This collection contains silver gelatin prints and black and white photographic negatives shot by photographer Abigail Adler throughout the Navajo Nation in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah between 1975 and 1980.
Scope and Contents:
The A. Adler photographic collection includes gelatin silver prints, 35mm and 120mm film negatives, and contact sheets. Series 1: Diné (Navajo) Portraits, Families, and Community Events, 1976-1979, includes 11 gelatin silver prints that were shot by photographer Abigail Adler throughout the Navajo Nation, including modern-day Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. The photographs depict Diné (Navajo) individuals and family portraits; ceremonial scenes, such as a Kinaaldá (girl's puberty ceremony), portrait of woman and mother on wedding day, and a Medicine Man with sand painting; and daily activities such as planting corn, outdoor cooking, and traveling by horse-drawn wagon. Series 2: Diné (Navajo) Community and Events Photographs, 1975-1980 includes 4295 35mm film and 460 120mm film black and white photographic negatives and 8 associated contact sheets. . The photographs depict scenes with Diné (Navajo) community members, both at their homes and hogans as well as at community events such as at protests, art shows, contests, in court, and ceremonies like weddings. Adler's photographic negatives exhibit the range of her documentary and personal work throughout the Navajo Nation and the breadth of her connectedness to the greater Diné (Navajo) community. There may be content within this collection that is considered culturally sensitive.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged in two series. Series 1: Diné (Navajo) Portraits, Families, and Community Events [Photographic Prints], 1976-1979, and Series 2: Diné (Navajo) Community and Events Photographs [photographic negatives], 1975-1980. Series 2 is divided into 15 subseries based on Abigail Adler's original order.
Biographical / Historical:
Abigail Adler was an American professional photographer with a degree in Anthropology from Barnard College in New York City. Adler lived on the Navajo Reservation for five years and began her career as a reporter and photographer, using Leica M3's and a Rolleiflex cameras, while working for the Navajo Times. She received funding through the Navajo Nation and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for her project titled Navajo Matriarchs, which illustrated the complex, modern lives of Navajo Women of all ages and traditions.
Provenance:
Series 1 was a Gift of Gail Adler Hughes (Abigail Adler), 1979. Series 2 was a gift of the Estate of Abigail Adler, 2023.
Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archive Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu).
Rights:
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiphotos@si.edu. For personal or classroom use, users are invited to download, print, photocopy, and distribute the images that are available online without prior written permission, provided that the files are not modified in any way, the Smithsonian Institution copyright notice (where applicable) is included, and the source of the image is identified as the National Museum of the American Indian. For more information please see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use and NMAI Archive Center's Digital Image request website.
Native American Church of North America Search this
Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Abigail Adler Diné (Navajo) photographs, NMAI.AC.373 catalog #; National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Leon Polk Smith Native American Oral History Project Search this
Type:
Interviews
Sound recordings
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with D.Y. Begay, 2021 October 7. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Comprehensive index of Charles Lang Freer's library, mostly relating to art and Asian culture. Headings include authors, countries, and topical subjects. Sections include locations in Freer's original Detroit home; an index of all books transferred to the Smithsonian; a list of collections and collectors catalogues of American and Near and Far Eastern art; sales catalogues, and books in Chinese language.
Arrangement:
Organized in the original manner by the creator.
Local Numbers:
FSA A.01 05.22
Collection Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Collection Rights:
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Topic:
Art, Asian -- Collectors and collecting Search this
Art, American -- Collectors and collecting Search this
Charles Lang Freer Papers. FSA A.01. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of the estate of Charles Lang Freer.
The papers of New York tapestry éditeur Gloria Ross measure 14.5 linear feet and date from circa 1924-1998. The bulk of the papers consist of project files that document her collaborations with artists to make tapestries of their paintings and collages. Also found are scattered biographical material, professional correspondence, exhibition files, professional activity files, personal business records, printed material, photographs, and artwork.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of New York tapestry éditeur Gloria Ross measure 14.5 linear feet and date from circa 1924-1998. The bulk of the papers consist of project files that document her collaborations with artists to make tapestries of their paintings and collages. Also found are scattered biographical material, professional correspondence, exhibition files, professional activity files, personal business records, printed material, photographs, and artwork.
Biographical material includes resumes and career summaries, as well as an interview of Ross on one videocassette, and a few Frankenthaler family documents. Correspondence is with artists, weavers, workshops, publications, and galleries and is of a professional nature.
Project files document Ross's collaborations with prominent artists such as Helen Frankenthaler, Robert Motherwell, Romare Bearden, Louise Nevelson, Milton Avery, Stuart Davis, and others. Project files may include correspondence, contracts, invoices, notes, photographs, yarn samples, and a few maquettes and cartoons. Also of note are extensive files regarding her collaborations with Navajo weavers to create tapestries based on geometric paintings by Kenneth Noland. Other project files include a commissioned tapestry for Temple Emanu-El in New York.
Exhibition files document various solo and group exhibitions of Gloria Ross tapestries and includes one videocassette from a 1978 exhibition. Records of her professional activities include her participation in symposia, lectures, and public events. Files may include correspondence, draft lectures, programs, and event publicity. Two short documentaries found on two videocassettes were produced for the Denver Art Museum. Personal business records document Ross's business relationships with weaving workshops and art galleries, most notably Atelier Raymond Picaud, Pinton atelier, Edinburgh Tapestry Company (Dovecot Studios), and Pace Editions, the major sales agent of Gloria Ross tapestries.
Printed material consists of catalogs, announcements, press releases, and other publications regarding exhibitions of Gloria Ross tapestries and Navajo tapestries. Photographs depict Ross, the Frankenthaler family, Ross's tapestries, weaving studios, and Navajo weavers. Artwork includes one painting by Paul Jenkins and unidentified textile and yarn samples.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged as 9 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1926-1998 (5 folders; Box 1)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1965-1998 (0.7 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 3: Project Files, 1960-1998 (7.3 linear feet; Boxes 1-7, 14-15, 17-19, OVs 20, 22-24, Artifact)
Series 4: Exhibition Files, 1967-1994 (0.8 linear feet; Boxes 7-8, 17)
Series 5: Professional Activities, 1955-1997 (0.7 linear feet; Box 8)
Series 6: Personal Business Records, 1964-1998 (1.8 linear feet; Boxes 8-10, OV 21)
Series 7: Printed Material, 1970s-1990s (0.8 linear feet; Boxes 10-11, 14)
Series 8: Photographs, circa 1924-1990s (1.1 linear feet; Boxes 11, 16)
Series 9: Artwork, circa 1970s-1990s (1.1 linear feet; Boxes 11-14, 17, 19)
Biographical / Historical:
Gloria F. Ross (1923-1998) was a tapestry éditeur in New York, New York.
Ross was born Gloria Frankenthaler in New York in 1923. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1943 and married Alfred Ross. They had three children: Alfred, Beverly, and Clifford. In 1954, Gloria Ross made her first needlepoint work from a design by her sister, abstract painter Helen Frankenthaler, and by the mid-1960s, she was exhibiting her tapestries and hooked rugs in New York. She established Gloria F. Ross Studio in 1966 and began regularly collaborating with artists such as Robert Motherwell, Louise Nevelson, Jack Youngerman, and Jean Dubuffet to make their works into tapestries. She created business partnerships with weaving workshops in Scotland and France to produce the works. In 1973 she had her first exhibition at Pace Editions, Inc., beginning a long relationship with the gallery as her main sales agent.
In 1979, Ross first traveled to the Navajo Nation to find weavers for a collaborative project with artist Kenneth Noland. She continued to visit the Southwest at least once a year until 1994, and she donated her collection of Navajo rugs and other textiles to the Denver Art Museum. Throughout the 1980s Ross traveled extensively for projects, exhibitions, and symposia. Her final commissioned project, completed in 1997, was a tapestry designed by artist Mark Podwol for Temple Emanu-El in New York. That same year she established the Gloria F. Ross Center for Tapestry Studies in Tucson, Arizona.
Provenance:
Donated in 2013 by the Gloria Ross estate via Michael I. Katz, executor, with assistance from the Gloria F. Ross Tapestry Program, University of Arizona, via Ann Lane Hedlund, director.
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.
Project files primarily document Ross's collaborations with prominent artists to create tapestries of their paintings. She worked with artists such as Helen Frankenthaler, Robert Motherwell, Romare Bearden, Louise Nevelson, Milton Avery, and Stuart Davis to create designs and selected weavers to translate the artworks into tapestries. She also oversaw commissions and sales of these works to individuals, corporations, and museums. Project files may include correspondence, contracts, invoices, notes, photographs, yarn samples, and a few maquettes and cartoons. Also of note are extensive files regarding her collaborations with Kenneth Noland, with whom she had the longest working relationship of any artist. Included is documentation regarding the Native/Noland series. For this series Ross worked with Navajo weavers to create tapestries based on Noland's geometric paintings. Researchers should note that a few files document project collaborations that were never realized.
Other project files found here include a commissioned tapestry for Temple Emanu-El in collaboration with artist Mark Podwal, as well as commissions for Mazza Gallerie, Phoenix Civic Center, and Westinghouse Broadcasting Company. Documents include correspondence, invoices, agreements, photographs, and notes. Files regarding a Vesti Corporation mostly contain legal records and correspondence regarding Gloria Ross's role in the project.
Arrangement:
This series is arranged as 2 subseries.
Missing Title
3.1: Artist Collaborations, 1960-1998
3.2: Other Projects, 1971-1997
Collection Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
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:
Gloria Ross papers, circa 1924-1998. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Use of original papers requires an appointment. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
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:
Gloria Ross papers, circa 1924-1998. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Personal photographs of Gloria Ross depict her as a child, on her wedding day, at an event with Gerald Ford, and with her sister Helen Frankenthaler. Also found are numerous photographs and color transparencies of Gloria Ross tapestries, including a few installation views, and Navajo tapestries donated and exhibited at the Denver Art Museum. Additionally, there are many polaroids of Navajo weavers and their tapestries and weavers working at the Pinton Atelier and Edinburgh Tapestry Company.
Collection Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
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:
Gloria Ross papers, circa 1924-1998. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
