New Museum of Contemporary Art (New York, N.Y.) Search this
Type:
Video recordings
Sketches
Interviews
Prints
Sound recordings
Drawings
Photographs
Place of publication, production, or execution:
United States
Physical Description:
24.8 Linear feet; 8.39 Gigabytes
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged as 11 series. Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1950-circa 2009 (1.5 linear feet; Boxes 1-2) Series 2: Correspondence, circa 1937-circa 2008 (4 linear feet; Boxes 2-6) Series 3: Notes and Notebooks, circa 1965-circa 2008 (0.7 linear feet; Boxes 6-7) Series 4: Installation Projects and Exhibition Files, circa 1960s-circa 2009 (11.6 linear feet; Boxes 7-18, OV26, OV27, 7.84 GB; ER01-ER15) Series 5: Teaching Files, 1977-1998 (1.2 linear feet; Boxes 18-19) Series 6: Travel Files, circa 1950s-circa 1994 (0.6 linear feet; Boxes 19-20) Series 7: Personal Business Records, circa 1965-circa 2008 (1.1 linear feet; Boxes 20-21) Series 8: Printed Material and Commercial Recordings, 1932-circa 2009 (2.3 linear feet; Boxes 21-23, 0.553 GB; ER16) Series 9: Photographic Materials, circa 1910s-circa 2005 (1 linear foot; Boxes 23-24) Series 10: Artwork, circa 1965-circa 2003 (0.2 linear feet; Box 24) Series 11: Video and Sound Recordings, circa 1965-circa 1990s (0.4 linear feet; Box 25)
Access Note / Rights:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
Summary:
The papers of California conceptual artist and sculptor David Ireland measure 24.8 linear feet and 8.39 GB and date from circa 1910s to circa 2009, with the bulk of the material dating from 1960 to 2005. The papers include biographical material, correspondence, notes and notebooks, installation projects and exhibition files, teaching files, travel files, personal business records, printed and digital material and commercial recordings, photographic materials, artwork, and video and sound recordings.
Citation:
David Ireland Papers, circa 1910s-circa 2009, bulk 1960-2005. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Additional Forms:
Some of the video and sound recordings in this collection have been copied for research access and are available in the Archives of American Art offices.
Funding:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by The David Ireland Revocable Trust.
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:
David Ireland (1930-2009) was a conceptual artist and sculptor who worked in San Francisco, California.
Ireland was born in Bellingham, Washington and attended Western Washington University. In 1953, he received a degree in industrial design and printmaking from the California College of Arts and Crafts (now California College of the Arts) in Oakland. He then served two years in the U. S. Army in Missouri, returning to live and work in Bellingham. For several years, Bellingham served as his launch point for extensive travels in Europe and Africa.
In the late 1950s, Ireland founded Hunter Africa, an artifacts import business. He moved the business to San Francisco in 1965 and also began a second business leading safaris in Africa. He married Bellingham native Joanne Westford and had two children, Ian Ireland and Shaughn Niland; they divorced in 1970.
Ireland attended the San Francisco Art Institute and received a graduate degree in 1974. There, he met other Bay Area artists involved in the conceptual movement there, including Tom Marioni, Paul Kos, Howard Fried, and Terry Fox.
Much of Ireland's artwork of the 1980s and 1990s centered on the transformation of his home at 500 Capp Street in San Francisco, where he dramatically physically and conceptually transformed the interior and exterior structure into a mix of architectural sculpture and environmental art piece. He bought a second home in 1979 to transform, and, in the 1980s, completed a renovation of the main building at the Headlands Center for Arts in Sausalito with artist Mark Thompson.
David Ireland's work has been presented in more than forty solo exhibitions at venues that included the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C.; The Museum of Modern Art and the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York. He created major public projects and private commissions in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Washington, D. C., and other cities. His work is included in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Oakland Museum of California, and University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, among others.
Language Note:
English .
Provenance:
The David Ireland papers were donated in 2010 by the David Ireland Estate through Jock Reynolds, Special Trustee, The David Ireland Revocable Trust.
Location Note:
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 750 9th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20001
