The papers of Southern California art dealer and abstract painter John McLaughlin measure 4.2 linear feet and date from 1922 to 1979, bulk 1936 to 1976. The collection documents John McLaughlin's personal life and career through biographical material, correspondence, writings, Tamarind Lithography fellowship files, scattered personal business records, printed materials, preliminary sketches and designs, and photographic material.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Southern California art dealer and abstract painter John McLaughlin measure 4.2 linear feet and date from 1922 to 1979, bulk 1936 to 1976. The collection documents John McLaughlin's personal life and career through biographical material, correspondence, writings, Tamarind Lithography fellowship files, scattered personal business records, printed materials, preliminary sketches and designs, and photographic material.
Biographical material includes McLaughlin's military service records, art awards, and resumes.
Correspondence is with friends, artists, museums, and galleries. Notable correspondents include Eugene Anderson, Karl Benjamin, Frederick Hammersley, Jules Langsner, Stanton Macdonald-Wright, and others.
Writings include artist statements, lectures, and notes. Researchers will find McLaughlin's ideas about his work and aesthetics are also referenced in much of the correspondence. There are also writings about McLaughlin by others.
The Tamarind Lithography fellowship files consists of the letter of appointment, printed material, and profiles for fellow artists at the workshop.
Personal business records include assorted legal and financial papers, such as contracts with galleries, art loan agreements, consignment records, and art shipment expenses. There are business papers about McLaughlin's Japanese print gallery, The Tokaido, Inc.
Printed material consists of exhibition catalogs for McLaughlin's shows at the Andre Emmerich Gallery, Felix Landau Gallery, a retrospective at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in 1968, and the seminal 1959 Four Abstract Classicists exhibition in Los Angeles, among others. Also included are exhibition announcements, news clippings, and press releases.
Artwork includes annotated sketches, collages and designs for paintings, and one painting.
Photographs, negatives, and slides are of McLaughlin, artwork, and exhibition installations. There is one album of photographs from a 1963 retrospective exhibition at the Pasadena Art Museum.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged as 8 series.
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1941-circa 1975 (8 folders; Box 1)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1936-1976 (0.6 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 3: Writings, circa 1936-1976 (0.2 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 4: Tamarind Lithography Fellowship Files, 1958-1970 (0.2 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 5: Personal Business Records, circa 1937-1975 (0.2 linear feet; Box 2)
Series 6: Printed Material, 1932-1979 (1.8 linear feet; Boxes 2-3, 5)
Series 7: Artwork, circa 1948-circa 1976 (0.9 linear feet; Boxes 4-6)
Series 8: Photographic Material, 1922-1979 (0.3 linear feet; Box 4)
Biographical / Historical:
John Dwyer McLaughlin (1898-1976) was best known as one of the leading Los Angeles "hard-edge" geometric abstractionist painters and one of the artists featured in the seminal 1959 exhibition "Four Abstract Classicists" curated by Jules Langsner. McLaughlin was also a dealer of Japanese art prints.
McLaughlin was born and educated in Massachusetts. He served in the United States Navy during World War I from 1917-1921 and married Florence Emerson in 1928. McLaughlin began painting around 1932 with no formal training. In 1935, the couple moved to Japan and lived there for several years before moving back to Boston, where they opened The Tokaido, Inc., a Japanese art print gallery. From this time up to the start of World War II, McLaughlin worked primarily as a print dealer. During World War II, he served as a language intelligence officer in the Marines, thanks to his knowledge of Japanese.
After the war, McLaughlin and his wife settled in Dana Point, California, where he began painting in earnest, gaining some early local success. His painting, Hope Deferred was awarded first prize for oil painting in the 1948 San Diego Art Guild Annual. He became associated with the Felix Landau Gallery in Los Angeles and was one of four painters included in the historic 1959 Four Abstract Classicists, exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art organized by critic Jules Langsner which also featured the work of Frederick Hammersley, Lorser Feitelson, and Karl Benjamin. The phrase "hard-edge painting" was first used in association with this exhibition as a description of a unique California style of geometric abstractionist painting.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s McLaughlin exhibited widely and became a mentor for many younger Los Angeles area reductive painters. He was admired for his integrity and independent position regarding the art market. John McLaughlin died in Dana Point, California in 1976 at the age of 77.
Related Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds an oral history interview of John D. McLaughlin conducted July 23, 1974, by Paul J. Karlstrom.
Provenance:
The John McLaughlin papers were donated to the Archives of American Art in multiple installments. John McLaughlin donated material in 1973 and his widow Florence McLaughlin donated material in 1976. Additional papers were donated by the artist's nephew John McLaughlin in 1998 and 1999. A painting was donated 2015 by the Stephne' Hesen estate.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to 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.
The papers of southern California contemporary art curator, critic, and historian Jules Langsner measure 4.4 linear feet and date from circa 1910s-1998, with the bulk of the materials dating from 1950-1967. Found within the papers are biographical material; correspondence with family, friends, and colleagues; writings normal="1941"> travel, and works of art; and audio recordings of Langsner's lectures and eulogies given at his funeral.
Scope and Contents note:
The papers of southern California contemporary art curator, critic, and historian Jules Langsner measure 4.4 linear feet and date from circa 1910s-1998, with the bulk of the materials dating from 1950-1967. Found within the papers are biographical material; correspondence with family, friends, and colleagues; writings by Langsner; exhibition files; printed materials; photographs of Langsner, others, travel, and works of art; and audio recordings of Langsner's lectures and eulogies given at his funeral.
Biographical materials consist of an address book and file, committee files, scattered financial statements, and documents related to the Ford Foundation and other foundations, teaching, and traveling.
The 0.9 linear feet of correspondence is of both a personal and professional nature. A significant portion of the correspondence is between Langsner and publications for which he wrote such as Art News, the New York Times, Meridian Books, Craft Horizons, Art International, and Art in America; galleries and museums where he lectured or curated exhibitions including the Art Institute of Chicago, California Water Color Society, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Pasadena Art Museum, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Guggenheim Museum, and the Fine Arts Patrons of Newport Harbor; colleges and organizations where he taught or was involved with such as the Graham Foundation, University of Southern California, International Association of Art Critics, and Ford Foundation; and artists that he worked with or knew personally including Rico Lebrun, William Turnbull, Man & Julie Ray, Lorser Feitelson, Helen Lundeberg, Adelaide Fogg, and Clinton Adams.
Letters to June Harwood were written while Langsner was traveling in 1964 and 1965 and discuss his travels and their relationship which culminated in marriage in Italy in 1965.
Among the 2.8 linear feet of the writings of Jules Langsner are articles for Art News, Art in America, Art International, Arts & Architecture, Aware, Beverly Hills Times, Craft Horizons, Creative Crafts, Goya Revista De Arte, Yomiuri, and Zodiac. There are also essays, lectures, poems, drafts, notes, jottings of ideas, proposals and published and unpublished manuscripts. There are drafts and unpublished versions of "Painting in the Modern World", and numerous other essays on contemporary art. There are also extensive handwritten notes on his travels, Asian art, European art, and other subjects.
Exhibition files concern "Black and White" (1958), "California Hard-Edge Painting" (1964), the Man Ray Exhibition (1966), and the William Turnbull Exhibition (1966).
Printed materials include miscellaneous flyers, brochures, and news bulletins, and press releases.
Photographs are of people, places, works of art, and exhibitions. There are photographs of Jules Langsner, June Harwood, Philip Guston, Musa Guston, William Brice, Eddy Feldman, Rube Kadish, Stanton MacDonald-Wright, Frank Perls, and unidentified individual people and groups. Photographs of Langsner's travels are of Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and other locations. Photographs of exhibitions include California Art Club, "Black and White," "California Painters & Sculptors, 35 & Under," and unidentified exhibitions. Photographs of works of art are by William Turnbull, Jack Zajac, Walter Mix, Marion Aldrich, Roger Majorowicz, and Jasper Johns.
Audio recordings include four untranscribed 7" reel-to-reel audio recordings and one cassette tape. The reel-to-reel tapes are of two lectures by Langsner, You & Art/Berlin Party, and of eulogies given at Langsner's funeral by Clement Greenberg, Henry Seldis, Peter Selz, Richard Brown, Donald Brewer, Tom Leavitt, Lorser Feitelson, Sam Francis, June Wayne, Gifford Phillips, and others. The cassette tape is a copy of eulogies.
Arrangement note:
The collection is arranged as 7 series. Photographs are arranged by subject, otherwise each series is generally arranged chronologically.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1957-circa 1960s (Box 1; 9 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1948-1998 (Boxes 1-2; 0.9 linear feet)
Series 3: Writings, 1934-circa 1960s (Boxes 2-4; 2.8 linear feet)
Series 4: Exhibition Files, 1919, circa 1958-1966 (Box 4; 4 folders)
Series 5: Printed Materials, circa 1960s (Box 5; 2 folders)
Series 6: Photographs, circa 1910s-1960s (Box 5; 0.25 linear feet)
Series 7: Audio Recordings, 1954-1967 (Box 5; 0.25 linear feet)
Biographical/Historical note:
Jules Langsner (1911-1967) worked primarily in the Los Angeles area as a contemporary art critic, historian, and curator. He curated several seminal exhibitions of contemporary art, including the 1959-1960 show "Four Abstract Classicists" featuring the work of Southern California artists Lorser Feitelson, Karl Benjamin, Frederick Hammersley, and John McLaughlin.
Born Julius Harold Langsner in New York City on May 5, 1911, his family moved to Ontario, California in 1922. The family lived on a farm and opened the Paradise Health Resort which was run by Langsner's father, chiropractor Isadore Langsner, and was popular in Jewish and intellectual circles. In Ontario, Langsner became friends with three of the Pollack family sons, Jackson, Frank, and Sanford, as well as Philip Guston, Reuben Kadish, Leonard Stark, and Don Brown as a teenager. Guston, Kadish, and Jackson Pollock were later mentored by Lorser Feitelston which helped to foster in Langsner an interest in avant-garde painting.
Langsner went on to study philosophy at the University of California, Los Angeles. In the early 1940s, Langsner married and had a son, Drew Langsner. He divorced in 1946. In 1944, he enlisted in the United States Army and served as a psychiatric social worker and psychologist during World War II in the United States.
Art & Architecture magazine was the first to publish Langsner's art criticism in 1948. Throughout the 1950s and 60s his work was published widely in Art & Architecture as well as Art News, Art in America, Craft Horizons, Beverly Hills Times, Zodiac, and others. Langsner wrote extensively about art history in both published and unpublished manuscripts, including Painting in the Modern World which he worked on until his death. Additionally, he taught art history classes at the Chouinard Art Institute and University of Southern California and lectured for a variety of organizations and occasions.
Langsner curated several influential exhibitions in southern California, including the "Four Abstract Classicists" exhibition for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1959 and in whose catalog he and Peter Selz coined the term "Hard-Edge painting." He curated the first full-scale retrospective of Man Ray in the United States at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1966.
Langsner received a grant from the Ford Foundation in 1964 that allowed him to travel throughout Asia, the Middle East, and Europe for a year studying regional art and architecture. He wrote notes on his travels and corresponded frequently with June Harwood, a Hard-Edge painter, whom he married in Italy in 1965.
Jules Langsner died unexpectedly of a heart attack on September 29, 1967, in Los Angeles.
Related Archival Materials note:
The papers of Lorser Feitelson and Helen Lundeberg at the Archives of American Art contain a significant amount of writings by Jules Langsner, including exhibition catalog essays.
Papers of Jules Langsner, 1941-1967, are also located at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Provenance:
The Jules Langsner papers were donated to the Archives of American Art in several installments from 1973-1996, and in 2004 by June Harwood Langsner, widow of Jules Langsner. Notes for a lecture given at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1966 and 39 pieces of correspondence were donated in 1982 by the University of California Art Library, Los Angeles, via Librarian Virginia Steele.
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 critics -- California -- Los Angeles Search this
Art historians -- California -- Los Angeles Search this
An interview with Stanton Macdonald-Wright conducted 1967 May 26 by Jeanne M. Marshall for Voice of America, United States Information Agency, which was broadcast in conjunction with a retrospective of his work at the National Collection of Fine Arts (National Museum of American Art).
Biographical / Historical:
Stanton Macdonald-Wright (1890-1973) was a painter and co-founder of the Synchromism Abstract movement. He was based in Los Angeles, California.
Provenance:
Transferred from the National Museum of American Art in 1984.
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Richard Diebenkorn, 1985 May 1-1987 December 15. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Topic:
Art -- Study and teaching -- California -- San Francisco Bay Area Search this
Painting, Abstract -- California -- San Francisco Bay Area Search this
Painting -- California -- San Francisco Bay Area Search this
Painters -- California -- San Francisco Bay Area -- Interviews Search this
Biographical information and resume; correspondence with galleries and museums; clippings, 1955-1976; exhibition catalogs and announcements; photographs and slides of Loberg and his paintings.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter, educator, born in Chicago, Ill. Attended City College of San Francisco, University of California at Berkeley, studied with Hans Hofmann. Does colorful, non-objective collage and oil paintings and has lectured on art and taught painting at California College of Arts and Crafts, San Francisco Art Institute, UCLA Berkeley, and University of Washington.
Provenance:
Donated 1976 by Robert Warren Loberg.
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.
Biographical information; 2 slides of Camire's work; and 2 photographs of his work.[Slides were not microfilmed.]
Biographical / Historical:
Painter; San Francisco, Calif.
Provenance:
Donated 1981 by Richard Camire.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Occupation:
Painters -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Topic:
Painting, Abstract -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Journals containing ideas for Wiley's paintings, accounts of days, and puns and word games. One journal is from a summer spent in Italy (1971) and includes some sketches. The remaining four journals (1971-1974) are filled with watercolors and sketches.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter; San Francisco Bay area, California. Achieved international recognition for highly imaginative and unconventional art. Studied at California School of Fine Art 1956-1962 with Frank Lobdell and other exponents of Abstract Expressionism.
Provenance:
Lent 1975 by William T. Wiley.
Restrictions:
ACCESS RESTRICTED; use requires written permission. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Occupation:
Painters -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Topic:
Painting, Abstract -- California -- San Francisco Bay Area Search this
Painting, Modern -- 20th century -- California -- San Francisco Bay Area Search this
An interview of Richard Diebenkorn conducted 1985 May 1-1987 December 15, by Susan Larsen, for the Archives of American Art.
Diebenkorn speaks of his family background and early life; his education and his service in the Marine Corps; his introduction to modernism; his early abstract work; the formation of the Bay Area figurative school and the relationship between art in New York and in the Bay Area; teaching; critical and public reaction to his work; important exhibitions of his work; vacillating between the figurative and the abstract in his painting; his working methods. He recalls Daniel Mendelowitz, Erle Loran, Raymond Jonson, David Park, and Elmer Bischoff.
Biographical / Historical:
Richard Diebenkorn (1922-1993) was a painter from California.
General:
Originally recorded on 10 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 16 digital wav files. Duration is 7 hr., 43 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. [Another interview of Diebenkorn was donated by Larsen, 1977].
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Topic:
Art -- Study and teaching -- California -- San Francisco Bay Area Search this
Painting, Abstract -- California -- San Francisco Bay Area Search this
Painting -- California -- San Francisco Bay Area Search this
Painters -- California -- San Francisco Bay Area -- 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.
Correspondence, printed materials, and photographs.
REEL LA 1: Catalogs and photographs of Brigante's work.
REEL 1357: Letters to Brigante; exhibition catalogs and announcements; and invitations.
REEL 3967: Nine letters from Stanton Macdonald-Wright, and a letter from Brigante to Macdonald-Wright; an undated letter from Macdonald-Wright to Frank Stevens; an undated photograph of Macdonald-Wright with Jack Wells; Macdonald-Wright exhibition announcements and catalogs; 2 newsletters; and a gallery review relating to Brigante.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter; Los Angeles, California. Brigante and Stanton Macdonald-Wright were close friends.
Other Title:
Betty Hoag (microfilm title, reel LA 1)
Provenance:
Material on reels 1357 and 3967 donated 1975 and 1986 by Brigante. Material on reel LA 1 lent 1964 by Brigante.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm. Contact Reference Services for more information.
