1910s-2003, with the bulk of the material from 1958-2000. The collection documents their personal and professional lives and the legacy of Frederick Kiesler's work through biographical material, correspondence, legal, financial and business records, teaching files, exhibition and performance files, artwork, subject files, printed and digital material, writings and interviews, monographs, photographic material, and sound and video recordings. Also found are papers related to Abstract Expressionist painter Hans Hofmann and the papers of artist Alice Hodges.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of artist, performer, and arts educator Lillian Kiesler and sculptor, architect, set designer, educator, and writer Frederick Kiesler measure 49.1 linear feet and 0.001 GB and date from circa 1910s-2003, with the bulk of the material from 1958-2000. The collection documents their personal and professional lives and the legacy of Frederick Kiesler's work through biographical material, correspondence, legal, financial and business records, teaching files, exhibition and performance files, artwork, subject files, printed and digital material, writings and interviews, monographs, photographic material, and sound and video recordings. Also found are papers related to Abstract Expressionist painter Hans Hofmann and the papers of artist Alice Hodges.

The collection is arranged into two series: the Lillian Kiesler Papers (Series 1) and the Frederick Kiesler Papers (Series 2). Measuring 41.1 linear feet, the Lillian Kiesler Papers (Series 1) make up the bulk of the collection and document her personal life and professional career as an artist, actor, teacher, arts benefactor and promoter of Frederick Kiesler's legacy. The series spans her lifetime, although most of the material is dated after 1965. Among her papers are biographical materials, correspondence, legal and financial records, teaching files, exhibition and performance files, artwork, subject files, printed material, monographs, papers related to Frederick Kiesler and his legacy, papers of and related to Hans Hofmann, papers of Alice Hodges, photographic material, and sound and video recordings.

Found among Lillian Kiesler's personal papers are address books, numerous calendars and appointment books, and diaries and journals. Her correspondence is extensive and contains business correspondence with John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The University of Iowa Museum of Art, and Erick Hawkins Dance Foundation, and personal letters and greeting cards from friends, family, artists, scholars, and researchers, including Etel Adnan, Alcopley, Fritz Bultman, Steve Buscemi, Mike Diamond, Burgoyne Diller, Lucia Dlugoszewski, Piero Dorazio, Jean Dubuffet, Jay Gottlieb, Erick Hawkins, Burgess Meredith, Henry Miller, James Purdy, and Herrel Thomas. Of interest is a letter from Harry Holtzman postmarked March 13, 1935 describing his initial meeting with Mondrian, and a letter from E.B. Gordon describing Henry Miller in Paris.

Materials related to Lillian Kiesler's estate and last wishes can also be found, as well as teaching plans, student work, and writings by Lillian Kiesler's mentor and friend, New York University professor Chandler Montgomery. Various printed material, correspondence, scripts, and rehearsal schedules from Lillian Kiesler's exhibitions and performances are also found, and among the directors, artists and writers represented are Jo Andres, Steve Buscemi, Cindy Lugar, Tim Miller and James Purdy. Artwork contains photographs by Bob Del Fredici, drawings by Piero Dorazio, and notes to Frederick Kiesler from Lillian Kiesler.

Subject files about artists, friends, colleagues, performances, and organizations in which she supported, such as the Anthology Film Archives, include printed materials and research materials. Signed exhibition catalogs of Loren MacIver, Dina Ghen, Lenore Tawney, and Toshiko Takaezu, and a reprint article inscribed by Alcopley can be found, as well as numerous inscribed monographs, including books inscribed by Max Weiler and Piero Dorazio, an inscribed first edition of Henry Miller's Black Spring (1936), and a 1937 monograph by Harry Holtzman titled American Abstract Artists.

Series 1 also includes materials related to her husband Frederick Kiesler, papers of and related to Abstract Expressionist painter Hans Hofmann, and the personal papers of artist Alice Hodges. The Papers Related to Frederick Kiesler were primarily created or compiled by Lillian Kiesler and document her work on behalf of Frederick Kiesler's legacy. Of interest are letters from Frederick Kiesler to Lillian Kiesler and Alice Hodges; a bound volume of correspondence to Piero Dorazio; an inventory of objects in the Frederick Kiesler estate; photographs of artwork; an interview (sound recordings and transcript) with Lillian Kiesler about Frederick Kiesler for "Music of the Age," included on the tape is a portion of a Frederick Kiesler interview (1965); a recording of Lillian Kiesler interviewing Richard Kamler about Frederick Kiesler; and Frederick Kiesler's dialogue with Leo Castelli (undated).

Lillian Kiesler was a student of Hans Hofmann (1880-1966) in New York City and Provincetown, Massachusetts, as well as an enthusiastic volunteer promoter and assistant to The Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts. The bulk of the papers of and related to Hans Hofmann were created or compiled by Lillian Kielser and are about Hofmann's career and legacy. However, also found are some papers of Hans Hofmann, including letters from Hofmann to Lillian Kiesler and Alice Hodges describing his artwork, life in Provincetown, and issues with The Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts, typed and handwritten lectures given by Hofmann, Hofmann's 1941 address to the American Abstract Artists (AAA), three boxes of card files on students of the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts in New York City and Provincetown, and photographs of Hofmann and his house in Provincetown taken by Wilfrid Zogbaum and Tom Milius.

The artist Alice Hodges (b. unknown-1965) was a close friend of Lillian Kiesler, a former secretary to Frederick Kiesler, and a student of Hans Hofmann. Included among her personal papers is some correspondence from Hans Hofmann and Katherine Drier and numerous postcards from Hodges and Lillian Kiesler's trip to Europe in 1950, posters and printed material from her exhibitions, an oversized scrapbook chronicling Lillian Kiesler's teaching career, records from the United States Treasury War Bond Art Auction in 1945, original artwork and greeting cards made by Hodges and Lillian Kiesler, and 31 rolled negative strips in metal canisters of Frederick Kiesler sculptures, Provincetown and Hans Hofmann, Wellfleet, Empire State Music Festival (1955), and travels to Colorado and Europe, some of which may be printed and found in this subseries.

Photographs found in the Lillian Kiesler Papers are mostly black and white and color snapshots of Lillian Kiesler's friends and family at events and at home, including candid photos of Hans Hofmann, Alice Hodges, Frederick Kiesler, and Alcopley. Slides prepared by Lillian Kiesler for a lecture on Frederick Kiesler and her lecture notes on index cards are found. Sound and video recordings include recordings of productions in which Lillian Kiesler performed, and music, film, or live stage performances written, directed, or performed by friends.

Measuring 7.1 linear feet, Frederick Kiesler's personal papers (Series 2) document his professional career and date from 1923-1992. Biographical materials include his curriculum vitae, four passports, and numerous appointment books and notes from late in his life. Correspondence with architects, publishers, editors, universities, museums, galleries, manufacturers, artists and friends includes letters from L. Alcopley, Leopold Arnaud, Armand P. Bartos, Piero and Virginia Dorazio, George Howe, Kay Johnson, Jane Owen, and others. There are also photocopied letters from Katherine Dreier, Marcel Duchamp, and Piet Mondrian. Business and financial records from the 1940s to mid-1960s comprise a significant bulk of this series and are primarily tax returns and receipts and statements used to file tax returns. Materials on the publication of "Inside the Endless House" (1966), the International Theatre Exposition (in German) in 1924 and other exhibits from shortly after his death are found, as well as student artwork and papers from Kiesler's classes in the mid-1950s. A bound copy of the "Bibliography of Writings of and About Frederick Kiesler" compiled by Lillian Kiesler is found, as well as printed material about Frederick Kiesler and a handful of photographs of artwork.

Users should note that Lillian Kiesler's and Frederick Kiesler's papers contain similar types of material that often overlap in subject matter, especially among the Papers Related to Frederick Kiesler (Subseries 1.10) in Series 1 and the Frederick Kiesler Papers (Series 2). This collection contains limited material related to Lillian Kiesler prior to the 1940s and Frederick Kiesler prior to his arrival in the United States in 1926.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into two series. Each series is divided into several subseries, with the arrangement described in detail in the series descriptions.

Missing Title

Series 1: Lillian Kiesler papers, circa 1910s-2003 (Box 1-39, 47-52, OV 53-57; 41.1 linear feet, ER01; 0.001 GB)

Series 2: Frederick Kiesler papers, 1923-1992 (Box 40-46, OV 53; 7.1 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Frederick Kiesler (1890-1965) was a sculptor, architect, set designer, educator, and writer active in New York and Connecticutt. Lillian Kiesler (1911-2001) was a performer, arts educator, and painter married to Frederick Kiesler. She was also active in the administration of the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts.

Frederick Kiesler was born in Romania in 1890, although he gave various other dates for his birth and regularly cited Vienna as his birthplace. He arrived in the United States with his wife Steffi in 1926 for the International Theatre Exposition at Steinway Hall in New York City. They stayed in the United States and were granted citizenship in 1936.

Kiesler secured a teaching position at Columbia University's School of Architecture in 1930, and from 1934 through 1957 he was the scenic design director at The Juilliard School of Music. He also lectured at Yale University from 1950-1952. Often labeled a Surrealist, Kiesler's work was experimental and frequently described as ahead of its time. He published, lectured, and participated in numerous exhibitions throughout his career. He is known for his theory of "coreallism;" "The Space House" (1933), a full-scale model of a single family home; an installation designed for Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century gallery in 1942; "The Endless House" drawings and model (1950); "The Universal Theatre" (1961) model; and the Shrine of the Book (1965), a building to exhibit the Dead Sea Scrolls in Jerusalem. He died in New York City in December 1965.

Lillian Olinsey met architect and sculptor Frederick Kiesler in 1934. After years of friendship, they were married in 1964, a year and a half before Frederick's death in 1965.

Lillian Kiesler studied art at the Art Students League, Cooper Union, and the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts, where she also assisted Hofmann and the school administration. She taught art to children and young adults for twenty years in New York City. From 1945 to 1955, she taught at the Greenwich House Art workshops and the Woodward School, followed by the Brooklyn Museum (1948-1958), Barnard School (1953-1963), New York University School of Education (1955-1966), and Juilliard School of Visual Arts (1963-1965). Lillian was involved in the performing arts and between the late 1970s through the 1990s she performed in New York City with numerous directors, notably Jo Andres, Steve Buscemi, Richard Foreman, John Jesurun, Cindy Lubar, and Tim Miller. She frequently performed with her close friend, painter Maryette Charlton, who was the executor of the Lillian Kiesler estate.

Lillian Kiesler tirelessly promoted Frederick Kiesler's work and legacy after his death in 1965. From the late 1980s through the 1990s, she delivered lectures about his work at universities and museums, gave interviews, corresponded with researchers, and organized his papers to donate to the Harvard Theatre Collection, Yale School of Art and Architecture, and the Archives of American Art. In 1997, she helped found the Frederick and Lillian Kiesler Foundation in Vienna, Austria. She endowed the Austrian Frederick Kiesler Prize, an award given to a notable contributor to the field of architecture. The first recipient was Frank Gehry in 1998. Lillian Kiesler passed away in 2001 in New York City.
Related Material:
The holdings of the Archives of American Art include the Hans Hofmann Papers, 1904-1978 and the Maryette Charlton Papers, 1929-1998. Additional Frederick Kiesler papers are available at the Museum of Modern Art, the Harvard Theater Collection, and the Yale School of Art and Architecture.
Separated Material:
Some of the materials related to Frederick Kiesler were initially loaned for microfilming on reels 57 and 127-128. This material is not described in the container listing of this finding aid. Most, but not all, of the loaned material was later donated and has been merged with the other accretions.
Provenance:
The collection was donated by Lillian Kiesler and Maryette Charlton, executrix of her estate, in several accessions between 1980-2002. Some of the papers related to Frederick Kiesler were originally loaned for microfilming in 1971, most of which was later donated in 1980. Additional papers related to Frederick Kiesler were donated in 1993. Papers related to Hans Hofmann were given in 1981. Lillian Kiesler's papers were donated in 2000 by Lillian Kiesler, and in 2002, by Maryette Charlton.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
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 -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this
Set designers -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this
Educators -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this
Authors -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this
Performance artists -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this
Art patrons -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this
Topic:
Architects -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this
Exhibition designers  Search this
Women artists  Search this
Women educators  Search this
Women painters  Search this
Women performance artists  Search this
Function:
Art schools -- Massachusetts
Art Schools -- New York (State)
Genre/Form:
Scrapbooks
Sound recordings
Diaries
Interviews
Scripts (documents)
Motion pictures (visual works)
Citation:
Lillian and Frederick Kiesler papers, circa 1910s-2003, bulk 1958-2000. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Identifier:
AAA.kieslill
See more items in:
Lillian and Frederick Kiesler papers
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw92be035c5-5063-4d6e-8ac2-5f08c17ef915
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-kieslill
Online Media:

Henry Varnum Poor papers

Creator:
Poor, Henry Varnum, 1887-1970  Search this
Names:
Montross Gallery  Search this
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture  Search this
Benton, William, 1900-1973  Search this
Biddle, George, 1885-1973  Search this
Billing, Jules  Search this
Burchfield, Charles Ephraim, 1893-1967  Search this
Caniff, Milton Arthur, 1907-1988  Search this
Ciardi, John, 1916-  Search this
Czebotar, Theodore  Search this
Deming, MacDonald  Search this
Dickson, Harold E., 1900-  Search this
Dorn, Marion, 1896-1964  Search this
Duchamp, Marcel, 1887-1968  Search this
Esherick, Wharton  Search this
Evergood, Philip, 1901-1973  Search this
Garrett, Alice Warder  Search this
Houseman, John, 1902-1988  Search this
Marston, Muktuk  Search this
Meredith, Burgess, 1907-1997  Search this
Mumford, Lewis, 1895-1990  Search this
Padro, Isabel  Search this
Poor, Anne, 1918-  Search this
Poor, Bessie Breuer  Search this
Poor, Eva  Search this
Poor, Josephine Graham  Search this
Poor, Josephine Lydia  Search this
Poor, Peter  Search this
Sargent, Elizabeth S.  Search this
Smith, David, 1906-1965  Search this
Steinbeck, John, 1902-1968  Search this
Watson, Ernest William, 1884-1969  Search this
Extent:
12.9 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Motion pictures (visual works)
Diaries
Drawings
Sketchbooks
Date:
1873-2001
bulk 1904-1970
Summary:
The papers of Henry Varnum Poor measure 12.9 linear feet and date from 1873-2001, with the bulk from the period 1904-1970. Correspondence, writings, artwork, printed material and photographs document Poor's work as a painter, muralist, ceramic artist and potter, architect, designer, writer, war artist, educator and a co-founder of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Also found is extensive information about the design and construction of Crow House, his home in New City, New York, commissions for other architectural projects, and his personal life.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of Henry Varnum Poor measure 12.9 linear feet and date from 1873-2001, with the bulk from the period 1904-1970. Correspondence, writings, artwork, printed material and photographs document Poor's work as a painter, muralist, ceramic artist and potter, architect, designer, writer, war artist, educator and a co-founder of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Also found is extensive information about the design and construction of Crow House, his home in New City, New York, commissions for other architectural projects, and his personal life.

Henry Varnum Poor's correspondence documents his personal, family, and professional life. Correspondents include family and friends, among them George Biddle, Charles Burchfield, John Ciardi, Marion V. Dorn (who became his second wife), Philip Evergood, Lewis Mumford, John Steinbeck, David Smith, and Mrs. John Work (Alice) Garrett. Among other correspondents are galleries, museums, schools, organizations, fans, former students, and acquaintances from his military service and travels. Family correspondence consists of Henry's letters to his parents, letters to his parents written by his wife, and letters among other family members.

Among the writings by Henry Varnum Poor are manuscripts of his two published books, An Artist Sees Alaska and A Book of Pottery: From Mud to Immortality. as well as the text of "Painting is Being Talked to Death," published in the first issue of Reality: A Journal of Artists' Opinions, April 1953, and manuscripts of other articles. There are also film scripts, two journals, notes and notebooks, lists, speeches, and writings by others, including M. R. ("Muktuk") Marston's account of Poor rescuing an Eskimo, and Bessie Breuer Poor's recollections of The Montross Gallery.

Subject files include those on the Advisory Committee on Art, American Designers' Gallery, Inc., William Benton, Harold Dickson, Reality: A Journal of Artists' Opinions Sales, and War Posters. There are numerous administrative files for the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.

Artwork by Henry Varnum Poor consists mainly of loose drawings and sketches and 45 sketchbooks of studies for paintings, murals, and pottery. There is work done in France, 1918-1919, and while working as a war correspondent in Alaska in 1943. There are commissioned illustrations and some intended for his monograph, A Book of Pottery: From Mud to Immortality. Also found are a small number of watercolors and prints. Work by other artists consist of Anne Poor's drawings of her father's hands used for the Lincoln figure in The Land Grant Frescoes and interior views of Crow House by Ernest Watson.

Documentation of Poor's architectural projects consists of drawings and prints relating to houses designed and built for Jules Billing, MacDonald Deming, John Houseman, Burgess Meredith, Isabel Padro, and Elizabeth S. Sargent. Also found is similar material for the new studio Poor built in 1957 on the grounds of Crow House.

Miscellaneous records include family memorabilia and two motion picture films, Painting a True Fresco, and The Land Grant Murals at Pennsylvania State College.

Printed material includes articles about or mentioning Poor, some of his pottery reference books, family history, a catalog of kilns, and the program of a 1949 Pennsylvania State College theater production titled Poor Mr. Varnum. Exhibition catalogs and announcements survive for some of Poor's shows; catalogs of other artists' shows include one for Theodore Czebotar containing an introductory statement by Henry Varnum Poor. Also found is a copy of The Army at War: A Graphic Record by American Artists, for which Poor served as an advisor. There are reproductions of illustrations for An Artist Sees Alaska and Ethan Frome, and two Associated American Artists greeting cards reproducing work by Poor.

Photographs are of Henry Varnum Poor's architectural work, artwork, people, places, and miscellaneous subjects. This series also contains negatives, slides, and transparencies. Images of architectural work include exterior and interior views of many projects; Poor's home, Crow House, predominates. Photographs of artwork by Poor are of drawings, fresco and ceramic tile murals, paintings, pottery and ceramic art. People appearing in photographs include Henry Varnum Poor, family members, friends, clients, juries, students, and various groups. Among the individuals portrayed are Milton Caniff, Marcel Duchamp, Wharton Esherick, M. R. ("Muktuk") Marston, and Burgess Meredith. Among the family members are Bessie Breuer Poor, Marion Dorn Poor, Anne Poor, Eva Poor, Josephine Graham Poor, Josephine Lydia Poor, Peter Poor, and unidentified relatives. Photographs of places include many illustrating village life in Alaska that were taken by Poor during World War II. Other places recorded are French and California landscapes, and family homes in Kansas. Miscellaneous subjects are exhibition installation views, scenes of Kentucky farms, and a photograph of Poor's notes on glazes.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 9 series:

Missing Title

Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1919-1987 (0.2 linear feet; Box 1, OV 18)

Series 2: Correspondence, 1873-1985 (1.5 linear feet; Boxes 1-2)

Series 3: Writings and Notes, circa 1944-1974 (0.6 linear feet; Boxes 2-3)

Series 4: Subject Files, 1928-1975 (0.8 linear feet; Box 3, OV 23)

Series 5: Artwork, circa 1890s-circa 1961 (3.5 linear feet; Boxes 4-6, 9-10, OV 19-22)

Series 6: Architectural Projects, circa 1940-1966 (0.7 linear feet; Box 6, OV 24-26, RD 14-17)

Series 7: Miscellaneous Records, 1882-1967 (Boxes 6, 11, FC 30-31; 0.5 linear ft.)

Series 8: Printed Material, 1881-2001 (1.2 linear feet; Boxes 6-7, 11, OV 27-29)

Series 9: Photographs, 1893-1984 (2.3 linear feet; Boxes 7-8, 12-13)
Biographical Note:
Henry Varnum Poor (1888-1970), best known as a potter, ceramic artist, and a co-founder of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, was also an architect, painter, muralist, designer, educator, and writer who lived and worked in New City, New York.

A native of Chapman, Kansas, Henry Varnum Poor moved with his family to Kansas City when his grain merchant father became a member of the Kansas Board of Trade. From a young age he showed artistic talent and spent as much time as possible - including school hours - drawing. When a school supervisor suggested that Henry leave school to study at the Art Institute of Chicago, the family disagreed. Instead, he enrolled in the Kansas City Manual Training High School where he delighted in learning skills such as carpentry, forge work, and mechanical drawing. In 1905, he moved with his older brother and sister to Palo Alto, California and completed high school there. Because Poor was expected to join the family business, he enrolled at Stanford University as an economics major, but much to his father's disappointment and displeasure, soon left the economics department and became an art major.

Immediately after graduation in 1910, Poor and his major professor at Stanford, Arthur B. Clark, took a summer bicycling tour to look at art in London, France, Italy, and Holland. As Poor had saved enough money to remain in London after the summer was over, he enrolled in the Slade School of Art and also studied under Walter Sickert at the London County Council Night School. After seeing an exhibition of Post-Impressionism at the Grafton Galleries in London, Poor was so impressed that he went to Paris and enrolled in the Académie Julian. While in Paris, Poor met Clifford Addams, a former apprentice of Whistler; soon he was working in Addams' studio learning Whistler's palette and techniques.

In the fall of 1911, Poor returned to Stanford University's art department on a one-year teaching assignment. During that academic year, his first one-man show was held at the university's Old Studio gallery. He married Lena Wiltz and moved back to Kansas to manage the family farm and prepare for another exhibition. Their daughter, Josephine Lydia Poor, was born the following year. Poor returned to Stanford in September 1913 as assistant professor of graphic arts, remaining until the department closed three years later. During this period, Poor began to exhibit more frequently in group shows in other areas of the country, and had his first solo exhibition at a commercial gallery (Helgesen Gallery, San Francisco). In 1916, Poor joined the faculty of the San Francisco Art Association. He and his wife separated in 1917 and were divorced the following year. Poor began sharing his San Francisco studio with Marion Dorn.

During World War I, Poor was drafted into the U. S. Army, and in 1918 went to France with the 115th Regiment of Engineers. He spent his spare time drawing; soon officers were commissioning portraits, and Poor was appointed the regimental artist. He also served as an interpreter for his company. Discharged from the Army in early 1919, Poor spent the spring painting in Paris. He then returned to San Francisco and married Marion Dorn.

Once Poor realized that earning a living as a painter would be extremely difficult in California, he and his new wife moved to New York in the autumn of 1919. They were looking for a place to live when influential book and art dealer Mary Mowbray-Clarke of the Sunwise Turn Bookshop in Manhattan suggested New City in Rockland County, New York as good place for artists. In January of 1920, the Poors purchased property on South Mountain Road in New City. The skills he acquired at the Kansas City Manual Training High School were of immediate use as Poor designed and constructed "Crow House" with the assistance of a local teenager. Influenced by the farmhouses he had seen in France, it was made of local sandstone and featured steep gables, rough plaster, chestnut beams and floors, and incorporated many hand-crafted details. Poor designed and built most of their furniture, too. Before the end of the year, he and Marion were able to move into the house, though it remained a work in progress for many years. Additions were constructed. Over time, gardens were designed and planted, and outbuildings - a kiln and pottery, work room, garage, and new studio - appeared on the property.

In 1925, two years after his divorce from Marion Dorn, Poor married Bessie Freedman Breuer (1893-1975), an editor, short story writer, and novelist. Soon after, he adopted her young daughter, Anne (1918-2002), an artist who served as his assistant on many important mural commissions. Their son, Peter (b. 1926) became a television producer. Crow House remained in the family until its sale in 2006. In order to prevent its demolition, Crow House was then purchased by the neighboring town of Ramapo, New York in 2007.

Between 1935 and 1966 Poor designed and oversaw construction of a number of houses, several of them situated not far from Crow House on South Mountain Road. Poor's designs, noted for their simplicity, featured modern materials and incorporated his ceramic tiles. Among his important commissions were houses for Maxwell Anderson, Jules Billig, Milton Caniff, MacDonald Deming, and John Houseman.

Poor's first exhibition of paintings in New York City was at Kevorkian Galleries in 1920, and sales were so disappointing that he turned his attention to ceramics. His first pottery show, held at Bel Maison Gallery in Wanamaker's department store in 1921, was very successful. He quickly developed a wide reputation, participated in shows throughout the country, and won awards. He was a founder of the short-lived American Designers' Gallery, and the tile bathroom he showed at the group's first exposition was critically acclaimed. Poor was represented by Montross Gallery as both a painter and potter. When Montross Gallery closed upon its owner's death in 1932, Poor moved to the Frank K. M. Rehn Gallery.

Even though Poor's pottery and ceramic work was in the forefront, he continued to paint. His work was acquired by a number of museums, and the Limited Editions Club commissioned him to illustrate their republications of Ethan Frome, The Scarlet Letter, and The Call of the Wild.

Poor's first work in true fresco was shown in a 1932 mural exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. Between 1935 and 1949 he was commissioned to produce several murals in fresco for Section of Fine Arts projects at the Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior, The Land Grant Frescoes at Pennsylvania State College, and a mural for the Louisville Courier-Journal. Ceramic tile mural commissions included: the Klingenstein Pavilion, Mt. Sinai Hospital, New York City; Travelers Insurance Co., Boston; the Fresno Post Office, California; and Hillson Memorial Gallery, Deerfield Academy, Deerfield, Mass.

As a member of the War Artists' Unit, Poor was a "war correspondent" with the rank of major in World War II, and for several months in 1943 was stationed in Alaska. An Artist Sees Alaska, drawing on Poor's observations and experiences, was published in 1945. A Book of Pottery: From Mud to Immortality, his second book, was published in 1958. It remains a standard text on the subject. While on the faculty of Columbia University in the 1950s, Poor and other artists opposed to the growing influence of Abstract Expressionism formed the Reality Group with Poor the head of its editorial committee. Their magazine, Reality: A Journal of Artists' Opinions, first appeared in 1953 featuring "Painting is Being Talked to Death" by Poor as its lead article. Two more issues were published in 1954 and 1955.

Along with Willard Cummings, Sidney Simon, and Charles Cuttler, in 1946 Henry Varnum Poor helped to establish the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, Maine. He served as its first president. Poor and his daughter, Anne, were active members of the Board of Trustees and were instructors for many years. The summer of 1961 was Henry Varnum Poor's last as a full-time teacher, though he continued to spend summers at Skowhegan.

Henry Varnum Poor exhibited widely and received many awards, among them prizes at the Carnegie Institute, Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Architectural League of New York. Poor was appointed to the United States Commission of Fine Arts by President Roosevelt in 1941 and served a five year term. He was elected a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1943. The National Academy of Design named him an Associate Artist in 1954 and an Academician in 1963. He became a trustee of the American Craftsman's Council in 1956. The work of Henry Vernum Poor is represented in the permanent collections of many American museums including the Cleveland Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, Addison Gallery of American Art, and Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts.

Henry Varnum Poor died at home in New City, New York, December 8, 1970.
Related Material:
An oral history interview with Henry Varnum Poor was conducted by Harlan Phillips for the Archives of American Art in 1964.
Provenance:
Gift of Henry Varnum Poor's son, Peter V. Poor, in 2007. A smaller portion was loaned to the Archives in 1973 by Anne Poor for microfilming and returned to the lender; this material was included in the 2007 gift.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information. Use of audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
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:
War artists  Search this
Educators -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this
Ceramicists -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this
Muralists -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this
Designers -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this
Topic:
Architects -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this
World War, 1914-1918  Search this
Pottery -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this
Genre/Form:
Motion pictures (visual works)
Diaries
Drawings
Sketchbooks
Citation:
Henry Varnum Poor papers, 1873-2001, bulk 1904-1970. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Identifier:
AAA.poorhenr
See more items in:
Henry Varnum Poor papers
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw96265d653-098f-4ccc-abed-0bc649c50516
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-poorhenr
Online Media:

The blind man Marcel Duchamp, Henri-Pierre Roché, Beatrice Wood ; edited by Sophie Seita

Artist:
Duchamp, Marcel 1887-1968  Search this
Wood, Beatrice  Search this
Publisher:
Roché, Henri Pierre 1879-1959  Search this
Editor:
Seita, Sophie (Poet),)  Search this
Author:
Facsimile of (manifestation): Duchamp, Marcel 1887-1968 Blind man 1917  Search this
Smithsonian Libraries Artists' Books DSI  Search this
Physical description:
6 booklets (60 pages) illustrations 29 cm + 1 poster
Type:
Books
Artists' books (books).)
Artists' books (books)
Artists' books
Facsimiles
Date:
2017
Topic:
Dadaism  Search this
Dadaist literature  Search this
Dadaismus  Search this
Plakat  Search this
Zeitschrift  Search this
Call number:
N6853.D8 B55 2017
Data Source:
Smithsonian Libraries
EDAN-URL:
edanmdm:siris_sil_1090775

John Henry Bradley Storrs papers

Creator:
Storrs, John Henry Bradley, 1885-1956  Search this
Names:
Downtown Gallery (New York, N.Y.)  Search this
Andersen, Hendrik Christian, 1872-1940  Search this
Anderson, Sherwood, 1876-1941  Search this
Bennett, Edward H.  Search this
Biddle, George, 1885-1973  Search this
Blum, Jerome, 1884-1956  Search this
Braque, Georges, 1882-1963  Search this
Bryant, Louise, 1885-1936  Search this
Calder, Alexander, 1898-1976  Search this
Cole, Walter, b. 1891  Search this
Cret, Paul Philippe, 1876-1945  Search this
Dismorr, Jessica Stewart, 1885-1939  Search this
Dreier, Katherine Sophie, 1877-1952  Search this
Duchamp, Marcel, 1887-1968  Search this
Eastman, Max, 1883-1969  Search this
Fuller, R. Buckminster (Richard Buckminster), 1895-  Search this
Halpert, Edith Gregor, 1900-1970  Search this
Hartley, Marsden, 1877-1943  Search this
Heap, Jane  Search this
Hecht, Zoltan, 1890-1968  Search this
Hélion, Jean, 1904-1987  Search this
Lipchitz, Jacques, 1891-1973  Search this
Léger, Fernand, 1881-1955  Search this
Ray, Man, 1890-1976  Search this
Raynal, Maurice  Search this
Rodin, Auguste, 1840-1917  Search this
Sheeler, Charles, 1883-1965  Search this
Stella, Joseph, 1877-1946  Search this
Sterne, Maurice, 1878-1957  Search this
Stieglitz, Alfred, 1864-1946  Search this
Storrs, Marguerite Deville Chabrol  Search this
Survage, Leopold  Search this
Zorach, Marguerite, 1887-1968  Search this
Zorach, William, 1887-1966  Search this
Extent:
20.44 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Scrapbooks
Photographs
Poems
Diaries
Sketches
Video recordings
Sketchbooks
Prints
Portfolios (groups of works)
Date:
1790-2007
bulk 1900-1956
Summary:
The papers of sculptor, painter, and printmaker John Henry Bradley Storrs measure 20.44 linear feet and date from 1790-2007, with the bulk of the papers dating from 1900 to 1956. The collection contains biographical material, correspondence, personal business records, forty-eight diaries of John Storrs, a few diaries of other family members, additional writings, printed material, photographs of Storrs and his family and friends, artwork, scrapbooks, estate records, and video recordings. Correspondence includes that of John Storrs, Marguerite Storrs, and the Storrs family.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of sculptor, painter, and printmaker John Henry Bradley Storrs measure 20.44 linear feet and date from 1790 to 2007, with the bulk of the papers dating from 1900 to 1956. The collection documents Storrs' career as an artist and his personal life through biographical material, correspondence with family, friends, and colleagues, personal business records, forty-eight diaries and other writings, printed material, photographs of Storrs and his family and friends, artwork, scrapbooks, estate records, and video recordings. There is also a substantial amount of Marguerite Storr's correspondence as well as scattered correspondence of other members of the Storr's family.

Biographical material consists of chronologies detailing the life of John Storrs, identification records, certificates, Storrs family documents, and records of John and Monique Storrs' French resistance activities during World War II.

Correspondence within this collection is divided into John Storrs Correspondence, Marguerite Storrs Correspondence, and Storrs Family Correspondence. The bulk of correspondence is John Storrs with friends, colleagues, art critics, patrons, art organizations and galleries. Correspondents of note include artists, architects, and writers such as Hendrick Andersen, Sherwood Anderson, Edward Bennett, George Biddle, Jerome Blum, Georges Braque, Louise Bryant, William Bullitt, Alexander Calder, Walter Cole, Paul Phillippe Cret, Katherine Dreier, Marcel Duchamp, Max Eastman, R. Buckminster Fuller, Marsden Hartley, Jane Heap, Jean Helion, Fernand Leger, Jacques Lipchitz, Man Ray, Charles Sheeler, Gertrude Stein, Joseph Stella, Maurice Sterne, Alfred Stieglitz, Leopold Survage, and William and Marguerite Zorach. There are also many letters to his wife Marguerite.

Marguerite Storrs' correspondence is with friends, family, colleagues, and others, including many letters to her husband. The letters are about general and family news, social activities and invitations, her work as a writer, and her husband's career. Storrs' family correspondence includes John and Marguerite's extensive correspondence with their daughter Monique as well as Monique's correspondence with others. Additional family correspondence is between John, his sister Mary ("Mae") and their parents David William and Hannah Storrs, much of it dating from 1900 to 1913.

Personal business records include address books, records regarding the sale and loan of Storrs' artwork, commission files regarding major public sculptures by Storrs, contracts, appraisals, financial records, and other documents regarding his professional activities. Of note are several files documenting Downtown Gallery's representation of Storrs' work during the 1960s, including correspondence between Edith Halpert and Monique Storrs. Various other documents include records of the Ecole de la Loire artists group (all in French.) Additionally there are records relating to Chateau de Chantecaille, an estate purchased by Storrs in the early 1920s as his primary residence and studio.

Forty-eight diaries contain scattered documentation of John Storrs' daily activities. Other writings by Storrs include four volumes of his memoirs that detail family history and his life from birth to 1906, notebooks, poetry, and personal accounts including the death of Auguste Rodin. Writings by others include poetry by Jessie Dismorr, essays by Zoltan Hecht and Maurice Raynal, and notebooks belonging to Storrs family members.

Printed material consists of books, art bulletins, brochures, invitations, announcements, and programs for art and social events. Also found are catalogs for exhibitions of Storrs' work and work by other artists; magazines, including a bound volume of the first ten issues of The Liberator; and clippings which include news about Storrs, his family, and friends.

Photographs depict John Storrs, his family, friends such as Arthur Bock and Gertrude Lambert, travels, and residences. Included are photographs of Storrs in his studio and in art classes. Also found are four photograph albums, primarily documenting his time in Europe from 1905 to 1907, exhibition photographs, and numerous photographs of his artwork.

Original artwork includes a portfolio of artwork created by Storrs as a youth, loose sketches, one sketchbook, 31 lithographs, and drawings for mural projects.

Four scrapbooks and a portfolio kept by John and Marguerite Storrs contain newspaper and magazine clippings of articles and illustrations as well as printed material from exhibitions, social events, and professional activities. Also found is a portfolio containing scattered items regarding the publication of Song of Myself with original wood engravings by John Storrs. One additional scrapbook was created by John Storrs around 1945 for his daughter, Monique Storrs, to document her service as a nurse in World War II.

This collection also includes records of John Storrs' estate immediately following his death in 1956, as well as records of several galleries that represented the estate in managing Storrs' artwork from the 1970s to 2002.

Three videocassettes, transferred from an unknown reel format, contain footage of Storrs' family life at Chantecaille and in Chicago, Illinois, in the 1930s.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 11 series.

Some box and folder numbers in the container listing intentionally display out of sequence. An accretion was added in 2012 and integrated into the intellectual order, but not into the physical container order. Glass plate negatives are housed separately and closed to researchers.

Missing Title

Series 1: Biographical Material, 1837, 1860-1984 (Box 1, 20, 25, OV 23; 0.6 linear feet)

Series 2: Correspondence, 1857-2007 (Box 1-7, 25; 5.8 linear feet)

Series 3: Personal Business Records, 1790, 1855-1987 (Box 7-9, 25, OV 24, 28; 2.9 linear feet)

Series 4: Diaries, 1874-1955 (Box 9-10; 0.9 linear feet)

Series 5: Writings, 1888-1989 (Box 10-11, 25; 1.1 linear foot)

Series 6: Printed Material, 1867-1987, 2005 (Box 11-14, 25, OV 24; 3.6 linear feet)

Series 7: Photographs, circa 1885-1980 (Box 14-16, 18, 20-22, 25, MGP 1, MGP 2, MGP 5, MGP 6; 3.2 linear feet)

Series 8: Artwork, 1895-1935 (Box 18, 20, OV 23; 0.5 linear feet)

Series 9: Scrapbooks, 1895-1963 (Box 18-21, 25; 0.7 linear feet)

Series 10: Estate Records, 1956-2002 (Box 26; 0.4 linear feet)

Series 11: Video Recordings, circa 1980s (Box 26-27; 0.2 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
John Henry Bradley Storrs (1885-1956) worked primarily in Chicago, Illinois, and Mer, France, as a sculptor, painter, and printmaker.

John Storrs was born in 1885 in Chicago, Illinois, to David William Storrs, an architect, and Hannah Bradley Storrs. Upon completing his schooling in 1905 he went to Berlin with the intention of studying music, but instead chose to study sculpture with the Arthur Bock in Hamburg, Germany. He also spent time in Paris and traveled throughout Europe, Turkey, and Egypt, returning to the US in late 1907. Storrs took night classes at the Art Institute of Chicago, followed by periods of study at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, with Bela Pratt, and at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts with Charles Grafly. In 1912 he returned to Paris where he studied at the Académie Julian and with the famous sculptor Auguste Rodin. During this period his work was greatly influenced by cubism and futurism. In 1914 he married French writer Marguerite Deville-Chabrol. After briefly returning to the US to exhibit his work, Storrs worked at a hospital in Paris throughout World War I and in 1918 his daughter Monique was born. He and his family settled in Mer, France, at the Chateau de Chantecaille in 1921.

The following two decades were very productive for Storrs and he frequently travelled between the US and France to exhibit and create work. He showed in many notable exhibits such as the Société Anonyme's International Exhibition of Modern Art in New York in 1926, and he completed several commissions such as a statue for the Chicago Board of Trade in 1929. During this time Storrs completely moved away from representational work and refined his non-objective, machine-like sculpture. Besides sculpture, he also produced many paintings, woodcuts, lithographs, and other works on paper. He created works for the Century of Progress International Exposition in 1933 and also worked for the Public Works of Art Project in 1934.

During World War II Storrs was twice arrested and imprisoned by the German occupation forces, once for six months from 1941 to 1942 and again in 1944 along with his daughter Monique who was part of the French Resistance. These events greatly impacted his health and he produced very little work in the late 1940s and 1950s. He continued to exhibit his work and was also president in 1954 of the Ecole de la Loire, a group of 75 artists working in the Loire Valley. John Storrs died in 1956.
Related Materials:
Also available at the Archives of American Art is the Noel Frackman research material on John Henry Bradley Storrs, 1972-2003. In addition, Archives of American Art microfilm reels 1463 and ND/S-1 contain the John Henry Bradley Storrs scrapbook and studio book, 1909-1972.
Separated Materials:
The Booz family also loaned approximately 1,000 drawings by John Storrs and select family photographs for microfilming. Loaned material is available for viewing on reel 1555, but is not described in this container listing of this finding aid.
Provenance:
The John Henry Bradley Storrs papers were donated in several installments from 1979 to 1987 by Storrs' daughter, Monique Storrs Booz, and her daughter, Michelle Storrs Booz. A portion of these papers were loaned for microfilming in 1977 and subsequently donated in 1980. Additional papers were donated by Michelle Storrs Booz in 2011.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment. Glass plate negatives are housed separately and not served to researchers.
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.
Topic:
Expatriate artists -- France  Search this
Painters -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this
Painters -- France -- Paris  Search this
Printmakers -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this
Printmakers -- France -- Paris  Search this
Sculpture, Modern -- 20th century  Search this
Sculptors -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this
Sculptors -- France -- Paris  Search this
World War, 1939-1945  Search this
Function:
Artists' studios -- France
Genre/Form:
Scrapbooks
Photographs
Poems
Diaries
Sketches
Video recordings
Sketchbooks
Prints
Portfolios (groups of works)
Citation:
John Henry Bradley Storrs papers, 1890-2007, bulk 1900-1956. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Identifier:
AAA.storjohn
See more items in:
John Henry Bradley Storrs papers
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw97fbb0f90-38d0-4f9d-8293-83eb4d3dbe07
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-storjohn
Online Media:

Marcel Duchamp scrapbooks, 1916-1969

Creator:
Duchamp, Marcel, 1887-1968  Search this
Citation:
Marcel Duchamp scrapbooks, 1916-1969. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Topic:
Art, Modern -- 20th century  Search this
Dadaism  Search this
Theme:
Lives of artists  Search this
Record number:
(DSI-AAA_CollID)7604
(DSI-AAA_SIRISBib)209766
AAA_collcode_duchmarc
Theme:
Lives of artists
Data Source:
Archives of American Art
EDAN-URL:
edanmdm:AAADCD_coll_209766

Henry Ernest Schnakenberg papers

Creator:
Schnakenberg, H. E. (Henry Ernest), 1892-1970  Search this
Names:
American Academy of Arts and Letters  Search this
Artists Equity Association  Search this
Angel, John, 1881-1960  Search this
Bacon, Peggy, 1895-1987  Search this
Barye, Antoine-Louis, 1796-1875  Search this
Beal, Gifford, 1879-1956  Search this
Bierstadt, Albert, 1830-1902  Search this
Billings, Henry, 1901-  Search this
Bishop, Isabel, 1902-1988  Search this
Blume, Peter, 1906-1992  Search this
Bouché, Louis, 1896-1969  Search this
Brooks, Van Wyck, 1886-1963  Search this
Buller, Audrey, 1902-  Search this
Cadmus, Paul, 1904-1999  Search this
Calder, Alexander, 1898-1976  Search this
Catherwood, Frederick, 1799-1854  Search this
Congdon, William, 1912-1998  Search this
Day, Horace Talmage, 1909-1984  Search this
Dows, Olin, 1904-1981  Search this
Duchamp, Marcel, 1887-1968  Search this
Etting, Emlen, 1905-1993  Search this
Evergood, Philip, 1901-1973  Search this
Faulkner, Barry, 1881-1966  Search this
Fiene, Ernest, 1894-  Search this
Goff, Lloyd Lozés, 1919-  Search this
Guys, Constantin, 1805-1892  Search this
Hardy, Thomas, 1921-  Search this
Harnett, William Michael, 1848-1892  Search this
Hartl, Léon, 1889-  Search this
Homer, Winslow, 1836-1910  Search this
Hoyt, Whitney Ford, 1910-1980  Search this
Inness, George, 1825-1894  Search this
Ivins, William Mills, 1881-1961  Search this
Johnson, Eastman, 1824-1906  Search this
Kirstein, Lincoln, 1907-  Search this
Kroll, Leon, 1884-1974  Search this
Kuniyoshi, Yasuo, 1889-1953  Search this
Laning, Edward, 1906-1981  Search this
Lasker, Joe  Search this
Leighton, Clare, 1899-  Search this
Locke, Charles, 1899-  Search this
Low, Sanford B. D. (Sanford Ballard Dole), 1905-1964  Search this
Lucioni, Luigi, 1900-1988  Search this
Marsh, Reginald, 1898-1954  Search this
Miller, Kenneth Hayes, 1876-1952  Search this
Parsons, Betty  Search this
Robus, Hugo, 1885-1964  Search this
Saint-Gaudens, Homer, b. 1880  Search this
Savery, Rockland  Search this
Schmidt, Katherine, 1898-1978  Search this
Shahn, Ben, 1898-1969  Search this
Sheeler, Charles, 1883-1965  Search this
Speicher, Eugene Edward, 1883-1962  Search this
Stamos, Theodoros, 1922-1997  Search this
Tait, Arthur Fitzwilliam, 1819-1905  Search this
Watkins, Franklin Chenault, 1894-1972  Search this
Watson, Forbes, 1880-1960  Search this
Watson, Nan, 1876-1966  Search this
Weisgard, Leonard, 1916-  Search this
Extent:
5.1 Linear feet ((partially microfilmed on 6 reels))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
1905-1969
Scope and Contents:
Photographs, correspondence, appointment books, etchings, a scrapbook, printed materials, writings, and posters.
REEL D113: Primarily letters received from artists, 1940s-50s; background material for Ft.Lee and Amsterdam (N.Y.) murals; and miscellaneous printed material and photographs.
Correspondents include John Angel, Artists Equity, Peggy Bacon, Gifford Beal, Henry Billings, Isabel Bishop, Peter Blume, Louis Bouche, Van Wyck Brooks, Audrey Buller, Paul Cadmus, Alexander Calder, William Congdon, Horace T. Day, Olin Dows, Marcel Duchamp, Emlen P. Etting, Philip Evergood, Barry Faulkner, Ernest Fiene, Leon Hartl, Whitney F. Hoyt, William M. Ivins, Jr., Lincoln E. Kirstein, Leon Kroll, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Edward Laning, Joseph L. Lasker, Clare Leighton, Charles W. Locke, Sanford B.D. Low, Luigi Lucioni, Reginald Marsh, Kenneth H. Miller, Nat'l Institute of Arts and Letters, Betty Parsons, Hugo Robus, Homer Saint-Gaudens, Katherine Schmidt, Ben Shahn, Charles Sheeler, Eugene Speicher, Theodoros Stamos, Franklin C. Watkins, Forbes and Nan Watson, and Leonard Weisgard.
REEL 847: Photographs, including 67 of Schnakenberg and friends, 1 of a portrait of him by Lloyd Goff, 95 of his oil paintings, 33 of his watercolors, 25 of his works in unidentified media, 29 of works by other artists, and 46 of pre-Columbian art from Central and South America. Among artists whose works are included are Antoine Louis Barye, Albert Bierstadt, Frederick Catherwood, Constantin Guys, Thomas Hardy, William Harnett, Winslow Homer, George Inness, Eastman Johnson, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Reginald Marsh, Rockland Savery, Theodoros Stamos, and Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait.
REELS 850-853: Biographical information; personal and business correspondence; 17 diaries, mainly about Schnakenberg's travels, 1905-1960; appointment calendars, 1963-1969; 70 etchings by Schnakenberg; a scrapbook containing clippings, catalogs, and other printed material; a book published by G. Alan Chidsey on Schnakenberg; clippings, catalogs, and announcements; papers relating to gifts and acquisitions of works of art; receipts for Schnakenberg paintings from C.W. Kraushaar Galleries; a 650-page typescript for a book "The Background of Painting" by Schnakenberg; and drafts of speeches.
UNMICROFILMED: Six World War I posters designed by Schnakenberg; Christmas cards from artists and other friends; printed material; and a photograph of Lloyd Goff, inscribed to Schnakenberg, in front of one of his paintings, 1939.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter, etcher; Newton, Conn.
Provenance:
Material donated 1963-1971 by Schnakenberg and, after his death, by his estate.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Occupation:
Etchers -- Connecticut -- Newton  Search this
Painters -- Connecticut -- Newton  Search this
Topic:
Art, Prehistoric  Search this
Painting, Modern -- 20th century  Search this
Etching  Search this
Identifier:
AAA.schnh
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9324de55d-c4b7-4bbe-9ff3-d60db8786f14
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-schnh

Galka Scheyer papers

Creator:
Scheyer, Galka E.  Search this
Names:
Archipenko, Alexander, 1887-1964  Search this
Arp, Jean, 1887-1966  Search this
De Chirico, Giorgio, 1888-  Search this
Duchamp, Marcel, 1887-1968  Search this
Feininger, Julia  Search this
Feininger, Lyonel, 1871-1956  Search this
Jawlensky, Alexej von, 1864-1941  Search this
Kandinsky, Wassily, 1866-1944  Search this
Klee, Paul, 1879-1940  Search this
Le Corbusier, 1887-1965  Search this
Léger, Fernand, 1881-1955  Search this
Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig, 1886-1969  Search this
Moholy-Nagy, László, 1895-1946  Search this
Rivera, Diego, 1886-1957  Search this
Schmidt-Rottluff, Karl, 1884-1976  Search this
Schoenberg, Arnold, 1874-1951  Search this
Schwitters, Kurt, 1887-1948  Search this
Segal, Arthur, 1875-1944  Search this
Tamayo, Rufino, 1899-1991  Search this
Varèse, Edgard, 1883-1965  Search this
Weber, Max, 1881-1961  Search this
Weston, Edward, 1886-1958  Search this
Extent:
5 Reels (ca. 1200 items (on 5 partial microfilm reels))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Reels
Date:
1917-1945
Scope and Contents:
Papers relate mainly to the Blue Four and contain primarily correspondence; also business materials, photographs, essays, and printed materials.
REEL 1644: Correspondence with Lyonel Feininger and his wife Julia, mainly concerning personal matters, contemporary events in Europe and America, and Scheyer's efforts to establish the Blue Four's reputation on the west coast. Many letters are illustrated with Feininger block cuts.
REEL 1854: Letters from Feininger, Alexei Jawlensky, Wassily Kandinsky, and Paul Klee; typescripts of letters to members of the Blue Four; import declarations; a shipping invoice; a consular certificate for paintings; and price lists of works of art.
REEL 1905: Correpsondence documenting Scheyer's friendship with various artists associated with the Blue Four and her efforts to exhibit and sell their work. Important correpsondents include: Alexander Archipenko, Hans Arp, Giorgio de Chirico, Marcel Duchamp, Paul Klee, Le Corbusier, Fernand Leger, Carlos Merida, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Diego Rivera, Arthur Segal, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Arnold Schoenberg, Kurt Schwitters, Rufino Tamayo, Mies van der Rohe, Edgar Varese, Max Weber, and Edward Weston. Also included are miscellaneous photographs, essays, notes, and financial and printed materials.
REEL 2031-2032: Correspondence with Alexei Jawlensky and Wassily Kandinsky, including several illustrated letters; two photographs of interiors; a published article by Kandindsky, "Abstrakte Kunst," ca. 1925-1926; and price lists for works of art by Kandkinsky. Some letters are typescripts.
Biographical / Historical:
Art collector, dealer; b. 1889; d. 1945; Los Angeles, Calif. Scheyer worked to introduce the art of the Blue Four (Blaue Vier), Wassily Kandinsky, Lyonel Feininger, Paul Klee, and Alexei Jawlensky, to American collectors.
Other Title:
Galka Scheyer Blue Four Archive.
Provenance:
Lent for microfilming by Norton Simon Museum of Art, 1979-1980.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Occupation:
Painters -- United States  Search this
Art dealers -- California -- Los Angeles  Search this
Topic:
Blaue Vier (Group of artists)  Search this
Expressionism (Art)  Search this
Painting, German -- Collectors and collecting  Search this
Art, Modern -- 20th century -- Germany -- Collectors and collecting  Search this
Identifier:
AAA.schegalk
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw92583993e-a76d-478c-90b5-a46e40b71054
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-schegalk

Oral history interview with Katharine Kuh

Topic:
Saturday review
Interviewee:
Kuh, Katharine  Search this
Interviewer:
Berman, Avis  Search this
Creator:
Mark Rothko and His Times Oral History Project  Search this
Names:
Art Institute of Chicago  Search this
Black Mountain College (Black Mountain, N.C.)  Search this
First National Bank of Chicago -- Art collections  Search this
Katharine Kuh Gallery (Chicago, Ill.)  Search this
Mark Rothko and His Times Oral History Project  Search this
Vassar College  Search this
Adams, Ansel, 1902-1984  Search this
Albers, Josef  Search this
Albright, Ivan, 1897-1983  Search this
Archipenko, Alexander, 1887-1964  Search this
Arensberg, Louise S. (Louise Stevenson), 1879-1953  Search this
Arensberg, Walter, 1878-1954  Search this
Avery, Milton, 1885-1965  Search this
Barr, Alfred H., Jr., 1902-1981  Search this
Berenson, Bernard, 1865-1959  Search this
Davis, Stuart, 1892-1964  Search this
De Kooning, Willem, 1904-1997  Search this
Duchamp, Marcel, 1887-1968  Search this
Ernst, Max, 1891-1976  Search this
Hofmann, Hans, 1880-1966  Search this
Kepes, Gyorgy, 1906-2001  Search this
Klee, Paul, 1879-1940  Search this
Léger, Fernand, 1881-1955  Search this
Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig, 1886-1969  Search this
Moholy-Nagy, László, 1895-1946  Search this
Mérida, Carlos, 1891-1984  Search this
Newman, Barnett, 1905-1970  Search this
Noguchi, Isamu, 1904-1988  Search this
Paepcke, Walter Paul, 1896-1960  Search this
Porter, Eliot, 1901-1990  Search this
Ray, Man, 1890-1976  Search this
Rich, Daniel Catton, 1904-1976  Search this
Rothko, Mark, 1903-1970  Search this
Smith, David, 1906-1965  Search this
Stamos, Theodoros, 1922-1997  Search this
Stieglitz, Alfred, 1864-1946  Search this
Still, Clyfford, 1904-1980  Search this
Tamayo, Rufino, 1899-1991  Search this
Tobey, Mark  Search this
Tworkov, Jack  Search this
Weston, Edward, 1886-1958  Search this
Extent:
313 Pages (Transcript)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Pages
Sound recordings
Interviews
Date:
1982 Mar. 18-1983 Mar. 24
Scope and Contents:
An interview of Katharine Kuh conducted 1982 Mar. 18-1983 Mar. 24, by Avis Berman, for the Archives of American Art's Mark Rothko and His Times oral history project.
Kuh speaks of her childhood in Chicago, the development of her interest in art, classes in art history at Vassar College, and her career as curator of modern art at the Art Institute of Chicago. She recalls in particular the "Sanity in Art" movement against modern art in Chicago. Kuh describes her relationship with Mark Rothko and Rothko's relationships with Mark Tobey, Clyfford Still, Kate Rothko, Theodoros Stamos, Milton Avery, Stanley Kunitz, and Hans Hofmann.
Kuh discusses her parents, the family silk business, travelling in Europe as a child, life in Chicago, the effects of polio and other illnesses on her interests, and her student years at Vassar College. She remembers visiting Bernard Berenson in Italy with her family and again with Daniel Catton Rich, with whom she worked very closely at the Art Institute of Chicago. She speaks of the Katharine Kuh Gallery, which she started in the mid-1930s and its place in the vanguard of the Chicago art scene.
Kuh remembers the effects of the stock market crash on her personal situation, her marriage to businessman George Kuh, distaste for life in the suburbs, and her divorce. She discusses the Katharine Kuh Gallery and the actions taken against her business by members of the reactionary "Sanity in Art" movement (including a very funny anecdote concerning Carlos Merida). She speaks of the classes in modern art that she taught at her gallery and of some of the artists she exhibited there, including the photographers Ansel Adams, Alfred Stieglitz, and Edward Weston.
Kuh remembers the McCarthy era and the political conservatism in Chicago, including her testimony on behalf of Bill Zimmerman, Acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs. She criticizes blockbuster exhibitions and the changes in the role of a museum curator. She reminisces about building the collection at the Art Institute of Chicago and the art education program she ran there, and recalls Stuart Davis, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Gyorgy Kepes, and Ivan Albright.
Kuh remembers Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Marcel Duchamp, as well as the collectors Walter Paepcke and Walter and Louise Arensberg (whose collection she surveyed in their home for an exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago).
Kuh focuses on her memories of Mark Rothko, recalling when they met, their friendship, his manner of working, his feelings about his work, and his worries towards the end of his life. She talks about Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman, and Mark Tobey. Some parts of this tape repeat what she said earlier.
Kuh continues discussing Rothko, particularly his Houston chapel murals and the retrospective exhibition at MOMA in 1961. She remembers visiting Rothko's studio and describes his working methods. She relates Rothko's views on other artists, including Milton Avery, Clyfford Still, Turner, Robert Motherwell, and Adolf Gottlieb; parts repeat things said before. Kuh also discusses Rothko's wife and daughter.
Kuh recounts building the collection at the Art Institute of Chicago and speaks of the museum staff, trustees, and donors. She remembers Alfred Barr at MOMA.
Kuh continues speaking about the Art Institute of Chicago, describing the circumstances of her resignation and subsequent move to New York. She talks of knowing Peggy Guggenheim, Max Ernst, and Fernand Leger.
Kuh describes her work as a consultant to college museums and her writings. She discusses the field of art criticism and her career as art editor at Saturday Review. She recalls Clyfford Still's retrospective exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and his death.
Kuh describes her work as a collector for the First National Bank of Chicago.
Kuh recounts more about her work at Saturday Review and her resignation. She goes into great detail about her travels in Alaska and British Columbia surveying Northwest Indian art for a government report. She speaks again about the McCarthy era.
Kuh speaks again about the Katharine Kuh Gallery and the artists she exhibited there, including Josef Albers (and his Black Mountain College), Alexander Archipenko, Stuart Davis, Paul Klee, Alexander Calder, and Man Ray.
Kuh continues her discussion of artists she exhibited at the Katharine Kuh Gallery, including Mark Tobey, Paul Klee, and Isamu Noguchi.
Kuh continues talking about artists she exhibited at the Katharine Kuh Gallery, including David Smith, Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Eliot Porter, Rufino Tamayo, and Jack Tworkov.
Biographical / Historical:
Katharine Kuh (1904-1994) was an art consultant, curator, and critic from Chicago and New York City.
General:
Originally recorded on 16 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 31 digital wav files. Duration is 21 hrs., 52 min.
Provenance:
This interview was conducted as part of the Archives of American Art's Mark Rothko and his Times oral history project, with funding provided by the Mark Rothko Foundation.
Others interviewed on the project (by various interviewers) include: Sonia Allen, Sally Avery, Ben-Zion, Bernard Braddon, Ernest Briggs, Rhys Caparn, Elaine de Kooning, Herbert Ferber, Esther Gottlieb, Juliette Hays, Sidney Janis, Buffie Johnson, Jacob Kainen, Louis Kaufman, Jack Kufeld, Stanley Kunitz, Joseph Liss, Dorothy Miller, Betty Parsons, Wallace Putnam, Rebecca Reis, Maurice Roth, Sidney Schectman, Aaron Siskind, Joseph Solman, Hedda Sterne, Jack Tworkov, Esteban Vicente and Ed Weinstein. Each has been cataloged separately.
Restrictions:
Transcript: Patrons must use microfilm copy.
Rights:
Authorization to quote or reproduce for the purposes of publication requires written permission from Avis Berman. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Occupation:
Art critics -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this
Art critics -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this
Art museum curators -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this
Art museum curators -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this
Topic:
Abstract expressionism  Search this
Genre/Form:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Identifier:
AAA.kuh82
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw941cbbacd-01e0-402c-828e-c3909d220c9b
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-kuh82
Online Media:

Jack and Rhea Case papers

Creator:
Case, Jack  Search this
Case, Rhea  Search this
Names:
Arensberg, Louise S. (Louise Stevenson), 1879-1953  Search this
Arensberg, Walter, 1878-1954  Search this
Brancusi, Constantin, 1876-1957  Search this
Duchamp, Marcel, 1887-1968  Search this
Scheyer, Galka E.  Search this
Siqueiros, David Alfaro, 1896-1974  Search this
Wood, Beatrice  Search this
Extent:
271 Items ((partially microfilmed on 2 reels))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Sound recordings
Interviews
Date:
1917-1979
Scope and Contents:
Correspondence, photographs, greeting cards, clippings, and a untranscribed interview documenting the Case's friendship with Beatrice Wood.
REEL 1854: 49 valentines and other greeting cards from Wood, illustrated with her drawings and collages; 3 caricature sketches by Wood of Marcel Duchamp, Constantin Brancusi, David Siqueiros and Galka Scheyer as part of the Louise and Walter Arensberg "circle"; 61 photographs of Wood, her drawings and ceramics; and 4 clippings.
REEL 1646: Correspondence with Wood. Many of Wood's letters are illustrated. Three photographs of Wood are also included.
UNMICROFILMED: An untranscribed conversation between Rhea Case and Beatrice Wood, June 19, 1979. Wood mentions Henri Roche, Marcel Duchamp, Walter Arensberg, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Friends of artist Beatrice Wood. Wood is a ceramist; Ojai, California.
Provenance:
Microfilmed material lent 1979-1980 by Rhea Case. Case donated the taped conversation in 1979.
Restrictions:
Patrons must use microfilm copy. Use of untranscribed tape requires an appointment.
Occupation:
Ceramicists -- California  Search this
Topic:
Ceramics  Search this
Genre/Form:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Identifier:
AAA.casejack
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw90ef4fca0-e8c6-4381-9041-23c0b32d2bd7
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-casejack

Avis Berman research material on Katharine Kuh

Creator:
Berman, Avis  Search this
Names:
Arensberg, Walter, 1878-1954  Search this
Dale, Chester, b. 1883  Search this
Duchamp, Marcel, 1887-1968  Search this
Harmon, Lily, 1912-  Search this
Kaufmann, Edgar, 1910-1989  Search this
Kuh, Katharine  Search this
Lebrun, Rico, 1900-1964  Search this
Neumann, J. B. (Jsrael Ber)  Search this
Rich, Daniel Catton, 1904-1976  Search this
Tobey, Mark  Search this
Extent:
3.6 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Interviews
Date:
1939-2006
Summary:
The Avis Berman research material on art dealer and curator Katharine Kuh measures 3.6 linear feet and dates from 1939 to 2006. The materials were compiled by art historian Avis Berman in preparing Katharine Kuh's memoir, which was published posthumously as My Love Affair with Modern Art: Behind the Scenes with a Legendary Curator. The collection includes Katharine Kuh's files; Kuh's drafts, manuscripts and interviews for her memoir; and Avis Berman's files relating to the book's publication, and memorabilia. Series 5 is regarding the reissue of The Artist's Voice: Talks with Seventeen Modern Artists by Katharine Kuh, published by De Capo Press. Included are drafts, correspondence, agreements and permissions, reviews, photographs of artwork, and administrative records.
Scope and Content Note:
The Avis Berman research material on art dealer and curator Katharine Kuh measures 3.6 linear feet and dates from 1939 to 2006. The materials were compiled by art historian Avis Berman in preparing Katharine Kuh's memoir, which was published posthumously as My Love Affair with Modern Art: Behind the Scenes with a Legendary Curator. The collection includes Katharine Kuh's files; Kuh's drafts, manuscripts and interviews for her memoir; and Avis Berman's files relating to the book's publication. Also included is memorabilia.

The Katharine Kuh files contain correspondence; exhibition files; writings and notes; and Kuh's interview with Lily Harmon on J. B. Neumann. Correspondents include Walter Arensberg, Marcel Duchamp, and Edgar Kaufmann. Also included is the scattered correspondence of Daniel Catton Rich with Walter Arensberg, Chester Dale, Katharine Kuh, Samuel Marx, and others. Exhibition files pertain to exhibitions curated by Katharine Kuh for the Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection and one-man shows for Rico Lebrun and Mark Tobey, respectively.

Sorting Out and Summing Up: Episodes in An Art Odyssey contains Katharine Kuh's draft versions of book chapters; her manuscripts and interviews; and drafts of chapters that were not incorporated in the published memoir. Also included are manuscripts for the memoir and an annotated version of Avis Berman's interview with Kuh.

The Avis Berman files include correspondence, writings, printed material, clippings, press releases, and miscellaneous printed material. Files document Berman's activities concerning the publication of the memoir.

Memorabilia consists of a monograph and a memorial booklet.

Also included is material regarding the reissue of Kuh's book The Artist's Voice: Talks With Seventeen Modern Artists in 2000. Berman collected the material as the literary executor of Kuh's estate. The files contain agreement and permission paperwork, correspondence, book drafts, and financial records.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 5 series:

Missing Title

Series 1: Katharine Kuh Files, 1944-2003 (Box 1; 0.4 linear feet)

Series 2: -- Sorting Out and Summing Up: Episodes in an Art Odyssey -- by Katharine Kuh, 1939-2006 (Boxes 1-3; 2.0 linear feet)

Series 3: Avis Berman Files, 1950s-2006 (Box 3; 0.6 linear feet)

Series 4: Memorabilia, 1976, 1977 (Box 3; 0.1 linear feet)

Series 5: Files Regarding -- The Artist's Voice: Talks With Seventeen Modern Artists -- Reissue (Boxes 4-5, 0.5 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Writer and art historian, Avis Berman lives and works in New York City. Berman was a close friend of Katharine Kuh's and is Kuh's literary executor. Berman compiled Katharine Kuh's research materials for the memoir that she was working on at the time of her death; the book was subsequently published as My Love Affair with Modern Art: Behind the Scenes with a Legendary Curator in 2006.

Katharine Kuh (1904-1994) was a curator and art dealer born in St. Louis, Missouri. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Vassar College in 1925, where she studied art history under Alfred Barr. In 1928, she earned her Master's in Art History at the University of Chicago. As a graduate student, Kuh developed an interest in modern art, particularly the work of European artists.

Kuh married George Kuh, a businessman in 1930. She and Kuh divorced six years later.

In 1935, she established the Katharine Kuh Gallery in Chicago. The gallery was dedicated to featuring the works of contemporary European and American painters and sculptors, such as Alexander Archipenko, Alexei Jawlensky, Wassily Kandinsky, Gyorgy Kepes, Paul Klee, Gaston Lachaise, Fernand Léger, Carlos Mérida, Joan Miro, Lazlo Moholy-Nagy, Pablo Picasso, as well as Charles Biederman, Alexander Calder, Stuart Davis, and Isamu Noguchi, among others. The Katharine Kuh Gallery was one of the first galleries in Chicago to show photography as art. Kuh held exhibitions for Ansel Adams, Eliot Porter, Edward Weston, and she also showed the photographs of Gyorgy Kepes and Man Ray.

At the gallery, Kuh taught classes on an informal basis to individuals interested in modern art. During this period, she spent her summers as a Visiting Professor of Art History at the University School of Fine Arts of San Miguel in Guanajuarto, Mexico (1938-1940). With the onset of America's involvement in World War II, Kuh realized that the war would curtail her contact with many of the European artists whose works she had promoted and in 1942, she decided to close the gallery.

In 1943, Katharine Kuh took a position in the public relations department at the Art Institute of Chicago. The following year, Kuh was asked to take over the Gallery of Art Interpretation at the Art Institute. Later she was appointed the Curator of Painting and Sculpture; in this role, she developed a close collaborative relationship with the Director of the Art Institute, Daniel Catton Rich. From 1946-1953, she served as the Editor of the Art Institute of Chicago Quarterly.

She left the Art Institute in 1959 and settled in New York City. She served as an art editor at the Saturday Review and World Magazine. She was also an art consultant for the First National Bank of Chicago from 1968-1979.

Katharine Kuh traveled extensively and often wrote about the art of the places she visited such as Sicily, Turkey, and the Yucatan. In the 1940s Kuh developed an interest in the wood carvings of the Indian tribes in the Pacific Northwest. The University of Alaska awarderd her an honorary doctorate for her efforts to preserve the indigenous artwork of the region's Native Americans.

Her publications on twentieth-century art included: Art Has Many Faces (1951), The Artist's Voice: Talks with Seventeen Artists (1962), Break-up: The Core of Modern Art (1965), and The Open Eye: In Pursuit of Art (1971). Kuh also wrote the catalog that accompanied the "Fernand Léger Retrospective at the Art Institute of Chicago" (1953). At the time of her death, Katharine Kuh had completed a final draft of her memoir, which she had tentatively titled, Sorting Out and Summing Up: Episodes in an Art Odyssey.

In 1994, Katharine Kuh died in New York City.
Related Material:
The Archives of American Art holds the Katharine Kuh papers, 1908-1994. Also found in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Katharine Kuh conducted by Avis Berman, March 18, 1982-March 23, 1983. Additional Katharine Kuh material is located at the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Provenance:
The Avis Berman Research Material, 1939-2006 was donated to the Archives of American Art by Avis Berman, an art historian and literary executor of Katharine Kuh's estate in 2007 and in 2021.
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.
The donor has retained all intellectual property rights, including copyright, that they may own in the following material: all writings by Avis Berman.
Occupation:
Art historians -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this
Art critics -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this
Authors -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this
Topic:
Women art historians  Search this
Women authors  Search this
Art, Modern  Search this
Genre/Form:
Interviews
Citation:
Avis Berman research material on Katharine Kuh, 1939-2006. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Identifier:
AAA.bermavis3
See more items in:
Avis Berman research material on Katharine Kuh
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9cf5807a5-9d5f-4b50-b89f-ff5896361775
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-bermavis3

Robert Bruce Inverarity papers

Creator:
Inverarity, Robert Bruce, 1909-1999  Search this
Names:
Federal Art Project (Calif.)  Search this
Federal Art Project (Ill.)  Search this
Federal Art Project (Iowa)  Search this
Federal Art Project (N.Y.)  Search this
Federal Art Project (Or.)  Search this
Federal Art Project (Utah)  Search this
Federal Art Project (Wash.)  Search this
Museum of International Folk Art (N.M.)  Search this
Deutsch, Hilda, 1911-  Search this
Duchamp, Marcel, 1887-1968 -- Photographs  Search this
Graves, Morris, 1910-2001 -- Photographs  Search this
Morris, Carl, 1911-1993  Search this
Ray, Man, 1890-1976 -- Photographs  Search this
Tobey, Mark  Search this
Extent:
13.8 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Scrapbooks
Sound recordings
Sketchbooks
Interviews
Photographs
Drawings
Place:
United States -- Economic conditions, 1918-1945 -- Washington (State)
Date:
circa 1840s-1997
Summary:
The papers of artist, photographer, museum director, anthropologist, and writer Robert Bruce Inverarity are dated circa 1840s-1997 and measure 12.7 linear feet. Biographical information, correspondence, writings and notes, subject files, art work, scrapbooks, sound recordings, printed material and photographs are found within the papers. They document Inverarity's work as Director of the Federal Art Project in Seattle and Director of the Art and Craft Project for the State of Washington, as well as his other professional work. Nineteenth century material consists of a Japanese print, printed material, and photographs.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of artist, photographer, museum director, anthropologist, and writer Robert Bruce Inverarity are dated circa 1840s-1997 and measure 13.8 linear feet. Biographical information, correspondence, writings and notes, subject files, art work, scrapbooks, sound recordings, printed material and photographs are found within the papers. They document Inverarity's work as Director of the Federal Art Project in Seattle and Director of the Art and Craft Project for the State of Washington, as well as his other professional work. Nineteenth century material consists of a Japanese print, printed material, and photographs.

Among the biographical information are awards and certificates, biographical and genealogical notes, and educational records. Correspondence concerns Inverarity's activities as Director of the WPA Federal Arts Project in Washington State, 1936-1941. Additional personal and professional correspondence, 1929-1993, documents his activities as a museum director, consultant, collector, and writer. Among the friends and colleagues with whom he corresponded are: Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning, Rockwell and Sally Kent, Stanton MacDonald-Wright, Wolfgang Palen, Juliet and Man Ray, Mark Tobey, Edward Weston, and various individuals associated with the WPA.

Manuscripts of a few of Inverarity's many articles on topics such as anthropology, museology, and information storage and retrieval are among his writings and notes. Also included are the manuscript of an unpublished book, Tobey Remembered, along with drafts, notes, correspondence, research materials, and photocopies of Tobey's letters to him and others. Other writings consist of book reviews, children's books, a catalog of the Inverarity Collection, and a copy of his 1946 master's thesis, "The Social-Economic Position of the American Artist." Several journals, 1928-1966, survive, including one that records his 1932 trip to study the Haida Indians of the Queen Charlotte Islands.

Subject files include general subjects such as "Folk Art" and "Preservation." Files on the museums where Inverarity was the director contain some official records as well as general information. Art work by Inverarity includes eight volumes of sketch books, 1928-1942, commercial work for Boeing, notes and drawings for book designs. Among the work by other artists are drawings, paintings and prints by friends. Of particular interest are display panels for a small exhibit on airbrush stencil prints produced by the Washington State WPA Federal Art Project. Other noteworthy items are pencil sketches and a watercolor by Mark Tobey, and prints by Hiroshige and Jan Matulka.

Five scrapbooks, 1928-1979, contain newspaper clippings, miscellaneous printed items, and a small number of photographs and letters. Three volumes document his career as an artist and museum director. One consists of biographical information and items designed by Inverarity, and another concerns publication and marketing of his monograph Art of the Northwest Coast Indians.

Sound recordings consist of interviews and conversations. An extensive interview with Inverarity about his life and career was conducted by Craig Gilborn in 1990. Bruce and Jane Inverarity in conversation with former colleague Ernie Johnson and his wife Helen about his departure from the Museum of International Folk Art were recorded in 1980. Also included is a 1981 conversation with Grace T. Stevenson containing references to Mark Tobey and Morris Graves.

Printed material includes many items about or produced by the WPA Federal Art Project. Among the items written by Inverarity are many articles on a wide variety of topics, his book Art of the Northwest Coast Indians, and two published portfolios. Printed material by other authors includes articles, books and reports about or mentioning Inverarity, and books designed or illustrated by him. Among the miscellaneous printed items are catalogs and brochures of the schools where Inverarity taught and studied, and a few ephemeral items designed by him.

Photographs are of art work, people, places, the Washington State WPA Federal Art Project, and miscellaneous subjects. All photographs known to be by Inverarity are clearly marked. Art work includes views of Inverarity's collection of his own work and that of other artists hanging in his home. Photographs of people include artists, friends, colleagues, and various groups. Of special interest are Inverarity's portraits of artists, among them Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Morris Graves, Hilaire Hiler, Rico Le Brun, Stanton Macdonald-Wright, Man Ray, Dorothea Tanning, and Mark Tobey. Photographs of places include the museums where Inverarity was director, places in which he lived, and travel pictures. Of note are a large group of photographs (copy prints) taken in 1932 while studying the Haida Indians in British Columbia. Nineteenth century photographs of family homes, Europe, and South America may have been taken by his father. Photographs of the Washington State WPA Federal Arts Project are of individual works of art, exhibition installations, mosaic procedures and local art centers. Many, probably intended for display, are mounted in groups on large cardboard panels. Miscellaneous subjects include art photographs by Inverarity and the microreader he invented.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as nine series. Correspondence is in chronological order, Biographical Information and Subject Files are arranged alphabetically by folder title. Other series have been organized into subseries and arrangement is as described in the Series Descriptions/Container List below. Unless noted otherwise, material within folders is arranged chronologically.

Missing Title

Series 1: Biographical Information, 1934-1997, undated (Box 1, OV 18; 0.25 linear ft.)

Series 2: Correspondence, 1928-1993, undated (Box 1; 0.75 linear ft.)

Series 3: Writings and Notes, 1928-1993, undated, (Boxes 2-3; 1.5 linear ft.)

Series 4: Subject Files, 1938-1990, undated (Boxes 3-6, OV 19-20; 2.5 linear ft.)

Series 5: Art Work, circa 1840s-1969, undated (Boxes 6, 12, 16, OV 21; 1.3 linear ft.)

Series 6: Scrapbooks, 1928-1991, undated (Boxes 7-8; 1.1 linear ft.)

Series 7: Sound Recordings, 1980-1990 (Box 8; 3 folders)

Series 8: Printed Material, 1902-1995, undated (Boxes 8-13, OV 22; 3.4 linear ft.)

Series 9: Photographs, circa 1870s-1990, undated (Boxes 11, 14-17, OV 23; 3.0 linear ft.)
Biographical Note:
Robert Bruce Inverarity (1909-1999) showed artistic leanings as a boy, and from an early age was fascinated by puppetry and Northwest Coast native culture. During much of his youth, Inverarity's family lived in Canada, but returned to their native Seattle when he was a teenager. After graduating from high school, he made a 500 mile journey on foot along the coasts of the Vancouver Islands, collecting Indian artifacts and studying the area's tribal legends.

He studied briefly with Mark Tobey in Seattle, where the two shared a studio; when Tobey departed for Chicago, Inverarity succeeded him as an art teacher at the Cornish School. He spent the next few years in California working as an artist, exhibiting, and occasionally teaching. From there, he moved to Vancouver where he was Director of the School of Creative Art. In 1932, Inverarity made a three month trip to the Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia, for the purpose of studying the Haida Indians.

Upon his return to the United States in 1933, Inverarity joined the University of Washington Drama School as a puppetry instructor; in 1938 he published a highly regarded Manual of Puppetry. During 1936-37, he took a leave of absence from the university to assume the position of State Director of the Federal Art Project, where he remained until 1939. He then became State Director of the Art and Crafts Project (1939-1941). The U.S. Navy appointed Inverarity Chief of Design for Camouflage (1941-1943) and he later served as an Official Navy War Artist (1943-1945).

During his early years as a teacher and administrator, Inverarity continued making art and participated in a wide variety of exhibitions. He published a portfolio, 12 Photographs by R. B. Inverarity (1940). In the following year, Movable Masks and Figures of the North Pacific Coast Indians, a portfolio of his watercolors reproduced as silkscreen prints, appeared. Although Inverarity stopped exhibiting in 1941, he continued to produce art; notable work of this period includes photographic portraits of a number of artist friends (Max Ernst, Dorothea Tanning, Marcel Duchamp, and Man Ray).

After World War II, Inverarity completed his formal education. He earned a Bachelor's degree in art and anthropology from the University of Washington (1946), and then studied with Hilaire Hiler at Freemont University in Los Angeles, where he was awarded a Master's degree in fine arts (1947) and a Ph.D. (1948).

Inverarity began his museum career in 1949 when he was appointed the first director of the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a position that combined his interest in, and knowledge of, anthropology and art. While in Santa Fe, he published Art of the North West Coast Indians (1950). During his five year tenure as director, the museum participated in a pilot study for coding visual files, a project of the anthropological group, Human Resources Area Files, Inc. When Inverarity was dismissed from the Museum of International Folk Art in 1954, most of the staff resigned in protest, and the American Association of Museums investigated the situation.

Inverarity then became the first director of the Adirondack Museum, Blue Mountain Lake, New York, where he remained for eleven years. In addition to planning the museum's building, and developing collections and programs, Inverarity continued his involvement with the visual files project of the Human Resources Area Files, Inc., studying information storage and retrieval, developing a "microreader," and publishing Visual Files Coding Index (1960). In addition, he published many articles on a variety of topics and was active in organizations for anthropologists and museum professionals.

After his 1965 departure from the Adirondack Museum, Inverarity went to California and worked as an illustrator and book designer at the University of California Press. He returned to the east coast in 1969 to assume the directorship of the Philadelphia Maritime Museum. During this period, he remained active in professional associations and traveled to study museums abroad. He retired in 1976 and moved to La Jolla, California.

Robert Bruce Inverarity died in 1999.
Separated Material:
Originals of most of the drawings and sketches loaned by Mr. Inverarity were returned to him after filming and were not subsequently donated. This material is available on 35 mm microfilm reel D/NDA/I, frames 392-409.
Provenance:
Robert Bruce Inverarity donated his papers to the Archives in several installments between 1965 and 1993. Additional papers were received from his estate in 1999. He also loaned a small number of additional drawings and sketches for microfilming which were returned to him. A few of these drawings were included with the papers he subsequently donated to the Archives of American Art.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Use 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:
Arts administrators  Search this
Painters  Search this
Topic:
Puppet theater  Search this
New Deal, 1933-1939 -- Washington (State)  Search this
Works of art  Search this
Federal aid to the arts -- Washington (State)  Search this
Art and state -- Washington (State)  Search this
Genre/Form:
Scrapbooks
Sound recordings
Sketchbooks
Interviews
Photographs
Drawings
Citation:
Robert Bruce Inverarity papers, circa 1840s-1997. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Identifier:
AAA.inverobe
See more items in:
Robert Bruce Inverarity papers
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9460b503e-0657-430a-9244-ead53bd5066f
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-inverobe
Online Media:

William C. Seitz papers

Creator:
Seitz, William C. (William Chapin)  Search this
Names:
University of Virginia -- Faculty  Search this
Ashton, Dore  Search this
Banks-Woodson, Ellen  Search this
Barr, Alfred Hamilton, 1902-  Search this
Baziotes, William, 1912-1963  Search this
Conner, Bruce, 1933-2008  Search this
D'Harnoncourt, Rene, 1901-1968  Search this
Duchamp, Marcel, 1887-1968  Search this
Elliott, Philip Clarkson, 1903-1985  Search this
Gorky, Arshile, 1904-1948  Search this
Gottlieb, Adolph, 1903-1974  Search this
Krebs, Rockne, 1938-2011  Search this
Monet, Claude, 1840-1926  Search this
Rosati, James, 1912-1988  Search this
Segal, George, 1924-2000  Search this
Seitz, Irma  Search this
Stella, Frank  Search this
Extent:
32.5 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Resumes
Poems
Photographs
Awards
Sound recordings
Interviews
Sketches
Notebooks
Drafts (documents)
Lectures
Date:
circa 1930-1995
Summary:
The papers of educator, painter, and art historian William C. Seitz measure 32.5 linear feet and date from circa 1930-1995. The collection includes biographical information, correspondence, notebooks, subject and people files, thesis research files, interviews and lecture recordings, teaching files, personal business records, scattered printed materials, photographs, and artwork. The bulk of the papers focus on Seitz's research and teaching career.
Scope and Contents note:
The papers of educator, painter, and art historian William C. Seitz measure 32.5 linear feet and date from circa 1930-1995. The collection includes biographical information, correspondence, notebooks, subject and people files, thesis research files, interviews and lecture recordings, teaching files, personal business records, scattered printed materials, photographs, and artwork. The bulk of the papers focus on Seitz's research and teaching career.

Biographical materials consist of resumes and CV's, identification cards including one from the WPA, documents from the memorial held at the University of Virginia for Seitz, poetry written by Irma for William on their wedding anniversaries, and x-rays.

The majority of Seitz's correspondence is professional and concerns job offers and opportunities, lectures requests, recommendation letters for Seitz and for others by Seitz, the Kress Fellowship, exhibitions, awards, and organizations. Also found are posthumus materials to Irma Seitz concerning book royalites. Personal correspondence is scattered and includes condolence letters sent to Irma.

Personal business records focus on Seitz's personal art collection, copyright information, publishing records including royalty statements, reports, scholarship and fellowship information, and professional organization membership records.

The bulk of the collection consists of research and writing files which include notebooks, subject and people files, thesis research files and drafts, general research which include writings by Seitz, card files, and recordings of lectures and interviews. Subject and people files may include correspondence, printed materials, research notes, photographs, works of art, and writings concerning and by artists, art historians, curators, subjects, and art movements. Research files are found for Dore Ashton, Alfred H. Barr Jr., William Baziotes, Bruce Conner, Rene D'Harnoncourt, Marcel Duchamp, Arshile Gorky, Adolph Gottlieb, Rockne Krebs, George Segal, James Rosati, and Frank Stella among many others. Also found are research materials on Claude Monet, some of which are written in French.

Teaching files contains extensive reference material likely used by Seitz during his career as well as correspondence, exams, and lecture materials used in specific classes.

Printed material is scattered and includes clippings, exhibition announcements, and articles. Exhibition announcements and catalogs are for Seitz's personal works and for exhibitions he curated.

The bulk of the photographs are of works of art by William Seitz, Irma Seitz, and others which were likely owned by Seitz. Also found are photographs of exhibition installations at the Univeristy of Virginia and scattered photographs of Seitz with others.

Artwork include several pencil sketches by Seitz, two works by Ellen Banks-Woodson, and a sketch by Phil Elliott.
Arrangement note:
The collection is arranged as 8 series:

Missing Title

Series 1: Biographical Information, 1930s-1974 (Box 1; 7 folders)

Series 2: Correspondence, 1945-1995 (Boxes 1-2; 1.6 linear feet)

Series 3: Personal Business Records, circa 1947-1990 (Boxes 2-3; 0.4 linear feet)

Series 4: Research and Writing Files, 1940s-1970s (Boxes 4-26; 23.5 linear feet)

Series 5: Teaching Files, 1945-1970s (Boxes 27-31, OV 34-35; 5 linear feet)

Series 6: Printed Material, 1937-1984 (Boxes 31-2; 0.5 linear feet)

Series 7: Photographs, 1940s-1981 (Box 32, 33; 11 folders)

Series 8: Artwork, circa 1950s-1972 (Box 32, 33; 6 folders)
Biographical/Historical note:
William C. Seitz (1914-1974) was an art historian and scholar, painter, educator, and museum curator who worked primarily in New York and Virginia. He completed the first dissertation on Abstract Expressionism while a student at Princeton University in 1955.

Born in 1914 in Buffalo, New York, Seitz studied at the Albright Art School at the University of Buffalo and the Art Institute of Buffalo. Seitz met artist Irma J. Siegelman, whom he married in 1938. Due to the Depression, he left school and worked with the Federal Arts Project in New York City in the 1930s and worked as an aircraft fuel cell deigner for the Hewitt Rubber Company during World War II. Returning to the University of Buffalo after the war, Seitz completed his undergraduate degree and remained by accepting a teaching job.

Although he saw success as a painter and exhibited in one-man shows, Seitz focused his career in academia and enrolled at Princeton University for a graduate degree in Art History. Princeton faculty held divided views on Seitz's desire to write a dissertation on the Abstract Expressionist movement and debated the subject for over a year. Seitz's dissertation topic was eventually approved and in addition to writing the first dissertation on Abstract Expressionism, Seitz received the first PhD in Modern Art from Princeton. Seitz remained at Princeton as an assistant professor and advised students such as Frank Stella.

In 1960, he accepted a job as a curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. At MOMA, Seitz curated The Art of Assemblage (1961), The Responsive Eye (1965), and an exhibition on Monet (1960). Other MOMA exhibitions focused on artists Mark Tobey, Arshile Gorky, and Hans Hofmann. Additionally, he served as director of the Rose Art Museum of Brandeis University from 1965-1970. During that time, Seitz organized the United States exhibition at the Ninth Biennial in Sao Paulo (1967) and the Seventh Biennial of Canadian Painting (1968). In 1971, Seitz returned to teaching at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia and was the Visiting Kress Professor at the National Gallery of Art from 1972-1973.

In addition to his successes in painting, education, and the curatorial field, Seitz was an accomplished writer. He published many articles, essays, and books on art and artists including Art in the Age of Aquarius, on which he worked until his death.

William C. Seitz died of cancer in 1974.
Related Archival Materials note:
The Museum of Modern Art Archives in New York City holds the William C. Seitz papers which contain exhibition files and records relating to an interview with Marcel Duchamp. Correspondence relating to the debate concerning the viability of Seitz's dissertation are found in the Alfred H. Barr, Jr. papers also at the Museum of Modern Art Archives.
Provenance:
The William C. Seitz papers were donated to the Archives of American Art by Seitz's widow, Irma Seitz, in 1975 and 2003. A transcript of an interview with Mark Tobey by Seitz was donated by Rebecca Massie Lane in 1988. Seitz gave these transcripts to Lane for her graduate work and they remined in her possession after his death.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
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 historians -- Virginia -- Charlottesville  Search this
Topic:
Painters -- Virginia -- Charlottesville  Search this
Educators -- Virginia  Search this
Genre/Form:
Resumes
Poems
Photographs
Awards
Sound recordings
Interviews
Sketches
Notebooks
Drafts (documents)
Lectures
Citation:
William C. Seitz papers, circa 1930-1995. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Identifier:
AAA.seitwill
See more items in:
William C. Seitz papers
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw944428879-be52-442b-b3a0-1e263ac364f1
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-seitwill
Online Media:

Colette Roberts Papers and Interviews with Artists

Creator:
Roberts, Colette, 1910-  Search this
Names:
British Broadcasting Corporation  Search this
Grand Central Moderns (Gallery)  Search this
Le Point Cardinal (Gallery)  Search this
New York University -- Faculty  Search this
Bauermeister, Mary, 1934-  Search this
Bearden, Romare, 1911-1988  Search this
Chryssa, 1933-  Search this
Dehner, Dorothy, 1901-1994  Search this
Duchamp, Marcel, 1887-1968  Search this
Ferren, John, 1905-1970  Search this
Gottlieb, Adolph, 1903-1974  Search this
Johnson, Ray, 1927-  Search this
Karp, Ivan C., 1926-2012  Search this
Le Prat, Thérèse  Search this
Lindner, Richard, 1901-1978  Search this
Marisol, 1930-2016  Search this
Moy, Seong  Search this
Nevelson, Louise, 1899-1988  Search this
O'Doherty, Brian  Search this
Ray, Man, 1890-1976  Search this
Reinhardt, Ad, 1913-1967 -- Photographs  Search this
Schwabacher, Ethel, 1903-1984  Search this
Sterne, Hedda, 1910-  Search this
Vieira da Silva, Maria Helena, 1908-1992  Search this
Extent:
10.2 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Transcripts
Reviews (documents)
Interviews
Articles
Notes
Manuscripts
Photographs
Sound recordings
Date:
1918-1971
Summary:
The papers of New York City and Paris art historian, educator, and gallerist Colette Roberts measure 10.2 linear feet and date from 1918 to 1971. Papers include correspondence, writings, teaching records, project proposals, gallery records from Grand Central Moderns Gallery, clippings, Roberts' printed articles, press releases, exhibition catalogs, posters, photographs, and a few works of art on paper. Also found are 124 interviews with contemporary artists conducted by Roberts.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of New York City and Paris art historian, educator, and gallerist Colette Roberts measure 10.2 linear feet and date from 1918 to 1971. Papers include correspondence, writings, teaching records, project proposals, gallery records from Grand Central Moderns Gallery, clippings, Roberts' printed articles, press releases, exhibition catalogs, posters, photographs, and a few works of art on paper. Also found are 124 interviews with contemporary artists conducted by Roberts.

Significant correspondents include Sam Adler, Erwin Barrie, Hubert Damisch, George Deem, Mesdames de Harting and de Tinan, Lamar Dodd, Hélène Drude (Le Point Cardinal gallery), Arne Ekstrom, Albert M. Fine (Fluxus artist), Iqbal Geoffrey, R.G. Gilllet, Adolph Gottlieb, Cleve Gray, Leon Hartl, Jennett Lam, Alberto Cifolelli Lamb, Mike Nevelson, Norman Norotzky, Jacqueline Pavlowsky, Abe Rattner, Ad Reinhardt, H. Sandberg, Philippe Stern, Russell Twiggs, and Zuka.

Writings by Roberts include manuscripts and articles about artists, writings about her own art, personal writings, working notes from interviews and classes, reviews, and translations between English and French.

Among the personal records are Robert's files relating to teaching, charitable activities, and exhibitions. Also found are gallery records from Grand Central Moderns Gallery, including artist résumés, a card file of artworks with provenance information, exhibition catalogs and announcements, membership records, posters, publicity, and sales records.

Printed materials in the collection include clippings, Roberts' printed articles, press releases, and other exhibition catalogs and announcements. Photographs are of Roberts, artists, including Ad Reinhardt, classes, art spaces, and works of art. A small number of artworks on paper are also found, including Fluxus art stamps and a printed picture of Ray Johnson stamped "DOUGHNUT FESTIVAL."

Documentation of interviews with artists conducted by Roberts includes a card index file, a few transcripts, and the original sound recordings. Most of the recordings are interviews with artists that Roberts created during a class she taught at New York University between 1957 and 1971 called "Meet the Artist," including Mary Bauermeister, Romare Bearden, Dorothy Dehner, John Ferren, Ray Johnson, Ivan Karp, Thérèse Le Prat, Richard Lindner, Marisol, Seong Moy, Brian O'Doherty, Man Ray, Ethel Schwabacher, Hedda Sterne, Marie Helena Vieira da Silva, and many others. In preparation for magazine articles, Roberts conducted more extensive interviews with Chryssa, Marcel Duchamp, Adolph Gottlieb, and Louise Nevelson. A few of the recordings of Marcel Duchamp were not created by Roberts. In all, over 100 artists are represented in Roberts' interviews. Other recordings found include lectures and interviews conducted by people other than Roberts.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 8 series:

Missing Title

Series 1: Correspondence, 1918-1971 (Box 1, 0.5 linear feet)

Series 2: Notes and Writings, 1936-1970 (Box 1, 0.3 linear feet)

Series 3: Personal Records, 1944-1971 (Box 1-2, 11; 0.7 linear feet)

Series 4: Grand Central Moderns Gallery Records, 1952-1970 (Box 2-3, 11; 0.7 linear feet)

Series 5: Printed Material, 1938-1971 (Box 3-5, 11-12; 2.0 linear feet)

Series 6: Photographs, 1930-1971 (Box 5; 0.2 linear feet)

Series 7: Artwork, 1940-1969 (Box 5; 4 folders)

Series 8: Interviews with Artists, 1959-1971 (Box 5-10; 5.5 lienar feet)
Biographical Note:
Colette Roberts was a French artist, curator, gallery director, and scholar who emigrated to the United States in 1939, settling in New York City and remaining there until her death in 1971.

Roberts was born in Paris, France in 1910. She studied art with Roger Bissière at the Académie Ranson and with Henry Focillon at the Ecole du Louvre, and she later attended the Institut d'Art et Archeologie at the Sorbonne. Roberts came to the United States in 1939, settling in New York City, and became an American citizen three years later. In her early years in the United States, Roberts lectured and wrote on art and literature, and was active in various war-relief organizations, raising money and organizing benefits for organizations such as the American Red Cross and UNICEF. She was the gallery director for the National Association of Women Artists' Argent Galleries from 1947 to 1949, secretary to the curator of Far Eastern Art at New York's Metropolitan Museum from 1950 to 1951, and art editor for "France Amérique," the French-language newspaper in New York, beginning in 1953.

Roberts became gallery director of the Grand Central Moderns Gallery (New York, NY) in 1952 and remained in that position until 1968, when the gallery closed. The gallery was opened in 1946 by Erwin S. Barrie of the Grand Central Galleries for the promotion of living American artists. Among the artists represented there were Jennett Lam and Seong Moy. During this period she was also an instructor at New York University and Queens College, teaching art history and contemporary art. In 1957, she began a course at New York University called "Meet the Artist," for which she took her classes to the studios of working artists to see and discuss their work. In the early 1960s, she began to tape record her interviews of artists for this course, a practice which continued until her death in 1971. In 1968, Roberts worked briefly as Gallery Director for the A.M. Sachs Gallery (New York, NY), and as an oral history interviewer for the Archives of American Art.

Roberts wrote extensively on contempoary art, including articles and monographs on Mark Tobey (1960, Grove Press), Louise Nevelson (1964, The Pocket Museum), and Marcel Duchamp. She was a regular contributor to Aujourd'hui and Art and Architecture magazines.
Related Material:
Additional papers and recordings of Colette Roberts are held by Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center.
Separated Material:
A copy of a 1967 oral history with Adolf Gottlieb conducted by Dorothy Seckler for the Archives of American Art oral history program, which was found in Roberts' papers, has been returned to the Archives' oral history collection.
Provenance:
The sound recordings and transcripts of interviews with artists, were donated by Colette Roberts in 1970. The remaining papers were donated by her son, Richard B. Roberts, in 1973.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
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 historians -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this
Topic:
Art -- Study and teaching  Search this
Sculpture, Modern -- 20th century -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this
Painting, Modern -- 20th century -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this
Fluxus (Group of artists)  Search this
Art, Modern -- 20th century -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this
Genre/Form:
Transcripts
Reviews (documents)
Interviews
Articles
Notes
Manuscripts
Photographs
Sound recordings
Citation:
Colette Roberts papers and interviews with artists, circa 1930-1971. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Identifier:
AAA.robecoli
See more items in:
Colette Roberts Papers and Interviews with Artists
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9bb878da1-c929-41fc-aa11-e3a678ffd3f1
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-robecoli
Online Media:

Cleve Gray papers

Creator:
Gray, Cleve  Search this
Names:
Berry-Hill Galleries  Search this
Betty Parsons Gallery  Search this
Connecticut. Commission on Arts, Tourism, Culture, History and Film  Search this
Jacques Seligmann & Co  Search this
Neuberger Museum of Art  Search this
Pratt Institute  Search this
Princeton University  Search this
Rhode Island School of Design  Search this
Barzun, Jacques, 1907-  Search this
Calder, Alexander, 1898-1976  Search this
Davis, Jim, 1901-1974  Search this
Dillenberger, Jane  Search this
Duchamp, Marcel, 1887-1968  Search this
Ernst, Jimmy, 1920-1984  Search this
Gabo, Naum, 1890-1977  Search this
Grace, Louise N.  Search this
Gray, Francine du Plessix  Search this
Lipchitz, Jacques, 1891-1973  Search this
Marin, John, 1870-1953  Search this
Pollock, Jackson, 1912-1956  Search this
Richter, Hans, 1888-1976  Search this
Smith, David, 1906-1965  Search this
Villon, Jacques, 1875-1963  Search this
Weber, Nicholas Fox, 1947-  Search this
Extent:
9.2 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Poems
Articles
Photographs
Reviews (documents)
Notes
Illustrations
Notebooks
Sketches
Drafts (documents)
Video recordings
Sound recordings
Interviews
Manuscripts
Paintings
Prints
Watercolors
Drawings
Lectures
Date:
1933-2005
Summary:
The Cleve Gray papers, 1933-2005, measure 9.2 linear feet. Papers include biographical material, alphabetical files, writings, artwork, audio/visual records, artifacts, printed material, and photographs. Extensive alphabetical files contain personal and professional correspondence as well as subject files relating to projects and interests. Especially well-documented are: Gray's involvement with the Vietnam protest movement; and Threnody, his best-known work composed of fourteen large panels lamenting the dead of both sides sides in Vietnam, commissioned by the Neuberger Museum of Art.
Scope and Content Note:
The Cleve Gray papers, 1933-2005, measure 9.2 linear feet. Papers include biographical material, alphabetical files, writings, artwork, audio/visual records, artifacts, printed material, and photographs. Extensive alphabetical files contain personal and professional correspondence as well as subject files relating to projects and interests. Especially well-documented are: Gray's involvement with the Vietnam movement; and Threnody, his best-known work composed of fourteen large panels lamenting the dead of both sides sides in Vietnam, commissioned by the Neuberger Museum of Art.

Among the biographical material are award and membership certificates, biographical notes, and personal documentation.

The alphabetical files contain Cleve Gray's personal and professional correspondence, as well as subject files relating to projects and interests. Correspondence is with friends and family, colleagues, publishers, museum curators and directors, art dealers, collectors, and fans. Among the correspondents of note are: Jacques Barzun, James E. Davis, Naum Gabo, Louise N. Grace, Hans and Fridel Richter, and Jacques and Gaby Villon. Other substantial correspondence includes: Berry-Hill Galleries, Betty Parsons Gallery, Connecticut Commission on the Arts, Jacques Seligmann and Co., Neuberger Museum of Art, Pratt Institute, Princeton University, and Rhode Island School of Design. Subject files mostly consist of correspondence, but include printed material and some photographs. Among the subject files are: Art Collection of Cleve and Francine Gray, Artist-Dealer Consignments and Visual Artists' Rights Act of 1989, Artists' Tax Equity Act of 1979, Promised Gifts to Museums, Threnody, Vestments, and Vietnam Protest. Of particular interest are files relating to the Estate of Hans Richter (Cleve Gray, executor), and Gray's research correspondence and illustrations for his Cosmopolitan article "Women-Leaders of Modern Art."

Writings are manuscripts and drafts, research materials, notes, and miscellaneous writings by Cleve Gray and other authors. Those by Gray include articles and catalog introductions on a wide range of art-related topics, as well as book and exhibition reviews. Also found are a book proposal, texts and notes for lectures and talks, miscellaneous notes, poems, political statements, and student papers. Of particular interest are autobiographical notes in the form of a chronology that his biographer, Nicholas Fox Weber, cited as an "autochronology."

Among the writings by other authors are pieces about Cleve Gray including Nicholas Fox Weber's manuscript Cleve Gray. A significant amount of material relates to three books edited by Gray: David Smith by David Smith: Sculpture and Writings, Hans Richter, and John Marin. Research material survives for an unpublished volume, Naum Gabo. Also included are notes relating to his translation of A l'Infinitif by Marcel Duchamp. Jane Daggett Dillenberger is represented by a lecture, "The Resurrection in Art." The remaining items by other authors are unsigned; of particular interest is a small notebook of reminiscences and notes about Jackson Pollock.

Artwork by Cleve Gray consists mostly drawings and sketches, and a small number of paintings, prints, and watercolors. Works by other artists consist are an unsigned mobile of paper cut-outs, possibly by Alexander Calder, and a pencil drawing signed Dick (probably Richard Avedon).

Audio recordings are a radio broadcast featuring Cleve Gray, several lectures by Gray on John Marin, and a lecture titled "Meaning in the Visual Arts." Other recordings are of Hans Richter and an interview with Jimmy Ernst conducted by Francine du Plessix Gray. Also found is a videocassette of "Glenville School Students at SUNY (Lincoln Center Activity)."

Artifacts are a Chinese scroll representative of those that hung in Cleve Gray's studio, two of his paintbrushes, Aberdeen-Angus Breeders' Association blue ribbon, and Neuberger Museum of Art Lifetime Achievement Award.

The vast majority of printed material - articles, clippings, exhibition catalogs and announcements, reproductions of art work, etc. - are about or by Cleve Gray. Miscellaneous items and publications mentioning Gray consist of annual reports, brochures, calendars, newsletters, programs, etc. Clippings about Vietnam and Vietnam protest memorabilia reflect his passionate involvement in the anti-war movement; a small number of these items mention Gray or were written by him.

Photographs are of artwork, events, people, places, and miscellaneous subjects. Most of the art work appearing in the photographs is by Cleve Gray and includes images of destroyed paintings. Also found is an original print of Photo Abstraction by Gray, circa 1934. Of particular note are photographs of Threnody, among them preparatory drawings and views of the work in progress. Photographs of artwork by other artists include Louise N. Grace, Jacques Lipchitz, John Marin, Hans Richter, and Jacques Villon.

Photographs of people are mainly portraits of Gray, and views of him with his wife and sons. Other individuals appearing in photographs are Hans Richter and some of Richter's descendants. Pictures of places consist of Gray's studio.

Events are an unidentified exhibition opening. Miscellaneous subjects are mostly exhibition installations. Illustrations consist of photographs published in David Smith by David Smith: Sculpture and Writings. Also found are small number of negatives and color transparencies.
Arrangement:
The collection is organized into 8 series:

Missing Title

Series 1: Biographical Material, 1943-circa 2001 (Box 1; 0.1 linear ft.)

Series 2: Alphabetical Files, 1936-2005 (Boxes 1-5, 9; 4.3 linear ft.)

Series 3: Writings, 1935-2000 (Boxes 5-6; 0.85 linear ft.)

Series 4: Artwork, circa 1933-1987 (Boxes 6, 9, OV 12; 0.45 linear ft.)

Series 5: Audio/Visual Records, 1971-1989 (Box 6; 0.25 linear ft.)

Series 6: Artifacts, 1957-1999 (Box 6, RD 11; 0.45 linear ft.)

Series 7: Printed Material, 1933-2005 (Boxes 7-8; 1.25 linear ft.)

Series 8: Photographs, circa 1934-2002 (Boxes 8-10; 1.15 linear ft.)
Biographical Note:
Abstract Expressionist painter, sculptor, and writer Cleve Gray (1918-2004) lived and worked in Connecticut where he was politically active in the Vietnam protest movement and other liberal causes.

Born Cleve Ginsberg in New York City (the family changed its name to Gray in 1936), he attended the Ethical Culture School and at a young age developed a fascination with color and paint. At the urging of friends, Cleve's parents allowed him to accompany a school friend for lessons with George Bellows' student Antonia Nell. She encouraged and inspired the young artist, and a still life he painted in her class was shown at the National Academy of Design's 1932 annual exhibition. Miss Nell also introduced him to Louise N. Grace, an artist who became a good friend and had a lasting influence on him. While a student at Phillips Academy, Cleve studied painting with Bartlett Hayes and aspired to paint in France. Upon his graduation in 1936, he was awarded the Samuel F. B. Morse Prize for most promising art student.

Gray's mother was always supportive of his career choice. His businessman father, who didn't understand his son's desire to be an artist, insisted on a college education. Cleve chose Princeton, where he majored in art and archaeology, and studied painting with James E. Davis. His senior thesis was on Chinese landscape painting; both Eastern philosophy and art were long-term influences on Gray's work and outlook. He graduated summa cum laude in 1940, and then spent several months painting while living at the farm of a family friend in Mendham, New Jersey.

When a doctor suggeted that a dry climate might relieve sinus and asthma problems, Gray moved to Tucson, Arizona. Once settled in the desert, he contacted Louise N. Grace, whom he had met as a young teenager through his art instructor. Miss Grace, an artist and daughter of the founder of W. R. Grace and Co., was a highly cultured and independent woman older than his parents. The summer before Gray entered Phillips Academy, she had hired him to brush ground color onto canvases for murals she was painting for "Eleven Arches," her home in Tuscon then under construction. Miss Grace invited Gray to visit "Eleven Arches" to see the completed murals, and despite the substantial age difference, their friendship deepened; Gray found in her intellectual and spiritual guidance that was lacking in his own family. He remained in Tucson until enlisting in the U. S. Army in 1942, and they corresponded frequently during the the war. When a stroke in 1948 prevented Miss Grace from participating in the extensive tour of Europe she was arranging for a small group of friends, including Gray, she provided sufficient funds and insisted he make the trip on his own. Another stroke, suffered while Gray was traveling, left her in a coma; he was not permitted to see her again. Upon her death in 1954, Gray inherited "Eleven Arches."

Between 1943 and 1946, Gray was stationed in England, France, and Germany, serving in Army Signal Intelligence. Most of his work was performed at night, and he spent his free time drawing. While in London, Gray produced many colored pencil drawings of buildings that had been bombed. In France, a Red Cross volunteered to introduce him to Jacques Villon; although unfamiliar with the artist, Gray knew of Villon's brother, Marcel Duchamp, and accepted the invitation. Jacques and Gaby Villon lived near Gray's billet and he became a frequent visitor. Their friendship was important to his development as an artist. After being discharged from the Army in 1946, Gray remained in France to work with Villon who introduced him to the study of color and the concept of intellectual quality in painting. Gray also studied informally with André Lhote, Villon's former teacher. "American Painters in Paris," an exhibition presented in 1946 at Galerie Durand-Ruel, included work by Cleve Gray.

He returned to New York City in 1946. In the tight post-war rental market Gray managed to find a small room upstairs from a grocery store on East 106th Street for use as a studio. He commenced painting the London Ruins series based on drawings he had made during the war, and began thinking about exhibiting in New York. Gray secured introductions to Pierre Matisse, Curt Valentin, and Dorothy Miller. They encouraged him, but no opportunities came his way until Germain Seligmann, whose gallery was expanding its scope to include contemporary art, followed the advice of Curt Valentin and looked at Gray's work. Gary's first solo exhibition, held at Jacques Seligmann and Co., included selections from the London Ruins series, paintings done in Maine and Arizona, and a few portraits. The New York Times called it "an auspicious first," and one of the London Ruins series was selected by Edward Alden Jewell for the "Critic's Exhibition" at Grand Central Gallery.

Gray found New York City too frenetic. In 1949 he bought a large, old house in Warren, Connecticut, and lived and worked at "Graystones" for the remainder of his life. Half of a 6-car garage was converted to a studio; many years later, his studio moved to a barn, its renovation and design planned by sculptor and architect Tony Smith.

He married Francine du Plessix in 1957. Always interested in literature and philosophy, in the 1960s Francine du Plessix Gray began contributing articles to The New Yorker and is still affiliated with the magazine. Her reviews and articles appeared in prominent publications, and she wrote several award-winning novels and biographies. Their sons, Thaddeus and Luke (now a painter), were born in 1959 and 1961. Francine's mother, Tatiana du Plessix (the hat designer Tatiana of Saks), and step-father, the sculptor Alexander Liberman (also former art director of Vogue and later editorial director of Condé Nast publications) became Cleve Gray's closest friends.

The paintings and drawings of Cleve Gray - first consisting of figures and portraits, and then abstract compositions - were often produced in series. The earliest series, London Ruins, grew from the colored pencil drawings made while stationed in London during World War II. Travels to France, Italy, Greece, Morocco, Hawaii, Spain, Egypt, Japan, and Czechoslovakia, inspired many series, among them: Etruscan, Augury, Ceres, Demeter Landscape, Hera, Morocco, Hawaii, Ramses, Perne, Hatshepsut, Roman Walls, Zen, and Prague. His hometown, the Holocaust, and musicians inspired other series: Warren, Sleepers Awake!, Bela Bartok, and Four Heads of Anton Bruckner. Some series were works on paper, others were collage canvases, and a few series later spawned prints. Gray began using acrylics in the 1940s. Although the medium offered many benefits, he did not always like its appearance and frequently returned to oils. Around 1966 Gray was painting almost exclusively with acrylic, and eventually developed a technique of thinning the paint and applying successive layers of color (sometimes by pouring or with a sponge) on cotton duck rather than traditional canvas.

Gray was attracted to sculpture, too, working in that medium at different points in his career. His first sculpture, in plaster, was completed in 1959. In the early 1960s he visited a commercial sand-casting foundry and became excited about learning to cast in bronze. He made about a dozen sculptures to cast in sand, but due to too much undercutting, their casting became too difficult a problem. Lava flows seen while in Hawaii during 1970 and 1971 inspired a return to sculpture. This time, he used wood, papier maché, and metal. Gray then decided these pieces should be cast in bronze, and he was determined to do it himself. Friends taught him the lost wax process and he began working at the Tallix Foundry in Peekskill, New York where, over the next year, he cast about forty bronzes.

Gray's best known work is Threnody, a lament for the dead of both sides in Vietnam. In 1972, Gray received a commission to fill a very large gallery of the soon-to-open Neuberger Museum of Art (State University of New York, College at Purchase) designed by Philip Johnson. Friends of the Neuberger Museum paid his expenses and Gray, who was enormously excited about the project he considered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, donated his time. Developing plans for the execution of Threnody consumed most of his time during 1972 and 1973. Composed of a series of fourteen panels, each approximately twenty feet square, the piece presented a number of technical challenges. It was constructed and painted in situ during the summer and early fall of 1973. Since then, Threnody has been reinstalled at the Neuberger Museum of Art on several occasions.

Gray was commissioned to design liturgical vestments for two Episcopal churches in Connecticut in the 1970s. A chasuble, stoles, and a mitre were commissioned by the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut in 1984.

He won the "Outdoor Art at the Station Competition," for Union Station, Hartford, Connecticut. His very large porcelain enamel tile mural, Movement in Space, was installed on the façade of the transportation center in 1988.

Gray began writing occasional articles and exhibition reviews in the late 1940s. His concern with rational structure in art led him to question Abstract Expressionism and write "Narcissus in Chaos." This article, published in 1959 by The American Scholar, drew considerable attention. In 1960, Cosmopolitan published "Women - Leaders of Modern Art" that featured Nell Blaine, Joan Brown, Elaine de Kooning, Helen Frankenthaler, Sonia Gretchoff, Grace Hartigan, Ethel Magafan, Louise Nevelson, and Georgia O'Keeffe. Between 1960 and 1970, Gray was a contributing editor of Art In America, producing numerous articles (a few co-authored with Francine) and reviews for the periodical. He edited three books, David Smith by David Smith: Scupture and Writings, Hans Richter, and John Marin, all published by Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, and translated Marcel Duchamp's A l'Infinitif.

During the early 1960s, Gray became intensely focused on the situation in Vietnam. His first artistic response came in 1963 with Reverend Quan Duc, painted to commemorate a Buddhist monk who had immolated himself. Francine, too, felt strongly about the issue and over time the couple became increasingly active in the anti-war movement. They joined a number of organizations and helped to found a local chapter of Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam. The years 1968 and 1969 were an especially intense and active period for the Grays. They protested, wrote and spoke out against the war, raised funds to support anti-war political candidates, and on a few occasions were arrested and jailed. Writing for Art in America, editing the book series, and anti-war activities left little time for his art. In 1970 Gray refocused his attention on painting.

Beginning in 1947, Gray was always represented by a New York Gallery: Jacques Seligmann and Co. (1947-1959), Staempfli Gallery (1960-1965), Saidenberg Gallery (1965-1968), Betty Parsons Gallery (1968-1983), Armstrong Gallery (1984-1987), and Berry-Hill Galleries (1988-2003). He was represented by galleries in other cities, as well, but not as consistently or for such long periods.

He exhibited extensively in group and solo exhibitions throughout the United States and internationally. In addition to numerous solo exhibitions presented by the dealers who represented Gray, there were retrospective exhibitions at: Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Brooklyn Museum, Columbus Museum of Art, Krannert Art Museum (University of Illinois, Champaign), Princeton University Art Museum, Rhode Island School of Design, and Wadsworth Atheneum.

Many museums' permanent collections include the work of Cleve Gray, among them: Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Butler Institute of American Art, Columbus Museum of Art, Neuberger Museum of Art (SUNY, College at Purchase), the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Newark Museum, Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Phillips Collection, Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery (University of Nebraska, Lincoln), Smithsonian Institution, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, and Yale University Art Gallery.

Cleve Gray served as artist-in-residence at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art in 1963 and at the Honolulu Academy of Arts in 1970, both sponsored by Ford Foundation programs. In 1980, he was appointed an artist-in-residence at the American Academy in Rome, where Francine concurrently served as a writer-in-residence; they returned for shorter periods during each of the subsequent seven years. Cleve Gray was presented the Connecticut Arts Award in 1987, and the Neuberger Museum of Art Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999. He was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Hartford in 1992, and was elected a member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1998. In addition, he was a trustee of the Neuberger Museum of Art, New York Studio School, Rhode Island School of Design, and Wadsworth Atheneum.

Cleve Gray hit his head and suffered a massive subdural hematoma after falling on ice outside of his home. He died the following day, December 8, 2004.
Separated Material:
Exhibition catalogs and announcements and two scrapbooks donated to the Archives in 1967 and 1968 were microfilmed on reels D314-D315. Items on reel D315, transferred to the Smithsonian American Art Museum Library in 1975, are not described in this finding aid.
Provenance:
The Cleve Gray papers were donated to the Archives of American Art by Mr. Gray in 1967 and 1968. The bulk of the collection was given by his widow, Francine du Plessix Gray, in 2007 and 2008.
Restrictions:
Use of original material requires an appointment. Use of archival audiovisual recordigs with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
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 -- Connecticut  Search this
Painters -- Connecticut  Search this
Topic:
Art, Modern -- 20th century -- United States  Search this
Vietnam War, 1961-1975 -- Protest Movements -- United States  Search this
Designers  Search this
Women artists  Search this
Women painters  Search this
Women sculptors  Search this
Genre/Form:
Poems
Articles
Photographs
Reviews (documents)
Notes
Illustrations
Notebooks
Sketches
Drafts (documents)
Video recordings
Sound recordings
Interviews
Manuscripts
Paintings
Prints
Watercolors
Drawings
Lectures
Citation:
Cleve Gray papers, 1933-2005. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Identifier:
AAA.grayclev
See more items in:
Cleve Gray papers
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw92d3d47d0-baa3-4085-80f2-9b5d1730c052
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-grayclev
Online Media:

Marcel Duchamp Retrospective Exhibition records

Creator:
Pasadena Art Museum  Search this
Names:
British Broadcasting Corporation  Search this
Norton Simon Museum (Pasadena, Calif.)  Search this
Pasadena Art Museum  Search this
Duchamp, Marcel, 1887-1968  Search this
Interviewer:
Carter, Earl  Search this
Hamilton, George Heard  Search this
Hamilton, Richard, 1922-  Search this
Extent:
3 Items (microfilm reels and 3 sound cassettes)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Sound recordings
Interviews
Date:
1959-1963
Scope and Contents:
Records relating to the Pasadena Museum of Art's exhibition "Marcel Duchamp", held 1963 Oct.8 -Nov. 3. Records include correspondence with Duchamp, work sheets, texts and layouts, catalog raisonne, loan agreements, printed matter, guest lists, shipping file, photographs, fact sheets, clippings, and untranscribed interviews.

The untranscribed interviews of Duchamp are recorded on three cassettes. The first cassette consists of interviews conducted in N.Y. and London for the British Broadcasting Corporation's "Art/Anti-Art Program" by George Heard Hamilton and Richard Hamilton in 1959; the second cassette, also for the BBC, is undated and contains excerpts of an interview conducted by Richard Hamilton; the third cassette is an interview of Duchamp conducted by Earl Carter of the Pasadena Museum of Art, October 1963.
Biographical / Historical:
Pasadena Art Museum (founded 1924) is an art museum in Pasadena, Calif. Renamed Norton Simon Museum of Art in 1974 and later renamed the Norton Simon Museum. Held Duchamp retrospective in 1963.
Provenance:
Lent for microfilming in 1990 by the Pasadena Museum of Art, interviews were duplicated from the original reel to reel tapes onto three cassettes.
Restrictions:
Microfilmed portion must be consulted on microfilm. Use of untranscribed interviews requires an appointment and is limited to Washington, D.C. storage facility.
Occupation:
Artists -- Interviews  Search this
Topic:
Art -- Exhibitions -- California -- Pasadena  Search this
Function:
Art museums -- California -- Pasadena
Genre/Form:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Identifier:
AAA.pasaart
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9f9ccc9d8-a7ae-4283-9270-b91d98fc71a5
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-pasaart

Henri Cartier-Bresson photographs of artists collection / Henri Cartier-Bresson

Photographer:
Cartier-Bresson, Henri, 1908-  Search this
Names:
Albers, Josef -- Photographs  Search this
Duchamp, Marcel, 1887-1968 -- Photographs  Search this
Gabo, Naum, 1890-1977 -- Photographs  Search this
Rauschenberg, Robert, 1925-2008 -- Photographs  Search this
Tworkov, Jack -- Photographs  Search this
Extent:
120 Items (photographic prints, b&w, 10 x 8 in.)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
1968
Scope and Contents:
Photographs of artists Robert Rauschenberg, Josef Albers, Marcel Duchamp, Jack Tworkov, and Naum Gabo taken by Cartier-Bresson in 1968.
Biographical / Historical:
Photographer; d. Aug. 2004 at age 95.
Provenance:
Photographs taken for the Archives of American Art through a grant made by the New York State Council on the Arts.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Rights:
Authorization to publish, quote or reproduce requires written permission from Magnum Photos. Contact Reference Services for more information.
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:
Photographers  Search this
Topic:
Artists -- United States -- Photographs  Search this
Painters -- United States -- Photographs  Search this
Sculptors -- United States -- Photographs  Search this
Identifier:
AAA.carthenr
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw996801843-97bb-4c45-bcf7-5fd259f55137
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-carthenr

Katharine Kuh papers

Creator:
Kuh, Katharine  Search this
Names:
Albright-Knox Art Gallery  Search this
Art Institute of Chicago -- Faculty  Search this
Biennale di Venezia  Search this
Katharine Kuh Gallery (Chicago, Ill.)  Search this
Adams, Ansel, 1902-1984  Search this
Albers, Josef  Search this
Albright, Ivan, 1897-1983  Search this
Archipenko, Alexander, 1887-1964  Search this
Arensberg, Louise S. (Louise Stevenson), 1879-1953  Search this
Arensberg, Walter, 1878-1954  Search this
Arp, Jean, 1887-1966  Search this
Barnet, Will, 1911-  Search this
Barr, Alfred H., Jr., 1902-1981  Search this
Biddle, George, 1885-1973  Search this
Breuer, Marcel, 1902-  Search this
Calder, Alexander, 1898-1976  Search this
Campoli, Cosmo  Search this
Chagall, Marc, 1887-1985  Search this
Chavez Morado, José, 1909-2002  Search this
Chermayeff, Serge, 1900-  Search this
Cornell, Joseph  Search this
Cox, Richard  Search this
Davis, Stuart, 1892-1964  Search this
Day, Worden, 1916-1986  Search this
De Kooning, Willem, 1904-1997  Search this
Dickinson, Edwin Walter, 1891-1978  Search this
Dubuffet, Jean, 1901-  Search this
Duchamp, Marcel, 1887-1968  Search this
Elizabeth, Queen of Great Britain, II, 1926-  Search this
Ernst, Jimmy, 1920-1984  Search this
Falkenstein, Claire, 1908-1997  Search this
Feitelson, Lorser, 1898-1978  Search this
Friendly, Fred W.  Search this
Giacometti, Alberto, 1901-1966  Search this
Golub, Leon, 1922-2004  Search this
Goto, Joseph, 1920-  Search this
Grabe, Klaus  Search this
Graves, Robert, 1895-1985  Search this
Guggenheim, Peggy, 1898-1979  Search this
Guston, Philip, 1913-1980  Search this
Hare, David, 1917-  Search this
Hare, Denise Browne  Search this
Hayter, Stanley William, 1901-1988  Search this
Hirshhorn, Joseph  Search this
Hofmann, Hans, 1880-1966  Search this
Hélion, Jean, 1904-1987  Search this
Inverarity, Robert Bruce, 1909-1999  Search this
Johns, Jasper, 1930-  Search this
Johnson, Philip, 1906-2005  Search this
Johnson, Ray, 1927-  Search this
Kandinsky, Wassily, 1866-1944  Search this
Kepes, Gyorgy, 1906-2001  Search this
Kepes, Juliet  Search this
Klee, Paul, 1879-1940  Search this
Kline, Franz, 1910-1962  Search this
Knox, Seymour H., 1898-1990  Search this
Le Corbusier, 1887-1965  Search this
Lundeberg, Helen, 1908-1999  Search this
Lye, Len, 1901-1980  Search this
Léger, Fernand, 1881-1955  Search this
Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig, 1886-1969  Search this
Millier, Arthur, 1893-  Search this
Moholy-Nagy, László, 1895-1946  Search this
Motherwell, Robert  Search this
Mérida, Carlos, 1891-1984  Search this
Nutting, Muriel Leone Tyler, b. 1892  Search this
Nutting, Myron Chester, 1890-1972  Search this
O'Higgins, Pablo, 1904-  Search this
Orozco, José Clemente, 1883-1949  Search this
Ozbekhan, Hasan, 1921-2007  Search this
Perkins, Frances  Search this
Picasso, Pablo, 1881-1973  Search this
Putnam, Wallace, 1899-1989  Search this
Ray, Man, 1890-1976  Search this
Rich, Daniel Catton, 1904-1976  Search this
Rothko, Mark, 1903-1970  Search this
Sandberg, Carl  Search this
Seligmann, Kurt, 1900-1962  Search this
Shackelford, Shelby  Search this
Shahn, Ben, 1898-1969  Search this
Spaeth, Otto, d. 1966  Search this
Sterne, Hedda, 1916-  Search this
Stevenson, Adlai E. (Adlai Ewing), 1900-1965  Search this
Still, Clyfford, 1904-  Search this
Tanning, Dorothea, 1910-2012  Search this
Tobey, Mark  Search this
Winston, Harry Lewis  Search this
Woolf, Olga  Search this
Young, Victor  Search this
Photographer:
Pollack, Peter, 1909-1978  Search this
Extent:
12 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Illustrated letters
Resumes
Travel diaries
Minutes
Calendars
Visitors' books
Photographs
Paintings
Awards
Drawings
Sound recordings
Collages
Scrapbooks
Lithographs
Prints
Wills
Watercolors
Poetry
Lecture notes
Lectures
Sales records
Date:
1875-1994
bulk 1930-1994
Summary:
The papers of art historian, dealer, critic, and curator Katharine Kuh measure 12 linear feet and date from 1875-1994, with the bulk of the material dating from 1930-1994. The collection documents Kuh's career as a pioneer modernist art historian and as the first woman curator of European Art and Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago. Found within the papers are biographical material; correspondence with family, friends and colleagues; personal business records; artwork by various artists; a travel journal; writings by Kuh and others; scrapbooks; printed material; photographs of Kuh and others; and audio recordings of Kuh's lectures and of Daniel Catton Rich reading poetry.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of art historian, dealer, critic, and curator Katharine Kuh measure 12 linear feet and date from 1875-1994, with the bulk of the material dating from 1930-1994. Found within the papers are biographical material; correspondence with family, friends and colleagues; personal business records; artwork by various artists; a travel journal; writings by Kuh and others; scrapbooks; printed material; photographs of Kuh and others; and audio recordings of Kuh's lectures and of Daniel Catton Rich reading poetry.

Biographical material consists of copies of Kuh's birth certificate, resumés, passports, award certificates, honorary diplomas, and address books listing information about several prominent artists and colleagues.

Four linear feet of correspondence offers excellent documentation of Kuh's interest in art history, her travels, her career at the Art Institute of Chicago, her work as a corporate art advisor, and as an author. There are letters from her mother Olga Woolf, friends, and colleagues. There is extensive correspondence with various staff members of the Art Institute of Chicago, the First National Bank of Chicago, and The Saturday Review. Also of interest are letters from artists and collectors, several of whom became life-long friends including 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, and Clyfford Still. Many letters are illustrated with original artwork in various media.

There are also scattered letters from various artists and other prominent individuals including Josef Albers, George Biddle, Marcel Breuer, Joseph Cornell, Stuart Davis, Edwin Dickinson, Joseph Hirshhorn, Daniel Catton Rich, and Dorothea Tanning.

Personal business records include a list of artwork, Olga Woolf's will, inventories of Kuh's personal art collection, miscellaneous contracts and deeds of gift, receipts for the sale of artwork, files concerning business-related travel, and miscellaneous receipts.

Artwork in the collection represents a wide range of artist friends and media, such as drawings, watercolors, paintings, collages, and prints. Included are works by various artists including lithographs by David Hare and a watercolor set, Technics and Creativity, designed and autographed by Jasper Johns for the Museum of Modern Art, 1970.

Notes and writings include annotated engagement calendars, travel journals for Germany, a guest book for the Kuh Memorial gathering, and many writings and notes by Kuh for lectures and articles concerning art history topics. Of interest are minutes/notes from meetings for art festivals, conferences, and the "Conversations with Artists Program (1961). Also found are writings by others about Kuh and other art history topics.

Six scrapbooks contain clippings that document the height of Kuh's career as a gallery director and museum curator. Scrapbook 6 contains clippings about Fernand Léger, the subject of a retrospective exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1953.

Additional printed material includes clippings about Kuh and her interests, a comprehensive collection of clippings of Kuh's articles for The Saturday Review, exhibition announcements and catalogs, calendars of events, programs, brochures, books including Poems by Kuh as a child, and reproductions of artwork. Of particular interest are the early and exhibition catalogs from the Katharine Kuh Gallery, and rare catalogs for artists including Jean Arp, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Stanley William Hayter, Hans Hofmann, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Franz Kline, Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Pablo Picasso.

Photographs provide important documentation of the life and career of Katharine Kuh and are of Kuh, family members, friends, colleagues, events, residences, and artwork. Several of the photographs of Kuh were taken by Will Barnet and Marcel Breuer and there is a notable pair of photo booth portraits of Kuh and a young Ansel Adams. There are also group photographs showing Angelica Archipenko with Kuh; designer Klaus Grabe; painters José Chavez Morado and Pablo O'Higgins in San Miguel, Mexico; Kuh at the Venice Biennale with friends and colleagues including Peggy Guggenheim, Frances Perkins, Daniel Catton Rich, and Harry Winston; and "The Pre-Depressionists" including Lorser Feitelson, Robert Inverarity, Helen Lundeberg, Arthur Millier, Myron Chester Nutting, and Muriel Tyler Nutting.

Photographs of exhibition installations and openings include views of the Katharine Kuh Gallery; Fernand Léger, Man Ray, and László Moholy-Nagy at the Art Institute of Chicago; and Philip Guston, Jimmy Ernst, Seymour H. Knox, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, and Mark Rothko at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York. There are also photographs depicting three men posing as Léger's "Three Musicians" and the visit of Queen Elizabeth II to the Art Institute of Chicago. There is a photograph by Peter Pollack of an elk skull used as a model by Georgia O'Keeffe.

Additional photographs of friends and colleagues include Ivan Albright, Alfred Barr, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Willem De Kooning, Edwin Dickinson, Marcel Duchamp, Claire Falkenstein, Alberto Giacometti, poet Robert Graves with Len Lye, Philip Johnson, Gyorgy and Juliet Kepes, Carlos Mérida, José Orozco, Hasan Ozbekhan, Pablo Picasso, Carl Sandberg, Ben Shahn, Otto Spaeth, Hedda Sterne, Adlai Stevenson, Clyfford Still, Mark Tobey, and composer Victor Young.

Photographs of artwork include totem poles in Alaska; work by various artists including Claire Falkenstein, Paul Klee, and Hedda Sterne; and work donated to the Guggenheim Museum.

Four audio recordings on cassette are of Katharine Kuh's lectures, including one about assembling corporate collections, and of Daniel Catton Rich reading his own poetry. There is also a recording of the Second Annual Dialogue between Broadcasters and Museum Educators.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 9 series. Undated correspondence, artwork, and photographs of individual artists are arranged alphabetically. Otherwise, each series is arranged chronologically.

Missing Title

Series 1: Biographical Material, 1945-1992 (Box 1; 16 folders)

Series 2: Correspondence, 1908-1994 (Boxes 1-5, 13-14, OV 15; 4.0 linear feet)

Series 3: Personal Business Records, 1941-1989 (Box 5; 19 folders)

Series 4: Artwork, 1931-1986 (Boxes 5, 13-14, OVs 15-23; 1.7 linear feet)

Series 5: Notes and Writings, 1914-1994 (Boxes 5-7; 1.7 linear feet)

Series 6: Scrapbooks, 1935-1953 (Box 7; 8 folders)

Series 7: Printed Material, 1916-1992 (Boxes 7-10, 13, OV 22; 3.0 linear feet)

Series 8: Photographs, 1875-1993 (Boxes 10-13; 1.2 linear feet)

Series 9: Audio Recordings, 1977 (Box 12; 1 folder)
Biographical Note:
Katharine Kuh (1904-1994) worked primarily in the Chicago area as an modern art historian, dealer, critic, curator, writer, and consultant. She operated the Katharine Kuh Gallery from 1935-1943 and was the first woman curator of European and Art and Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Katharine Kuh (née Woolf) was born on July 15, 1904 in St. Louis, Missouri, the youngest of the three daughters of Olga Weiner and Morris Woolf, a silk importer. In 1909, the family moved to Chicago, Illinois. While traveling with her family in Europe in 1914, Katharine contracted polio, causing her to spend the next decade in a body brace. During this time of restricted movement, she developed an interest in art history through the collecting of old master prints.

After her recovery, Katharine Woolf attended Vassar College where one of her professors, Alfred Barr, encouraged her to study modern art. She graduated from Vassar in 1925 and received a master's degree in art history from the University of Chicago in 1929. Later that year, she moved to New York to pursue a Ph.D. in Renaissance and medieval art at New York University.

In 1930, Katharine Woolf returned to Chicago and married businessman George Kuh and began to teach art history courses in the suburbs of Chicago. After divorcing George Kuh in 1935, she opened the Katharine Kuh Gallery, the first gallery devoted to avant-garde art in Chicago. It was also the first gallery to exhibit photography and typographical design as art forms, and featured the work of Ansel Adams, Josef Albers, Alexander Calder, Wassily Kandinsky, Fernand Léger, and Man Ray, among others. From 1938 to1940, Kuh was the Visiting Professor of Art at the University School of Fine Arts, San Miguel, Mexico.

After the Katharine Kuh Gallery closed in 1943, Kuh was hired by museum director Daniel Catton Rich to fill a position in public relations at the Art Institute of Chicago. During the following years, Kuh edited the museum's Quarterly publication, took charge of the museum's Gallery of Interpretive Art, and began a long term relationship with Rich. In 1946, Kuh was sent on a special mission for the U. S. Office of Indian Affairs to make a detailed study of Native American totemic carvings in Alaska.

In 1949, Kuh persuaded Mr. and Mrs. Walter Arensberg of Los Angeles to exhibit their collection of modern art, creating the first post-war exhibition of modern art in Chicago. She published her first book Art Has Many Faces in 1951, and in the following year, she began writing art criticism for The Saturday Review. In 1954, Kuh was appointed the first woman curator of European Art and Sculpture at the Art Institute. She assembled the American contribution for the Venice Biennale in 1956 and during these years, Kuh helped acquire many of the works of modern art currently in the museum's collection.

A year following Daniel Catton Rich's 1958 resignation from the Art Institute of Chicago, Kuh also resigned and pursued a career in New York as an art collection advisor, most notably for the First National Bank of Chicago. In 1959, Kuh was made art critic for The Saturday Review, and she continued to publish books, including The Artist's Voice in 1962, Break-Up: The Core of Modern Art in 1965, and The Open Eye: In Pursuit of Art in 1971.

Katharine Kuh died on January 10, 1994 in New York City.
Provenance:
The Katharine Kuh papers were donated in several installments from 1971 to 1989 by Katharine Kuh and in 1994 by her estate. Artwork was donated in 1995 by Kuh's former employer, the Art Institute of Chicago.
Restrictions:
Authorization to quote, publish or reproduce requires written permission until 2019. Contact the Archives of American Art Reference Services department for additional 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:
Authors -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this
Art historians -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this
Art dealers -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this
Art critics -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this
Curators -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this
Art consultants -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this
Topic:
Art, Abstract -- United States  Search this
Art, American  Search this
Art, Modern -- 20th century -- United States  Search this
Women art dealers  Search this
Women art historians  Search this
Women museum curators  Search this
Women authors  Search this
Women art critics  Search this
Function:
Art festivals
Genre/Form:
Illustrated letters
Resumes
Travel diaries
Minutes
Calendars
Visitors' books
Photographs
Paintings
Awards
Drawings
Sound recordings
Collages
Scrapbooks
Lithographs
Prints
Wills
Watercolors
Poetry
Lecture notes
Lectures
Sales records
Citation:
Katharine Kuh papers, 1875-1994, bulk 1930-1994. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Identifier:
AAA.kuhkath
See more items in:
Katharine Kuh papers
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw987a0763e-de6c-4f9e-b143-4875b3a2244a
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-kuhkath
Online Media:

Joaquin Torres-García papers

Creator:
Torres-García, Joaquín, 1874-1949  Search this
Names:
Doesburg, Theo van, 1883-1931  Search this
Dreier, Katherine Sophie, 1877-1952  Search this
Duchamp, Marcel, 1887-1968  Search this
González, Julio, 1876-1942  Search this
Miró, Joan, 1893-  Search this
Mondrian, Piet, 1872-1944  Search this
Summerfield, Anne, 1917-  Search this
Xceron, Jean, 1890-1967  Search this
Łunkiewicz-Rogoyska, Maria Ewa, 1895-1967  Search this
Extent:
0.2 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
1921-1974
Summary:
The papers of Joaquin Torres-García measure 0.2 linear feet and date from 1921 to 1974. The papers document Torres-García's career as an artist and writer through twenty-eight photocopied letters from Katherine Dreier, Marcel Duchamp, Julio Gonzalez, Joan Miro, Piet Mondrian, Jean Xceron, Theo Van Doesburg, Michel Seuphor, and Maria Ewa Łunkiewicz-Rogoyska, 1921-1943; an essay "Le Planisme de Torres-Garcia" by Van Doesburg, 1929; photographs of Torres-García's work; clippings, 1929-1971; and 7 exhibition announcements and catalogs, 1921-1974.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Joaquin Torres-García measure 0.2 linear feet and date from 1921 to 1974. The papers document Torres-García's career as an artist and writer through twenty-eight photocopied letters from Katherine Dreier, Marcel Duchamp, Julio Gonzalez, Joan Miro, Piet Mondrian, Jean Xceron, Theo Van Doesburg, Michel Seuphor, and Maria Ewa Łunkiewicz-Rogoyska, 1921-1943; an essay "Le Planisme de Torres-Garcia" by Van Doesburg, 1929; photographs of Torres-García's work; clippings, 1929-1971; 7 exhibition announcements and catalogs, 1921-1974.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into one series

Series 1: Joaquin Torres-Garcia papers, 1921-1974 (0.2 linear feet; Box 1)
Biographical / Historical:
Joaquin Torres-García (1874-1949) was a painter and writer from Uruguay. Torres-García was born in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1874, and he emigrated to Spain in 1891 where he began his artistic career. He primarily worked in Spain, but he also spent time in the United States, Uruguay, and other parts of Europe. Torres-García sought to integrate classicism and modernism in his works and he was a proponent of the Latin American Constructivist movement. He collaborated with Antoni Gaudi on the stained glass windows for the Palma Cathedral and La Sagrada Familia, and he also created frescoes for the Palau de la Generalitat de Catalunya. In addition to his artwork, Torres-García published over 150 books, essays and articles in Catalan, Spanish, French and English, and delivered more than 500 lectures. He founded several art schools in Spain and Montevideo and a number of artistic groups, including the first European abstract-art group. Torres-García founded the magazine Cercle et Carré (Circle and Square) in Paris in 1929. Torres-García died on 8 August 1949.
Provenance:
Copies of letters donated by Cecilia Torres, Torres-García's daughter-in-law in 1977. Originals owned by the Getty Research Institute, History of Art and the Humanities.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm. 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.
Occupation:
Painters -- Uruguay  Search this
Authors  Search this
Painters -- Spain  Search this
Topic:
Latino and Latin American artists  Search this
Constructivism (Art)  Search this
Citation:
Joaquin Torres-García papers, 1921-1974. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Identifier:
AAA.torrjoaq
See more items in:
Joaquin Torres-García papers
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9fab2a394-4725-416a-a929-c8e5a70b7a59
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-torrjoaq

Waintrob-Budd photographs of American artists

Creator:
Waintrob-Budd (Firm : New York, N.Y.)  Search this
Names:
American Academy of Arts and Letters  Search this
Budd (Firm : New York, N.Y.)  Search this
Adrian, Barbara, 1931- -- Photographs  Search this
Archipenko, Alexander, 1887-1964 -- Photographs  Search this
Avery, Milton, 1885-1965 -- Photographs  Search this
Barnet, Will, 1911- -- Photographs  Search this
Benton, Thomas Hart, 1889-1975 -- Photographs  Search this
Biddle, George, 1885-1973 -- Photographs  Search this
Bosa, Louis, 1905- -- Photographs  Search this
Botkin, Henry, 1896-1983 -- Photographs  Search this
Browne, Byron, 1907-1961 -- Photographs  Search this
Carroll, John, 1892-1959 -- Photographs  Search this
Constant, George, 1892-1978 -- Photographs  Search this
De Creeft, José, 1884-1982 -- Photographs  Search this
De Diego, Julio, 1900- -- Photographs  Search this
Delaunay, Sonia -- Photographs  Search this
Dickinson, Edwin Walter, 1891-1978 -- Photographs  Search this
Duchamp, Marcel, 1887-1968 -- Photographs  Search this
Evans, Walker, 1903-1975 -- Photographs  Search this
Floch, Joseph, 1895-1977 -- Photographs  Search this
Gablik, Suzi -- Photographs  Search this
Goodrich, Lloyd, 1897-1987 -- Photographs  Search this
Gottlieb, Adolph, 1903-1974 -- Photographs  Search this
Goulet, Lorrie, 1925- -- Photographs  Search this
Grosz, George, 1893-1959 -- Photographs  Search this
Hare, David, 1917- -- Photographs  Search this
Harkavy, Minna, b. 1895 -- Photographs  Search this
Hayter, Stanley William, 1901- -- Photographs  Search this
Hofmann, Hans, 1880-1966 -- Photographs  Search this
Hopper, Edward, 1882-1967 -- Photographs  Search this
Hopper, Jo N. (Josephine Nivison), 1883-1968 -- Photographs  Search this
Jenkins, Paul, 1923-2012 -- Photographs  Search this
Kantor, Morris, 1896-1974 -- Photographs  Search this
Krasner, Lee, 1908-1984 -- Photographs  Search this
Kroll, Leon, 1884-1974 -- Photographs  Search this
Lawrence, Jacob, 1917-2000 -- Photographs  Search this
Levi, Julian E. (Julian Edwin), 1900-1982 -- Photographs  Search this
Levine, Jack, 1915-2010 -- Photographs  Search this
Levy, Ellen K -- Photographs  Search this
Lijn, Liliane, 1939- -- Photographs  Search this
Lipchitz, Jacques, 1891-1973  Search this
Lowry, W. McNeil (Wilson McNeil), 1913-1993 -- Photographs  Search this
Marsh, Reginald, 1898-1954 -- Photographs  Search this
Mayor, A. Hyatt (Alpheus Hyatt), 1901-1980 -- Photographs  Search this
Menkes, Sigmund, 1896-1986 -- Photographs  Search this
Motherwell, Robert -- Photographs  Search this
Root, Edwin -- Photographs  Search this
Rorimer, James J. (James Joseph), 1905-1966 -- Photographs  Search this
Shahn, Ben, 1898-1969  Search this
Sheerin, Jerry -- Photographs  Search this
Soyer, Moses, 1899-1974 -- Photographs  Search this
Soyer, Raphael, 1899-1987 -- Photographs  Search this
Speicher, Eugene E. (Eugene Edward), 1883-1962 -- Photographs  Search this
Speyer, Darthea -- Photographs  Search this
Steinberg, Saul -- Photographs  Search this
Sweeney, James Johnson, 1900- -- Photographs  Search this
Waintrob, A. L., 1908-  Search this
Waintrob, Sidney J., 1903-  Search this
Walker, Hudson D. (Hudson Dean), 1907-1976 -- Photographs  Search this
Walkowitz, Abraham, 1880-1965 -- Photographs  Search this
Zorach, William, 1887-1966 -- Photographs  Search this
Extent:
68 Items ((partially microfilmed on 2 reels))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
1953-1980
Scope and Contents:
REEL 1817: Photographs of: Will Barnet, Jose de Creeft (2), Sonia Delaunay, Walker Evans, Joseph Floch, Suzi Gablik (2), Adolph Gottlieb (also filmed on reel 1886, fr. 33-34), Lorrie Goulet, Minna Harkavy, William Hayter (2), Paul Jenkins, Lee Krasner (2), Lilliane Lijn, Jerry Sheerin (2), and Darthea Speyer (2). Also included is a group photo of Jose de Creeft, Jacques Lipchitz, George Biddle, Thomas Benton, and Ben Shahn at the American Academy of Arts & Letters Ceremonial, May 20, 1964.
REEL 1886: Photographs of: Barbara Adrian, Alexander Archipenko, Milton Avery, Will Barnet, Isabel Bishop, Louis Bosa, Henry C. Botkin, Byron Browne, John Carroll, George Constant, Julio de Diego, Edwin Dickinson, Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Floch, Lloyd Goodrich, Adolph Gottlieb, Lorrie Goulet, George Grosz, David Hare, Minna Harkavy, Hans Hofmann, Edward Hopper, Josephine Hopper, Morris Kantor, Leon Kroll, Jacob Lawrence, Julian Levi, Jack Levine, Reginald Marsh, A. Hyatt Mayor, Sigmund Menkes, Robert Motherwell, Edwin Root, James Rorimer (a cropped version erroneously microfilmed as Sidney Waintrob appears on reel 1817, fr. 1193), Moses Soyer, Raphael Soyer, Eugene Speicher, Saul Steinberg, James Johnson Sweeney, Hudson Walker, Abraham Walker, and William Zorach.
UNMICROFILMED Two photographs: Ellen K. Levy and McNeil Lowry.
Arrangement:
REEL 1817: Microfilmed with AAA's Photographs of Artists Collection II, and appear on microfilm in alphabetical order under artist with other unrelated photographs.
Biographical / Historical:
Photographic studio; New York, N.Y. Sidney J. and his brother A. L. (Bud) Waintrob specialized in photographing artists, curators and other art world personalities. They worked under the name Budd [Studio] before using Waintrob-Budd.
Provenance:
Photographs on reel 1817 and unmicrofilmed photos donated 1974-1987 by Sidney J. Waintrob; photographs on reel 1886 donated 1979-1980 by Samuel I. Hoffberg, whose relationship to Waintrob-Budd is unclear.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Rights:
Authorization to publish quote, or reproduce requires written permission from David Stekert. Contact Reference Services for more information.
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.
Topic:
Artists -- United States -- Photographs  Search this
Identifier:
AAA.wainbudd
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw997984475-f0b5-41ac-b438-8b48c89a9145
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-wainbudd

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