Originally recorded on 2 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 3 digital wav files. Duration is 1 hr., 35 min.
Access Note / Rights:
This transcript is open for research. Access to the entire recording is restricted. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Summary:
An interview of Stanley H. Witmeyer conducted 1985 June 22, by Robert F. Brown, for the Archives of American Art.
Witmeyer speaks of his childhood in Palmyra, Pennsylvania and moving to Rochester, New York at the age of nine; attending Edison Tech High School; his devotion to painting and basketball in high school; receiving a basketball scholarship to Syracuse University but deciding instead to attend the Mechanics Institute in Rochester (now the Rochester Institute of Technology); taking his first job with the L.M. Berry Company (then part of the Rochester Telephone Company); getting an offer from Eastman Kodak Company to play basketball for their professional league; quitting the team to attend Buffalo State University to study arts education; taking a job in Cuba, New York as an arts administrator in the public school system; teaching art in grades K-12 in Cuba, New York; receiving a scholarship to attend the Charles Woodbury School in Maine; receiving a scholarship to attend graduate school at Syracuse University, but leaving after a semester after getting drafted into the army during World War II; serving with the 30th Battalion in the mapping division in Hawaii; returning to Syracause University after the war to finish his MFA in design; joining RIT as an instructor in 1946; becoming the director of RIT's school of art and design in 1952.
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Stanley H. Witmeyer, 1985 June 22. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Additional Forms:
Transcript is available on the Archives of American Art's website.
Funding:
Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service.
Biography Note:
Stanley Herbert Witmeyer (1913-2011) was a painter and art administrator of Fairport, N.Y.
Language Note:
English .
Provenance:
These interviews are part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and others.
Location Note:
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 750 9th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20001
Topic:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews Search this
