3.7 Linear feet ((on 8 microfilmed reels + 1 photograph not microfilmed))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
1869-1973
Scope and Contents:
Correspondence; manuscripts and writings; lists of works of art; photographs; biographical material; gallery and foundry files; notes and speeches; financial material; scrapbook; guest book; magazines; exhibition catalogs; clippings; and printed material.
REEL N68-2: Letters from George Bellows, Bernard Berenson, Elliott Daingerfield, Arthur B. Davies, Roger Fry, John Marin, Joseph Pennell, Man Ray, John Sloan, Max Weber, J. Alden Weir, and others. Two highly detailed letters from Maurice Sterne in 1913 describe that artist's life in Bali. Also included are signatures of American artists from a guest book, and a 1966 catalog of the Hamilton Easter Field Art Foundation Collection.
REEL N68-3 Letters from Childe Hassam, Walt Kuhn, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Gaston Lachaise, Elie Nadelman, David Smith, Alfred Stieglitz, William Zorach, Oscar Bluemner, Albert C. Barnes, Andrew Dasburg, Ernest Fiene, Pop Hart, Robert Henri, Joseph Stella, Maurice Sterne, and others. Also included are manuscripts, lists of works of art, and photographs of Laurent with Hamiltion Easter Field, Bernard Kariol and others.
REEL 2: Personal data sheet, exhibition catalogs and magazines containing articles by or about Laurent, ca. 1920-1965.
REEL 497: John Laurent's collection of 34 letters, 1902-1960, to Robert Laurent and Hamiltion Easter Field. The 6 letters to Field are from Bernhard Berenson, George Bellows, Maurice Prendergast, Pop Hart, Gustov Courtois, and John Carpenter. The 28 letters to Robert Laurent are from Albert P. Ryder, Gaston Lachaise, Raphael Soyer, Walt Kuhn, Robert Henri, Alfred Stieglitz, Arthur B. Davies, Milton Avery, Alexander Calder, Henry McBride, William McFee, Jules Pascin, Jean Careas, and two unidentified artists.
REEL 2063: Photographs, ca. 1930-1962, of Laurent, his studio, exhibitions, and works of art.
REELS 2065-2067: Biographical material; correspondence from Maurice Sterne, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Edith Halpert, Henry Hope, Henry Strater, Lloyd Goodrich, David Smith, Walt Kuhn, William Zorach, Ernest Fiene, and Samuel Wood Gaylor; gallery and foundry files; notes, writings, and speeches; financial material; lists of works of art; blueprints; exhibition and printed material, clippings, and a scrapbook; photos of source material and works of art owned by Laurent; and material concerning Hamilton Easter Field, Laurent's teacher and friend, including correspondence, guest book signatures, financial and legal papers and Field Foundation material.
REEL 2155: Photographs of Laurent's works of art with catalog sheets listing the title, date, medium, size, ownership, and exhibition information for each work, ca. 1920-1967. Also included are photographs of Laurent in his studio and with others, including Gaston Lachaise and David Smith; a photo of Chaim Gross; and photos of the Ogunquit Museum in Maine.
UNMICROFILMED: A black and white photograph of the Field Foundation Dinner Auction-Dinner-Dance, Ogunquit, Maine. Depicted are Lloyd Goodrich, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, William Zorach, Robert Laurent, Emil Ganso and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter, sculptor, teacher, etcher, and writer; Brooklyn, New York & Ogunquit, Maine. Laurent studied under Hamilton Easter Field, and both were from Brooklyn, N.Y. and were involved in the summer art colony in Oguniquit, Maine.
Provenance:
Material on reels N68-2-N68-3 was lent for microfilming 1968 by Robert Laurent; he donated material on reel 2 1966; material on reel 497 was lent for microfilming 1973 by John Laurent, son of Robert Laurent; material on reels 2063, 2065-2067 was donated 1978 by John Laurent; He donated additional material on reel 2155 and not filmed with his brother Paul in 1981.
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.
The papers of artist and silent film actress Wilna Hervey and her lifelong companion painter Nan Mason date from 1883 through 1985 and measure 4.9 linear feet. The collection is comprised mostly of letters to Hervey and Mason from friends, colleagues, and Mason's father, Dan Mason, also a silent film actor. Also found are personal photographs and snapshots, Hervey's handwritten memoirs, as well as twelve folders of Dan Mason's papers.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of artist and silent film actress Wilna Hervey and her lifelong companion painter Nan Mason date from 1883 through 1985 and measure 4.9 linear feet. The collection is comprised mostly of letters to Hervey and Mason from friends, colleagues, and Mason's father, Dan Mason, also a silent film actor. Also found are personal photographs and snapshots, Hervey's handwritten memoirs, as well as twelve folders of Dan Mason's papers.
Biographical materials include a personal narrative, notes on family history, newspaper clippings related to family, legal and financial records, and Wilna Hervey's notes on artwork.
Hervey and Mason were friends with many artists and their correspondence includes letters from artists such as Albert Heckman, Georgina Klitgaard, Manuel Komroff, Leon Kroll, Doris Lee, Fred Dana Marsh, Henry Lee McFee, William Pachner, Caroline and Paul Rohland, Andrée Ruellan, Eugene Speicher, and Dorothy Varian. There are very few letters written by Hervey or Mason, and the correspondence is mostly personal in nature. There are over 250 letters from Elsie Speicher, wife of portrait artist Eugene Speicher. Correspondence to Dan Mason has been separated and is filed in a separate series.
Wilna Hervey wrote a a number of handwritten memoirs of her days in the The Toonerville Trolley film series. She had hopes of publishing these one day and worked with writer Karin Whiteley on the project. Although her memoirs were never published, Hervey and Whiteley wrote and compiled materials for the book. Included in the Memoir Book Production series are handwritten memoirs by Hervey chronicling her years prior to and during the 1920s (many of the handwritten memoirs have been typed by Karin Whiteley). It also includes research materials, such as two typed synopses of The Toonerville Trolley scripts from Fontaine Fox's files, newspaper clippings, and playbills, seemingly intended to provide background and verification of the memoirs.
This collection also includes a few pieces of artwork; three small watercolor sketches by an unidentified artist, and a print by Edward Chavez.
Photographs are mostly snapshots of friends and family, life in Woodstock, New York and Anna Maria, Florida. Negatives originally housed in an un-postmarked envelope with a return address labeled "Betzwood Film Co.," appear to be from the filming of The Toonerville Trolley. In several of the negatives Wilna Hervey is dressed as The Powerful Katrinka, and in one negative Dan Mason is The Skipper.
The personal files of Dan Mason include letters from Hervey and Nan Mason, the bulk from their trip to Europe and North Africa in 1926-1927. This series also includes Dan Mason's own handwritten and typed memoirs, newspaper clippings, and financial records.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into six series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1916-1960 (Box 1; 5 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1890-1985 (Box 1-10, OV 13; 3.8 linear feet)
Series 3: Memoir Book Production, 1883-1959 (Box 11, OV 13; 0.4 linear feet)
Series 4: Artwork, 1961, undated (Box 11, OV 13; 2 folders)
Series 5: Photographs, circa 1915 - 1982 (Box 12; 5 folders)
Series 6: Personal Files of Dan Mason, 1919-1928 (Box 12; 0.4 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Wilna Hervey was born in 1894 and grew up in Far Rockaway, New York. She met Nan Mason (1896-1982), daughter of silent film actor Dan Mason, while on production of The Toonerville Trolley silent film comedies in 1920. They were lifelong companions until Hervey's death in 1979.
As a young woman in the late 1910s, Hervey took art lessons at the Art Students League in New York City, Winold Reiss' studio at 4 Christopher Street, New York City, and during the summer of 1918 in Woodstock, New York. In 1919, she joined the Betzwood Studios in Audubon, Pennsylvania to play the role of "The Powerful Katrinka" in The Toonerville Trolley, a series of silent films based on Fontaine Fox's comic strip. Co-star Dan Mason, who played the Skipper, took Hervey under his wing, and Hervey lived with the Masons while filming the series. After The Toonerville Trolley series ended in 1921, Dan and Nan Mason traveled to Hollywood to start a new company, and Wilna followed shortly after, taking the train across the country in early 1922. The new endeavor, Plum Street Comedies, began at the Paul Gerson Pictures Corporation in San Francisco and was based on The Toonerville Trolley series; the film crew included the young Frank Capra. The Plum Street Comedies were in production for only one year, 1922-1923.
Around 1919-1920, Hervey's father bought Wilna a small studio in Bearsville, New York. From 1922-1929 Hervey and Nan Mason split their time between painting and farming in Woodstock, New York, and pursuing acting while living with Dan Mason in California. In 1926-1927, the women traveled to Europe and North Africa together to see museums, art, and architecture.
After the death of Dan Mason in 1929, Hervey and Nan Mason made Bearsville their permanent home. Beginning in the late 1950s, Hervey and Mason began spending winters in Anna Maria, Florida and summers in New York. Hervey and Mason achieved success as artists in the 1960s - Hervey as an enamel painter, and Mason as a painter and photographer.
Wilna Hervey passed away in 1979, and Nan Mason died in 1982.
Sources consulted include "The Biggest Girl" by Joseph P. Eckhardt (http://faculty.mc3.edu/jeckhard/biggestgirlarticle/thebiggestgirl.html).
Provenance:
The Wilna Hervey and Nan Mason papers were donated to the Archives of American Art by Daniel Gelfand, a friend of Wilna Hervey and Nan Mason, in 2008.
Restrictions:
Use of the original papers requires an appointment.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Occupation:
Actors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Correspondence is mostly personal letters and covers subjects such as personal matters, updates on the lives of Woodstock residents, and the careers of artist friends. Early correspondence highlights Wilna Hervey's film career and travels. Other than the letters written by Nan Mason to Wilna Hervey, there are very few letters in this series written by either Hervey or Mason.
Notable correspondents include artists and friends Albert Heckman, Georgina Klitgaard, Manuel Komroff, Leon Kroll, Doris Lee, Fred Dana Marsh, Henry Lee McFee, William Pachner, Caroline and Paul Rohland, Andrée Ruellan, Eugene Speicher, and Dorothy Varian. There are over 250 letters from Elsie Speicher, wife of portrait artist Eugene Speicher. The bulk of Elsie Speicher's correspondence is from the months of November - March; between April to October each year the Speichers were usually in Woodstock with Hervey and Mason. Speicher occasionally sends correspondence from friends in common, notably Louise Lindin, Daphne Mattson, Caroline Rohland, Jean Rosen, and Andrée Ruellan.
Early correspondence from Karin Whiteley concerns a project to publish Hervey's memoirs (which were never published). Whiteley's correspondence also includes numerous enclosed newspaper clippings regarding Dan Mason's acting career. Additional correspondence from Karin Whiteley regarding the memoirs is located in Series 3: Memoir Book Production, 1883-1959. Other items of interest in this series includes a letter from Robert Pollack (1918) that includes a Smileage Book (movie coupons from the Military Entertainment Service), a New York City subway ticket, and caricatures drawn by Wilna Hervey, illustrated letters by cartoonist John Striebel, and occasional snapshots of artists and friends. Correspondence to Dan Mason from Hervey and Nan Mason has been separated and is filed with the other personal files of Dan Mason in Series 6, 1919-1928.
This series also includes correspondence that was neither written by Hervey or Mason, nor sent to them. It may be that the letters were sent to Hervey and Mason as enclosures in other correspondence. Such correspondence is arranged at the end of this series as Miscellaneous Collected Correspondence.
See Appendix for list of selected correspondents in Series 2.
Arrangement note:
Correspondence is arranged alphabetically by the correspondent's last name and then chronologically within folders; undated letters are located at the end of the folder. Correspondents with fewer than five letters are filed by last name in folders labeled alphabetically. Letters from unidentified correspondents are filed at the end of the series.
Appendix: Selected Correspondents in Series 2:
Adams, Kenneth M.: 1955
Antenucci, Margaret: 1961
Arndt, Paul Wesley: 1976
Baumann, Mag and George: 1964, 1970
Bellows, Emma: 1948-1958
Bentley, John W. (Jack): 1922, 1931
Bettels, Kathryn: 1926
Blanch, Lucile and Arnold: 1931, 1955
Booth, Jean Bellows: 1945-1978
Cannon, Eleanor Rixson: 1950-1954
Capra, Frank: 1935, 1973
Carlson, Margaret: 1958
Cator, Bruce: 1948-1959
Cator, Eleanor: circa 1924
Cator, Thomas Vincent: 1928-1929
Chavez, Edward and Jenne: 1950-1952
Clark, Susan: 1960-1966
Clement, Jean: 1931, undated
Currie, Bruce: 1946, circa 1951-1952
De La Vergne, Gladys Hurlbut: 1959, undated
Eddy, Ruth: 1934-1959
Ganso, Emil and Nina: 1933
Gonzales, Betty (Mrs. Boyer Gonzales): 1959
Gonzales, Nell (Mrs. Boyer Gonzales): 1936
Harris, Alexandrina (Allie): 1926, 1931, 1959
Harrison, Jenny (Mrs. Birge Harrison): 1941, 1945
Heckman, Albert and Florence: 1949-1964
Hervey, Anna: 1908-1922
Hervey, W.R.: 1913-1925
Hervey, Wilna: circa 1919-1961
Hitzig, William M.: 1940-1972
Holt, Percy W.: 1923-1930, 1953
Karoly: 1939
Kesselring, Joe and Charlotte: 1949-1952
Klitgaard, Georgina: 1933, 1974, undated
Komroff, Odette and Manuel: 1945-1978
Kroll, Leon: 1939, 1963
Laufman, Beatrice (Mrs. Sidney Laufman): 1970
Lee, Doris: 1950-1953
Lindin, Louise (Mrs. Carl Lindin): 1936-1968
Loederer, Richard: 1923-1924
Magafan, Ethel: 1957
Marsh, Fred Dana: 1948-1952
Mason, Dan: 1921-1929
Mason, Nan: 1919-1921
Mattson, Henry and Daphne: 1931-1959
McFee, Aileen (Mrs. Henry Lee McFee): circa 1928-1936
McFee, Henry Lee: 1931-1936
Mearns, Hughes and Fagley: 1942, circa 1952-1960
More, Edna (Mrs. Hermon More): 1930-1943
Pachner, Lorraine "Zombie" (Mrs. William Pachner): 1949-1978
Pachner, William: circa 1950-1975
Petersham, Maud and Miska: circa 1930s-1959
Pollock, Muriel "Mollie" (Donaldson): circa 1916-1959
Rheinish, Arthur: 1920-1921
Rohland, Caroline Speare: 1926-1960
Rohland, Paul: circa 1931, 1935
Rosen, Jean (Mrs. Charles Rosen): 1936-circa 1961
Rosen, M. (Mrs. Charles Rosen): 1924-1927
Rosen, Polly: before 1959
Ruellan, Andrée (Mrs. John Taylor): 1943-1977
Search, Frederick Preston: 1933
Shore, Henrietta: 1933
Smith, Georgine Wetherell: 1951-1953
Speicher, Charles: 1931-1945
Speicher, Elsie (Mrs. Eugene Speicher): 1926-1959
Speicher, Eugene: 1935-1961
Striebel, Fritzi (Mrs. John H. Striebel): 1946-1978
Striebel, John H.: 1961
Summers, D.: 1952-1961
Summers, Pauline "Paul": 1952-1961
Varian, Dorothy: 1954-1977
Webster, Florence: 1954, 1978
Weston, Brett: 1958
Weston, Edward: 1935, 1951
Whiteley, Karin: 1945-1981
Collection Restrictions:
Use of the original papers requires an appointment.
Collection Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Collection Citation:
Wilna Hervey and Nan Mason papers, 1883-1985. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
