An interview of José Moya del Pino conducted 1964 Sept. 10, by Mary McChesney, for the New Deal and the Arts Oral History Project.
Moya del Pino speaks of his youth in Spain, and his education in Rome and in Paris; meeting Matisse; moving to San Francisco and taking up portraiture there; starting with the Federal Art Project (FAP) and working on a mural at Coit Tower; political problems with the murals and other work done under the FAP; painting a mural in a post office in Alpine, Tex., and other murals; how work was assigned; his mural for the Social Security Building in Washington, D.C.; and his feelings about government support for the arts and how it should be administered. He recalls Diego Rivera and Victor Arnautoff.
Biographical / Historical:
José Moya del Pino (1891-1969) was a Spanish born painter and mural painter from California.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound tape reel. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 1 hrs., 57 min.
Provenance:
Conducted as part of the Archives of American Art's New Deal and the Arts project, which includes over 400 interviews of artists, administrators, historians, and others involved with the federal government's art programs and the activities of the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s and early 1940s.
Topic:
Coit Memorial Tower (San Francisco, Calif.) Search this
The papers of artist and art teacher Victor Mikhail Arnautoff measure 3.3 linear feet and date from 1920 to 2017 with the bulk of the material dating from the 1920 to 1953. The collection contains biographical material such as marriage certificates, passports, naturalization certificates, and an Arnautoff family history; correspondence between family members, as well as with colleagues including Diego Rivera, and with institutions concerning Arnautoff's work; writings about Arnautoff and others, including his statement regarding the House Un-American Activities Committee Hearing; professional records related to mural projects and exhibitions of Arnautoff's work; and printed material including exhibition announcements and catalogs, clippings, and On the Drumhead by Mike Quin, illustrated by Victor Arnautoff. Also included are a scrapbook containing correspondence, printed material, and photographs highlighting Arnautoff's career with particular emphasis on the controversy surrounding his Dix McSmear lithograph, as well as photographic material depicting Arnautoff, other individuals, and works of art. The bulk of the collection is made up of artwork, including sketches, a sketchbook, watercolors, and prints.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged in eight series.
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1920-1952, 1961-1979, 1995-1997 (Box 1; 0.1 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, circa 1923-2008 (Box 1; 0.5 linear feet)
Series 3: Writings, 1956, circa 1984-2006 (Box 1; 5 folders)
Series 4: Professional Records, 1940-1953, 1963-2004 (Box 1, OV 5; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 5: Printed Material, 1923-1998, 2007-2017 (Boxes 1-2, OV 5; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 6: Scrapbook, 1928-1968, 1979-1981 (Bound Volume 4; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 7: Photographic Material, circa 1920s-circa 1960s, 2015 (Box 2; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 8: Artwork, circa 1920s-circa 1950s (Boxes 2-3, OVs 6-13; 1.4 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
Victor Mikhail Arnautoff (1896-1979) was an artist and art teacher known for his murals. Arnautoff was born in the Ukraine and served in the Russian army during World War I. After a defeat in Siberia, he crossed into China, where he remained for five years. In China he met and married his wife Lydia, and they had their first two sons.
In 1925 Arnautoff went to San Francisco to study at the California School of Fine Arts. He continued with his family to Mexico in 1929 and became an assistant to muralist Diego Rivera. While in Mexico, his third son was born, and Arnautoff met Bernard Zakheim, with whom he would later work on the Coit Tower murals. Arnautoff and his family returned to San Francisco in 1931 and in 1934 he was chosen to paint one of the murals at the Coit Tower with funding from the Public Works of Art Project. Arnautoff was one of the most prolific muralists in San Francisco in the 1930s, completing murals at Coit Tower and the Palo Alto Clinic, as well as the Presidio chapel, George Washington High School, and the California School of Fine Arts library. He also painted murals at five post offices in California and Texas.
Arnautoff began teaching at the California School of Fine Arts in 1936. He taught at Stanford from 1938 to 1962 and also taught art courses at the California Labor School.
Following the death of his wife in 1961, Arnautoff retired from teaching at Stanford and returned to the Soviet Union in 1963. While living there he continued to create works of art and published a memoir. He died in Leningrad in 1979.
Provenance:
The Victor Mikhail Arnautoff papers were donated to the Archives of American Art in 1983 by Jacob and Vasily Arnautoff, Victor Arnautoff's sons. Additional papers were donated in 2018 by Michael and Peter Arnautoff, Victor Arnautoff's son and grandson, and by Robert Cherney, a scholar who wrote a book about Arnautoff.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center.
Occupation:
Art teachers -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Topic:
Artists -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Muralists -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Genre/Form:
Sketchbooks
Drawings
Scrapbooks
Citation:
Victor Mikhail Arnautoff papers, 1920-2017, bulk 1920-1953. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by Gerald and Bente Buck.
An interview of Leo Holub conducted 1997 July 3, by Paul Karlstrom, for the Archives of American Art, in San Francisco, Calif.
Holub discusses his background, being born in Arkansas, moving to New Mexico, and then to Oakland, Calif. (1923); early educational experiences in Oakland, and later at the Art Institute of Chicago; seeing Edward Weston's photographic work at an exhibition in Chicago, and admiring Weston's nude studies of Charis Wilson; his return to the Bay Area; his studio on Montgomery St. (Monkey Block); meeting painter Matthew Barnes, who had assisted Diego Rivera with his murals at the California School of Fine Arts (CSFA), 1931-1932; his experiences as a student at CSFA- its program and instructors which included Maurice Sterne, Gottardo Piazzoni, Lee Randolph, Dick Hackett, Otis Oldfield, William Gaw, Spencer Mackey, and Victor Arnautoff; fellow students including Hassel Smith, Ed Corbett, and Florence Michelson (his future wife); and his beginning awareness of modernism.
Holub discusses his involvement with the Golden Gate International Exposition (1939); apprenticeship with industrial designer Joe Sinel and the advent of the product design era; his founding of Design Development Associates, and staying only a year before moving to Grass Valley, Calif. for his son's health; his return to the Bay Area, succeeding Emmy Lou Packard at the San Francisco Planning Office graphic arts dept.; working at the housing agency and redevelopment agency and as chief designer for the Bay Area Rapid Transit report.
He recalls his encounter with Ansel Adams at the 1955 Yosemite workshop where Holub produced a pictorial map of Yosemite; Adam's "zone system" of exposing for shadows and developing for highlights; going on to teach at CSFA (1955-1957), where Imogen Cunningham was a guest instructor; Minor White replacing him; his ten years at Stanford University's planning office (1960-1970); his campus views "Stanford Scene" that were used by the university to appeal for more space for the art dept., and his shows at Stanford's art gallery in 1964 and at the Washington, D.C. home of Vice President Walter Mondale in 1980.
Biographical / Historical:
Leo Holub (1916-2010) was a photographer, lithographer, and teacher from San Francisco, Calif.
Provenance:
This interview is 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 administrators.
Topic:
Photographers -- California -- San Francisco -- Interviews Search this
Art -- Study and teaching -- California Search this
New Deal and the Arts Oral History Project Search this
Type:
Interviews
Sound recordings
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Richard Ayer, 1964 September 26. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
