An interview of Thomas M. Messer conducted 1994 Oct.-1995 Jan., by Andrew Decker, for the Archives of American Art, at the Americas Society, New York, N.Y.
Messer speaks about his youth in pre-World War II Czechoslavakia, his directorship of the American Federation of Arts; the Roswell Museum in Roswell, N.M.; the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston; and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. He discusses his collecting interests in connection with the development of the Guggenheim, particularly Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky; his working relationship with Harry, Peter, and Peggy Guggenheim; numerous exhibitions; and the acquisitions of several major collections. Finally, he comments on post-retirement projects, particularly at the National Gallery of Prague.
Biographical / Historical:
Thomas M. Messer (1920- ) is a museum director in New York, N.Y.
General:
Originally recorded on 7 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 12 digital wav files. Duration is 7 hrs., 23 min.
End of interview session Jan. 24, 1995 (Tape 6, side B) not recorded due to equipment malfunction.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Topic:
Art museum directors -- United States -- Interviews Search this
Genre/Form:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Sponsor:
Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service.
The papers of Chaim and Dorothy Koppelman measure 4.0 linear feet and date from circa 1930s-2006, bulk 1942-2005. The collection documents the activities of Chaim Koppelman and his wife, Dorothy Koppelman, as artists and educators, and their affiliation with the Terrain Gallery and the Aesthetic Realism Foundation. Materials include biographical material, correspondence, writings and notes, subject files, teaching files, exhibition files, personal business records, scrapbooks, printed material, sketches, sketchbooks, and photographs.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of Chaim and Dorothy Koppelman measure 4.0 linear feet and date from circa 1930s-2006, bulk 1942-2005. The collection documents the activities of Chaim Koppelman and his wife, Dorothy Koppelman, as artists and educators, and their affiliation with the Terrain Gallery and the Aesthetic Realism Foundation. Materials include biographical material, correspondence, writings and notes, subject files, teaching files, exhibition files, personal business records, scrapbooks, printed material, sketches, sketchbooks, and photographs.
Scattered biographical material includes resumes, artist's statements, copies of entries in Who's Who directories, and miscellaneous items.
Correspondence includes personal correspondence and general correspondence. Personal correspondence mostly consists of Chaim Koppelman's letters written to Dorothy while he was serving in the U.S. Army during World War II. He describes his daily activities, observations on army life, and his travels while stationed in England, France, and Germany. Of interest is Chaim Koppelman's letter to Dorothy describing his meeting Picasso and visiting the artist's studio. Personal correspondence also includes Chaim and Dorothy Koppelman's letters with family and friends. Notable correspondents include Sari Dienes, Nat Herz, Sheldon Kranz, Amédée Ozenfant, Hilla Rebay, and Theodoros Stamos. Hilla Rebay's letters to Chaim Koppelman discuss museum-related activities at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, including the Guggenheim's memorial exhibition for Wassily Kandinsky. There is also a file of letters from Eli Siegel to Chaim Koppelman. General correspondence includes mostly incoming letters to Chaim Koppelman from collectors, colleagues, students, and arts institutions. Frequent correspondents include: Associated American Artists, American Federation of the Arts, Audubon Artists, DeCordova and Dana Museum and Park, Pratt Graphics Center and Print Council of America.
Writings and notes contain annotated typescripts and handwritten drafts by Chaim and Dorothy Koppelman. Chaim Koppelman's writings include essays and talks on art, artists, and printmaking based on Aesthetic Realism; also found are some poems. Dorothy Koppelman's writings consist of artist's statements and essay-length pieces that were prepared for Aesthetic Realism talks on the work and lives of artists, held at the Terrain Gallery of the Aesthetic Realism Foundation and other venues. Also found is a sound recording of Chaim Koppelman's 1968 conversation with Richard Anuszkiewicz, Roy Lichtenstein, and Clayton Pond; the artists discuss the influence of the Siegel Theory of Opposites on their work.
Subject files document the activities, projects, and professional affiliations of Chaim and Dorothy Koppelman. Included are materials on exhibitions, applications for fellowships and grants, awards, drafts of writings, donations and acquisitions of artwork by museums. Teaching files provide an overview of the faculty positions held by Chaim and Dorothy Koppelman over the course of their careers. Found are extensive files on Chaim Koppelman's tenure at the School of Visual Arts. Exhibition files chronicle the Koppelmans' solo and group shows at the Terrain and other venues; substantive files contain Chaim Koppelman's correspondence with museums and arts institutions and sales information.
Two scrapbooks contain exhibition-related materials, such as artists' statements, press releases, awards, printed material, and photographs of artwork. Artwork includes sketches and illustrated letters by Chaim Koppelman. There are twenty annotated sketchbooks by Chaim Koppelman and a sketchbook by Dorothy Koppelman.
Photographs and snapshots are of Chaim and Dorothy Koppelman; many of the snapshots of Chaim Koppelman and others document his army service while stationed in the United States and Europe. Four photograph albums include black and white photographs of Chaim and Dorothy Koppelman in their studio; included are snapshots of the Koppelmans with family and friends at exhibition openings, gatherings, and on their travels. There are photographs of Regina Dienes, Gerson Lieber, Bernard Olshan, Joseph Solman, and Theodoros Stamos.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 12 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1940-2001 (Box 1; 0.1 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1942-2003 (Box 1; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 3: Writings and Notes, 1930s-1989, 2005 (Box 1; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 4: Subject Files, 1942-2004 (Boxes 1-2; 0.8 linear feet)
Series 5: Teaching Files, 1940s-2006 (Box 2; 0.4 linear feet)
Series 6: Exhibition Files, 1940s-2005 (Boxes 2-3; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 7: Personal Business Records, 1944-1969 (Box 3; 3 folders)
Series 8: Scrapbooks, 1942-2003 (Box 3; 2 folders)
Series 9: Printed Material, 1937-1971, 2004 (Box 3; 0.25 linear feet)
Series 10: Artwork, 1933-1949, 1980-2000 (Box 3; 3 folders)
Series 11: Sketchbooks, 1944-2005 (Boxes 3-4; 0.8 linear feet)
Series 12: Photographs, 1930-circa 2004 (Box 4; 0.25 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Chaim Koppelman (1920-2009) lived and worked in New York as a printmaker, educator, and Aesthetic Realism consultant. Painter, gallery director, Aesthetic Realism consultant, and educator Dorothy Koppelman (1920-) resides and works in New York City.
Chaim Koppelman was born in Brooklyn in 1920. Koppelman studied at the American Artists School with Carl Holty and at the Art Students League with Jose De Creeft and Will Barnet. Simultaneously, he began to study in classes taught by Eli Siegel, critic, poet, and founder of the philosophy Aesthetic Realism. In 1942, Koppelman was drafted in the U.S. Army. Before going overseas in 1943, he married Dorothy Myers. In the army, Koppelman continued his studies in painting and sculpture, where he attended the Art College in Western England, Bristol, and the Beaux Arts School in Reims, France. Chaim Koppelman took part in the Normandy invasion and was awarded the Bronze Star for his service.
After Koppelman returned to New York in 1944, he studied at the Amédée Ozenfant School, where he eventually became Ozenfant's assistant. Around this time, Koppelman turned from painting and sculpture to printmaking. In 1955, Chaim Koppelman, his wife, Dorothy, and other artists and poets studying Aesthetic Realism established the Terrain Gallery. For many years, Koppelman was the head of the gallery's Print Division and then later became an advisory director.
Chaim Koppelman held a number of teaching positions in universities and arts institutions. He lectured at Brooklyn College, the Art Education Department from 1950-1960. In 1959, Koppelman founded the Printmaking Division at the School of Visual Arts, where he served on the school's faculty until 2007. At the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, he taught artists how to relate their artwork and their everyday lives. He wrote: "After having tested his aesthetic concepts in literally thousands of works of different periods, in different styles, in different media, I say that Eli Siegel's Theory of Opposites is the key to what is good or beautiful in art….When Eli Siegel showed that what makes a work of art beautiful—the oneness of opposites—is the same as what every individual wants, it was one of the mightiest and kindest achievements of man's mind."
Among the awards Chaim Koppelman received were: two Tiffany Grants, 1956, 1959; New York Artists Equity Annual Awards Honoring Will Barnet, Robert Blackburn, Chaim Koppelman, 1992; and the Purchase Prize, Art Students League in 2005. Koppelman was a member of the National Academy and a member of the Society of American Graphic Artists (SAGA). In 2004, SAGA presented him with the Lifetime Achievement Award.
In addition to his solo and group exhibitions at the Terrain Gallery, Chaim Koppelman's work was featured at the Beatrice Conde Gallery, International Print Center (New York), Library of Congress, and Minneapolis Institute of Arts. His prints are in the collections of the Guggenheim Museum, Museum of Modern Art (New York), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the National Gallery.
In December 2009, Koppelman died at age 89 in New York City.
Born in 1920, Dorothy Koppelman attended Brooklyn College, the Art Students League, and American Artists School where she trained under Joseph Solman. During this time, she began to study poetry, and the relation of art and the self in classes with Eli Siegel, the founder of Aesthetic Realism.
Dorothy Koppelman has had a number of solo and group exhibitions at the Terrain Gallery. She has also shown her paintings at the Atlantic Gallery, Art Gallery of Binghamton, New York, Beatrice Conde Gallery, the Broome Street Gallery, and at MoMA, Brooklyn Museum, Newark Museum, the Whitney Biennial 2006 Peace Tower, the National Academy, and the Butler Art Institute.
Dorothy Koppelman has served on the faculty at several arts institutions: the National Academy, Brooklyn College School of Education, and the School of Visual Arts. She has given presentations on Aesthetic Realism at the Fondazione Piero della Francesa in Italy, and with Carrie Wilson at the 31st World Congress of the International Society for Education through Art (InSEA). On August 16, 2002, in a talk given on Eli Siegel Day in Baltimore, she said, "Eli Siegel explained the true meaning of art for our lives. No one—no scholar, no artist, no person—in all the centuries ever saw this before: that we can learn about ourselves from the very technique of art!...He showed that far from being in a separate world, art has the answer to the trouble in this one."
She is a member of several professional organizations including the American Society of Contemporary Artists and New York Artists Equity. She has received an Honorable Mention from the Brooklyn Society of Artists, 1957; a Tiffany Grant for painting, 1965; and awards from the American Society of Contemporary Artists, 1996, 1999. Dorothy Koppelman's work has been included in the collections of Hampton University, Virginia; Rosenzweig Museum, Durham, North Carolina; New-York Historical Society; Yale University; the National Museum of Women in the Arts, as well as other institutions.
Dorothy Koppelman lives in New York City. She is a consultant on the faculty of the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, where she also teaches the Critical Inquiry, a workshop for artists. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, and is President of the Eli Siegel/Martha Baird Foundation. She continues her study in classes with Ellen Reiss, Aesthetic Realism Chairman of Education.
Related Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds the Terrain Gallery records of which Dorothy Koppelman is the director.
Provenance:
The collection was donated by Chaim and Dorothy Koppelman in 2006.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment. Use of archival 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.
Inventory cards track artwork entering and leaving the gallery. Each card lists a work's artist, title, date, media, and measurements. Most cards include a photograph of the artwork, and most cards further list the ultimate action taken regarding the work (sold, returned to artist or gallery, consigned, etc.), the list price or paid price, exhibition and catalog history, and the history of price quotes given for the work. The gallery used a number of abbreviations for the transactions on the inventory cards:
NFS - Not For Sale
RTA - Returned to Artist
o/c - On Consignment (from)
o/a - On Approval
OOG - Out of Gallery
O/L - On Loan (from)
TGF - Top Gallant Farm
There are no inventory cards tracking pre-Columbian art and artifacts in the collection. The cards represent works from both the New York gallery and Zurich gallery.
The cards are arranged into ten overlapping groups established by the gallery representing transactions, such as sales and consignments, loans, returns, and other general art movement. Within each category, most of the cards are alphabetized by artist and thereafter by title, but occasionally an artist's work is divided into categories (for example by media) before being arranged alphabetically by title:
Returned to Artist
Sold (pre-1993)
Sold
Sold and/or Returned to Artist
Returned to Artist
Sold
Old Top Gallant Farm Sculptures
Emmerich Private Sold
Last Active Inventory and Sales
Additional Cards
See Appendix for a list of artists' names represented by the Artist Inventory Cards in Series 8.1.
Appendix: Artists' Names Represented in Artist Inventory Cards in Series 8.1.:
Aakre, Richard
Abbott, Berenice
Abercrombie, Douglas
Adams, Ansel
Adams, Robert
Africano, Nicholas
Albers, Josef
Alechinsky, Pierre
Altoon, John
Amerine, Wayne
Andre, Carl
Annesley, David
Appel, Karel
Arakawa
Arbus, Diane
Arman
Arp, Jean (Hans)
Ashbaugh, Dennis
Atget, Eugene
Atkins, Anna
Audubon, J.J.
Avery, Milton
Bacon, Francis
Bailey, William
Baldus, Edouard
Ball, Lillian
Balthus
Bannard, Walter Darby
Barlett, Jennifer
Barth, Frances
Barth, Wolf
Bartolini, Luciano
Basquiat, Jean-Michel
Baziotes, William
Beasley, Barth
Bireline, George
Bleckner, Ross
Blossfeldt, Karl
Bocklin, Arnold
Boisseu
Boisson, L.
Bolotowsky, Ilya
Bolus, Michael
Bonnard, Pierre
Bonnet, Phi
Bradley, Peter
Beasley, Bruce
Becher, Bernd and Hillar
Bellocq, E.J.
Benazzi, Raffael
Benton, Fletcher
Best, Mary Ellen
Beuys, Joseph
Bill, Max
Boepple, Willard
Bogart, Bram
Borofsky, John
Boxer, Stanley
Botero, Fernardo
Boudin, Eugene
Bourke-White, Margaret
Brach, Paul
Brancusi, Constantin
Braque, George
Brassaï
Breed, Charles
Brui
Brush, Daniel
Buchwald, Howard
Buckley, Stephen
Bucklow, Christopher
Bush, Jack
Butterfield, Deborah
Calder, Alexander
Callahan, Harry
Cascella, Andrea
Caracciolo, Roberto
Caro, Anthony
Cezanne, Paul
Chadwick, Lynn
Chagall, Marc
Chamberlain, John
Chase, Louisa
Chillida, Eduardo
Christensen, Dan
Christo
Clifford, Charles
Close, Chuck
Cohen, Elaine Lustig
Conlon, William
Contino, Leonard
Crile, Susan
cummings, e.e.
Dahl-Wolfe, Louise
David, Michael
Davis, Gerald
Davis, Lynn
Davis, Ronald
de Amaral, Olga
de Chirico, Giorgio
de Clercq, Louis
de Kooning, Willem
Degas, Edgar
Dehner, Edgar
Delaunay, Robert
Delaunay, Sonia
Dembiczak, J.G.
de Valdivia, Marco
di Suvero, Mark
Diebenkorn, Richard
Dill, Guy
Dill, Lesley
Diller, Burgoyne
Dine, Jim
Disderi
Dorazio, Piero
Downes, Rackstraw
Drapell, Joseph
Drentwett
Dubuffet, Jean
Duchamp, Marcel
Duck-Hyun, Cho
Dufy, Raoul
Du Maine, H.
Durandelle, Louis-Emille
Durrant, Jennifer
Dzubas, Friedel
Edgerton, Dr. Harold
Egger, Marc
Eggleston, William
Embry, Norris
Ellis, Stephen
Emmerich, Tobias
Ernst, Max
Evans, Walker
Fautrier, Jean
Feeley, Paul
Feist, Harold
Ferber, Herbert
Ferrara, Jackie
Fessler, Cristina
Fischl, Eric
Flavin, Dan
Fleming, Linda
Fontana, Corsin
Fontana, Lucio
Ford, Hermine
Fornier, Paul
Foster, John
Fournier, Paul
Francis, Sam
Francis, Sherron
Franck
Frank, Robert
Frankenthaler, Helen
Freud, Lucian
Friedberg, Richard
Freres, Henry
Friedlander, Lee
Fuger
Funakoshi, Katsura
Fuss, Adam
Galanin, Igor
Giacometti, Alberto
Gibbons, Arthur
Gilliam, Sam
Ginnever, Charles
Giordani, Patrice
Glarner, Fritz
Gliko, Carl
Gonzalez, Julio
Goodnough, Robert
Gorchov, Ron
Gordon, Harry
Gorky, Arshile
Gossweiler, Christoph
Gottlieb, Adolph
Graffin, Daniel
Graham, John
Graubner, Gotthard
Graves, Nancy
Green, June
Greenleaf, Ken
Griefen, John Adams
Grill
Gris, Juan
Groover, Jan
Guston, Philip
Gutman, John
Hacklin, Alan/Allan
Hagemeyer, Johan
Hall, Lee
Hantai, Simon
Haring, Keith
Harman, Maryann
Hartley, Marsden
Hartung, Hans
Hatcher, Brower
Held, Al
Hendler, Raymond
Hennessy, Richard
Hepworth, Barbara
Herdeg, Christian
Hide, Peter
Highstein, Jene
Hirschfeld
Hitch, Stewart
Hockney, David
Hodgkin, Howard
Hoenigsberg, Helga
Hofmann, Hans
Hollega, Wolfgang
Honegger, Gottfried
Hope, Polly
Hopper, Edward
Horne, Bernard Shea
Hosiasson, Philippe
Hoyland, John
Hoyningen-Heune, George
Hughto, Darryl
Hughto, Margie/Marjorie
Humphrey, Ralph
Hutchinson, Jay
Hutchinson, Jaqueth
Indiana, Robert
Isherwood, Jon
Jenkins, Paul
Jensen, Bill
Johns, Jasper
Johnson, Meredith
Jorn, Asger
Kandinsky, Wassily
Kelly, Ellsworth
Kertesz, Andre
Keskeny, George
Kiesler, Frederick
Kisling
Klee, Paul
Klein, Yves
Klett, Mark
Kline, Franz
Knoop, Guitou
Koekoek, B.C.
Krasner, Lee
Kupka, Frantisek
Kuwayama, Tadaaki
Lack, Stephen
Landfield, Ronnie
Lange, Dorothea
Langlois and Martens
La Noue, Terence
Laurens, Henri
Leger, Fernand
Le Gray, Gustave
Lehman, Wendy
LeRoy, Jeanette
Letellier, B.
Lettron, J.
Levee, John
Levinson, Moss
Levitt, Helen
Lewitt, Sol
Liberman, Alexander
Lichtenstein, Roy
Lindner, Richard
Lipschitz, Jacques
Lipski, Donald
Lipsky, Pat
Lissitsky, El
Lipsky, Pat
Lohse, Richard Paul
Long, Richard
Longobardi, Nino
Louis, Morris
Lüthi, Bernhard
Lüthi, Urs
Lutz
Lydis, Mariette
MacWhinnie, John
Maillol, Aristide
Mairwöger, Gottfried
Mapplethorpe, Robert
Marden, Brice
Maril, Herman
Marin, John
On Consignment from Peter Marks
Martin, Agnes
Martins, Maria
Marx, G.L.
Maryan
Masullo, Andrew
Mathieu, Georges
Matisse, Henri
Matta, Roberto
McDermott & McGough, Messrs.
McDonnell, Joseph Anthony
McLaughlin, John
McLean, John
Meadmore, Clement
Megert, Christian
Miller, Robert
Milton, Peter
Miró, Joan
Misrach, Richard
Mitchell, Joan
Model, Lisette
Moholy-Nagy, Laszlo
Monet, Claude
Moore, Henry
Morandi, Giorgio
Moses, Ed
Motherwell, Robert
Mulder, George
Muller-Brittnau, Willy
Murray, Elizabeth
Muybridge, Eadweard
Nadar, (Felix Tournachon)
Nadelman, Elie
Nakian, Reuben
Natkin, Robert
Nemont, G.
Neugass, Fritz
Nevelson, Louise
Newman, Arnold
Newman, Barnett
Nezhdanov, Alexander
Nicholson, Ben
Nickson, Graham
Nixon, Nicholas
Noel, Georges
Noguchi, Isamu
Noland, Kenneth
Nolde, Emil
Offord, J. Milton
Oldenburg, Claes
Olitski, Jules
Olmec
Ono, Yoko
Orr, Eric
O'Sullivan, Timothy
Otterness, Tom
Outerbridge, Paul
Paik, Nam June
Parodi, Filippo
Penn, Irving
Pepper, Beverly
Perless, Robert
Perlman, Joel
Pettet, William
Pfaff, Judy
Picabia, Francis
Picasso, Pablo
Pissarro, Camille
Pollock, Jackson
Pomodoro, Arnaldo
Poons, Lawrence
Porter, Fairfield
Porter, Katherine
Poulos, Basilios
Press, Naomi
Quaytman, Harvey
Quigley, Edward
Quisgard, Liz Whitney
Rainer, Arnulf
Raush, Mark
Rauschenberg, Robert
Ray, Man
Recanati, Dina
Reddinger
Reinhardt, Ad
Richter, Gerhard
Rickey, George
Ridenhour, William
Rivers, Larry
Robb, Charles
Robbins, Bruce
Robert, Louis
Rockburne, Dorothea
Rodin, Auguste
Rosan, Larry
Rosen, Felix
Rosenthal, Tony
Rosenquist, James
Rossi, Rosalie
Rothko, Mark
Row, David
Rozen, Feliz
Rutherford, Louis M.
Ryan, Anne
Ryan, Kevin
Ryman, Robert
Saba, Richard
de Saint Phalle, Niki
Saito, Kikuo
Salemme, Attilio
Samaras, Lucas
Sander, August
Sander, Ludwig
Sanders, John
Santomaso, Giuseppe
Schapiro, Miriam
Schlemmer, Oskar
Schlesinger, Mark
Schumacher, Emil
Scott, Robert
Scott, Tim
Scott, William
Seery, John
Segal, George
Seligmann, Kurt
Sellers, Daniel
Serra, Richard
Shapiro, Joel
Shields, Alan
Signac, Paul
Simpson, David
Sisley, Alfred
Slone, Sandi
Smith, David
Smith, Hassel
Smith, Kimber
Smith, Tony
Sohanievich, Oleg
Sommer, Frederick
Sommer, Giorgio
Southall, Derek
Spence, Andrew
Stamos, Theodoros
Stankiewicz, Richard
Steichen, Edward
Steiner, Michael
Stella, Frank
Stephan, Gary
Stettheimer, Florine
Stevens, Peter
Still, Clyfford
Stoltz, David
Stone, Sylvia
Strand, Paul
Sugarman, George
Sugimoto, Hiroshi
Sultan, Donald
Sutton, Carol
Sutton, Pat Lipsky
Tajiri, Shinkichi
Talbot, William Henry Fox
Tanger, Susanna
Tatafiore, Ernesto
Thiebaud, Wayne
Thorne, Joan
Tillyer, William
Torres-Garcia, Joaquin
Truitt, Anne
Twombly, Cy
Tworkov, Jack
Unger, Mary Ann
Upton, Ann
Wagner, Merrill
Van Dongen, Kees
Van Gogh Manuscript
Van Stalbent, Adrien
Van Velde, Bram
Vasarely, Victor
Venet, Bernar
Verna, Germaine
Vicente, Esteban
Vuillard, Edouard
Waid, Mary Joan
Walsh, James
Ward, Cora Kelly
Warhol, Andy
Warren, Catharine
Wells, Lynton
Watkins, Charlton E.
Wegman, William
Wessel, Henry
Wesselman, Tom
Westfall, Stephen
Wiegmann, Jenny
Willette, Adolph
Williams, Neil
Williams, Roger
Willis, Thornton
Wilmarth, Christopher
Winogrand, Garry
Witkin, Isaac
Witkin, Joel-Peter
Woelfli, Adolf
Wofford, Philip
Wolfe, James
Wols, Alfred Otto Wolfgang
Wonner, Paul
Woodman, Betty
Woolf, Paul
Wotruba, Fritz
Yokoi, Teruko
Youngerman, Jack
Yunkers, Adja
Zerbe, Karl
Zimmerman, Daniel
Zox, Larry
Collection Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Access of diaries and appointment books required written permission.
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:
André Emmerich Gallery records and André Emmerich papers, circa 1929-2009. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Leon Levy Foundation.
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Access of diaries and appointment books required written permission.
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:
André Emmerich Gallery records and André Emmerich papers, circa 1929-2009. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Leon Levy Foundation.
The papers of art historian, dealer, critic, and curator Katharine Kuh measure 12 linear feet and date from 1875-1994, with the bulk of the material dating from 1930-1994. The collection documents Kuh's career as a pioneer modernist art historian and as the first woman curator of European Art and Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago. Found within the papers are biographical material; correspondence with family, friends and colleagues; personal business records; artwork by various artists; a travel journal; writings by Kuh and others; scrapbooks; printed material; photographs of Kuh and others; and audio recordings of Kuh's lectures and of Daniel Catton Rich reading poetry.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of art historian, dealer, critic, and curator Katharine Kuh measure 12 linear feet and date from 1875-1994, with the bulk of the material dating from 1930-1994. Found within the papers are biographical material; correspondence with family, friends and colleagues; personal business records; artwork by various artists; a travel journal; writings by Kuh and others; scrapbooks; printed material; photographs of Kuh and others; and audio recordings of Kuh's lectures and of Daniel Catton Rich reading poetry.
Biographical material consists of copies of Kuh's birth certificate, resumés, passports, award certificates, honorary diplomas, and address books listing information about several prominent artists and colleagues.
Four linear feet of correspondence offers excellent documentation of Kuh's interest in art history, her travels, her career at the Art Institute of Chicago, her work as a corporate art advisor, and as an author. There are letters from her mother Olga Woolf, friends, and colleagues. There is extensive correspondence with various staff members of the Art Institute of Chicago, the First National Bank of Chicago, and The Saturday Review. Also of interest are letters from artists and collectors, several of whom became life-long friends including Walter and Louise Arensberg, Cosmo Campoli, Serge Chermayeff, Richard Cox, Worden Day, Claire Falkenstein, Fred Friendly, Leon Golub, Joseph Goto, David Hare, Denise Brown Hare, Jean Hélion, Ray Johnson, Gyorgy and Juliet Kepes, Len Lye, Wallace Putnam, Kurt Seligmann, Shelby Shackelford, Hedda Sterne, and Clyfford Still. Many letters are illustrated with original artwork in various media.
There are also scattered letters from various artists and other prominent individuals including Josef Albers, George Biddle, Marcel Breuer, Joseph Cornell, Stuart Davis, Edwin Dickinson, Joseph Hirshhorn, Daniel Catton Rich, and Dorothea Tanning.
Personal business records include a list of artwork, Olga Woolf's will, inventories of Kuh's personal art collection, miscellaneous contracts and deeds of gift, receipts for the sale of artwork, files concerning business-related travel, and miscellaneous receipts.
Artwork in the collection represents a wide range of artist friends and media, such as drawings, watercolors, paintings, collages, and prints. Included are works by various artists including lithographs by David Hare and a watercolor set, Technics and Creativity, designed and autographed by Jasper Johns for the Museum of Modern Art, 1970.
Notes and writings include annotated engagement calendars, travel journals for Germany, a guest book for the Kuh Memorial gathering, and many writings and notes by Kuh for lectures and articles concerning art history topics. Of interest are minutes/notes from meetings for art festivals, conferences, and the "Conversations with Artists Program (1961). Also found are writings by others about Kuh and other art history topics.
Six scrapbooks contain clippings that document the height of Kuh's career as a gallery director and museum curator. Scrapbook 6 contains clippings about Fernand Léger, the subject of a retrospective exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1953.
Additional printed material includes clippings about Kuh and her interests, a comprehensive collection of clippings of Kuh's articles for The Saturday Review, exhibition announcements and catalogs, calendars of events, programs, brochures, books including Poems by Kuh as a child, and reproductions of artwork. Of particular interest are the early and exhibition catalogs from the Katharine Kuh Gallery, and rare catalogs for artists including Jean Arp, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Stanley William Hayter, Hans Hofmann, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Franz Kline, Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Pablo Picasso.
Photographs provide important documentation of the life and career of Katharine Kuh and are of Kuh, family members, friends, colleagues, events, residences, and artwork. Several of the photographs of Kuh were taken by Will Barnet and Marcel Breuer and there is a notable pair of photo booth portraits of Kuh and a young Ansel Adams. There are also group photographs showing Angelica Archipenko with Kuh; designer Klaus Grabe; painters José Chavez Morado and Pablo O'Higgins in San Miguel, Mexico; Kuh at the Venice Biennale with friends and colleagues including Peggy Guggenheim, Frances Perkins, Daniel Catton Rich, and Harry Winston; and "The Pre-Depressionists" including Lorser Feitelson, Robert Inverarity, Helen Lundeberg, Arthur Millier, Myron Chester Nutting, and Muriel Tyler Nutting.
Photographs of exhibition installations and openings include views of the Katharine Kuh Gallery; Fernand Léger, Man Ray, and László Moholy-Nagy at the Art Institute of Chicago; and Philip Guston, Jimmy Ernst, Seymour H. Knox, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, and Mark Rothko at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York. There are also photographs depicting three men posing as Léger's "Three Musicians" and the visit of Queen Elizabeth II to the Art Institute of Chicago. There is a photograph by Peter Pollack of an elk skull used as a model by Georgia O'Keeffe.
Additional photographs of friends and colleagues include Ivan Albright, Alfred Barr, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Willem De Kooning, Edwin Dickinson, Marcel Duchamp, Claire Falkenstein, Alberto Giacometti, poet Robert Graves with Len Lye, Philip Johnson, Gyorgy and Juliet Kepes, Carlos Mérida, José Orozco, Hasan Ozbekhan, Pablo Picasso, Carl Sandberg, Ben Shahn, Otto Spaeth, Hedda Sterne, Adlai Stevenson, Clyfford Still, Mark Tobey, and composer Victor Young.
Photographs of artwork include totem poles in Alaska; work by various artists including Claire Falkenstein, Paul Klee, and Hedda Sterne; and work donated to the Guggenheim Museum.
Four audio recordings on cassette are of Katharine Kuh's lectures, including one about assembling corporate collections, and of Daniel Catton Rich reading his own poetry. There is also a recording of the Second Annual Dialogue between Broadcasters and Museum Educators.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 9 series. Undated correspondence, artwork, and photographs of individual artists are arranged alphabetically. Otherwise, each series is arranged chronologically.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1945-1992 (Box 1; 16 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1908-1994 (Boxes 1-5, 13-14, OV 15; 4.0 linear feet)
Series 3: Personal Business Records, 1941-1989 (Box 5; 19 folders)
Series 4: Artwork, 1931-1986 (Boxes 5, 13-14, OVs 15-23; 1.7 linear feet)
Series 5: Notes and Writings, 1914-1994 (Boxes 5-7; 1.7 linear feet)
Series 6: Scrapbooks, 1935-1953 (Box 7; 8 folders)
Series 7: Printed Material, 1916-1992 (Boxes 7-10, 13, OV 22; 3.0 linear feet)
Series 8: Photographs, 1875-1993 (Boxes 10-13; 1.2 linear feet)
Series 9: Audio Recordings, 1977 (Box 12; 1 folder)
Biographical Note:
Katharine Kuh (1904-1994) worked primarily in the Chicago area as an modern art historian, dealer, critic, curator, writer, and consultant. She operated the Katharine Kuh Gallery from 1935-1943 and was the first woman curator of European and Art and Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Katharine Kuh (née Woolf) was born on July 15, 1904 in St. Louis, Missouri, the youngest of the three daughters of Olga Weiner and Morris Woolf, a silk importer. In 1909, the family moved to Chicago, Illinois. While traveling with her family in Europe in 1914, Katharine contracted polio, causing her to spend the next decade in a body brace. During this time of restricted movement, she developed an interest in art history through the collecting of old master prints.
After her recovery, Katharine Woolf attended Vassar College where one of her professors, Alfred Barr, encouraged her to study modern art. She graduated from Vassar in 1925 and received a master's degree in art history from the University of Chicago in 1929. Later that year, she moved to New York to pursue a Ph.D. in Renaissance and medieval art at New York University.
In 1930, Katharine Woolf returned to Chicago and married businessman George Kuh and began to teach art history courses in the suburbs of Chicago. After divorcing George Kuh in 1935, she opened the Katharine Kuh Gallery, the first gallery devoted to avant-garde art in Chicago. It was also the first gallery to exhibit photography and typographical design as art forms, and featured the work of Ansel Adams, Josef Albers, Alexander Calder, Wassily Kandinsky, Fernand Léger, and Man Ray, among others. From 1938 to1940, Kuh was the Visiting Professor of Art at the University School of Fine Arts, San Miguel, Mexico.
After the Katharine Kuh Gallery closed in 1943, Kuh was hired by museum director Daniel Catton Rich to fill a position in public relations at the Art Institute of Chicago. During the following years, Kuh edited the museum's Quarterly publication, took charge of the museum's Gallery of Interpretive Art, and began a long term relationship with Rich. In 1946, Kuh was sent on a special mission for the U. S. Office of Indian Affairs to make a detailed study of Native American totemic carvings in Alaska.
In 1949, Kuh persuaded Mr. and Mrs. Walter Arensberg of Los Angeles to exhibit their collection of modern art, creating the first post-war exhibition of modern art in Chicago. She published her first book Art Has Many Faces in 1951, and in the following year, she began writing art criticism for The Saturday Review. In 1954, Kuh was appointed the first woman curator of European Art and Sculpture at the Art Institute. She assembled the American contribution for the Venice Biennale in 1956 and during these years, Kuh helped acquire many of the works of modern art currently in the museum's collection.
A year following Daniel Catton Rich's 1958 resignation from the Art Institute of Chicago, Kuh also resigned and pursued a career in New York as an art collection advisor, most notably for the First National Bank of Chicago. In 1959, Kuh was made art critic for The Saturday Review, and she continued to publish books, including The Artist's Voice in 1962, Break-Up: The Core of Modern Art in 1965, and The Open Eye: In Pursuit of Art in 1971.
Katharine Kuh died on January 10, 1994 in New York City.
Provenance:
The Katharine Kuh papers were donated in several installments from 1971 to 1989 by Katharine Kuh and in 1994 by her estate. Artwork was donated in 1995 by Kuh's former employer, the Art Institute of Chicago.
Restrictions:
Authorization to quote, publish or reproduce requires written permission until 2019. Contact the Archives of American Art Reference Services department for additional 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.
An interview of George McNeil conducted 1968 Jan. 9-May 21, by Irving Sandler, for the Archives of American Art. McNeil speaks of why he became interested in art; his early influences; becoming interested in modern art after attending lectures by Vaclav Vytlacil; meeting Arshile Gorky; the leading figures in modern art during the 1930s; his interest in Cézanne; studying with Jan Matulka and Hans Hofmann; his experiences with the WPA; the modern artists within the WPA; the American Abstract Artists (A.A.A.); a group of painters oriented to Paris called The Ten; how there was an anti-surrealism attitude, and a surrealist would not have been permitted in A.A.A; what the A.A.A. constituted as abstract art; a grouping within the A.A.A. called the Concretionists; his memories of Léger; how he assesses the period of the 1930s; the importance of Cubism; what he thinks caused the decline of A.A.A.; how he assesses the period of the 1940s; his stance on form and the plastic values in art; his thoughts on various artists; the importance of The Club; the antipathy to the School of Paris after the war; how Impressionism was considered in the 40s and 50s; slides of his paintings from 1937 to 1962, and shows how he developed as an artist; the problems of abstract expressionism; organic and geometric form; the schisms in different art groups due to politics; his teaching techniques; why he feels modern painting declined after 1912; the quality of A.A.A. works; stretching his canvases, and the sizes he uses; his recent works, and his approaches to painting. He recalls Vaclav Vytlacil, Hans Hofmann; Arshile Gorky, John Graham, Jan Matulka, John Marin, Wassily Kandinsky, Mercedes Carles Matter, Albert Swinden, Fernand Léger, Stuart Davis, Burgoyne Diller, David Smith, Edgar Levy, Leo Manso, Irene Rice Pereira, Willem de Kooning, Ilya Bolotowsky, Mark Rothko, Adolph Gottlieb, Joan Miró, Robert Motherwell, George L.K. Morris, Albert Gallatin, Charles Shaw, John Ferrin, Ralph Rosenborg, Hananiah Harari, Agnes Lyall, Jean Helion, and many others.
Biographical / Historical:
George McNeil (1908-1995) was a painter and printmaker from New York, N.Y.
General:
Originally recorded on 3 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 6 digital wav files. Duration is 5 hrs., 14 min.
Provenance:
These interviews are part of the Archives' Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and others.
Restrictions:
Transcript is available on the Archives of American Art's website.
Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945 Search this
Extent:
39 Pages (Transcript)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Pages
Sound recordings
Interviews
Date:
1965 September 5
Scope and Contents:
An interview of Herman Maril conducted 1965 September 5, by Dorothy Seckler, for the Archives of American Art.
Maril speaks of growing up in Baltimore, Maryland.; attending the Maryland Institute of Fine Arts; visiting museums in the Washington, D.C. area; exhibiting his paintings in Washington, D.C. galleries and New York City galleries; working for the Treasury Art Project; surviving the Great Depression; teaching at the Cummington School of Art in Cummington, Massachusetts; serving in the Army Air Corps during WWII; painting murals with the Public Buildings Administration; teaching at the King-Smith School, the Washington Workshop of the Arts, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the University of Maryland; living in Provincetown; painting and his influences; being interviewed for books and a short film. Maril also recalls Roger Frye, Paul Cézanne, Henry Roben, Charles Walther, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Edward Rowan, Eleanor Roosevelt, Chaim Gross, Henri Matisse, Piero della Francesca, Mino Argento, Olin Dows, Giotto di Bondone, Georges Henri Rouault, Wassily Kandinksy, Charles Walthrop, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, Eliot O'Hara, Sheldon Cheney, Florence Watson, Jacques Lipchitz, Mason F. Lord, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Herman Maril (1908-1986) was a painter and printmaker from Baltimore, Maryland.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound tape. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 1 hr.
Provenance:
These interviews are part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and others.
An interview of Helen Frankenthaler conducted 1968, by Barbara Rose, for the Archives of American Art.
Frankenthaler speaks of studying art at Bennington College with Paul Feeley; the influence of Picasso and Kandinsky on her work; Clement Greenberg and his relationship with Frankenthaler and other artists; studying with Hans Hofmann and Rufino Tamayo; her childhood; meeting Robert Motherwell; the New York School; and Jackson Pollock, his paintings, technique, and influence on her. She also describes her technique, painting on the floor, titles, and color versus drawing. Frankenthaler recalls Grace Hartigan, Friedel Dzubas, Willem de Kooning, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Helen Frankenthaler (1928- 2011) was a painter from New York, N.Y.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives' Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and others.
Restrictions:
Sound quality is very poor.
Occupation:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
