The collection is arranged as 5 series. Series 1: Biographical Material, 1939-1991 (Box 1; 0.3 linear feet) Series 2: Correspondence, 1940-1998 (Boxes 1-5; 4.4 linear feet) Series 3: Writings and Lectures, 1930-1989 (Boxes 5-8; 2.7 linear feet) Series 4: Diaries, 1919-1987 (Boxes 8-9; 1.0 linear feet) Series 5: Printed Material, 1928-circa 1990 (Boxes 9-11; 1.2 linear feet)
Access Note / Rights:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Use of archival audiovisual recordings and electronic records with no duplicate access copies requires advance notice.
Summary:
The papers of art historian, educator, writer and psychologist Rudolf Arnheim measure 9.6 linear feet and date from 1919 to 1998. The papers document his career in New York, Michigan, and abroad through biographical material, correspondence, writings, lectures, diaries, printed material, and sound recordings.
Citation:
Rudolf Arnheim papers, 1919-1998. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Additional Forms:
Materials lent for microfilming are available on 35mm microfilm reel 3767 at the Archives of American Art offices and through interlibrary loan. Digital copies of some of the sound recordings are available in the Archives of American Art offices.
Related Materials:
Also found in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Rudolf Arnheim conducted by Robert F. Brown, May 16, 1972. Additional papers on Rudolf Arnheim related to psychology are available at the Archives of the History of Psychology in Akron, Ohio. The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming (reel 3767) including correspondence with German publishers and editors, 1959-1982; Dumont Buchverlag, 1963-1980; Carl Hanser Varlag, 1974-1981; Helmut Diederich, 1974-1981; Franz Rudolf Knubel, 1971-1981; Werner Korbs, 1976-1982; Jurgen Weber, 1972-1981; and others. The originals were returned to Rudolf Arnheim after microfilming and subsequently donated to the Schiller-Nationalmuseum Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Germany. This material is not described in the collection container inventory or the finding aid.
Biography Note:
Rudolf Arnheim (1904-2007) was a writer, educator, art historian and psychologist who was born in Germany and immigrated to the United States where he primarily worked in New York and Massachusetts.
Rudolf Arnheim was born in Berlin, Germany on July 15, 1904. He received his doctorate in psychology from the University of Berlin in 1928. Arnheim worked as a film critic and editor for several magazines and journals after graduation. During this time, he gathered information which would be compiled in his book Film as Art (1932). When the Nazis came into power in 1933, Arnheim moved to Rome where he worked at the Institute for the Educational Film for six years, then moved to London in 1939 and worked as a translator for the British Broadcasting Company.
Arnheim immigrated to the United States in 1940. In 1943, he became a psychology professor at Sarah Lawrence College where he continued to teach until 1968. He also taught at the New School for Social Research during this time. From 1959 to 1960, he was a Fulbright lecturer at Ochanomizu University in Tokyo, Japan. After Sarah Lawrence College, Arnheim became a Professor of Psychology of Art at Harvard University, where he stayed until 1974 when he moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan with his wife Mary. He was a visiting professor at the University of Michigan from 1974 to roughly 1984.
Among his many publications are Art and Visual Perception , Toward a Psychology of Art , Visual Thinking , Entropy and Art , Picasso's Guernica , and The Power of Center . Arnheim died in Ann Arbor in 2007.
Language Note:
The collection is mostly in English and German. Some materials are in Italian and French.
Provenance:
The Rudolf Arnheim papers were donated to the Archives of American Art in several installments between 1974 to 1998 by Rudolf Arnheim. Arnheim also loaned material for microfilming in 1986.
Location Note:
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 750 9th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20001
Topic:
Art -- Study and teaching -- United States Search this
