The papers of sculptors Jud Fine and Barbara McCarren measure 16.7 linear feet and 0.345 Gigabytes, and date from circa 1968-2009. The majority of the collection falls into project files, with other series including correspondence, writings, personal business, printed material, photographic material, and artwork.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of sculptors Jud Fine and Barbara McCarren measure 16.7 linear feet and 0.345 Gigabytes, and date from circa 1968-2009. The majority of the collection falls into project files, with other series including correspondence, writings, personal business, printed material, photographic material, and artwork.
Correspondence is mostly professional in nature and is largely from Jud Fine's early career in the late sixties through the 1970s. There is also come McCarren/Fine correspondence starting in the 1990s as well as some correspondence regarding Barbara McCarren's solo career.
The writings series is comprised primarily of Jud Fine's writing practice associated with his earlier career, including notes and journal entries, lectures by Fine, as well as manuscripts for catalog essays and artist publications, an interview from 1984, and writings on Fine by others.
The personal business series includes exhibition files as well as gallery files containing sale and consignment paperwork, as well as daily business of the studio, primarily pertaining to Jud Fine's earlier career, with some documents pertaining to Barbara McCarren's solo career from the 1990s on.
Project files document various public art works and commissions taken on or applied for by McCarren/Fine, as well as solo projects that date before and after their formal collaboration in 1996. These documents include correspondence, contracts, reports, meeting minutes, renderings and other plans, notes, photographic material and research material, some of which is in digital formats.
Printed material includes various promotional materials for McCarren/Fine and solo projects for Barbara McCarren and Jud Fine, as well as a graphic design magazine publication, and a monographic catalog for a Jud Fine exhibition from 1974.
Photographic material includes miscellaneous snapshots and snapshot albums, some of Fine and McCarren, in the studio and with artist friends, as well as an untitled album with study images of a strelitzia plant.
Artwork includes a single, unsigned painted work on canvas that has been cut awat from the frame or support.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as seven series:
Series 1: Correspondence, circa 1970-2001 (0.5 Linear feet: Box 1)
Series 2: Writings, circa 1968-2003 (0.5 Linear feet: Box 1)
Series 3: Personal Business, circa 1969-2001 (1 Linear foot: Box 2)
Series 4: Project Files, circa 1988-2009 (14.4 Linear feet: Boxes 2-20; Oversize 21; 0.345 Gigabytes: ER0001-ER0005)
Series 5: Printed Material, circa 1974-1992 (0.2 Linear feet: Box 16)
Series 6: Photographic Material, circa 1970s-2000 (0.1 Linear feet: Box 16)
Series 7: Artwork, circa 1980s (1 Folder: Box 16)
Biographical / Historical:
Jud Fine (1944- ) is a sculptor and educator in Venice, California, as well as former director of the University of Southern California Roski School of Fine Arts. Jud Fine is married to fellow artist, sculptor and installation artist Barbara McCarren (1958-), born in Washington, D.C., and they maintain a studio where they work on projects and commissions both individually and collaboratively.
Born in Los Angeles, Fine received a BA in History from the University of California, Santa Barbara. With a limited artwork portfolio he was lucky enough to be accepted into the Masters of Fine Arts program at Cornell University. Fine's reputation as an artist took hold firmly in the late 1960s and early 1970s, becoming particularly well known for sculpture and mixed media drawings, which established a recognizable style and conceptual framework. He has been represented by Ronald Feldman Gallery in New York City since 1972. He has participated in solo and group exhibitions internationally at institutions including Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Chicago Art Institute, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Guggenheim Museum, New York, Yale University Art Museum, Museum Stuki, Poland, University of Sidney, Power Art Institute, Australia and the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Art, Moscow. McCarren received her bachelors of arts degree at UCLA in1980 and would meet Fine during work towards her masters of fine arts at USC in 1986. After nearly a decade of pursuing solo career opportunities including public art commissions, they decided to join forces making collaborative project proposals as McCarren Fine.
As Mccarren/Fine they have executed several works including Waterline a two square block mixed use development in Huntington Beach, CA, Split Mound for the San Francisco Zoo, Mais a 23-acre interactive park in Long beach, CA, Modestopo, the civic center plaza for the City of Modesto and Stanislaus County, CA and both the Central Library and Pershing Square in downtown Los Angeles. Beyond public art commissions, their collaboration has extended to their studio practice, with collaborative exhibitions including a 2002 show in Bangkok, Thailand, that was later expanded with new work for the 2005 show, Currency, at Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York. Together McCarren/Fine have completed around thirty public work projects, and numerous studio projects.
Provenance:
Donated in 2022 by Jud Fine and Barbara McCarren.
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.
Occupation:
Sculptors -- California -- Los Angeles Search this
Educators -- California -- Los Angeles Search this
Installation artists -- California -- Los Angeles Search this
