An interview of George Biddle conducted in 1963, by Harlan Phillips, for the Archives of American Art.
Biddle speaks of his background in Philadelphia; his Harvard education in preparation for a law career; literary acquaintances; travel; the beginning of his art career; his preoccupation with portraiture; his tragic and pleasant works; the importance of mood; his drawing techniques; drawing from nature; color experimentation; Stieglitz's circle; the susceptibility of artists to change during the 1930s; his involvement with the Public Works of Art Project; government censorship of his murals; his involvement with artists overseas during World War II; and his aesthetic philosophy. He recalls Max Weber, Maurice Sterne, George Grosz, William Zorach, Kenneth Hayes Miller, Peggy Bacon, Marsden Hartley, Charles Demuth, Edith Halpert, Boardman Robinson, Reginald Marsh, Thomas Hart Benton, Henry Billings, Ned Bruce, Holger Cahill, Philip Evergood, Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco, David Siqueiros, and Rufino Tamayo.
Biographical / Historical:
George Biddle (1885-1973) was a painter and sculptor, in Croton-on-Hudson, New York.
General:
Originally recorded 3 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 9 digital wav files. Duration is 13 hr., 56 min.
Provenance:
Conducted as part of the Archives of American Art's New Deal and the Arts project, which includes over 400 interviews of artists, administrators, historians, and others involved with the federal government's art programs and the activities of the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s and early 1940s.
Restrictions:
This interview is open for research. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Correspondence, printed material, writings, and other personal papers collected by Carl Zigrosser and Leila Mechlin and later added to by others, all relating to American art.
REELS P10-P11 and P14: Letters to Leila Mechlin, Henry Schnakenberg and Hudson Walker. Correspondents include Robert Abbe, John Taylor Arms, Cecelia Beaux, Paul Bartlett, Gifford Beal, Paul Cadmus, Charles Curran, Royal Cortissoz, Kenyon Cox, Philip Evergood, John David Graham, Reginald Marsh, Joseph Pennell, John Sloan and many others. Some letters include printed material and photographs. Mechlin material includes writings, photographs and letters from Mary Augusta Mullikin describing her life and travels in China, 1933. Also included are letters from Adolph Dehn and Jose de Creeft to Juliana Force; from Ernest Haskell and Kenneth Hayes Miller to Carl Zigrosser; miscellaneous letters from Marc Chagall, Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Louis Eilshemius and Childe Hassam; an autobiography of William Sartain; and material on Thomas Eakins, including letters, a list of expenses, 1867, and motion study material,including writings, sketches and photographs taken with a camera invented by Eakins.
REEL 4547: Charles Burchfield letters; Susan and Thomas Eakins material; Jacques Lipchitz correspondence; Henry McCarter letters; and Carl Zigrosser correspondence. The Burchfield letters consist of 41 items, 1929-1947, from Burchfield regarding exhibitions, sales, and his paintings. The Eakins material includes letters from Susan Eakins to the Milch Galleries, 1933-1935, regarding the sale of Thomas Eakins' work, receipts from the Milch Galleries, Thomas' expense book, ca. 1866, for daily living in Paris and Switzerland and an autographed account of expenses while at school in Paris, April 12, 1867, a photograph of Susan Eakins by Carl van Vechten, a photograph of Eakins, and 71 engraved portraits from the collection of Thomas Eakins.
The Lipchitz correspondence is with R. Sturgis Ingersoll regarding Lipchitz's commission for the sculpture "Prometheus." Also included are 8 letters from Curt Valentin to Ingersoll regarding Lipchitz. The McCarter material includes 66 letters, 1933-1942, some containing sketches, from McCarter to Mrs. George B. Roberts regarding paintings, frames, exhibitions, and offering painting advice. The Zigrosser correspondence is regarding the purchase of prints from the regional projects of the WPA for the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and later included in the exhibition "Between Two Wars" at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Included are invoices and inventories of the prints from the various offices.
Provenance:
Material on reels P10-P11 and P14 lent for microfilming, 1954, by the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Additional material on reel 4547 was microfilmed in 1991 as part of AAA's Philadelphia Arts Documentation Project. The idea for the archives originated with Carl Zigrosser, who donated material, solicited it from others (mainly Henry Schnakenberg, Leila Mechlin and Hudson Walker), or pulled it from the files of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Museum continues to add to the collection. It is not connected to the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Rights:
Authorization to publish, quote or reproduce requires written permission from Philadelphia Museum of Art Archives. Contact Reference Services for more information.
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
REELS N591-N597: Photographs of the Museum, Juliana Force, Herman Moore; scrapbooks on the Whitney Studio Club, Whitney Studio Galleries and the Museum, 1927-1965.
REELS N599-N604: Notebooks of Edwin W. Dickinson; photographs and provenance information for works by Philip Evergood; a catalog of information and some photographs of Chinese ink drawings and other works by Reginald Marsh; and photographs and information on Bernard Reder, Jack Tworkov, Max Weber (portions also microfilmed on reel NY59-8 (fr. 497-658), reel NY59-9 (fr. 1-51), and William Zorach.
REELS N604-N609: Exhibition catalogs, 1946-1966, for artists and groups shows at the Museum, including Robert Feke, William Rimmer, Ralph Blakelock, Albert Maurer, Albert Pinkham Ryder, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Thomas Cole, Max Weber, Arshile Gorky, Mark Tobey, John Sloan, Loren MacIver, I. Rice Pereira, George Grosz, Reginald Marsh, Charles Burchfield, Morris Graves, Theodore Roszak, John Marin, Hans Hofmann, Bradley Tomlin, Stuart Davis, Milton Avery, Lee Gatch, Jose De Creeft, Maurice Prendergast, Edward Hopper, Hyman Bloom, Robert E. Jones, Balcomb Greene, Karl Zerbe, Arthur G. Dove, William Zorach, Philip Evergood, Bernard Reder, Herbert Feber, Oliver O'Connor Barrett,Arthur B. Davies, Jose De Rivera, Paul Burlin, Joseph Stella, Jack Tworkov, Ivan Albright, Stuart Davis, Edwin Dickinson, John Quidor, and Niles Spencer.
REELS N646-N694: Artists' files on: Oliver O'Connor Barrett,William Baziotes, George Bellows, Thomas Hart Benton, Peter Blume, James Brooks, Patrick Henry Bruce, Charles Burchfield, Paul Burlin, David Burliuk, Paul Cadmus, Mary Cassatt, Thomas Cole, Glenn Coleman, Jon Corbino, John Steuart Curry, Jo Davidson, Arthur B. Davies, Jose DeCreeft, Charles Demuth, Jose De Rivera, Arthur Dove, Guy Pène du Bois, Stuart Davis, Frank Duveneck, Ralph Earl, Eastman Johnson, The Eight, Philip Evergood, Robert Feke, Lyonel Feininger, Ernest Fiene, George Fuller, Lee Gatch, William Glackens, Arshile Gorky, Balcomb Greene, Chaim Gross, George Grosz, William Harnett, Marsden Hartley, Childe Hassam, John Heliker, Robert Henri, Hans Hofmann, George Inness, Leon Kelly, Franz Kline, Karl Knaths, Leon Kroll, Walt Kuhn, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Gaston Lachaise, Robert Laurent, Ernest Lawson, Jack Levine, Seymour Lipton, George B. Luks,
Stanton Macdonald-Wright, Loren MacIver, John Marin, Reginald Marsh, Alfred Maurer, K. H. Miller, Robert Motherwell, William Mount, Jerome Myers, Louise Nevelson, Georgia O'Keeffe (portions also microfilmed on reels NY59-13 (fr. 98-115, 406-424, 586-685), reel NY59-14 (entire), and reel NY59-15 (fr. 1-140, 145-153), I. Rice Pereira, Bernard Perlin, Joseph Pollett, Jackson Pollock, Reginald Pollack, Henry V. Poor, Richard Pousette-Dart, Maurice Prendergast, Abraham Rattner, Bernard Reder, Ad Reinhardt, William Rimmer, Larry Rivers, Hugo Robus, Theodore Roszak, Mark Rothko, Concetta Scarvaglione, Henry Schnakenberg, Ben Shahn, John Sloan, David Smith, Eugene Speicher, Theodoros Stamos, Joseph Stella, Maurice Sterne, Mark Tobey, Bradley Tomlin,Trajan, Allen Tucker, John Twachtman, Jack Tworkov, Abraham Walkowitz (also on reel NY/59-15) , Max Weber, James M. Whistler, Gertrude Whitney, Grant Wood, Alexander Wyant, Mahonri Young, and William Zorach.
REELS NWH 1-NWH 7: Artist files on Charles Sheeler, Bernard Karfiol, Louis Eilshemius; scatterred records of the Whitney Studio Club and Museum, 1914-1945, including minutes, Oct. 15, 1930, and Whitney Studio ledgers, 1928-1931; catalogs of one-man shows, 1932-1945; catalogs of annual painting exhibitions, 1932-1940, sculpture, watercolor and drawing exhibitions, 1933-1945, and group exhibitions, 1932-1945; and clippings, Oct. 1935-1936.
REELS NY59/8 (fr. 256-end)-NY59/10: Files on Max Weber, including biographical material, lists of work, and miscellany. Also found (NY59/8 frames 354-383) are ca.20 letters from Weber to Abraham Walkowitz, 1907-1924.
Biographical / Historical:
Whitney Museum of American Art is an American art museum in New York, New York. Founded by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and formally opened in 1931. Previous to its opening as a museum it was known as the Whitney Studio Club (1914-28) and Whitney Studio Galleries (1928-30).
Provenance:
The Weber files on reels NY59/8-10 were lent for microfilming 1959 by the Whitney Museum of American Art; the remainder was lent 1964-1967; additional material from the Museum was lent at the same time, and subsequently donated, including the papers of Lloyd Goodrich, Juliana Force, Thomas B. Clarke, the American Art Research Council, and Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney; these have each been cataloged separately. Portions of Weber, and O'Keeffe material that was microfilmed in 1959 were refilmed in 1967.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Topic:
Art, Modern -- 20th century -- United States Search this
Artists -- Exhibitions -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The papers of art historian, writer, and museum administrator Lloyd Goodrich measure 35.7 linear feet and date from 1884 to 1987 with the bulk of the material dating from 1927 to 1987. Materials include biographical material, extensive correspondence, writings and research files, organization and committee files, exhibition files, printed material, a scrapbook, and photographic material. The collection is particularly rich in research files on Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, Albert Pinkham Ryder, and Reginald Marsh, as well as correspondence with additional notable artists and art figures.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of art historian, writer, and museum administrator Lloyd Goodrich measure 35.7 linear feet and date from 1884 to 1987 with the bulk of the material dating from 1927 to 1987. Materials include biographical material, extensive correspondence, writings and research files, organization and committee files, exhibition files, printed material, a scrapbook, and photographic material. The collection is particularly rich in research files on Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, Albert Pinkham Ryder, and Reginald Marsh, as well as correspondence with additional notable artists and art figures.
Scattered biographical materials include biographical sketches, an interview transcript, personal business records, documents relating to Goodrich's service on art juries, and awards and honors.
Correspondence is with friends, family, artists, museums, collectors, galleries, and arts organizations. Correspondents include The Arts Magazine, Whitney Museum of Art, Olin Dows, Philip Evergood, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Reginald Marsh, Kenneth Hayes Miller, Elias Newman, Daniel Catton Rich, and Raphael Soyer among many others. Research related correspondence arranged here concerns work on a catalogue raisonné of Winslow Homer. This material was originally arranged in the correspondence files by Goodrich prior to the later donation that included additional research files on Homer found in Series 3. There are also condolence letters from notable figures in American art.
Writings and research files include major writings, such as books and articles, and book reviews, essays, exhibition text, catalog entries, and lectures. In addition to the writings, Goodrich's research files for the writings are arranged here and include research, notes, correspondence, photographs, illustrations, printed materials, and bibliographies. There are also book agreements. There are extensive files for Goodrich's books on Winslow Homer (see also correspondence in Series 2) and Reginald Marsh; articles, catalog entries, and other writings on Winslow Homer, Albert Pinkham Ryder, Kuniyoshi, Reginald Marsh, and American art in general; lectures and talks; research files on other artists, and notes and notebooks.
Organization and committee files document Goodrich's service on boards, commissions, committees, organizations, and associations, such as the American Federation of Arts, the Association of Art Museum Directors, the Carnegie Study in American Art, the National Council on the Arts and Government, American Art Research Council, Artists Equity Association, Artist Tenants Association, the selection committee of the American National Exhibition (1959), and others are found within organization and committee files. Agendas, correspondence, meeting minutes, and printed material are found within the files.
Exhibition files are found only for several Winslow Homer shows. Printed materials include clippings, publicity materials, and printed copies of his writings. Photographic material includes scattered photographs of Goodrich and others, and extensive negatives of works of art, likely by Homer. Also found are x-rays of paintings by Ralph Blakelock.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 8 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1946-1984 (Boxes 1; 0.4 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1920-1987 (Boxes 1-3; 1.8 linear feet)
Series 3: Writings and Research Files, 1884-1987 (Boxes 3-17, 38; 14.5 linear feet)
Series 4: Organization and Committee files, 1933-1982 (Boxes 17-31, 37; 14.5 linear feet)
Series 5: Exhibition Files, 1944-1986 (Boxes 31-32; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 6: Printed Material, circa 1920s-1979 (Boxes 32-33; 0.8 linear feet)
Series 7: Scrapbook, 1952-1959 (Box 33; 2 folders)
Series 8: Photographic Materials, circa 1910-1987 (Boxes 33-37; 3.1 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
Lloyd Goodrich (1897-1987) was a prominent and influential art historian, writer, and director of the Whitney Museum of Art in New York City, New York, from 1958-1968.
Lloyd Goodrich was born in Nutley, New Jersey in 1897. He studied under Kenneth Hayes Miller at the Art Students League from 1913-1915 and also took courses at the National Academy of Design. Rather than pursue a career as an artist, however, he decided that his real talent was writing about art. He began his long and prolific writing career in 1923-24 and married Edith Havens in 1924. Inspired by the work and writings of European art scholars and a desire to address the need for a body of scholarship on American Art, Goodrich began to research and write about American artists Kenneth Hayes Miller, Winslow Homer, and Thomas Eakins.
Goodrich's first article on Winslow Homer was published in 1924 by The Arts, a magazine financed by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and edited by Forbes Watson, who soon hired Goodrich as associate editor. By 1929, Goodrich was also working as assistant art critic for the New York Times while continuing work at The Arts as contributing editor. One year later, The Arts commissioned Goodrich to write a book on Kenneth Hayes Miller. And, around the same time Goodrich became interested in Thomas Eakins, and with the encouragement and financial support from his boyhood friend, artist Reginald Marsh, he began work on a monograph about Eakins.
In 1930, Goodrich joined the staff of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney's new American art museum in New York City, the Whitney Museum of American Art. The museum provided him with the funds he needed to research and complete his book on Thomas Eakins, which he achieved in 1933. In 1935, he became curator of the museum, and associate director in 1948. He served as director from 1958-1968. The bequest of the Edward Hopper collection to the Whitney was the result of Goodrich's reputation as a scholar of Edward Hopper. After retiring, Goodrich continued his association with the Whitney as advisory director and director emeritus.
Goodrich was instrumental in starting the American Art Research Council in 1942, a group of museums devoted to collecting scholarly records about American art. He sat on the advisory panels for the New York State Council on the Arts and the Fine Arts Advisory Committee to the White House. In 1933, he was in charge of the New York regional office of the Public Works of Art Project. He also served as chairman of the National Council on the Arts and Government from 1948 to 1954 and was a major force in the creation of the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities. He was a member of the Artists Equity Association, Artist Tenants Association, and numerous other arts organizations and a strong advocate for the promotion and support of American art and artists.
Throughout his long and distinguished career as a writer and museum administrator, Lloyd Goodrich worked to build a body of scholarship related to the history of American art and artists. He published several important monographs, including works on Thomas Eakins, Edward Hopper, Albert Pinkham Ryder, Winslow Homer, and Reginald Marsh, and organized major exhibitions about these and many other artists during his 57-year association with the Whitney Museum of American Art. At the time of his death, Goodrich was considered a preeminent figure in the American art world, and one of the foremost authorities on Eakins, Ryder, and Homer, artists on which he kept extensive research files throughout his life.
Lloyd Goodrich died March 27, 1987.
Related Materials:
Also found in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Lloyd Goodrich, 1962-1963 by Harlan Phillips for the Archives of American Art.
Additional Lloyd Goodrich papers are located at the Whitney Museum of American Art Archives, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art Archives.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming (reel 4468) including a photocopy of the manuscript "Albert Pinkham Ryder: The Man and His Art," Goodrich's contribution to the book "Albert Pinkham Ryder: Painter of Dreams" co-authored with William I. Homer. Loaned materials were returned to the lender and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
The Lloyd Goodrich papers were given to the Archives of American Art in several different acquisitions. Lloyd Goodrich first donated material in 1983. David Goodrich, Lloyd Goodrich's son, gave more material between 1988 and 2007 while additional papers were lent for microfilming by William I. Homer in 1990. Finally, the Whitney Museum of American Art donated papers in 1996, and Polly Thistlethwaite gave further material in 2015.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Occupation:
Art historians -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Arts administrators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Museum curators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Museum administrators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Topic:
Art -- Collectors and collecting -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The papers of art collectors, art patrons, and philanthropists Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman measure 4.9 linear feet and date from 1837 to 1984, with the bulk of the materials dating from 1935-1979. The papers are comprised mostly of correspondence with artists, museums, and arts organizations. Also found are scattered biographical materials, artists' autograph letters purchased by the Fleischmans, exhibition files, notes and writings, printed material, and photographs.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of art collectors, art patrons, and philanthropists Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman measure 4.9 linear feet and date from 1837 to 1984, with the bulk of the materials dating from 1935-1979. The papers are comprised mostly of correspondence with artists, museums, and arts organizations. Also found are scattered biographical materials, artists' autograph letters purchased by the Fleischmans, exhibition files, notes and writings, printed material, and photographs.
One folder of biographical material includes a biographical account and a certificate of appreciation from the Common Council for the City of Detroit.
The bulk of the collection is comprised of correspondence documenting the Fleischman's art related activities and interests primarily during the 1950s and 1960s. Individual correspondents include Aaron Bohrod, Charles E. Burchfield, Charles B. Culver, Philip Evergood, Earl Krentzin, John Marin, Jr., Abraham Rattner and Esther Gentle, Peter Pollack, Edgar P. and Constance Richardson, Charles Coleman Sellers, and Franklin Watkins. One letter from Charles E. Burchfield includes four etching plates used to create the color print of Hot September Wind.
Arts organizations and galleries represented in the correspondence include the American Federation of Arts, the Archives of American Art, the Arts Commission of the City of Detroit, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Detroit Institute of Art, Kennedy Galleries, M. Knoedler and Co., Inc., Kraushaar Galleries, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Midtown Galleries, the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the School of the Society of Arts and Crafts, the United States Information Agency, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Winterthur Museum.
Autograph letters purchased by the Fleischmans include letters written by artists Washington Allston (addressed to Thomas Sully), Albert Pinkham Ryder, and John Taylor Arms.
Exhibition files document the various exhibitions of art work from the Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman Collection at the University of Michigan Museum of Art; the Detroit Institute of Art; in Central and South America; in Greece, Israel and Russia; and at the Milwaukee Art Center. The files contain letters, notes, printed material, and photographs.
Three folders of notes and writings include "Introduction to Earl Krentzin Catalog" by Lawrence Fleischman and "Selection of Excerpts from the Soviet Press and Radio Attacking U. S. Culture" by unidentified authors.
Scattered printed material includes miscellaneous clippings and catalogs not connected with the Exhibition Files series. There is also a book John Marin: The Man and his Work by E. M. Benson that was autographed by Marin to the Fleischmans in 1953.
Photographs include portrait photographs of Lawrence Fleischman, photographs of Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman with colleagues, of art work from the Fleischman Collection, of Truman and Grace Bailey in their studio, and a copy photograph of Thomas Eakins as a boy.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 7 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1958 (Box 1; 1 folder)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1949-1984 (Boxes 1-4, 7; 3.8 linear feet)
Series 3: Autograph Letters, 1837-1942 (Box 4; 4 folders)
Series 4: Exhibition Files, 1953-1960 (Boxes 4-5, 7; 0.5 linear feet)
Series 5: Notes and Writings, 1957-1962 (Box 5; 3 folders)
Series 6: Printed Material, 1935-1969 (Box 5-6; 6 folders)
Series 7: Photographs, 1953-1965 (Box 6; 13 folders)
Biographical / Historical:
Lawrence Fleischman (1925-1997) of New York City was an American art collector, patron, philanthropist, and benefactor. He and his wife, Barbara Greenberg Fleischman, assembled an impressive collection of art and artifacts that they shared with the public as part of their philanthropic activities aimed at fostering a wider appreciation of the arts around the world.
Lawrence Fleischman was born on February 14, 1925 in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Stella and Arthur Fleischman, the owner of a large carpet business. He attended the Western Military Academy in Alton, Illinois, and studied engineering at Purdue University. In 1942, he interrupted his studies to volunteer for service in the U.S. Army during World War II. While serving in France, he met a doctor who further fostered Fleischman's ever growing interest in American art. Following the war, he graduated with a degree in physics from the University of Detroit. Fleischman met Barbara Greenberg in Detroit and they were married in 1948.
Beginning in the late 1940s, Fleischman established a fledgling television station, developed holdings in real estate, and began purchasing art work. Initially the Fleischmans collected undervalued 20th century American art and were friends with several artists, including John Marin, Charles Burchfield, Stuart Davis, and Ben Shahn. They also expanded the scope of their collection to include 19th century American works.
During the 1950s, Lawrence Fleischman realized how there were few American art historians and college departments, as well as a lack of primary source material. Fleischman worked with Edgar P. Richardson, then director of the Detroit Institute of Art, to raise funds and they founded the Archives of American Art at the Detroit Institute of Art in 1954. The Archives of American Art was, and still is, dedicated to the collection, preservation, and study of primary source records that document the history of the visual arts in the United States. Lawrence A. Fleischman is a founding Trustee of the AAA and served as the Chairman of the Board from 1958 to 1966. His wife, Barbara joined the Board of Trustees in 1997 and served as Chair from 2003 to 2007. She is a Trustee Emerita.
Lawrence Fleischman's business and philanthropic interests included the Arthur Fleischman Carpet Company, the Lee Plaza Hotel-Motel in Detroit, Art Adventurers, the Art School of the Society of Arts and Crafts in Detroit, the Friends of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Cultural Committee of the United States Information Agency, and the Art Commission of Detroit, which governed the Detroit Institute of Art. He also served as an officer of the Board for many of the arts-related organizations.
In 1996, the Fleischmans moved their family from Detroit to New York City, where Lawrence Fleischman became a partner in the Kennedy Galleries.
The Fleischmans philanthropic activities include generous support of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Detroit Institute of Art, the Cleveland Museum, the British Museum, the Vatican Museum, and lifelong support of the Archives of American Art.
Lawrence Fleischman died on January 31, 1997 in London, England. Barbara Fleischman lives in New York City and continues to be an active supporter of the visual arts.
Related Materials:
Among the Archives holdings are two oral history interviews with Lawrence A. Fleischman. The first was conducted by Paul Cummings in 1970 and the second conducted by Gail Stavitsky in 1994 . Both interviews have transcripts available.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming, the majority of which was later donated, except for five letters on reel D197. These include one postcard from Constance Richardson, 1956; one letter from Constance Richardson, 1957; one letter from Franklin Watkins, 1955; one letter from Lawrence Fleischman to Wilbur H. Hunter, 1960; and one letter from Richard D. Tucker, 1960. This material remains with lender and is not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
The Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman papers were donated in several accretions by Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman from 1954 to 2007. Letters were also loaned for microfilming in 1965, but nearly all of them were subsequently donated.
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 Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
The papers of realist painter Isabel Bishop date from 1914 to 1983 and measure 2.6 linear feet. The collection documents Bishop's painting career, her friendship with other artists, and her participation in several arts organizations. There are scattered biographical documents, correspondence with fellow artists such as Peggy Bacon, Warren Chappell, Edward Laning, and R. B. Kitaj, and with writers, curators, museums, galleries, arts organizations, and others. Also found are arts organization files, Bishop's writings about Warren Chappell and friend Reginald Marsh, notes, exhibition catalogs, news clippings, and other printed material, photographs of Bishop and her artwork, and photographs of Reginald and Felicia Marsh. Original artwork includes 8 sketchbooks, loose sketches, prints, and watercolor figure studies.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of realist painter Isabel Bishop date from 1914 to 1983 and measure 2.6 linear feet. The collection documents Bishop's painting career, her friendship with other artists, and her participation in several arts organizations. Scattered biographical documents include awards and a file on her participation in art juries.
Bishop was friends with many artists and cultural figures and her correspondence includes letters to and from artists such as John Taylor Arms, Peggy Bacon, Peter Blume, Warren Chappell (many letters from Chappell are illustrated), Sidney Delevante, Edwin Dickinson, Philip Evergood, John Folinsbee, Malvina Hoffman, Jo Hopper, James Kearns, Leon Kroll, Clare Leighton, Jack Levine, Alice Neel, Hobson Pittman, Fairfield Porter, Abraham Rattner, Katherine Schmidt, Henry Schnakenberg, Raphael Soyer, George Tooker, Stuyvesant Van Veen, Franklin Watkins, Mahonri Young, and William Zorach. Bishop not only corresponded with artists but also many poets, authors, historians, and dancers, such as Van Wyck Brooks, John Canaday, John Ciardi, Merce Cunningham, Babette Deutsch, Edna Ferber, Richmond Lattimore, Marianne Moore, Lewis Mumford, Kurt Vonnegut, and Glenway Westcott. Also found are letters from many galleries, museums, and schools which exhibited or purchased her work, including curators Juliana Force and Una Johnson.
Bishop kept files from her affiliations with the American Society of Painters, Sculptors, and Gravers and the New Society of Artists, containing mostly membership and financial records, and a file on a UNESCO conference. Unfortunately, files documenting her membership and vice presidency of the National Institute of Arts & Letters are not found here.
A small amount of Bishop's writings and notes include essays about friends and artists Reginald Marsh and Warren Chappell. Printed material consists of exhibition catalogs and announcements, news clippings, magazines, and a design by G. Alan Chidsey for a book about Bishop. Photographs depict Bishop with her husband and in her studio, her artwork, and also include three photographs of her friend, Reginald Marsh.
Original artwork includes eight small sketchbooks, loose pen and ink sketches, intaglio prints, watercolor figure studies, and a drawing of Bishop by Aaron Bohrod.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into 7 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1943-1975 (Box 1; 4 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1939-1983 (Box 1; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 3: Organization Files, 1924-1937, 1951-1952 (Box 1; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 4: Writings & Notes, 1937-1960s (Box 1; 4 folders)
Series 5: Printed Material, 1930-1979 (Box 2; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 6: Photographs, 1914, circa 1920s-1975 (Box 2, OV 5; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 7: Artwork, circa 1940s-1970s (Box 2-4, OV 5; 0.4 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Isabel Bishop (1902-1988) was born in Cincinnati, Ohio to John Remsen Bishop and Anna Bartram Newbold Bishop. Shortly after her birth the family moved to Detroit, Michigan. As a child Bishop took art classes and had a growing interest in drawing. In 1918 at the age of 16 she left home and moved to New York City where she enrolled in the School of Applied Design for Women to be an illustrator. However, her real interest was in painting, not the graphic arts, and she enrolled in the Art Students League in 1920. There she studied with Kenneth Hayes Miller and Guy Pene du Bois and met many young artists, including Reginald Marsh and Edwin Dickinson, both of whom became close friends. She took classes until 1924 and rented a studio and living space on 14th Street in a neighborhood where many artists maintained studios at the time.
Bishop began exhibiting her work and participated in artist groups, including the Whitney Studio Club and the New Society of Artists. During the 1920s and 1930s she developed a realist style of painting, primarily depicting women in their daily routine on the streets of Manhattan. Her work was greatly influenced by Peter Paul Rubens and other Dutch and Flemish painters that she had discovered during trips to Europe. In 1932 Bishop began showing her work frequently at the newly opened Midtown Galleries, where her work would be represented throughout her career.
In 1934 she married Harold Wolff, a neurologist, and moved with him to Riverdale, New York. Bishop kept her studio in Manhattan, moving from 14th Street to Union Square. She remained in her Union Square studio for fifty years (1934-1984). From 1936 to 1937 she taught at the Art Students League and in 1940 her son Remsen was born. In 1941 she was named a member of the National Academy of Design and from 1944 to 1946 she was the Vice President of the National Institute of Arts & Letters, the first woman to hold an executive position with that organization. She wrote articles and joined other artists in speaking out in support of realist painting and against the abstract style that was dominating the New York art scene.
During her long career which lasted into the 1980s, Bishop exhibited in numerous group and solo exhibitions, traveled throughout the U. S. as an exhibition juror, and won many awards for her work, including the award for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts presented by President Jimmy Carter in 1979.
Related Material:
Also found at the Archives of American Art are three oral history interviews with Isabel Bishop, April 15, 1959, May 29, 1959, and November 12-December 11, 1987.
The Whitney Museum of American Art and Midtown Galleries loaned additional Bishop papers to the Archives for microfilming on reels NY59-4 and NY59-5. These items were returned to the lenders after microfilming and are not described in the container listing of this finding aid.
Provenance:
The collection was donated in several installments by Isabel Bishop from 1959 to 1983.
Restrictions:
The collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Occupation:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Book illustrators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The papers of New York-based painter, lithographer, art critic, and poet Fairfield Porter measure 9.3 linear feet and date from 1888 to 2001, with the bulk of material dating from 1924 to 1975. Papers document Porter's life and career through correspondence, writings, business records, printed materials, photographs, and artwork.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of New York-based painter, lithographer, art critic, and poet Fairfield Porter measure 9.3 linear feet and date from 1888 to 2001, with the bulk of material dating from 1924 to 1975. The collection includes a biographical chronology; certificates, awards, and diplomas; letters to Fairfield and Anne Porter; scattered outgoing correspondence; and reviews, essays, notes, poems, and translations written by Porter and others. Among the writings are poetry manuscripts written by several New York School Poets including Frank O'Hara, James Schuyler, and Kenneth Koch. Also found are gallery records, inventories and appraisals, financial records, exhibition catalogs, clippings, posters, and records of Anne Porter's efforts to place his collection and document and publish his work after his death. Photographs of Porter, his homes, and his family are also present, as well as sketchbooks, loose sketches, and drawings spanning his entire career.
Significant correspondence is present from the Porters' many poet friends, including Kenneth Koch, James Schuyler, Ron Padgett, Kenward Elmslie, Barbara Guest, Carl Morse, David Shapiro, and others. Among the letters are poetry manuscripts by Koch, Morse, Schuyler, Padgett, and Shapiro. Some letters are actually written in verse, especially those from Kenneth Koch.
Artists with letters in the collection include Joe Brainard, Rudy Burkhardt, John Button, Lucien Day, Rackstraw Downes, Philip Evergood, Jane Frielicher, Arthur Giardelli, Leon Hartl, Alex Katz, Edward Laning, Roy Lichtenstein, Larry Rivers, Richard Stankiewicz, Nicolas Vasilieff, among others. Other art world figures represented include John Bernard Myers, curator at the Tibor de Nagy gallery (New York), and Tom Hess, editor of ArtNews. Artwork found within the correspondence includes an illustrated letter from Ron Padgett and an original print on a holiday card by Edith Schloss.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into the following nine series. See the series descriptions below for more information about the content of each series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1916-1975 (Box 1 and 11; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1918-1996 (Boxes 1-2; 1.2 linear feet)
Series 3: Writings by Fairfield Porter, 1924-1975 (Box 2; 0.6)
Series 4: Writings by Others, 1888-1992 (Boxes 2-3; 0.7 linear feet)
Series 5: Personal Business Records, 1944-1996 (Boxes 3-4; 1 linear foot)
Series 6: Anne Porter's Posthumous Projects, 1980-1988 (Box 4; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 7: Printed Materials, 1934-2001 (Boxes 4-6 and 11; 1.5 linear feet)
Series 8: Photographs, circa 1880-1990 (Boxes 6 and 11; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 9: Artwork, 1918-1975 (Boxes 7-10 and 12-17; 2.2 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Fairfield Porter was born near Chicago in 1907, the fourth of five children of James and Ruth Furness Porter. His father was an architect, his mother a poet from a literary family, and Porter grew up in an environment where art and literature were highly valued. His father designed the family homes in Winnetka, Illinois and on Great Spruce Head Island, an island in Maine that he purchased for the family in 1912. Fairfield Porter spent summers there from the age of six, and views of the island, its structures, and neighboring towns were the subjects of many paintings.
Porter attended Harvard from 1924 to 1928, studying fine art with Arthur Pope and philosophy with Alfred North Whitehead. After graduating from Harvard, Porter moved to New York City and took studio classes at the Art Students League from 1928 until 1930, studying with Boardman Robinson and Thomas Hart Benton, and immersing himself in the art and radical politics of Greenwich Village. In the 1940s, he studied at Parson's School of Design with art restorer Jacques Maroger, adopting the Maroger recipe for an oil medium in his own painting.
To further his education as an artist, Porter traveled to Europe in 1931, where he spent time with expatriate art theorist Bernard Berenson and his circle. When he returned to New York, he allied himself with progressive, socialist organizations, and like many of his contemporaries, worked at creating socially relevant art. He did artwork for the John Reed Club, a communist group; taught drawing classes for Rebel Arts, a socialist arts organization; wrote for their magazine, Arise!; and created a mural for the Queens branch of the Socialist Party. Living in the Chicago area for several years in the 1930s, he illustrated chapbooks for the socialist poet John Wheelwright's Poems for a Dime and Poems for Two Bits series. Porter's financial contributions to the radical Chicago publication Living Marxism kept it afloat for several years.
In 1932, Porter married Anne Channing, a poet from Boston, and they settled in New York. The Porters had five children, and their first son, born in 1934, suffered from a severe form of autism. In the next decade, they had two more sons, and spent three years in Porter's hometown of Winnetka, where he had his first solo exhibition of paintings. When they returned to New York in 1939, the Porters became friends with Edwin Denby, Rudy Burkhardt, and Elaine and Willem de Kooning. Porter became an earnest admirer of Willem de Kooning's artwork and was among the first to review and purchase it.
In 1949, the Porters moved to the small, seaside town of Southampton, New York. Their two daughters were born in 1950 and 1956. Like the family home on Great Spruce Head Island, Southampton became the setting of many of Porter's paintings. In fact, almost all of his mature paintings depict family homes, surrounding landscapes, family members, and friends. Porter was an individualistic painter who embraced figurative art in the late 1940s and 1950s, when abstract expressionism was the prevailing aesthetic trend. Porter once made a comment that his commitment to figurative painting was made just to spite art critic Clement Greenberg, a respected critic and ideologue who had championed abstract expressionism and denigrated realism as passé.
Porter established his reputation as a painter and as a writer in the 1950s. John Bernard Myers of the vanguard Tibor de Nagy gallery gave Porter his first New York exhibition in 1951 and represented him for the next twenty years. That same year Tom Hess, editor of ArtNews, hired Porter to write art features and reviews. Porter went on to contribute to ArtNews until 1967 and also became art editor for The Nation beginning in 1959, the same year his article on Willem de Kooning won the Longview Foundation Award in art criticism. As a critic, Porter visited countless galleries and studios, and he gained a reputation for writing about art with the understanding and vested interest of an artist, and with the same independence from fashionable ideas that he demonstrated in his artwork.
The 1950s and 1960s were prolific years for Porter's writing and art, and saw the development of his critical ideas and the maturation of his painting. Porter enjoyed an elder status among a circle of younger artists such as Jane Freilicher, Larry Rivers, and Alex Katz, and their many poet friends, now known as the New York School of Poetry: Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery, James Schuyler, Kenneth Koch, Barbara Guest, and others. Porter himself wrote poetry and was published in the 1950s, sometimes alongside poems by his wife, who had been publishing poetry since the 1930s (twice in the vanguard Chicago journal, Poetry). The Porters' correspondence is laced with poems they and their friends sent back and forth, often about and dedicated to each other.
Besides his annual exhibitions at Tibor de Nagy and later Hirschl and Adler Galleries, Porter exhibited regularly at the Whitney, and had one-man exhibitions at many museums including the Rhode Island School of Design (1959), The University of Alabama (1963), Cleveland Museum of Art (his first retrospective, 1966), Trinity College (1967), the Parrish Art Museum (1971), the Maryland Institute of Art (1973), and the 1968 Venice Biennale. He also had residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (1964) and Amherst College (1969). Porter died in 1975 at age 68. A full-scale retrospective of his artwork was held at the Boston Museum of Fine Art, Boston in 1983, and a study center and permanent home for his artwork was established at the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton through a donation made by Anne Porter. A posthumous collection of his poems was published by Tibor de Nagy Editions in 1985, and a catalogue raisonnée, edited by Joan Ludman, was published in 2001.
This biography relies heavily on information found in Justin Spring's biography of Porter, Fairfield Porter: A Life in Art (Yale University Press, 2000).
Related Material:
The Archives of American Art holds an oral history of Fairfield Porter conducted by Paul Cummings in 1968.
Provenance:
The papers of Fairfield Porter were given to the Archives of American Art by the artist's wife, Anne Porter, in five separate accessions between 1977 and 1997.
Restrictions:
The bulk of this collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website. Use of material not digitized requires an appointment.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Occupation:
Art critics -- New York (State) -- Southampton Search this
The bulk of this collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website. Use of material not digitized requires an appointment.
Collection Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Collection Citation:
Fairfield Porter papers, 1888-2001 (bulk 1924-1975). 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.
The records of New York art gallery Terry Dintenfass, Inc. date from 1947 to 1987, with the bulk of the collection dating from 1961 to 1983, and measure 22.1 linear feet. The records are comprised of administrative files, correspondence, exhibition files, artists' files, and financial records.
Scope and Contents:
The records of New York art gallery Terry Dintenfass, Inc. date from 1947 to 1987, with the bulk of the collection dating from 1961 to 1983, and measure 22.1 linear feet. The records include administrative files, correspondence, exhibition files, artists' files, and financial records.
Administrative files include advertising and membership records, insurance documents, a guest book, resumes, and agreements with other corporations. Correspondence is with artists, galleries, museums, and arts organizations. There is a significant amount of correspondence regarding the Art Dealers Association of America.
Exhibition files are found for numerous exhibitions to which Dintenfass either loaned art or helped to organize. There is extensive documentation of the 20 Galleries/20 Years exhibition held at the Grace Borgenicht Gallery and the Terry Dintenfass Gallery in 1982 and the "Machine Themed Shows" in 1974-1975.
Artists' files comprise the largest group of materials within the collection. Files for Hyman Bloom, Alan Cober, Arthur Dove, Philip Evergood, Richard Fleischner, Antonio Frasconi, Sidney Goodman, William King, Jacob Lawrence, Richard Merkin, Horace Pippin, Paul Suttman, and Harold Tovish bulk the largest.
Financial records contain artist expense and sales ledgers, consignment papers, invoices and receipts, as well as records for D Contemporary Paintings.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 5 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Administrative Files, 1961-1983 (1.0 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1961-1981 (1.0 linear feet; Boxes 1-2)
Series 3: Exhibition Files, 1962-1983 (4.5 linear feet; Boxes 2-7, OV 23)
Series 4: Artists' Files, 1947-1987 (8.5 linear feet; Boxes 7-15, OV 23)
Series 5: Financial Records, 1959-1981 (7.0 linear feet; Boxes 16-22, OV 23)
Biographical / Historical:
Terry Dintenfass, Inc. is a New York City art gallery founded in 1959 by Terry Dintenfass (1920-2004).
In 1954, Theresa "Terry" Dintenfass opened D Contemporary Paintings in Atlantic City, New Jersey. With financial backing from Armand Erpf, she moved the gallery to New York City in 1959 and changed the name to Terry Dintenfass Gallery. There, she became a protégé of Downtown Gallery owner Edith Halpert. Dintenfass was one of several notable female art dealers in the city during the 1940s-1980s among Edith Halpert, Betty Parsons, Grace Borgenicht, Antoinette Kraushaar, and others. She showed work on consignment from other dealers, and when Edith Halpert retired, Terry Dintenfass, Inc. began to represent the estate of Arthur Dove. Other notable artists represented by the gallery included social realists Philip Evergood and Robert Gwathmey, and African American painters Horace Pippin and Jacob Lawrence, whom she represented for 25 years. The gallery's stable also included William King, Sidney Goodman, Hyman Bloom, Antonio Frasconi, and others.
After Dintenfass retired in 1999, her son Andrew took over the business and continues to run the gallery today. Terry Dintenfass died in 2004 in Manhattan.
Related Materials:
Also found at the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Terry Dintenfass conducted by Paul Cummings on December 2, 1974-January 13, 1975 for the Archives of American Art.
Provenance:
The collection was donated in 1995 by Terry Dintenfass.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
The papers of painter Philip Evergood measure 11.61 linear feet and date from 1890 to 1971. Found within the papers are biographical materials; personal and business correspondence; writings, including essays, lectures, speeches, and sound recordings of radio appearances; subject files; personal business records; printed material; scrapbooks; artwork, including oil paintings, sketches, and childhood drawings; and photographs of Evergood, his family and friends, and his work.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of painter Philip Evergood measure 11.61 linear feet and date from 1890 to 1971. Found within the papers are biographical materials; personal and business correspondence; writings, including essays, lectures, speeches, and sound recordings of radio appearances; subject files; personal business records; printed material; scrapbooks; artwork, including oil paintings, sketches, and childhood drawings; and photographs of Evergood, his family and friends, and his work.
Biographical materials include curriculum vitae, forms, memberships, and the contact information of friends and acquaintances. Correspondence is with business associates and artists, including Charles Edward Smith, Rockwell Kent, Frank Kleinholz, Leon Kroll, Joan Miro, and Yasuo Kuniyoshi. Writings consist primarily of Evergood's artist statements, essays, lectures and speeches, as well as notes, transcripts, and recordings of broadcast radio shows. Subject files focus on art institutions and organizations, funding opportunities, and political topics of personal interest.
Personal business records include artist lists, contracts with galleries, and banking and estate records. Printed materials include clippings, four clippings scrapbooks, exhibition catalogs, and periodicals with articles featuring Evergood. There are loose sketches and mixed media, including oils and watercolors, of Evergood's artwork. Photographs are of Evergood, his friends and family, and photographs and negatives of his artwork.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 9 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1930-1971 (0.2 linear feet; Box 1, 24, OV 13)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1930-1970 (3.6 linear feet; Boxes 1-4, 24)
Series 3: Writings, 1905-1970 (1.8 linear feet; Boxes 4-5, 24)
Series 4: Subject Files, 1919-1971 (0.7 linear feet; Boxes 5-6)
Series 5: Personal Business Records, 1902-1970 (0.5 linear feet; Box 6)
Series 6: Printed Material, 1914-1970 (2.4 linear feet; Boxes 7-9, 11, 24)
Series 7: Scrapbooks, 1924-1954 (0.6 linear feet; Boxes 11-12)
Series 8: Artwork, 1905-1970 (1.5 linear feet; Box 9, OV 14-20, 24, OV 25, RD 23)
Series 9: Photographic Materials, 1890-1970 (1.2 linear feet; Boxes 9-10, 24, OV 21-22, 26-27)
Biographical / Historical:
Painter and printmaker Philip Evergood (1901-1973) lived and worked in New York City and Bridgewater, Connecticut and was known as an expressionist and social realist who incorporated elements of the fantastic into his works. A native New Yorker, Evergood's father, Miles Blashki, was a Polish-Australian artist, and his mother, Flora Jane Perry, was English. At his mother's insistence, Evergood attended boarding schools in England and graduated from Eton in 1919. He left Cambridge University to pursue art studies at London's Slade School of Fine Arts and returned to America in 1923 to study with George Luks at the Art Students League.
In 1927, Evergood held his first one man show at New York's Dudensing Gallery and continued to travel back and forth between France, Spain, and America throughout the 1920s. In 1931, he married dancer and actress Julia Cross and found work as a muralist and painter for the WPA Federal Arts Project in the early 1930s. From 1937-1938, he served as president of the New York Artists Union and, along with other social realist painters, joined Herman Baron's stable at the ACA (American Contemporary Art) Gallery, where he exhibited several one man shows during the late 1930s and 1940s.
During the 1940s and 1950s, Evergood was a popular lecturer and taught at art schools, including the Skowhegan School, and began producing large scale lithographs and etchings along with his paintings. While working as a picture framer for additional income, he met the art collector Joseph Hirshhorn who would purchase 10 artworks at their first meeting and become a life long patron. He continued to exhibit his work at the ACA Gallery and the annual contemporary shows of major museums, such as the Carnegie Institute and the Art Institute of Chicago. Evergood exhibited in over 35 exhibitions, including a retrospective at the Whitney Museum in 1960, and died in a house fire in Bridgewater in 1973.
Related Materials:
Also found in the Archives of American Art are Letters from Philip Evergood; Gael Hammer letters relating to Miles and Philip Evergood; an oral history interview with Philip Evergood by Forrest Selvig, December 3, 1968; and Philip Evergood interview with John I.H. Baur, June 1959.
Provenance:
Philip Evergood donated his papers to the Archives in 1971. Additional materials were donated in 1974 by Evergood's wife, Julia Cross Evergood. In 1977, two typescripts of essays were donated by Abram Lerner. A small addition was donated in 2018 by Kendall Taylor, who originally received the material from Julia Cross Evergood.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Topic:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The papers of Henry Varnum Poor measure 12.9 linear feet and date from 1873-2001, with the bulk from the period 1904-1970. Correspondence, writings, artwork, printed material and photographs document Poor's work as a painter, muralist, ceramic artist and potter, architect, designer, writer, war artist, educator and a co-founder of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Also found is extensive information about the design and construction of Crow House, his home in New City, New York, commissions for other architectural projects, and his personal life.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of Henry Varnum Poor measure 12.9 linear feet and date from 1873-2001, with the bulk from the period 1904-1970. Correspondence, writings, artwork, printed material and photographs document Poor's work as a painter, muralist, ceramic artist and potter, architect, designer, writer, war artist, educator and a co-founder of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Also found is extensive information about the design and construction of Crow House, his home in New City, New York, commissions for other architectural projects, and his personal life.
Henry Varnum Poor's correspondence documents his personal, family, and professional life. Correspondents include family and friends, among them George Biddle, Charles Burchfield, John Ciardi, Marion V. Dorn (who became his second wife), Philip Evergood, Lewis Mumford, John Steinbeck, David Smith, and Mrs. John Work (Alice) Garrett. Among other correspondents are galleries, museums, schools, organizations, fans, former students, and acquaintances from his military service and travels. Family correspondence consists of Henry's letters to his parents, letters to his parents written by his wife, and letters among other family members.
Among the writings by Henry Varnum Poor are manuscripts of his two published books, An Artist Sees Alaska and A Book of Pottery: From Mud to Immortality. as well as the text of "Painting is Being Talked to Death," published in the first issue of Reality: A Journal of Artists' Opinions, April 1953, and manuscripts of other articles. There are also film scripts, two journals, notes and notebooks, lists, speeches, and writings by others, including M. R. ("Muktuk") Marston's account of Poor rescuing an Eskimo, and Bessie Breuer Poor's recollections of The Montross Gallery.
Subject files include those on the Advisory Committee on Art, American Designers' Gallery, Inc., William Benton, Harold Dickson, Reality: A Journal of Artists' Opinions Sales, and War Posters. There are numerous administrative files for the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.
Artwork by Henry Varnum Poor consists mainly of loose drawings and sketches and 45 sketchbooks of studies for paintings, murals, and pottery. There is work done in France, 1918-1919, and while working as a war correspondent in Alaska in 1943. There are commissioned illustrations and some intended for his monograph, A Book of Pottery: From Mud to Immortality. Also found are a small number of watercolors and prints. Work by other artists consist of Anne Poor's drawings of her father's hands used for the Lincoln figure in The Land Grant Frescoes and interior views of Crow House by Ernest Watson.
Documentation of Poor's architectural projects consists of drawings and prints relating to houses designed and built for Jules Billing, MacDonald Deming, John Houseman, Burgess Meredith, Isabel Padro, and Elizabeth S. Sargent. Also found is similar material for the new studio Poor built in 1957 on the grounds of Crow House.
Miscellaneous records include family memorabilia and two motion picture films, Painting a True Fresco, and The Land Grant Murals at Pennsylvania State College.
Printed material includes articles about or mentioning Poor, some of his pottery reference books, family history, a catalog of kilns, and the program of a 1949 Pennsylvania State College theater production titled Poor Mr. Varnum. Exhibition catalogs and announcements survive for some of Poor's shows; catalogs of other artists' shows include one for Theodore Czebotar containing an introductory statement by Henry Varnum Poor. Also found is a copy of The Army at War: A Graphic Record by American Artists, for which Poor served as an advisor. There are reproductions of illustrations for An Artist Sees Alaska and Ethan Frome, and two Associated American Artists greeting cards reproducing work by Poor.
Photographs are of Henry Varnum Poor's architectural work, artwork, people, places, and miscellaneous subjects. This series also contains negatives, slides, and transparencies. Images of architectural work include exterior and interior views of many projects; Poor's home, Crow House, predominates. Photographs of artwork by Poor are of drawings, fresco and ceramic tile murals, paintings, pottery and ceramic art. People appearing in photographs include Henry Varnum Poor, family members, friends, clients, juries, students, and various groups. Among the individuals portrayed are Milton Caniff, Marcel Duchamp, Wharton Esherick, M. R. ("Muktuk") Marston, and Burgess Meredith. Among the family members are Bessie Breuer Poor, Marion Dorn Poor, Anne Poor, Eva Poor, Josephine Graham Poor, Josephine Lydia Poor, Peter Poor, and unidentified relatives. Photographs of places include many illustrating village life in Alaska that were taken by Poor during World War II. Other places recorded are French and California landscapes, and family homes in Kansas. Miscellaneous subjects are exhibition installation views, scenes of Kentucky farms, and a photograph of Poor's notes on glazes.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 9 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1919-1987 (0.2 linear feet; Box 1, OV 18)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1873-1985 (1.5 linear feet; Boxes 1-2)
Series 3: Writings and Notes, circa 1944-1974 (0.6 linear feet; Boxes 2-3)
Series 4: Subject Files, 1928-1975 (0.8 linear feet; Box 3, OV 23)
Series 5: Artwork, circa 1890s-circa 1961 (3.5 linear feet; Boxes 4-6, 9-10, OV 19-22)
Series 6: Architectural Projects, circa 1940-1966 (0.7 linear feet; Box 6, OV 24-26, RD 14-17)
Series 7: Miscellaneous Records, 1882-1967 (Boxes 6, 11, FC 30-31; 0.5 linear ft.)
Series 8: Printed Material, 1881-2001 (1.2 linear feet; Boxes 6-7, 11, OV 27-29)
Series 9: Photographs, 1893-1984 (2.3 linear feet; Boxes 7-8, 12-13)
Biographical Note:
Henry Varnum Poor (1888-1970), best known as a potter, ceramic artist, and a co-founder of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, was also an architect, painter, muralist, designer, educator, and writer who lived and worked in New City, New York.
A native of Chapman, Kansas, Henry Varnum Poor moved with his family to Kansas City when his grain merchant father became a member of the Kansas Board of Trade. From a young age he showed artistic talent and spent as much time as possible - including school hours - drawing. When a school supervisor suggested that Henry leave school to study at the Art Institute of Chicago, the family disagreed. Instead, he enrolled in the Kansas City Manual Training High School where he delighted in learning skills such as carpentry, forge work, and mechanical drawing. In 1905, he moved with his older brother and sister to Palo Alto, California and completed high school there. Because Poor was expected to join the family business, he enrolled at Stanford University as an economics major, but much to his father's disappointment and displeasure, soon left the economics department and became an art major.
Immediately after graduation in 1910, Poor and his major professor at Stanford, Arthur B. Clark, took a summer bicycling tour to look at art in London, France, Italy, and Holland. As Poor had saved enough money to remain in London after the summer was over, he enrolled in the Slade School of Art and also studied under Walter Sickert at the London County Council Night School. After seeing an exhibition of Post-Impressionism at the Grafton Galleries in London, Poor was so impressed that he went to Paris and enrolled in the Académie Julian. While in Paris, Poor met Clifford Addams, a former apprentice of Whistler; soon he was working in Addams' studio learning Whistler's palette and techniques.
In the fall of 1911, Poor returned to Stanford University's art department on a one-year teaching assignment. During that academic year, his first one-man show was held at the university's Old Studio gallery. He married Lena Wiltz and moved back to Kansas to manage the family farm and prepare for another exhibition. Their daughter, Josephine Lydia Poor, was born the following year. Poor returned to Stanford in September 1913 as assistant professor of graphic arts, remaining until the department closed three years later. During this period, Poor began to exhibit more frequently in group shows in other areas of the country, and had his first solo exhibition at a commercial gallery (Helgesen Gallery, San Francisco). In 1916, Poor joined the faculty of the San Francisco Art Association. He and his wife separated in 1917 and were divorced the following year. Poor began sharing his San Francisco studio with Marion Dorn.
During World War I, Poor was drafted into the U. S. Army, and in 1918 went to France with the 115th Regiment of Engineers. He spent his spare time drawing; soon officers were commissioning portraits, and Poor was appointed the regimental artist. He also served as an interpreter for his company. Discharged from the Army in early 1919, Poor spent the spring painting in Paris. He then returned to San Francisco and married Marion Dorn.
Once Poor realized that earning a living as a painter would be extremely difficult in California, he and his new wife moved to New York in the autumn of 1919. They were looking for a place to live when influential book and art dealer Mary Mowbray-Clarke of the Sunwise Turn Bookshop in Manhattan suggested New City in Rockland County, New York as good place for artists. In January of 1920, the Poors purchased property on South Mountain Road in New City. The skills he acquired at the Kansas City Manual Training High School were of immediate use as Poor designed and constructed "Crow House" with the assistance of a local teenager. Influenced by the farmhouses he had seen in France, it was made of local sandstone and featured steep gables, rough plaster, chestnut beams and floors, and incorporated many hand-crafted details. Poor designed and built most of their furniture, too. Before the end of the year, he and Marion were able to move into the house, though it remained a work in progress for many years. Additions were constructed. Over time, gardens were designed and planted, and outbuildings - a kiln and pottery, work room, garage, and new studio - appeared on the property.
In 1925, two years after his divorce from Marion Dorn, Poor married Bessie Freedman Breuer (1893-1975), an editor, short story writer, and novelist. Soon after, he adopted her young daughter, Anne (1918-2002), an artist who served as his assistant on many important mural commissions. Their son, Peter (b. 1926) became a television producer. Crow House remained in the family until its sale in 2006. In order to prevent its demolition, Crow House was then purchased by the neighboring town of Ramapo, New York in 2007.
Between 1935 and 1966 Poor designed and oversaw construction of a number of houses, several of them situated not far from Crow House on South Mountain Road. Poor's designs, noted for their simplicity, featured modern materials and incorporated his ceramic tiles. Among his important commissions were houses for Maxwell Anderson, Jules Billig, Milton Caniff, MacDonald Deming, and John Houseman.
Poor's first exhibition of paintings in New York City was at Kevorkian Galleries in 1920, and sales were so disappointing that he turned his attention to ceramics. His first pottery show, held at Bel Maison Gallery in Wanamaker's department store in 1921, was very successful. He quickly developed a wide reputation, participated in shows throughout the country, and won awards. He was a founder of the short-lived American Designers' Gallery, and the tile bathroom he showed at the group's first exposition was critically acclaimed. Poor was represented by Montross Gallery as both a painter and potter. When Montross Gallery closed upon its owner's death in 1932, Poor moved to the Frank K. M. Rehn Gallery.
Even though Poor's pottery and ceramic work was in the forefront, he continued to paint. His work was acquired by a number of museums, and the Limited Editions Club commissioned him to illustrate their republications of Ethan Frome, The Scarlet Letter, and The Call of the Wild.
Poor's first work in true fresco was shown in a 1932 mural exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. Between 1935 and 1949 he was commissioned to produce several murals in fresco for Section of Fine Arts projects at the Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior, The Land Grant Frescoes at Pennsylvania State College, and a mural for the Louisville Courier-Journal. Ceramic tile mural commissions included: the Klingenstein Pavilion, Mt. Sinai Hospital, New York City; Travelers Insurance Co., Boston; the Fresno Post Office, California; and Hillson Memorial Gallery, Deerfield Academy, Deerfield, Mass.
As a member of the War Artists' Unit, Poor was a "war correspondent" with the rank of major in World War II, and for several months in 1943 was stationed in Alaska. An Artist Sees Alaska, drawing on Poor's observations and experiences, was published in 1945. A Book of Pottery: From Mud to Immortality, his second book, was published in 1958. It remains a standard text on the subject. While on the faculty of Columbia University in the 1950s, Poor and other artists opposed to the growing influence of Abstract Expressionism formed the Reality Group with Poor the head of its editorial committee. Their magazine, Reality: A Journal of Artists' Opinions, first appeared in 1953 featuring "Painting is Being Talked to Death" by Poor as its lead article. Two more issues were published in 1954 and 1955.
Along with Willard Cummings, Sidney Simon, and Charles Cuttler, in 1946 Henry Varnum Poor helped to establish the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, Maine. He served as its first president. Poor and his daughter, Anne, were active members of the Board of Trustees and were instructors for many years. The summer of 1961 was Henry Varnum Poor's last as a full-time teacher, though he continued to spend summers at Skowhegan.
Henry Varnum Poor exhibited widely and received many awards, among them prizes at the Carnegie Institute, Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Architectural League of New York. Poor was appointed to the United States Commission of Fine Arts by President Roosevelt in 1941 and served a five year term. He was elected a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1943. The National Academy of Design named him an Associate Artist in 1954 and an Academician in 1963. He became a trustee of the American Craftsman's Council in 1956. The work of Henry Vernum Poor is represented in the permanent collections of many American museums including the Cleveland Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, Addison Gallery of American Art, and Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts.
Henry Varnum Poor died at home in New City, New York, December 8, 1970.
Related Material:
An oral history interview with Henry Varnum Poor was conducted by Harlan Phillips for the Archives of American Art in 1964.
Provenance:
Gift of Henry Varnum Poor's son, Peter V. Poor, in 2007. A smaller portion was loaned to the Archives in 1973 by Anne Poor for microfilming and returned to the lender; this material was included in the 2007 gift.
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. Use of audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
The Federal Art Project, Photographic Division collection dates from circa 1920-1965, with the bulk of the records spanning the active years of the Federal Art Project (FAP), 1935-1942. The collection comprises 12.4 linear feet of mostly photographic prints and negatives that document primarily artwork produced by artists employed by the FAP. A smaller number of photographs also document other programs of the FAP, such as art classes and community centers, exhibitions by children and adults, artwork installed in public buildings, project divisions, and demonstrations of art processes by FAP artists.
Scope and Content Note:
The Federal Art Project (FAP), Photographic Division collection dates from circa 1920-1965, with the bulk of the records spanning the active years of the FAP: 1935-1942. The collection comprises 12.4 linear feet of photographic prints and negatives, including photos of FAP artists and the artwork created by them, and other activities of the FAP in communities throughout New York City and other states. Photographers include Andrew Herman, Sol Horn, David Robbins, Leo Seltzer, and others.
Artist files comprise three-quarters of the collection and consist primarily of photographs of artwork, as well as scattered photos of artists at work, including: Charles Alston, Luis Arenal, Richmond Barthe, John Benson, Andrew Berger, Lucille Blanch, Lucienne Bloch, Ilya Bolotowsky, Luise Brann, Selma Burke, Letterio Calapai, Eugene Chodorow, Francis Criss, Stuart Davis, Adolf Dehn, Virginia Dehn, Jose de Rivera, George Pearse Ennis, Philip Evergood, Eugenie Gershoy, Bertram Goodman, Arshile Gorky, Marion Greenwood, Philip Guston, Donal Hord, Joseph Hovell, William Karp, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Edward Laning, Julian Levi, Audrey McMahon, Elizabeth Olds, Anton Refregier, Will Shuster, William Zorach, and others.
The remainder of the collection consists of files documenting related activities and programs of the FAP, arranged by subject. The bulk of these files document the activities of the New York City FAP, including free art classes and art exhibitions for adults and children, exhibitions at the Harlem Art Center, and the work of FAP branches including the Easel Division, the Graphic Arts Division, and the Poster Division.
Other subjects documented include federal and community art centers in eleven states, most extensively Washington State; other WPA projects such as the Federal Theater Project, the Federal Music Project, and the Federal Writers' Project; buildings decorated with FAP artwork; art processes as demonstrated by FAP artists; special events; and people involved with the FAP, including director Holger Cahill.
One folder contains images that appear to have been taken by Berenice Abbott for the exhibition Changing New York (1935), for the Museum of the City of New York in collaboration with the WPA.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 2 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Artist Files, circa 1920-1965 (Boxes 1-24; 9.6 linear feet)
Series 2: Subject Files, 1934-1956 (Boxes 25-32; 2.8 linear feet)
Historical Note:
The Federal Art Project (FAP) was one of the Depression-era work-relief programs of the Federal Works Progress Administration (WPA). The program was founded in August 1935 to provide employment for artists and to implement visual arts programs in local communities across the country.
Together with the Federal Music Project, the Federal Theater Project, and the Federal Writers' Project, the FAP formed part of the WPA's Federal Project No. 1. The WPA became the Work Projects Administration in 1939 when it fell under the administrative hand of the newly created Federal Works Agency; concurrently the Federal Art Project was officially re-named the Federal Art Program.
Under the direction of Holger Cahill, the goals of the FAP fell into three main areas: production of artwork, art education through art classes and community centers, and art research through the Index of American Design. During the course of the program, artists created murals and other works of art for many non-Federal government buildings such as schools, hospitals, and libraries. Separate photographic divisions were set up in several states, most notably in New York City, to document the work of artists employed by the program, activities in art education such as classes for children and adults, community center outreach programs, and other "Federal 1" projects, including the Federal Theater and Music Projects. Employees of the photographic division were also involved in other assignments, such as creating exhibitions and photo murals.
The Federal Art Project ended in 1943.
Related Material:
Among the holdings of the Archives of American Art are related collections, including the Federal Art Project of the Work Projects Administration records, 1935-1948. Additional FAP records are held by the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington D.C.
Provenance:
The collection was anonymously donated to the Archives of American Art in the late 1950s.
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 Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
The papers of African American painter and educator Jacob Lawrence and his wife, artist Gwendolyn Knight measure 25.35 linear feet and 0.001 GB date from 1914 to 2008, with one item from 1816 and the bulk of the material dating from 1973 to 2001. The collection includes biographical material; correspondence including condolence letters to Gwendolyn Knight after Jacob Lawrence's death; writings by Jacob Lawrence and others; printed and digital material; photographs; personal business records; artwork; records from the Jacob Lawrence Catalogue Raisonné Project; materials related to the Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation; professional files; and material related to awards and honors received by Jacob Lawrence and Gwendolyn Knight.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of African American painter and educator Jacob Lawrence and his wife, artist Gwendolyn Knight measure 25.35 linear feet and 0.001 GB and date from 1914 to 2008, with one item from 1816 and the bulk of the material dating from 1973 to 2001. The collection includes biographical material; correspondence including condolence letters to Gwendolyn Knight after Jacob Lawrence's death; writings by Jacob Lawrence and others; printed and digital material; photographs; personal business records; artwork; records from the Jacob Lawrence Catalogue Raisonné Project; materials related to the Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation; professional files; and material related to awards and honors received by Jacob Lawrence and Gwendolyn Knight.
Biographical material includes appointment and address books; education and personal identification certificates and documents; awards, certificates, curriculum vitae, and chronologies; biographical material related to other individuals, including identification documents and memorial programs; and transcripts of interviews with Jacob Lawrence and Gwendolyn Knight.
The correspondence series includes extensive personal and professional correspondence with family, friends, artists, admirers (including students in a number of elementary and middle schools), university students, government agencies, art schools, galleries, museums, publishing houses, and others. Included in this series are condolence letters received by Gwendolyn Knight after Jacob Lawrence's death in 2000.
Writings include published and unpublished writings by and about Jacob Lawrence, as well as writings by others. These writings include speeches, notes, essays, articles, lists, and short stories. Also included is a visitor comment book from the Los Angeles County Museum exhibition of Jacob Lawrence's Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass series.
Printed material includes books; brochures; business cards; clippings; exhibition and event announcements, invitations, catalogs, and programs; magazines; newsletters; posters; post cards; and press releases. Books in this collection may include illustrations by Jacob Lawrence or have personal inscriptions from the author to Jacob Lawrence and Gwendolyn Knight.
Photographs include photographs of Jacob Lawrence artwork, photographs and reproductions of Gwendolyn Knight artwork, and photographs of Jacob Lawrence, Gwendolyn Knight, and other individuals. Also included in this series are photographs and reproductions of work by others.
Personal business records include a ledger; consignment, financial, and shipping records related to the Terry Dintenfass Gallery; contracts and agreements; and estate documents.
Artwork includes sketches by Jacob Lawrence, a blank sketchbook inscribed by Jacob Lawrence to Gwendolyn Knight, and artwork by other artists.
Jacob Lawrence Catalogue Raisonné Project Records include materials generated by the Jacob Lawrence Catalogue Raisonné Project, a non-profit created with the goal of producing a catalogue raisonné (and later, a digital archive) of Jacob Lawrence's work. These records include address books and phone logs; copies of Jacob Lawrence's CV; founding documents, bylaws, and meeting minutes; correspondence; writings, including draft pages of the catalogue raisonné; business records, including employment files, contracts, invoices, insurance, and tax information; printed and digital material; and photographs and artwork.
The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation and Related Material series includes founding documents and foundation bylaws, correspondence, financial documents, reports, and proposals. Found within this series are materials related to the Lawrence Center for the Visual Arts, a subsidiary foundation of the Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation.
Professional files include material related to projects and exhibitions, teaching files and inclusion in curricula, files regarding possible fake Jacob Lawrence works, and gallery files.
The honors series is divided into two subseries: awards and certificates, and government honors. Awards and certificates includes honorary degrees, arts prizes, and any other honors awarded to Jacob Lawrence or Gwendolyn Knight. Government honors include resolutions, proclamations, and keys to cities. Also included in this series are correspondence related to awards and honorary degrees, commencement programs, plaques, and medals.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged in 11 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1914-2005 (Boxes 1, 11, 26, OV 10; 0.5 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1943, 1952-2005 (Boxes 1-5, 12-14, 26; 7.7 linear feet)
Series 3: Writings, 1954-1959, 1973-2005, undated (Boxes 5-6, 14-15; 0.5 linear feet)
Series 4: Printed Material, 1816, 1926, 1937, 1945-2008 (Boxes 6-9, 15-17, 26, OV 30, OV 31; 6.8 linear feet)
Series 5: Photographs, circa 1970-1997, undated (Boxes 9, 17, OV 10; 0.4 linear feet)
Series 6: Personal Business Records, 1962-2005 (Boxes 9, 17; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 7: Artwork, 1984, 1990-1994, undated (Boxes 9, 18, 26; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 8: Jacob Lawrence Catalogue Raisonne Project Records, 1982-2002 (Boxes 18-23, Box 26; 5.1 linear feet, ER01; 0.001 GB)
Series 9: Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation and Related Material, 1997-2005 (Box 23; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 10: Professional Files, 1964-2004 (Boxes 23-24; 1.2 linear feet)
Series 11: Honors, 1948, 1966-2005 (Boxes 24-25, 27-29, OV 30; 2.3 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Modernist painter and educator Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) was born in 1917 as Jacob Armstead Lawrence in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He began his art studies at the Utopia Children's Center in New York City's Harlem district where he studied under the painter Charles Alston. Lawrence dropped out of high school at the age of sixteen to continue his art instruction with Alston, this time at the Harlem Art Workshop, where he met several artists associated with the Harlem Renaissance including the sculptor Augusta Savage.
Gwendolyn Knight (1913-2005) was born in Barbados and moved to New York City with her adoptive parents when she was seven. She attended New York's Wadleigh High School and later Howard University in Washington, D.C. where she studied fine arts with Lois Mailou Jones and James Porter. Forced to leave her studies at Howard because of the Depression, Knight returned to Harlem and continued her artistic pursuits in Augusta Savage's workshop. In 1935, Knight joined the Harlem Mural Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) working under Selma Day and Charles Alston. Lawrence and Knight met in Savage's workshop and married in the summer of 1941.
During the Depression, Lawrence also joined the WPA Federal Arts Project in Harlem. Finding WPA murals overwhelming, Lawrence concentrated on traditional painting instead. He produced his first major works in the late 1930s, most notably the Toussaint L'Ouverture series, images that document the life of the revolutionary hero and Haiti's struggle for independence. Other significant works include visual narratives of the lives of abolitionists Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass. In 1940, Lawrence received the prestigious Julius Rosenwald Fellowship, which made it possible for him to purchase his first art studio on 125th Street in the heart of Harlem. He soon portrayed Harlem street life in paintings that became commentaries on the role of African Americans in United States society with highly developed themes of resistance and social opposition. That same year, Lawrence began his most celebrated series, The Migration of the American Negro, multiple tempera panels depicting the exodus of African American sharecroppers in the south to northern industrial cities in search of better employment and social opportunities. Edith Halpert exhibited the works in their entirety at her Downtown Gallery in 1941, establishing Lawrence as the first African American artist to exhibit in a top New York gallery. The following year, New York's Museum of Modern Art and the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC each bought half of the sixty panels in the series, helping to further Lawrence's career within the larger world of American art.
In the summer of 1946, the artist Joseph Albers invited Lawrence to teach at North Carolina's Black Mountain College. It was the first in a series of teaching positions in prestigious art schools including Pratt Institute (1956-1971), Brandeis University (1965), The New School (1966), the Art Students League (1967), and others. During the 1950s and 1960s, Lawrence's work continued to focus on racism and political activism but in the late 1960s shifted to themes of racial harmony.
Both Lawrence and Knight continued independent careers in art. Knight pursued her art studies at the New School in New York and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. In the mid-1960s, she collaborated with other female artists to form the Studio Gallery in New York City. Knight's main body of work consists of portraits and still-lifes that incorporate expressions of African sculpture, Impressionism, dance, and theater. Focusing on gesture, her art is described as light and airy with a minimum of lines allowing empty space to define the work. In 1970, Lawrence traveled to Seattle to teach as a visiting artist at the University of Washington. He was hired on a permanent basis the following year and remained on staff until his retirement in 1986.
Jacob Lawrence died June 9, 2000, in Seattle, Washington at the age of 83. Gwendolyn Knight continued to paint and exhibit her work around the country until her death on February 18, 2005 in Seattle, Washington at the age of 92.
Related Material:
Also found at the Archives of American Art are an oral history interview with Jacob Lawrence conducted by Carroll Greene (1968 October 26), interviews conducted by Avis Berman (1982 July 20-August 4), and an oral history interview with Jacob Lawrence and Gwendolyn Knight conducted by Paul Karlstrom (1998 November 18). The Archives of American Art also holds a collection of Jacob Lawrence papers, available on microfilm only, reels D286 and 4571-4573. Originals reside at Syracuse University Library, Special Collections.
Provenance:
The Jacob Lawrence and Gwendolyn Knight papers were donated to the Archives of American Art in five accretions between 1979 and 1997. Additional papers were donated in 2012 by the Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation via Barbara Earl Thomas, representative.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Occupation:
Painters -- Washington (State) -- Seattle Search this
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Educators -- Washington (State) -- Seattle Search this
Topic:
Painting, Modern -- 20th century -- United States Search this
Jacob Lawrence and Gwendolyn Knight papers, 1816, 1914-2008, bulk 1973-2001. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the 2007 processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art. Funding for the 2018 processing of this collection was provided by the Henry Luce Foundation.
