An interview of Merry Renk conducted 2001 January 18-19, by Arline M. Fisch, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, in Renk's home and studio, San Francisco, California.
Renk speaks of her family background; growing up during the Depression; her father's creativity and encouragement; early inspiration from "the structure of nature"; attending the School of Industrial Arts in Trenton, N.J., and later the Institute of Design in Chicago; student life at the Institute of Design; establishing a studio and gallery, 750 Studio, at 750 North Dearborn, in Chicago, in 1947, with two other students, Mary Jo Slick [Godfrey] and Olive [Bunny] Oliver; managing 750 Studio and organizing exhibitions of Harry Callahan, Henry Miller, Lazlo Maholy-Nagy, Warren and Ethel MacKenzie, Doris Hall, and others; working with enamels; early "primitive" spirals; decision to be a jeweler; the importance of the "wearability" of jewelry; moving to San Francisco in 1948; living in Paris, 1950-1951; relationship with Shinkichi Tajiri; visiting Constantin Brancusi; traveling with Lenore Tawney through Spain and Morocco; settling in San Francisco; friendship with sculptor and neighbor Ruth Asawa; learning about Josef Albers from Asawa, resulting in experiments with folded metal; meeting her second husband, potter Earle Curtis on Halloween 1954; purchasing and remodeling their home; teaching part-time at the University of California, Berkeley and in workshops; her children, Baunnie and Sandra; managing motherhood and jewelry making in a two-artist household; drawing as a form of inventory; the influence of Lee Nordness; learning the plique-à-jour technique of enameling through trial and error; early influence of Doris Hall's work; working with wire; use of natural forms and interlocking forms; the process of making Wedding Crown (1968) for the exhibition Objects USA; making wedding crowns for her daughters; her shift from non-objective art to portraiture and symbolic imagery in the early 1970s; making large-scale sculpture in 1974, then "drifting back" to jewelry; importance of working independently; her "memory paintings" in the 1980s; evolution of her name from Mary Ruth Gibbs to Merry Renk Curtis (married Stanley Renk in 1941); her involvement with local guilds such as the Metal Arts Guild of San Francisco and national organizations such as the American Craft Council (ACC); lack of critical writing about her work; the value of exhibitions; various pieces in museum collections; early ACC conferences; her long friendship with photographer Imogen Cunningham; posing for Cunningham; becoming an ACC fellow; her jewelry tools; the process of painting compared to jewelry making. She also mentions Kenneth Bates, Trude Guermonprez, Irena Brynner, the Mobilia Gallery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and her mentor Margaret de Patta.
Biographical / Historical:
Merry Renk (1921-2012) was a jeweler, painter, and sculptor from San Francisco, California. Arline M. Fisch (1931-) is a metalsmith from San Diego, California.
General:
Originally recorded on 3 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 6 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hr., 9 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.
An interview of Nancy Rubins conducted 2012 Aug. 7, by Hunter Drohojowska-Philp, for the Archives of American Art, at Topanga Studio, in Topanga, Calif.
Biographical / Historical:
Nancy Rubins (1952- ) is a sculptor and installation artist in Topanga, Calif. Hunter Drohojowska-Philp is a writer and art historian in Los Angeles, Calif.
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.
Restrictions:
For information on how to access this interview contact Reference Services.
ACCESS RESTRICTED; Use requires written permission.
An interview of Chris Burden conducted 2012 September 11-21, by Hunter Drohojowska-Philp, for the Archives of American Art, at Burden's home and studio, in Topanga, California.
Biographical / Historical:
Interviewee Chris Burden (1946- ) is a sculptor in Topanga, California. Interviewer Hunter Drohojowska-Philp is writer in Los Angeles, California.
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.
Restrictions:
For information on how to access this interview contact Reference Services.
An interview of Helen Pashgian conducted 2012 July 11, by Hunter Drohojowska-Philp, for the Archives of American Art, at Pashgian's studio, in Pasadena, California.
Pashgian speaks of her parents and their backgrounds; her father's businesses; her grandparents; the influence of great grandmother; her brother; attending grade and high school; attending Pomona College; swimming and athletics; spending time at the beach; the influence of light on water; art classes; learning to look at art; attending Pomona; teaching; living in New York and Boston; working at an advertising firm as a secretary; attending graduate school; working for the Fogg Museum; quitting teaching and moving back to California; experimenting with glazes; California light; La Cienega; taking her work to galleries to try to get a show; Rex Evans; Felix Landau; being a woman artist; meeting Mia Farrow; experimenting with resin; hemispheres; support of parents; Caltech; Nicholas Tschoegl; Jet Propulsion Lab; Great Sphere; stolen art; Jack Brogan; working in resin; Jack Brogan; James Turrell and growing up in California; Balboa Island summer camp; meeting Judy Chicago; being a woman artist; Laguna Beach; Crystal Cove; 'finish fetish"; color field painters; California artists showing in New York; Jill Kornblee Gallery; spheres; Phenomenal exhibition; Baroque period; show at UC Irvine; corporate art collections; plastics technology; working with companies and engineers; epoxy company in Visalia; plastic work; Works Gallery; the early '90s in Southern California; hiatus; working with a fabricator; Pomona College board; L.A. Master Chorale; father's health and growing old; Ace Gallery; new work. Pashgian also recalls Seymour Slive, Vincent Scully, HelenGretchen Van de Kamp, Christopher Ward, Larry Gagosian, DeWain Valentine, Richard Diebenkorn, Roger Kuntz, Peter Alexander, Dave Elder, Bob Bassler, Richard Feynman, Larry Bell, Frank Gehry, Robert Irwin, Mary Corse, Archie Turrell, Miriam Schapiro, Elizabeth Elgin, Brooke Alexander, Wayne Thiebaud, Roger Kuntz, Helen Frankenthaler, Ellsworth Kelly, Nicholas Wilder Gallery, Donald Judd, Melinda Wortz, Robert Morris, Richard Serra, Dan Flavin, Leo Castelli, Jill Kornblee, Phyllis Plous, Melinda Terbell, Stella Polaris Gallery, Mark Moore, Lance Willis, Kettleman Hills, Michael Govan, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Helen Pashgian (1934- ) is a sculptor in Pasadena, California. Hunter Drohojowska-Philp is a writer and art historian in Los Angeles, California.
General:
Originally recorded as 4 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hr., 11 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.
Restrictions:
ACCESS RESTRICTED; Use requires written permission.
For information on how to access this interview contact Reference Services.
3 Sound cassettes (Sound recording (60 min. each), analog)
51 Pages (Transcript)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Sound cassettes
Pages
Sound recordings
Interviews
Date:
1995 Mar. 2-21
Scope and Contents:
An interview of Claire Falkenstein conducted 1995 Mar.2-21, by Paul Karlstrom, for the Archives of American Art, Women in the Arts in Southern California Oral History Project, in Falkenstein's studio, Venice, Calif.
Falkenstein discusses the evolution of her work; the benefit of being alone to her personal and artistic growth; her "vocabulary of art" which she created while at the University of California at Berkeley; her largest commission at St. Basil's Cathedral in Los Angeles and her views on religion and art; the influence on her of George Lusk, a visiting artist and philosopher from Paris; studying the nude figure and how it taught her personal expression; her family background and introduction to art; teaching in the Bay Area at the California School of Fine Arts; her friendships with other artists there such as Clyfford Still; her reasons for leaving the Bay Area to go to Paris; and meeting Michel Tapie and the Stadler Gallery group. She recalls Karl Appel, Martha Jackson, Clyfford Still, Sam Francis, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Claire Falkenstein (1908-1997) was a sculptor of Venice, Calif.
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. Funding for this interview was provided by the Margery and Harry Kahn Philanthropic Fund of the Jewish Communal Fund of New York.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Topic:
Women artists -- California -- Interviews Search this
An interview of Robert Arneson conducted 1981 August 14-15, by Mady Jones, for the Archives of American Art.
Arneson speaks of his family background, teaching himself to draw by copying comic strips, his early interest in commercial art and discovering ceramics. He discusses, teaching ceramics to high school students, his philosophy of teaching; and the influence of Peter Voulkos and the shift toward abstract expressionism and Pop art. He reminisces about the first exhibit of his work; getting established in galleries; teaching ceramics at the University of California, Davis; his major exhibitions; and museum purchases of his work.
Biographical / Historical:
Robert Arneson (1930-1992) is a ceramic sculptor from Benicia, California.
General:
Originally recorded on 5 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 10 digital wav files. Duration is 5 hr., 11 min.
Sound quality is poor.
Provenance:
These interviews are part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and others.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Occupation:
Art teachers -- California -- Interviews Search this
An interview of Walter Askin conducted 1992 March 4-6, by Paul J. Karlstrom, for the Archives of American Art.
Biographical / Historical:
Walter Askin (1929- ) is a painter, sculptor, and printmaker from Los Angeles, California.
General:
Originally recorded on 4 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 8 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hr., 57 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. Funding for the transscription provided by the Pasadena Art Alliance.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
A lecture and interviews of twenty-two Southern California painters and sculptors, conducted and recorded by Los Angeles art critic Merle Schipper.
Interview tapes and Schipper's fragmentary notes are available for Greg S. Card, Tony Delap, Robert Graham, Frederick Hammersley, Marvin Harden, Craig Kauffman, Claude Kent, Charles Kessler, Harry Kipper, Jay Phillips, Charles Seliger, Peter T. Shelton, Judith Simonian, David Trowbridge, and John Van Hamersveld.
Only tapes are available for John Anderson, Joyce Cutler-Shaw, Gordon Onslow-Ford, Helen Pashgian, Frederick Stallknecht Wight and Rita Yokoi. Only Schipper's fragmentary notes are available for the DeWain Valentine interview. A tape of Craig Kauffman's May 9, 1979 lecture at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is also included.
Arrangement:
John Anderson interview is on the Gordon Onslow-Ford tape.
John Van Hamersveld interview is on the Harry Kipper tape.
Frederick Stallknecht Wight interview is on the Joyce Cutler-Shaw tape.
Rita Yokoi interview is on the Helen Pashgian tape.
Biographical / Historical:
California art critic and curator of the Fine Arts Gallery, California State University; b. in 1922.
Provenance:
Donated 1988 by Merle Schipper.
Restrictions:
Untranscribed interviews; use requires an appointment and is limited to AAA's Washington, D.C. office.
Occupation:
Conceptual artists -- California -- Interviews Search this
An interview of Patricia Stanley Cunningham conducted 1964 July 28, by Mary Fuller McChesney, for the Archives of American Art.
Cunningham speaks of her training at the University of California, Berkeley; her work for the Federal Art Project as a muralist in public school buildings and on the easel painting project; how her work was supervised; artists she knew; and the effect of the Federal Art Project on her career. She recalls Bruce Ariss, Burton Boundey, Beniamino Bufano, and Amalie Waldo.
Biographical / Historical:
Patricia Stanley Cunningham (1907-1984) was a painter, sculptor, designer, and muralist from Carmel, California.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound tape reel. Reformatted in 2010 as 1 digital wav file. Duration is 48 min.
Provenance:
This interview conducted as part of the Archives of American Art's New Deal and the Arts project, which includes over 400 interviews of artists, administrators, historians, and others involved with the federal government's art programs and the activities of the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s and early 1940s.
An interview of Mary Fuller McChesney conducted 1994 Sept. 28, by Susan Landauer, for the Archives of American Art, Women in the Arts in Southern California Oral History Project, at the artist's home, on Sonoma Mountain, Calif.
Fuller McChesney discusses her childhood and growing up during the Depression; her student days at the University of California, Berkeley; the political response on the campus to WWII and the Japanese interment; her experience working as a welder in the shipyards which she considers her introduction to sculpture; her introduction to the art community in San Francisco through the cooperative Artists' Guild Gallery; her association with the Abstract Expressionists at the California School of Fine Arts in the 1940s; her foray into writing fiction and her success as a mystery writer; her work on the Archives of American Art's oral history project documenting the WPA art project in California; her first significant publication on the San Francisco School of Abstract Expressionism, Period of Exploration, and the interviews she conducted in the mid-late 1960s for the project.
She describes her attitudes and philosphies about art; living at Point Richmond with her husband Robert McChesney, Edward Corbett, Hassel Smith, and poet Weldon Kees during the late 1940s; her impressions of the Cedar Bar and New York artists during the mid-late 1960s; her own artistic evolution and career as a sculptor; the intellectual and artistic sources of her work; her subjects and techniques; her public commissions; her audience and market; and her experiences and perspectives as a woman artist and feminist. She recalls Edward Corbett, Willem De Kooning, Richard Diebenkorn, Weldon Kees, Douglas MacAgy, Bea Mandelman, Conrad Marca-Relli, Agnes Martin, Robert McChesney, David Park, Ad Reinhardt, Louis Ribak, Hassel Smith, Clay Spohn, Clyfford Still, and Esteban Vicente.
Biographical / Historical:
Mary Fuller McChesney (1922- ) is a sculptor and art historian of San Francisco and Petaluma, Calif.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 4 digital wav files. Duration is 2 hrs., 58 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. Funding for this interview was provided by the Margery and Harry Kahn Philanthropic Fund of the Jewish Communal Fund of New York.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Occupation:
Art historians -- California -- Interviews Search this
