The papers of New York art historian, museum director, curator, writer, and educator, Alan R. Solomon, measure 9.9 linear feet and date from 1907-1970, with the bulk of the material dating from 1944-1970. Through biographical material, correspondence, interview transcripts, writings and notes, teaching and study files, subject files, exhibition files, business records, printed material, and photographs, the collection documents Solomon's education, his early teaching appointments at Cornell University, and his subsequent direction of many diverse curatorial and research projects relating to contemporary American art, particularly the transition from Abstract Expressionism to later modern movements, and the thriving New York City art scene.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of New York art historian, museum director, curator, writer, and educator, Alan R. Solomon, measure 9.9 linear feet and date from 1907-1970, with the bulk of the material dating from 1944-1970. Through biographical material, correspondence, interview transcripts, writings and notes, teaching and study files, subject files, exhibition files, business records, printed material, and photographs, the collection documents Solomon's education, his early teaching appointments at Cornell University, and his subsequent direction of many diverse curatorial and research projects relating to contemporary American art, particularly the transition from Abstract Expressionism to later modern movements, and the thriving New York City art scene.
Biographical material includes résumés, an engagement book, and a monthly planning book from 1965, identification cards, and educational transcripts.
Correspondence documents Solomon's education at Harvard College and Harvard University, and his teaching appointments at Cornell University. Correspondence also provides some documentation of his involvement with museums and arts organizations, including the Jewish Museum, Stedlijk Museum, the San Francisco Art Institute, the University of California, and Centro de Artes Visuales; his submission of writings for publications including Artforum, Art International, and Konstrevy; and his relationships with artists and colleagues including Jim Dine, Joan Kron, Audrey Sabol, and Ileana Sonnabend. Also found is correspondence related to Solomon's work for Mary Sisler, who employed Solomon to sell her collection of artwork by Marcel Duchamp in the late 1960s.
One series comprises transcripts of interviews with many of the artists who were central to the transition from Abstract Expressionism to later modern movements that occurred in the 1950s and 1960s, such as Neo-Dada and Pop art. Artists represented in the interviews include Jim Dine, Helen Frankenthaler, Jasper Johns, Barnett Newman, Kenneth Noland, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella, and Andy Warhol.
Solomon's writings include many of his essays for exhibition catalogs, magazines, and journals, and are in a combination of annotated manuscript and published formats. There are writings on Jim Dine, Barnett Newman, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jasper Johns, and on the new movements in theater and performance art of the 1960s. His writings also document the art history education which informed all of his later work, with the inclusion of papers written as a student and teacher, his honors thesis on Odilon Redon, and his dissertation on Pablo Picasso. This material is supplemented by notes, and teaching and study files, documenting courses taken and taught at Harvard and Cornell universities. Also found is the manuscript of the text for New York: The New Art Scene, accompanied by a partial published copy of the book and photographs by Ugo Mulas.
Solomon's subject files augment several of the other series, comprising material on various art related subjects and individual painters and sculptors, arranged alphabetically. Material found here includes printed matter documenting exhibitions and other events, scattered letters from artists, related writings, and photographs.
One series documents Solomon's involvement with the First New York Theater Rally, which he co-produced with Steve Paxton in 1965. This material includes a drawing each by Jim Dine and Alex Hay, pieces of a combine by Robert Rauschenberg, and photographs of the group including Dine, Hay, and Rauschenberg, as well as Lucinda Childs, Judith Dunn, Deborah Hay, Robert Morris, Claes Oldenburg, the Once Group, Steve Paxton, Yvonne Rainier, Alan Solomon, and Robert Whitman. The series includes multiple contact sheets of photos of First New York Theater Rally events, by Peter Moore, Elizabeth Novick, and Terry Schute.
Exhibition files document Solomon's role as an organizer and curator for some of his most well-known exhibitions, including American Painting Now (1967) for Expo '67 in Montreal; Andy Warhol (1966) at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston; Dine-Oldenburg-Segal (1967) at the Art Gallery of Ontario and Albright-Knox Gallery; the American exhibition at the 1964 Venice Biennale; Young Italians (1968) at the Institute of Contemporary Art; and Painting in New York 1944-1969, a major retrospective installed for the opening of the new Pasadena Art Museum in fall, 1969. Records include correspondence, lists and notes, financial records, printed material, and photographs of artists and installations, including a series by Ugo Mulas taken at the Venice Biennale.
Solomon's business records include lists, notes, contracts, expense forms, vouchers, purchase orders, and receipts. They provide scattered documentation of exhibition-related expenses and purchases of artwork, as well as Solomon's income from teaching appointments, lectures, honorariums, and writings. Amongst Solomon's general business records is an American Federation of Musicians agreement between the Institute of Contemporary Art and "Louis Reed," with booking agent Andy Warhol, for a performance by the Velvet Underground and Nico, performing as The Exploding Plastic Inevitable on October 29, 1966. This seemingly mundane item documents an event that accompanied Solomon's landmark Warhol exhibition of nearly forty iconic works, and the accompanying show by The Exploding Plastic Inevitable was hailed by the Boston Phoenix newspaper as one of the greatest concerts in Boston history.
Printed material includes announcements, catalogs, and posters for exhibitions and art related events, including two Jasper Johns lithographs for a 1960 exhibition at Galerie Rive Droite, and a 1963 exhibition at Leo Castelli Gallery. Also found are news clippings, press releases, and other publications.
Photographs are of Solomon, artists, friends and colleagues, exhibitions and other events, and artwork. They include snapshots of Solomon, and a series of photographs of him at various events and parties, many taken by Ugo Mulas, as well as a photo taken by Robert Rauschenberg of Ugo Mulas, Michele Provinciali, and Solomon. Additional photos by Ugo Mulas include some which were probably taken for New York: The New Art Scene, and a series of photos of Robert Rauschenberg and others at the Venice Biennale. Photos of artists include Lee Bontecou, John Chamberlain, Jim Dine, Marcel Duchamp, Öyvind Fahlström, Laura Grisi, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Morris Louis, Barnett Newman, Kenneth Noland, Claes and Patty Oldenburg, Larry Poons, James Rosenquist, George Segal, Frank Stella, and Andy Warhol and The Factory. Photos of others include Leo Castelli, Clement and Jeanine Greenberg, and Ethel and Robert Scull. Also found are photos of the exhibition Toward a New Abstraction (1963), at The Jewish Museum, photos of Venice, and photos of artwork by many of the above named, and other, artists. In addition to Ugo Mulas, photographers represented in this series include Nat Finkelstein, Robert R. McElroy, and Hans Namuth.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as eleven series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1938-1968 (5 folders; Box 1)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1930-1970 (0.66 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 3: Interviews, 1965-1969 (0.25 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 4: Writings and Notes, 1945-1969 (1.35 linear feet; Boxes 1-3, 11)
Series 5: Teaching and Study Files, 1944-1958 (0.25 linear feet; Box 3)
Series 6: Subject Files, 1907-1969 (2.92 linear feet; Boxes 3-6, 1, OV 12)
Series 7: First New York Theater Rally, 1963-1965 (0.15 linear feet; Boxes 6, 11)
Series 8: Exhibition Files, 1954-1969 (1.42 linear feet; Boxes 6-7, 11, OV 12)
Series 9: Business Records, 1945-1970 (0.3 linear feet; Boxes 7-8)
Series 10: Printed Material, 1914-1970 (0.8 linear feet; Boxes 8-9, OV 12)
Series 11: Photographs, circa 1951-circa 1970 (1.7 linear feet; Boxes 9-11, OV 13)
Biographical / Historical:
New York art historian, museum director, art consultant, educator, writer, and curator, Alan R. Solomon (1920-1970), organized over two hundred exhibitions in the course of his career. He was known for his skill in exhibition design, and for bringing the perception and understanding of an art historian to the field of contemporary art.
Solomon was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, and educated at Harvard College and Harvard Graduate School. In 1953, during his 1952-1962 tenure with the Cornell University department of art history, he established the Andrew Dickson White Museum of art. Solomon served as the museum's first director until 1961, whilst simultaneously pursuing his doctorate, which he received from Harvard University in 1962.
In 1962 Solomon was hired by the Jewish Museum in New York, New York, and immediately began to take the institution in a more contemporary direction, mounting Robert Rauschenberg's first retrospective in 1963, and a major Jasper Johns retrospective in 1964. Also, in 1963, Solomon was appointed the United States Commissioner for the 1964 Venice Biennale. He was determined to show "the major new indigenous tendencies, the peculiarly America spirt of the art" in works by two consecutive generations of artists, including Jasper Johns, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, and Robert Rauschenberg. With this in mind, and given the inadequacy of the existing space to house the installation he envisaged, Solomon secured a verbal agreement from Biennale officials to approve additional space for the American exhibition in an annex at the former American Consulate. The agreement was never formalized, however, and a series of administrative problems and controversies over the eligibility of the American submissions threatened to undermine Solomon's efforts. Nevertheless, Robert Rauschenberg became the first American to take the Grand Prize for foreign artist, and the attention garnered by the American exhibition monopolized press coverage of the Biennale. In response, Solomon stated publicly that "it is acknowledged on every hand that New York has replaced Paris as the world art capital."
Solomon subsequently left the Jewish Museum, having engendered resistance to leading the museum in a more experimental direction, away from the traditional Jewish educational aspects of its mission. In the mid-sixties he worked as a consultant and writer for a National Educational Television series entitled "U. S. A. Artists," which drew on artist interviews, many conducted by Solomon. He also wrote the text for Ugo Mulas's classic photographic study, New York: The New Art Scene (1967: Holt Rinehart and Winston).
In 1966 Solomon was hired by the United States Information Agency to organize the United States contribution to the Canadian World Exhibition in Montreal, known as Expo '67. His stunning American Painting Now installation placed large scale paintings by twenty-three artists, including Jim Dine, Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Barnett Newman, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, and James Rosenquist, inside Buckminster Fuller's twenty-story Biosphere of Montreal.
Other important exhibitions organized by Solomon included Andy Warhol (1966) at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, which was only the second of two exhibitions dedicated to the artist; Dine-Oldenburg-Segal (1967) at the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery; and Young Italians (1968) at the Institute of Contemporary Art.
Solomon was also interested in contemporary theater and organized the First New York Theater Rally with Steve Paxton in 1965, a series of performances which combined new dance and a revival of the Happenings of the early 1960s, in which Claes Oldenburg, Jim Dine and others were involved.
Following a six-week appointment as a senior lecturer at the University of California, Irvine, in spring 1968, Solomon became chairman of the University's art department and director of the art gallery. His last exhibition, Painting in New York, 1944-1969 (1969-1970), was held at the Pasadena Art Museum and closed in January 1970, just a few weeks before Solomon's sudden death at the age of forty-nine.
Provenance:
The Leo Castelli Gallery served as executor of Solomon's estate, and donated his papers to the Archives of American Art in 1974 and 2007.
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.
Occupation:
Art historians -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The records of the American Federation of Arts (AFA) provide researchers with a complete set of documentation focusing on the founding and history of the organization from its inception through the 1960s. The collection measures 79.8 linear feet, and dates from 1895 through 1993, although the bulk of the material falls between 1909 and 1969. Valuable for its coverage of twentieth-century American art history, the collection also provides researchers with fairly comprehensive documentation of the many exhibitions and programs supported and implemented by the AFA to promote and study contemporary American art, both nationally and abroad.
Scope and Content Note:
The records of the American Federation of Arts (AFA) provide researchers with a complete set of documentation focusing on the founding and history of the organization from its inception through the 1960s. The collection measures 79.8 linear feet, and dates from 1895 through 1993, although the bulk of the material falls between 1909 and 1969. Valuable for its coverage of twentieth-century American art history, the collection also provides researchers with fairly comprehensive documentation of the many exhibitions and programs supported and implemented by the AFA to promote and study contemporary American art, both nationally and abroad.
The earliest documentation from 1895 to 1909 concerns the organization's history and founding and is located in Series 1: Board of Trustees. Also found in this series are meeting minutes, 1909-1963 and 1968. Interfiled with the board meeting minutes are minutes of the executive committee and other special and ad hoc committees, reports to the board, financial statements and reports, and lists of committee appointments and board membership. This series also contains the scattered correspondence and subject files of various officers. Although not a complete set of officers' files, Presidents' Frederick Allen. Whiting (1931-1936), Lawrence M.C. Smith (1948-1952), Thomas Brown Rudd (1952-1954), Daniel Longwell (1954-1956), James S. Schramm (1956-1958), and Roy R. Neuberger (1958-1961) are represented. Leila Mechlin served on AFA's board as secretary from its founding to 1929, and her files are a particularly rich resource for AFA's activities during its early years. Lawrence M.C. Smith's files documenting his years as board treasurer are also arranged in this series. Additional officers' correspondence is interspersed throughout the Alphabetical Files and other series.
General information about the scope of AFA's programs, affiliations, founding, functions, and proceedings are arranged in Series 2: Administrative Records. The first subseries, Alphabetical Files, houses a wide variety of subject files that contain memoranda, correspondence, printed materials, lists, reports, and other papers. These files document the AFA's general history and founding, organizational affiliations, buildings and moves, grants, federal and state government art programs, auctions and other fund-raising efforts, publicity and public relations, publications, and fiftieth anniversary celebration. The subject headings by which these files are arranged are, for the most part, the ones designated by the AFA. The second subseries, Staff Records, houses the scattered files of AFA's director, assistant director, registrar, and special state representative, Robert Luck.
During its most active period, the AFA sponsored or participated in several special programs and Series 3: Special Programs houses the files that document many of them. The first subseries consists of the files for the Artists in Residence program that was funded by the Ford Foundation. Awarded in 1963, the grant sponsored short-term teaching residencies for artists in museums throughout the United States. The host museums were encouraged to hold exhibitions of the artists' works. This subseries contains both the general files of the program, as well as individual files on the participating artists. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, the AFA and the Ford Foundation also sponsored additional programs for artists, including Grants in Aid, Purchase Awards, and the Retrospective Exhibitions Program. The files documenting these three programs are also arranged in Series 3, under the subseries Ford Foundation Program for Visual Artists. In the late 1950s, the AFA implemented the Museum Donor Program with benefactors and philanthropists Audrey Bruce Currier and Stephen Richard Currier. Through the administration of the AFA, the Curriers donated funds to selected institutions specifically for the purchase of contemporary American art. The Curriers preferred to remain anonymous throughout the program. Files documenting this program include correspondence, applications from the accepted institutions, rejections, a summary report, and clippings about the untimely deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Currier in 1967.
Also found in Series 3 are the files documenting AFAs working relationship with the first state arts council, the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA). In 1961, AFA and NYSCA implemented a traveling exhibition program in New York State. Found here are files for possible itineraries, proposals, publicity, loans, budgets, and the actual exhibition files. Additional AFA special programs documented in Series 3 include the Picture of the Month program of the mid-1950s and the Jean Tennyson Foundation Color Slide Lecture Program.
AFA Annual Convention files constitute Series 4. Beginning with the Third Annual Convention in 1912 and continuing through the 1963 Annual Convention, the files contain official proceedings, speeches, programs, clippings, correspondence, and press releases. Files are missing for 1913, 1915, 1918, 1922, 1923, 1925, 1926, 1931, 1936-1949, 1952, 1956, 1958, 1960, and 1962. There are also audio recordings in the form of reel-to-reel tapes for the 1951 Annual Convention.
Series 5: Exhibition Files forms the bulk of the collection at circa 62 linear feet and is arranged into twenty subseries. The first subseries, Exhibitions, General, houses primarily the records of the Board of Trustees Exhibition Committee and documents the AFA's earliest involvement with traveling exhibitions. These files contain reports, budgets, correspondence, memoranda, scattered exhibition catalogs, and photographs. They are primarily the files of the chair of the Exhibition Committee and include the files of Juliana R. Force, Eloise Spaeth, and Mrs. John Pope. Also found in this series is a subseries of Mrs. John Pope's records documenting circulating exhibitions from 1934 to 1955, arranged by state.
The remaining nineteen subseries of the Exhibition Files reflect either specific exhibition programs, many of which have unique numbers assigned by AFA to individual exhibitions, or other exhibition-related files, such rejected, canceled, and suggested exhibitions and miscellaneous installation photographs. The Annual Exhibitions files constitute the largest of the subseries and are numbered according to the system assigned by AFA, following a typical chronological order. Although the documentation for each exhibition varies widely by both type and amount, most of the files contain contracts and legal agreements, correspondence, memoranda, itinerary information, condition reports, publicity materials, catalogs, announcements, price lists, and other such information arranged into one or more files. The files were labeled "documentation files," "dispersal files," "report form files," "loan agreement files," and "publicity files" according to the filing system devised by AFA. Many of the files also house a significant amount of correspondence with museum officials, lenders, and artists.
Additional subseries document AFA's exhibition venues and partnerships with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the New York State Council on the [UNK] Life magazine, and Addison Gallery. A complete list of all of the subseries, including specific exhibition programs, follows in the Series Outline.
The final three series of the collection are small: Printed Material, Miscellaneous Files, and Oversized Material. The printed material was donated much later to the Archives and dates from 1990 to 1993. Found here are scattered press releases, annual reports, and an exhibition program. Miscellaneous Files contain scattered records, 1926-1962, of the Architectural League of New York relating to national award programs. It is not clear why this small group of Architectural League records was found mixed with the AFA records but perhaps the collaboration between the two organizations on several special projects provides an explanation. Also found in Miscellaneous Files is a group of black and white lantern slides from a lecture series, "New Horizons in America." Oversized Material includes a portfolio, a work of art, and posters.
See Appendix for a list of artists exhibiting with the American Federation of Arts
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into eight primary series based primarily on administrative units or program areas. Several of the series are further subdivided into subseries. While processing, it became clear that the two filing systems were redundant and overlapped in both subject area and type of material. Most of these files were subsequently merged into the now broader Alphabetical Files or into separate series. Oversized material may be found at the end of the collection arranged in a separate series.
In most cases, files related to one another by subseries or subject areas (in the case of the Alphabetical Files) or by individual name (in the case of officers and staff files) are arranged in chronological order. The entire subseries of Alphabetical Files in Series 2 is arranged by subject heading, as assigned by the AFA, or individual name. The Alphabetical Files originally formed two broad filing systems as established by the AFA: one for general correspondence arranged by subject; and one for director's and other staff correspondence, also arranged by subject.
Series 1: Board of Trustees, circa 1895-1968 (Boxes 1-3)
Series 2: Administrative Records, 1910-1966 (Boxes 4-8)
Series 3: Special Programs, 1950-1967 (Boxes 9-13)
Series 4: Annual Conventions, 1912-1963 (Boxes 14-16)
Series 5: Exhibition Files, 1934-1969 (Boxes 17-78)
Series 6: Printed Material, 1990-1993 (Box 78)
Series 7: Miscellaneous Files, 1926-1962, undated (Box 79)
Series 8: Oversized Materials, 1890, undated (Boxes 80-85)
Historical Note:
Founded in 1909 by Elihu Root, the American Federation of Arts (AFA) exists today as a national nonprofit museum service organization striving to unite American art institutions, collectors, artists, and museums. Elihu Root, then secretary of state in the administration of Theodore Roosevelt, spoke of his idea at the first meeting of the AFA held in New York at the National Academy of Arts. He envisioned an organization that would promote American art most often seen only by the elite in the major cities of the East and upper Midwest by sending "exhibitions of original works of art on tour through the hinterlands across the United States."
The American Academy in Rome, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, and Metropolitan Museum of Art were influential organizing member institutions. Individual members included such notables as William Merritt Chase, Charles L. Freer, Daniel C. French, Charles L. Hutchinson, Henry Cabot Lodge, J.P. Morgan, and Henry Walters. The founding of the AFA provided the American art world with a forum for communication and participation among artists, cultural institutions, patrons of the arts, and the public.
To accomplish its mission, the AFA established volunteer committees for membership, exhibitions, and publications. During its first year, the AFA began publishing Art and Progress (later changed to Magazine of Art) and the American Art Annual (now the American Art Directory). In 1909, the AFA also organized its first traveling exhibition, Paintings by Prominent American Artists, which was shown at museums in Fort Worth, New Orleans, Minneapolis, and New Ulm, Minnesota.
By the end of the first year, the headquarters of the organization moved to Washington, D.C., to facilitate lobbying the federal government for favorable art legislation. In 1913, the AFA lobbied successfully for the removal of the tariff on foreign art entering the United States. In 1916, the Federation met with the Interstate Commerce Commission to protest prohibitively high interstate taxes on traveling art exhibitions.
Throughout the next fifteen years, the AFA continued to grow in membership and influence. By 1919, membership included 438 institutions and 2,900 individuals. The AFA's annual conventions were held in major national art centers and were attended by members, chapter delegates, and the public. At the conventions, scholars, patrons, and curators lectured on and discussed subjects of national interest, thereby fostering an exchange of ideas. The AFA also sponsored periodic regional conferences to promote institutional cooperation and to discuss mutual problems and needs. To facilitate exhibition venues west of the Mississippi River, in 1921 the AFA opened regional offices at the University of Nebraska and at Stanford University. The AFA produced and circulated slide programs and lecture series to museums and educational institutions that fostered art education. By 1929, the Federation had developed forty-six slide-lecture programs that covered American mural painting, European and American contemporary art, and textiles.
During the 1930s, the Federation expanded its services by providing schools with teaching guides, student workbooks, slides, and films about art. In 1935, the AFA began publishing Who's Who in American Art, later publishing The Official Directory of Illustrators and Advertising Artists and Films on Art reference guides. To reach an even larger audience, the AFA began collaborating with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to organize national circulating exhibitions to "bring the museum to the people."
One of AFA's priorities was to make American art more visible abroad. The Federation focused on encouraging the representation of American artists in foreign exhibitions, and in 1924 it lobbied successfully for additional American participation in the Venice Biennale. The AFA's focus on exhibiting American art abroad continued to expand, particularly following World War II. In 1950, recognizing that the AFA could assist in promoting American culture, the State Department awarded the AFA a grant for a German "re-orientation program" consisting of educational exhibitions shown in German museums. Additional government funding further enabled the AFA to organize American participation in exhibitions in India, Japan, Paris, Switzerland, and Rotterdam between 1950 and 1970. Later, the AFA collaborated with the United States Information Agency (USIA) to create the Overseas Museum Donor Program which permitted donations of American art to foreign institutions on a restriction-free, tax-deductible basis. During the 1950s, the AFA was a very active member of the Committee on Government and Art, a national committee with members from across the art and museum world concerned with government sponsorship of and legislation affecting art sales, commissions, and trade.
In 1952, the headquarters of the AFA returned to New York, sparking a period of innovation and expanded of programs. Throughout the 1950s, the AFA distributed films about art and co-sponsored the Films on Art Festival in Woodstock, New York. The AFA also introduced its Picture of the Month Program in 1954, renting original works of art to small American art and educational institutions. In 1956, the AFA organized the Art Collectors Club of America to provide fellowship for art collectors through meetings and activities. The club disbanded in the 1970s.
The Federation's exhibition programs continued to flourish during the 1950s and 1960s. Private and public financial support allowed the AFA to achieve many of its goals. In 1958, the Ford Foundation awarded an important grant to organize a series of traveling one-person shows and a series of monographs devoted to contemporary American artists. Milton Avery, Andrew Dasburg, José DeCreeft, Lee Gatch, Walter Quirt, Abraham Rattner, and others were among the artists who participated. Private foundation support for the AFA's Museum Donor Program provided an annual allowance that was distributed to regional museums for the pourchase of contemporary American art. Cooperative programs and joint venues also became popular during this period. For example, public support from the New York State Council on the Arts allowed the AFA to circulate exhibitions to small New York State communities, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts provided the AFA with five exhibitions for national tours.
Throughout its history, the American Federation of Arts has concentrated on its founding principle of broadening the audience for contemporary American art. Through its numerous exhibition and film programs, the AFA has succeeded in "breaking down barriers of distance and language to broaden the knowledge and appreciation of art." Annual exhibitions such as New Talent in the USA and Art Schools USA, organized by the AFA, brought before the public the most contemporary American artists and craftspeople, genres, and artistic forms of experimentation, exposing viewers to new ways of thinking and expression. In 1965, AFA produced The Curriculum in Visual Education, a series of films created to heighten the aesthetic awareness of children.
A vital part of American art history, the AFA was one of the first organizations to develop successfully the concept of traveling art exhibitions on a national and international level. The AFA was instrumental in assisting museums with circulating important juried exhibitions of contemporary art, such as the Whitney Annual and Corcoran Biennial. The AFA also recognized the importance of the exchange of cultural ideas, and it brought exhibitions of the European masters to the American public as well as exhibitions focusing on foreign contempoorary art, photography, and architecture. Many organizations and museums have followed the AFA's precedent, and traveling national and international venues are now commonplace.
Since 1909, women have served as officers and members of the Board of Trustees. Leila Mechlin was a founding participant and served as secretary from 1909 to 1933. Juliana R. Force and Eloise Spaeth both chaired the Exhibition Committee in the late 1940s. Women and artists of diverse backgrounds and nationalities were widely represented in the AFA's exhibition programs, most notably during the 1960s. In 1960, the AFA organized, with financial support from the Ford Foundation, a major Jacob Lawrence retrospective. Additional culturally diverse exhibitions included Contemporary Jewish Ceremonial Art (1961), The Heart of India (1962), 1,000 Years of American Indian Art (1963), and Ten Negro Artists from the United States (1966).
The AFA also had an impact on patronage in the arts. AFA exhibitions of contemporary art provided collectors with knowledge of new artists and avant-garde art forms, creating a broader demand and market for this type of work. Museums and collectors began purchasing work by new or obscure American artists whom they learned about through AFA exhibitions and programs.
The historical records of the American Federation of Arts offer the researcher a unique opportunity to study the development of American art and artists in the twentieth century as well as providing insight into trends in American culture.
Missing Title
1909 -- Founded in New York City. Began publishing Art and Progress (later retitled Magazine of Art) and the American Art Annual.
1910 -- Moved headquarters to Washington, D.C.
1913 -- Lobbied successfully for the removal of the tariff on art entering the United States.
1915-1916 -- Lobbied successfully against the Cummins Amendment and the Interstate Commerce Commission's prohibitively high interstate tax on traveling art.
1920 -- Organized a lobbying campaign for the development of a national gallery of art at its national convention.
1921 -- Opened two new offices at the University of Nebraska and at Stanford University.
1924 -- Arranged American participation in the Venice Biennale exhibition.
1927 -- Closed office at Stanford University.
1929 -- Organized American participation in exhibitions in France and Germany.
1933 -- Closed office at the University of Nebraska.
1935 -- Began publishing Who's Who in American Art.
1948 -- Published The Official Directory of Illustrators and Advertising Artists.
1949 -- Collaborated with the Metropolitan Museum of Art to circulate exhibitions from its collections.
1950 -- Participated in the U.S. government's German re-orientation program.
1951 -- Joined forces with the United States Information Agency (USIA) to create the Overseas Museum Donor Program. Published the reference guide Films on Art. Co-sponsored the Films on Art Festival in Woodstock, New York, through 1957.
1952 -- Moved headquarters to New York City.
1953 -- Magazine of Art liquidated.
1954 -- Introduced the Picture of the Month Program.
1956 -- Founded the Art Collectors Club of America.
1958 -- Received a Ford Foundation grant to finance a series of one-person shows of contemporary American artists.
1960 -- Created the Museum Donor Program.
1961 -- Received a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts to circulate exhibitions to small New York state communities.
1963 -- Received a grant from the Ford Foundation for the Artists in Residence program.
1964 -- Introduced the List Art Poster Program.
1965 -- Produced The Curriculum in Visual Education, a series of films that attempted to heighten the aesthetic awareness of children.
Appendix: List of Artists Exhibiting with American Federation of Arts:
The following is an alphabetical list of artists who exhibited with the American Federation of Arts; many are obscure. The alpha-numeric codes and numbers appearing with the artist's name represent specific AFA exhibition programs and, most often, AFA's exhibition numbering system. In cases where the AFA did not assign an exhibition number, Archives' staff have done so.
The primary reference source for the names and name variants is the American Federation of Arts Records. The names are documented in handwritten notes and lists, typed lists, and exhibition catalogs and announcements. The Archives of American Art name authority file was also consulted in questionable cases. The majority of names, however, were not found in either the AAA name authority file or standard bibliographic resources, and only in the AFA records.
Examples:
55-1: AFA annual exhibitions program
AD-1: Addison Gallery exhibitions
L-1: Life Magazine Exhibitions
ME-1: Misceallaneous exhibitions (numbers assigned by AAA staff)
NMA-1: Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibitions
NE-96: Contemporary Color Lithography
NY-1: New York State Council on the Arts exhibitions
VA-1: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts exhibitions
Missing Title
A. Quincy Jones, Frederick E. Emmons & Assoc: 62-34
The records of the American Federation of Arts (AFA) were donated to the Archives of American Art (AAA) over a thirteen-year period, with the bulk of the material arriving between 1964 and 1966. In 1979, Preston Bolton donated his letters and those from John de Menil, Ann Drevet, Lee Malone, and others regarding planning for the 1957 AFA annual convention held in Houston, Texas; convention committee minutes from 1956; and AFA newsletters. This material, as well as a 1979 gift from Louise Ferrari of transcripts from a panel discussion from the 1957 AFA convention in Houston, was microfilmed on AAA Reel 1780. All material previously microfilmed on Reel 1780 has been fully integrated into the collection and arranged within proper series and subseries. The provenance of the 1990-1993 printed material is unknown.
Restrictions:
Use 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.
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.
The records of Castelli Graphics measure 45.7 linear feet and date from 1965 to 2001. Administrative files, correspondence, exhibition and project files, artists' files, financial and legal records, inventory and stock records, printed materials, and photographic materials document the activities of the New York art gallery and publishing firm founded by Antoinette Castelli.
Scope and Contents:
The records of Castelli Graphics measure 45.7 linear feet and date from 1965 to 2001. Administrative files, correspondence, exhibition and project files, artists' files, financial and legal records, inventory and stock records, printed materials, and photographic materials document the activities of the New York art gallery and publishing firm founded by Antoinette Castelli.
Administrative files include documents about the gallery's history, three appointment books, floor plans, mailing lists, notes, and advertising plans. Correspondence is with artists, dealers and collectors, and others. Exhibition and project files document exhibitions of artwork by Eve Arnold, Robert Rauschenberg, Keith Sonnier, Roy Lichtenstein, Mary Ellen Mark, Hans Namuth, Frank Stella, and Jasper Johns, and many others, as well as, records of a book project and sales promotion projects.
Artists' files are for Lewis Baltz, James Brown, Robert Cumming, Ralph Gibson, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Bruce Nauman, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Frank Stella, and Andy Warhol. Client and collector files include business records for individual clients and organizations.
A few legal files, appraisals, check stubs, consignment and loan documents, invoices, royalty statements, and ledgers are in financial and legal records. Inventory and stock records contain inventory, exhibition, and sales lists. Printed materials include exhibition catalogs and announcements. Photographs and negatives are of exhibition installations and works of art. 3D negatives and snapshots are also included.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as nine series.
Series 1: Administrative Records, 1969-1997 (1.5 linear feet; Boxes 1-2)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1979-1997 (3.0 linear feet; Boxes 2-5)
Series 3: Exhibition and Project Files, 1975-1997 (1.0 linear feet; Boxes 5-6)
Series 4: Artists' Files, 1965-2001 (17.0 linear feet; Boxes 6-23, 47)
Series 5: Client and Collector Files, 1966-1997 (4.5 linear feet; Boxes 23-27)
Series 6: Financial and Legal Records, 1969-1997 (12.2 linear feet; Boxes 28-39, 47)
Series 7: Inventory and Stock Records, 1970-1995 (2.0 linear feet; Boxes 39-41)
Series 8: Printed Materials, 1969-1997 (0.8 linear feet; Boxes 41-42)
Series 9: Photographic Materials, circa 1970-circa 1993 (3.5 linear feet; Boxes 42-46)
Biographical / Historical:
Castelli Graphics (est. 1969, closed 1997) was an art gallery and publishing firm in New York, NY.
The gallery was founded by Antoinette (Toiny) Castelli, wife of Leo Castelli, in 1969 and focused on prints and graphic arts. The gallery promoted prominent artists such as Richard Artschwager, Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Mary Ellen Mark, Bruce Nauman, Robert Rauschenberg, Eve Sonneman, Andy Warhol, and many others. After the death of Toiny in 1987, the gallery remained opened until 1997.
Related Materials:
Also found at the Archives of American Art are the Leo Castelli Gallery Records, circa 1880-2000, bulk 1957-1999, which include 16 linear feet of additional Castelli Graphics records.
Provenance:
The Castelli Graphics records were donated in 2011 by Jean-Christophe Castelli, son of Leo and Antoinette Castelli.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center.
Function:
Art galleries, Commercial -- New York (State)
Publishing houses -- New York (State)
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Citation:
Castelli Graphics records, 1965-2001. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Donald Saff papers and Saff Tech Arts records measures 31.8 linear feet, and 9.82 Gigabytes, and dates from circa 1710, 1800-2013, bulk 1965-2010. Donald Saff's papers document his career as an artist, and contain professional records prior to the founding of Saff Tech Arts, including his tenure at University of South Florida and Graphicstudio. Also included are records and correspondence documenting consulting and other collaboration outside of Saff Tech Arts. The series includes biographical material, correspondence, professional records, writings, exhibition files, printed material, and artwork. Saff Tech Arts (later Saff & Co.) records includes correspondence, founding documents including funding, fabrication and supplies information, artist files documenting working relationships ranging from potential collaboration, to long-term fabrication and representation, regular business relationships such as Knoedler & Co., and legal and insurance information including leases and worksite assessments. The series includes correspondence, artist files, business records, and printed material including clippings and subject files. Some materials are in digital formats.
Scope and Contents:
Donald Saff papers and Saff Tech Arts records measures 31.8 linear feet, and 9.82 Gigabytes, and dates from circa 1710, 1800-2013, bulk 1965-2010.
Donald Saff's papers document his career as an artist, and contain professional records prior to the founding of Saff Tech Arts, including his tenure at University of South Florida and Graphicstudio. Also included are records and correspondence documenting consulting and other collaboration outside of Saff Tech Arts. Biographical material includes printed resumes as well as a biographical scrapbook with a hand-written letter in Italian dated 1710 and a biographical listing from "Who's Who in American Art." Correspondence is largely professional with some personal correspondence including letters with other artists. Listed chronologically, followed by an alphabetical run, this correspondence represents Saff's activities while affiliated with the University of Southern Florida and Graphicstudio. Also included are letters of reference for former students, studio assistants, and other colleagues, as well as regarding Saff's own job searches. The professional records subseries encompasses Saff's career as an artist including information on various bodies of artwork particularly in printmaking. This series focuses on Saff's professional career before Saff Tech Arts including Graphicstudio, as well as professional work after the height of Saff Tech Arts including consulting and curatorial work for the Guggenheim Museum and the status of Saff's registered patents. The writings subseries includes correspondence and manuscript material regarding Saff's 1978 book Printmaking co-authored with Deli Sacilotto, as well as follow-up and writings submitted for a possible update and reprint in the mid-1990s. Also included are published articles on the collaboration process. The exhibition subseries includes Saff's solo and group shows as an artist, as well as shows focusing on him as a fabricator and collaborator including the unrealized Joint Venture: Donald Saff and the Art of Collaboration, which was scheduled to open in Fall of 2009 at the Brooklyn Museum. The printed material subseries contains printed material related to Donald Saff's life and career before and following Saff Tech Arts, focusing on him as an educator and artist and founder of Graphicstudio, and the legacy of the art collection Saff assembled. The artwork subseries includes various sketches and notes by Donald Saff, as well as a test print made for wither Saff or another artist.
Saff Tech Arts (later Saff & Co.) records includes correspondence, founding documents including funding, fabrication and supplies information, artist files documenting working relationships ranging from potential collaboration, to long-term fabrication and representation, regular business relationships such as Knoedler & Co., and legal and insurance information including leases and worksite assessments, and printed material including clippings and subject files. Correspondents are usually clients including collectors and galleries. Artist files document a range of interest and working relationships ranging from potential collaboration, to long-term fabrication partnerships including representation. Regular collaborators included Nancy Graves, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, James Turrell, and James Rosenquist. Materials include printed material, fabrication information, sales and consignments, exhibition planning, shipping documents, and damage and restoration documentation. Business records include inventory, sales and consignments including multiple artists, regular business relationships including Knoedler & Co., appointment books, fabrication schedules, employee timesheets, and legal and insurance documents including claims, disputes and leasing information, as well as the pursuit of trademarks on production techniques. Some materials are in digital formats.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as two series:
Series 1: Donald Saff Papers, circa 1710-2010 (9.6 Linear feet: Boxes 1-10, 33)
Series 2: Saff Tech Arts Records, circa 1970-2013 (22.2 Linear feet: Boxes 10-32, 34)
Biographical / Historical:
Donald Jay Saff, born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1937, is an artist, art historian, and fabricator in Oxford, Maryland known for close collaboration with leading American artists on the fabrication of technically complex artworks. He was exposed to printmaking while an undergraduate at Queens College in 1959, where he earned a B.F.A., followed by a master's degree in art history from Columbia University in 1960, and a M.F.A from Pratt Institute in 1962, and an Ed.D. in studio art and art history from Columbia University in 1964. In 1964 Saff was awarded a Fulbright grant which allowed him to study and work in Urbino, Italy. As an artist Saff created work and exhibited regularly throughout the 1980s. Donald Saff married Ruth Saff in 1960 and they have two sons, Stephen and Jeffery Saff.
Donald Saff was the founder of Graphicstudio in 1968 at the University of South Florida, where he was also chairman of the visual arts department. The studio became known for innovating new printing processes, including helio relief and waxtype. In 1971, Saff became the founding dean of the College of Fine Arts and was awarded the rank of distinguished professor at the university in 1982. In 1986, the National Gallery in Washington announced it would create an archive for all the work of Graphicstudio, a great tribute to Saff's accomplishment. Saff worked with a number of notable artists at Graphicstudio, creating collaborative bonds that would lay the ground for working together on his next venture. In 1991 Saff established his studio Saff Tech Arts (later Saff and Company) in Oxford, Maryland, partially thanks to a loan from key collaborator Robert Rauschenberg. During the early years of Saff Tech Arts Donald Saff also served as a gallery director to Knoedler and Co., which hosted exhibitions for many Saff Tech Arts collaborations. Other frequent collaborators include Nancy Graves, Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, and James Turrell.
Saff was later named Dean emeritus by University of South Florida in 1989, and distinguished professor emeritus in 1996. In 1999, Saff was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts. As work at Saff Tech Arts slowed down Donald Saff became open to other opportunities in the arts, including a stint as Director of Capital Projects of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, in 2001, followed by the appointment to Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings in 2002.
Provenance:
Donated in 2022 by Donald Saff.
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. Researchers interested in accessing born-digital records or audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References 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.
Dwan Gallery (Los Angeles, Calif.). Dwan Gallery flyer for a James Rosenquist exhibition, 1964. Dwan Gallery records, 1959-circa 1982. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Ellen H. Johnson. Ellen Hulda Johnson's visit to James Rosenquist's studio, 1964 Apr. 3. Ellen Hulda Johnson papers, 1872-2018. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.