The collection is arranged as 10 series: Series 1: Biographical Material, 1990-1999 (5 folders; Box 1) Series 2: Diaries, 1990-2000 (20 folders; Box 1) Series 3: Letters, 1973-2008 (7.9 linear feet; Box 1-8, Box 12) Series 4: Artwork, 1985-2007 (12 folders; Box 8) Series 5: Interview Transcripts, 1977-1995 (7 folders; Box 8) Series 6: Writings, 1984-2000 (0.5 linear feet; Box 8) Series 7: Project and Event Files, 1982-2000 (11 folders; Box 8) Series 8: Printed Material, 1989-2000 (11 folders; Box 8) Series 9: Gutai Exhibition Project Files, 2012-2013 (Box 9-11, Box 13, OV 14) Series 10: Mail Art Study Day Materials, 1947-2018 (Box 15)
Access Note / Rights:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Summary:
The papers of rubberstamp and artistamp artist, performance artist, collector of mail art, and fine arts librarian John Held, Jr. date from 1947-2018, bulk 1973-2013, and measure 12.9 linear feet. Found within the papers are biographical material, 18 printed diaries, letters received by Held from mail artists around the world, art work consisting of artistamps designed by miscellaneous mail artists, interview transcripts, writings, project and event files, printed material, mail art sent for the Gutai Historical Survey Exhibition held at the San Francisco Art Institute in 2013, and a collection of biographical material presented by Held at a Mail Art Study Day held at the Archives of American Art in 2018.
Citation:
John Held papers relating to mail art, 1947-2018, bulk 1973-2013. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Additional Forms:
This bulk of this collection was digitized in 2014-2015 and is available on the Archives of American Art's website. Materials which have not been digitized include blank pages, blank versos of photographs, duplicates, and the 2018 addition.
Funding:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
Use Note:
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.
Biography Note:
John Held, Jr. (1947-) of San Francisco, California, is a rubberstamp and artistamp artist, participant in the international mail art network, activist, performance artist, collector of mail art, and a fine arts librarian.
Jonathan Held was born on April 2, 1947. In the mid-1970s he took the name of the early twentieth century illustrator, John Held, Jr., famous for his images of "flapper girls" in the 1920s. This name change was both in tribute to the older artist as well as an expression of Dada.
Earning a Bachelor's Degree in 1969, Held received a Master of Library Science Degree from Syracuse University School of Information Studies in 1972 and expanded his interests toward participating in the international mail art network and assembling one of the largest archives of mail art in the United States. He was mentored by mail artist Ray Johnson, and Jean Brown, a leading participant in Fluxus, whose interest in the Dada and Surrealism movements promoted emerging art forms including mail art, visual poetry, and artists' books.
From 1981 to 1995, Held was a Fine Arts Librarian at the Dallas Public Library. In 1982, he began making artistamps, pseudo-postage stamps used as an art medium, and opened the Modern Realism Gallery and Archive in Dallas, Texas, with his future wife Paula Barber. The gallery sought to preserve the record of contemporary avant-garde cultural activity.
Held published Mail Art: An Annotated Bibliography , a five-hundred page listing of secondary sources on the field in 1991. In 1996, Held moved to San Francisco, California, where he established the Modern Realism Gallery and acted as curator of the Stamp Art Gallery, an exhibition space devoted to rubberstamp and artistamp works.
John Held, Jr. has lectured at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the Museum of Fine Arts, Havana; and at the National School of Art, Prague. He participated in international exhibitions and, since 1986, engaged in international performance work, appearing in Japan, Russia, Uruguay, and Yugoslavia, as well as in the United States. One of Held's more notable performance creations is the Fake Picabia Brothers, in partnership with artist Picasso Gaglione.
John Held, Jr. lives in San Francisco, California.
Language Note:
The collection is in English.
Provenance:
John Held donated his papers relating to mail art in 1999, 2008, 2013, and 2018.
Digitization Note:
This site provides access to the papers of John Held in the Archives of American Art that were digitized in 2017, and total 11,595 images.
Location Note:
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 750 9th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20001
