The Frank C. and Clara G. Churchill collection includes photographic negatives, photo albums, lantern slides, journals, scrapbooks and other documents created and compiled by the Churchills over the course of Frank's career as a special agent and Indian Inspector for the Department of the Interior between 1899 and 1909. Initially assigned as a revenue collector to the Cherokee Nation and later as an Indian Inspector reviewing boarding schools, Frank's assignments took him all over the United States including Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma), Missouri, Texas, Nebraska, Kansas, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, California, Florida, North Carolina and Alaska. During this time the Churchills visited over 80 different Native communities shooting photographs and taking notes.
Scope and Contents:
The Frank C. and Clara G. Churchill collection includes 1430 photographic negatives, 29 photo albums containing 3710 photographic prints, 325 lantern slides, and 3 linear feet of journals, scrapbooks, and other documents created and compiled by the Churchills over the course of Frank's career as a special agent and Indian Inspector for the Department of the Interior between 1899 and 1909.
Series 1: Photographs in Indian Territory (Oklahoma): Muskogee, Tahlequah, Sulphur Springs and Other Assignments, 1899-1903, includes 11 photo albums and 357 negatives from Frank Churchill's original assignment as revenue collector to the Cherokee Nation. Locations include Indian Territory (Oklahoma) [bulk], Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, Arkansas, and Missouri. The Native communities visited and photographed in this series include— Oklahoma Cherokee, Oklahoma Muskogee (Creek), Quapaw, Osage, Miami, Wyandotte [Oklahoma], Tsitsistas/Suhtai (Cheyenne), Winnebago [Nebraska], Eastern Shawnee [Quapaw Agency, Oklahoma], Ponca, Chaticks Si Chaticks (Pawnee), Oto, Sioux [Crow Creek], Kaw (Kansa), Chickasaw, Modoc, Kiowa, Choctaw.
Series 2: Photographs in the Southwest and Midwest: Arizona, New Mexico, Califonia, Minnesota and Wisconsin, 1903-1907, includes 9 photo albums and 832 negatives from Frank Churchill's assignment as an Indian Inspector. Because the Churchills visited some of the same locations on multiple occasions, it has been hard to date some of the negatives. For that reason, all the negatives made in the Southwest have been included in this series, though there are two photo albums with Southwest photographs included in Series 4. Locations in this series includes Arizona, New Mexico, California, Minnesota and Wisconsin. The Native Communities visited and photographed in this series include—A:shiwi (Zuni), Diné (Navajo), Acoma Pueblo, Akimel O'odham (Pima), Cahuilla, Chemehuevi, Cochiti Pueblo, Hopi Pueblo, Isleta Pueblo, K'apovi (Santa Clara Pueblo), Kumeyaay (Diegueño), Laguna Pueblo, Luiseño (Luiseno), Mescalero Apache, Mojave (Mohave), Ohkay Owingeh (San Juan Pueblo), Picuris Pueblo, Piipaash (Maricopa), Puye Pueblo, Quechan (Yuma/Cuchan), San Carlos Apache, Taos Pueblo, Tohono O'odham (Papago).
Series 3: Photographs in Alaska and Oregon, 1905-1910 (bulk 1905), includes four photograph albums and 71 negatives from Frank Churchill's appointment as special agent, by President Roosevelt, to investigate the condition of the school & reindeer service and other affairs in Alaska in the summer and fall of 1905. Two of the albums were not made by the Churchills. The first of these (Box 20) includes photographs by William Hamilton and the second (Box 21) includes photographs by W. T. Lopp. Locations in Alaska include St. Lawrence Island, Nuwukmiut/Point Barrow, Teller, Diomedes Islands, Nome, Kotzebue, Wrangell, Port Clarence Bay, Unalaska Island and Baranof Island. There are a number of photographs aboard the U.S. Cutter "Bear" and aboard the mailboat "Georgia." Native communities photographed include—Yuit (Siberian Yup'ik), Inupiaq (Alaskan Inupiat Eskimo), Bering Strait Inupiaq [Diomedes], Alutiiq (Pacific Eskimo), Tlingit.
Series 4: Photographs in Arizona, Utah, North Carolina, Montana, North Dakota, Florida and Miscellaneous, 1907-1909, includes five photograph albums and 163 negatives from Frank Churchill's assignment at Indian Inspector. Because the Churchills visited some of the same locations in the Southwest (Arizona and Utah) on multiple occasions, it has been hard to date some of the negatives. For that reason, all the negatives made in the Southwest have been included in Series 3. Locations include Arizona, Utah, North Carolina, Montana, North Dakota and Florida. Native communities visited and photographed include-Diné (Navajo), Hopi Pueblo, Kaibab Paiute, Quechan (Yuma/Cuchan), Eastern Band of Cherokee, Pikuni Blackfeet (Piegan), Wahpetonwan Dakota [Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Tribe], Turtle Mountain Chippewa, Seminole. There is restricted material in Box 23 (Album P23380).
Series 5: Non-Native Photographs: Colorado Vacation, Lebanon, New Hampshire, and other Materials, 1898-1913, includes four photograph albums from vacations and other visits made by the Churchills unrelated to Frank's activities as Indian Inspector.
Series 6: Manuscripts: Journals, Documents and Scrapbooks, 1880-1928 (bulk 1899-1909), includes three linear feet of materials arranged in three subseries. Subseries 6.1, Clara Churchill, includes 16 journals, 12 scrapbooks and various other manuscript materials written and accumulated by Clara Churchill during their travels. Many of the journals include personal writings as well as several photographs that are duplicated in the photograph albums. The journals and scrapbooks encompass the full range of the Churchills' travels and include notes from Indian Territory, Southwest, Midwest, Southeast, Plains and Alaska. Subseries 6.2, Colonel Frank C. Churchill, includes official documents around Churchill's assignments as well as the reports Frank submitted back to the Secretary of the Interior (Box 41 and 42). Subseries 6.3, Churchill Museum and Miscellaneous, includes catalogs and other notes related to the large collection of Native American objects amassed by Frank and Clara. Clara also collected other items such as shells, minerals, and sand.
Series 7: Lantern Slides for Lectures, 1899-1909, includes 325 hand colored glass lantern slides. These were made by the Churchills from existing negatives and used for lectures. Lantern slides #1-#121 include views photographed in Alaska in 1905. Sldes #122-#325 include an assortment of views from Oklahoma (Indian Territory), Nebraska, Montana, Minnesota, California, Arizona and New Mexico photographed between 1900 and 1909.
Arrangement:
The Frank C. and Clara G. Churchill collection has been arranged in seven series by material type and then chronologically. The first five series are then divided into subseries by "Photo Albums" and "Negatives." These include--Series 1: Photographs in Indian Territory (Oklahoma): Muskogee, Tahlequah, Sulphur Springs and Other Assignments, 1899-1903; Series 2: Photographs in the Southwest and Midwest: Arizona, New Mexico, California, Minnesota and Wisconsin, 1907-1907; Series 3: Photographs in Alaska and Oregon, 1905-1910 (bulk 1905-1905); Series 4: Photographs in Arizona, Utah, North Carolina, Montana, North Dakota, Florida and Miscellaneous, 1907-1909; Series 5: Non-Native Photographs: Colorado Vaction, Lebanon, New Hampshire, and other Materials.
Series 6: Manuscripts: Journals, Documents and Scrapbooks, 1880-1928, is arranged in three subseries. Subseries 6.1: Clara G. Churchill, Subseries 6.2: Frank C. Churchill, and Subseries 6.3: Churchill Museum and Miscellaneous. Series 7: Lantern Slides for Lectures, 1899-1909, is arranged in orginal number order from the Hood Museum at Dartmouth College.
Biographical / Historical:
Frank Carroll Churchill was born August 2, 1850 to Benjamin P. Churchill and Susanna Thompson in West Fairlee, Vermont. Frank was educated at Thetford Academy in Thetford, VT and worked as a clerk for D.C. Churchill & Co. in Lyme, NH between 1869-1870. Between 1870 and 1877, Churchill was employed by H.W. Carter as a wholesale merchant in Lebanon, New Hampshire. During this time, Churchill met Clara Corser Turner and they were married on June 11, 1874.
Clara G. (Turner) Churchill was born December 16, 1851, to Colonel Francis H. Corser and Sarah Hook (Perkins) Corser. Colonel Corser and his wife died young, and Clara was adopted by George and Abby H. Turner of Concord, New Hampshire.
In 1877, in association with William S. Carter, Frank Churchill opened the business "Carter & Churchill" which was in this business for 21 years. Churchill held various political offices from 1879-91. He served as chairman of the Republican town committee of Lebanon and of the Republican State committee in 1890 and 1891. He served on the staff of Governor Natt Head in 1879 and 1880, with the rank of Colonel. He was chairman of the New Hampshire delegation at the Republican National Convention which nominated President Harrison and represented the Fourth District in the Executive Council in 1889-1890 during the administration of Governor David. H. Goodell.
In 1899 Frank was appointed revenue inspector for the Cherokee Nation in Indian Territory and was later appointed a special agent for the Interior Department to formulate a system of public schools in Indian Territory (Oklahoma) and across the Southwest. In 1905, he was appointed special agent, by President Roosevelt, to investigate the condition of the school & reindeer service and other affairs in Alaska and was reappointed Indian Inspector between 1905-1909. In 1909, Churchill resigned due to failing health and died November 5, 1912. Clara accompanied Frank on all his travels between 1899 and 1909 (see below chronology for full details) maintaining journals and writing articles for publication in "WHAT." Clara was also a painter, producing watercolors and hand-painting many of the photographs she and Frank made on their travels. Following Frank's death, Clara maintained their collection of Native artifacts and photographs in their home in Lebanon, New Hampshire. Clara died April 16, 1945, bequeathing the full collection to Dartmouth College.
Frank Churchill's assignments as Special agent and Indian Inspector from 1899-1909 took him all over the United States including Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma), Missouri, Texas, Nebraska, Kansas, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, California, Florida, North Carolina and Alaska. During this time the Churchills visited over 80 different Native communities. For more details, see the chronology below.
Travels in Indian Territory (Oklahoma) and other assignments, 1899-1903
1899, June 29 -- Churchills arrive in Muskogee, Indian Territory (Oklahoma).
1899, July-October -- Visit to Fort Gibson, Tahlequah, Sallisaw, and Vinita (Indian Territory/Oklahoma). Visit to Noel and South west City, Missouri. Visit to Chelsea and Coffeyville, Kansas. Visit to Fort Smith, Arkansas.
1899, November -- Visit Tahlequah while the Cherokee Nation legislature was in session.
1899, December -- Travel in Colorado.
1900, March -- Return to Muskogee and Fort Gibson.
1900, Sept 17-Oct 5 -- Dawes Commission in Vinita.
1901, Mar-Apr 3 -- Visit to the Quapaw Agency, Wyandotte Reservation and school, Modoc reservation and the town of Miami.
1901, April -- Visit to Denison, Texas. Visit to Checotah, Eufaula, South McAlester (Choctaw nation).
1901, Summer -- Visit to Pawhuska, Osage Nation.
1901, October -- Visit to Tishomingo, seat of government of the Chickasaws.
1902, January -- Trip to the Chickasaw Nation Visit to Anadarko, Indian Agency of the Kiowa, Comanche and Apache, Fort Sill, Wichita Mountains, and Lawton.
1902, May -- Frank is dispatched to Sioux City, Iowa.
1902, July -- Visit to St. Paul, Minnesota and Eau Claire, Wisconsin, (Chippewa Falls). Frank is sent to Sulphur Springs, Texas, to author a report.
1902, August -- Churchills return to Muskogee, IT.
1902, September-October -- Trip to White Eagle, Ponca Agency for a month. Visit to Otoe school, Pawnee School, Shawnee, Sac and Fox reservations.
1902, November-December -- Visit to Crow Creek Agency.
1903, January -- Return to Sulpher Springs, Texas.
1903, March -- Visit to Pawhuska, Osage Nation.
1903, April -- Visit to Colorado.
1903, May-October -- Visit to 23 towns in Oklahoma (IT) with the Secretary of the Interior.
Travels in New Mexico, Arizona and California, 1903-1905
1903, November -- Frank receives orders to proceed to Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico.
1903, December 9 -- Visit to Zuni, followed by Canyon de Chelly, Hubbell's Ranch, Keams Canyon.
1903, December 21 -- Visit to Hopi Pueblo. Walpi, Polacca Day School, Oraibi, Shumopavi (Shungopavi/Songoopavi), Shipaulovi (Supawlavi) and Mishongnovi (Musungnuvi).
1903, December 28 -- Visit to Fort Defiance.
1904, January -- Travel in New Mexico. Visit to Gallup, Laguna Pueblo, Acomita, Paraje, Acoma, Albuquerque, Isleta Pueblo, Santa Fe, Ohkay Owingeh (San Juan Pueblo), K'apovi (Santa Clara Pueblo).
1904, February -- Visit to Sacaton, Akimel O'odham (Pima) Reservation and Casa Grande ruins in Arizona.
1904, March -- Visit to Lehi Day School, Salt River Day School, Phoenix Indian School, Gila River Crossing Day School and Maricopa Day School, Arizona.
1904, March 10-26 -- Visit to Fort Mojave and Chemehuevi.
1904, March 30-April -- Visit to Riverside, California, Sherman Institute and Perris School. Side trip to Yuma, Arizona.
1905, January-February -- Visit to Sulphur, IT.
1905, March -- Visit to Mescalero Apache Agency, San Carlos Apache Agency, Geronimo Settlement, Rice Station School at Talkalai.
1905, April 10-20 -- Return to Sherman Institute in Riverside, California. Visit to San Jacinto, Perris, Saboba, Cahuilla, San Manuella (Band of Mission Indians), Coachella, Torres Reservation, Martinez Reservation Day School, Cabazon Reservation, Protrero Reservation and Day School.
1905, April 22-May -- Visit to Temecula, Pechanga Day School, Pala Mission, Campo Reservation, Mission of San Luis Rey, Rincon Day School, Mesa Grande School, Santa Ysabel (Diegueno), Volcan Mountain Day School.
Travels in Alaska, 1905
1905, June -- Frank receives an assignment in Alaska.
1905, July -- Board the U.S. Revenue Cutter "Bear" in Nome. Visit to Reindeer Station in Teller, Cape Prince of Wales, Kotzebue Sound, Cape Thompson, Point Hope and Point Barrow.
1905, August -- Visit to Wainwright Inlet, return to Nome. Visit to Anvil Creek, Gologin (Golovin) Bay, St. Lawrence Island, Pribilof Islands (Seal Islands), St. George, Dutch Harbor and Unalaska.
1905, September -- Board the "Dora" anchored near Belkofski, Cold Bay, Karluk, Afgonak, and Kodiak. Stop in Homer, Seldovia and Seward. Visit to Sitka.
1905, September 28 -- Board the steamer "Georgia" to Juneau and Skagway via Hoonah.
1905, October -- Return to Lebanon, NH.
Travels in Arizona, New Mexico, Minnesota, Wisconsin, California and Utah, 1906-1907
1906, March-April -- Re-assigned to Southwest and arrive in Tucson, Arizona. Visit to San Xavier Mission, Tohono O'odham (Papago) reservation, Casa Grande, Sacaton, Maricopa, Gila Crossing, Salt River and Phoenix schools.
1906, May -- Return to New Mexico to visit Gallup and Zuni Day School.
1906, June -- Visit to St, Paul, Minnesota and the White Earth (Ojibwe) reservation and Wild Rice River School in Boliere.
1906, July -- Visit to Ashland, Wisconsin, Lac Courte Oreilles, Hayward, and Lac de Flambeau (La Pointe Agency.
1906, July-September -- Return to Lebanon, New Hampshire.
1906, September -- Visit to Fond du Lac (Winnebago Lake), Wabeno, and Carter, Wisconsin.
1906, October -- Visit to Phlox, Wausau, Minocqua, Star Lake, Bark River and Wausaukee, Wisconsin.
1906, November-December -- Visit to Keshena (Green Bay Indian School), Menominee Reservation and Ashland, Wisconsin.
1906, December-January -- Stay in Washington, DC.
1907, February -- Return to Albuquerque, New Mexico.
1907, March -- Visit to Santa Fe and various Pueblos (Cochiti, Tesuque, San Ildefonso, Ohkay Owingeh [San Juan], Toas and Picuris).
1907, April -- Return to Albuquerque, visit to Pueblos (Isleta, Laguna, Mesita, Acomita, Paraje, Acoma, Seama).
1907, April -- Visit to Phoenix, Arizona (Phoenix Indian School), Fort McDowell and Salt River Day School.
1907, May -- Visit to Sacaton, Maricopa, Casa Grande, and Yuma, Arizona.
1907, June -- Visit to Riverside (Sherman Institute), and Pomona, California.
1907, June-July -- Travel to Salt Lake City, Utah. Visit Panguitch, Orton, Kanab, Escalante and Marysvale, Utah.
1907, July-August -- Return to Arizona. Visit Flagstaff, Tuba Indian School, as well as Hopi Pueblo (Walpi, Moencopi, and Oraibi).
1907, September-October -- Return to Lebanon, NH.
Travels in North Carolina, Montana and Florida, 1907-1909
1907, October 22 -- Assigned to Cherokee, North Carolina, to make a new roll of the Eastern Band of Cherokee.
1907, November -- Arrive in Cherokee, North Caolina.
1908, February -- Visit to Robbinsville and Big Cove
1908, April -- Cherokee council meeting regarding Churchill's new roll.
1908, May -- Completes assignment in North Carolina.
1908, June-September -- Return to Washington, DC and Lebanon, New Hampshire.
1908, September-October -- Trip to Montana. Visit to Browning, Blackfeet Reservation, Harlem, Fort Belknap and Fort Peck.
1908, November -- Visit to Spirit Lake (Devil's Lake) and Wahpeton, and Fort Totten, North Dakota.
1908, December -- Visit to Morris, Minnesota.
1909, January -- Trip to Washington, DC for the inauguration of President Taft.
1909, February -- Visit to Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
1909, March-April -- Trip to Florida. Visit to Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Tampa Bay, St. Petersburg, Gainesville, and St. Augustine.
1909, May -- Visit to Soco Creek and Cherokee, North Carolina.
1909, July -- Return to Lebanon, New Hampshire.
1909, August -- Resignation as Indian Inspector.
Related Materials:
A large collection of Native American cultural objects and archaeology bequeathed by Clara Churchill can still be found at the Hood Museum at Dartmouth College.
Provenance:
Frederick Dockstader, former director of the Museum of the American Indian (MAI), Heye Foundation, illegally removed the majority of the photographs (photo albums, negatives) and manuscript material (journals, reports) from the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College in 1955, before depositing them at the MAI. Those materials were officially gifted to NMAI in 2018 by the Hood Museum. Additional materials from the Churchill collection that remained at the Hood Museum (lantern slides, photographs, scrapbooks, journals) were donated in 2020. These materials have been noted in the finding aid.
Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archives Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu).
Rights:
Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. Permission to publish or broadbast materials from the collection must be requested from National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiarchives@si.edu.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Frank C. and Clara G. Churchill collection, NMAI.AC.058, National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.
This collection contains a variety of periodicals, photographs, correspondence, business and advertising ephemera (corporate and non-profit, personal), organizational records and ephemera, created by, for, and in reaction to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) community.
Scope and Contents:
The Archives Center Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) Collection contains periodicals, ephemera, posters, postcards, advertisements, photographs, organizational records, publications, correspondence, and other materials related to all aspects of the LGBT community and the civil rights issues pertaining thereto. The collection was created by the Archives Center to bring together materials specifically pertaining to the LGBT community. This collection contains material from communities and individuals throughout the United States. The collection is currently strongest in periodicals, newspapers and ephemera and very strong in material from California and New York. The collection continues to add new items and the researcher would be wise to take a broad view in targeting their research topics in the collection.
Arrangement:
The collection is divided into twenty-eight series.
Series 1: Periodicals, 1937-2023
Series 2: Agencies, Associations, and Organizations, 1965-2023, undated
Series 3: Community Life and Subject Files, 1825-2023, undated
Subseries 3.1: Photographs and Slides, 1870-2009, undated
Subseries 3.2: Ephemera and Buttons, 1969-2022, undated
Subseries 3.3: Posters and Prints, 1825-2018, undated
Subseries 3.4: Subject Files, 1958-2023, undated
Subseries 3.5: Pride, 1976-2023, undated
Subseries 3.6: HIV and AIDS, 1987-2020, undated
Subseries 3.7: Gay Games, 1982-2018
Series 4: Advertising, Business, and Publications, 1912-2023, undated
Subseries 4.1: Advertising, 1970-2018, undated
Subseries 4.2: Business, 1986-2021, undated
Subseries 4.3: Television, Theater, and Motion Pictures, 1978-2023, undated
Subseries 4.4: Bar ephemera and advertisement, 1979-2018, undated
Subseries 4.5: Publications, 1912-2023, undated
Series 5: Biren, Joan E. (JEB), 195-2018, undated
Subseries 5.1: Xerographic Copies of Photoprints, 1971-1995, undated.
Subseries 5.2: Posters and Oversize Advertisement, 1973-2018, undated
Series 6: Dietrich, Joseph A., 1992-2010
Series 7: Mattachine Society Records, 1942-1996, undated
Subseries 7.1: Correspondence, 1952-1991, undated
Subseries 7.2: Board of Directors Minutes, 1954-1974, undated
Subseries 7.4: Councils, Chapters, and Committees, 1953-1965, undated
Subseries 7.5: Conventions, 1953-1960, undated
Subseries 7.6: Publications, 1944-1996, undated
Series 8: Rainbow History Community Pioneers, 2003-2012, undated
Series 9: Strub, Sean O., addendum, 1987-2011, undated
Series 10: Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Baltimore (GLCCB, 1990-2014, undated
Series 11: Ros, Silvia, 2009-2011
Series 12: Huebner, David, 2009-2014
Series 13: St. George, Philip, 1945-1955, undated
Series 14: Will & Grace, 1995-2006
Series 15: Barna, Joseph T. and Heritage of Pride (HOP), New York, New York, 1910-2014, undated
Subseries 15.1: Photographs, Photographic Negatives, and Slides, 1985-2010, undated
Subseries 15.2: Heritage of Pride (HOP), 1984-2014, undated
Subseries 15.3: Barna, Joseph T., 1910-2013, undated,
Series 16: Becker, John M., 1999-2014, undated
Series 17: Rohrbaugh, Richard, 1972-1986, undated
Series 18: Guest, Michael E., 2001-2009
Series 19: The Fosters, 2013
Series 20: Pride at Work, 1990-2015
Series 21: Sabatino, Michael and Voorheis, Robert, 1980-2016, undated
Subseries 21.1: Archilla, Gustavo A. and Lokkins, Elmer T., 1916-2014, undated
Series 22: Gay Officers Action League (GOAL), 1982-2016, undated
Series 23: Brown, Adele "Del" and Herizon's Bar, 1985-1991, undated
Subseries 1: Changing Herizons, and Herizons Newsletter, 1983-1991
Series 24: Universal Fellowship Metropolitan Community Churches (UFMCC), 1957-2019, undated
Series 25: The Christmas House, Crown Media Family Networks, 2020-2021
Series 26: Cones, Myra L. and Harris, G. Yvonne, 1979-2001, undated
Series 27: Atlantic States Gay Rodeo Association (ASGRA), 1993-2004, undated
Series 28: Hooker, Meryl, 1989-1996, undated
Historical Note:
While the quest for equal rights has been pursued by generations, it is generally acknowledged that the modern day Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) civil rights movement began in New York City in June 1969 with the Stonewall Riots. Prior to this time a number of activists, individuals, and organizations such as The Mattachine Society, Daughters of Bilitis and others, fought to bring recognition of LGBT civil rights to the forefront of American society. While the movement was primarily, and most visably, centered in New York City and San Francisco, periodicals, guide books, and ephemeral material interconnected the larger LGBT community throughout the United States. The increased visibility of the LGBT movement inspired affinity groups at odds with the LGBT community's new found visibility and quest for broader civil rights. The challenge to what was termed "traditional" values encouraged these counter-LGBT groups to define and solidfy their constituency and also become more pro-active. This collection comprises material that is generated by individuals and organizations promoting both points of view.
Related Materials:
Materials in the Archives Center
Michio and Aveline Kushi Macro-Biotics Collection (AC0619)
The Shamrock Bar: Photographs and Interviews (AC0857)
Archives Center Wedding Documentation Collection (AC1131 )
Division of Science, Medicine, and Society HIV/AIDS Reference Collection (AC1134)
John-Manuel Andriote Hot Stuff: A Brief History of Disco Collection (AC1184)
Joan E. Biren (JEB) Queer Film Museum Collection (AC1216)
World AIDS Institute (WAI) Collection (AC1266)
Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) Records (AC1282)
Helping Persons with AIDS (HPA) Records (AC1283)
DC Cowboys Dance Company Records (AC1312)
Bil Browning and Jerame Davis Papers (AC1334)
David Hadley Rockwell New York Disco Ephemera Collection (AC1342)
Leonard P. Hirsch Federal Globe Records (AC1357)
Corbett Reynolds Papers (AC1390)
Mark Segal Papers (AC1422)
The Mattachine Society of Washington "Love in Action" Collection (AC1428)
Academy of Washington Records (AC1458)
Matthew Shepard Papers (AC1463)
I'm From Driftwood Records (AC1503)
The Division of Political History holds artifacts related to gay activist Franklin Kameny and a variety of political buttons. They also hold LGBT related artifacts from Joan E. Biren (JEB).
The Division of Medical and Science holds objects donated from Dr. Renee Richards, Sean O. Strub, and Leonard Hirsch.
The Division of Entertainment and the Arts holds objects donated by The Fosters, Will & Grace, and The Christmas House.
Provenance:
This collection was assembled by the Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian, beginning in 2004.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research use.
Researchers must handle unprotected photographs with gloves. Researchers must use reference copies of audio-visual materials. When no reference copy exists, the Archives Center staff will produce reference copies on an "as needed" basis, as resources allow.
Do not use original materials when available on reference video or audio tapes.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Archives Center Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Collection, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
Collection documents the lives of Filipino migrants in Stockton, California dating primarily from the 1920s to the 1970s and includes correspondence, photographic prints, military documents, financial records, books, wallets, and other ephemera.
Scope and Contents:
Collection consists of the archival materials from one steamer trunk and a plastic bin documenting the lives of Filipino migrants in Stockton, California dating primarily from the 1920s-1970s. These materials include correspondence, individual photographic prints and in albums from the Philippines and the United States, military documents, financial records, medical information, educational materials, books, wallets, Legionarios del Trabajo "Daguhoy" Lodge membership materials, greeting cards, and other forms of ephemera. Most of the correspondence is written in Visayan, the language spoken within the southernmost islands of Luzon in the Philippines. Some of these letters have been translated. A few of the photographs are identified but most have no information relating to the person(s) identity, location of where the image was taken or date.
The materials are arranged into twenty-three series. The first twenty-two series represent one person's story that was found in the contents of the containers. The last series relates to the Legionarios del Trabajo organization.
The collection is important for the study of early Filipino American agricultural workers. In addition to using these materials researchers should consult the three-dimensional objects that were also collected. These artifacts are stored onsite in the Museum's Division of Work and Industry and are part of the Asian Pacific American and agricultural collections. A steamer trunk, which was too large to house at NMAH, is currently stored off-site.
Arrangement:
Collection is arranged into twenty-three series.
Series 1: Enrique Andales, 1917-1937, undated
Series 2: Julian S. Arofo, 1950-1953
Series 3: A.T. Bastion, undated
Series 4: Julian Felicita Bernido, 1971
Series 5: Andres Salle Casinas, 1912-1980, undated
Series 6: Cesario Hotora Comparativo, 1925-1945, undated
Series 7: Hilario Samson Cuevas, 1925-1930, undated
Series 8: Vinancio Timosa Fellisarta, 1971
Series 9: Jose Madridejo Galinato, 1926-1949, undated
Series 10: Eufricino Janier, 1920-1929, undated
Series 11: Felimon Laga, 1922-1923, undated
Series 12: Seven Madrias, 1936-1938, undated
Series 13: Eusebio Maglente, 1920-1923, undated
Series 14: Epimaco Fariola Mansueto, 1874-1947, undated
Series 15: Sixto Olaco, 1921-1954, undated
Series 16: Anastacio Atig Omandam, 1924-1937
Series 17: Juan Campoco Pascual, 1936, 1948, undated
Series 18: Julian Rogas, 1929-1936, undated
Series 19: Arcadio Simangca, 1961-1971
Series 20: Julio Saranza, 1971
Series 21: Pablo Mendoza Solomon, 1921-1971, undated
Series 22: Victoriano Yano, 1971
Series 23: Legionarios del Trabajo: Daguhoy Masonic Lodge, 1928-1935,
undated
Historical:
The Filipino Agricultural Workers Collection documents the history of Filipinos and Filipinas in Stockton, California, from the 1910s to the 1980s. The materials were part of a trove of material discovered in 2005 in the Daguhoy Lodge—a Filipino fraternal society—by Antonio Somera, a former member of the Daguhoy Lodge. Somera discovered twenty-six suitcases, toolboxes, and wardrobe steamer trunks in the basement of the lodge. These containers held materials such as clothing, tools, and correspondence and other personal items; the containers were labeled with the names of Filipino individuals. Presumably, each container belonged to a single person who used the suitcase or steamer trunk to travel and store their materials. When the owners passed away, surviving members of the fraternal lodge packed the deceased's personal belongings into the steamer trunk or suitcase and it was put into long-term storage. No descendants of these individuals have been identified, nor have any descendants come forward to claim the objects.
A few years after discovering the containers and displaying them in the lodge's basement in a makeshift exhibition, Somera brought the trunks to the attention of Professor Dawn Bohulano Mabalon and filmmaker Dillon Delvo. At the time, Mabalon was a history professor at San Francisco State University. In 2013, she published Little Manila is in the Heart: The Making of the Filipina/o American Community in Stockton, California (2013), considered the authoritative account on Filipino Americans in Stockton. During this time, Delvo was working as a filmmaker in the Bay Area and earning his master's degree in Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University. Born and raised in south Stockton in Filipino families, Delvo and Mabalon had embarked on a long-term project to preserve the history of Filipinos and to organize communities in Stockton which is why Somera approached them regarding the trunks.
In 2000, Mabalon and Delvo created Little Manila Rising (LMR), a non-profit organization that aims to preserve the history of Filipino American history in Stockton. LMR was founded in response to the gradual destruction of historic buildings and sites that had housed one of the earliest and largest Filipino communities outside of the Philippines. LMR eventually purchased a building called Little Manila Center at 2154 South San Joaquin Street in Stockton, which serves as a multi-purpose community center for a variety of community-based projects. Delvo became the Executive Director of LMR in 2012 and continues to serve in this capacity in 2024. In 2018, Mabalon unexpectedly passed away due to an asthma attack.
As part of their vision of preserving the history of Filipino Americans in Stockton and the greater San Joaquin Delta region, both Mabalon and Delvo championed the preservation of the containers found in the Daguhoy Lodge's basement, particularly the steamer trunks which they recognized possessed important historical value. In 2019, Sam Vong, Curator of Asian Pacific American History in the National Museum of American History (NMAH) Division of Work and Industry, met with Delvo to explore the potential donation of the containers and their associated contents to the museum.
In the aftermath of their discovery, only one steamer trunk was opened and the contents cataloged, with the assistance of the Oakland Museum of California. The remainder were temporarily stored and displayed in the Little Manila Community Center on Hazelton Street. When Vong arrived in 2019 to meet Delvo and to evaluate the materials, the trunks were still locked; a locksmith was needed to avoid destroying the locks and to maintain the integrity of the objects. The locksmith was able to open all but three of the trunks. While most of the containers were in good condition, a few of the steamer trunks had suffered water damage due to flooding in the lodge's basement, resulting in mildew and mold.
After the trunks were opened, Vong created a preliminary inventory list. He identified each of the trunks with the name of an individual which were found in the trunk's contents. Because of the large volume of materials, Vong made additional trips to Stockton to complete the cataloging of objects and to make final selections of which containers to collect. The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020 delayed the collecting process, and the project was put on hold until Covid-lockdown restrictions were eased in 2022. At that point, Vong returned to Stockon to reevaluate the objects for acquisition.
Although LMR had hoped to donate all of the steamer trunks and containers to the Smithsonian, space constraints at NMAH precluded that. Ultimately, Vong collected one steamer trunk and all its contents. Those objects are housed in the NMAH Division of Work & Industry. Both Delvo and Vong recognized that the personal papers, photographs, and other archival materials contained in each container presented an opportunity to document the work and lives of the individuals who had left these containers behind. After consulting with NMAH Archives Center staff, it was decided that the NMAH Archives Center would collect the archival materials found in each of the containers. Taken as a whole, the individual groups of documents form the Filipino Agricultural Workers Collection.
Each series in the collection represents a single person's story that was found in the contents of the containers. Each name in the series, however, does not necessarily correspond to a single steamer trunk or suitcase. For example, the archival materials in the Pablo Mendoza Solomon series (Series 21) were found in two suitcases and two steamer trunks. Vong surmises that two things may have happened when Solomon passed away: surviving lodge brothers may have salvaged all Solomon's personal belongings and placed them in various suitcases, or Solomon's materials may have been haphazardly thrown into various containers when the trunks were recovered from the flooding in the lodge's basement. Other series, such as Julian Felicita Bernido (Series 4), contain only a couple of documents nested within another person's belongings.
The former owners of the suitcases and steamer trunks in this collection were young men who emigrated from different parts of the Philippines to work as sakadas, or contract workers in Hawai'i. After completing their contracts, some Filipinos left Hawai'i for California in search of adventure and better economic opportunities. Many of these Filipinos migrated up and down the western coast of the United States such as California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska, finding work as seasonal workers on farms, salmon canneries, and other agricultural sectors. Filipinos and Filipinas were indispensable to growers in the San Joaquin Delta region, considered one of the most fertile regions in the country, and where the city of Stockton is located.
Filipinos and Filipinas gravitated toward Stockton, where they established one of the largest Filipino American communities outside of the Philippines. The community included businesses, recreational halls, hotels, and homes, as well places of worship and fraternal lodges, such as the Daguhoy Lodge. This lodge was one among a handful of lodges in Stockton that was established by some of the earliest Filipino residents in Stockton.
The Daguhoy Lodge catered primarily to men, although some of the archival documents in this collection suggest that Filipinas had a visible and important presence in lodge activities. The lodge provided a space for members to hold social gatherings, community meetings, and a place for worship. The lodge also provided short-term and long-term lodging for its members and for migrant Filipino workers who came in and out of Stockton as they followed the path of seasonal agricultural work. As a result, Filipinos used the lodge to temporarily store their personal belongings such as suitcases and steamer trunks.
Related Materials:
Materials in the Archives Center, National Museum of American History
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana Subject Categories: World Expositions, NMAH.AC.0060
Sam DeVincent Collection of Illustrated American Sheet Music, Series 8: Geography, NMAH.AC.0300
Duncan Family Yo-Yo Collection, NMAH.AC.807
Catherine Hann Papers, NMAH.AC.0921
Kamikawa, Omata and Matsumoto Families Papers, NMAH.AC.0924
Juanita Tamayo Lott Filipino American Photographs and Papers, NMAH.AC.0925
Bishop Mitsumyo Tottori Memorial Notebooks, NMAH.AC.0926
Division of Cultural History Lantern Slides and Stereographs, NMAH.AC.0945
Materials at Other Organizations
Sacramento Public Library, Sacramento Room Photograph Collection holdings include one photograph of the Legionarios Del Trabajo.
Separated Materials:
National Museum of American History, Divison of Work and Industry
The Asian Pacific American and the Agricultural collections contain one steamer trunk and its complete contents, along with agricultural implements and other materials found in the other containers from the basement of the Daguhoy Lodge. Associated accession numbers include 2021.0137 and 2022.0058.01.
Accession number 2021.0137.1, asparagus knife
Accession number 2021.0137.2, hair waver
Accession number 2021.0137.3, hook field knife
Accession number 2021.0137.6, pair of pruning shears
Accession number 2021.0137.7, vegetable knife
Accession number 2022.0058.01.01, steamer trunk
Accession number 2022.0058.01.1,1 brace
Accession number 2022.0058.02.1, band uniform jacket
Accession number 2022.0058.02.2, band uniform trousers
Accession number 2022.0058.03.2, band uniform trousers
Accession number 2022.0058.03.3, band uniform shirt
Accession number 2022.0058.03.4, band uniform cummerbund
Accession number 2022.0058.06.1, army jacket
Accession number 2022.0058.13, sleepwear
Accession number 2022.0058.14, thermal shirt
Accession number 2022.0058.15, sweater
Accession number 2022.0058.16, shirt
Accession number 2022.0058.22, collar
Accession number 2022.0058.26.1, fez
Accession number 2022.0058.28ab, pair of dress shoes
Accession number 2022.0058.29ab, pair of shin protectors
Accession number 2022.0058.30ab, pair of gloves
Accession number 2022.0058.31, flashlight
Accession number 2022.0058.33, lock
Accession number 2022.0058.34, ring
Accession number 2022.0058.35, cap
Accession number 2022.0058.36, straw hat
Accession number 2022.0058.37, Stetson hat
Accession number 2022.0058.38, bow tie
Accession number 2022.0058.43, thermos
Accession number 2022.0058.44, harmonica
Accession number 2022.0058.45, pillowcase
Accession number 2022.0058.46, pillowcase
Accession number 2022.0058.47, necktie
Accession number 2022.0058.61, tablecloth
Accession number 2022.0058.62, framed portrait
Accession number 2022.0058.63, certificate
Accession number 2022.0058.64, wallet
Accession number 2022.0058.65ab, pair of boots
San Joaquin County Historical Museum (SJCHM) has the steamer trunks that were not aquired by the National Museum of American History.
Provenance:
Collection donated by the Little Manila Foundation through Dillon Delvo, Executive Director, 2021.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
An interview of Margaret M. Davies conducted 1978 March 13, by Paul Karlstrom, for the Archives of American Art.
Davies speaks of her husband, Harold Christopher Davies, his work from the time of their marriage in 1938 until his death in 1976; the "Easthampton years," 1957-1969; and Davies' contact with other artists, primarily Abstract Expressionist artists, including Franz Kline. Herbert Hoover, Davies' friend and art dealer is also present.
Biographical / Historical:
Margaret M. Davies (1900-1994) was the wife of the artist Harold Christopher Davies. She was born in Oakland, California, and received some medical school training. She worked as an assistant to her husband.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound tape reel. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav file. Duration is 2 hr., 14 min.
Also present at the interview is Herbert Hoover, a friend and art dealer to Margaret Davies and Harold Chistopher Davies.
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 others.
Restrictions:
This interview is open for research. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Abstract expressionism -- United States Search this
Genre/Form:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Sponsor:
Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service. This interview received support from the Smithsonian American Women's History Initiative Pool.
The papers of weaver, textile designer, and consultant Dorothy Liebes date from circa 1850-1973 (bulk 1922-1970) and comprise 24.9 linear feet. Through biographical material including a sound recording of an interview, family and general correspondence, writings including a draft of Liebes's autobiography, subject files providing detailed records of her influential consulting work, financial and legal files, printed material, scrapbooks, artwork, textile samples, and photographic material picturing a wide variety of career and personal activities, the collection provides rich and extensive documentation of Liebes's career and personal life.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of weaver, textile designer, and consultant Dorothy Liebes date from circa 1850-1973 (bulk 1922-1970) and comprise 24.9 linear feet. Through biographical material including a sound recording of an interview, family and general correspondence, writings including a draft of Liebes's autobiography, subject files providing detailed records of her influential consulting work, financial and legal files, printed material, scrapbooks, artwork, textile samples, and photographic material picturing a wide variety of career and personal activities, the collection provides rich and extensive documentation of Liebes's career and personal life.
Biographical material consists of awards, biographical notes, membership and identification cards, passports, a will, and a sound recording of a 1945 interview with Liebes.
Correspondence is personal with family and friends, and general with friends and colleagues including artists, and fellow weavers and designers. Notable correspondents include Dorr Bothwell, Daren Pierce, Beatrice Wood, and Frank and Olgivanna Lloyd Wright.
Diaries and calendars record Liebes's busy professional and personal life, with notations on daily activities and, beginning in 1952, detailed notes by staff recording activities at the studio on days when Liebes was absent.
Writings by Dorothy Liebes include notes, drafts, and manuscripts of published and unpublished writings, including an autobiography, speeches, and drafts for an unpublished book on weaving.
Subject files contain correspondence, printed material, photographs, and miscellaneous items in varying combinations, and focus heavily on Liebes's consulting work for businesses in the textile industry, including her work with DuPont, Bigelow-Sanford, Goodall, Dow, and others. The files document the importance of her work as a colorist and show how she successfully adapted craft weaving to machine methods. Furthermore, they record how Liebes used her marketing instincts and broad media appeal to rebrand the image of companies such as DuPont from one of chemistry and utility, to one that represented high style and glamor in durable and practical fabrics that were affordable and desirable in home furnishings. Other subject files document organizations, individuals, and topics of interest to Liebes, including files recording her involvement with arts and crafts organizations, her role as director for the Decorative Arts Display at the Golden Gate Exposition in 1939, her work as director of the Red Cross's Arts and Skills workshop, scattered exhibition records, and files on weavers and weaving. Files on Liebes's extensive promotional work for multiple clients are also included here, as are files documenting Liebes's relationship with Relman Morin, such as correspondence and scattered records of Morin's career as a Pullitzer Prize winning journalist.
Financial and legal records are comprised of accounting records from the 1930s-1940s, financial summaries, investment statements, personal and business inventories, personal and business tax returns, and some legal records.
Printed material includes advertisements, articles, and exhibition announcements and catalogs, recording Liebes's career. This material is supplemented by thirty-three bound scrapbooks of printed publicity material, photographs, and documents recording Liebes's career in substantial depth.
Artwork by Dorothy Liebes consists of designs, feather weavings, a small hooked composition, and tapestry samples. Artwork by others includes prints by Dorr Bothwell, designs by Lawrence J. Colwell, and painted sketches of clothing designs by Daren Pierce. Two linear feet of samples consist primarily of textile swatches primarily designed by Dorothy Liebes Studio, Inc.
Photographic material includes professional portraits of Liebes and others, photos of Liebes at events and parties, with staff and other weavers, at work in her studio, and traveling. Of note are a series of pictures taken at Taliesin West with Frank and Olgivanna Wright, Relman Morin, and others. Photographic material also provides examples of Liebes's design work in homes, hotels, offices, and elsewhere, and shows her work pictured in exhibitions and showrooms. Photographs of other subjects include portraits of unidentified women by Man Ray and Consuela Canaga.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 11 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1934-circa 1970 (Box 1, OV 23; 0.28 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1922-1973 (Boxes 1-2; 1.5 linear feet)
Series 3: Diaries and Calendars, 1948-1971 (Boxes 2-4; 1.5 linear feet)
Series 4: Writings, 1920-circa 1971 (Boxes 4-5; 1.05 linear feet)
Series 5: Subject Files, circa 1933-1971 (Boxes 5-13, 20, 43, OVs 23, 59; 8.43 linear feet)
Series 6: Financial and Legal Records, circa 1935-1972 (Box 13, 20; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 7: Printed Material, 1897-1971 (Boxes 14, 20-21, OV 38; 1.1 linear feet)
Series 8: Scrapbooks, 1933-1972 (Box 21-22, 24-36; 5 linear feet)
Series 9: Artwork, circa 1920s-circa 1960s (Boxes 14, 22, OVs 23, 39, 42, RD 37; 1.24 linear feet)
Series 10: Samples, circa 1850-1855, circa 1930s-circa 1970 (Boxes 15-16; 2.0 linear feet)
Series 11: Photographic Material, circa 1875, circa 1897-circa 1970 (Boxes 17-19, 36, 43, OVs 38, 40-41; 2.2 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
California and New York weaver, textile designer, and consultant Dorothy Wright Liebes (1899-1972) was known for distinctive textiles featuring bold color combinations and unusual textures achieved through the use of materials such as glass rods, sequins, bamboo, grass, leather, ribbon, wire, and ticker tape. Her work with companies in the synthetic fiber industry to make craft weaving compatible with man-made fabrics and machine looms, produced an innovative and exciting new aesthetic in interior design that was both functional and affordable, and made Liebes a mid-century household name.
Born Dorothy Wright in Santa Rosa, California, Liebes was the daughter of chemistry professor Frederick L. Wright and teacher Bessie Calderwood Wright. She studied art, education, and anthropology at San Jose State Teachers College and the University of California, Berkeley. During her college years, a teacher encouraged her to experiment with weaving and textile design since many of her paintings resembled textiles.
Liebes was a teacher for several years before deciding to pursue a career in textile design. She then studied weaving at Hull House in Chicago and traveled to France, Italy, Guatemala, and Mexico to learn the traditional weaving forms of those cultures. Upon her return to the United States, Liebes opened her first professional studio for weaving and textile design on Powell Street in San Francisco; Dorothy Liebes Design, Inc. was established in 1934, and eventually employed a staff of weavers. Liebes moved her studio to 545 Sutter Street in 1942.
Her first client in the industry was Goodall-Sanford Mills, with whom Liebes worked as a consultant for more than a decade. As her client base expanded, she decided to open a New York studio and maintained both studios until 1948 when she closed her San Francisco operation and relocated to New York City.
Liebes became a color and design consultant to corporations such as DuPont, Dow, and Bigelow-Sanford and tested and promoted newly developed synthetic fibers. She advised textile chemists in the development of fibers that were versatile enough to produce many different textures and worked with engineers and technicians to develop new machines that could reproduce the irregularities of hand-loomed fabrics. Liebes became a sought-after speaker by textile industry and consumer groups, and sometimes taught workshops on color and design.
Liebes's commissions included the United Nations Delegates Dining Room, the Persian Room at the Plaza Hotel and the King of Saudi Arabia's traveling royal throne room. Between 1937 and 1970, Liebes participated in more than thirty solo and group exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, de Young Museum, Cranbrook Museum, Detroit Institute of Art, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Museum of Contemporary Crafts, and other venues. She received prizes and awards from institutions and corporations such as Lord and Taylor, Neiman-Marcus, the Paris Exposition, the American Institute of Decorators, the American Institute of Architects and the Architectural League. She was also awarded the Elsie de Wolfe Award and an honorary degree from Mills College in 1948.
Liebes's other notable activities included her work a director of the Decorative Arts Display for the 1939 San Francisco World's Fair, which she credited with establishing her as an authority in the field, and her work as organizer and director of "Arts and Skills," a Red Cross occupational therapy project that included training in weaving for soldiers injured in World War II. In the 1950s, she worked with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, journeying though the southwest to study Indian schools and weaving techniques.
Liebes was married to businessman Leon Liebes from 1928 until their divorce in 1940 and continued to use the name Liebes for the remainder of her life. In 1948, she married Pulitzer prize winning Associated Press special correspondent Relman "Pat" Morin.
During the last year of her life, Dorothy Liebes was semi-retired due to a heart ailment. She died in New York City on 10 September 1972.
Provenance:
Gift of the Estate of Dorothy Liebes through Relman Morin, 1972, and Ralph Higbee, 1973-1974.
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 audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Occupation:
Textile designers -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Textile designers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Weavers -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Weavers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Art consultants -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Dorothy Liebes papers, circa 1850-1973. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of the Dorothy Liebes papers was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art. Funding for the digitization of the collection was provided by the Coby Foundation.
The papers of curator and art historian Ruth Fine measure 24.1 linear feet and 22.43 GB and date from 1929 to 2016, with the bulk of the records dating from the 1950s to 2016. Fine's career is documented through correspondence with art historians, museum professionals, and notable figures; files pertaining to writing projects, lectures and speeches, her time at the National Gallery of Art, and research subjects; association and membership records; and printed and digital material. The bulk of the collection is composed of artist and subject files, which include correspondence, printed and digital material, exhibition and writing files, photographs, and some artwork. These records include a significant number of audiovisual recordings, including dozens of interviews with artists and others. Notable within the collection are extensive interviews documenting the works of Romare Bearden, Crown Point Press, and Gemini G.E.L.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of curator and art historian Ruth Fine measure 24.1 linear feet and 22.43 GB and date from 1929 to 2016, with the bulk of the records dating from the 1950s to 2016. Fine's career is documented through correspondence with art historians, museum professionals, and notable figures; files pertaining to writing projects, lectures and speeches, her time at the National Gallery of Art, and research subjects; association and membership records; and printed and digital material. The bulk of the collection is composed of artist and subject files, which include correspondence, printed and digital material, exhibition and writing files, photographs, and some artwork. These records include a significant number of audiovisual recordings, including dozens of interviews with artists and others. Notable within the collection are extensive interviews documenting the works of Romare Bearden, Crown Point Press, and Gemini G.E.L.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged as 10 series.
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1953-2013 (Box 1, 5 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1958-2014 (Box 1, 0.5 linear feet)
Series 3: Interviews, 1970-2009 (Box 1-2, 0.5 linear feet)
Series 4: Writings, 1979-2013 (Box 2, 0.8 linear feet, ER01-ER04; 5.44 GB)
Series 5: Lectures and Speeches, 1963-2012 (Box 3-4, 1.8 linear feet, ER05-ER08; 0.292 GB)
Series 6: National Gallery of Art Administrative Records, 1971-2011 (Box 4-5, 0.8 linear feet)
Series 7: Artist Files, 1947-2016 (Box 5-18, OV 25, 15 linear feet, ER09-ER26; 14.11 GB)
Series 8: Subject Files, 1929-2014 (Box 19-22, 3.5 linear feet, ER27-ER29; 0.604 GB)
Series 9: Association and Membership Files, 1962-2014 (Box 22-23, 0.5 linear feet, ER30; 1.99 GB)
Series 10: Printed Material, 1936-2015 (Box 23-24, 1 linear foot)
Biographical / Historical:
Ruth Fine (1941-) is a curator and art historian most active in Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Fine received her B.F.A from the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts, 1962), an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania (1964), and was a student at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (1961). She was an instructor at the Philadelphia College of Art from 1965 through 1969, and at Beaver College (now Arcadia University) from 1968 to 1972 and 1978 to 1979, and also taught at the University of Vermont (1976, 1977). Fine continued lecturing on a variety of topics throughout her career.
From 1972 to 1980, Fine served as curator, under the auspicies of the National Gallery of Art, for the Lessing J. Rosenwald collection of prints and drawings housed at Rosenwald's Alverthorpe estate in Jenkintown, PA. After his death in 1979, Fine followed a portion of the collection to the National Gallery of Art where she went on to become curator of modern prints and drawings until 2002. Fine organized exhibitions, oversaw catalogue raisonnés, and coordinated special projects on artists including Romare Bearden, Helen Frankenthaler, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, John Marin, and Georgia O'Keeffe; printmakers Crown Point Press, Gemini G.E.L., and Graphicstudio; and the collections of Lessing J. Rosenwald and Dorothy and Herbert Vogel. She contributed essays to exhibition catalogs and other printed material on Mel Bochner, Richard Diebenkorn, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, James McNeill Whistler, Tyler Graphics, and The Brandywine Print Workshop, among others.
As an artist, Fine's exhibitions include those at the Philadelphia Art Alliance, Beaver College, Ryder University, Bryn Mawr College, Bennington College, and Anna Leonowens Gallery in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She was awarded a grant from the Ingram Merrill Foundation for work in etching (1989), and had studio residencies at The Vermont Studio Center (1992) and the Anni and Josef Albers Foundation (2000).
Provenance:
The collection was donated by Ruth Fine in 2017.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Access to original papers and audio visual material requires an appointment, and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Ruth Fine Papers, 1929-2016. 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.
circa 1920–2000, With Information Dating Back to 1481
Summary:
The Knez papers include material concerning many aspects of his career up to the time he retired from the Smithsonian. Of particular strength is the documentation of Asian exhibits, both temporary and permanent ones installed during his time at the Institution. There is also considerable material concerning specimens and collections acquired earlier. Material concerning Knez's work as a field researcher, bibliographer, and editor are also among the papers. After his retirement, Knez became involved in a study of Buddhism among the Tibetans living in India. Copies of film made for this study have been deposited in the Human Studies Film Archives. It should be noted that the papers represent only a portion of the Knez papers, for he has retained some of them.
Scope and Contents:
Knez was not a prolific writer. Though his research encompassed East and Southeast Asia, his field expeditions for collections and his charge to establish the first permanent Asian halls while at the Smithsonian limited his scientific writings to documentation required for Smithsonian exhibitions and his ongoing interest in the material culture of Sam Jong Dong and The Three Ministries, located in the Kimhae region of southeast Korea. To overcome Asian language barriers, Knez had to utilize informants, Korean scholars, and translators in order to carry out his research. The materials that he collected or were forwarded to him about Asia, however, represent an impressive body of information that researchers of Southeast Asia would want to review for general studies. Of special importance would be the information about culture around the South China Sea, and especially studies about Korean and Japanese ethnology and anthropology, the pre-colonial and colonial period, the period right after World War II, the Korean War, and changes in Korean agricultural farming life, from the early 1900s through the 1980s. A knowledge of Chinese calligraphy, Korean Hangul, and pre-World War Two Japanese (Taisho and Showa Periods) are required to understand the complete record documenting Korean history.
These papers contain detailed correspondence and memoranda, documenting Knez's professional life as a curator of anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution. Visual images, photographs, slides, videotapes, film, and sound recording as well as research information and correspondence provide a complete record of the exhibitions that Knez established at the Smithsonian. Correspondence, memoranda, and photographs provide a less complete picture of Knez's activities before his appointment as curator. There is a very strong and complete record of his activities while stationed in Korea after World War II and during the Korean War. This material includes correspondence, photographs and film footage. Knez also brought out of Korea photographs that were taken by the Japanese during the colonial period. There is also film footage taken around 1946 on Cheju Island. In addition, there are postcards and photo cards that contain a rich visual image of Korea dating back before the 1920s.
The largest series within these papers contains Knez's material culture research on Korea. This series includes field notes, interviews, transcriptions, correspondence, photographs, publications and translations about Korean history dating back to 1481, Japanese publications and translations regarding anthropomorphic and agricultural studies of Koreans and Korean agricultural life, and Knez's draft publications. There is a large series of photographs and slides documenting Asian art collections as well as Asian cultures. The Knez Papers also includes a phonograph record collection which is not dated and contains Korean and Japanese opera and folk songs. In addition, there is a collection of Confucius teachings, school books, and genealogy written in Chinese calligraphy and Hangul.
The arrangement of these papers and the file folders within the series are not always well ordered. Multiple accessions were transferred to the National Anthropological Archives. Where subject information was the same, folders were filed into existing series developed in the 1970s and 1980s. In similar fashion, individual items that were not within folders were interfiled in existing folders that contained the same information.
The research series (series six), which primarily documents Knez's research activities and information he received or collected on Korea has some provenance. The material was reboxed several times, but there remains segments of information that are completely related. At other times, there is no logical relationship between one group of files and the next. Most of the folders were never dated. Therefore, it is difficult to understand the different periods in Knez's life when he worked on his Korean studies, without going through the entire series. Photographs are not always dated. Only a very small number were used in Knez's 1997 publication (where they are dated), The Modernization of Three Korean villages, 1951-1981 (Smithsonian Institution Press).
Most of the series within these papers contain different aspects of Knez's interest in Asia, and in particular, his focus on Korea. For example, correspondence regarding Knez's activities during his stay in Korea after World War II and during the Korean War will be found in series two, Subject File; photographs documenting the same time period will be found in series six, Research Projects, and series thirteen, Biographical and Autobiographical Material. And, series ten, Motion Picture Film and Sound Recordings, contain visual images of Knez's activities in Korea during 1946, 1950-1951.
Please note that the contents of the collection and the language and terminology used reflect the context and culture of the time of its creation. As an historical document, its contents may be at odds with contemporary views and terminology and considered offensive today. The information within this collection does not reflect the views of the Smithsonian Institution or National Anthropological Archives, but is available in its original form to facilitate research.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into fourteen (14) series:
SERIES 1.Accession Correspondence and Information and Examination and Reports of Collections, 1959-1977 and undated, with information dating back to 1893, boxes 1-4
SERIES 2.Subject File, 1937-1999 and undated, with information dating back to 1852, boxes 4-32
SERIES 3.Professional and Non-Professional Association Material, 1955-1980, with information dating back to 1896, boxes 33-36
SERIES 4.Exhibitions, 1960-1977 and undated, with information dating back to 1876, boxes 36-43
SERIES 5.Research Grants, 1963-1981 and undated, with information dating back to 1884, boxes 43-46
SERIES 6.Research Projects, 1909, 1929-2000 and undated, with information dating back to 1481, boxes 47-115
SERIES 7.Geographical and Publications Files, 1929-1977 and undated, boxes 116-139
SERIES 8.Korean and Chinese Writings, boxes 140-141
SERIES 9.Collection and Research Photographs, 1946-1977 and undated, boxes 142-161
SERIES 10.Motion Picture Film and Sound Recordings, 1946-1978 and undated, boxes 162-164
SERIES 11.Phonograph Recordings, 1959- and undated, with recordings possibly dating back to the 1940s, boxes 165-170
SERIES 12.Invitations and Greetings, box 171
SERIES 13.Biographical and Autobiographical Material, Family Photographs, and Notes, circa 1920s-1997 and undated, boxes 172-174
SERIES 14.Oversize, 1952-1971 and undated, box 175 and oversize map case drawers
Biographical / Historical:
Eugene I. Knez was born Eugene Irving Knezevich on May 12, 1916, in Clinton, Indiana, where he graduated from high school in 1935. His mother and father, Ida and Sam Knezevich, were divorced in 1932, and in 1936, his mother married Edward P. Pearson. The family moved to California where Knez enrolled in pre-medical studies at Los Angeles City College. Knez transferred to the University of New Mexico (UNM), but before completing his studies, returned to Indiana to be with his father, who was ill. There, Knez enrolled at Indiana University. Since Indiana University did not offer courses in anthropology, Knez took classes in sociology and psychology so that he could fulfill the requirements of UNM. Upon completion of his course work at Indiana University, UNM awarded Knez a B.A. in 1941.
While attending the University of New Mexico, Knez was primarily interested in the Native American Indian. During the summer of 1939 he was appointed Park Ranger-Historian in the National Park Service at Coolidge, Arizona. When he returned to Indiana to be with his father, Knez found a summer job as an assistant to a psychologist, who was testing inmates at the Indiana State Farm.
Knez was drafted as a private in the United States Army in 1941. He was promoted to sergeant in 1942 and during that same year was selected for Officer's Candidate School. Knez graduated OCS as a second lieutenant. Knez was trained and later moved into personnel classification and assignment sections in various divisions before and during World War II. In 1945, he was promoted to captain while in a combat support unit on Saipan.
At the end of the war Knez was assigned to Korea. This assignment began a pivotal sequence of events in his life. With his background in anthropology, Knez was placed in charge of the Army's Bureau of Culture, National Department of Education, United States Military Government in Korea headquartered in Seoul. His responsibilities included the restoration of cultural and religious activities, including museums. At the Bureau, Knez developed a sensitivity towards Korea and her people in the aftermath of Japanese colonialism. Knez undertook the restoration of Admiral Yi's large inscribed boulder and a Buddhist pagoda that had been partially dismantled by the Japanese. He established The National Museum of Anthropology (which became the National Folk Museum). In 1946 Knez sponsored an expedition to Cheju Island to collect ethnographic artifacts and record music for the Museum. During that year he also received permission to excavate two royal Silla Tombs at Kyonju with staff from the National Museum of Korea (NMK). This was the beginning of an endearing association with Korea and her people, which culminated in Knez receiving the award of The Order of Cultural Merit (gold medal) in 1995 from the Republic of Korea.
Knez was discharged from the United States Army in 1946. From 1947 to 1948, he attended Yale University as a research assistant in anthropology and worked at the Peabody Museum. He then joined the federal government and from 1949 to 1953 Knez served as a Cultural Affairs and Public Affairs officer at the American embassies in Korea and Japan. From 1949 to 1951, Knez was chief of Branch Operations, United States Information Agency, first headquartered in Seoul and then moving from Seoul to Pusan with the invasion by North Korea.
During his assignment in Korea, Knez undertook several major activities that had a profound effect on his life. With the approaching North Korean forces getting ready to invade Seoul for the second time, Kim, Chewon, director of the National Museum of Korea, approached Knez and made a personal request to help save the Museum's treasures. Though Knez was a war time member of the American Embassy he undertook the task without receiving official permission. He coordinated the movement of the Museum and Yi dynasty collections and some of the Museum staff by having them shipped by railroad boxcar from Seoul to Pusan.
During the fighting Knez began his ethnographic material culture research at Sam Jong Dong in the Kimhae region north of Pusan. When it appeared in 1951 that the United Nations was losing the war, Knez received permission to spend two months of his home leave to stay in Korea to continue his research. This study was to continue into the 1990s.
While in Pusan, Knez recommended that two dinners be held to help the morale of Korea's cultural leaders, those who were refugees from Seoul. One dinner was to be for the older generation and the second for younger Korean scholars and members of the cultural community. At the second dinner, Knez met his future bride, Choi, Jiae, a highly regarded Korean actress.
During 1951, Knez was transferred to Tokyo as Policy and Program officer for the United States Information Agency. In 1952 he was assigned as the USIA regional Public Affairs officer in Fukuoka.
In 1953, Knez left the USIA and joined the staff at Hunter College, located in the Bronx, New York, first as a lecturer and then as an instructor. While teaching at Hunter, Knez attended graduate school at Syracuse University. In 1959, he received a Doctor of Social Science Degree in anthropology from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. Knez's thesis was Sam Jong Dong: A South Korean Village. During the school year 1968-1969, the Maxwell School went from awarding the D.S.Sc. degree to the Ph.D. In 1970, Knez successfully petitioned the School to have his degree changed.
In 1959, Knez was appointed Associate Curator of Anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution. He was given the responsibility for Asian ethnology and was assigned the task of establishing the first permanent Asian exhibitions in two halls at the United States National Museum (later, the National Museum of Natural History). At the time, the Asian collections available for the halls were poor or non-existent. Knez began his first of several field expeditions to augment the Museum's artifact and cultural collections. Almost all of the Asian exhibitions that he planned had to have collections taken directly from the field.
The first permanent exhibition was opened in 1961 and contained information on the South Asian World in Miniature, India and Pakistan. During the year two more exhibitions were completed, documenting India, Pakistan, and Thailand. In 1962, Knez completed fifteen more exhibitions; he completed eight in 1963 and 1964; one in 1965; and one in 1967. The themes for the exhibitions included China, Japan, Iran, Korea, Tibet, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos, Pakistan, India, East Africa, North Africa and the Middle East, Islam, and Buddhism.
From 1963 through 1973, Knez put together additional temporary exhibitions, which included themes on Korea, China, India, Japan, Bhutan, and acquisitions of Hindu and Buddhist sculpture. In 1967, Knez provided the objects and created the documentation for the United States Department of State exhibition honoring the visit of the King and Queen of Thailand. Knez developed an exhibition about Korea, which went on display between 1977 and 1979 and was coordinated by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service.
Knez retired from the Smithsonian in November 1978 and was appointed Anthropologist Emeritus in 1979. Knez moved to Hawaii and developed ties with the University of Hawaii as a visiting scholar at the Center for Korean Studies. Knez continued his research on the Kimhae region, and in 1993, published his revised, The Modernization of Three Korean Villages, 1951-81: an Illustrated study of a people and their material culture.
May 12, 1916 -- Born
1935 -- Graduated High School
1941 -- Drafted, Private, United States Army B.A., University of New Mexico
1942 -- Officer's Candidate School, 2nd Lieutenant, United States Army
1945 -- Promoted to Captain, United States Army
1945-1946 -- United States Army, In charge, Bureau of Culture, National Department of Education, Seoul, Korea
1946 -- Excavation, National Museum of Korea, Royal Silla Tomb, Kyongju Ethnographic and Geographic Survey, National Folk Museum of Anthropology, Korea, Cheju Island
August 1946 -- Honorable Discharge, United States Army
1947-1948 -- Yale University, Peabody Museum, Research Assistant in Anthropology
1947 -- Study of American Indian Shaker cult, Washington State Museum, Seattle
1949 -- Changed Name from Knezevich to Knez
1949-1951 -- Wartime Center Director, United States Information Service, Pusan, Korea
1951 -- Shipment of National Museum of Korea Collections and Staff from Seoul to Pusan
1951-1952 -- Ethnographic Study of Kimhae Area, Korea, towards a dissertation
1952-1976 -- United States Army Reserve (retired as Full Colonel)
1953-1959 -- Lecturer and Instructor, Hunter College, New York
1959 -- Fellow, American Anthropological Association D.S.S.C. (later, Ph.D.) Syracuse University Anthropologist, Smithsonian Institution
1961-1962 -- Overseas Collecting Trips to Asia
1961 -- First Asian Exhibition Installation
1962 -- Letter of Appreciation, Republic of Korea
1965 -- Smithsonian Special Act (Development of Asian Collections) Award
1966 -- Member of the United States Museums Advisory Delegation Planning Meeting for the Establishment of a Korean National Science Museum Center, Seoul
1970 -- Award, Korean Village Study, Smithsonian Institution, Secretary's Fund
1971 -- Exhibition, A Korean Village: Its Changing Culture, which was later adapted as a traveling exhibition in the United States and Canada
1974 -- Exhibition, Bhutan: The Land of Dragons
1975 -- Invited Participant, Pakistan-Sind Government International Seminar
1977 -- Exhibition, Arms and Armor of Japan
1978 -- Retired, Smithsonian Institution Fellow, The Explorers Club, New York
1979 -- Anthropologist Emeritus, Smithsonian Institution Award, Himalayan Project, Tibetan Buddhism and Its Role in Society and State, National Endowment for the Humanities, which led to a publication by Knez with Franz Michael
1981 -- Award, Fulbright Senior Scholar, Korea, Council for International Exchange of Scholars
1995 -- Presentation of The Order of Culture Merit (Gold Medal), Republic of Korea
Related Materials:
The National Anthropological Archives holds Franz H. Michael and Eugene I. Knez photographs and sound recordings relating to Tibetan Buddhism in northeastern India (NAA.PhotoLot.80-13).
Separated Materials:
The motion picture film was transferred to the Human Studies Film Archives in 2002 (HSFA.2002.09).
Provenance:
Most of the papers were donated to the National Anthropological Archives by Dr. Knez in 1978. There have been additional accretions since then.
Restrictions:
The Eugene Irving Knez papers are open for research.
Access to the Eugene Irving Knez papers requires an appointment.
Papers document Landy R. Hales (1889-1972), an inventor and commercial artist who designed window and interior store displays, posters, children's games, and puzzles primarily from 1920s to 1930s in New York City and Baltimore. Of significance is Hales's work for Macy's Department Store. The papers consist of correspondence, patents, business records for several of Hales's companies, photographs, drawings/sketches, prototypes, and newspaper and magazine clippings.
Scope and Contents:
The papers document Hales's career as an inventor and commercial artist as well as his work in games, puzzles, educational tools, and posters. The collection includes sketches and design drawings, photographs, publicity materials, clippings and articles, and game prototypes.
Series 1, Brilliant Sign Company, 1908-1909, consists of stock shares, transferred by Hales to others in the amount of twenty dollars for the Brilliant Sign Company of Baltimore City, Maryland.
Series 2, Landy R. Hales, Inc., 1927-1929, 1944, consists of of invoices, orders, and check stubs from R.H. Macy and Company and Gimbel Brothers, Inc. for work by Landy R. Hales, Inc. for window displays. The orders detail what will be constructed and decorated. The R.H. Macy materials also contain a 1927 souvenir from Macy's Wonderland Christmas. Included in this series is a 1944 United States Treasury Department War Finance Program citation to Landy R. Hales.
Series 3, Hales Layer Poster Corporation, 1922-1969 (bulk 1920s), consists of materials documenting Hales poster company. Hales's formed Hales Layer Poster Corporation in New York State on July 16, 1925 to manufacture, purchase, sell and deal in layer posters and equipment for constructing layer posters in packaged or other forms. The corporation's other directors were Alfred J. Silberstein and Alvin A. Silberman, both of New York. Hales developed a new method of making a poster by placing cut-out pieces of materials such as composition board or wood on a background, then building layers to form three dimensions in the finished product. The first store to use Hales layer posters was Saks Fifth Avenue in New York City. The posters were never sold and were only used in advertising and window displays.
The materials consist of stock shares and values, a certificate of incorporation, branded letterhead, correspondence, an order book (blank forms), a point-of-purchase ad featuring Little Red Riding Hood, a patent for a display device, layer poster instructions, examples of posters, sample card stock, and instructions for the ABCD Ease Game. The display device patent (US 1,563,485) was issued to Hales on December 1, 1925. The invention relates to display devices for commercial advertising arrangements constructed out of layers of veneer or cardboard for reproducing and illustrating articles for sale, magazines, posters or art works. The principal object was to provide a display picture having depth. The correspondence, 1922-1937, 1969 and undated, contains letters with individuals companies, hotels, and department stores primarily in New York City such as B.F. Keith's New York Hippodrome, Saks & Company, Hotel Nassau, Keystone Manufacturing Company, and Rialto Theatre. Much of the correspondence relates to services provided by Hales Layer Poster Corporation. Hales's correspondence with Morris Gest, a theatrical producer who introduced La Chauve-Souris, a touring revue during the early 1900s, to the United States. There is also a letter typewritten by Hales in 1969 to Pablo Picasso about copying Picasso prints using the Hales layer poster method.
The instructions for "how to make" a Hales layer poster are well documented, detailing the step-by-step process and including the use of Hales Studio colors for painting. Specific instructions for the "Tom, Tom Piper's Son" with color guide are found here. A full, unused layer poster kit is in box 14. Additionally, Hales created the ABCD Ease Game, a board game played with dice with the objective to reach "ease." The way to reach "Ease" is through truth, courage, justice, thrift, study, work, loyalty, and honesty. Instructions and prototypes of the gameboard are represented.
Series 4, Hales Manikins, Inc., 1938-1948 and undated, consists of correspondence, a voting trust agreement, board of directors meeting minutes, stock shares, a floor plan for the company, blueprints for rubber figures, and a patent for a manikin and method of making the same (US 2,129,421). Hales Maninikin incorporated in 1941 in Baltimore, Maryland to manufacture, distribute, sell and otherwise deal in manikins and other display advertising figures. The board of directors meeting minutes contain articles of incorporation, by-laws, and minutes.
Series 5, Hales Pictures, Inc., 1937-1938, 1967 and undated, consists of an agreement with Walt Disney Enterprises, sketches by Kay Kamen, Ltd., a press release about Hales Picture Puzzles, and prototypes of Hales Puzzle Pictures. Of note is a copy of the February 1938 Rockefeller Center Magazine. The magazine contains articles about science, technology, publishing, the arts, events at Radio City Music Hall (Disney-related) and television. It offers good documentation of office business machines.
The first series of puzzles Hales introduced in 1937 were four subjects from Walt Disney's characters: Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Pluto, and Donald Duck. The object of the puzzle was to put all of the pieces together in their proper place--some of the puzzle pieces were raised to different levels. After the puzzle was completed, it could be glued to a backboard. There are prototypes for the Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse and Donald Duck puzzles. Only the Mickey and Minnie puzzles contain puzzle pieces. The Donald Duck puzzle consists of the box only.
In August 1937, Hales Pictures Inc., entered into a one year agreement with Walt Disney Enterprises that granted Hales the right to reproduce Disney characters for his puzzles and poster pictures. Hales paid Disney the sum of five-hundred dollars as an advance on future royalties. Disney also provided to Hales typical representations of the Disney characters. There are a series of Kay Kamen Ltd., Disney character drawings for Pluto, Donald Duck, Minnie Mouse, and Mickey Mouse. These drawings were provided to Hales by Kamen. The Minnie and Mickey Mouse drawings have been heavily annotated and mocked up by Hales for the purposes of creating his signature Hales Puzzle Pictures. Kamen (d. 1949) began his professional career as a retail hat merchant and later entered advertising. In 1932, Kamen contacted Disney, soon signed a contract, and was named the company's sole licensing representative. Through merchandising, Kamen made Disney's mouse star popular.
Series 6, Hales Sign Company, 1909 and undated, consists of examples of promotional and branded pieces for Hales's sign painting business that was located in Baltimore, Maryland.
Series 7, Drawings/Sketches, 1927-1930 and undated, consists of pencil, ink and paint sketches. The bulk of the sketches are Christmas-related, such as the poster study for the Macy's Christmas Wonderland, 1927 and the toy department displays for a bridge, drawbridge, house and tower. Other sketches include Noah's Ark, a matador, the "The Wise Woman of Gotham," Carlin's Amusement Park of Baltimore, Maryland, and resort scenes (tennis, golf and sailing).
Series 8, Photographs, 1925-1935, consists primarily of black-and-white prints documenting Hales's work in his studio and for clients such as Macy's. Some of the photographs were taken by Worsinger Window Service, Hughes Company of Baltimore, Le Don Studio of White Plains, New York; Apeda Studio, Inc. of New York City; Schultze Studio of Brooklyn, New York, and H.C. Campbell Company of Oakland, California.
Series 9, Greeting Cards, undated, consists of examples of greeting cards and postcards, primarily for Christmas, Easter, and Valentines Day, assembled by Hales.
Series 10, Clippings, 1922-1935, consists of loose photocopies and original news and magazine clippings in a bound volume. The clippings primarily relate to Hales's work in New York City, but there are clippings about The Corner Shop at Macy's, and there are copies of illustrations assembled by Hales, specifically the "Best Fifty Small Folio Currier and Ives Prints. " The majority of these he clipped from the New York Sun. Also included are clippings about La Chauve-Souris the touring revue during the early 1900s.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into ten series.
Series 1, Brillant Sign Company, 1908-1909
Series 2, Landy R. Hales, Inc., 1927-1929, 1944
Series 3, Hales Layer Poster Corporation, 1922-1969 (bulk 1920s)
Series 4, Hales Manikins, Inc., 1938-1948 and undated
Series 5, Hales Pictures, Inc., 1937-1938, 1967 and undated
Series 6, Hales Sign Company, 1909 and undated
Series 7, Drawings/Sketches, 1927-1930 and undated
Series 8, Photographs, 1925-1935
Series 9, Greeting Cards, undated
Series 10, Clippings, 1922-1935
Biographical / Historical:
Landy R. Hales was born on September 17, 1889 in Baltimore, Maryland to Landy J. Hales and Fanny Linthicum Hales. Hales grew up in Anne Arundel, Maryland and had one brother, Wesley Hales. Hales began his career with no formal art training and apprenticed as a sign painter in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1908, Hales formed the Brilliant Sign Company in Baltimore to design displays for area businesses. In 1913, Hales married Lenore McCully. They had two children, Elizabeth McCully Hales (b. 1915) and Landy Romain Hales (b. 1921).
During World War I, Hales designed posters for the Liberty Bond Program, created by then Secretary of the Treasury William Gibbs McAdoo (1863-1941). This poster campaign was intended to popularize the bonds, and Hales created posters using his "layer technique," which was a method of making a poster by placing cut-out pieces of materials such as composition board or wood on a background, then building layers to form three dimensions in the finished product. In the early 1920s, Hales moved to New York City to advance his career and expand his opportunities. In New York, Hales specialized in display devices, commercial art, and advertising. An artist-inventor, Hales patented two ideas, a display device (US Patent 1,563,485) and a manikin (US Patent 2,129,421). He founded Landy R. Hales, Inc. (1925), Hales Layer Poster Corporation (1925), Hales Manikins, Inc. (1941), and Hales Pictures, Inc. 1937. In 1937, Hales Pictures Inc., entered into a one-year agreement with Walt Disney Enterprises that granted Hales the right to reproduce Disney characters for his puzzles and poster pictures. During the same year, Hales leased office space at Rockefeller Center.
Hales worked for Morris Gest, a theatrical producer, creating advertising for the Russian show Le Chauve Sourvis which featured the Parade of the Wooden Soldiers. Hales also manufactured and installed mechanical displays in Macy's Christmas windows at 34th Street and worked as an independent contractor for other department stores such as Gimbel Brothers and Saks & Company as well as the Hotel Nassau, Keystone Manufacturing Company, Rialto Theater, Keith's New York Hippodrome, and the Music Box Theatre.
Hales left New York City in 1945 and returned to Maryland, where he did commercial work for Carlin's Amusement Park in Baltimore and created layer posters for himself and family members. Hales died in 1972 at the age of 84.
Related Materials:
Materials at the Archives Center
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, Parades:stereographs, circa 1880-1908 (AC0060)
Messmore and Damon Company Records, 1930s-1990s (AC0846)
Hudson Fulton Celebration Parade Photograph Album, 1909 (AC1149)
William L. Bird "Holidays on Display" Collection (AC1288)
Provenance:
The collection was donated by Katharine Landa McNulty Hogben, Frances Helen McNulty Beverage, Margaret Ann McNulty Klipp, Lenore Hales McNulty Frey, and Elizabeth Stuart McNulty on November 27, 2005.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research but is stored off-site and special arrangements must be made to work with it. Contact the Archives Center for information at archivescenter@si.edu or 202-633-3270.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection consists of photoprints and other materials created by Jacob Jacobson for the "Heart & Hands: Musical Instrument Makers of America" exhibition circulated by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES), from April 2000 to early 2004.
Scope and Contents:
The collection consists of photoprints and other materials created by Jacob Jacobson for the "Heart & Hands: Musical Instrument Makers of America" exhibition circulated by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES), from April 2000 to early 2004. The materials are arranged into two series.
Series 1: Iris (Inkjet) Digital Photoprints, dates, consists of eighty six color Iris (inkjet) items. The subjects are primarily individual musicians and craftsmen, although several instrument companies are included, notably the venerable Selmer Company of Elkhart, Indiana, which has manufactured band instruments for many decades. These digital prints were made from Jacobson's 35mm color transparencies (although print number one is monochrome, rather than full color). The prints are from a limited edition of 350, and are signed by the photographer in the lower right beneath the image, and numbered on the lower left. Some prints bears Northlight Atelier blind stamp in the margin and an identifying label with the print number and subject's name is affixed to each print on the verso at the bottom. Most of the prints have an image size of 20" in the long dimension and from approximately 13-1/4" to 14-1/4" on the short side; on heavy, textured archival paper, ranging in size from about 16"x 23" to 19"x 24". Eight larger prints, with image sizes of approximately 21-22" x 31-32" in size, were received matted and in 28" x 40" frames. Some representative image and print sizes are included. Most prints are in one large flat box; prints in the "folder" are stored separately because the paper is slightly too large for the box. The large framed prints are necessarily stored separately and are less accessible.
Series 2: Other Materials, dates, includes a loose-leaf notebook containing inventory of the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Services (SITES) exhibit prints with titles and thumbnail images for identification (except item 55, which is omitted), plus a CD-ROM containing the images in pocket. Note that the images for numbers 81 and 85 in the notebook are reversed. There is also a compact disk in plastic jewel case of the same name ("Heart & Hands: Musical Instrument Makers of America"), which contains sixty tracks of instrument makers playing their instruments and interviews with some of them. Compact disk in plastic jewel case, "Heart & Hands: Musical Instrument Makers of America; Music and Interviews Recorded Live; Taken from the Book..." (produced by Northlight). Containing music and selected interviews with instrument makers, produced for commercial distribution by Northlight Atelier; 60 tracks. Compact disk in plastic jewel case, "Heart & Hands: Musical Instrument Makers of America; Music and Interviews Recorded Live; Taken from the Book..." (produced by Northlight). Containing music and selected interviews with instrument makers, produced for commercial distribution by Northlight Atelier; 60 tracks.
Arrangement:
The collection is divided into two series.
Series 1, Iris (Inkjet) Digital Photoprints
Series 2, Other Materials
Biographical / Historical:
"Heart & Hands: Musical Instrument Makers of America" was an exhibition of photographs by Jake Jacobson, circulated by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES), from April 2000 to early 2004 to at least fourteen venues. The first site was April 8, 2000, at the Georgia Mountains History Museum, and the last venue for the show was the Elkhart County Historical Museum, Bristol, Indiana, ending April 6, 2004. Selections from the exhibition were on view from June 4 to 8, 2001, in the Rotunda of the Russell Senate Office Building, and it was shown in the Smithsonian's Arts and Industries building, March 2-April 28, 2002.
The field work for the project was begun in 1996, culminating in 1998. "Traveling coast to coast, in an extensive two-year journey across the United States, Jake Jacobson and research collaborator Trisja Malisoff recorded the images, words, and music of over 300 contemporary musical instrument makers. Documenting the diversity of American music, Jacobson's photographs reveal a complex, living tradition-a heritage that draws upon Latin, Native American, European, African and Asian music influences."
Following this project, Jacobson engaged in a related photographic documentation, "Heart & Hands: Musical Instrument Makers of China." He has established a "Heart & Hands Foundation." Music has been an important part of Jacobson's life throughout his career as a photographer, printmaker, and jazz musician. During the mid-1960s he operated a backyard print shop, producing rock concert posters. As an advertising and editorial photographer, he pioneered new techniques for special effects and printmaking. His continuing passion for photographing musical artists is evident in the portraits in the "Heart & Hands" project.
A graduate of Brooks Institute of Photography, Jacobson has taught photography at UCLA and Cypress College in Orange County. A longtime practitioner and teacher of Yoga, he is the owner of the Center for Yoga in Los Angeles. He operated a "state-of-the-art" photography, printmaking, and video production studio, Northlight of Colorado, in the mountains near Telluride, Colorado, before relocating the Northlight Atelier to Santa Barbara, California, in 2003.
Another project of Jacobson's is entitled, "Oh, Baby--Celebrating Birth Rites around the World."
Provenance:
Collection donated by Mr. Jacobson.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research use.
Physical Access: Researchers must handle unprotected photographs with gloves.
Technical Access: Do not use original
Rights:
Jake Jocobson retains copyright. Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
The papers of California conceptual artist and sculptor David Ireland measure 24.8 linear feet and 8.39 GB and date from circa 1910s to circa 2009, with the bulk of the material dating from 1960 to 2005. The papers include biographical material, correspondence, notes and notebooks, installation projects and exhibition files, teaching files, travel files, personal business records, printed and digital material and commercial recordings, photographic materials, artwork, and video and sound recordings.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of California conceptual artist and sculptor David Ireland measure 24.8 linear feet and 8.39 GB and date from circa 1910s to circa 2009, with the bulk of the material dating from 1960 to 2005. The papers include biographical material, correspondence, notes and notebooks, installation projects and exhibition files, teaching files, travel files, personal business records, printed and digital material and commercial sound recordings, photographic materials, artwork, and video and sound recordings.
Biographical material includes awards and certificates, address books and appointment books, artist's statements, resumes, chronologies, student university materials, passports, and sound and video recordings of interviews with Ireland. Correspondence is with friends, peers, universities, galleries, and museums, including Jeffrey Grobart, Eleanor Coppola, Margie Lee, Marie-Louise Lienhard, Paul Marion, and Alta Tingle, among others. Notes and notebooks contain incoming phone messages, notes to self, regarding projects and ideas, as well as various other notes and plans.
Installation projects and exhibition files constitute the bulk of the collection and document David Ireland's extensive projects and exhibitions around the world. Files are found for his Capp Street house project and Pacific Enterprises project in San Francisco; Boott Mills project in Lowell, Massachusetts; IKEA Emeryville Public Art Project in Emeryville, California; and several Washington State Arts Commission and Western Washington University projects. Other exhibition and installation locations found within the files include the American Academy in Rome; Yerba Buena Arts Center in California; Perth Institute of Contemporary Art in Australia; Helmhaus in Zurich, Switzerland; Arts Club of Chicago; SFMOMA; New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York; Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota; and the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, among many others. The files contain a wide variety of materials, including sound and video recordings in various formats.
Teaching files document David Ireland's many roles as visiting artist, artist-in-residence, instructor, and conference and symposium panelist at the California College of Arts and Crafts, San Francisco Art Institute, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and Stanford University Department of Art, among others. Travel files document Ireland's trips abroad, both independent of and as a result of installation and project obligations.
Personal business records are comprised of financial materials and documentation relating to Ireland's two early South African import and safari businesses as well grants and project proposals, various loan agreements, representation through Gallery Paule Anglim, property sales and tax documentation, inventory materials, and various other business materials. Also found within the collection are printed material and four commercial sound recordings. Photographs are of the artist, friends and family, Ireland's Oakland studio, and works of art. There is artwork by Ireland, including sketches, drawings, and prints, and a few pieces of artwork by other artists. In addition to sound and video recordings arranged in other series, there is one video recording and six sound cassettes that are either unidentified or have no additional context within the collection.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged as 11 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1950-circa 2009 (1.5 linear feet; Boxes 1-2)
Series 2: Correspondence, circa 1937-circa 2008 (4 linear feet; Boxes 2-6)
Series 3: Notes and Notebooks, circa 1965-circa 2008 (0.7 linear feet; Boxes 6-7)
Series 4: Installation Projects and Exhibition Files, circa 1960s-circa 2009 (11.6 linear feet; Boxes 7-18, OV26, OV27, 7.84 GB; ER01-ER15)
Series 5: Teaching Files, 1977-1998 (1.2 linear feet; Boxes 18-19)
Series 6: Travel Files, circa 1950s-circa 1994 (0.6 linear feet; Boxes 19-20)
Series 7: Personal Business Records, circa 1965-circa 2008 (1.1 linear feet; Boxes 20-21)
Series 8: Printed Material and Commercial Recordings, 1932-circa 2009 (2.3 linear feet; Boxes 21-23, 0.553 GB; ER16)
Series 9: Photographic Materials, circa 1910s-circa 2005 (1 linear foot; Boxes 23-24)
Series 10: Artwork, circa 1965-circa 2003 (0.2 linear feet; Box 24)
Series 11: Video and Sound Recordings, circa 1965-circa 1990s (0.4 linear feet; Box 25)
Biographical / Historical:
David Ireland (1930-2009) was a conceptual artist and sculptor who worked in San Francisco, California.
Ireland was born in Bellingham, Washington and attended Western Washington University. In 1953, he received a degree in industrial design and printmaking from the California College of Arts and Crafts (now California College of the Arts) in Oakland. He then served two years in the U. S. Army in Missouri, returning to live and work in Bellingham. For several years, Bellingham served as his launch point for extensive travels in Europe and Africa.
In the late 1950s, Ireland founded Hunter Africa, an artifacts import business. He moved the business to San Francisco in 1965 and also began a second business leading safaris in Africa. He married Bellingham native Joanne Westford and had two children, Ian Ireland and Shaughn Niland; they divorced in 1970.
Ireland attended the San Francisco Art Institute and received a graduate degree in 1974. There, he met other Bay Area artists involved in the conceptual movement there, including Tom Marioni, Paul Kos, Howard Fried, and Terry Fox.
Much of Ireland's artwork of the 1980s and 1990s centered on the transformation of his home at 500 Capp Street in San Francisco, where he dramatically physically and conceptually transformed the interior and exterior structure into a mix of architectural sculpture and environmental art piece. He bought a second home in 1979 to transform, and, in the 1980s, completed a renovation of the main building at the Headlands Center for Arts in Sausalito with artist Mark Thompson.
David Ireland's work has been presented in more than forty solo exhibitions at venues that included the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C.; The Museum of Modern Art and the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York. He created major public projects and private commissions in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Washington, D. C., and other cities. His work is included in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Oakland Museum of California, and University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, among others.
Provenance:
The David Ireland papers were donated in 2010 by the David Ireland Estate through Jock Reynolds, Special Trustee, The David Ireland Revocable Trust.
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. 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.
Occupation:
Sculptors -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Conceptual artists -- California -- San Francisco Search this
The papers of southern California Pop artist Billy Al Bengston measure 10.4 linear feet and date from circa 1940s to 1989, with the bulk of the materials dating from 1960 to 1988. The collection documents the life and work of the artist through biographical materials, correspondence, personal business records, gallery and museum files, teaching files, project and commission files, scattered artwork, printed materials, and photographs.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of Billy Al Bengston measure 10.4 linear feet and date from circa 1940s to 1989, with the bulk of the materials dating from 1960 to 1988. The collection documents the life and work of the southern California artist through biographical materials, correspondence, personal business records, gallery and museum files, teaching files, project and commission files, scattered artwork, printed materials, and photographs.
Found within the biographical materials series are three feet of calendars which extensively document Bengston's personal and professional activities for fourteen years, and include ephemera related to these activities. This series also includes health records, wills, and passports.
Correspondence is with galleries, museums, universities, businesses, friends, and colleagues, and primarily concerns exhibitions, sales, consignments, commissions, and Bengston's personal finances. Bengston's relationship with the James Corcoran Gallery, Janie C. Lee Gallery, John Berggruen Gallery, Martha Jackson Gallery, and Texas Gallery are well-documented here, as well as in the Museum and Gallery Files series. Also found is a limited amount of personal correspondence with collectors, researchers, and friends. A few letters from other artists, including Peter Plagens and a letter from Richard Diebenkorn are interfiled here.
Bengston's professional relationships with galleries, museums, and universities are well-documented in the gallery and museum files, including the galleries mentioned above, Ferus Gallery, and others. Lists of consignments and prices, invoices, records of sales, loan agreement forms, shipping receipts, exhibition checklists, and exhibition floor plans provide information about sales, exhibitions, and loans. A few files provide further information about Bengston teaching activities. His personal business records include art sales records, price lists, lists of purchases, records of investment, and personal finance records. Project files include correspondence, notes, and printed materials related to Bengston's commissions for artwork and personal projects, including a book he worked on with Ed Ruscha, Business Cards.
Writings by Bengston include responses to exhibitions of West Coast art and his thoughts on his career, art, the artistic community, motorcycles, as well as a recollection of John Altoon. Also found are questionnaires sent out by Bengston for an art survey, with responses from Peter Alexander, Carl Andre, John Chamberlain, Dan Flavin, Joe Goode, Robert Graham, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Motherwell, Ed Ruscha, and others. Writings by others consist primarily of exhibition catalog essays, manuscripts of interviews with Bengston, and other writings about Bengston. Also found is an essay by Walter Hopps. Photographs of Bengston include a family picture from the 1940s, Bengston at work on projects in Los Angeles and Syracuse, New York, and Bengston at social events. Other photographs consist of pictures of friends and artists, Bengston's artwork, documentary evidence of damaged artwork, and of commission sites.
Printed materials from the 1960s - 1980s include clippings, full articles, exhibition announcements and catalogs, and posters. They document exhibitions, art in southern California, and society and art events. The collection houses limited amounts of artwork including sketches, cut-outs, doodles and drawings.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into 10 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1958-1987 (Boxes 1-4, 11; 3.7 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1966-1989 (Boxes 4-6; 1.75 linear feet)
Series 3: Gallery and Museum Files, 1961-1989 (Boxes 6-7; 1.5 linear feet)
Series 4: Teaching Records, 1968-1982 (Box 7; 7 folders)
Series 5: Personal Business Records, circa 1960-1987 (Boxes 7-8; 1.0 linear foot)
Series 6: Project Files, 1968-1987 (Boxes 8-9; 0.25 linear feet)
Series 7: Writings, 1967-circa 1988 (Box 9, OV 12; 0.25 linear feet)
Series 8: Artwork, 1960s-1987 (Box 9; 7 folders)
Series 9: Printed Materials, 1958-1988 (Boxes 9-10, OV 12-13; 1.25 linear feet)
Series 10: Photographs, circa 1940s-1987 (Box 10; 0.5 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Billy Al Bengston was born in Dodge City, Kansas on June 7, 1934. After moving back and forth from Kansas to California multiple times, he and his family settled in Los Angeles in 1948. While attending the Manual Arts High School, Bengston became interested in art, especially ceramics. After a brief stint at Los Angeles Junior College, Bengston worked as a beach attendant at Doheny State Beach. While working there he met fellow surfer and future ceramicist Kenneth Price, who became one of Bengston's closest friends. In 1953, he reenrolled in Los Angeles Junior College to study ceramics. For the next four years he attended both the California College of Arts and Crafts and the Los Angeles County Art Institute (now the Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design). At these institutions he studied with Richard Diebenkorn, Sabro Hasegawa, Nathan Oliveira, and Peter Voulkos.
Around 1957, Bengston shifted his emphasis from ceramics to painting, and became affiliated with the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles, founded that same year by Edward Kienholz and Walter Hopps. Bengston's first solo exhibition was held at the Ferus Gallery in 1958, and a second followed in 1960. At this time Bengston began to work with Pop icons combined with Color Field abstractions. His early bold paintings often featured symmetrical strong color compositions with a central image of a valentine, star, cross, chevron, or iris. The irises he called "draculas," after Kenneth Price remarked that they resembled Dracula flying through a window. He first showed his chevron paintings in 1962 at the Martha Jackson Gallery in New York. In the early 1960s, Bengston extended his imagery to the California subculture and created paintings of leisure time activities, focusing on motorcycles, racing, and scuba diving - his own interests as well.
Throughout his career, Bengston experimented with technique and materials. He experimented with automobile lacquer and spray painting techniques associated with car customization. He also used non-traditional surfaces, such as masonite and aluminum. In 1965, Bengston began creating paintings on sheets of aluminum into which he hammered dents and sometimes bent and buckled; these subsequently came to be known as "dentos." Along with painting, Bengston has also created watercolors, ceramics, and furniture. He was also one of the artists selected by Carol and Roy Doumani to design their home.
Bengston first visited Hawaii in 1974, and after several subsequent trips, established a second studio there in 1979. The work Bengston created in the following years was characterized by the use of tropical colors and representational images of running figures, airplanes, and the moon. In 1988, the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston organized a retrospective entitled "Billy Al Bengston: Paintings of Three Decades," which traveled to the Oakland Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Contemporary Museum of Art, Honolulu. Bengston also completed several years as an art instructor and lecturer at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles and The University of California at Los Angeles. Bengston continues to create and exhibit new work.
Related Material:
Found in the Archives of American Art are oral history interviews with Bengston conducted by Susan Larsen, September 9, 1980, and Susan Ford Morgan, August 2-October 7, 2002. Also found are portraits of Bengston in the Photographs of artists taken by Mimi Jacobs collection, and a rare copy of the book Business Cards by Bengston and Ed Ruscha in the Wallace Berman papers.
Provenance:
The collection was donated to the Archives of American Art by Billy Al Bengston in 1990.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Use requires an appointment.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
The papers of Abstract Expressionist painters James Brooks and Charlotte Park measure 18.7 linear feet and are dated 1909-2010, bulk 1930-2010. Correspondence, subject files, personal business records, printed material, and a sound recording document his painting career, interests, professional and personal activities. Also found are biographical materials, interviews, writings, and art work. The collection also includes papers of his wife, Abstract Expressionist painter Charlotte Park, regarding her painting career, personal life, activities as executor of James Brooks' estate, and some material concerning the James Brooks and Charlotte Park Brooks Foundation. There is a 1.4 linear foot addition to this collection donated in 2017 that includes 58 "week-at-a-glance" appointment books, three journals and one address/ telephone book of Charlotte Park; a hand written chronology with significant dates and notes; postcards and exhibition announcements sent to Charlotte and James; doodles; and a sketch, possibly by Don Kingman.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Abstract Expressionist painters James Brooks and Charlotte Park measure 18.7 linear feet and are dated 1909-2010, bulk 1930-2010. Correspondence, subject files, personal business records, printed material, and a sound recording document his painting career, interests, professional and personal activities. Also found are biographical materials, interviews, writings, and art work. The collection also includes papers of his wife, Abstract Expressionist painter Charlotte Park, regarding her painting career, personal life, activities as executor of James Brooks' estate, and some material concerning the James Brooks and Charlotte Park Brooks Foundation. There is a 1.4 linear foot addition to this collection donated in 2017 that includes 58 "week-at-a-glance" appointment books, three journals and one address/ telephone book of Charlotte Park; a hand written chronology with significant dates and notes; postcards and exhibition announcements sent to Charlotte and James; doodles; and a sketch, possibly by Don Kingman.
Biographical materials include biographical notes and documents such as copies of birth and death certificates, curricula vitae, family history. Educational records are from Southern Methodist University and documentation of flight training courses at New York University. Brooks' military service in World War II is well documented by United States Army records with related correspondence. Also found is extensive documentation of his death and funeral.
Professional and personal correspondence is addressed to Brooks, the couple, and to Charlotte Park during the later years of Brooks' life when she managed his affairs. A significant amount of correspondence is categorized as art, autograph requests, personal, and teaching; also include is general correspondence that overlaps all categories. Art correspondence with museums, galleries, collectors, artists, and friends concerns exhibitions, Brooks' work, and invitations to exhibit, speak, or serve as a juror. Of note is the correspondence with Samuel M. Kootz Gallery. The personal correspondence is mainly social, and teaching correspondence consists largely of requests that he teach in summer programs, serve as a visiting artist/critic.
Six interviews with James Brooks are in the form of published and unpublished transcripts; a seventh is a sound recording with no known transcript. Charlotte Park participates in one interview.
Writings by Brooks are statements about his work and a tribute to Ilya Bolotowsky. Among the writings by others about Brooks are a catalog essay, academic papers, and lecture; also found are a few short pieces on miscellaneous topics. Three diaries include brief entries regarding his work, exhibitions, and activities.
Subject files maintained by Brooks concerning organizations, exhibitions, mural projects, a commission and teaching document his professional activities, relationships and interests.
Personal business records concern appraisals, conservation, gifts, insurance, loans, sales, shipping, and storage of artwork. Gallery records include agreements, consignments, lists, and receipts. Also, there are accounts for lettering work and personal income tax returns.
Printed material is mostly exhibition announcements, invitations, catalogs, and checklists, as well as articles and reviews. The majority are about/mention Brooks or include reproductions of his work; some concern artist friends, former students, and others.
Artwork by Brooks consists of pencil and ink drawings, two sketchbooks, and "telephone doodles." Other artists include Adolph Gottlieb (ink drawing of sculpture), Philip Guston (three pencil drawings of Brooks), and William King (two silhouettes of Brooks).
Photographic materials (photographs, digital prints, negatives, slides, and color transparencies) provide extensive documentation of Brooks' artwork and, to a lesser extent, exhibitions.There are pictures of Brooks as a very young boy, though the most views of him date from the 1930s through 1980s, and with friends. Places include Brooks' homes and studios in Montauk, New York and the Springs, East Hampton, New York; travel to Maine, Oregon and California. Views of the Middle East from World War II show Brooks with colleagues, local people engaged in daily activities, and scenery. Also of note are a copy print of "The Irascibles" by Nina Leen, and attendees at the dedication of Flight dining in view of Brook's LaGuardia Ariport mural.
Charlotte Park papers document the professional career and personal life of the Abstract Expressionist painter, art teacher, and wife of James Brooks through correspondence, personal business records, exhibition records, printed material, and photographs. In addition, this series documents artwork in the estate of James Brooks and posthumous exhibitions. Twelve years younger than her husband, Park began handling business matters for him as he aged and developed Alzheimer's disease. She also served as his executor. In the 1990s, a curator assumed management of the artwork and loans for exhibitions. After the James Brooks and Charlotte Park Brooks Foundation was established in 2000, its director handled most business activities. Some copies of Foundation minutes and correspondence are found among Park's papers.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged in 11 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1924-1995 (Box 1, OV 19; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1928-1995 (Boxes 1-3; 1.7 linear feet)
Series 3: Interviews, 1965-1990 (Box 3; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 4: Writings, 1952-1999 (Box 3; 0.4 linear feet)
Series 5: Diaries, 1975-1984 (Box 3; 0.1 linear feet)
Series 6: Subject Files, 1926-2001 (Boxes 3-5, OV 20; 2.0 linear feet)
Series 7: Personal Business Records, 1932-1992 (Boxes 5-6; 1.0 linear feet)
Series 8: Printed Material, 1928-1992 (Boxes 6-11, OV 21-OV 22; 4.8 linear feet)
Series 9: Artwork, 1930s-1992 (Box 11; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 10: Photographic Materials, 1909-2000s (Boxes 11-15; 4.1 linear feet)
Series 11: Charlotte Park papers, 1930s-2010 (Boxes 15-18, OV 23; 3.6 linear feet)
Series 12: Unprocessed Additition, circa 1930-2010 (Boxes 25-26; 1.4 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
James Brooks (1906-1992) and Charlotte Park (1919-2010) were Abstract Expressionist painters in East Hampton, N.Y. A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Brooks spent his childhood in Colorado, Oklahoma, Illinois, and Texas. He begn drawing as a young boy, finding inspiration in magazine illustrations and comic strips. Before moving to New York City in 1926, he studied at Southern Methodist University (1923-1924) and at the Dallas Art Institute.
In New York, Brooks studied illustration at the Grand Central Art School. After exposure to museums led him to differentiate between illustration and fine art, Brooks enrolled at Art Students League. During this period he supported himself by doing lettering for magazine advertisements. From 1936-1942 he participated in the WPA Federal Art Project, executing murals at Woodside Library, Queens, New York (destroyed); the Post Office, Little Falls, New Jersey; and his famous Flight at LaGuardia Airport's Marine Air Terminal (painted over in the 1950s and restored in 1980).
During World War II Brooks served in the United States Army as an art correspondent in Cairo. When at the Office of Special Services, Washington, DC, he met Charlotte Park who worked there as a graphic artist and later became his wife. The couple moved to New York City in 1945 and married in 1947. Brooks resumed friendships with artists he knew from the WPA including Philip Guston, Bradley Walker Tomlin, and Jackson Pollock. Brooks and Park were especially close with Pollock and Lee Krasner; after they moved to Long Island, Brooks and Park, soon followed, first to Montauk and later to the Springs, East Hampton, New York.
By the late 1940s, Brooks had turned away from figural painting in the social realist style and moved toward abstraction. In the early 1950s, he was experimenting with enamel, gouache, and diluted oil paints, staining various grounds in ways that produced interesting shapes, adding spontaneous splashes of color over which he painted more deliberately. In the 1960s he switched to acrylics, leading to wider use of color and broader strokes.
Peridot Gallery presented Brooks' first solo exhibition in 1949. He helped organize and participated in the famous Ninth Street Show of 1951, earning critical acclaim. This assured him a place in two of the Museum of Modern Art's most important exhibitions of the period, Twelve Americans (1956) and New American Painting (1958). He showed at the Stable Gallery, Kootz Gallery, Martha Jackson Gallery and others. During his lifetime Brooks enjoyed five traveling retrospective exhibitions.
Prizes and awards included Carnegie Institute's Pittsburgh International Exhibition 5th prize for painting (1952), The Art Institue of Chicago's 62nd American Exhibition Logan Medal and Prize for Painting (1957) and 64th American Exhibition Harris Prize (1961), The National Arts Club Medal (1985), and a citation of appreciation for Flight from The North Beach Club Marine Air Terminal, LaGuardia Airport (1986).
Brooks taught for nearly three decades: drawing at Columbia University (1947-1948) and lettering at Pratt Institute (1948-1955); was a visiting critic, Yale University (1955-1960), University of Pennsylvania (1971-1972), and Cooper Union (1975); and served on the Queens College faculty (1966-1969). In addition, he was an artist-in-residence at The American Academy in Rome (1963), the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (1969), and a National Endowment for the Humanities Grant (1973).
Brooks developed Alzheimer's disease around 1985 and died in East Hampton, New York in 1992.
Charlotte Park graduated from the Yale School of Fine Art (1939) and during World War II, when working in Washington, D.C., she met James Brooks. They moved to New York City in 1945, where she studied with Australian artist Wallace Harrison. Park taught children's art classes at several private schools in the early 1950s and at the Museum of Modern Art, 1955-1967.
Park's approach to Abstract Expressionism featured curved or linear shapes with vibrant colors and dynamic brushstrokes. Tanager Gallery presented her first solo show in 1957 and her work was included in numerous group exhibitions from the 1950s through 2000s, mainly in New York City and Long Island. After Park's second solo exhibition, held in 1973 at Elaine Benson Gallery, Bridgehampton, New York, interest in her work revived; other one-person shows followed at Guild Hall (1979), Ingber Gallery (1980), and paired with James Brooks at Louise Himelfarb Gallery. The National Institute of Arts and Letters honored Park with its Art Award in 1974. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Parrish Art Museum, Guild Hall Museum, Telfair Museum of Art, and in many private collections.
Charlotte Park died in 2010.
Related Materials:
Also among the Archives of American Art's holdings are letters from James Brooks and Sean Scully, 1980-1989 addressed to Theodora ["Teddy"] S. Greenbaum, and an oral history interview with James Brooks conducted by Dorothy Seckler, 1965 June 10 and June 12.
Separated Materials:
Correspondence, interview transcripts, photographs, and printed material were loaned by James Brooks for microfilming in 1969 (reel N69-132). With the exception of an address book, a scrapbook, and a few photographs, Brooks donated almost all of the loan in 1979.
Provenance:
The majority of the collection was donated in 2013 by the James Brooks and Charlotte Brooks Foundation and an additional 1.4 linear feet donated 2017 by the Foundation. In 1979 James Brooks donated most of the material lent for microfilming in 1969.
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 audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more information.
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Biographical material, undated and 1980; correspondence with galleries, museums, publishers, artists, and critics, 1951-1990, including Leonard Baskin, Richard Diebenkorn, Grant Holcomb, Bella Fishko, Theodore Wolff, Ernest Fiene, and others; business and financial records, 1955-1979; writings and notes, including personal journals and illustrated travel journals, undated and 1968-1989; artworks, including a pen and ink drawing and 3 sketchbooks, 1970-1977; five scrapbooks, 1942-1960, containing articles, bulletins, and clippings; exhibition catalogs and announcements, undated and 1940-1980s; clippings and articles undated and 1955-1986, photographs and slides of Treiman and her work, undated and 1960-1981;
2 U-matic video interviews of Treiman, including "Joyce Treiman: Painter," interview with Bob Pelfrey, Apr. 1978, 37 min., at Barnstall Municipal Gallery, L.A., and a Univ. of Minn. Media Resources production, "Undercurrents in American Art: Joyce Treiman," 1981, 7 min.; a motion picture film (silent, color, 22 min., also available on VHS videocassette), "Joyce Treiman, 1955-1958" shows Treiman at work and many close-up shots of paintings; a sound tape of Irving Block's senior seminar, UCLA, 1985; a 26 p. transcript of an interview conducted by Lucy Sargeant, 1980; and a file on the exhibition and symposium "Personal Realities in American Painting," Minneapolis, Minn, 1981.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter, sculptor; Chicago, Ill. and Los Angeles, Calif.
Provenance:
Donated by Joyce Treiman, 1973-1990.
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.
The Frank Perls papers and Frank Perls Gallery records measure 23.8 linear feet and date from 1920-1983, with the bulk dating from 1949-1975. Personal papers include writings, military records, appointment calendars, and photographs. Gallery records date from its opening in 1939 until its closure in 1981 and consist of financial, sales, and legal records; exhibition files; exhibition catalogs and announcements; subject files that contain a variety of correspondence with artists, dealers, galleries, museums, and friends and family, as well as reference materials and photographs; and scrapbooks.
Scope and Content Note:
The Frank Perls papers and Frank Perls Gallery records measure 23.8 linear feet and date from 1920-1983, with the bulk dating from 1949-1975. Personal papers include writings, military records, appointment calendars, and photographs. Gallery records date from its opening in 1939 until its closure in 1981 and consist of financial, sales, and legal records; exhibition files; exhibition catalogs and announcements; subject files that contain a variety of correspondence with artists, dealers, galleries, museums, and friends and family, as well as reference materials and photographs; and scrapbooks.
Personal papers contain biographical materials, including military records from Perls' service in the army during World War II, personal photographs, documentation on his estate settlement, and numerous short stories. Of particular interest are Perl's stories about his interactions with Pablo Picasso and his work to uncover fraud, fakes, and corruption in the art world. There are also many photographs of Picasso, photographs of family, the war, and Perls, including two original photographs of Perls by Man Ray.
Gallery sales, purchases, consignments, insurance appraisals, loans, provenance research, and general business expenses are well documented in the General Business and Financial Records. Perls jointly owned artwork with several galleries in New York, including the Curt Valentine Gallery and M. Knoedler Gallery, and these consignment and joint sales are documented in the invoices. A complete accounting of the Gallery's income and expense reports from 1950-1971 is also be found in this series. Artists extensively documented through financial transactions are William Brice, James Strombotne, and Howard Warsaw.
Extensive exhibition files document the gallery's exhibitions and Perl's curatorial work. Files contain varied documentation, such as photographs, catalogs, announcements, and publicity for Frank Perls Gallery shows from 1939 through 1971. Artists represented in this series include Sam Amato, Robert Chuey, Jaques Lipchitz, Pablo Picasso, James McGarrell, and James Strombotne. Files are also found for the two major retrospective exhibitions Perls organized and curated, Matisse Retrospective at University of California, Los Angeles and Sixty Years of Picasso Prints at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, both in 1966. Additional information about these exhibitions is also found in the Subject Files.
Subject Files are extensive and varied in name, content, and topic. They consist mostly of correspondence with friends, family, colleagues, artists, critics, galleries and dealers, clients, arts organizations and associations, publications, and others. There are also reference files and exhibition files for exhibitions held at other galleries and museums in which Perls was interested, guest curated, or loaned artwork. The contents of each file unit varies, but many include correspondence, photographs, appraisal records, sales records, invoices, reports, and membership records. The files highlight his close personal relationship with many artists, including William Brice, Rico Lebrun, James McGarrell, Channing Peake, Pablo Picasso, and James Strombotne. Subject Files also contain abundant correspondence with colleagues and family members, including his brother Klaus, who owned and operated the Perls Gallery in New York. Many of the files concern Perl's work with art documentation and authentication. Subject Files have been arranged according to Frank Perls original order.
Finally, scrapbooks contain newspaper articles, catalogs, and announcements about exhibitions at the Perls Gallery in New York during the late 1930s and the Frank Perls Gallery in Los Angeles during the 1950s.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into 5 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Frank Perls papers, circa 1920-1981 (Box 1-2, 28; 1.1 linear feet)
Series 2: General Financial and Business Records, 1949-1975 (Box 2-4, 23-27; 3.4 linear feet)
Series 3: Exhibition Files, 1937-1975 (Box 5-6; 1.5 linear feet)
Series 4: Subject Files, circa 1939-1983 (Box 6-22; 16.5 linear feet)
Series 5. Scrapbooks, 1937-1957 (Box 28; 0.3 linear feet)
Historical Note:
Frank Perls (1910-1975) was founder and sole owner of the Frank Perls Gallery in Beverly Hills, California.
Frank Perls was born in Germany on October 23, 1910. His parents, Hugo and Kaethe Perls, owned one of the leading art galleries in Berlin, and sold the work of many well-known artists. Artists works included in the gallery inventory were pieces by Edvard Munch, Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, and Paul Cézanne, among others. His parents enjoyed a close friendship with Picasso, a relationship Perls maintained until Picasso's death in 1973. After his parents divorce in 1931, his mother left Germany and eventually opened the Galerie Kaethe in Paris.Frank Perls studied art history at the Universities of Munich, Berlin, and Frankfurt and joined his mother at the Galerie Kaethe in 1932.
Frank Perls immigrated to the United States in 1937 and partnered with his brother, Klaus Perls, to open the Perls Galleries in New York. Two years later he moved to California and opened the Frank Perls Gallery on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. During those first years, the Gallery hosted exhibitions by Man Ray, Eugene Berman, and John Decker.
Perls closed his gallery in 1942 when he enlisted in the United States Army. Because he was fluent in both French and German, Perls served as an interpreter at the Military Intelligence Service, European Theater of Operations. He landed in Normandy with the 30th Infantry Division and was awarded the Bronze Star in 1944. In 1945, Perls was assigned to the Arts and Monuments Section of Allied Military Government in Germany. He was honorably discharged in September, 1945.
After the war, Perls returned to Los Angeles and managed the recently opened Associated American Artists Gallery in Beverly Hills. The gallery was organized in 1934 and marketed art to the middle classes with the opportunity to purchase prints at affordable prices. Perls made significant contacts during his tenure at the gallery and eventually opened his own Beverly Hills gallery in 1950.
The Frank Perls Gallery on Camden Drive was closely associated with the Pierre Matisse Gallery and the Curt Valentin Gallery in New York, both major sources of exhibition materials for the early years. Perls introduced southern California to artists he believed represented the best modern art of America and Europe - Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Alexander Calder, Pablo Picasso, Ben Shahn, Georgia O'Keeffe, Marc Chagall, Paul Klee, and Jean Dubuffet. Between 1950 to 1954, Frank Perls Gallery organized the first West coast exhibitions of Joan Miro, Marino Marini, and Alberto Giacometti. Perls also gave exhibitions to newly emerging artists of Southern California artists, including William Brice, Robert Chuey, Rico Lebrun, James McGarrell, Channing Peake, and Howard Warsaw.
Perls moved his gallery to Wilshire Boulevard in 1965 and stopped representing California artists at that time to focus primarily on major exhibitions of Henri Matisse and Picasso. In 1966, he helped organize an extensive traveling Henri Matisse exhibition at UCLA called Matisse Retrospective. Perls worked with Matisse's children, Pierre, Jean, and Marguerite Duthuit, to identify 345 prints and sculptures and attach family inventory numbers to them.
Frank Perls also organized several large Picasso exhibitions, including the Bonne Fete Monsieur Picasso exhibit at UCLA in 1961 and the 45 Selected Picasso Graphics exhibition at Frank Perls Gallery in 1971. For his work in preparing these major exhibitions in California of Matisse and Picasso, Perls was made a life fellow of the Los Angeles County Museum.
Perls was a member of the Art Dealers of America, serving for several years on the Board of Directors and as director. He was also dedicated to exposing art fakes and forgeries, earning a reputation for discovering, exposing, and pursuing disreputable art appraisers and dealers. Perls wrote extensively about modern art and artists, as well as his experiences in short stories that often appeared in print.
Frank Perls died on February 8, 1975 from complications following open-heart surgery. The Gallery remained open until 1981 while his executor and family distributed the gallery inventory.
Provenance:
The Frank Perls papers and Frank Perls Gallery records were donated by Joan Hazlitt, one of the executors of the Perls' estate, from 1976-1988.
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.
The Millard Sheets papers comprise 27.6 linear feet of material dating from circa 1907 to 2000 with bulk dates spanning 1956 to 1981. The collection documents Sheets's career as a designer, painter, and muralist, and his personal and professional interests through correspondence, writings, lectures, printed material, drawings, slides, photographs, and ephemera.
A small addition donated 2018 by Carolyn Owen-Toole, Sheet's daughter. There is a 4.6 linear foot unprocessed addition to this collection donated 2018 that includes writings; sketchbooks and sketches; photographs and negatives of works of art, images of Millard Sheets and others including family; printed material, including two scrapbooks; and scattered correspondence regarding Sheet's projects.
Scope and Content Note:
The personal papers of Millard Sheets (1907-1990) measure 27.6 linear feet and date from circa 1907-2000, with bulk dates of 1956-1981. The collection reflects Sheets's career as a designer, painter, and muralist, as well as his other personal and professional interests, through correspondence, writings, lectures, clippings, blueprints, drawings, slides, photographs, and ephemera.
The Project Files comprise the largest group of materials in the collection and document design work undertaken by Sheets through his company Millard Sheets & Associates Designs. Sheets and his associates produced concept drawings and blueprints and supervised the construction for a wide range of design projects that ranged in scale from architectural plans for private residences to bid proposals for shopping malls and financial institutions located in California and the Southwest.
Sheets designed interior and exterior plans for over forty Home Savings and Loan bank branches in California. The distinctive modular design which Sheets created and then customized by integrating interior and exterior art elements that highlighted local historical events or natural features became synonymous with the image of Home Savings and Loan. Sheets also teamed up with the architect Edward Durrell Stone to produce a proposal for the Capitol Mall Project, an urban renewal project for the Redevelopment Agency of the City of Sacramento. Researchers will find correspondence, job costs and billing statements, and notes that trace the development of these and other building construction projects. In some instances the documents are supplemented by blueprints, photographs, and/or drawings of the project, but in many cases, visual documentation is missing.
The Project Files also document work done by Millard Sheets on public projects such as the Family of Man mural in the Los Angeles City Hall Annex, a mosaic dome in the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, D.C., and the Word of Life mural at the University of Notre Dame, Ind., along with numerous other murals and mosaics created for private individuals and corporations.
The Correspondence Series primarily reflects the interaction between Sheets and his clients, colleagues, and personal acquaintances. These files will prove valuable to researchers who are interested in the way that Sheets's beliefs about the role of art in everyday life impacted the way he conducted business and managed both large and small design projects. The correspondence also reflects Sheets's interest in popular American culture, travel, political issues of the day, and art collecting.
The Membership Files document the wide variety of interests that Sheets maintained through active membership in associations and organizations. The material in this series consists primarily of correspondence, minutes of meetings, and notes which Sheets created or used as he served as a board member or trustee on a number of organizational boards, such as the California Institute of the Arts, the Claremont Colleges, Virginia Steele Scott Foundation, Webb School of California, and Goodwill Industries of Southern California.
Also found in this series is material that documents his interest and participation in various recreational and professional organizations. Sheets maintained a long association with the Economic Roundtable, a group of businessmen who met regularly to give presentations and share discussion on contemporary political and social issues. Sheets was a frequent speaker and his talks given at the Economic Roundtables can be found in Lectures and Speeches, a subseries of the Writings Series.
Included in the Millard Sheets & Associates Designs, Inc. series are records that reflect the day-to-day operations of Sheets's design firm. Found here are chronological copies of correspondence that were sent out, files Sheets maintained on various independent contractors that the design firm frequently used, resumes and letters of recommendation that Sheets received regarding potential employees, as well as records relating to the cost and maintenance of Sheets's office building.
The Teaching and Workshop Files document the instructional activities undertaken by Sheets throughout his career in the arts. Although Sheets became pivotal in establishing a regionally recognized art department at Scripps College in Claremont, California, the files that reflect his academic position there are limited in scope and depth. Researchers will find more substantive the files that he maintained on the numerous art demonstrations and paintings workshops that he conducted privately throughout his career. Sheets traveled extensively around the world through his teaching activities and the files in this series track his path.
Closely related to the Teaching and Workshop Files is the Painting Trips series. The material in these files document Sheets's service as an American Specialist in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the USIS, Department of State. Sheets served two times as a cultural arts representative in Turkey in 1960 and in the former USSR in 1961. Sheets also made numerous trips to South East Asia, which had proved an area of fascination for him since his experiences as a war correspondent in Burma and India in World War II. The files in this series document his painting trips to Tahiti, the Pacific Ocean Rim, and Hawaii. Also found are files that detail his painting activities in Mexico.
The Exhibition Files reflect the records that Sheets maintained regarding his participation in art exhibitions, as well as his files on art shows that he personally directed or organized for public or private groups or organizations. Although Sheets exhibited his work predominantly in the West and Southwest, the files in this series demonstrate that he exhibited both nationally and internationally as well.
Also found within the records for this series are files relating to Sheets's representation of his artwork through established galleries and art agents. The Dalziel Hatfield Galleries of Los Angeles, California, served as his primary agent for most of his painting career. Correspondence between Sheets and the Hatfields provide insight into Sheets's development into a regionally and nationally significant watercolorist and painter. The files relating to the Kennedy Galleries in New York and the Circle Gallery in Chicago reflect Sheets's efforts to maintain a national presence in the arts community.
The Jury Files document Sheets's involvement as a juror in regional, as well, as national shows. The files reveal the great variety of professional watercolor and painting exhibitions in which Sheets participated as either a jury panelist or solo judge.
The Writings Files provide an excellent source for researchers interested in Sheets's philosophical beliefs about the relationship between art and everyday life. His articles, lectures, and speeches predominantly address the role of the artist, the relationships that exist between artists and the community, and the role that art can play in making a fuller, more productive life. Also found in the files of this series are articles written by others about Sheets.
The Biographical Material series provides a short introduction to Millard Sheets. The files consist of the calendars maintained by Sheets and his wife and staff, which were used to coordinate his many commitments and appointments. Also found in the files of this series are family chronologies that were created by Mary Baskerville Sheets. Medical records and resumes provide personal information about Sheets's background and health. A small file of military memorabilia provides information about Sheets's contributions to the war effort in World War II.
The Printed Matter series documents family activities and personalities through publicity clippings. Also found are exhibition catalogs and announcements that Sheets saved regarding other artists. Miscellaneous interests and activities of Sheets are found through magazine articles, brochures, and flyers.
The Photographs series includes photographic documentation for Sheets's artwork, horses, and major projects. A small group of photographs of Sheets are also in this series.
The files in the Artwork series include original drawings by Mary Baskerville Sheets and Millard Sheets.
There is a 4.6 linear foot unprocessed addition to this collection donated 2018 that includes writings; sketchbooks and sketches; photographs and negatives of works of art, images of Millard Sheets and others including family; printed material, including two scrapbooks; and scattered correspondence regarding Sheet's projects.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into fifteen series. Small series, such as Biographical Material are generally based on type of document. Larger series, such as Correspondence or Project Files, are arranged alphabetically by name of correspondent or project. General correspondence has been made into its own series, but other series or subseries may also contain some correspondence. Within particular series, materials have been further divided into subseries which represent particular aspects of the project or event. For example, the Writings Series is further divided into subseries of books and articles, eulogies, and lectures and speeches. An outline listing series and subseries titles and dates follows.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1907-1982, undated (boxes 1-2; 1.25 linear ft.)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1929-1990, undated (boxes 2-4; 2.75 linear ft.)
Series 3: Personal Business Records, 1933-1980, undated (boxes 5-6; 1.25 linear ft.)
Series 4: Membership Files, 1946-1982, undated (boxes 6-8; 2.5 linear ft.)
Series 5: Millard Sheets & Associates Designs, 1934-1982, undated (boxes 8-9; 1.0 linear ft.)
Series 6: Project Files, 1956-1981, undated (boxes 9-18; 8.25 linear ft.)
Series 7: Teaching and Workshop Files, 1932-1982 (box 18; 0.5 linear ft.)
Series 8: Painting Trips, 1959-1980, undated (box 18; 16 folders)
Series 9: Exhibition Files, 1932-1937, 1951-1988, undated (box 19; 0.75 linear ft.)
Series 10: Jury Files, 1941-1982 (boxes 19-20; 42 folders)
Series 11: Writings, 1936-1988, undated (boxes 20-22; 2.5 linear ft.)
Series 12: Printed Matter, 1936-1922, undated (boxes 22-23; 20 folders)
Series 13: Photographs, 1934-1983, undated (box 23; 17 folders)
Series 14: Artwork, circa 1929, undated (box 23; 2 folders)
Series 15: Unprocessed Addition, circa 1930-2000 (boxes 24, 26-30, OV25: 4.6 linear ft.)
Biographical Note:
"Your painting is a measure of your mind"-Millard Sheets
Millard Sheets, as one of the founding members of the "California Scene Painters," exerted a lasting influence upon subsequent generations of Western painters. He and the small group of painters who worked in California during the 1930s and 1940s, developed a new style of watercolor painting that was at the forefront of the American watercolor movement of the time, and that later gave rise to a subsequent generation of painters who became known as the California Regionalist school.
Sheets was born in Pomona, California on June 24, 1907. His mother died in childbirth, and his father, John Sheets, unprepared to raise a baby alone, sent Millard to Pomona, California to be raised by his maternal grandparents, Lewis and Emma Owen. Sheets's grandfather proved to be a guiding force in his life, and when Sheets's father remarried and offered Millard the opportunity to return to the Sheets household, Millard chose instead to remain with his grandparents.
Sheets's love of horses can be directly traced back to his childhood years spent living at his grandfather's horse ranch. Millard rode his first horse when he was three years old. Throughout his life, Sheets returned to the theme of horses in his paintings, as well as maintaining a private stable of horses, and raising and breeding racehorses.
His interest in art also began in childhood. When he was still a young boy, his two maternal aunts encouraged him to play with crayons and pencils. Sheets took his first painting lesson from a neighbor at the age of seven, and by 1919 he had already submitted artwork to the copy division of the Los Angeles County Fair fine arts show competition. He submitted a drawing he had copied of a tinted photograph of Lake KIlarney, California. Sheets won first prize in his division.
It was through this competition that Millard met Theodore B. Modra, a Polish artist who had retired to the Pomona area. After giving Sheets a lecture on the evils of copying art, Modra offered to give him art lessons.
Sheets continued to pursue his interest in art and enrolled in the Choinard School of Art in Los Angeles, California. By the time that he graduated in 1929, Sheets had also managed to come to the attention of Dalzell and Ruth Hatfield of the Dalzell Hatfield Galleries in Los Angeles, California. The Hatfields were one of the most influential art dealers in Southern California, and that same year, they sponsored Sheets in his first one-man exhibition in 1929. The exhibition brought Sheets to the attention of Western Coast art critics and launched Sheets on his painting career.
In 1929 Sheets also learned that he had won second place in the annual Edgar B. Davis art competition held in San Antonio, Texas. The award came with a cash prize and Sheets made plans to travel to Europe to study and paint. Shortly before his departure, however, he met an art student, Mary Baskerville, and they began a whirlwind romance. With Baskerville's enthusiastic support for European plans, and with her promise that she would wait for him, Sheets departed for New York and then Europe.
While overseas during 1929 and 1930, Sheets studied under Dorfinant, a master printer in Paris. Through his work at this studio workshop, he met Henri Matisse.
Five months after Millard returned to the California in 1930, Sheets and Mary Baskerville married. Sheets worked as the director of the Fine Arts Exhibition of the Los Angeles County Fair. In 1932 Sheets returned to school to study art and humanities at Scripps College in Claremont, California. After graduating from Scripps, school officials approached Sheets with an offer to set up a separate fine arts program and asked him to chair the new department. This was the beginning of a twenty year association with the school. In 1938, he also became the Director of Art at Claremont Graduate School.
Sheets left the school during the years of World War II to serve as a war-time artist and journalist for Life magazine, and from 1943-1944 was stationed on the Burma-India Front. His experiences in Asia appeared to affect him deeply. In contrast to his earlier works which featured backgrounds with neutral tones and brilliant shades that highlighted and punctuated the compositions, the paintings from the wartime featured somber tones. Sheets remarked of this time:
During the fighting and the time I spent in the C-B-1 theater, I was too shaken and intellectually stunned to do any complete paintings. I made many, many sketches, though, as well as a real effort to remember each scene that particularly affected me. Then, once I returned to America, I painted frantically, for months, exorcising demons. [Lovoos, Janice and Edmund F. Penney, Millard Sheets: One-Man Renaissance, Northland Press, Flagstaff, AZ, 1984]
Sheets returned from the war in 1944 and resumed his position at Scripps College until 1955 when he was approached by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and asked to overhaul the fledgling Los Angeles County Art Institute. Sheets accepted the position and spent the next five years reshaping the mission and format of the school, renaming it the Otis Art Institute. In the years after Sheets left the directorship, the school eventually became part of the Parson's School of Design on the West Coast.
In 1953 Sheets founded the Millard Sheets Designs company. He hired between twenty-five and thirty artisans for large projects, with Susan Hertel, a former student of his, serving as his assistant in all the operations of the design studio. The working staff included engineers, registered architects, draftsmen, and artists, and the projects that the firm produced included murals, mosaics, stained glass, and sculpture for private homes and public and commercial businesses.
The design studio completed several major architectural projects throughout the late 1950s through the mid 1970s, including the design and construction of Cal Aero, a flight training school for the US Air Force, the National American Insurance Company offices for the California financier, Howard Ahmanson, Ahmanson Bank and Trust Company in Beverly Hills, many Home Savings and Loan Association Buildings, private residences, and the Scottish Rite Memorial Temples in Los Angeles and San Francisco, among many other projects.
Sheets also designed and completed mural and mosiac work for numerous public buildings in the Los Angeles area, as well as across the nation. Many of the murals and mosiacs were for those buildings designed by his firm while others were done as independent commissions.
In 1968 Sheets first proposed the murals he designed for the Los Angeles City Hall. His design was approved and he was awarded a commission to complete The Family of Man murals over the two main entrances to the Los Angeles City Hall. The murals were completed in 1971 and installed in 1972. Sheets also designed mosiacs and murals for the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, the Library at Notre Dame University, the Scottish Rite Masonic Temple in Los Angeles, several Home Savings and Loan Association buildings in the Los Angeles area, the Detroit Public Library, and the Dome of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC.
During the early 1960s Sheets participated in the American Specialist Program of the US Department of State. His first assignment was to Turkey in 1960, where he served as a visiting artist. The following year he went to the USSR in the same capacity.
During the early to mid 1950s Sheets became involved with Columbia Pictures and was technical advisor and production designer for a few years.
Millard Sheets was a member of the National Watercolor Society, the American Watercolor Society, the National Academy of Design, the Society of Motion Picture Art Directors, and the Century Association. Sheets actively promoted his own work and was a businessman, an active and prolific artist, instructor, and designer. Millard Sheets died on March 31, 1989 in Gualala, California.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds material lent for microfilming (reels LA 10) including a biographical sketch, career resume, and a list of sheets' work prepared in 1964. Loaned materials were returned to the lender and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
Millard Sheets lent material for microfilming in 1965. Mary B. Sheets, Millard's widow, donated the papers to the Archives of American Art in 1992. Carolyn Owen-Toole, Sheet's daughter, gave a small addition of material in 2018.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
