Search Results

Artist:

Julian Schnabel, American, b. New York City, 1951  Search this

Medium:

Oil on velvet

Dimensions:

107 3/4 x 120 1/8 in. (274 x 305 cm)

Type:

Painting

Date:

(1982)

Credit Line:

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, Joseph H. Hirshhorn Purchase Fund and Regents Collections Acquisition Program with matching funds from the Jerome L. Green, Sydney and Frances Lewis and Leonard C. Yaseen Purchase Fund, 1994

Accession Number:

94.11

See more items in:

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Collection

School:

American Contemporary

Data Source:

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

GUID:

http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/py24db7cbc1-2835-4d8c-9f56-b8ea7c0aa754

EDAN-URL:

edanmdm:hmsg_94.11

Artist:

Guillermo Kuitca, Argentinean, b. Buenos Aires, 1961  Search this

Medium:

Oil, pastel, and pencil on canvas

Dimensions:

71 x 92 1/8 in. (180.4 x 233.8 cm)

Type:

Painting

Date:

1995

Credit Line:

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, Smithsonian Collections Acquisition Program, 1995

Accession Number:

96.1

See more items in:

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Collection

School:

Hispanic Contemporary

Data Source:

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

GUID:

http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/py260131098-6464-4dee-a7e9-8d3efea6d2f5

EDAN-URL:

edanmdm:hmsg_96.1

Artist:

Hannah Höch, German, b. Gotha, 1889–1978  Search this

Medium:

Collage of printed papers on paper

Dimensions:

in artist's frame: 20 1/4 × 17 1/4 × 1 3/8 in. (51.4 × 43.8 × 3.5 cm)

Type:

Collage

Date:

1920

Credit Line:

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, Gift of Louise Rosenfield Noun in Honor of James T. Demetrion, 1996

Accession Number:

96.23

See more items in:

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Collection

School:

Dada/Fluxus

Data Source:

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

GUID:

http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/py25fcd5d75-369f-40f7-8f2c-64d7efe887d5

EDAN-URL:

edanmdm:hmsg_96.23

Collection Creator:

Amos, Emma, 1937-2020  Search this

Container:

Box 23, Folder 11

Type:

Archival materials

Date:

2001

Collection Restrictions:

Material regarding the Guerrilla Girls is access restricted; written permission is required. Contact Reference Services for more information. 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.

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:

Emma Amos papers, circa 1900-2019. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

See more items in:

Emma Amos papers

Emma Amos papers / Series 7: Other Professional Activities

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw97ec81c4a-8613-4eab-9705-74b492136ae1

EDAN-URL:

ead_component:sova-aaa-amosemma-ref447

Collection Creator:

Midtown Galleries (New York, N.Y.)  Search this

Container:

Reel 5373, Frame 851-964

Type:

Archival materials

Date:

1943-1981

Collection Restrictions:

The collection is open for research. Patrons must use microfilm copy.

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:

Midtown Galleries records, 1904-1997. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

See more items in:

Midtown Galleries records

Midtown Galleries records / Series 1: Administrative Correspondence / 1.1: General Correspondence

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9aeb6cfb5-d924-44b8-ad08-b607a7dc1ed2

EDAN-URL:

ead_component:sova-aaa-midtgall-ref4104

Interviewee:

Arnason, H. Harvard, 1909-1986  Search this

Interviewer:

Cummings, Paul  Search this

Subject:

Cahill, Holger  Search this

Messer, Thomas M.  Search this

Rebay, Hilla  Search this

Sweeney, James Johnson  Search this

Wright, Frank Lloyd  Search this

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum  Search this

Walker Art Galleries (Minneapolis, Minn.)  Search this

Type:

Sound recordings

Interviews

Citation:

Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with H. Harvard Arnason, 1970 March 3-9. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Topic:

Museum architecture -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this

Museum directors -- Minnesota -- Minneapolis -- Interviews  Search this

Theme:

Architecture & Design  Search this

Record number:

(DSI-AAA_CollID)12761

(DSI-AAA_SIRISBib)211934

AAA_collcode_arnaso70

Theme:

Architecture & Design

Data Source:

Archives of American Art

EDAN-URL:

edanmdm:AAADCD_oh_211934

Creator:

Davis, Gene, 1920-1985  Search this

Subject:

Baro, Gene  Search this

Wall, Donald  Search this

Greenberg, Clement  Search this

Colby, Carl  Search this

Davis, Douglas  Search this

Davis, Florence  Search this

McGowin, Ed  Search this

Naifeh, Steven  Search this

Nordland, Gerald  Search this

North, Percy  Search this

Seitz, William C. (William Chapin)  Search this

Thomas, Alma  Search this

White House (Washington, D.C.)  Search this

Type:

Sound recordings

Transcripts

Photographs

Interviews

Video recordings

Citation:

Gene Davis papers, 1920-2000, bulk 1942-1990. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Topic:

Color-field painting  Search this

Art -- Study and teaching  Search this

Artists' studios -- Photographs  Search this

Theme:

Lives of artists  Search this

Record number:

(DSI-AAA_CollID)7153

(DSI-AAA_SIRISBib)209287

AAA_collcode_davigene

Theme:

Lives of artists

Data Source:

Archives of American Art

EDAN-URL:

edanmdm:AAADCD_coll_209287

Creator:

Davis, Gene, 1920-1985  Search this

Names:

White House (Washington, D.C.)  Search this

Baro, Gene  Search this

Colby, Carl  Search this

Davis, Douglas  Search this

Davis, Florence  Search this

Greenberg, Clement, 1909-1994  Search this

McGowin, Ed, 1938-  Search this

Naifeh, Steven, 1952-  Search this

Nordland, Gerald  Search this

North, Percy, 1945-  Search this

Seitz, William C. (William Chapin)  Search this

Thomas, Alma  Search this

Wall, Donald  Search this

Extent:

17.7 Linear feet

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Sound recordings

Transcripts

Photographs

Interviews

Video recordings

Date:

1920-2000

bulk 1942-1990

Summary:

The papers of the artist Gene Davis measure 17.7 linear feet and date from 1920-2000, with the bulk of materials dating from 1942-1990. Papers document Davis's personal life and his career as an artist and educator, as well as his career as a journalist in the 1940s and 1950s, through biographical materials, correspondence, interviews, business records, estate records, writings by and about Gene Davis, printed materials concerning Davis's art career, personal and art-related photographs, and artwork by Davis and others.

Scope and Contents:

The papers of the artist Gene Davis measure 17.7 linear feet and date from 1920-2000, with the bulk of materials dating from 1942-1990. Papers document Davis's personal life and his career as an artist and educator, and to a lesser degree his early career as a journalist in the 1940s and 1950s, through biographical materials, correspondence, interviews, business records, estate records, writings by and about Gene Davis, printed materials concerning Davis's art career, personal and art-related photographs, and artwork by Davis and others.

Biographical materials include birth and death certificates, awards, biographical narratives by Gene Davis and others, CVs, résumés, personal documents from Davis's family and childhood, documents related to his work as a White House correspondent, documentation related to his death and memorial service, and papers for the family pets. A video documentary about Davis by Carl Colby is found on one videocassette.

Correspondence is mainly of a professional nature, and correspondents include gallery and museum curators, private art collectors, publishers, fellow artists, art educators, academics, and students. Letters document exhibitions, sales, book projects, teaching jobs, visits to studios, local art community events in the Washington, D.C. area, and other projects. Significant correspondents include Gene Baro, Douglas Davis, Clement Greenberg, Gerald Nordland, William Seitz, Alma Thomas, and Donald Wall. Interviews and lectures include sound recordings and transcripts. Many of the interviews were broadcast or published. Also found is a single lecture by Davis given in 1969 at the National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, entitled "Contemporary Painting." Sound recordings are found for three of the interviews and for the lecture, on 4 sound reels and 1 sound cassette.

Business records include artwork documentation, price lists, sales records, contracts, financial and legal records, gallery and museum files documenting sales and exhibitions, records related to the construction of Davis's home studio in 1970, and a few teaching records. Estate records mainly reflect Florence Davis's efforts to document the works of her husband, and to manage their exhibition, promotion, and sale after his death in April 1985. Estate records include an inventory of artworks, documentation of gifts to museums, correspondence, legal, and financial records. Writings include notes, drafts of essays, artist statements, and articles by Davis, and many articles by others about Davis. Several of Davis's articles reflect specifically on the Washington, D.C. art scene. Also found are drafts of monographs on Davis including one by Donald Wall (1975) and one by Steven Naifeh (1982). Records of Naifeh's book also include photographs of all black and white and color plates from the published book. Among the writings are also notes and research files of Percy North, who worked on an update to Naifeh's 1982 bibliography after Davis's death.

Printed materials include annual reports of museums, published arts-related calendars, auction catalogs, brochures from organizations with which Davis had some affiliation, exhibition announcements and invitations, exhibition catalogs, magazine articles, newspaper clippings, newsletters, posters, press releases, and other published material. Photographs include personal photographs of Gene and Florence Davis and their families, portraits of Gene Davis, photographs of Gene Davis with artworks and working in the studio, Davis' art classes and students, installations of site-specific works, conceptual and video works, exhibition openings, and photographs of artwork, both installed in exhibitions and individually photographed. Found among the photographs are also four videocassettes documenting the Gene Davis retrospective as installed at the Smithsonian National Museum of American Art in 1987.

Artwork includes photographs, drawings, moving images, and documentation of conceptual art. Works by Davis include documentation of the 1969 "Giveaway" with Douglas Davis and Ed McGowin, "The Artist's Fingerprints Except for One which belongs to someone else," documentation of his "Air Displacement" happening, a short film entitled "Patricia," and a video entitled "Video Puzzle." Other moving images include four reels of film of Davis's stripe paintings, and other experiments with motion picture film and photographs.

Arrangement:

The collection is arranged as 8 series.

Missing Title

Series 1: Biographical Material, 1930-1987 (0.6 linear feet; Boxes 1, 17)

Series 2: Correspondence, 1943-1990 (1.7 linear feet; Boxes 1-3)

Series 3: Interviews and Lectures, 1964-1983 (0.3 linear feet; Box 3)

Series 4: Business and Estate Records, 1942-1990 (1.6 linear feet; Boxes 3-5, 17, OV 20)

Series 5: Writings, 1944-1990 (2 linear feet; Boxes 5-6, 17, OV 19)

Series 6: Printed Material, 1942-1990 (5.5 linear feet; Boxes 7-11, 17-18, OV 20, FC 35-37)

Series 7: Photographs, 1920-2000 (3.8 linear feet; Boxes 11-15, 17, OV 19)

Series 8: Artwork, 1930-1985 (2.2 linear feet; Boxes 15-16, 18, FC 21-34)

Biographical / Historical:

Gene Davis (1920-1985) was a Washington, D.C.-based artist and educator who worked in a variety of media, including painting, drawing, collage, video, light sculpture, and conceptual art. Davis is best known for his vertical stripe paintings and his association with the Washington Color School.

Davis was born in 1920 in Washington, D.C. and began his career as a writer. In his twenties he wrote pulp stories and worked as a journalist, reporting for United Press International and serving as a White House correspondent for Transradio Press Service during the Truman administration. Later, he worked in public relations for the Automobile Association of America. A self-taught artist, Davis began painting while still working full-time as a writer, influenced by the prevailing abstract expressionist artists of the time, his frequent visits to the Corcoran Gallery and Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., and by his friend and mentor, Jacob Kainen. His first one-man show was held in the lobby of the Dupont Theater in Washington in 1952. He had a drawing accepted in the Corcoran Area Show in 1953, and won several local art prizes in the 1950s. He began showing work regularly in galleries around Washington, such as the Watkins Gallery at American University, the Gres Gallery, and the Henri Gallery, and had solo exhibitions at Jefferson Place Gallery in 1959 and 1961. Many of the painters who made up what became known as the Washington Color School also showed there, including Kenneth Noland, Howard Mehring, and Sam Gilliam. In 1965, the Washington Gallery of Modern Art held a seminal exhibition entitled Washington Color Painters, which included Davis, Noland, Mehring, Morris Louis, Thomas Downing, and Paul Reed.

Davis began showing outside of Washington regularly in the 1960s, including the Poindexter and Fischbach galleries in New York City, and in several important group shows at museums such as the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He had three works shown in the 1964 exhibition Post-Painterly Abstraction, organized by the influential art critic Clement Greenberg at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In the late 1960s, he began teaching art classes at the Corcoran School, and spent the summer of 1969 as artist in residence at Skidmore College's "Summer in Experiment" program.

Davis experimented with form continuously throughout his career, including a period of conceptual work in the late 1960s. In 1969 he participated in the "Giveaway," organized by Douglas Davis and Ed McGowin, in which multiple copies of a Davis painting were given away to invited guests in a gesture intended to subvert the art market. Davis also began experimenting with scale, creating a series of tiny paintings he called "Micro-paintings," which were exhibited at Fischbach Gallery in 1968. Around this time he also began working with film and video, recruiting models from his art classes to enact tightly choreographed movement pieces that played with rhythm and interval. Convinced by a lawyer that his videos were a liability without having obtained releases from the models, Davis destroyed all but one of his video works. The surviving video, "Video Puzzle," shows a foreshortened view of a model on the floor of a gallery spelling out a statement by Clement Greenberg at predetermined intervals.

Davis made several large-scale site-specific works using the stripe motif in public places. The first of these was created in the Bal Harbour, Florida, Neiman Marcus department store in 1970. Later works included Franklin's Footpath, executed in the road leading to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1972, and Niagara (1979) at ArtPark in Lewistown, NY, promoted at the time as the largest painting in the world. Interior large-scale works were created twice at the Corcoran Gallery, with Magic Circle (1975) and Ferris Wheel (1982), both executed in the museum's rotunda. Black Yo-Yo was created for the Cranbrook Academy in 1980, and Sun Sonata (1983), an illuminated wall of colored liquid-filled tubes, was created as an architectural feature of the Muscarelle Museum of Art in Williamsburg, Virginia. Plans for an unexecuted work called "Grass Painting," for a site near the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., were exhibited in the 1974 "Art Now" festival.

In the late 1970s and 1980s Davis consistently exhibited his work in several solo gallery shows a year, and also had numerous solo exhibitions in major museums. A major exhibition, Recent Paintings, was organized by the Walker Art Center in 1978, and traveled to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in 1979. A drawing retrospective was held at the Brooklyn Museum of art in 1983, and the same year the Washington Project for the Arts organized an exhibition entitled Child and Man: A Collaboration, featuring drawings Davis made in response to childrens' drawings. Davis died suddenly in April 1985 at the age of 65, and a major retrospective of his work was held at the Smithsonian National Museum of American Art in 1987.

Related Materials:

Also found in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Gene Davis conducted by Estill Curtis Pennington on April 23, 1981. A transcript is available on the Archives of American Art website.

Provenance:

Donated 1981 by Gene Davis and 1986 by his wife, Florence. Additional material donated 1991 and 1993 from Smithsonian American Art Museum via a bequest to them from the Gene and Florence Davis estate. Much of the 1993 addition was assembled by art historian Percy North at the request of Florence Davis. An additional folder of photographs of Davis taken in 1969 but printed in 2000 was later added to the collection.

Restrictions:

Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice. 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:

Reporters and reporting -- Washington (D.C.)  Search this

Video artists -- Washington, D.C.  Search this

Conceptual artists -- Washington, D.C  Search this

Painters -- Washington (D.C.)  Search this

Collagists -- Washington (D.C.)  Search this

Topic:

Color-field painting  Search this

Art -- Study and teaching  Search this

Artists' studios -- Photographs  Search this

Genre/Form:

Sound recordings

Transcripts

Photographs

Interviews

Video recordings

Citation:

Gene Davis papers, 1920-2000, bulk 1942-1990. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Sponsor:

Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, administered through the Council on Library and Information Resources' Hidden Collections grant program.

Identifier:

AAA.davigene

See more items in:

Gene Davis papers

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw90a230f67-650f-483a-acdf-50b6ca91fe59

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-aaa-davigene

Collection Creator:

Zimmerman, Elyn, 1945-  Search this

Container:

Box 15, Folder 14

Type:

Archival materials

Date:

1979

Collection 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.

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:

Elyn Zimmerman papers, 1967-2022. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

See more items in:

Elyn Zimmerman papers

Elyn Zimmerman papers / Series 5: Exhibition Files

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw92cce3d5c-05e1-45f5-bcf3-cecd20a3e14f

EDAN-URL:

ead_component:sova-aaa-zimmelyn-ref130

Author:

Lindner, Richard 1901-1978  Search this

Author:

University of California, Berkeley University Art Museum  Search this

Walker Art Center  Search this

Subject:

Lindner, Richard 1901-1978  Search this

Lindner, Richard 1901-1978  Search this

Physical description:

51 p illustrations (part color) 21 cm

Type:

Exhibitions

Expositions

Exhibition catalogs

Place:

Berkeley (Calif.)

Date:

1969

20th century

20e siècle

Topic:

Painting, American  Search this

Peinture américaine  Search this

Call number:

N40.1.L74 C15

N40.1.L74C15

Data Source:

Smithsonian Libraries

EDAN-URL:

edanmdm:siris_sil_6330

Artist:

Maurice Prendergast, American, b. St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada, 1858–1924  Search this

Medium:

Watercolor, opaque paint, oil, and crayon on paper

Dimensions:

13 7/8 X 19 15/16 IN. IRREG. (35.2 X 50.6 CM.)

Type:

Painting

Date:

(1907)

Credit Line:

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, Gift of the Joseph H. Hirshhorn Foundation, 1966

Accession Number:

66.4131

See more items in:

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Collection

School:

American Impressionism

Data Source:

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

GUID:

http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/py2106ee4ad-3709-4d3b-9e8e-c91f677f7cfd

EDAN-URL:

edanmdm:hmsg_66.4131

Creator:

Nevelson, Louise, 1899-1988  Search this

Extent:

30.5 Linear feet

40.5 Megabytes

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Megabytes

Photographs

Interviews

Sketches

Scrapbooks

Date:

circa 1903-1982

Summary:

The papers of Louise Nevelson measure 30.5 linear feet and 40.5 MB and date from circa 1903 to 2019. The collection documents aspects of the life and work of the sculptor, focusing especially on her later career. Papers include correspondence, personal business records, writings, scrapbooks, early art work, photographs, interviews, awards and honorary degrees, books, and an extensive amount of printed material.

Scope and Content Note:

The papers of Louise Nevelson measure 30.5 linear feet and date from circa 1903 to 1988. The collection documents aspects of the life and work of the sculptor, focusing especially on her later career. Papers include correspondence, personal business records, writings, scrapbooks, some of Nevelson's early art work, photographs, interviews, awards and honorary degrees, books, and an extensive amount of printed material.

Interviews, awards, and honorary degrees comprise a series of biographical material, along with scattered personal papers such as a graduation program, wedding announcement, teaching certificate, invitations, miscellaneous notes, and material relating to Nevelson's family. Correspondence consists of letters and enclosures from a wide range of professional contacts, including museums and art centers, universities, art associations, women's and charitable organizations, artists, and philanthropists, among others, concerning the exhibition, sale, and donation of Nevelson's art work, and her various arts-related activities, as well as some letters from friends and family. Correspondence can also be found amongst the subject files, which also include clippings, notes, printed and other material organized according to subject and relating to certain exhibitions, and various artistic and professional activities. Whether this organization originates with Nevelson, one of her assistants, or Archives staff is unknown.

Found amongst Nevelson's business records are consignment receipts, statements, correspondence, inventories, disposition cards, notebooks, and lists, stemming from her business dealings with the Martha Jackson Gallery and related matters, usually carried out by her assistant at the time. Business records relate in particular to the large and complex project of inventorying Nevelson's art work undertaken sometime in the early-1960s. Nevelson's writings consist of poems and poem fragments, a short-lived dream journal, scattered writings on art, and drafts from Dawns and Dusks: Taped Conversations with Diana MacKown by Louise Nevelson and Diana MacKown. Also found are a large number of scrapbooks and an extensive amount of printed material, which likely stem in large part from Nevelson's concern to document and keep a record of her accomplishments. Scrapbooks contain clippings, exhibition announcements and catalogs, and other material documenting Nevelson's early career from roughly the mid-1930s to the mid-1950s. Also included are loose items comprising a scrapbook of sorts on son Mike Nevelson and various scrapbooks compiled by others as mementos of particular events. Printed material includes an extensive amount of clippings and publications, exhibition catalogs and announcements, and a variety of other printed material relating or referring to Nevelson or merely featuring her name in print. Also included are several books, some of which are about or feature segments on Nevelson. This material documents both her critical and commercial success, and her role as personality and minor celebrity in the mass media later in her career, especially during the 1960s and 1970s.

Art work consists of early drawings and watercolors made by Nevelson as a child and adolescent and while studying art in high school and New York, which document her artistic tendencies as youth and her early development as an artist and which provide an interesting contrast to her later work in sculpture. Photographs include ones of the Berliawsky family and Nevelson as a child, adolescent, and young woman in the 1920s and 1930s before she became known as an artist; ones of Nevelson from the mid-1950s to the 1980s, once she had become known, and began to be honored, as an artist; and ones of Nevelson's art work, as well as of various exibitions and installations of her work. Also included are a number of slides of the artist and her art work, including photographs taken by Dorothy Dehner in the mid-1950s at Louise Nevelson's house on Thirtieth Street.

There is a 40.5 MB unprocessed addition to this collection donated in 2022 that includes digital photographs of a plaque commemoration installed in Louise Nevelson's birth town of Pereyaslav, Ukraine in 2019. Organizers of the event include Julie Gard, Associate Professor of Writing and Associate Director of the Writing Center at the University of Wisconsin-Superior; Yuri Avramenko, Memorial Organizer in Pereyaslav-Ukraine and Maria Nevelson, Founder and Executive Director and Chair of the Board for the Louise Nevelson Foundation. Materials date from 2019.

Arrangement:

The Louise Nevelson papers are arranged into ten series:

Missing Title

Series 1: Biographical Material, 1918-1985 (Boxes 1, 17, OV 21, 30, 31, Sol 42; 2.3 linear feet)

Series 2: Correspondence, 1931-1984 (Boxes 1-2, 31-35, Sol 42; 6 linear feet)

Series 3: Subject Files, 1955-1988 (Box 3, 35-36; 1.7 linear feet)

Series 4: Business Records, 1946-1981 (Boxes 3-5, 36-38, Sol 42; 3.8 linear feet)

Series 5: Writings, 1936-1980 (Box 5, 38, Sol 42; 0.5 linear feet)

Series 6: Scrapbooks, 1935-1983 (Boxes 5, 18-19, OV 22-27, 38, Sol 42; 1.5 linear feet)

Series 7:Books and Printed Material, 1904-1985 (Boxes 6-13, 19, OV 28, 38-40, Sol 43; 9.5 linear feet)

Series 8: Art Work, 1905-1982 (Boxes 13, 20, 40, Sol 43; 0.5 linear feet)

Series 9: Photographs, circa 1903-1980s (Boxes 14-15, 20, OV 29, 40-41, Sol 43; 3.5 linear feet)

Series 10: Unprocessed Addition, 2019 (40.5 MB)

Biographical Note:

Louise Nevelson was born in 1899 in Kiev, Russia. Her parents, Isaac and Minna Berliawsky, and their children emigrated to America in 1905 and settled in Rockland, Maine, where the young Louise grew up as a bit of an outsider in local society. She decided upon a career in art at an early age and took some drawing classes in high school, before graduating in 1918. Two years later, she married Charles Nevelson, a wealthy businessman, and moved to New York. She proceeded to study painting, drawing, singing, acting, and eventually dancing. In 1922, Nevelson gave birth to a son, Myron (later called Mike). She eventually separated from her husband in the winter of 1932-1933; and they divorced officially in 1941.

Beginning in 1929, Nevelson began to study art full-time at the Art Students League, where she took classes with Kenneth Hayes Miller and Kimon Nicolaides. In 1931, she went to Europe and studied with Hans Hofmann in Munich before traveling to Italy and France. She returned to New York in 1932 and again studied for a time with Hofmann, who was by now a guest instructor at the Art Students League. In 1933, she met Diego Rivera while he was in New York working on his mural for Rockefeller Center and casually worked as his assistant for a short period. Shortly thereafter, she began to work in sculpture and joined a sculpture class taught by Chaim Gross at the Educational Alliance. She continued to draw and paint, and even took up etching, lithography, and other techniques at different points in her career, but from this time on, she concentrated on sculpture. Her early sculptures were primarily in plaster, clay, and tattistone.

During the thirties, Nevelson exhibited in a number of group shows (both non-juried and competitive ones), garnering some recognition for her work. In 1935, she taught mural painting at the Flatbush Boys Club in Brooklyn, as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), then went on to work in the fine-arts division as an easel painter and sculptor until 1939. In 1941, Nevelson had her first solo exhibition at the Nierendorf Gallery, run by Karl Nierendorf who represented her until his death in 1947. Both this and a one-woman show the following year received favorable reviews. It was around this time that she discovered the decorated shoeshine box of Joe Milone, a local tradesman, and arranged to have it exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, an occasion which received much notice in the press.

In the 1940s, Nevelson produced a great many works in stone, bronze, terra cotta, and wood, most of them being cubist studies of the figure. In 1943, she had a show titled "The Clown as the Center of his World" at the Norlyst Gallery, which featured works on a circus theme constructed from discarded pieces of wood and other material. This new work was not very well received at the time, and it wasn't until the mid-1950s that she began to work with discarded and found objects on a regular basis.

During the early-1950s, Nevelson attempted to exhibit her work as often as possible, eventually receiving various prizes and notices for her work in the press. She continued to struggle financially though and began to teach sculpture classes in the adult education program of the Great Neck, Long Island public schools in order to make ends meet. In 1955, she joined he Grand Central Moderns Gallery, which was run by Colette Roberts, and had several one-woman shows there. These included: "Ancient Games and Ancient Places" in 1955, featuring Bride of the Black Moon, "The Forest" in 1957, featuring First Personage, and "Moon Garden + One" in 1958, featuring her first wall, Sky Cathedral. During this period, she was painting her wood black and putting together entirely black exhibits; she went on to create works in white and gold in the early-1960s. Around this time, she also began to enclose her small sculptures within wooden boxes.

Nevelson joined the Martha Jackson Gallery in 1958, where she received a guaranteed income and finally achieved a certain degree of financial security. Her first show at the gallery, "Sky Columns Presence," took place in the fall of 1959. In 1960, she had her first one-woman exhibition in Europe at the Galerie Daniel Cordier in Paris. Later that year, her work, grouped together as "Dawn's Wedding Feast," was included in the group show, "Sixteen Americans," at the Museum of Modern Art, alongside the work of Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenburg, and other younger artists. She made her first museum sale in 1962 when the Whitney Museum of American Art purchased the black wall, Young Shadows. That same year, Nevelson's work was selected for the thirty-first Biennale in Venice.

Over the years, Nevelson took on several assistants, including Teddy Haseltine, Tom Kendall, and Diana Mackown, to help in the studio and with daily affairs. She also participated in various artists' groups, and served as President of the New York Chapter of Artists' Equity from 1957 to 1958, and as President of the national organization from 1962 to 1964. She left the Martha Jackson Gallery in 1962, and after a brief, unhappy stint with the Sidney Janis Gallery, she joined the Pace Gallery, which was run by Arnold Glimcher, in the fall of 1963. She proceeded to have shows of new work there about every two years for the remainder of her career. She had her first museum retrospective at the Whitney Museum in 1967, which featured over a hundred of her works from her drawings from the 1930s to her latest constructions. And in 1968, she was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters. By this time, Nevelson had achieved both critical and commercial success as an artist.

Nevelson always experimented with new materials; she continued to construct her black wood walls, but also went on make constructions from aluminium, plastic, and metal. In the fall of 1969, she was commissioned by Princeton University to do a monumental outdoor sculpture in Cor-ten steel (her first), and went on to do commissioned works for the Philadelphia Federal Courthouse, and Chase Manhattan Bank in New York, among others. In 1973, the Walker Art Center organized a major exhibition of Nevelson work which traveled around the country over the next two years. In 1975, she designed the chapel for St. Peter's Lutheran Church in midtown Manhattan.

Nevelson was widely honored for her work during her lifetime. Over the years, she received honorary degrees from Rutgers University and Harvard University, among other schools, as well as numerous awards, including the Brandeis University Creative Arts Award in Sculpture and the Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture in 1971, the gold medal for sculpture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1983, and the National Medal of the Arts in 1985. By the time of her death on April 17, 1988, Nevelson was considered by and large one of the most important American sculptors of the twentieth century.

Sources consulted for this biographical note include Louise Nevelson: A Passionate Life by Laurie Lisle and Louise Nevelson by Arnold Glimcher.

Related Material:

Other resources relating to Louise Nevelson in the Archives include oral history interviews with Nevelson conducted by Dorothy Seckler, June 1964-January 14, 1964, and Arnold Glimcher, January 30, 1972. Also related are a 4 part untranscribed audio recording of an interview with Nevelson by Barbaralee Diamonstein, an audio recording of an interview with Nevelson conducted by Barbara Braun in 1983, and a video recording of Nevelson's 1958 exhibition installation at Grand Central Moderns gallery.

Provenance:

Donated 1966-1979 by Louise Nevelson,and in 2018 by the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine via Michael Komanecky, Chief Curator. The Farnsworth Art Museum received the materials from Louise Nevelson, her son Mike Nevelson, brother Nathan Berliawksy, and others that were close to the artist. Additional material donated in 2022 by Maria Nevelson, Louise Nevelson's granddaughter.

Restrictions:

The bulk of this collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website, with the exception of the 2017 and 2022 addition. Use of material not digitized requires an appointment.

Rights:

The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.

Occupation:

Sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this

Topic:

Works of art  Search this

Sculpture -- Exhibitions  Search this

Sculpture, Modern -- 20th century -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this

Women artists  Search this

Women sculptors  Search this

Genre/Form:

Photographs

Interviews

Sketches

Scrapbooks

Citation:

Louise Nevelson papers, circa 1903-1982. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Sponsor:

Funding for a portion of the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art. Additional processing received Federal support from the Smithsonian Collections Care and Preservation Fund, administered by the National Collections Program and the Smithsonian Collections Advisory Committee.

Identifier:

AAA.neveloui

See more items in:

Louise Nevelson papers

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw99c8dde75-538a-43a6-a68e-fa1db8e7d535

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-aaa-neveloui

Collection Creator:

Davis, Gene, 1920-1985  Search this

Container:

Box 12, Folder 16-17

Type:

Archival materials

Date:

1978

Collection Restrictions:

Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice. Contact Reference Services for more information.

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:

Gene Davis papers, 1920-2000, bulk 1942-1990. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Sponsor:

Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, administered through the Council on Library and Information Resources' Hidden Collections grant program.

See more items in:

Gene Davis papers

Gene Davis papers / Series 7: Photographs / Disassembled Photograph Album 3

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9d83e59f9-3693-4b6d-8afa-b45311536c75

EDAN-URL:

ead_component:sova-aaa-davigene-ref640

Collection Creator:

Davis, Gene, 1920-1985  Search this

Container:

Box 13, Folder 37

Type:

Archival materials

Date:

1978

Collection Restrictions:

Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice. Contact Reference Services for more information.

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:

Gene Davis papers, 1920-2000, bulk 1942-1990. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Sponsor:

Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, administered through the Council on Library and Information Resources' Hidden Collections grant program.

See more items in:

Gene Davis papers

Gene Davis papers / Series 7: Photographs

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw997f31683-4d07-48c5-8a69-73e9e52f5b55

EDAN-URL:

ead_component:sova-aaa-davigene-ref722

Collection Creator:

Davis, Gene, 1920-1985  Search this

Extent:

Contains color prints

See also disassembled photograph album 3

Container:

Box 15, Folder 27

Type:

Archival materials

Date:

1978

Collection Restrictions:

Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice. Contact Reference Services for more information.

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:

Gene Davis papers, 1920-2000, bulk 1942-1990. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Sponsor:

Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, administered through the Council on Library and Information Resources' Hidden Collections grant program.

See more items in:

Gene Davis papers

Gene Davis papers / Series 7: Photographs / Photographs of Artwork, Exhibition Views

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw990b861d7-510d-4b46-a36d-3b15defe7f35

EDAN-URL:

ead_component:sova-aaa-davigene-ref815

Collection Creator:

Zabriskie Gallery  Search this

Container:

Box 93, Folder 7

Type:

Archival materials

Date:

1987-1998

Collection 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.

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:

Zabriskie Gallery Records, 1905-2011. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Sponsor:

The processing of this collection received Federal support from the Smithsonian Collections Care and Preservation Fund, administered by the National Collections Program and the Smithsonian Collections Advisory Committee.

See more items in:

Zabriskie Gallery records

Zabriskie Gallery records / Series 7: Institution Files

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw927dc288e-9235-4003-9303-d9d842a93016

EDAN-URL:

ead_component:sova-aaa-zabrgall-ref3772

Creator:

Ferber, Herbert, 1906-1991  Search this

Type:

Scrapbooks

Sketchbooks

Interviews

Citation:

Herbert Ferber papers, 1932-1987. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Topic:

Environment (Art)  Search this

Sculpture, Modern -- 20th century -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this

Sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews  Search this

Theme:

Sketches & Sketchbooks  Search this

Lives of artists  Search this

Record number:

(DSI-AAA_CollID)7042

(DSI-AAA_SIRISBib)209175

AAA_collcode_ferbherb

Theme:

Sketches & Sketchbooks

Lives of artists

Data Source:

Archives of American Art

EDAN-URL:

edanmdm:AAADCD_coll_209175

Creator:

De Knight, Avel C., 1923-1995  Search this

Type:

Menus

Photographs

Citation:

Avel de Knight papers, 1947-2003, bulk 1957-1968. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Topic:

African American artists  Search this

Latino and Latin American artists  Search this

Theme:

African American  Search this

Latino and Latin American  Search this

Research and writing about art  Search this

Record number:

(DSI-AAA_CollID)7447

(DSI-AAA_SIRISBib)209605

AAA_collcode_deknavel

Theme:

African American

Latino and Latin American

Research and writing about art

Data Source:

Archives of American Art

EDAN-URL:

edanmdm:AAADCD_coll_209605

Creator:

Held, Julius Samuel, 1905-  Search this

Subject:

Baskin, Leonard  Search this

Baizerman, Saul  Search this

Citation:

Julius Samuel Held papers relating to Saul Baizerman and Leonard Baskin, 1947-1976. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Theme:

Research and writing about art  Search this

Record number:

(DSI-AAA_CollID)7714

(DSI-AAA_SIRISBib)209878

AAA_collcode_heldjuli

Theme:

Research and writing about art

Data Source:

Archives of American Art

EDAN-URL:

edanmdm:AAADCD_coll_209878

Creator:

Driggs, Elsie B., 1898-1992  Search this

Subject:

Breeskin, Adelyn Dohme  Search this

Brook, Alexander  Search this

Daniel, Charles  Search this

Bruce, Edward  Search this

Steegmuller, Francis  Search this

Sanford, Cynthia Holthusen  Search this

Sterne, Maurice  Search this

Heckscher Museum  Search this

Baltimore Museum of Art  Search this

Wichita State University  Search this

Newark Museum  Search this

Yale University. Art Gallery  Search this

Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts  Search this

Montclair Art Museum  Search this

Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute  Search this

Walker Art Center  Search this

Type:

Photographs

Citation:

Elsie Driggs papers, 1924-1979. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Topic:

Women artists  Search this

Women painters  Search this

Women art critics  Search this

Theme:

Women  Search this

Lives of artists  Search this

Record number:

(DSI-AAA_CollID)8193

(DSI-AAA_SIRISBib)210364

AAA_collcode_drigelsi

Theme:

Women

Lives of artists

Data Source:

Archives of American Art

EDAN-URL:

edanmdm:AAADCD_coll_210364