An interview of Barbara Swan conducted 1973 June 13-1974 June 12, by Robert Brown, for the Archives of American Art.
Biographical / Historical:
Barbara Swan (1922- ) is a painter and printmaker from Brookline, Mass.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hrs., 13 min.
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.
An interview of Alan Fink conducted 1997 Jan. 22 and Jan. 29, by Robert F. Brown, for the Archives of American Art, at Fink's Alpha Gallery, Boston, Mass.
JANUARY 22, 1997 SESSION: Fink discusses his childhood, early education, and first profession; traveling in Europe and meeting his future wife, the painter, Barbara Swan; and becoming interested in art.
JANUARY 29, 1997 SESSION: Coming to Boston in 1951 largely because Barbara Swan was there; first work as a gallery manager (1951-1967) for Boris Mirski; the New York dealer, Edith Halpert with whom he worked closely; the painter and head of Brandeis University art department, Mitchell Siporin; Leonard Baskin, and David Aronson; the lack of support for young local artists from Boston institutions; the major local collector of young local artists, Jerry Goldberg and Abe Pollin who followed his example; the increased number of Boston art galleries in the 1960s as art collecting grew; great success of a show of African masks at Mirski Gallery; his last years with Mirski; opening of his Alpha Gallery in September 1967; and taking on some of Mirski's artists, including Michael Mazur, Robert Birmelin, Philip Gausman, Barbara Swan, Marianna Pineda, Harold Tovish, Elbert Weinberg, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Alan Fink (1925-) is an art dealer in Boston, Mass. and is married to Barbara Swan.
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.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Occupation:
Art dealers -- Massachusetts -- Boston Search this
Woodbury, Charles H. (Charles Herbert), 1864-1940 Search this
Extent:
1 Item (sound file, digital, wav file)
25 Pages (Transcript)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Pages
Sound recordings
Interviews
Date:
1977 July 1
Scope and Contents:
An interview with David Woodbury conducted 1977 July 1, by Robert F. Brown, for the Archives of American Art. Woodbury speaks of his father, the painter Charles H. Woodbury.
Biographical / Historical:
David Woodbury (1896-1981) was a writer from Ogunquit, Maine.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound tape reel. Reformatted in 2010 as 1 digital wav files. Duration is 58 min.
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 others.
Genre/Form:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Sponsor:
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.
Hibbard, A. T. (Aldro Thompson) (1886-1972) Search this
Woodbury, Charles H. (Charles Herbert), 1864-1940 Search this
Extent:
75 Pages (Transcript)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Pages
Sound recordings
Interviews
Date:
1981 August 25-1982 January 15
Scope and Contents:
An interview of Agnes Abbot conducted 1981 August 25-1982 January 15, by Robert Brown, for the Archives of American Art.
Abbot speaks of her early education in Berlin; training at the Child-Walker School in Boston under Aldro T. Hibbard and Charles H. Woodbury; and her early years as a studio art instructor at Wellesley College.
Biographical / Historical:
Agnes A. Abbot (1897-1992) was a painter and watercolorist from Wellesley, Massachusetts.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound cassettes and 2 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 6 digital wav files. Duration is 4 hrs., 2 min.
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.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Woodbury, Charles H. (Charles Herbert), 1864-1940 Search this
Extent:
6 Sound tape reels (Sound recording, 5 in.)
307 Pages (Transcript)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Sound tape reels
Pages
Sound recordings
Interviews
Date:
1979 Aug. 30-1980 Nov. 7
Scope and Contents:
An interview of John Davis Hatch conducted 1979 Aug. 30- 1980 Nov. 7, by Robert F. Brown for the Archives of American Art.
Hatch recalls his childhood in California and training as a landscape architect, including an apprenticeship with Lockwood de Forest. He discusses his appointment as director of the Gallery of Fine Arts in Seattle at age 21 and his efforts there to develop an Asian focus for the museum and cultivate artists of the region, including Mark Tobey, Dudley Pratt, Kenneth Callahan, Emily Carr, Jose de Creeft, Frederick Varley, and Avard Fairbanks. He describes his interest in studying museums across the country and abroad and the roles played in the museum scene by the American Federation of Arts and the Museum Directors Association.
Hatch recalls his work as assistant director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and as director of government art projects in New England in the 1930s, when he worked with Edward Bruce, Oscar Bluemner, Charles Woodbury, John Wharf, and Laura Coombs Hills, among others. He describes an attempt to form the American Artists Depository, a precursor to the Archives of American Art, and his activities collecting American drawings, organizing travelling exhibitions, and promoting American art history as a discipline.
Hatch speaks of his tenure as director of the Albany Institute of History and Art and his efforts to advance an appreciation of local Dutch history and the work of Thomas Cole. He remembers encounters with Henry Francis Du Pont and Charles Franklin Montgomery. Hatch describes the start of his teaching career in Oregon and his involvement with local artists C.S. Price, Carl Morris, and Ludvik Durchanek. He talks about a stint as director of the Norfolk (Va.) Museum of Arts and Sciences and his work as a consultant to museums, especially as it pertained to the development of arts programs at black colleges in the South.
Hatch concludes with a discussion of museums near his home in Lenox, including the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute and the Berkshire Museum.
Biographical / Historical:
John Hatch (1907-1996) was an art historian, collector, art consultant, and museum director.
Provenance:
These interviews are part of the Archives' 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.
Occupation:
Art historians -- Massachusetts -- Interviews Search this
An interview with Lillian Orlowsky conducted 1996 Aug. 5 and 26, by Robert F. Brown, for the Archives of American Art, in Orlowsky's home, in Provincetown, Mass.
Orlowsky talks about her childhood in Manhattan, N.Y., including her interest in modern dance, attending art classes at the Educational Alliance in the Lower East Side where she met classmate Louise Nevelson (1932-33); her studies at the American Artists School with Raphael and Moses Soyer and Anton Refregier; creating watercolors with William Freed; her work in the mural and easel divisions of the WPA; Hans Hofmann's classes and her classmates, including Lee Krasner (1937); her return to Provincetown, Mass., in 1944, with husband William Freed; and Forum 49 in Provincetown. Orlowsky also recalls David Alfaro Siqueiros' method of painting.
Biographical / Historical:
Lillian Orlowsky (1914- 2004) was a painter in New York, N.Y. and Provincetown, Mass. Orlowsky was a WPA artist who studied under Hans Hofmann.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 3 digital wav files. Duration is 2 hrs., 12 min.
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.
Restrictions:
This transcript is open for research. Access to the entire audio recording is restricted. Contact Reference Services for more information.
An interview of Dana Chandler conducted 1993 March 11-May 5, by Robert F. Brown, for the Archives of American Art.
Chandler remembers his childhood in the Black community of Roxbury, Massachussets, with numerous siblings, pugnacious, hard-drinking longshoreman father, and mother who was the linchpin of the family; precocity as a reader and child artist; attendance at Saturday morning children's art classes at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and at Boston Educational High School where needed discipline was instilled in him by its all-white faculty; and as an assistant at school after graduation (1959-61).
Chandler talks about his awareness of budding civil rights movement; his attendance (1962-67) at Massachusetts College of Art while supporting his new, young family and working for the Jamaica Plain Area Planning Action Council which was funded by the federal Model Cities program; his first exhibitions (1967), in a liberal local church and a black businessmen's club; the exhibition (1969) "Twelve Black Artists from Boston," at the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University; and his involvement, along with Harold Tovish and Michael Mazur, in the group, Artists Against the War.
He recalls his initiation of the exhibition, "Afro-American Artists/New York and Boston," at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1970, for which he was given no credit; his position as an unpaid cultural commentator for a Black newspaper and radio station; his politically-charged paintings and prints from the late 1960s onward; his meetings with senior Black artists, such as Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett Mora, and Benny Andrews; and his steady espousal of confrontation.
Chandler discusses teaching at Simmons College, Boston, 1971 to present; his creation in 1974 of the African-American Master Artists-in-Residence Program (AMARP), Northeastern University, Boston, and his direction of it until 1993, when he was relieved of the position by the University.
Chandler discusses his exhibition at Northeastern University in 1976, "If the Shoe Fits, Hear It!" under the name Akin Duro, and its evidence of the respect in which he was held; the loss of much of his work in a studio fire; and his current large-scale graphic work.
Biographical / Historical:
Dana Chandler (1941- ) is an African American painter, printmaker, and educator from Boston, Massachussets.
General:
Originally recorded on 4 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 8 digital wav files. Duration is 4 hr., 51 min.
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. Funding for the transcription of this interview provided by the Newland Foundation.
An interview of Robert Beverly Hale conducted 1984 Mar. 7, by Robert F. Brown, for the Archives of American Art.
Hale speaks of his childhood years living a bohemian life; personal and family friend Marcel Duchamp; his time as a student at the Columbia School of Architecture; being a biology student at Columbia University; studying painting in Paris at Fontainebleau; assisting Waldo Pierce as a secretary; the gold medal from the American Poetry Society; running the publicity department of the Arts Students League; connection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Art News magazine critic in 1930s; tenure in the American wing of the Met; friend Jackson Pollack and the art scene at East Hampton; discussion of drawing the planes of the human body; and writing a book on figure drawing. Hale also recalls Bertrand Russell, Julian Huxley, Henry Oliver Walker, Phil Wiley, George Bridgman, William McNulty, Stuart Klonis, Sam Lewis, Edward Root, Walter Baker, Joseph Hirshhorn, Alan Priest, Albert Gardner, Henry Geldzahler, James Rorimer; David Rockefeller, Alfred Barr, and Terrance Coyle.
Biographical / Historical:
Robert Beverly Hale (1901-1985) was an administrator, instructor, and art historian from New York, N.Y.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound cassette. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 1 hr., 7 min.
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 others.
Walker, Hudson D. (Hudson Dean), 1907-1976 Search this
Type:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Joshua Binion Cahn, Richard A. Florsheim, and John Kearney, 1971 July 20. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute. Museum of Art Search this
Extent:
95 Pages (Transcript)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Pages
Sound recordings
Interviews
Date:
1980 Aug. 5-1981 Aug. 22
Scope and Contents:
An interview of William C. Palmer conducted 1980 Aug. 5-1981 Aug. 22, by Robert F. Brown, for the Archives of American Art. Palmer speaks of his training at the Art Students League during the 1920s; his study of fresco painting in France; his exhibitions at Midtown Galleries since 1932; his WPA murals in New York City and Washington, D.C.; and his directorship of the School of Art, Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, N.Y. He also discusses his painting style.
Biographical / Historical:
William C. Palmer (1906-1987) was a painter, mural painter, and educator from Iowa and New York.
General:
Originally recorded 2 tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 3 digital wav files. Duration is 2 hrs., 57 min.
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.
Restrictions:
Use requires an appointment.
Topic:
Educators -- New York (State) -- Interviews Search this
Painters -- New York (State) -- Interviews Search this
Genre/Form:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Sponsor:
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.
An interview of Inslee Hopper conducted 1981 July 28, by Robert Brown, for the Archives of American Art.
Hopper speaks of his education in art history at Princeton University; his work as editor of THE ARTS under Forbes Watson, 1933-1934; a survey of sculptors for Juliana Force of the Whitney Museum of American Art, 1934-1935; his involvement in the Painting and Sculpture section of the Treasury Department under Edward Bruce, 1935-1938; supervising the decoration for the Federal Building at the World's Fair, 1938-1939; his work with Ben Shahn on the documentation of a resettlement project in West Virginia; the Smithsonian Gallery of Art project, 1938-1940; and his work as Edward Bruce's aide.
Biographical / Historical:
Inslee Hopperis an art administrator and preservationist.
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 others.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
An interview of Robert Brown conducted by Vivian Ducat of WGBH Radio, Boston for National Public Radio. Brown speaks of his work at the Archives of American Art.
Biographical / Historical:
Archives of American Art Regional Director of the New England office.
Provenance:
Donated 1977 by Robert Brown.
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.
Funding for the digital preservation of these recordings was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service.
An interview of Edward Landon conducted 1975 Apr. 17-May 28, by Robert Brown, for the Archives of American Art.
Landon speaks of working with the local theater in high school; leaving Hartford at age 17 or 18 for Greenwich Village in New York and the Art Students League; studying figure drawing with George Bridgman; getting married and moving to Springfield, Mass.; exhibiting with the Springfield Art League; the Artist Union and the Artist Congress in the 1930s; spending a summer with Georgia O'Keeffe and Paul Strand in Taos, N.M.; the cooperation amongst artists that lasted into the 1950s to establish serigraphs as an American fine art print medium; when he received the Solomon Guggenheim Scholarship for Non-objective Art in 1939; when he made furniture and picture frames and the publishing of his book on making picture frames in 1946; when he began working as an easel painter in the Massachusetts Federal Art Project of the WPA in 1933; becoming president of the Western Chapter of the Artists Union in 1934; when he corresponded and visited Arthur Dove; his friendship with Elizabeth McCausland; his introduction to Harry Gottlieb and silk screen printing; the love of color and currently trying for emotional effects in his work; initiating silk screen exhibitions in the Springfield Museum; the beginning of the National Serigraph Society and his work as the exhibition secretary; his teaching approach; the first class held in his garage with fellow artists; more on his relationship with Elizabeth McCausland; Arthur Dove's influence on a recent painting Landon finished; his trip to Taos in 1930 and the importance of artist colonies for him early on; the feeling of not having roots, but being comfortable with the idea; the purpose of the National Serigraph Society; his feelings about printmakers moving away from traditional printing; organized exhibitions for the United States Information Service; his enjoyment in organizing things; the commercialization of creating "prints;" how photo-realism does not translate well in the print medium; the importance of trying to convey an idea in his work; his success in covering small boxes, address books and other items, as well as book binding; his preference for printing small editions of 25 to 35 prints; of a description of his method of printing; his Fulbright Fellowship in 1950 to travel to Norway and lecture; an interest in early Scandinavian art; publishing a silkscreen portfolio of pre-Viking art for the American Scandinavian Foundation; traveling through Europe; his influence as an innovator in France and Scandinavia; meeting with silk screen artists in Oslo; art forms in his work at this time; his inclusion in "Who's Who in American Art;" the avoidance of art movements; how by the 1950s the reason for the National Serigraph Society no longer existed because the medium was popular by that time; his move to Vermont in 1957 or 1958; work as a color mixer, book binder, and returning to framing because of health reasons; his second illness changing what he found important in his life; and how the content of his work became more emotional. Landon also recalls Louie Lozowick, Gertrude Stein, Marian Hughes, Elizabeth Olds, John Marin, Alfred Stieglitz, Berenice Abbott, Marvo Perry, Hilla Rebay, Sir William T. Rogers, Max Weber, Dennis Hartley, Alfred Maurer, Bernie Sabbath, and Henry Mark.
Biographical / Historical:
Edward Landon (1911-1984) was a printmaker from Weston, Vt.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound tape reel. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 1 hr., 39 min.
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.
Churchill P. Lathrop (1900-1995) was an art historian at Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H. Full name Churchill Pierce Lathrop, but often known as Jerry Lathrop. Lathrop joined the Art Department at Dartmouth in 1928, serving as chair 1932-1936, 1940-1948, and 1962-1965, before retiring in 1966. In addition to teaching, Lathrop was director of the college's art galleries, custodian of Dartmouth's art collections, and founder of its Sherman Art Library.
General:
Originally recorded on 5 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 10 digital wav files. Duration is 7 hrs., 17 min.
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.
Occupation:
Art historians -- United States -- Interviews Search this
Society of Independent Artists (New York, N.Y.) Search this
Extent:
179 Pages (Transcript)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Pages
Sound recordings
Interviews
Date:
1979 January 16-1980 October 22
Scope and Contents:
An interview of Allan Rohan Crite conducted 1979 January 16-1980 October 22, by Robert F. Brown for the Archives of American Art. Also participating in the interview is Crite's assistant, Susan Thompson.
Crite describes his family background and his youth in Boston. He gives great detail about his childhood interest in art and the art classes he took as a child, sharing drawings he did then with the interviewer. He remembers his art education at the Museum of Fine Arts School and involvement with the Society of Independent Artists. Crite discusses his ideas about the Episcopal church, his religious beliefs, and his interest in the liturgy and spirituals in his artwork. He recounts his engagement in the Navy, participation in the WPA, and work with the Rambusch Company. Crite describes paintings he did of street life in Black communities of Boston in the 1930s, a series of portraits, and paintings he did to illustrate spirituals and the Episcopal liturgy. He speaks about race relations and explains his motivations for an educational project in progress entitled, "The Cultural Heritage of the United States: a Rediscovery," promoting a multicultural view of American history. The last segment of the interview includes Susan Thompson, a fabric artist and close friend collaborating with Crite on projects mostly of a religious nature, including vestments and altar cloths.
Biographical / Historical:
Allan Rohan Crite (1910-2007) was a painter and illustrator from Boston, Massachusetts.
General:
Originally recorded on 4 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 7 digital wav files. Duration is 7 hr., 8 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives' 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.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
An interview of Elma Lewis conducted 1997 July 25 and Sept. 19, by Robert Brown, for the Archives of American Art, in Lewis' home, Roxbury, Mass.
Lewis discusses her parents, immigrants from Barbados; her father being very politicized, quickly disillusioned regarding economic opportunity and racism; meeting Marcus Garvey and becoming a member of United Negro Improvement Association; her parents giving her a very strong cultural sense of her race and culture steeped in Christian doctrine; family thought in pan-African terms; attending integrated schools; World War II as a watershed for the Black community; her brother graduating from Harvard medical school after their mother demanded he be admitted, though still he had difficulty being accepted in medical community; another brother who became a concert pianist; her study of dance (ballet) for many years.
Father's encouragment to attend Emerson College in Boston (1939-1943); preparation for a career in music and the performing arts; teachers' training at Boston University (1943-1944); teaching at the school of dance and performing arts run by Doris Jones; Lewis founding her own school, the Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts in the largely Black Roxbury section of Boston in 1950; incorporating the visual arts; teaching by Alvin Ailey, Talley Beatty, Duke Ellington; problems posed by patronizing white liberal community; development of cooperative program with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; hiring the artist John Wilson and art historian Edmund Barry Gaither to further develop visual arts programs; and the primacy of culture and spirituality.
Biographical / Historical:
Elma Lewis (1921-2004) was an artist and teacher from Boston, Mass.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2007 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 1 hr., 32 min.
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.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
An interview of John Woodrow Wilson conducted 1993 March-1994 August, by Robert F. Brown, for the Archives of American Art.
Wilson discusses his childhood as a member of a family of middle class blacks from British Guiana (now Guyana); his father's grave disappointments in the face of racial discrimination; his parents' push for their children to succeed; early urge to read and draw; encouragement by School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston students who taught at the Roxbury Boys Club; his secondary education; and friends.
He talks about his education at the MFA School, Boston, and comments on such teachers as Ture Bengtz and Karl Zerbe and compares their exacting methods with those of Fernand Leger, his teacher in Paris.
His work of the 1940s prior to going to Paris; the importance of early awards and sales received while still a student at the MFA School; the excitement of sharing a studio with fellow students, Francesco Carbone and Leo Prince; and encouragement to stay in school during WW II with the promise of a European study fellowship after the war.
The great impact of his years in Paris (1948-49); the lack of racial prejudice; the liberating effect of Leger's teaching; his awe of the work of Masaccio and Piero della Francesca during a trip to Italy; and the deep impression made on him by seeing tribal art in the Musee de l'Homme, Paris.
Continued discussion of Leger; his teaching methods; and influences on his work.
His first teaching position at the MFA School; his involvement in civil rights in Boston; his gregariousness and the use of his studio as a meeting place for artists and political activists; his involvement with socialism in Boston and New York; and working in a socialist children's camp. He remembers meeting Paul Robeson, Charles White, Elizabeth Catlett, and Bob Blackburn, who was then setting up his printmaking atelier in New York; marriage to a fellow socialist (June 1950); move to Mexico on a fellowship to study with Jose Orozco on the advice of Leger, only to find that Orozco had died; terrors of travel as an interracial couple through the U.S.; and different racial attitudes in Mexico and the U.S.
Living in Mexico (1950-56) and anecdotes of David Alfaro Siqueiros and Diego Rivera; his wife's meeting with Frieda Kahlo and seeing her collection of folk art; their free and cosmopolitan, if impoverished, life in Mexico; his work in a printmaking atelier and on the production of frescoes, and a lengthy aside about his brilliant brother, Freddie, who because he was black was not allowed to pursue his first love, geology, for many years.
Continued discussion of his experiences in Mexico; the dreary year (1957) he spent doing commercial art for a meatpackers' union in Chicago, a city he disliked; his move to New York in 1958, taking on commercial work to support his family, and teaching anatomy at the Pratt Institute.
Teaching art at a junior high school in the Bronx, and his gaining respect of students through special projects; teaching drawing at Boston University (1965-86), his approach to teaching including his demanding standards, the seriousness of the students, his opposing rigid attendance and grading rules, and colleagues, such as David Aronson who had created the School, Reed Kay, Jack Kramer, Sidney Hurwitz, and the University president, John Silber.
Working with the black arts entrepreneur, Elma Lewis, in setting up a visual arts program for the Boston black community (late 1960s-1970s), including the selection of a curator, Edmund Barry Gaither, a young art historian, who eventually established a museum of African-American art; his participation in various black art exhibitions, despite his belief that art should be seen regardless of the ethnic origins of artists; his move toward sculpture, beginning in the early 1960s, as a medium most expressive of black persons, culminating in the 1980s in a series of colossal heads and a statue of Martin Luther King, Jr. for the U.S. Capitol (1985-86); and why he makes art and will so long as he is able.
Biographical / Historical:
John Wilson (1922- ) is an African American painter, sculptor, illustrator, printmaker, and educator from Boston, Massachusetts. Full name John Woodrow Wilson.
General:
Originally recorded on 11 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 22 digital wav files. Duration is 16 hr., 2 min.
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. Funding for the transcription and microfilming of the interview provided by the Newland Foundation.
An interview of Calvin Burnett conducted 1980 June 13-1981 January 6, by Robert Brown, for the Archives of American Art.
Burnett speaks of his education at the Massachusetts College of Art, Boston; freelancing in commercial art; his career as a Black artist; teaching methods; recent paintings; and his civil rights activities.
Biographical / Historical:
Calvin Burnett (1921-2007) was a graphic artist, illustrator, painter, and designer from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Full name Calvin W. Burnett.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 4 digital wav files. Duration is 4 hr., 19 min.
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.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Occupation:
Painters -- Massachusetts -- Cambridge Search this
