The Dwinell Grant papers measure 0.8 linear feet and date from 1930 to 1988. The papers document Grant's career as a painter and filmmaker through awards and certificates, interviews, resumes, and other biographical material; correspondence with friends, colleagues, and art institutions; manuscripts and other writings; business records with Olympia Gallery and Martin Diamond Fine Arts and Graham Gallery; and brochures, exhibition announcements, exhibition catalogs, and other printed material.
Scope and Contents:
The Dwinell Grant papers measure 0.8 linear feet and date from 1930 to 1988. The papers document Grant's career as a painter and filmmaker through awards and certificates, interviews, resumes, and other biographical material; correspondence with friends, colleagues, and art institutions; manuscripts and other writings; business records with Olympia Gallery and Martin Diamond Fine Arts and Graham Gallery; and brochures, exhibition announcements, exhibition catalogs, and other printed material.
Biographical material includes awards and certificates, resumes, a timeline of Grant's life, some autobiographical notes by Grant and two videotapes PROFILE OF DWINELL GRANT from "Profiles in Excellence" conducted by Gary Perdue, and an interview with Grant for ART BEAT. Correspondence is composed of letters to and from Grant with friends, colleagues, and art institutions. Writings include essays Grant wrote for academic courses and typescript writings expressing Grant's thoughts on art and religion. Business records include Grant's dealings with Martin Diamond Fine Arts and Graham Gallery and the Olympia Gallery during the late 1970s and 1980s. Materials include such things as invoices, appraisals, and storage of artwork. Printed material includes press releases, clippings, programs for plays produced at Wittenberg College, exhibition announcements and catalogs, and brochures and fliers concerning Grant's medical and other filmmaking projects.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into five series.
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1940-1988 (0.1 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1930-1988 (0.2 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 3: Writings, circa 1948 (0.2 linear feet; Box 1-2)
Series 4: Personal Business Records, 1978-1988 (0.1 linear feet; Box 2)
Series 5: Printed Material, 1936-1988 (0.2 linear feet; Box 2)
Biographical / Historical:
Dwinell Grant (1912-1991) was a painter and filmmaker in Pennsylvania. Grant was born and raised in Ohio. He received early art training from his grandfather, Paul E. Henking, and also studied at the Dayton Art Institute and the National Academy of Design. In 1935, he began teaching at Wittenberg College in Ohio. He was primarily influenced by his association with Hilla Rebay and the Museum of Non-Objective Art (the Guggenheim), and from 1944-1948 worked on an unfinished film project for the Guggenheim. In 1947, he began producing medical teaching films and supplemented his income with work on medical books, while continuing to work on his paintings.
Separated Materials:
Also found at the Archives of American Art are materials lent for microfilming (reels 4154-4155) including writings, mostly from the 1980s, expressing Grant's thoughts and philosophies concerning
himself and his art work, sometimes presented in the format of a journal; one album containing photographs of Grant, his family and friends, and nine albums of photographs of works and of gallery installations, annotated with information on sales, experiments with light, including a formula for stereoscopic drawing, notes on abstractfilms, medical illustrations, and dream fantasies; and two sketchbooks containing abstract drawings. Lent materials were returned to Grant and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
The papers were donated to the archives by Dwinell Grant in 1988. Additional material was lent for microfilming by Dwinell Grant in 1988.
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 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.
Dwinell Grant papers, 1930-1988. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
The processing of this collection received Federal support from the Smithsonian Collections Care and Preservation Fund, administered by the National Collections Program and the Smithsonian Collections Advisory Committee.
