3.7 Linear feet ((on 8 microfilmed reels + 1 photograph not microfilmed))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
1869-1973
Scope and Contents:
Correspondence; manuscripts and writings; lists of works of art; photographs; biographical material; gallery and foundry files; notes and speeches; financial material; scrapbook; guest book; magazines; exhibition catalogs; clippings; and printed material.
REEL N68-2: Letters from George Bellows, Bernard Berenson, Elliott Daingerfield, Arthur B. Davies, Roger Fry, John Marin, Joseph Pennell, Man Ray, John Sloan, Max Weber, J. Alden Weir, and others. Two highly detailed letters from Maurice Sterne in 1913 describe that artist's life in Bali. Also included are signatures of American artists from a guest book, and a 1966 catalog of the Hamilton Easter Field Art Foundation Collection.
REEL N68-3 Letters from Childe Hassam, Walt Kuhn, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Gaston Lachaise, Elie Nadelman, David Smith, Alfred Stieglitz, William Zorach, Oscar Bluemner, Albert C. Barnes, Andrew Dasburg, Ernest Fiene, Pop Hart, Robert Henri, Joseph Stella, Maurice Sterne, and others. Also included are manuscripts, lists of works of art, and photographs of Laurent with Hamiltion Easter Field, Bernard Kariol and others.
REEL 2: Personal data sheet, exhibition catalogs and magazines containing articles by or about Laurent, ca. 1920-1965.
REEL 497: John Laurent's collection of 34 letters, 1902-1960, to Robert Laurent and Hamiltion Easter Field. The 6 letters to Field are from Bernhard Berenson, George Bellows, Maurice Prendergast, Pop Hart, Gustov Courtois, and John Carpenter. The 28 letters to Robert Laurent are from Albert P. Ryder, Gaston Lachaise, Raphael Soyer, Walt Kuhn, Robert Henri, Alfred Stieglitz, Arthur B. Davies, Milton Avery, Alexander Calder, Henry McBride, William McFee, Jules Pascin, Jean Careas, and two unidentified artists.
REEL 2063: Photographs, ca. 1930-1962, of Laurent, his studio, exhibitions, and works of art.
REELS 2065-2067: Biographical material; correspondence from Maurice Sterne, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Edith Halpert, Henry Hope, Henry Strater, Lloyd Goodrich, David Smith, Walt Kuhn, William Zorach, Ernest Fiene, and Samuel Wood Gaylor; gallery and foundry files; notes, writings, and speeches; financial material; lists of works of art; blueprints; exhibition and printed material, clippings, and a scrapbook; photos of source material and works of art owned by Laurent; and material concerning Hamilton Easter Field, Laurent's teacher and friend, including correspondence, guest book signatures, financial and legal papers and Field Foundation material.
REEL 2155: Photographs of Laurent's works of art with catalog sheets listing the title, date, medium, size, ownership, and exhibition information for each work, ca. 1920-1967. Also included are photographs of Laurent in his studio and with others, including Gaston Lachaise and David Smith; a photo of Chaim Gross; and photos of the Ogunquit Museum in Maine.
UNMICROFILMED: A black and white photograph of the Field Foundation Dinner Auction-Dinner-Dance, Ogunquit, Maine. Depicted are Lloyd Goodrich, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, William Zorach, Robert Laurent, Emil Ganso and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter, sculptor, teacher, etcher, and writer; Brooklyn, New York & Ogunquit, Maine. Laurent studied under Hamilton Easter Field, and both were from Brooklyn, N.Y. and were involved in the summer art colony in Oguniquit, Maine.
Provenance:
Material on reels N68-2-N68-3 was lent for microfilming 1968 by Robert Laurent; he donated material on reel 2 1966; material on reel 497 was lent for microfilming 1973 by John Laurent, son of Robert Laurent; material on reels 2063, 2065-2067 was donated 1978 by John Laurent; He donated additional material on reel 2155 and not filmed with his brother Paul in 1981.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm. Contact Reference Services for more information.
San Francisco (Calif.) -- Buildings, structures, etc
Montgomery Block (San Francisco, Calif.)
Date:
1949-1968
Scope and Contents:
Letters to David Kasmire from Hubert Crehan, Sonia Gechtoff, George McNeil, Wilfred Zogbaum describing the art scenes and the people involved in New York City and San Francisco between 1949 and 1968, including John Bolles, Herman Cherry, Ethel Gechtoff (Etya), Louise Nevelson Clay Edgar Spohn and others; a letter from Bernard Berenson to "Preston," Mar. 23, 1949; 1 photograph of Hubert Crehan and a group photograph of Crehan with Sonia Gechtoff and others; a photo postcard of the "Monkey Block" in San Francisco where artists Crehan, Sonia Gechtoff, Elmer Bischoff, James Weeks and others had studios; and 3 clippings, including an announcement for Sonia Gechtoff and Crehan exhibitions, n.d. and a story on the razing of the historic "Monkey Block" (1958).
Biographical / Historical:
Painter; San Francisco, Calif. Had a studio in Montgomery Block, also known as "Monkey Block" in San Francisco, built in 1853, and occupied by artists and writers from early 1900s until its demolition in 1959.
Provenance:
Donated 1989 by David Kasmire.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Occupation:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Painters -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Papers concerning Freer's art collecting activities, including correspondence, diaries, art inventories, scrapbooks of clippings on James McNeil Whistler and other press clippings, and photographs. In addition to Freer's own correspondence, the papers include correspondence collected by Freer of James McNeill Whistler and of Whistler collector Richard A. Canfield, correspondence of Freer's assistant Katharine Nash Rhoades, and correspondence regarding Freer's bequest to the Smithsonian Institution.
Correspondence, ca. 1860-1921, includes Freer's correspondence, 1876-1920, with artists, dealers, collectors, museums, and public figures; 30 v. of letterpress books containing copies of letters sent, 1892-1910; correspondence collected by Freer of James McNeill Whistler, and his wife Beatrix, 186?-1909, with Lady Colin Campbell, Thomas R. Way, Alexander Reid, Whistler' mother, Mrs. George W. Whistler, and others; correspondence of Whistler collector Richard A. Canfield, 1904-1913, regarding works in Canfield's collection; and correspondence of Freer's assistant, Katharine Nash Rhoades, 1920-1921, soliciting Freer letters and regarding the settlement of his estate.
Also included are twenty-nine pocket diaries, 1889-1890, 1892-1898, 1900-1919, recording daily activities, people and places visited, observations, and comments; a diary kept by Freer's caretaker, Joseph Stephens Warring, recording daily activities at Freer's Detroit home, 1907-1910;
Inventories, n.d. and 1901-1921, of American, European, and Asian art in Freer's collection, often including provenance information; vouchers, 1884-1919, documenting his purchases; five volumes of scrapbooks of clippings on James McNeill Whistler, 1888-1931, labeled "Various," "Peacock Room," "Death, etc.," "Paris, etc.," and "Boston...London" ; three volumes of newsclippings, 1900-1930, concerning Freer and the opening of the Freer Gallery of Art;
correspondence regarding Freer's gift and bequest to the Smithsonian Institution, 1902-1916; and photographs, ca. 1880-1930, of Freer, including portraits by Alvin Langdon Coburn and Edward Steichen, Freer with others, Freer in Cairo, China and Japan, Freer's death mask, and his memorial service, Kyoto, 1930; photographs of artists and others, including Thomas Dewing, Ernest Fenellosa, Katharine Rhoades taken by Alfred Stieglitz, Rosalind B. Philip, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Abbott H. Thayer, Dwight Tryon, and Whistler; and photographs relating to Whistler, including art works depicting him, grave and memorial monuments, works of art, the Peacock Room, and Whistler's memorial exhibition at the Copley Society.
Among Freer's correspondents are: Otto Bacher, Bernard Berenson, Siegfried Bing, Laurence Binyon, W.K. Bixby, Sigisbert Chretien Bosch-Reitz, Charles H. Caffin, Colin Campbell, Richard Canfield, William Merritt Chase, Frederick Stuart Church, Alfred Vance Churchill, Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Arthur Wesley Dow, Ernest Fenollosa, Albert Gallatin, John Gellatly, Frederick W. Gookin, Sadakichi Hartmann, Frank J. Hecker, Dikran Kelekian, M. Knoedler & Co., Berthold Laufer, Lien Hui Ching Collection, W.A. Livingstone, Frederick McCormick, Bunkio Matsuki, Gari Melchers, Agnes Meyer, Eugene Meyer, Charles Moore, Yozo Nomura, Rosalind Birnie Philip, Charles A. Platt, Theodore Roosevelt, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the Smithsonian Institution, Joseph Stephens Warring, Thomas Way, Abbott Handerson Thayer, Dwight W. Tryon, Charles Walcott of the Smithsonian Institution, Beatrix Whistler, James McNeill Whistler, K.T. Wong, Yamanaka & Co., and Seaouke Yue.
Arrangement:
All correspondence except letterpress books: arranged alphabetically by correspondent; letterpress books are chonological.
Biographical / Historical:
Art collector; Detroit, Michigan. Collected Asian, American, and European art, including a large collection of works by James McNeill Whistler. Founded the Freer Gallery of Art, which is now part of the Smithsonian Institution.
Provenance:
Selected for microfilming from the Charles Lang Freer papers at the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Microfilmed 1992 by the Archives of American Art with funding provided by the Smithsonian Institution's Office of Fellowships and Grants Research Resources Program. Portions of the correspondence and the letterpress books were previously filmed by the Freer in the 1970 (AAA reels 77, 453-456, and 1217-1232); those reels have been replaced by this microfilming project. See Finding Aid for information on papers not selected for microfilming.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Topic:
Art, Asian -- Collectors and collecting Search this
Art, American -- Collectors and collecting Search this
These records are the official minutes of the Board. They are compiled at the direction of the Secretary of the Smithsonian, who is also secretary to the Board, after
approval by the Regents' Executive Committee and by the Regents themselves. The minutes are edited, not a verbatim account of proceedings. For reasons unknown, there are no
manuscript minutes for the period from 1857 through 1890; and researchers must rely on printed minutes published in the Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution instead.
Minutes are transferred regularly from the Secretary's Office to the Archives. Minutes less than 15 years old are closed to researchers. Indexes exist for the period from
1907 to 1946 and can be useful.
Historical Note:
The Smithsonian Institution was created by authority of an Act of Congress approved August 10, 1846. The Act entrusted direction of the Smithsonian to a body called
the Establishment, composed of the President; the Vice President; the Chief Justice of the United States; the secretaries of State, War, Navy, Interior, and Agriculture; the
Attorney General; and the Postmaster General. In fact, however, the Establishment last met in 1877, and control of the Smithsonian has always been exercised by its Board of
Regents. The membership of the Regents consists of the Vice President and the Chief Justice of the United States; three members each of the Senate and House of Representatives;
two citizens of the District of Columbia; and seven citizens of the several states, no two from the same state. (Prior to 1970 the category of Citizen Regents not residents
of Washington consisted of four members). By custom the Chief Justice is Chancellor. The office was at first held by the Vice President. However, when Millard Fillmore succeeded
to the presidency on the death of Zachary Taylor in 1851, Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney was chosen in his stead. The office has always been filled by the Chief Justice
since that time.
The Regents of the Smithsonian have included distinguished Americans from many walks of life. Ex officio members (Vice President) have been: Spiro T. Agnew, Chester A.
Arthur, Allen W. Barkley, John C. Breckenridge, George Bush, Schuyler Colfax, Calvin Coolidge, Charles Curtis, George M. Dallas, Charles G. Dawes, Charles W. Fairbanks, Millard
Fillmore, Gerald R. Ford, John N. Garner, Hannibal Hamlin, Thomas A. Hendricks, Garret A. Hobart, Hubert H. Humphrey, Andrew Johnson, Lyndon B. Johnson, William R. King, Thomas
R. Marshall, Walter F. Mondale, Levi P. Morton, Richard M. Nixon, Nelson A. Rockefeller, Theodore Roosevelt, James S. Sherman, Adlai E. Stevenson, Harry S. Truman, Henry A.
Wallace, William A. Wheeler, Henry Wilson.
Ex officio members (Chief Justice) have been: Roger B. Taney, Salmon P. Chase, Nathan Clifford, Morrison R. Waite, Samuel F. Miller, Melville W. Fuller, Edward D. White,
William Howard Taft, Charles Evans Hughes, Harlan F. Stone, Fred M. Vinson, Earl Warren, Warren E. Burger.
Regents on the part of the Senate have been: Clinton P. Anderson, Newton Booth, Sidney Breese, Lewis Cass, Robert Milledge Charlton, Bennet Champ Clark, Francis M. Cockrell,
Shelby Moore Cullom, Garrett Davis, Jefferson Davis, George Franklin Edmunds, George Evans, Edwin J. Garn, Walter F. George, Barry Goldwater, George Gray, Hannibal Hamlin,
Nathaniel Peter Hill, George Frisbie Hoar, Henry French Hollis, Henry M. Jackson, William Lindsay, Henry Cabot Lodge, Medill McCormick, James Murray Mason, Samuel Bell Maxey,
Robert B. Morgan, Frank E. Moss, Claiborne Pell, George Wharton Pepper, David A. Reed, Leverett Saltonstall, Hugh Scott, Alexander H. Smith, Robert A. Taft, Lyman Trumbull,
Wallace H. White, Jr., Robert Enoch Withers.
Regents on the part of the House of Representatives have included: Edward P. Boland, Frank T. Bow, William Campbell Breckenridge, Overton Brooks, Benjamin Butterworth,
Clarence Cannon, Lucius Cartrell, Hiester Clymer, William Colcock, William P. Cole, Jr., Maurice Connolly, Silvio O. Conte, Edward E. Cox, Edward H. Crump, John Dalzell, Nathaniel
Deering, Hugh A. Dinsmore, William English, John Farnsworth, Scott Ferris, Graham Fitch, James Garfield, Charles L. Gifford, T. Alan Goldsborough, Frank L. Greene, Gerry Hazleton,
Benjamin Hill, Henry Hilliard, Ebenezer Hoar, William Hough, William M. Howard, Albert Johnson, Leroy Johnson, Joseph Johnston, Michael Kirwan, James T. Lloyd, Robert Luce,
Robert McClelland, Samuel K. McConnell, Jr., George H. Mahon, George McCrary, Edward McPherson, James R. Mann, George Perkins Marsh, Norman Y. Mineta, A. J. Monteague, R.
Walton Moore, Walter H. Newton, Robert Dale Owen, James Patterson, William Phelps, Luke Poland, John Van Schaick Lansing Pruyn, B. Carroll Reece, Ernest W. Roberts, Otho Robards
Singleton, Frank Thompson, Jr., John M. Vorys, Hiram Warner, Joseph Wheeler.
Citizen Regents have been: David C. Acheson, Louis Agassiz, James B. Angell, Anne L. Armstrong, William Backhouse Astor, J. Paul Austin, Alexander Dallas Bache, George
Edmund Badger, George Bancroft, Alexander Graham Bell, James Gabriel Berrett, John McPherson Berrien, Robert W. Bingham, Sayles Jenks Bowen, William G. Bowen, Robert S. Brookings,
John Nicholas Brown, William A. M. Burden, Vannevar Bush, Charles F. Choate, Jr., Rufus Choate, Arthur H. Compton, Henry David Cooke, Henry Coppee, Samuel Sullivan Cox, Edward
H. Crump, James Dwight Dana, Harvey N. Davis, William Lewis Dayton, Everette Lee Degolyer, Richard Delafield, Frederic A. Delano, Charles Devens, Matthew Gault Emery, Cornelius
Conway Felton, Robert V. Fleming, Murray Gell-Mann, Robert F. Goheen, Asa Gray, George Gray, Crawford Hallock Greenwalt, Nancy Hanks, Caryl Parker Haskins, Gideon Hawley,
John B. Henderson, John B. Henderson, Jr., A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., Gardner Greene Hubbard, Charles Evans Hughes, Carlisle H. Humelsine, Jerome C. Hunsaker, William Preston
Johnston, Irwin B. Laughlin, Walter Lenox, Augustus P. Loring, John Maclean, William Beans Magruder, John Walker Maury, Montgomery Cunningham Meigs, John C. Merriam, R. Walton
Moore, Roland S. Morris, Dwight W. Morrow, Richard Olney, Peter Parker, Noah Porter, William Campbell Preston, Owen Josephus Roberts, Richard Rush, William Winston Seaton,
Alexander Roby Shepherd, William Tecumseh Sherman, Otho Robards Singleton, Joseph Gilbert Totten, John Thomas Towers, Frederic C. Walcott, Richard Wallach, Thomas J. Watson,
Jr., James E. Webb, James Clarke Welling, Andrew Dickson White, Henry White, Theodore Dwight Woolsey.
The scattered papers of art collector Elisabeth Commanday measure 0.4 linear feet and date from 1949 to 1974. The collection relates to longtime friendships between Commanday and art historian Bernard Berenson, his sister Elizabeth Berenson, his companion Nicky Mariano, and Mariano's sister Baroness Alda von Anrep. The papers include correspondence, notes, photographs, and printed material.
Scope and Contents:
The scattered papers of art collector Elisabeth Commanday measure 0.4 linear feet and date from 1949 to 1974. The collection relates to longtime friendships between Commanday and art historian Bernard Berenson, his sister Elizabeth Berenson, his companion Nicky Mariano and Mariano's sister Baroness Alda von Anrep. Found is correspondence, notes, photographs, and printed material.
Arrangement:
Due to the small size of this collection the papers are arranged as one series.
Biographical / Historical:
Art collector Elisabeth (Betty) Krieger Commanday (1891-1994) lived in New York City and Boston, Massachusetts. She travelled throughout Europe and maintained a correspondence with art historian Bernard Berenson.
Provenance:
Donated 1993 by Maurice Commanday, son of Elisabeth Commanday. Commanday corresponded with Berenson for nearly ten years. At his death in 1959, Berenson's companion Nicky Mariano returned to Commanday all of her letters, which she discarded, except for the earliest letter written in April 1949.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Rights:
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.
The Bernard Berenson collection of oriental art at Villa I Tatti / Laurance P. Roberts ; with introductory essays by Sir Harold Acton, Walter Kaiser, John M. Rosenfield ; and with the photographic collaboration of David Finn
The Bernard Berenson treasury; a selection from the works, unpublished writings, letters, diaries, and journals: 1887-1958. Selected and edited by Hanna Kiel. Introduction by Harold Acton. Preface by Nicky Mariano
The letters between Bernard Berenson and Charles Henry Coster / edited by Giles Constable ; in collaboration with Elizabeth H. Beatson and Luca Dainelli