The papers of landscape painter Mary Butler date from 1853-1946, bulk 1884-1946, and measure 1.6 linear feet. Found within the papers are biographical material, correspondence, and records relating to Butler's long participation in the Fellowship of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Also found are notes and writings, a scrapbook, printed material, and photographs of Butler, her friends, her studio in Ogunquit, Maine, her landscape paintings, and exhibition installations.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of landscape painter Mary Butler date from 1853-1946, bulk 1884-1946, and measure 1.6 linear feet. Found within the papers are biographical material, correspondence, and records relating to Butler's long participation in the Fellowship of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Also found are notes and writings, a scrapbook, printed material, and photographs of Butler, her friends, her studio in Ogunquit, Maine, her landscape paintings, and exhibition installations.
Biographical material includes genealogical notes on Butler's early family history, biographical accounts, teaching certificates, and letters of recommendation from Butler's instructors including William Merritt Chase, Robert Henri, and William Sartain.
Found within the papers are correspondence with family members, including letters to her cousin Edgar Butler letters from her friend Mrs. Thomas Eakins; and miscellaneous scattered letters from various colleagues including George Biddle, Dorothy Grafly, Thornton Oakley, and Alice Kent Stoddard concerning various topics. Correspondence regarding exhibitions is with arts organizations and colleagues including Henry Thouron and S. Walter Norris.
There are files documenting Butler's long participation in the Fellowship of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, including a letter from Joseph Pennell, notes, writings, and printed material. Additional printed material includes a scrapbook of clippings, and exhibition announcements and catalogs. Photographs are of Butler, her friends, her studio in Ogunquit, Maine, views of the Maine coast and of Cathedral Crag in Washington State, Butler's landscape paintings, and miscellaneous exhibition installations.
Arrangement:
The papers are arranged into seven series. Each series is arranged chronologically.
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1884-1945 (Box 1; 10 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1853-1944 (Box 1; 0.5 linear feet)
Series 3: File for the Fellowship of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1917-1946 (Box 1; 14 folders)
Series 4: Notes and Writings, 1905-1938 (Box 1; 10 folders)
Series 5: Scrapbook, 1908-1942 (Box 1; 5 folders)
Series 6: Printed Material, 1894-1944 (Box 2; 0.4 linear feet)
Series 7: Photographs, circa 1870-1945 (Box 3; 0.2 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Mary Butler was born on October 27, 1865 in Uwachlan, Pennsylvania, the daughter of James and Rachel M. (James) Butler.
Butler began her education at the Darlington Seminary. She studied painting at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women (now the Moore College of Art) under William Sartain and Robert Henri, graduating in 1894. Between 1896 and 1902, she studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts under William Merritt Chase and Celia Beaux. From 1897 to 1898, she studied at the Académie Colarossi in Paris with Gustave Courtois, René François Xavier Prinet, and Jean-Antoine Injalbert.
She attended a summer school conducted by William Merritt Chase at Shinnacock Hills, and later studied under Robert Henri and Edward W. Redfield. With Redfield, she spent a season at Centre Bridge, Pennsylvania. Butler was primarily a landscape painter and traveled widely in the United States and Europe to find unusual and inspiring views. She also spent summers in Ogunquit and on Monhegan Island, Maine.
In 1909, Butler joined the Fellowship of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and served as President of that organization from 1921 to 1937. During her tenure, she inaugurated traveling exhibitions, a picture purchasing fund and, in 1915, the Thouron Fund for aid of needy artists.
Throughout her career Butler exhibited extensively and promoted the arts in Philadelphia.
Mary Butler died on March 16, 1946.
Provenance:
The Mary Butler papers were donated in 2005 by Rachel F. Armstrong, the artist's niece.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Use requires an appointment.
Rights:
The Mary Butler papers are owned by the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Literary rights as possessed by the donor have been dedicated to public use for research, study, and scholarship. The collection is subject to all copyright laws.
Topic:
Landscape painters -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia Search this
Women painters -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia Search this
Genre/Form:
Scrapbooks
Writings
Photographs
Citation:
Mary Butler papers, 1853-1946, bulk 1884-1946. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
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
Correspondence with dealers, artists, museums, publishers, photography studios, and others regarding art purchases, loans, and Shaw's collection; and 16 v. of scrapbooks containing photographs, letters, and biographical information on artists. Much of the correspondence with artists relates to Shaw's requests for the information which was then used in the scrapbooks. Also included is one volume compiled in 1947 outlining the contents of the scrapbooks.
REELS 1124-1125: 16 vol. of scrapbooks, 1864-1930, relating to artists represented in Shaw's collection, containing letters, many from artists, photographs of artists and their work, biographical data, clippings and articles, and comments on their work; and 1 v., "Notes: Edwin C. Shaw Collection of Paintings," compiled in 1947, and annotated "Used at Women's Art League Meeting at Miss Shaw's in 1947 by Mrs. [Jane S.] Barnhardt, who compiled it, and then given to the Art Institute Library," containing an outline of the contents of the 16 v. of scrapbooks.
Artists represented in the scrapbooks include J. Carroll Beckwith, Frank W. Benson, Ralph Blakelock, Emil Carlsen, William Merritt Chase, Timothy Cole, Elliott Daingerfield, Cyrus B. Dallin, Charles Davis, Warren Davis, Gleb Derujinsky, Charles M. Dewey, Thomas W. Dewing, Paul Dougherty, Frank Duveneck, Charles Eaton, Frederick Frieseke, George Fuller, Lillian Genth, Childe Hassam, Charles Hawthorne, William Morris Hunt, George Inness, John Johansen, Isidore Konti, John La Farge, William Lathrop, Frederick MacMonnies, Hermon A. MacNeil, Willard Metcalf, Herman Dudley Murphy, J. Francis Murphy, A. Phimister Proctor, Henry Ward Ranger, William Ritschel, Felix Russmann, Albert P. Ryder, Eugenie F. Shonnard, Lars Gustaf Sellstedt, Elliot Torrey, Dwight Tryon, Helen M. Turner, John Twachtman, Elihu Vedder, Bessie P. Vonnoh, Robert Vonnoh, Horatio Walker, J. Alden Weir, Frederick Ballard Williams, Henry Wolf and "The Ten."
REEL 4597: Correspondence, ca. 1916-1941, concerning art acquisitions with dealers Erwin S. Barrie of Grand Central Art Galleries; Thomas Whipple Dunbar; Frederic Newlin Price and T.H. Russell of Ferargil Galleries; W. Frank Purdy of the Gorham Co. Dept. of Sculpture and later the School of American Sculpture; D.H. Hatfield of Hatfield & Clark; Thomas Gerrity of M. Knoedler & Co.; Robert Macbeth, Robert McIntyre and Henry Miller of the Macbeth Gallery; Albert Milch of E.& A. Milch, Inc.; Newman Montross of Montross Gallery; J.E. Batts of the Thurber Art Galleries; Robert C. Vose of R.C. & N.M. Vose and Vose Galleries, and their frame shop, Carrig-Rohane; Howard Young of Howard Young Galleries; and J.W. Young; correspondence with artists and/or their families requesting the artist's portrait, biographical information and background, including letters from Elliot Daingerfield, Charles Dewey, Thomas Wilmer Dewing, John C. Johansen, Willard Leroy Metcalf, Hervey W. Minns, Hermann Dudley Murphy, A.P. Proctor, Eugenie Shonnard, Elliot Torrey, Dwight W. Tryon, Helen M. Turner, and Horatio Walker, and the families of J. Carroll Beckwith, George Inness, Lars Gustaf Sellstedt, John Henry Twachtman and J. Alden Weir; correspondence with the Dayton Art Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art regarding works lent for exhibition; with publisher Frederic Fairchild Sherman; with photography studios; and other miscellaneous correspondence.
Biographical / Historical:
Art collector; Akron, Ohio. Shaw, a BF Goodrich executive and avid collector of post-Civil War American art, was one of the founders of the Akron Art Institute, now the Akron Art Museum.
Provenance:
Lent for microfilming 1976 and 1992 by the Akron Art Museum. Shaw bequethed his art collection and papers to the Museum, then named the Akron Art Institute.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Topic:
Art, American -- Collectors and collecting Search this
Ten American Painters (New York, N.Y.) Search this
2.5 Linear feet ((partially microfilmed on 4 reels))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
1941-1970
Scope and Contents:
Primarily research material for exhibitions organized by Story at the American British Art Center and at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
REELS 601-602: Correspondence, photographs, catalogs and business records for five exhibitions at the University of California, Santa Barbara, including: William Merritt Chase (1964-1965), Surrealism - A State of Mind (1966), Five Centuries of Prints (1967), Max Weber (1968), and Trends in 20th Century Art (1970).
REEL 2086: Papers, 1943, relating to Charles Dana Gibson exhibition at the American British Art Center, NYC, including sketches by Gibson, letters from him, price lists, a catalog of the exhibit, and miscellany.
REEL 3977: Biographical notes, photographs of drawings and paintings and exhibition announcements used by Story for exhibitions on William Merritt Chase, Harold Sterner and John Craske while at the American British Art Center; three letters from Robert Henri to Mrs. William Kennedy Thompson and one letter from William Merritt Chase to Della F. Shull; photographs of Henri and Chase; receipts and checks regarding Chase; and records of the American British Art Center, including 6 sales books, two guestbooks, a petty cash book, exhibition catalogs, and photocopies of exhibition catalogs and clippings.
ADDITION: 16 items including correspondence, 1941-1951, and a printed ceremonial program, 1952, of The American Academy of Arts and Letters and the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Correspondents include Alfred Barr, R.A. Beaes, M. Buller, Sir Kenneth Clark, Rene d'Harnoncourt, Alfred A. Longden, H. F. Perkins, and Mary F. Wilson.
Biographical / Historical:
Curator, museum director; New York, N.Y. and Santa Barbara, Calif. Born 1907. Died 1972.
Provenance:
Donated by Margaret Mallory, 1970-1984.
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.
Biographical material, correspondence, business records, notes, printed material and photographs document the career of landscape painter Walter Elmer Schofield.
REEL D71: Letters, 1923-1961, are from museums concerning the exhibition or collection of Schofield's work, from his son to the Archives of American Art concerning the acquisition of Schofield's papers, and a letter and biographical sketch from British sculptor Helen Stuart Weir. Photographs, ca. 1890-1937, are of Schofield, including one at a silvermine in Mexico, and 4 with the Royal Artillery and Royal Fusiliers. One shows Schofield with fellow artists John White Alexander, William Merritt Chase, and Sir Alfred East. There are also photographs of Schofield's residence in Suffolk, England, gallery installations, and art works. Business records, 1888-1921, include discharge papers from the San Antonio Rifles, and 3 leases. Printed material, 1902-1945, includes clippings, an exhibition catalog, a membership list for the National Academy of Design, 1902, and a program for a memorial service for Schofield.
REEL 5043: Biographical material, 1904-1945, includes a biographical sketch, an award certificate from the Carnegie Institute, and a death certificate. Correspondence, 1892-1974, consists primarily of letters between Schofield and his wife during his sojourns in America. Schofield's letters describe his activities including participation in the Louisiana Purchase Exposition and on Carnegie Institute juries, and mention his colleagues including Thomas Anshutz, Alexander Stirling Calder, Henry Caro-Delvaille, Paul Dougherty, Charles Grafly, Robert Henri, William Lathrop, Julius Olsson, Edward Redfield, John Singer Sargent, Charles Shannon, John Sloan, Gardner Symons, Henry Fitch Taylor, John Trask, and Charles Morris Young. There are also one to three letters each from Hugh Henry Breckenridge, Stanhope Forbes, Hayley Lever, and Karl Oberteuffer.
Business records, 1903-1937, include receipts for art supplies, the shipment of household goods, financial records for the sale of Reen Cottage,and for an exhibition at Stendahl Art Galleries, and a contract of ownership for the Delph Spinning Company. Notes consist of lecture notes "Art Noon Club Objectives" and a stanza from "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold. Printed material, 1901-1945, consists of clippings, 2 exhibition catalogs, and a reproduction of a wood-engraving of Otley Church. Photographs, 1887-1940, are of Schofield, his wife and sons, members of Schofield's class at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, classes taught by Schofield, members of his military units, his residences in Suffolk and Cornwall, England, gallery installations, and works of art.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter. Born Philadelphia, Pa., Schofield studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and, in 1890, at the Academie Julian. After marrying Murielle Redmayne in 1897, he established his residence in England, making frequent trips to the United States to conduct his art-related business. He was primarily known as a landscape and marine painter.
Provenance:
Material on reel D71 donated 1961 by Sydney Schofield, Walter Schofield's son. Material on reel 5043 donated by Mrs. S.E. Schofield through the Brandywine River Museum, 1986.
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.
An interview of Abraham Walkowitz conducted by Abram Lerner and Mary Bartlett Cowdrey for the Archives of American Art.
Walkowitz discusses his childhood and schooling; travelling abroad; influence of Claude Monet exhibit; his book, "Artists of Walkowitz: 100 Portraits"; Paul Cezanne's death; meeting artists in Europe; his 1908 exhibition of modern art at the Julius Haas Gallery, New York; getting Max Weber a show at the Haas Gallery; Steiglitz and his "291" Gallery; the Armory Show, especially the roles of Arthur B. Davies, Walt Kuhn, and Walter Pach; reactions to Nude Descending a Staircase; the Society of Independent Artists; thoughts on criticism of his work; his relationship with the critic Peyton Boswell; the importance in his work of dancer Isadora Duncan; opinions on American art, modern art, art schools, students and patrons; good art versus bad art; and the role of critics. Among others he recalls are Lizzie Bliss, William Merritt Chase, Kenyon Cox, The Eight, Jacob Epstein, Childe Hassam, and Georgia O'Keeffe.
Biographical / Historical:
Abraham Walkowitz (1880-1965) was a painter in New York, New York.
General:
Sound has been lost on tape reels; reels discarded.
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 Edith Halpert conducted 1962-1963, by Harlan Phillips, for the Archives of American Art.
Halpert speaks of her childhood in Russia and growing up in New York City; working at Bloomindale's, Macy's, Stern Brothers, and Cohen Goldman; her marriage to artist Sam Halpert, his health, and living in Paris in 1925; becoming an art student at the Academy of Design and feeling that Leon Kroll was an excellent art teacher until he began to correct her drawings; when George Bridgman thought she was ruining his class; the Lincoln Square Arcade, when she and Ernest Fiener and Robert Brackman would rent Conan's studio evenings and bring in instructors; how Newman Montross influenced her more than anybody about showing her art that she loved; burning all of her work because Kroll said she had no talent; receiving a painting from John Marin; her friendship and working relationship with Abby Rockefeller and other family members.
She recalls opening the Downtown Gallery, in Greenwich Village, in 1926; a brief history of modern art; many artists helping decorate the new Daylight Gallery in 1930 and the first show being called "Practical Manifestations of Art"; meeting Robert and Sonia Delaunay in France; when she refused to allow Ezra Pound to speak at one of the gallery lectures because of his anti-Semite remarks and William Carlos Williams and Ford Madox Ford argued with her over it; experiencing jealousy and professional attacks from other dealers; the successful "Pop" Hart show and book in 1929; the "Thirty-three Moderns" show in 1930 at the Grand Central Galleries; the Jules Pascin show in 1930; in America, most of the art buyers supporters of culture were women, until the WPA and World War II, when it became fashionable for men to be involved; Ambroise Vollard's advice on selling art; handling the frustrations of working in the art field; friendships with Stuart Davis,Charles Sheeler, and Ben Shahn; how artists work through dry periods in their creativity and the "Recurrent Image" show; a discussion on modern art galleries of New York City, such as Daniel, Knoedler, Ferargil, the New Gallery, 291, the Grand Central, Kraushaar, and Montross; her travels through Pennsylvania and Maine for good examples of folk art for the gallery; the "The Artist Looks at Music" show; the non-competitive spirit of the early modern American artists; of being saved financially in 1940 by selling a William Harnett painting to the Boston Museum and then renting new space for the gallery.
Also, Mitchell Siporin bringing Halpert and Edmund Gurry to Mitchell Field during World War II for a camouflage show and consequently Downtown Gallery artists and others were enlisted in the camouflage corps for the U.S. Air Force; Charles Sheeler and his wife find Halpert a house in Newtown, Conn.; her decision in 1933 to push folk art for acquisition by the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery in Kansas City, Missouri; her great concern about what to do with her folk art literature collection; dismay and that no one writes about the history of folk art and those responsible for its creation and popularity; Louis Stern hiring her to organize a municipal exhibit in Atlantic City, N.J., with Donald Deskey designing the furniture and Holger Cahill managing the publicity; Joe Lillie helping her meet Fiorello La Guardia and Joe McGoldrick in 1934 about a municipal show in New York City, but it is moved to Radio City Music Hall through Nelson Rockefeller; the "Salons of America" show; wanting articles written about art for love rather than art for investment; working with Aline Saarinen on her book, "Proud Possessors;" letters from Stuart Davis, William Zorach and others that hurt her feelings; enjoying giving educational lectures and considering retirement because of ill health; the desire to write a book on the history of trade signs in folk art; feeling that the young artists are being ruined by too much support without working for it; planning to write a book entitled, "Unsung Heroes," about artists brave enough to experiment; organizing a show in Russia at her own expense; later representing the U.S. in art at the "American National Exposition"; the agitators and success of the exposition; Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O'Keeffe.
Halpert also recalls Juliana Force, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Buckminster Fuller, George Luks, Edsel Ford, Max Weber, Danny Diefenbacker, Hamilton Easter Field, Frank Stella, Glenn Coleman, Margaret Zorach, Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Henry Mercer, Romany Marie, Edward G. Robinson, Paul Mellon, Charles Pollet, Alex Brook, Lunca Curass, Dorothy Lambert, Duncan Candler, Frank Rhen, Louis Rittman, Bea Goldsmith, Arthur Craven, Robert Frost, Philip Wittenberg, Caesar de Hoke, Richard deWolfe Brixey, Seymour Knox, Walt Kuhn, Elisabeth Luther Cary, Charles Locke, Duncan Fergusson, Mrs. Solomon Guggenheim, Bob Tannahill, David Thompson, Marsden Hartley, Erwin Barrie, Robert Laurent, Conger Goodyear, Henry McBride, Edward Hopper, Charles Daniel, William Merritt Chase, Charles Hopkinson, Thomas Hart Benton, Frank Crowninshield, Alfred Barr, Lord Duveen, Jacob Lawrence, John Marin Jr., Karl Zerbe, Franz Kline, Arthur Dove, Julian Levy, Jack Levine, Valentine Dudensing, Peggy Bacon, Stefan Hirsch, Gertrude Stein, Isamu Noguchi, Jasper Johns, Chaim Soutine, B. K. Saklatwalla; Fernand Leger, Pablo Picasso, Ben Shahn, Charles Demuth, Alexander Calder, Jackson Pollock, Edward Steichen, Carl Sandburg, Clement Greenberg, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Edith Halpert (1900-1970) was an art dealer from New York, N.Y.
General:
Originally recorded on 7 tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 27 digital wav files. Duration is 32 hrs., 27 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art 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. The transcript was microfilmed in 1996.
Research material compiled in preparation for Seiberling's dissertation on Bellows, "George Bellows, 1882-1925: His Life and Development as an Artist" (University of Chicago, 1948).
Included are Seiberling's correspondence, 1934-1962, with Guy Pène du Bois, Walt Kuhn, Leon Kroll and Mrs. George Bellows; typescript copies of letters by George Bellows, a few compiled by Leon Kroll; writings, including Seiberling's dissertation and writings on Bellows by John Russell Taylor; research notes; clippings and exhibition catalogs; copyprints of photographs of Bellows, Bellows at a class taught by Robert Henri at the "Chase School," of Bellows at Henri's studio, and of works of art by Bellows, Henri, Everett Shinn and Diego Rivera.
Biographical / Historical:
Frank A. Seiberling (1908-1990) was an art historian. Bellows was a painter and a member of the Ashcan School. Member of the Eight.
Provenance:
Donated 1991 by Nancy Seiberling, widow of Frank Seiberling.
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.
Correspondence, 1888-1934, concerning Clark's paintings and exhibitions; a list of paintings owned by Congressman Brewer, handwritten by Clark; exhibition catalogs and announcements of the School of Industrial Design, Trenton, New Jersey, the Society of American Artists, New York City, the World's Columbian Exposition, 1893, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the National Academy of Design, New York City, and the American Society of Miniature Painters; an etching by William Merritt Chase; a paper fan from the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, 1876; and clippings and miscellaneous printed material.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter, portrait painter, art administrator. Born in Trenton, New Jersey. Studied with William Merritt Chase. Painted murals for the State House in New Jerey. Key in establishing Trenton's School of Industrial Design in 1890, and served for 18 years on its' board of trustees. Died in Martha's Vineyard.
Provenance:
Received 1982 through J. M. Edelstein, Librarian of the National Gallery of Art.
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.
0.02 Linear feet (ca.11,000 items (on 13 microfilm reels))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
1875-1955
Scope and Contents:
REELS NY59/20-NY59/29: Student registers, 1877-1905; ledgers, 1878-1889, attendance records, 1879-1903; model engagement books, 1878-1882; membership lists and members' meeting records, 1875-1900; press clippings, 1889-1892; constitution and by-laws, minutes, 1875-1897, and correspondence,1895-1900, of the Board of Control; instructors' expense accounts, 1904-1911; Paris prize documents, 1891-1897; supplies ordered,1897-1901; monitors record, 1897-1906; instructors expenses, 1904-1911, and printed materials, 1906-1910.
REEL 2786: A catalog of art classes for the 1886-1887 season and two programs for "The Dream Ball," 1951 and 1955.
REEL 4909: Catalog of classes for the 1885-1886 season.
REEL 1818: Copyprints of art classes at the Art Students League, ca. 1900-1940. Teachers pictured include J. Carroll Beckwith, William M. Chase, Kenyon Cox, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, John Sloan, and Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Included is a print of a women's life class at the League, ca. 1905.
Biographical / Historical:
Art school. Organized in 1875 by students as a revolt against the National Academy of Design school.
Provenance:
Material on reels NY59-20-29 lent for microfilming by the Art Students League, 1959. Items on reels 2786 and 4909 were donated, 1960. Copyprints on reel 1818 were copied from the originals lent by the Art Students League, 1972.
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.
Occupation:
Art students -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Topic:
Art -- Study and teaching -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The papers of New York painter and art instructor, William Merritt Chase, measure 0.3 linear feet and date from circa 1890 to 1964. Papers include a resolution of the Art Club of Philadelphia on Chase's death, letters, writings by Chase consisting of typescripts of lectures and lecture notes, blank postcards primarily depicting reproductions of artwork, a scrapbook, and photographs of Chase, his family, homes, and studios, and photographs of works of art.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of New York painter and art instructor, William Merritt Chase, measure 0.3 linear feet and date from circa 1890 to 1964. Papers include a resolution of the Art Club of Philadelphia on Chase's death, letters, writings by Chase consisting of typescripts of lectures and lecture notes, blank postcards primarily depicting reproductions of artwork, a scrapbook, and photographs of Chase, his family, homes, and studios, and photographs of works of art.
Letters include a photocopy of a 1901 letter signed by 28 students of the Shinnecock Summer School thanking Chase for a painting; a 1903 postcard to Mr. Harold R. Shiffer from his aunt; a 1912 letter to Chase signed by 32 pupils of the Art Students League thanking him for his efforts on their behalf and acknowledging his "qualities of sympathy, interest, and an understanding of our individual needs;" a 1915 note from an unidentified writer; a 1920 letter to Chase's wife Alice, from Gertrude Abbey, wife of Edwin Austin Abbey, referencing a tile possibly created by Edwin Abbey that Mrs. Chase owns; a 1935 postcard to Chase's daughter Helen from an unidentified writer; and a 1964 letter to Helen Storm from Ala Story in which Story describes a Chase exhibition that he is organizing and apologizes for having given a sketchbook of drawings owned by Helen to the Morgan Library.
Writings include 4 sets of lecture notes (one labeled as being notes for a lecture at Shinnecock), which are a combination of annotated typescripts and handwritten pages, and a typescript of a 1906 "Talk on the Old Masters by Mr. Chase" for the New York School of Art. Also found is a notebook with handwritten notes on a talk Chase gave to students in Philadelphia, presumably at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
Writings by others consist of a six-page typescript entitled "Reminiscences of a Student," by F. Usher De Voll, describing his experiences of Chase as a teacher.
Postcards (blank) include 3 reproductions of works of art by Chase, 8 reproductions of works of art by other artists, and 2 scenic views.
A Chase family scrapbook consists of mounted prints, primarily cyanotypes, that document Chase's travels to Rome, Milan, Gibraltar and the Loire Valley, and visits to major monuments, and also includes images of Chase and his family at leisure during their travels, as well as five family portraits.
Photographs of the Chase family include one of Chase with his son, Dana, and one of Chase with his wife, Alice, both undated. Other family members and friends are generally unidentified but do include Virginia Gerson and possibly Alice Gerson. Also found are four portraits of Chase, four photographs of Chase in his studio, a copy print of students at the Shinnecock Art School in circa 1895, and a copy print of an 1880 Tile Club trip up the Hudson River. In addition to circa 1960 copy prints, photographs include a variety of vintage prints such as albumen cabinet cards, silver gelatin prints, and a tintype.
Arrangement:
Due to the small size of the collection, the papers are arranged as 1 series.
Series 1: William Merritt Chase Papers, circa 1890-1964 (0.3 linear feet.; Box 1, OV 2)
Biographical / Historical:
William Merritt Chase (1849-1916) was one of America's most prominent painters and art instructors in New York, New York and Shinnecock, Long Island, during the late 19th century. One of the first Impressionist landscape painters in the U. S, Chase was also a highly accomplished portrait and still life painter.
Born in Indiana, Chase lived in New York and St. Louis, Missouri, before traveling to Europe and studying at the Royal Academy in Munich. After returning to New York in 1878, he taught at the Art Students League until 1896. His studio in the Tenth Street Studio building became an important gathering place for artists, students and patrons. Chase was also a member of the Tile Club whose members shared an interest in the decorative arts and sought to have their designs translated into ceramic tiles, from 1877-1887.
Chase became one of the most important teachers of American artists around the turn of the century. He opened the Shinnecock Hills Summer Art School in 1891 and taught there until 1902, living in a house at Shinnecock designed by Stanford White. In 1896 he opened the Chase School of Art and also taught at the Brooklyn Art Association in 1887, and 1891-1896, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts from 1896-1909.
Chase was a member of the National Academy of Design, and was president of the Society of American Artists from 1885 to 1895.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming. Reel N69-115 includes an additional family scrapbook, undated, containing photographs of Chase, his wife and children, a notice of sale of the Chase house in Shinnecock Hills, N.Y. designed by Stanford White, and photographs of the house. Found on reel N69-119 are circa two hundred photographs of Chase at work, his wife, his studios in Philadelphia and on 5th Avenue and 10th Street New York City, and numerous snapshots of characters in a tableau vivant that include his family, friends, Mary S. Moore Cross, and others. Reel N69-137 contains letters from Chase to his wife during his travels abroad, one note from John Singer Sargent requesting the use of Chase's studio for the famous party Sargent gave for Isabella Stewart Gardner in 1890, and a six-page typescript, "Reminiscences of a Student," by F. Usher De Voll, and photographs of Chase's studio. Loaned materials were returned to the lenders and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
The papers were received in a series of accessions between 1969 and 2010. A portion was loaned for microfilming by Robert S. Chase and Chapellier Galleries in 1969. Roger Storm, the widower of Chase's daughter Helen, donated lectures and speeches, a 1912 letter, and photocopies of a dinner menu and photos of artwork in 1969. Art collector Fred D. Bentley gave photographic copy prints of Chase's summer home, studio and art school. D. Frederick Baker, the author of the Chase catalogue raisonné, gave two letters, two postcards, the Chase family scrapbook, vintage photographs, and blank postcards in 2010. Baker received the material from Chase's estate via Chase's grandson, Jackson Case Storm.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment.
Rights:
The William Merritt Chase papers are owned by the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Literary rights as possessed by the donor have been dedicated to public use for research, study and scholarship. The collection is subject to all copyright laws.
The papers of painter Harriet Blackstone date from 1870-1984 and measure 5.4 linear feet. The collection provides documentation of Harriet Blackstone's career through scattered biographical material; personal and professional correspondence, including letters from Maria Oakey Dewing, Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Alice Tisdale Hobart, Joseph Cummings Chase, Stell Anderson, Mary Landis, Esther Morgan McCullough, and Booker T. Washington; writings by Blackstone, Esther Morgan McCullough, Richard P. Wunder, and Florence Holbrook; personal business records; clippings, exhbition material, and other printed material; one scrapbook; photographs of Blackstone, family, friends, and notable artists William Merrit Chase, Jean Paul Laurens, and John Singer Sargent; artwork; and four sketchbooks. Also found are a few artifacts found on Blackstone's easel.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 9 series.
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1930-1973 (Box 1, 6; 7 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, circa 1883-1984 (Box 1; 0.4 Linear Feet)
Series 3: Writings, 1861-1979 (Boxes 1-2; 1.0 Linear Feet)
Series 4: Personal Business Records, circa 1906-late 1930s (Box 2; 0.2 Linear Feet)
Series 5: Printed Material, 1901-1984 (Boxes 2-3, 6; 0.8 Linear Feet)
Series 6: Scrapbook, circa early 1900s (Boxes 3, 6; 0.2 Linear Feet)
Series 7: Photographs, 1870-early 1900s (Boxes 3-4, 6, BV 7, 8-9; 1.7 Linear Feet)
Series 8: Artwork, 1870-1929 (Boxes 4-5; 0.2 Linear Feet)
Series 9: Artifacts, circa early 1900s-1939 (Box 5, Artifact; 0.4 Linear Feet)
Biographical / Historical:
Harriet Blackstone (1864-1939) was a painter in New York, New York. Blackstone was born on November 13th, 1864 in New Hartford, New York. In 1883, she moved to Illinois where she became a high school elocution teacher. She did not start her studies to be an artist until 1903 when she enrolled at the Pratt Institute of Art in Brooklyn, New York. While there her art teacher was William Merritt Chase. Later, Blackstone went to the Academie Julian in Paris, France to gain more experience with Jean Paul Laurens as her instructor. Blackstone started to gain attention as a renowned artist in 1907 when her painting, Soldat de Crimée, was exhibited in The Salon, Paris.
She moved back to Glencoe, Illinois and focused more on her artwork by painting commissions and joining different art organizations, such as the Chicago Society of Artists and the Arts Club. Blackstone travelled to different locations, including Taos, New Mexico and Bruges, Belgium, to help inspire her creativity. In 1920, Blackstone moved back to New York City where she would spend the remainder of her life; she never married or had children. She died on March 16, 1939 and was survived by her brother and friends.
During her art career, Blackstone often painted portraits of well-known people and over time she developed her own style of work. Her artwork was displayed in several prominent cities in the United States: Washington, D.C., Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and New York City. Some of Blackstone's artwork became part of permanent collections, such as Soldat de Crimée, which was acquired by the National Gallery of Art in 1921, now known as the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Related Materials:
Also at the Archives of American Art is the Richard Wunder research material on Harriet Blackstone.
Provenance:
Microfilmed material transferred in 1978 from the National Collection of Fine Arts, who had acquired it in 1967 along with Harriet Blackstone's paintings from Stell Anderson, Blackstone's friend and a collector of her work. Anderson had received the papers from Blackstone's brother, Edward, in 1939. Upon Anderson's death, additional material was turned over to her niece Pat Rauchenstein, who donated them in 1989. Prior to the donation, the papers were in possession of Esther McCullough, who annotated some items and added research material in preparation for her unpublished manuscript "Harriet Blackstone, 1864-1939."
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.
Rights:
The Harriet Blackstone papers are owned by the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Literary rights as possessed by the donor have been dedicated to public use for research, study, and scholarship. The collection is subject to all copyright laws.
Topic:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Women artists -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Sketchbooks
Scrapbooks
Citation:
Harriet Blackstone papers, 1870-1984. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Glass plate negatives in this collection were digitized in 2019 with funding provided by the Smithsonian Women's Committee.
The papers of painter and teacher Douglas Volk (1856-1935) and his father, sculptor Leonard Wells Volk (1828-1895), measure 12.4 linear feet and date from circa 1858-1965, 2008, with the bulk of the material dating from circa 1870-1935. Douglas Volk's papers document his life and career through biographical material, family and professional correspondence, writings and notes, diaries and journals, financial records, printed material, scrapbooks, artwork and sketchbooks, and photographs of the artist, his family, friends, and artwork. The papers also provide documentation of the formation and operations of the Sabatos Handicraft Society established with Marion Volk from the Volk's summer home, Hewnoaks, in Center Lovell, Maine. Scattered documentation of the life and work of Leonard Wells Volk, is found in biographical material, land records, letters, memoirs, and photographs.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of painter and teacher Douglas Volk (1856-1935) and his father, sculptor Leonard Wells Volk (1828-1895), measure 12.4 linear feet and date from circa 1858-1965, 2008, with the bulk of the material dating from circa 1870-1935. Douglas Volk's papers document his life and career through biographical material, family and professional correspondence, writings and notes, diaries and journals, financial records, printed material, scrapbooks, artwork and sketchbooks, and photographs of the artist, his family, friends, and artwork. The papers also provide documentation of the formation and operations of the Sabatos Handicraft Society established with Marion Volk from the Volk's summer home, Hewnoaks, in Center Lovell, Maine. Scattered documentation of the life and work of Leonard Wells Volk, is found in biographical material, land records, letters, memoirs, and photographs.
Douglas Volk's papers form the bulk of the collection and document all stages of his life from his first visits to Europe during his teenage years, until his death. Biographical material includes address books, biographical notes, genealogical records of Volk's family, and a warranty deed for land purchased by Marion Volk in Center Lovell, Maine, in 1904.
Family correspondence is primarily between Douglas and Marion throughout their courtship and marriage, but also includes letters from other family members including daughter Marion Volk Bridge and sons Wendell and Gerome Volk. General correspondence is with colleagues, art galleries, societies, institutions and museums, schools and colleges, government agencies, and others. Also found are letters from artists including George de Forest Brush, Elliott Daingerfield, Cass Gilbert, Philip Leslie Hale, Swedish woodcarver Karl von Rydingsvard, and J. Alden Weir; and friends Felix Adler and Percival Chubb.
Douglas Volk's writings and notes are on art, art instruction for children, and the significance and influence of his father's work, particularly Leonard Volk's Lincoln life mask, and include drafts of his monograph "Art Instruction in Public Schools."
Diaries and journals record details of Volk's early art education in Europe, including his friendships with Eugene Benson and George de Forest Brush and others, his time spent studying under Jean-Léon Gérôme at the École des Beaux Arts, his appointment by the National Art Committee to paint portraits of World War I era politicians and military figures, and his Lincoln portrait painted just prior to Volk's death.
Financial records document day-to-day routine expense, as well as sales of artwork and other art-related transactions.
Printed material and a scrapbook of clippings and letters include press coverage of Douglas Volk's career from the early 1900s to 1918. An additional scrapbook provides documentation of the Sabatos Handicraft Society, including a copy of one of only three known editions of the society's publication The Fire Fly. Artwork includes sketches, two small oil paintings, and fifteen sketchbooks of Douglas Volk.
Photographs include portraits taken at various stages of Volk's career, family photographs, photographs of the main house at Hewnoaks and additional buildings, photographs of several artists including William Merritt Chase and Karl von Rydinsgsvard, photographs of world leaders including David Lloyd George, King Albert of Belgium, and General John J. Pershing, and photographs of artwork.
The papers of Leonard Wells Volk include seven volumes of his hand-written memoirs which document his relationship with Stephen A. Douglas, his first meeting with Lincoln, and his involvement with the Chicago Academy of Design. Also found are three letters including one written to Douglas Volk in 1887, and a memorandum related to the value of Leonard Wells Volk's Lincoln and Douglas statues at the Illinois State House. Photographs include three of Leonard Wells Volk, photographs of other family members including his wife Emily, photos of houses and woodland scenes, and photos of artwork.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 2 series.
Series 1: Douglas Volk Papers, circa 1870-1965, 2008 (11.85 linear feet; Boxes 1-12, 15-16, OVs 13-14)
Series 2: Leonard Wells Volk Papers, circa 1858-circa 1930 (0.45 linear feet; Boxes 11-12)
Biographical / Historical:
Chicago sculptor Leonard Wells Volk (1828-1895) created one of only two life masks of Abraham Lincoln. His son, painter and teacher Douglas Volk (1856-1935), was known for his figure and portrait paintings. Douglas Volk and his wife Marion Larrabee Volk established the Sabatos Handicraft Society, producing homespun woolen rugs and textiles from their summer home in Center Lovell, Maine.
Leonard Wells Volk was raised in New York State and Massachusetts, before moving to St. Louis to learn modeling and drawing. Around 1852 he married Emily Clarissa King Barlow, a cousin of Senator Stephen A. Douglas. Douglas took an interest in Volk's career and helped finance his trip to Rome and Florence between 1855 and 1857, where Volk studied art. On returning from Europe Volk settled in Chicago, opening a studio there and establishing himself as a leader in art circles and a founder of the Chicago Academy of Design. He served as president of the Academy (later the School of the Art Institute of Chicago) for eight years. Volk recorded his first meeting with Lincoln during the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates, and the subsequent 1860 sittings with Lincoln for the life mask, hands, and bust, in his memoirs. The mask served as a model for many sculptors who made later portraits of Lincoln. Volk's other important works include the Rock Island County Soldier's Monument in Rochester, New York (1869), statues of Lincoln and Douglas for the Illinois Statehouse (1876), a bust of Douglas, and the Douglas Tomb monument (1881) in Chicago.
Douglas Volk was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in 1856. His artistic education began in his teens when he traveled to Europe with his family. In the early 1870s he lived in Rome and Venice, spending time with his friends George de Forest Brush and J. Alden Weir. He moved to Paris in 1873 where he studied at the École des Beaux Arts with Jean-Léon Gérôme, and exhibited his first picture, In Brittany, at the 1875 Paris Salon.
In 1879 Volk returned to the United States and accepted a teaching position at Cooper Union. He was elected to the Society of American Artists in 1880 and married Marion Larrabee in 1881. In 1883 Volk became a founder of the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts and was appointed the first president of the subsequent Minneapolis School of Fine Arts in 1886, a position he held until 1893. During his time in Minneapolis, Volk purchased a summer studio and retreat in Osceola, Wisconsin, and he and Marion had four children: Leonard (1882-1891), Wendell (1884-1953), Marion (1888-1973) and Gerome (1890-1959).
In 1893 Volk returned to New York and accepted a position at the Art Students League, where he taught from 1893-1898, and also resumed his post at Cooper Union. He became interested in innovative ways to teach art and art history to children, and in 1895 the National Academy of Design printed his essay "A Plea for Art in the Public Schools," in its annual exhibition catalog. He was elected an associate of the Academy in 1898, becoming a full academician in 1899.
In 1898, looking to provide the family with a summer retreat, Marion Volk purchased property with a friend in Center Lovell, Maine, an area already enjoyed by the couple's friends, George de Forest Brush and Percival Chubb. The property was divided in 1901 and Marion added to her half creating a lot of approximately twenty-five acres. The Volks renovated the house, which they named Hewnoaks, and eventually built four more cottages and a studio for Douglas Volk on the property. During this period Marion Volk was working with handwoven wool on traditional area looms using fruit and vegetable hand-dyes and designs based on motifs from Native American art. In 1902 the Volks held the founding meeting of the Sabatos Handicraft Society at Hewnoaks, and the property became the hub of a Center Lovell community effort to produce rugs, textiles, and other handicrafts using traditional methods. Daughter Marion worked with her mother, and son Wendell, a printmaker and woodcaver, operated the Hewn Beam Press, printing pamphlets and a newsletter entitled the Fire Fly: A Periodical of Fearless Endeavour. Swedish-born wood carver Karl von Rydingsvard offered classes on wood carving at Hewnoaks, assisted by Wendell Volk.
Douglas Volk worked to make the Hewnoaks handicraft movement a success, but focused primarily on his own painting. The Maine woods provided endless inspiration and the setting for many of his paintings and murals, which primarily depicted romanticized historical subjects in Colonial America and reflected his traditional academic training. One of his best known works, The Boy with the Arrow (1903), a portrait of his son Leonard "Leo" Volk who died at the age of eight, is now in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Volk taught at the National Academy of Design from 1910-1917. He served as recording secretary and then on the council for the organization from 1910-1919. His acclaimed intimate portraits of friends and acquaintances, including Felix Adler (1914) and William Macbeth (1917), were painted during this period. In 1919 Volk was one of a group of artists commissioned by the National Art Committee to paint major figures from World War I. He subsequently painted portraits of King Albert of Belgium, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, and General John J. Pershing, and recorded his meetings and sittings with the three men in his journals.
For the last fifteen years of his life Volk, using his father's life mask, painted a series of portraits of Abraham Lincoln, one of which hangs in the Lincoln Bedroom at The White House.
At least fifteen years prior to her death in 1925, Marion Volk's involvement in handicrafts at Hewnoaks declined, while Douglas Volk continued to focus on his own work. Wendell Volk's career in civil engineering took precedence over his interest in weaving and woodcarving and both he and his brother Gerome moved West in 1909. Following Douglas Volk's death in Fryeburg, Maine in 1935, Wendell Volk and his wife Jessie, also an artist, ultimately took possession of Hewnoaks. Wendell died in 1953, but the property was eventually bequeathed by Jessie Volk to the University of Maine and now operates as an artist colony.
Separated Materials:
Volumes 1, 3, 6-7, 9, and 10 of Leonard Volk's memoirs form part of the Alfred Whital Stern Collection of Lincolniana in the Library of Congress.
The Archives of American Art also holds material lent for microfilming (reel 4280) including correspondence of Leonard Volk and photographs of his artwork. Lent materials were returned to the lender and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
The George Arents Research Library, Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York first lent material for microfilming in 1989. Most of the material was then donated in 2004–2005 by Jessie J. Volk, the daughter-in-law of Douglas Volk, who also bequeathed the Volk estate including additional Volk papers to the University of Maine. In 2006, University officials arranged for an auction of much of the property of the estate including the remaining family papers. The Volk Family estate auction was conducted by Cyr Auction Co., in Gray, Maine, on July 19, 2006. Several individuals purchased parts of the papers at that auction and subsequently donated them to the Archives. Those donors are: David Wright, who acquired the 1875 journal and Brush letters and donated them to the Archives in 2006; Dr. Christine Isabelle Oaklander, who purchased the account book, 1873–1875, and donated it to the Archives in honor of Judith Ellen Throm in 2007, and also donated additional letters and a photograph in 2008; and Mary K. and John F. McGuigan Jr., who purchased correspondence (1120 letters), speeches, lectures, articles, checks, check stubs and miscellaneous items and donated them to the Archives in 2015. In 2007, the University of Maine Foundation via Amos Orcutt donated the 1934 journal and 60 photographs.
John F. McGuigan Jr. and Mary K. McGuigan have purchased and donated additional archival materials to the Archives, including the Mary K. McGuigan and John F. McGuigan Jr. artists' letters collection, and 69 letters now among the Sylvester Rosa Koehler papers.
In 2007, the University of Maine Foundation via Amos Orcutt donated the 1934 journal and 60 photographs that were part of the Volk Family estate, but not included in the June 19, 2006 auction.
In 2019 Dr. Christine Isabelle Oaklander donated additional material purchased at auction, primarily photographs and some printed material.
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.
Rights:
The Douglas Volk and Leonard Wells Volk papers are owned by the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Literary rights as possessed by the donor have been dedicated to public use for research, study, and scholarship. The collection is subject to all copyright laws.
Letters to Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Carnegie. Included are four from Edwin A. Abbey concerning the price of one of his paintings and accepting an invitation to visit, one from William M. Chase accepting an invitation, one from Ben Foster praising a portrait which Mr. Roche has painted of Mrs. Carnegie, two from F. D. Millet and two from Cass Gilbert accepting invitations, six from Frank O. Salisbury about a portrait Salisbury painted of Andrew Carnegie, one from Samuel Longfellow explaining that he mistakenly informed Carnegie that a watercolor was by Lord Elgin when in fact it was by Lord Dufferin, and one from George H. Boughton writing for a mutual friend.
Biographical / Historical:
Industrialist, philanthropist.
Provenance:
Microfilmed 1956 by the Archives of American Art with other art-related papers in the Manuscript Division of the New York Public Library. Included in the microfilming project were selected papers of the Art Division and the Prints Division.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
A collection of artists' papers containing correspondence, notes, biographical material, exhibition catalogs, and other published material. Includes:
volume of notes, drawings, and calculations made by George Bellows for a study of Jay Hambidge's theory of Dynamic Symmetry; correspondence and published and unpublished biographical and critical material on George de Forest Brush, Childe Hassam, Francis D. Millet, Joseph Pennell, Elihu Vedder, and J. Q. A. Ward. The Hassam papers are particularly voluminous, with letters from John Taylor Arms, E. H. Blashfield, William Merritt Chase, Royal Cortissoz, J. Alden Weir, and Charles Erskine Scott Wood. All groups contain official Academy correspondence from its secretary Robert Underwood Johnson.
Biographical / Historical:
Organized 1904, incorporated 1914; New York, N.Y. The American Academy of Arts and Letters was established "to afford recognition to distinguished achievement in literature and the fine arts...." [The American Academy of Arts and Letters and the National Institute of Arts and Letters merged on Dec. 30, 1976].
Provenance:
This is a collection of miscellaneous papers representing a gathering over the years of unsolicited documentary resources on American art given or addressed to the Academy.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Topic:
Art -- Societies, etc. -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Function:
Learned institutions and societies -- United States
The papers of the painter, muralist, and illustrator John White Alexander measure 11.9 linear feet and date from 1775 to 1968, with the bulk of materials dating from 1870 to 1915. Papers document Alexander's artistic career and many connections to figures in the art world through biographical documentation, correspondence (some illustrated), writings, 14 sketchbooks, additonal artwork and loose sketches, scrapbooks, photographs, awards and medals, artifacts, and other records. Also found is a souvenir engraving of a Mark Twain self-portrait.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of the painter, muralist, and illustrator John White Alexander measure 11.9 linear feet and date from 1775 to 1968, with the bulk of materials dating from 1870 to 1915. Papers document Alexander's artistic career and many connections to figures in the art world through biographical documentation, correspondence (some illustrated), writings, 14 sketchbooks, additonal artwork and loose sketches, scrapbooks, photographs, awards and medals, artifacts, and other records. Also found is a souvenir engraving of a Mark Twain self-portrait.
Biographical Information includes multiple essays related to Alexander, his family, and others in his circle. Also found is an extensive oral history of Alexander's wife Elizabeth conducted in 1928. Correspondence includes letters written by Alexander to his family from New York and Europe at the start of his career, and later letters from fellow artists, art world leaders, and portrait sitters of Alexander's. Significant correspondents include Charles Dana Gibson, Florence Levy, Frederick Remington, Robert Louis Stevenson, Henry James, John La Farge, Francis Davis Millet, and Andrew Carnegie. Correspondence includes some small sketches as enclosures and illustrated letters.
Certificates and records related to Alexander's career are found in Associations and Memberships, Legal and Financial Records, and Notes and Writings, which contain documentation of Alexander's paintings and exhibitions. Scattered documentation of Alexander's memberships in various arts association exists for the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Academy in Rome, the National Academy of Design, the Onteora Club in New York, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, Germany, the Ministère de L'Instruction Publique et des Beaux-Arts, the Union Internationale des Beaux Arts et des Lettres, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Notes and Writings include speeches written by Alexander, short stories and essays written by his wife, and articles by various authors about Alexander. Extensive documentation of the planning and construction of the Alexander Memorial Studio by the MacDowell Club is found, along with other awards, medals, and memorial resolutions adopted by arts organizations after Alexander's death.
Artwork includes fourteen sketchbooks with sketches related to Alexander's commercial illustration and cartooning, murals, paintings, and travels. Dozens of loose drawings and sketches are also found, along with two volumes and several dozen loose reproductions of artwork, among which are found fine prints by named printmakers. Many sketches are also interspersed throughout the correspondence. Eight Scrapbooks contain mostly clippings, but also scattered letters, exhbition catalogs, announcements, invitations, and photographs related to Alexander's career between 1877 and 1915. Additional Exhibition Catalogs and later clippings, as well as clippings related to the career of his wife and other subjects, are found in Printed Materials.
Photographs include many portraits of Alexander taken by accomplished photographers such as Zaida Ben-Yusuf, Aimé Dupont, Curtis Bell, Elizabeth Buehrmann, and several signed Miss Huggins, who may have been Estelle Huntington Huggins, a New York painter and photographer. Portraits of others include Alexander's friends William Merritt Chase and Edward Austin Abbey. Also found are photographs of groups, juries, family, friends, and studios in New York, Paris, and New Jersey, and a handful of scenic photographs of Polling, Bavaria, where Alexander had an early studio. A large number of photographs of works of art are found, many with annotations. Among the photographs of murals are a small collection of snapshots of the Carnegie Institute murals in progress. Miscellaneous artifacts include a palette, several printing plates, and an inscribed souvenir engraving of a self-portrait caricature of Mark Twain.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into 11 series. Glass plate negatives are housed separately and closed to researchers.
Series 1: Biographical Information, circa 1887-1968 (Box 1, OV 23; 0.1 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, circa 1870-1942 (Box 1; 0.7 linear feet)
Series 3: Associations and Memberships, circa 1897-1918 (Box 1; 2 folders)
Series 4: Legal and Financial Records, 1775, 1896-1923 (Box 1; 5 folders)
Series 5: Notes and Writings, circa 1875-1943 (Boxes 1-2; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 6: Awards and Memorials, circa 1870-1944 (Box 2, OV 24; 0.8 linear feet)
Series 7: Artwork, circa 1875-1915 (Boxes 2-3, 6, 14-16, OV 23; 1.5 linear feet)
Series 8: Scrapbooks, circa 1877-1915 (Boxes 17-22; 1.8 linear feet)
Series 9: Printed Materials, circa 1891-1945 (Boxes 3-4, OV 23; 1.5 linear feet)
Series 10: Photographs, circa 1870-1915 (Boxes 4-8, MGP 1-2, OV 25-43, RD 44-45; 4.2 linear feet)
Series 11: Artifacts, circa 1899-1915 (Box 6, artifact cabinet; 0.4 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
John White Alexander was born in 1856 in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania. He was orphaned at age five and taken in by relatives of limited means. When Alexander left school and began working at a telegraph company, the company's vice-president, former civil war Colonel Edward Jay Allen, took an interest in his welfare. Allen became his legal guardian, brought him into the Allen household, and saw that he finished Pittsburgh High School. At eighteen, he moved to New York City and was hired by Harper and Brothers as an office boy in the art department. He was soon promoted to apprentice illustrator under staff artists such as Edwin A. Abbey and Charles Reinhart. During his time at Harpers, Alexander was sent out on assignment to illustrate events such as the Philadelphia Centennial celebration in 1876 and the Pittsburgh Railroad Strike in 1877, which erupted in violence.
Alexander carefully saved money from his illustration work and traveled to Europe in 1877 for further art training. He first enrolled in the Royal Art Academy of Munich, Germany, but soon moved to the village of Polling, where a colony of American artists was at its peak in the late 1870s. Alexander established a painting studio there and stayed for about a year. Despite his absence from the Munich Academy, he won the medal of the drawing class for 1878, the first of many honors. While in Polling, he became acquainted with J. Frank Currier, Frank Duveneck, William Merritt Chase, and other regular visitors to the colony. He later shared a studio and taught a painting class in Florence with Duveneck and traveled to Venice, where he met James Abbott McNeill Whistler.
Alexander returned to New York in 1881 and resumed his commercial artwork for Harpers and Century. Harpers sent him down the Mississippi river to complete a series of sketches. He also began to receive commissions for portraits, and in the 1880s painted Charles Dewitt Bridgman, a daughter of one of the Harper brothers, Parke Godwin, Thurlow Weed, Walt Whitman, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. Alexander met his wife Elizabeth, whose maiden name was also Alexander, through her father, James W. Alexander, who was sometimes mistaken for the artist. Elizabeth and John White Alexander married in 1887 and had a son, James, in 1888.
Alexander and his family sailed for France in 1890, where they became a part of the lively literary and artistic scene in Paris at the time. Among their many contacts there were Puvis de Chavannes, Auguste Rodin, and Whistler, who arrived in Paris shortly thereafter. Alexander absorbed the new aesthetic ideas around him such as those of the symbolists and the decorative style of art nouveau. Critics often note how such ideas are reflected in his boldly composed paintings of women from this period, who titles drew attention to the sensual and natural elements of the paintings. His first exhibition in Paris was three paintings at the Société Nationale des Beaux Arts in 1893, and by 1895 he has become a full member of the Société.
Independent and secession artist societies emerged throughout Europe during this period, and Alexander exhibited with several of them, including the Société Nouvelle in Paris, the Munich Secession, and the Vienna Secession. He was also elected an honorary member of the Royal Society of Belgian Artists and the Royal Society of British Painters in London. His exhibited works sold well, and his influence began to be felt back in the United States. Andrew Carnegie and John Beatty of the Carnegie Institute consulted closely with Alexander in the planning and execution of the first Carnegie International Exhibitions. Alexander also became active in supporting younger American artists who wanted to exhibit in Europe, a stance which resulted in his resignation from the Society of American Artists in Paris, which he felt had become a barrier to younger artists. His promotion of American art became an central aspect of his career for the remainder of his life, most visibly through his presidency of the National Academy of Design from 1909 until shortly before his death in 1915. He also served frequently on juries for high-profile exhibitions, and was a trustee at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Public Library, and the national Institute of Arts and Letters. Around 1912, he helped to form the School Art League in New York, which provided art instruction to high school students.
Alexander returned to the United States nearly every summer while based in Paris, and among his commissioned paintings were murals for the newly-constructed Library of Congress, completed around 1896. In 1901, the Alexanders returned to New York permanently. The demand for portraits continued, and he had his first solo exhibition at the Durand-Ruel Galleries in 1902. Around 1905 he received a commission for murals at the new Carnegie Institute building in Pittsburgh for the astounding sum of $175,000. He created 48 panels there through 1908. During this period, the Alexanders spent summers in Onteora, New York, where Alexander painted his well-known "Sunlight" paintings. There they became friends and collaborators with the actress Maude Adams, with Alexander designing lighting and stage sets, and Elizabeth Alexander designing costumes for Adams' productions such as Peter Pan, the Maid of Orleans, and Chanticleer. The couple became known for their "theatricals" or tableaux, staged at the MacDowell Club and elsewhere, and Elizabeth Alexander continued her design career when her husband died in 1915.
Alexander left several commissions unfinished upon his death at age 59, including murals in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Elizabeth Alexander held a memorial exhibition at Arden Galleries a few months after his death, and a larger memorial exhibition was held by the Carnegie Institute in 1916. Alexander won dozens of awards for artwork in his lifetime, including the Lippincott Prize at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1899, the Gold Medal of Honor at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1900, the Gold Medal at the Panama Pacific Exposition of 1901, and the Medal of the First Class at the Carnegie Institute International Exhibition in 1911. In 1923, the Alexander Memorial Studio was built at the MacDowell colony in New Hampshire to honor his memory.
Provenance:
Papers were donated in 1978 and 1981 by Irina Reed, Alexander's granddaughter and in 2017 by Elizabeth Reed, Alexander's great grandaughter.
Restrictions:
Use of the original papers requires an appointment. Glass plate negatives are housed separately and closed to researchers.
Rights:
The John White Alexander papers are owned by the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Literary rights as possessed by the donor have been dedicated to public use for research, study, and scholarship. The collection is subject to all copyright laws.
Topic:
Muralists -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Portrait painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
John White Alexander papers, 1775-1968, bulk 1870-1915. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art. Glass plate negatives in this collection were digitized in 2019 with funding provided by the Smithsonian Women's Committee.
Letters to the Sterners, primarily regarding art and cultural matters.
Letters are from: John Barbirolli, George G. Barnard, Cecelia Beaux, George Bellows, Emile Bourdelle, Poultney Bigelow, Emma Calve, William M. Chase, Winston Churchill, Constance Collier, John Dewey, Gerald du Maurier, John Drew, James N. Dunn, Joseph Duveen, Elsie Ferguson, Arnold Genthe, Charles D. Gibson, Warren G. Harding, Charles W. Hawthorne, Robert Henri, Walter Hampden, Oliver Herford, Leslie Howard, Sir Henry Irving, Eva Le Gallienne, Julie Marlow, Philip Merivale, Maurice Mozkowski, Alla Nazimova, Joseph Pennell, Raphael Pompelli, Howard Pyle, Theodore Roosevelt, John S. Sargent, G. Bernard Shaw, Sir Herbert B. Tree, Mary A. Ward, J. Alden Weir, Edith Wharton, Francis Wilson, and Israel Zangwill.
Biographical / Historical:
Illustrator and painter; New York City. Sterner's wife, Marie, was an art dealer.
Provenance:
Microfilmed 1956 by the Archives of American Art with other art-related papers in the Manuscript Division of the New York Public Library. Included in the microfilming project were selected papers of the Art Division and the Prints Division.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Occupation:
Art dealers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Illustrators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Papers mainly relate to Pisano's research on William Merrit Chase including lectures, articles, notes, photographs, slides, book manuscripts, photocopies, and Pisano's research on Chase in Holland and interviews with Chase's students including Ethel Paxson, Caroline van Hook Bean, and James Daugherty on casssette. Also included are subject files, correspondence and writings relating to Pisano's research on late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century American art.
Subject files include the American Fakirs Society; Art Students League and Cape Cod; Reynolds Beal; Bechtel collection; Daniel Putnam Brinley; James Britton; Eliot Clark; Kenyon Cox; Leon Dabo; Stuart Davis; William de Leftwich Dodge; Gaines Ruger Donoho; Louis Eilshemius; Fillin collection; Ellen Thayer Fisher; Eva Gatling; William Clackens; Charles Hawthorne; Joel Heller collection; Whitney Hubbard; "Idle Hours: Americans at Leisure, 1865-1914"; Frederick Kost; Robert Henry Logan; Long Island landscape painting; Bena Frank Mayer; Charles Henry Miller; National Association of Women Artists; Parrish Art Museum; Pastel Society of America; Ethel Paxson; George Picken; Edith and Henry Prellwitz and the Peconic Art Colony; Chauncey Ryder; Alice Schille; the Shinnecock Summer School of Art; sports in art; Haig Tashian collection; the Tile Club; Eugene Paul Ullman; Irving R. Wiles; "Waterworks: The Long Island Legacy"; Frank Wadsworth; Stokely Webster; Jane Wilson; Woodstock; and Chen Yi Ming.
Wiritngs include Pisano's book proposal for Don't Argue, Paint, 1989. Correspondence is with museums and art collectors. Also included are condolence letters to D. Frederick Baker, Pisano's partner, regarding Pisano's death.
Biographical / Historical:
Ronald Pisano (1948-2000) was an art historian, curator, museum director and art consultant in New York, N.Y. Pisano specialized in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century American art. He was an expert on William Merritt Chase.
Provenance:
Donated 2002-2010 by D. Frederick Baker, Ronald Pisano's partner, Baker-Pisano collection.
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:
Art historians -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
