Asia maritima images et réalité, 1200-1800 édité par Denys Lombard, Roderich Ptak = Asia Maritima : Bilder und Wirklichkeit, 1200-1800 / herausgegeben von Denys Lombard, Roderich Ptak
International Turned Objects Show (1988 : Philadelphia, Pa.) Search this
Type:
Interviews
Sound recordings
Place:
England -- description and travel
France -- description and travel
Guatemala -- description and travel
Hong Kong -- description and travel
Japan -- Description and Travel
Philippines -- description and travel
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Merryll Saylan, 2006 May 20-June 5. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Photographs made by Janet Longcope during trips to countries around the world. They depict landscapes, buildings, markets, dances, agriculture, arts and crafts, ceremonies, children, cooking, musicians, and transportation. Locations depicted include Afghanistan, Australia, Bhutan, Brazil, Burma, Cambodia, Chile, Colombia, Easter Island, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fiji, Greece, Guatemala, Hawaii, Honduras, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Macao, Malaysia, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Nepal, New Guinea, New Zealand, Pakistan, Peru, Russia, Siberia, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Spain, Sri Lanka, Syria, Taiwan, Thailand, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Yemen, and Yucatan. Longcope used many of these photographs in lectures.
Biographical/Historical note:
Janet Longcope (1886-1974) was a bookbinder and world traveler who gave informal lectures about her travels. Ater the death of her husband Dr. Warfield T. Longcope in 1953, she visited countries all over the world, returning to some, such as India, as many as nine times.
An interview of Merryll Saylan conducted 2006 May 20-June 5, by Glenn Adamson, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, at the Victoria & Albert Museum, in London, England.
Saylan speaks of her childhood in Los Angeles, California; her early musical education in piano and viola; memories of World War II; her family's political views during the Cold War; meeting her first husband at UCLA; dropping out of school to move to Virginia and Georgia in fulfillment of her husband's military service; experiencing anti-Semitism in Georgia; the challenges of her eldest son's speech problems; traveling to France, Japan, Guatemala, Hong Kong and the Philippines; her interest in Japanese culture; completing her B.A. in design at UCLA and her M.A. in studio art at California State University, Northridge; anti-Vietnam sentiment on campus; early interests in environmental design; her second husband and his friends; her interest in furniture and woodworking; differing approaches to woodworking on the east and west coasts; her views on feminism and working women; her use of color and texture in woodworking; teaching experiences; popular perception of her work; receiving a grant to go to England and her involvement with English and German woodturners; the lack of collector interest in her work; forced absences from working because of illnesses; serving on the boards of the American Association of Woodturners and The Woodturning Center; her involvement in the International Turned Objects Show, the Sculpture Objects & Functional Art Biannual Exposition, and the International Turning Exchange; her thoughts on future work. Saylan also recalls George Foy, Bob Stocksdale, Michael Cooper, Pamela Weir-Quiton, Joanne Rapp, J.B. Blunk, Marvin Lipofsky, Gail Fredell, Wendy Maruyama, Ralph Evans, Del Stubbs, Jerry Glaser, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Merryll Saylan (1936- ) is a wood artist from San Rafael, California. Glenn Adamson (1972- ) is a museum professional, in London, England.
General:
Originally recorded on 7 sound discs. Reformatted in 2010 as 7 digital wav files. Duration is 6 hr., 9 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Mary Slusser (1918-2017) was a prominent scholar of Nepalese art, architecture, and cultural history. This collection contains personal files, professional correspondence, research files, travel documents, and photographs. The research files relate to her study of specific subjects and contain mixed media. Photographic materials include prints, slides, negatives, contact sheets, and digital images on compact discs in both color and black and white. Most of the collections are related to her study of Nepal, though other countries are represented including Tibet, Laos, China, and Vietnam. Subjects include firsthand observations of objects and sites; notes on secondary sources; correspondence with fellow scholars; manuscript drafts; and records of her work on the gallery space, and guide to, the Patan Museum. The earliest materials date from 1951 during the beginning of her time living abroad alongside her husband, while both worked for the State Department. The materials continue through 2017, reflecting her dedicated scholarship and travel through the end of her life.
Arrangement:
The collection is organized into five series:
• Series 1: Biographical Materials
• Series 2: Correspondence
• Series 3: Research Files
• Series 4: Travel Files
• Series 5: Photographic Materials
Biographical / Historical:
Dr. Mary Slusser (1918-2017) was born as Mary Shepherd in Welland, Ontario to George Percy and Ethel Mary Shepherd. Her family moved to Michigan the following year and Slusser became a naturalized US citizen in 1934. Slusser followed her sister, Dorothy Shepherd (1916-1992), to the University of Michigan, where Mary graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1942. During her studies at Michigan, she met Robert Slusser, whom she would marry in 1944. Slusser moved to New York City in 1942, again following the path of her sister, Dorothy, who had enrolled in graduate school at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts. Slusser undertook some coursework at NYU as a part-time student. Slusser would eventually complete her graduate studies at Columbia University, earning a PhD in anthropology in 1950. She completed some of her coursework at Harvard University, while her husband studied at nearby Tufts University. Her dissertation was titled "Preliminary archeological studies of northern Central Chile."
Next, Slusser worked as a research analyst at the US State Department. Her husband also worked at the agency and spent much of his career completing foreign service appointments as an economist with USAID. Slusser accompanied her husband to his various overseas posts, beginning in 1954 in Vietnam. The Slussers would live and work abroad in Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Guinea, Nepal, and Tunisia. Slusser continued to work for the State Department as a field anthropologist. Mary received funding from the Smithsonian to acquire a small collection of Nepalese artifacts. She immediately took to learning about the art and culture of the region. She found a dearth of English-language information on the area and did her own field work and engaged with local scholars to fill in the gaps. She remained in Nepal for five years, contracted by the Smithsonian to write a guide to Nepal. Her research would lead to Nepal Mandala: A Cultural Study of Kathmandu Valley, a two-volume set of text and images, predominantly her own photographs, which was published in 1982.
Robert Slusser retired in 1980, and he and Mary permanently settled in Washington, DC. Her scholarly work took her to museums, first at the Museum of African Art as a curatorial assistant from 1975 to 1978, and then a post-doctoral fellowship at the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in 1989. After her fellowship, Slusser was asked to remain at the museum as a research associate, an unpaid position she held for the rest of her career. Slusser continued to publish works on Nepalese art, including the 2010 book, The Antiquity of Nepalese Wood Carving: a Reassessment, co-authored with Paul Jett, a conservator at the museum. Slusser used carbon dating tests to show that many Nepalese wood sculptures were much older than originally thought. Slusser also contributed to the establishment of the Patan Museum in Nepal, which opened in 1997. She served as the museum's cultural advisor and curator and wrote the museum guide and many of the exhibition materials.
Slusser continued to travel to Nepal and other parts of central Asia well into her eighties, often visiting remote sites on foot with the aid of local guides. Slusser stayed active at home, continuing her research work despite declining eyesight and hearing. She died in 2017 at age 98.
Related Materials:
Mary Shepherd Slusser papers, circa 1950 – circa 1995, National Museum of National History, National Anthropolgical Archives, NAA.1983.0407
Dorothy Shepard Photographs, National Museum of Asian Art Archives, FSA.A2015.12
Russell Hamilton Postcard and Photograph Collection, National Museum of Asian Art Archives, FSA.A2001.13
Russell Hamilton postcards, between 1900-1909, National Museum of African Art, Eliot Elisophon Photographic Archives, EEPA.2003-001
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Permission to reproduce and publish an item from the Archives is coordinated through the National Museum of Asian Art's Rights and Reproductions department. Please contact the Archives in order to initiate this process.
Cities of Nineteenth century colonial Vietnam : Hanoi, Saigon, Hue and the Champa ruins / Pierre Barrelon ... [et al.] ; translated and with an introduction by Walter E. J. Tips
Vietnam, our beloved land, by Nguyẽ̂n cao Đàm and Trà̂n cao Lĩnh. Adapted and translated by Trà̂n Thẽ-yu with the assistance of Nguyẽ̂n guý Bò̂ng
Ngan-nan tche yuan : texte chinois / édité et publié sous la direction de Léonard Aurousseau ; avec une étude sur le Ngan-nan tche yuan et son auteur par E. Gaspardone
Author:
Aurousseau, Léonard Eugène 1888-1929 Search this
