Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Jeanne L. Wasserman, 1993-1994. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Topic:
Art -- Collectors and collecting -- Massachusetts -- Interviews Search this
Art museum curators -- Massachusetts -- Interviews Search this
Interview of Jeanne L. Wasserman, conducted by Robert F. Brown for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, in Cambridge, MA from January 28, 1993-July 19, 1994.
Wasserman speaks of her parents' cultural interests; first becoming interested in sculpture after visiting a Rodin exhibition in Paris with her family; visiting art galleries and studying painting in New York City as a young woman; her education at Fieldston and Radcliffe; trying to get a job in New York after college; working in advertising; meeting her husband, Max, and building a business with him; beginning to collect art; putting together a collection for the condominium project, 180 Beacon; the opening of 180 Beacon; working on a condominium project in the Virgin Islands; curating sculpture exhibitions at the Fogg Museum and at Wellesley; writing the catalogue for a Daumier exhibition at the Fogg; serving on the board of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; organizing forums on contemporary art with the Council of the Arts at MIT; becoming involved with Harvard's Institute for Learning in Retirement; and notable purchases of work by Daumier, Rodin, Degas, Giacometti, de Chirico, Nicolas Schöffer, Henry Moore, and others. Wasserman also recalls Alfred Stieglitz, Peppino Mangravite, Elie Nadelman, Hyman Swetzoff, Joseph Hirshhorn, Erica Brausen, René and Charles Gimpel, Louise Nevelson, Niki de Saint Phalle, Jean Tinguely, Robert Indiana, Claes Oldenburg, Denise René, Yaacov Agam, George Rickey, George Segal, David Ross, Milena Kalinovska, Jacques de Caso, Yulla Lipchitz, Vera List, Jim Cuno, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Jeanne L. Wasserman, (1915-2006) was a museum curator and art collector from Boston, Massachusetts.
General:
Originally recorded on 5 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 10 digital wav files. Duration is 7 hrs., 12 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Topic:
Art -- Collectors and collecting -- Massachusetts -- Interviews Search this
Art museum curators -- Massachusetts -- Interviews Search this
Function:
Art museums -- Massachusetts
Genre/Form:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Sponsor:
Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service.
The papers of New York City art entrepreneur, curator, and journalist Joan Kron date from 1959 to 1971 and measure 1.4 linear feet. The papers include correspondence, scattered financial records, notes and writings, printed material, photographs, a sound and video recording, and project/exhibition files concerning Kron's involvement in the 1960s with the exhibtions of the Arts Council of the Young Men's/Women's Hebrew Association (YM/WHA)of Philadelphia and her business, the Beautiful Bag and Box Co.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of New York City art entrepreneur, curator, and journalist Joan Kron date from 1959 to 1971 and measure 1.4 linear feet. The papers include correspondence, scattered financial records, notes and writings, printed material, photographs, a sound and video recording, and project/exhibition files concerning Kron's involvement in the 1960s with the exhibtions of the Arts Council of the Young Men's/Women's Hebrew Association (YM/WHA)of Philadelphia and her business, the Beautiful Bag and Box Co.
Papers relating to Kron's volunteer chairmanship of the Arts Council of the Young Men's/Women's Hebrew Association (YM/WHA)of Philadelphia include general files concerning the administration and operation of the organization, as well as exhibition files for Art 1963/ A New Vocabulary (1962) and Museum of Merchandise 1967.) Files generally consist of correspondence, clippings and other printed materials, notes and writings, photographs, and financial documents. The exhibition files for Art 1963/ A New Vocabulary include a typescript "Dictionary Suggestions" by Billy Klüver which contains slang terms with creative definitions, and photographs of Claes Oldenburg, Billy Klüver, Joan Kron, Sam Maitin, Niki de Saint-Phalle, Audrey Sabol, George Segal, Jean Tinguely, and Robert Watts. The files for Museum of Merchandise contain a painting on paper by Geoffrey Hendricks, a drawing by Ray Johnson, a photograph of fabric designer Karl Rosenberg, a photograph of a wedding dress design by Christo, and a 1/2" open reel videotape made by Nam Jun Paik of Kron's appearance on The Tonight Show.
The records of the Beautiful Bag and Box Co., an art entrepreneurial business created by Kron and her colleague Audrey Sabol, include correspondence, a ledger of sales and deposits, income tax records, miscellaneous invoices, notes and writings, clippings, miscellaneous printed material, and photographs. Also found are project/product files for Art Museum Store, Temporary Tattoos, Durable Dishes designed by Roy Lichtenstein, Eat Pin likely designed by Robert Indiana, Art on Billboards, and Stunning Stationery. The file for project Art on Billboards contains postcards from Allan Kaprow and Jim Dine expressing interest in the project, and a photograph of Edwin and Audrey Sabol on a motorcycle posing in front of a billboard designed by Roy Lichtenstein. There is also a 7" audio reel tape recording of a radio program Hey, Look at That containing comments about billboards from Kron, Roy Lichtenstein, architect Robert Venturi, and Evan H. Turner, Director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 2 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Arts Council of the YM/YWHA of Philadelphia, 1959-1971 (Box 1-2, OV 3; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 2: Beautiful Bag and Box Co., 1963-1969 (Box 1-2; 0.8 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Joan Kron (circa 1928-) is a fashion and style journalist in New York City, but began her career in Philadelphia as an advocate of avante-garde artists and co-founder of The Beautiful Bag Co. which worked with artists to produce commercial household and fashion art products. Kron worked on projects with Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Robert Indiana, among others.
Joan Kron was born circa 1928 in New York. She studied at the Yale University School of Drama from 1946-1948, graduating with a degree in costume design. She married surgeon Dr. Samuel Kron and lived in Philadelphia during the 1960s. For almost a decade, Kron volunteered as chairman of the Arts Council of the Young Men's/Young Women's Hebrew Association of Philadelphia (YM/YWHA.) The YM/YMA Arts Council focused on promoting and hosting new and avant-garde programs in dance, theatre, poetry, crafts, and the visual arts. Under Kron's leadership, the YM/YWHA Arts Council curated Arts1963/A New Vocabulary (1962) and Museum of Merchandise (1967.)
Kron's work with the Arts Council allowed her to build business partnerships with several artists. She partnered with Andy Warhol to produce a line of perfume, "You're In," packaged in silver Coca-Cola bottles, with Robert Indiana for a Love Ring, and other products and projects associated with the exhibitions of the Arts Council. Then, around 1964, she partnered with colleague Audrey Sabol to form The Beautiful Bag and Box Co. and continued to explore commercial products created or designed by artists, including a line of dinnerware "Durable Dishes" designed by Roy Lichtenstein, a series of billboards displaying art work and the Eat Pin, most likely designed by Robert Indiana.
Kron began her career in journalism in the late 1960s by contributing an article about a cannabis harvest in an upscale neighborhood to the Philadelphia magazine in 1969. She continued to write for the magazine until after her divorce. She moved to New York City in 1971 and was hired by New York magazine. She researched and wrote a special issue about the blossoming SoHo art district. Kron then focused the remainder of her career primarily on writing, and worked for a number of magazines and newspapers, and published several books. As of 2010, she was living in New York City and working as contributing editor at large for Condé Nast's Allure magazine, primarily covering the subject of cosmetic surgery.
Related Materials:
Additional copies of microfilm reels 4224-4225 are available at the Free Library of Philadelphia.
Also found in the Archives are selected papers of the Young Men's/Women's Hebrew Association Arts Council that were loaned by Judith Golden for microfilming, and are now available only on microfilm reels 3898. Another small collection of printed material from the YM/WHA records was donated by Acey Wolgin and microfilmed on reel 4340, and transferred to the Smithsonian American Art Museum Library's vertical files.
Provenance:
Joan Kron donated her papers in 1987.
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.
An interview of Judy Chicago conducted 2009 August 7 and 8, by Judith Olch Richards, for the Archives of American Art, at Chicago's home and studio, in Belen, New Mexico.
Chicago speaks of her work since the late 1980s, having previously discussed her early life and works; printmaking projects with various print studios around the country; giving archived documents to important museums; creating a foundation with her husband Donald Woodman to protect the legacy of their art; the non-profit organization she started in 1978, Through the Flower; her studio practices and her most practiced techniques; keeping a regular schedule; her interest in collaborative projects such as The Dinner Party [1974-1979], the Birth Project [1980-1985], the Holocaust Project [1985-1993] and Resolutions: A Stitch in Time [1994-2000]; working with various textile and glass artists; feeling a kin with other female artists, like Nikki de Saint Phalle and Marisol Escobar; the responsibility she feels to share underrepresented information; her enjoyment of the process of making art and the hope that she creates art that is not bound by time; her relationships with galleries though the years including the ACA Galleries in New York and LewAllen Contemporary in Santa Fe; her intention in making art was not create proactive or controversial art; various teaching positions; her interest in combining text and images in works like Song of Songs [1997-1999]; her more current interest in glass; experimenting with the techniques of casting and etching to achieve her desired images; her want to change institutional policies that underrepresent women artists in museums and the absence of images of women by women artists. Chicago also recalls Henry Hopkins, Mary Ross Taylor, Susannah Rodee, John Bullard, Jack Lemon, Alice Neel, Edward Lucie-Smith, John Copeland, Harold Rosenberg, Carolee Schneemann, Jeffery Bergen, Audrey Flack, Joan Semmel, Nancy Youdelman, David McFadden, Viki Thomson Wylder, Tom Pruitt, Arlene LewAllen, Flo Perkins, Norman and Ruth Dobbins, Karen LaMonte, Lu Jie and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Interviewee Judy Chicago (1939- ) is a feminist artist and author who lives and works in Belen, New Mexico. Interviewer Judith Olch Richards (1947- ) is former executive director of iCI in New York, New York.
General:
Originally recorded on 4 compact discs. Reformatted in 2010 as 4 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hr., 40 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Occupation:
Installation artists -- California -- Los Angeles Search this
Performance artists -- California -- Los Angeles Search this
Sculptors -- California -- Los Angeles Search this
Niki de Saint Phalle in the 1960s Jill Dawsey, Michelle White ; with essays by Amelia Jones, Ariana Reines, and Alena J. Williams ; and contributions by Molly Everett and Kyla McDonald
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Judy Chicago, 2009 August 7-8. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
The Dorothy Gees Seckler collection of sound recordings relating to art and artists measures 1.6 linear feet and dates from 1962 to 1976. Recordings include 17 interviews conducted by Seckler, one interview by John Jones, and 17 additional recordings of mostly contemporary art-related programs and interviews taped from radio and television broadcasts. Recordings are on 26 sound cassettes and 25 sound tape reels.
Scope and Contents:
The Dorothy Gees Seckler collection of sound recordings relating to art and artists measures 1.6 linear feet and dates from 1962 to 1976. Recordings include 20 interviews conducted by Seckler, one interview by John Jones, and 17 additional recordings of mostly contemporary art-related programs and interviews taped from radio and television broadcasts. Recordings are on 26 sound cassettes and 25 sound tape reels.
Interviews with Artists consist of 17 interviews by Dorothy Seckler with artists including Elise Asher, Fritz Bultman, Judith Rothschild, Giorgio Cavallon, Marcia Marcus, Jean Cohen, William Freed, Lillian Orlowsky, Shirley Gorelick, Hans Hofmann, Wolf Kahn, Raoul Middleman, Robert Motherwell, Helen Frankenthaler, Olin Orr, Larry Rivers, Alvin Ross, George Segal, Jean Tinguely, and Niki de Saint Phalle. Several interviews are with two subjects at once. Many of these interviews were conducted in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and are referenced in her introduction to the catalog for the exhibition Provincetown Painters, 1890's – 1970's held at the Everson Museum and the Provincetown Art Association in 1977, and several interviews were conducted as research for articles Seckler wrote and published in Art in America. Also found are group interviews on specific subjects, including an interview with Julio de Diego, Marion Greenwood, Fletcher Martin, and Anton Refregier on the Woodstock art colony, and with Sally Avery, Boris Margo, Jan Gelb, Margit Beck and others on Op Art. In September of 1966, Seckler recorded some of Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable in Provincetown, which includes a performance by Nico and the Velvet Underground, as well as an interview with one of the band's members, John Cale. A single interview conducted by John Jones of George Segal appears to have been copied by Seckler to prepare for her April 1966 interview of Segal.
Broadcast materials include sound recordings of television and radio broadcast programs taped off the air presumably by Seckler. Most programs are interviews, with subjects including Maxim Karolik, James Thomas Flexner, R. Buckminster Fuller, Merce Cunningham, Alex Katz, Phillip Pearlstein, Roslyn Drexler, Barnet Newman, Saul Bellow, Ben Shahn, Marshall McLuhan, Isamu Noguchi, Andrew Wyeth, and William H Whyte. Other recordings include documentary programs related to contemporary art, book reviews, and a comedy performance with actor Peter Ustinov.
Photographs include 12 color slides from October of 1967 that appear to have been shot in Provincetown, Mass. Subjects include Dorothy Seckler and two other unidentified women.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged in 3 series.
Series 1: Interviews with Artists, 1962-1976 (1 linear foot; Box 1)
Series 2: Broadcast Materials, 1962-1972 (0.8 linear feet; Boxes 2-3)
Series 3: Photographs, 1967 (1 folder; Box 3)
Biographical / Historical:
Dorothy Gees Seckler was an art historian, critic, journalist, and artist active in New York City and Provincetown, Mass. Born Dorothy Elizabeth Gees in Baltimore, MD in 1910, she completed the program in Advertising Design at Maryland Institute College of Art in 1931 and was awarded a traveling scholarship upon graduation, which she used to study in Europe. She later received a masters degree from Columbia University in Art History and Art Education, and worked during World War II as head of an illustration unit in the Army's Judge Advocate General's office.
After the war, she worked at the Museum of Modern Art as an art historian in the education office until 1950, when she began writing for ARTnews magazine, reviewing New York gallery shows for its "Gallery Notes" section, and exploring painters' processes in the "Paints a Picture" series. She later served as contributing editor for Art in America from the late 1950s through the late 1960s, where her published work included features on Robert Rauschenberg and Louise Nevelson, as well as broad surveys of contemporary art such as "A Folklore of the Banal" (Winter 1962) and "Audience is His Medium" (February 1963). She taught at New York University and City College of New York, and wrote a long essay on the history of the Provincetown's art colony, published in Art in America in 1959, and later updated for the catalog for the 1977 exhibition Provincetown Painters, 1890's - 1970's. Between 1962 and 1968, she conducted thirty oral history interviews for the Archives of American Art and served as one of its manuscript collectors.
Throughout her career as a writer and critic, Seckler painted and worked in collage, and her work was shown in several Provincetown galleries, and in the Provincetown Art Center and Museum. She married Jerome Seckler in 1937 and they had one son. Seckler received the American Federation of Arts Award for outstanding writing in the field of American Art in 1952. She died in 1994.
Related Materials:
Other related materials in the Archives' collections include several additional interviews conducted by Seckler for its oral history program, a full recording and transcript of the August 28, 1963 symposium on pop art, for which brief sound notes are found in this collection, and a transcript of the John Jones interview with George Segal in the John Jones interviews with artists collection, 1965 Oct. 5-1965 Nov. 12.
Separated Materials:
In 2012, several duplicates of recordings Seckler made for the Archives of American Art's oral history program were removed from the collection including: Peter and Riva Dechar (1965 and 1967), David von Schlegell (1967), Joan Mitchell (1965), Theresa Schwartz (1965), Paul Burlin (1962), Ibram Lassaw (1964), Jack Tworkov (1962), Allan Kaprow (1968), Edwin Dickinson (1962), Nathan Halper (1963), Louise Nevelson (1964-1965), Karl Knaths (1962), and Stephen Greene (1968). Joan Mitchell's 1965 oral history interview remains with the Seckler collection because reel 2 of this recording also contains a discussion of optical art that belongs in the Seckler collection. The oral history interview has been digitized and is available through the Archives' oral history program.
Provenance:
The bulk of the collection, including the interviews with the Provincetown artists, was donated 1995 by Don Seckler, son of Dorothy Seckler. The source of acquisition for the Seckler interviews with the Woodstock artists is unknown.
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 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:
Jacques Seligmann & Co. records, 1904-1978, bulk 1913-1974. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Processing of the collection was funded by the Getty Grant Program; digitization of the collection was funded by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the Terra Foundation for American Art. Glass plate negatives in this collection were digitized in 2019 with funding provided by the Smithsonian Women's Committee.
The Dwan Gallery records measure 2.3 linear feet and consist primarily of files of exhibitions curated by Virginia Dwan at Dwan Galleries in Los Angeles (1959-1967) and New York (1965-1971). Found within this nearly comprehensive set of exhibition files may be lists of exhibited works, price lists, photographs, slides or color transparencies of installations, invitations, full-size posters, magazine and newspaper clippings and exhibition catalogs.
Scope and Contents:
The Dwan Gallery records measure 2.3 linear feet and consist primarily of files of exhibitions curated by Virginia Dwan at Dwan Galleries in Los Angeles (1959-1967) and New York (1965-1971). Found within this nearly comprehensive set of exhibition files may be lists of exhibited works, price lists, photographs, slides or color transparencies of installations, invitations, full-size posters, magazine and newspaper clippings and exhibition catalogs.
Artists that held exhibitions at the Dwan Gallery in New York and Los Angeles include: Robert Goodnough, Robert Richenburg, Larry Rivers, Philip Guston, Yves Klein, Salvatore Scarpitta, Arakawa, Martial Raysse, Ad Reinhardt, Arman, Franz Kline, Edward Kienholz, Claes Oldenburg, Niki de Sainte Phalle, Joan Mitchell, Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Morris, Dan Flavin, Raymond Parker, Kenneth Snelson, Carl Andre, Sol LeWitt, Robert Smithson, and Anastasi. Also, the exhibition files are nearly comprehensive and include: Language to be Looked at and/or Things to be Read annual series (1967-1970), Boxes (1964), Earth Works (1968), My Country 'tis of Thee (1962) and 10 (1967 and 1968). Many of the multiple artist shows were created and organized by gallery director John Weber and/or Virginia Dwan. Many of these exhibition files include full-sized posters and panoramic photos showing installations.
Also found are records created by a consulting firm hired by the Dwan Gallery to inventory the exhibition files prior to donation to the Archives of American Art. These guides appear at the beginning of each series and outline a chronology of exhibitions held at each branch.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into two series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Los Angeles Exhibition Files, 1959-1967, after 1981 (Box 1-2, 5, OV6, OV8; 1.3 linear feet)
Series 2: New York Exhibition Files, 1965-1971, after 1982 (Box 2-4, OV7; 1.0 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
In 1959, Virginia Dwan opened her first gallery on 1091 Broxton Avenue in the Westwood Village neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Her independent wealth allowed her to open a gallery without worrying about business and sales. Three years after opening, the Dwan Gallery moved into a new Westwood Village space especially designed to express the gallery's contemporary aesthetic. In 1965, Virginia Dwan moved to New York City and founded an east coast branch of the Dwan Gallery at 29 West 57th Street.
Early exhibitions at the Dwan Gallery showed Abstract Expressionist artists and works of art from New York which Dwan consigned from other galleries. After traveling to New York and France, Virginia Dwan's interests and tastes manifested in exhibitions by 1961 with Yves Klein. Through Klein, Dwan made connections to other Nouveaux Réalistes artists that the gallery featured in solo and group shows. Later exhibitions featured Land and Minimilist artists. Dwan recognized that many of her shows were not considered salable but continued to show the avant-garde. She saw the gallery as an opportunity to expose the public to different styles of art.
Virginia Dwan maintained a close and personal relationship with many of her artists. She allowed large stipends to gallery artists and invited them to spend time at her home in Malibu, California. When working with artists concentrating on found objects, Dwan would accompany them on scavenger hunts and shopping trips. In the case of Robert Smithson and other Land Art artists, she traveled to offsite locations to visit works of art in progress. Dwan relied on her longtime gallery director, John Weber to interact with collectors as she preferred to maintain her connection with the artists.
The Dwan Gallery Los Angeles closed in mid-1967 but the New York branch remained open. By 1971, Virginia Dwan felt pressure to support her thirteen artists through a period of economic insecurity. She decided to close the gallery secretly and only informed her artists at the last minute. The final exhibition at Dwan Gallery New York closed in June of 1971.
Related Materials:
Also found within the Archives of American Art is an interview with Virginia Dwan conducted March 21 through June 1, 1984 by Charles Stuckey.
Separated Materials:
Dwan Gallery exhibition catalogs that were donated to the Archives in 1989 were transferred to the Smithsonian Institution American Art and National Portrait Gallery Library.
Bard College's Center for Curatorial Studies and Art in Contemporary Culture holds Dwan Gallery materials related to exhibitions in the Library and Archives.
Provenance:
The Dwan Gallery records were donated in 1996 by Virginia Dwan, the former owner of the gallery.
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.
Topic:
Art -- New York (State) -- New York -- Exhibitions Search this
Art -- California -- Los Angeles -- Exhibitions Search this
Niki de Saint Phalle aan zee = [Niki de Saint Phalle] : by the sea auteurs/authors, Joost Bergman, Xandra Schutte ; fotografie/photography, Wim de Boer ; vertaling/translation, Small Caps Bush Translation
Dorothy Gees Seckler and Jean Tinguely. Interview with Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle, 1962 November. Dorothy Gees Seckler Collection of Sound Recordings Relating to Art and Artists, 1962-1976. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
