The collection is open for research. Use requires an appointment and is limited to the Washington, D.C. research facility. This collection is publication restricted by the donor.
Collection Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Collection Citation:
LeRoy Neiman papers, 1938-2005. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
The records of California fine arts print publisher 3EP Ltd. founded by Moo (Mary Margaret) Anderson, Joseph Goldyne, and Paula Kirkeby measure 4.3 linear feet and date from 1970 to 1984. The records include scattered administrative files; artists' files that include correspondence, lists, price lists, and miscellany; printed materials, photographs, including two dismantled photo albums and negatives; and numerous fine arts prints by various contemporary artists, including Gordon Cook, Claire Falkenstein, Joe Fay, Sam Francis, David Gilhooly, Joseph Goldyne, Jack Jefferson, Frank Lobdell, Fred Martin, Ed Moses, Nathan Oliveira, Jay Phillips, Matt Phillips, and Joseph Zirker.
Scope and Contents:
The records of California fine arts print publisher 3EP Ltd. founded by Moo (Mary Margaret) Anderson, Joseph Goldyne, and Paula Kirkeby measure 4.3 linear feet and date from 1970 to 1984. The records include scattered administrative files; artists' files that include correspondence, lists, price lists, and miscellany; printed materials, photographs, including two dismantled photo albums and negatives; and numerous fine arts prints by various contemporary artists, including Gordon Cook, Claire Falkenstein, Joe Fay, Sam Francis, David Gilhooly, Joseph Goldyne, Jack Jefferson, Frank Lobdell, Fred Martin, Ed Moses, Nathan Oliveira, Jay Phillips, Matt Phillips, and Joseph Zirker.
Administrative records consist of chronological correspondence, subscriber lists and forms, price lists, exhibition lists, and other miscellaneous records. Business/administrative correspondence is mostly between the 3EP Ltd. founders and various museums, galleries, and collectors, with a few letters to artists. Artists' files include resumes, correspondence, catalogs, clippings, photographs and slides. Artists include Chuck Arnoldi, Billy Al Bengston, Gordon Cook, Claire Falkenstein, Joe Fay, Sam Francis, Jack Jefferson, Frank Lobdell, Ed Moses, George Sugarman, and Joseph Zirker, among many others.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged as 5 series.
Series 1: Administrative Records, 1978-1984 (0.2 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 2: Artists Files, 1970-1984 (1.8 linear feet; Box 1-2)
Series 3: Printed Material, 1981-1984 (0.1 linear feet; Box 3)
Series 4: Artwork, 1979-1984 (1.9 linear feet; OV 4-22)
Series 5: Photographic Material, 1981-1983 (0.3 linear feet; Box 3)
Biographical / Historical:
3EP Ltd. was founded by Moo (Mary Margaret) Anderson, Joseph Goldyne, and Paula Kirkeby in 1978 in Palo Alto, California. The print publisher worked with over 20 artists to produce fine art prints and monotypes and operated until 1984.
Harry W. and Mary Margaret Anderson, respectively known as Hunk and Moo, are avid art collectors with one of the largest private art collections of 20th Century American Art. Moo has a special interest in works of art on paper and prints. Moo and Paula Kirkeby, director of Smith Anderson Gallery in Palo Alto, along with San Francisco artist Joseph Goldyne formed 3EP Ltd. In addition to sales, the mission of 3EP Ltd. was to encourage experimentation with the monoprint. Anderson and Kirkeby commissioned a custom-built Takach-Garfield press for their facilities and invited artists to work with the monotype technique and printmaking, techniques that were initially unfamiliar to many of the artists who worked with 3EP Ltd. Artists invited to work at 3EP include Gordon Cook, Claire Falkenstein, Joe Fay, Sam Francis, David Gilhooly, Frank Lobdell, Ed Moses, Nathan Oliviera, Jay and Matt Phillips, and many others. 3EP Ltd. closed in 1984.
Related Materials:
The de Young Museum has a collection of 3EP Ltd. prints which are part of the Anderson Graphic Arts Collection.
Provenance:
The 3EP Ltd. records were donated in 1984 by Moo (Mary Margaret) Anderson and Paula Kirkeby. Plates received with the donation were returned to the donors.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. research facility.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Topic:
Art publishing -- California -- Palo Alto Search this
Weller, Allen S. (Allen Stuart), 1907-1997 Search this
Extent:
26.3 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Sketches
Diaries
Scrapbooks
Photographs
Interviews
Date:
1891-1986
Summary:
The Abraham Rattner and Esther Gentle papers measure 26.3 linear feet and date from 1891 through the 1980s. The collection documents Rattner's life and career as an artist through interviews, extensive correspondence, gallery files, studio notebooks, writings, notes, date books and diaries, photographs, and works of art.
Scope and Content Note:
Abraham Rattner's papers provide insight into an important time for twentieth century American art and culture. By studying Rattner's papers, the researcher may view the beginnings of Modernism, the cultural change that pushed the boundaries of artistic and literary traditions and provided new ways in which to express ourselves.
The Abraham Rattner and Esther Gentle papers measure 26.3 linear feet and date from 1891 through the 1980s. The collection documents Rattner's life and career as an artist through interviews, extensive correspondence, gallery files, studio notebooks, writings, notes, date books and diaries, photographs, and works of art.
The biographical files contain documents such as Rattner's birth certificate, travel visas, his senior yearbook from 1912 which shows some of his early art work, and some of his awards. His birth certificate is of particular interest since it shows Rattner's birth date to be 1893 instead of the recognized 1895.
The correspondence offers great insight into the thoughts of many American and European artists and writers during the 1930s and 1940s. Rattner, a prolific writer, expressed many of his own thoughts and concerns through his letters, many of which are included in this collection. The vast amount of correspondence include letters from notable figures such as George Biddle, Kay Boyle, Paul Burlin, Norman Carton, Robert Coates, Stuart Davis, Adolph Dehn, Richard de Rochemont, John Dos Passos, Xavier Gonzales, John Howard Griffin, Ramon Guthrie, Robert Gwathmey, Weeks Hall, Stanley W. Hayter, Jean Helion, Hilaire Hiler, Joseph Hirsch, Stefan Hirsch, Carl Holty, Louis Kronberg, Rico Lebrun, Jacques Lipchitz, Earle Ludgin, Thalia Wescott Malcolm, Henry Miller, Joan Miro, Bror Julius Olsson Nordfeldt, Channing Peake, Henry Varnum Poor, Felix Ruvolo, Waverly Root, Jack Gage Stark, Frank C. Watkins, and Allen Weller, among others.
Rattner was engaged in a wide range of special art projects, and he kept detailed files on these projects. The projects spanned from 1940 through 1973 and included endeavors such as illustrations for Life magazine, stained-glass designs, mosaic and tapestry projects, as well as special paintings such as Victory--Jerusalem the Golden and The Gallows of Baghdad. Rattner's papers also detail the history of a fresco painted by Paul Gauguin entitled Joan d'Arcwhich Rattner purchased in France in 1925.
Rattner's forty year friendship with the writer Henry Miller is chronicled throughout the collection in the forms of correspondence, writings, printed material, phototographs and artwork. Their correspondence ranges from 1938 through 1978 and offers great insight into their relationship. Rattner and Miller's road trip from New York to New Orleans in 1940-1941 is documented in the series entitled Special Projects. Also included in the collection are printed material, such as biographical material on Miller, Miller's writings, literary announcements and reviews; Miller's writings on Rattner; and photographs of Miller.
The gallery files contain correspondence, receipts, and notes regarding the galleries which represented Rattner. Those galleries included the Rosenberg Gallery, the Downtown Gallery, and the Kennedy Gallery. A small series of exhibition files contain material about exhibitions held outside of Rattner's representative galleries.
Rattner's writings proved to be an outlet for his thoughts on painting, his inspirations, frustrations, and sadness. In addition to painting, Rattner was able to express his creativity through writing poetry. Writing also helped him work through his depression over the death of his first wife Bettina Bedwell.
He also kept finely detailed studio notebooks. The original order has been maintained, and they trace the history of almost each painting, drawing, and study attempted by Rattner. The notebooks often provide information regarding whether the work was sent to a gallery or given as a gift. Sometimes they contain correspondence or writings that reveal the inspiration for a work. They have been arranged in chronological order, according to Rattner's own filing system.
Rattner retained receipts for most of his art expenses. Arranged by decade, these receipts show the type of paint, colors, types of paper and brushes that he used.
Rattner also kept many household files and personal financial records. Household files contain insurance records, warranties and rental agreements, while the financial records contain returned checks and bank statements. Some bank statements from Esther Gentle Reproductions are also included. The household files and financial records are not filmed.
The date books and diaries reveal the aspects of daily life and the personal thoughts of Rattner and Esther Gentle. In many cases, Rattner shared his date books and diaries with Gentle. The early diaries are fascinating, especially the 1939 diary that discloses the Rattners' last days in France before escaping Nazism and returning to the United States.
Rettner's scrapbooks span from 1938 to 1952 and contain newspaper and magazine clippings that mention the artist or his work.
The printed material covers a period from 1930s through the 1980s and includes exhibition catalogs, exhibition announcements, clippings, and miscellaneous material such as an autograph book from 1969 and a map of Israel that shows Rattner's travel route. There is a large amount of unfilmed printed material that is listed in the series description.
Writings by others consists of writings on Rattner and other topics.
The collection contains many photographs taken of Rattner and taken by him, as well as photos of family, friends, his studio, travels, and photographs of Rattner's art. Photographs of notable people include Henry Miller, Joan Miro, John Dos Passos, Archibald MacLeish, and Malcolm Cowley, among others.
The amount of Rattner's art work included in the collection is small, but it is significant because it provides examples of his very early work, dating from 1912-1914. Some later studies are also present, as well as a number of random sketches. Color was very important to Rattner, and some of his color studies from the 1940s are also included. Art work by other artists is comprised of some small paintings by Max Weber, a water color by Henry Miller, a painting by Ken Buryd, as well as some work by unknown artists.
In addition to tracing Rattner's life and career, the collection also documents the lives of Rattner's two wives, Bettina Bedwell and Esther Gentle. Both women had profound effects on Rattner's work. Among Bettina Bedwell's papers are her diary, fashion sketches, and correspondence. Esther Gentle's papers include correspondence, writings, as well as papers documenting her business Esther Gentle Reproductions. There are a small amount of papers relating to Allen Leepa, Rattner's stepson with Esther Gentle.
See index for list of correspondents from various series.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into twenty-four series based primarily on type of document or special project. Though concentrated in its own series, additional correspondence is scattered throughout the collection and may be found in special project files, gallery files, exhibition files, studio notebooks, and scrapbooks. The correspondence has been divided into two subseries, one chronological and the other according to Rattner's subject-oriented filing system. Special art projects have been organized by project, and placed in chronological order. The studio notebooks have also been divided into subseries, and all notebook pages maintain Rattner's original order. The first subseries of notebooks reflects Rattner's numbering system, while the second subseries is arranged chronologically. The vast amount of printed material has been divided into subseries, and all of the unfilmed printed material has been organized chronologically at the end of the series.
Within each series, material is arranged either in chronological order, or in some cases, according to Abraham Rattner's own organizational system.
Oversized materials from various series are housed in oversized folders 33-45 and are noted in the Series Description/Container Listing with see also/see references or in the container columns.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Files, 1893-1978, undated (box 1; 0.2 linear ft.)
Series 2: Interviews, 1957-1975, undated (box 1; 7 folders)
Series 3: Correspondence Files, 1933-1978, undated (boxes 1-5; 4.3 linear ft.)
Series 4: Special Projects, 1940-1987, undated (boxes 5-6, ovs 33-35; 1.5 linear ft.)
Series 5: -- Joan d'Arc -- Fresco painted by Paul Gaugin, 1925-1963, undated (box 7, ov 36; 12 folders)
Series 6: Gallery Files, 1942-1975 (boxes 7-8; 1.5 linear ft.)
Series 7: Exhibition Files, 1963-1978 (boxes 7, 9; 9 folders)
Series 8: Writings, 1940-1972, undated (box 9; 0.9 linear ft.)
Series 9: Studio Notebooks, 1935-1975, undated (boxes 10-11; 1.9 linear ft.)
Series 10: Art Expenses, circa 1940-1970 (boxes 11-13; 0.7 linear ft.)
Series 11: Household Files, 1940-1970, undated (box 13; 0.8 linear ft.)
Series 12: Financial Records, 1933-1963 (boxes 13-14; 0.7 linear ft.)
Series 13: Notes and Lists, 1936-1972, undated (box 14; 0.5 linear ft.)
Series 14: Address Books, 1939-1977, undated (box 15; 1.0 linear ft.)
Series 15: Date Books/Diaries, 1937-1977, undated (boxes 16-17; 1.6 linear ft.)
Series 16: Scrapbooks, 1938-1952 (boxes 18-22; 1.5 linear ft.)
Series 17: Printed Material, 1920s-1980s, undated (boxes 23-26; 3.6 linear ft.)
Series 18: Writings by Others, 1945-circa 1980, undated (box 26; 20 folders)
Series 19: Photographs, 1891-1970s, undated (boxes 27-29; 1.6 linear ft.)
Series 20: Works of Art by Rattner, 1912-1914, 1940-1967, undated (box 30, ovs 37-44; 2.4 linear ft.)
Series 21: Works of Art by Others, undated (box 30, ov 45; 7 folders)
Series 22: Bettina Bedwell Papers, 1932-1947, undated (box 31; 0.4 linear ft.)
Series 23: Esther Gentle Papers, 1921-1984, undated (boxes 31-32; 1.3 linear ft.)
Series 24: Allen Leepa Papers, 1952-1969, undated (box 32; 8 folders)
Biographical Note:
Abraham Rattner was born in Poughkeepsie, New York in 1895. His parents immigrated to the United States to escape antisemitism in Czarist Russia. He was the second of six children, including his eldest brother Louis, younger brothers Manuel (Manny) and Harry, and his younger sisters Rose and Jennie.
Rattner's parents encouraged him to paint at a young age, and as he grew up, painting became a part of his daily life. He graduated from Poughkeepsie High School in 1912 and left to study architecture at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. At night, he took art courses at the Corcoran School of Art. He soon became a full-time art student, and applied for a scholarship to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. He was accepted in 1919 and supported himself by doing illustrations for Philadelphia newspapers.
In 1917, World War I interrupted his studies. Rattner entered the United States Army in France where he became Sergeant of camouflage section, 40th Engineers. Camouflage, reflecting aspects of modern art in its form and pattern, made use of Rattner's artistic skills. During the second battle of the Marne, Rattner injured his back and returned to the States with an ailment that would affect him for the rest of his life.
Rattner returned to the Pennsylvania Academy and was awarded the Cresson scholarship to study art in Europe. He traveled for one year, then settled in Paris for the next twenty years. Those twenty years in Paris became the most formative for Rattner because he was able to study and experiment with Futurism, Cubism, and Expressionism. Post World War I Paris was the center of modern culture for Americans disillusioned by the destruction of the war. Expatriate writers, poets, and artists were searching for a culture that shunned the traditions of the past and exchanged ideas with one another at the lively Paris cafes and salons.
In 1924, Abraham Rattner married Bettina Bedwell, an American art student and fashion illustrator. Bettina became the Paris fashion correspondent for the New York News-Chicago Tribune Syndicate. In 1927, Rattner was a member of the Minotaure group, along with Picasso, Miro, Giacometti, Le Corbusier, Braque, Dali, and Reverdy. He also illustrated an article for Jon Dos Passos in Verve magazine in 1931.
Rattner's first one-man show was in 1935 at the Galerie Bonjean in Paris, which was followed by one-man shows at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York, the Arts Club of Chicago, and the Courvoisier Gallery in San Francisco.
The threat of Hitler and Nazism forced Rattner and his wife to flee Paris in 1939. Arriving in New York in early 1940, Rattner agreed to take a trip by car with the writer Henry Miller. Their route took them from New York to New Iberia, Louisiana via the East coast and Southern states. Their mission was to rediscover America, with Henry Miller writing about their experiences and Rattner sketching the scenery. Rattner's friendship with Henry Miller was an important one that lasted throughout his life.
During the 1940s, Rattner's art was widely exhibited. In 1941, he joined the Rosenberg Gallery in New York, and remained with the gallery for fourteen years. He won awards for his work such as the Temple Gold Medal in 1945 and second prize in the Pepsi-Cola Fourth Annual Art Competition in 1946. In 1947, Bettina Bedwell suddenly died due to a kidney infection, sending Rattner into a spiral of grief and depression. To escape depression, from 1947-1949, he taught at the New School for Social Research in New York.
In 1949, Rattner married Esther Gentle, an artist and business woman who ran an art reproductions business. In 1951, the Rattners moved to Rome where he worked as Artist in Residence at the American Academy. The next year, they moved to Illinois where he was the Artist in Residence at the University of Illinois. Ratter was awarded first prize in 1953 at the 23rd Corcoran Biennial Exhibition and also served as Vice-President of Artists' Equity. In 1956, Rattner was the Distinguished Visiting Professor at Michigan State University, and along with his stepson, Allen Leepa, established an art school on Long Island. In 1957, Rattner left the Rosenberg Gallery to join the Downtown Gallery. He felt he would professionally profit from representation by the well-known Edith Halpert; however, the next twelve years reflected a tumultuous relationship between the artist and the gallery owner.
In 1957, Rattner reached out to other forms of art and design. He experimented with mosaic, tapestry and stained-glass. He designed mosaic columns and tapestries for the Fairmont Temple Anche Chesed in Cleveland and a mosaic for a friary and college in Centerville, Ohio. His stained-glass designs were highly celebrated and respected. His most famous stained-glass piece was the window for the Chicago Loop Synagogue. For this piece, Rattner spent two years traveling to Paris to design and supervise every process involved in the design and installation of the window.
Rattner felt that while his paintings during the 1940s and 1950s were romantic and self-reflective, the 1960s marked a new inspirational period in his work. His painting reflected religious comment, bringing Rattner back in touch with his Jewish heritage, as well as reflecting a sense of social protest. In 1968, Rattner exhibited his painting Victory--Jerusalem the Golden to honor the celebration of Israel's twentieth anniversary of independence. It was also in 1968 that Rattner left the Downtown Gallery for the Kennedy Gallery. In 1969, he painted The Gallows of Baghdad series as a protest to the hanging of nine Jews by Iraqi authorities.
The 1970s marked a time of many exhibitions. In 1976, the National Collection of Fine Arts in Washington, D.C. sponsored an exhibition of his designs for stained-glass entitled "...and let there be light". Also, from 1976 through 1977, "Our America" exhibited Rattner's drawings from his 1940 U.S.A. trip with Henry Miller in England and in the United States. In 1977, Michigan State University bestowed upon him the Honorary Degree for Humanity. On February 14, 1978, Abraham Rattner died due to heart failure.
Missing Title
1893 -- Born June 8th in Poughkeepsie, New York.
1912 -- Graduated from Poughkeepsie High School.
1914-1917 -- Student at George Washington University, Corcoran School of Art and Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
1917 -- Enlisted in the United States Army in France as Sergeant, camouflage section, 40th Engineers. Fought at Seicheprey, second battle of the Marne, and Chateau-Thierry.
1919 -- Returned to Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Awarded Cresson traveling fellowship to Europe.
1920 -- Traveled in France, Spain, England, Belgium and Holland.
1921 -- Art student in Paris at Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Grand Chaumiere, and Academie Ranson.
1922 -- Lived and painted in Giverny, France.
1923 -- Returned to Paris.
1924 -- Married Bettina Bedwell, Paris fashion correspondent for the New York News-Chicago Tribune news syndicate. Exhibited at Salon d'Automne and Salon des Independants.
1927 -- Member of the Minotaure group in Paris.
1931 -- Illustrated article, "Fire," by John Dos Passos for Verve magazine.
1935 -- First one-person show at Galerie Bonjean, Paris. French government purchased Card Party for Museum of Impressionism, The Louvre.
1936 -- One-person show at Julien Levy Gallery, New York (also 1939, 1941); Arts Club of Chicago; Courvoisier Gallery, San Francisco (also 1941).
1940 -- Returned to the United States following Nazi invasion of France. Traveled with Henry Miller from New York to New Iberia, Louisiana.
1941 -- One-person shows: Stendahl Gallery, Los Angeles; Faulkner Memorial Art Gallery, Santa Barbara (also 1943); Paul Rosenberg Gallery, New York (also 1942, 1944, 1946, 1948-1950, 1952, 1956); Studio, New York.
1945 -- Awarded the Temple Gold Medal from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Wrote "An American in Paris" for Magazine of Art.
1946 -- Awarded second prize at the Pepsi-Cola Fourth Annual Art Competition.
1947 -- Death of Bettina Bedwell Rattner.
1948 -- Taught at the New School for Social Research, New York.
1949 -- Married Esther Gentle. Visiting artist at Yale University and at the Brooklyn Museum School. Awarded honorable mention at the Carnegie Institute Exhibition of American Painting.
1950 -- Awarded the Purchase Prize at the University of Illinois Biennial Exhibition.
1951 -- Artist in residence at the American Academy in Rome.
1952 -- Artist in residence at the University of Illinois.
1953 -- Awarded first prize at the 23rd Corcoran Biennial Exhibition. Served as Vice-President of Artists' Equity.
1954 -- Taught at the Art Students League. Panelist at the Design Conference in Aspen, Colorado.
1955 -- Exhibited drawings at the Chicago Art Institute.
1956 -- Distinguished Visiting Professor at Michigan State University. Established an art school in East Hampton and Sag Harbor, Long Island.
1957 -- Designed mosaic columns and tapestries for the Fairmont Temple Anche Chesed in Cleveland. One-person show at Downtown Gallery, New York (also 1958-1967).
1958 -- Designed mosaic wall for St. Leonard's Friary and College in Centerville, Ohio. Designed stained-glass windows for the Flint Institute of Arts, Michigan. Began designs for stained-glass window for the Chicago Loop Synagogue. Exhibited with Alexander Calder at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Elected member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Awarded the Butler Memorial Prize at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
1959 -- Retrospective exhibition circulated by the American Federation of Arts. Exhibited at the Whitney Museum of Art.
1964 -- Exhibited at the Edinburgh International Festival in Scotland.
1968 -- Exhibited painting entitled Victory--Jerusalem the Golden at the celebration of Israel's 20th anniversary of independence.
1969 -- One-person shows: Kennedy Galleries, New York; Galerie Weil, Paris ( Baghdad Hangings), Galerie Belgique, Brussels ( Baghdad Hangings).
1970 -- Film commissioned by ABC-TV entitled "The Long Prayer of Abraham Rattner."
1972 -- Beggar's Opera lithographs exhibited at Circle Gallery, Chicago.
1976 -- Displayed stained-glass on religious themes with the National Collection of Fine Arts in Washington, D.C.
1977 -- "Our America" exhibition in England and the United States. Awarded Honorary Degree for Humanity from Michigan State University.
1978 -- Died on February 14th.
Index: List of Major Correspondents in Various Series:
These correspondents will be found in the following series: Correspondence, Special Projects, Gallery Files, Studio Notebooks, and Scrapbooks: Edward Albee, 1928-
John Anderson, 1904-
Bettina Bedwell, 1889-1947
Carl Beiber
George Belmont
George Biddle, 1885-1973
Kay Boyle, 1902-1992
Brassai, 1899-
Paul Burlin, 1886-1969
McClure Capps "Mac"
Norman Carton, 1908-1980
Jack Chapman
G. Alan Chidsey
Frederick Childs
Robert Coates, "Bob" 1897-1973
Malcolm Cowley, 1898-1989
Salvador Dali 1904-1989
Paul Damaz
Bernard Davis
Stuart Davis, 1894-1964
Adolph Dehn, 1895-1968
Richard de Rochemont
John Dos Passos, 1896-1970
Armand and Suzi D'usseau
Rene Lefebore Foinet
Gisele Freund, 1912-
Emily Genauer, 1911-
Esther Gentle, 1905-1984
Alberto Giacometti, 1901-1966
Xavier Gonzales, 1898-1993
John Howard Griffin
Ramon Guthrie, 1896-1973
Robert Gwathmey 1903-1988
Weeks Hall
Edith Gregor Halpert, 1900-1970
Stanley W. Hayter, 1901-1988
Nathan Hecht
Jean Helion, 1904-1987
William H. Henrick
Henry Herschkvitz
Hilaire Hiler, 1898-1966
Joseph Hirsch "Joe," 1910-1981
Stefan Hirsch, 1889-1964
Carl Holty, 1900-1973
Etienne Hubert
Arno Hummucher
Frederick I. Kann "Fred," 1886-
L.J. Konigsberg "Leib"
Louis Kronberg, 1872-1965
Alexandra Laks
Rico Lebrun (Fredrico), 1900-1964
Allen Leepa, 1919-
Isadore Levy
Julian Levy, 1906-1981
Jacques Lipchitz, 1891-1973
Ward Lockwood, 1894-1963
Jean Louste
Earle Ludgin, 1898-1981
Thalia Wescott Malcolm, 1888-
Reginald Marsh, 1898-1954
Archibald McLeish, 1892-
Henry Miller, 1891-1980
Joan Miro, 1893-1983
Gloria Nardin
Anais Nin, 1903-1977
Bror Julius Olsson Nordfeldt "B.J.O.," 1878-1955
Hugh O'Neill
Channing Peake, 1910-1989
Gabor Peferdi
Irving Penn
Peter Pollack, 1911-1978
Henry Varnum Poor 1888-1970
Andre Raizorkacs
Robert Rey
Maurice Reynal
Raymond Reynal
Hans Richter, 1888-1976
Edward Roditi
Shelden Rodman, 1909-
Waverly Root, 1903-1982
Felix Emmanuele Ruvolo, 1912-
Frank Sedlak
Paul Shapiro
Jack Gage Stark, 1882-1950
Barrie Stavis
Ike Stoeffle
Benjamin Ellis Tepper
David Turnbull
Alfredo Valente
Siegfried Wang
Frank C. Watkins (Franklin Chenault), 1894-1972
Allen Weller, 1907-
Separated Materials note:
Loaned material, including notebooks, writings, and some correspondence, were returned to Abraham Rattner after microfilming. This material is now part of the Abraham Rattner notes collection at the Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art at St. Petersburg College. Loaned material is available on reels D203-D205, D205A-D205B, and reel 1212, but is not described in this finding aid.
Provenance:
The collection was given to the Archives of American Art in stages by Abraham Rattner 1972-1983, by Esther Gentle 1986-1987, and by Gene Allen in 1992. The donated material that was previously filmed has been integrated and refilmed includes reels D203 and D205C-D205D. The material found on reels D205A-D205B was loaned by Rattner and the material found on reel 1212 was loaned by his sister, Jennie Allen.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Use of unmicrofilmed portion requires an appointment.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Topic:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The papers of printmaker and painter Adolf Dehn measure 6.6 linear feet and date from 1912-1987. The collection contains extensive correspondence, as well as writings, exhibition announcements, catalogs, clippings, invoices, receipts, legal documents, scrapbooks, artwork, and photographs. There is also scattered correspondence of Virginia Dehn, mostly concerning her husband Adolf Dehn.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of printmaker and painter Adolf Dehn measure 6.6 linear feet and date from 1912-1987. The collection contains extensive correspondence, as well as writings, exhibition announcements, catalogs, clippings, invoices, receipts, legal documents, scrapbooks, artwork, and photographs. There is also scattered correspondence of Virginia Dehn, mostly concerning her husband Adolf Dehn.
Found within the biographical materials are several address books, official travel documents, exhibition price lists, and a biographical sketch.
Correspondence, both personal and business, makes up the bulk of this collection. Dehn maintained long friendships with many fellow artists and his correspondence includes letters from Aaron Bohrod, Federico Castellon, Albert Christ-Janer, Wanda Gág, Gustav Goetsch, George Grosz, Reginald Marsh, Elizabeth Olds, Abraham Rattner, Boardman Robinson, Frederick Shane, William Smith, and Benton Spruance. Additional notable correspondents include print dealer and curator Carl Zigrosser; journalists Max Eastman, Joseph Freeman, Frederick Kuh; editor Scofield Thayer, and his former wife, the Russian dancer Mura Dehn (neé Tsiperovitch). Business correspondence includes letters from art schools, associations, museums, and galleries affiliated with Dehn, including the Weyhe Gallery; Associated American Artists, a gallery that promoted American art to the middle classes; and the Kennedy Gallery, which represented the Dehn estate upon the artist's death. There is also correspondence from companies and organizations that commissioned commercial work from Dehn, such as greeting card publisher, American Artists Group . Finally the correspondence of Virginia Dehn includes letters to and from the University of Missouri Press related to the publication of Adolf Dehn Drawings and condolence cards and letters from friends and associates after the Adolf Dehn's death in May 1968.
Writings include manuscripts for Adolf Dehn's manual on painting technique, Watercolor, Gouache, and Casein Painting (Studio Publications, 1955), as well as his entries on technique and watercolor painting for Encyclopedia Britannica. Writings by others includes the catalog Adolf Dehn Drawings, prepared by his wife Virginia Dehn, and published in 1971 by the University of Missouri Press. There is also a journal with handwritten poems attributed to Eileen Hall Lake.
Printed materials consists of exhibition announcements and catalogs from galleries featuring Dehn's work including the Weyhe Gallery and Associated American Artists; art school brochures and newsletters from programs which Dehn attended or taught; and newspaper and magazine clippings including examples of his editorial cartoons, which appeared in The Liberator, The New Yorker, and Vanity Fair, among other publications as well as clippings of news items related to the artist. This series also includes examples of Dehn's commercial work, such as book covers, calendars, and Christmas cards. Additional similar printed materials can be found in the scrapbooks. Artwork consists of only a few sketches attributed to Dehn, others to Eileen Lake Hall, and an etching by S.W. Hayter.
Dehn is well documented through numerous photographs, both alone and with others, including a portrait by the renowned photographer André Kertész. Additional vintage photographs include Dehn with family members, friends, and a series of photographs taken with his wife, Virginia Dehn at Atelier Desjobert, where he had been making lithographs since the 1920s.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into 8 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1920-1968 (Box 1; 10 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1919-1982 (Boxes 1-4; 3.75 linear feet)
Series 3: Writings, circa 1920-1971 (Boxes 4-5; 0.25 linear feet)
Series 4: Financial Records, 1936-1965 (Box 5; 0.5 linear feet)
Series 5: Printed Materials, circa 1915-1987 (Boxes 5-6; 1.2 linear feet)
Series 6: Scrapbooks, 1912-1968(Boxes 6-7; 0.5 linear feet)
Series 7: Artwork, circa 1920-1945 (Box 6; 3 folders)
Series 8: Photographs, circa 1912-1961 (Boxes 6 and 8; 7 folders)
Biographical Note:
Adolf Dehn (1895-1968) was well-known for his drawings, lithographs and watercolors which satirically chronicled the social and political milieu of his times, as well as poetic landscapes, many of which depicted the rolling hills and farmlands of his native Midwest. Although he worked mostly in New York, Dehn also spent substantial time traveling and working in Europe, the Middle East, South America, and the American mid-west.
Dehn was born on a farm in Waterville, Minnesota on November 22, 1895, he began his formal art education in 1914 at the Minneapolis School of Art (currently known as the Minneapolis College of Art and Design). As a student, his drawings were featured in the school's humor journal, The Minne-Ha-Ha and by 1917 he had published his first drawing in one of his favorite political journals, The Masses. Later that year he and fellow Minneapolis School of Art student Wanda Gág were among a select group of art students nationwide who won scholarships to the Art Students League of New York. After only eight months in New York, however, Dehn was drafted into the Army to serve in the final months of World War I, but he proclaimed himself as a conscientious objector and was sent to Camp Wadsworth in South Carolina for several months.
Dehn returned to New York, where his friend and mentor Boardman Robinson introduced him to lithography through the master printer George Miller and brought him to the Weyhe Gallery to meet Carl Zigrosser, an avid supporter of American printmakers. However, he soon left New York for Europe in September 1921 where he spent most of the following eight years. There he traveled with his sketchbooks to the cafes and opera houses of Berlin, Paris, and Vienna, as well as on hiking trips in the Alps. He became friends with the poet E.E. Cummings, Scofield Thayer, editor of The Dial, who published many of his drawings, and met the German artist, George Grosz, whose work he so admired. In addition to The Dial, his satirical drawings of jazz-age entertainments and European cafe life also appeared in , The Liberator, Jugend, Vanity Fair, and Simplicissimus. Finally during his stint in Europe, Dehn met and married the Russian dancer Mura Tsiperovitch. They were married in Vienna in 1926, but divorced sometime in the early 1930s.
Unfortunately Dehn's return to the United States coincided with the Great Depression of 1929 and sales of his work were slim. However in the 1930s, The New Yorker and Vogue began to publish his work. He continued to work in lithography and returned to Paris to work at the Atelier Desjobert, the print studio with whom he worked most closely throughout his life. In the late 1930s, Dehn began working in watercolors, mostly rural landscapes, and had a one man show of works in his new medium at Weyhe Gallery in 1938. In 1939 Dehn traveled through the Southwest and Mexico on his first Guggenheim Fellowship (he was awarded his second in 1951).
By the 1940s Dehn was an active member of both the American Artists Group and Associated American Artists; both organizations sought to popularize contemporary American Art, primarily through reproductions of fine art prints and commercial use of artists' designs on greeting card, calendars, and even wall paper. Appreciation for his lithographs and watercolors grew, and along with it his recognition. He also taught art classes a few summers; in the late 1930s at Stephens College, Columbia, Missouri where his friend Albert Janner-Christ was head of the art department and in the early 1940s at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, where friend and mentor Boardman Robinson was the director. In 1955 he published Watercolor, Gouache, and Casein Painting, a manual on technique. Throughout the rest of his life he continued to travel, not only returning to Europe, but also visiting Afganistan, Cuba, Haiti, and a trip to Venuzuala on assignment from Standard Oil to document the oil industry there. On many of his later trips, he was accompanied by his wife, fellow artist, Virginia Engleman Dehn, whom he had married in November 1947.
Near the end of his long career, Dehn was elected in 1961 to the National Academy of Design as a full academician. He was later elected to the National Academy of Arts and Letters. After his death in 1968, his wife Virginia worked with the University of Missouri Press on the catalog Adolf Dehn Drawings (Columbia: University of Missouri, 1971).
Separated Material:
The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming. Reel 287 contains printed materials, including exhibition announcements, catalogs, magazines, and newspaper and magazine clippings. After filming, these materials were transferred to the Smithsonian American Art Museum/National Portrait Gallery Library. Reels 2938-2939 include 750 letters from Adolf Dehn to various family members. This material was returned to the lender and is not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
The Adolf Dehn papers were donated in several installments from 1966 to 1985 by Adolf Dehn and his wife Virginia. Dehn's sisters, Viola Dehn Tiala and Olivia Dehn Mitchell, separately donated additional materials in 1971 and 1972. Olivia Dehn Mitchell also loaned the Archives letters from Adolf in 1983 for microfilming. Finally in 1989, Lillian Morrison, a friend and editor, donated a published book of Mura Dehn's poetry and a four page draft of a letter signed by Adolf Dehn.
Restrictions:
Use of originals 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 Alexander Archipenko papers measure 19.5 linear feet and date from 1904 to 1986, with the bulk of materials dating from 1930 to 1964. The sculptor's personal and professional life is documented by correspondence, financial records, scrapbooks, printed matter, and photographs documenting his art, exhibitions, travel, teaching activities, and the Archipenko Art School. Archipenko wrote and lectured extensively about his philosophies of art and the relationship between art and nature. The papers include drafts, notes, and final manuscripts of published and unpublished writings, and notes, outlines, transcripts, and audio recordings of some of his lectures.
Scope and Content Note:
The Alexander Archipenko papers measure 19.5 linear feet and date from 1904 to 1986, with the bulk of materials dating from 1930 to 1964. The sculptor's personal and professional life is documented by correspondence, financial records, scrapbooks, printed matter, and photographs documenting his art, exhibitions, travel, teaching activities, and the Archipenko Art School. Archipenko wrote and lectured extensively about his philosophies of art and the relationship between art and nature. The papers include drafts, notes, and final manuscripts of published and unpublished writings, and notes, outlines, transcripts, and audio recordings of some of his lectures.
Correspondence concerns both personal and professional matters. Among Archipenko's personal correspondents are relatives and friends in the Ukraine, his wife Angelica during her extended stays in Mexico and California, and other women. Professional correspondence is with dealers, curators, scholars, collectors, colleges and universities concerning exhibitions, sales and commissions, loans, and teaching and lecture engagements.
Archipenko wrote and lectured extensively about his philosophy of art, art in nature, and theories concerning creativity and the universe. His papers include manuscripts, drafts, notes and supporting materials for his book published in 1960, Archipenko: Fifty Creative Years, 1908-1958. Similar documentation of unpublished writings, as well as notes, outlines, and some transcripts of lectures and talks are also in the series.
Records concerning the Archipenko Art School are sparse, with only one photograph of students in Berlin, 1921. Surviving records include printed matter, a cashbook, student roster, and scrapbook containing photographs, printed matter, and a typescript copy of a statement by Archipenko, "How I Teach." Most of this material focuses on the New York and Woodstock schools, with only a few items concerning Chicago. In addition, files regarding Archipenko's teaching activities at schools other than his own include course descriptions, student rosters, grades, and printed matter.
Financial records consist of banking records, paid bills, and miscellaneous items. Paid bills include invoices and receipts for art supplies, shipping, and storage. Among the miscellaneous items are price lists, royalties paid by the Museum of Modern Art for Woman Combing Her Hair, and sales records.
Nine scrapbooks contain clippings, exhibition announcements and catalogs, lecture notices, advertisements and brochures of the Archipenko Art School, and a small number of photographs. Printed matter consists primarily of clippings about Archipenko and exhibition catalogs with related announcements and invitations. Miscellaneous items include books about Archipenko, catalogs of museum collections containing works by Archipenko, and reproductions. Of special interest is a brochure about the Multiplex Advertising Machine that bears a similarity to the Archipentura, an "apparatus for displaying Changeable Pictures" Archipenko invented circa 1924 and patented in 1927.
Photographs are of people, Archipenko's travels and miscellaneous places, exhibitions, works of art, events, and miscellaneous subjects. Five photograph albums mainly document travels. Slides and transparencies include black and white lantern slides probably used to illustrate lectures.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 10 series. Lantern slides and glass plates are housed separately and closed to researchers, but listed where they fall intellectually within the collection.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1908-1964 (0.5 linear feet; Box 1, OV 28)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1922-1970 (4.1 linear feet; Boxes 1-5)
Series 3: Subject Files, 1940-1958 (6 folders; Box 5)
Series 4: Writings, 1923-1971 (3.2 linear feet; Boxes 5-8, Film can FC 30)
Series 5: Teaching, 1921-1952 (0.8 linear feet; Box 9, Film cans FC 31-33)
Series 6: Financial Records, 1923-1971 (1.5 linear feet; Box 9-10)
Series 7: Scrapbooks, 1910-1961 (1.2 linear feet; Boxes 22-25)
Series 8: Printed Material, 1913-1987 (3.7 linear feet; Boxes 11-14, 26, OV 29)
Series 9: Miscellaneous, 1916-1966 (0.5 linear feet; Box 14, 16, Film can FC 34)
Series 10: Photographic Material, 1904-1964 (3.6 linear feet; Boxes 14-15, 17-21, 26-27)
Biographical Note:
Alexander Archipenko (1887-1964) was the son of an engineer/inventor and grandson of an icon painter. Among the first modern sculptors of the 20th century to be associated with the Cubist movement, Archipenko was known for his innovative use of concave space. His major contribution was the realization of negative form through use of a hole to create a contrast of solid and void. His sculpto-paintings united form and color; begun in 1912, these polychromed constructions are among the earliest mixed-media works known, and sometimes incorporated objects. Eventually, his Cubist-inspired work evolved into the simplified, abstract shapes for which he is best known. Although known primarily as a sculptor, Archipenko produced paintings, drawings, and prints as well.
At age 15, Archipenko began studying art at the University of Kiev in his native city; he was expelled three years later for criticizing the teachers. He then went to Moscow where he worked on his own and exhibited in several group shows; his first solo exhibition was held in the Ukraine in 1906.
Archipenko made Paris his home from 1908 until the outbreak of World War I. Soon after his arrival, he enrolled in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts; this association lasted but two weeks, and marked the end of Archipenko's formal training. He continued to study art by spending large amounts of time visiting art museums and painting on his own. During this period, he began exhibiting in the Salon des Independents with the Cubists, and as a member of the "Section d'Or" participated in that group's exhibitions. His first one-man exhibition in Germany was held at the Folkwant Museum (1912) and his work was featured in the Armory Show (1913).
In 1912, at the age of 25, Archipenko established his first art school in Paris. He spent the war years working quietly outside of Nice, and soon afterwards circulated an extensive exhibition of his works throughout Europe. In 1921, Archipenko settled in Berlin, opened an art school there, and married sculptor Angelica Bruno-Schmitz, who was known professionally as Gela Forster.
Archipenko's reputation was solidly established and the majority of his ground-breaking work - adaptation of Cubist ideas to sculpture, sculpto-paintings and incorporation of negative space in sculpture - was accomplished prior to his 1923 arrival in the United States. One of his most innovative works executed in America was the Archipentura, invented circa 1924 and patented in 1927, a machine with rolling cylinders that displayed "animated paintings" using motion and light. Other creations of note are carved Lucite sculptures, illuminated from within, that were executed in the mid-1940s.
Upon settling in the United States in 1923, Archipenko opened his art school in New York City; a summer school was established in Woodstock, New York the following year. Within a few years, Archipenko purchased land near Woodstock and began construction of a home, personal studio, and buildings for the school. At various times during the 1930s, Archipenko resided in Chicago and Los Angeles, and operated schools while living in those cities. For many years during the 1940s, Angelica served on the sculpture faculty at the Escuela de Belles Artes in San Miguel Allende, Mexico.
In addition to running his own schools, Archipenko taught at a number of colleges and universities, where he ran workshops, and served as a visiting professor. He wrote and lectured extensively about his philosophy of art and theories of creativity, publishing several articles and a book, Archipenko: Fifty Creative Years, 1908-1958 (1960).
Angelica Archipenko died in 1957. Three years later Archipenko married sculptor Frances Gray, a former student. During the early 1960s, the couple traveled extensively on a lecture tour that accompanied a solo exhibition to several German cities. Archipenko died in New York City, February 25, 1964.
The following chronology is excerpted from Alexander Archipenko: A Centennial Tribute by Katherine Janszky Michaelsen and Nehama Guralnik (National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1986) and Archipenko: The Sculpture and Graphic art, Including a Print Catalogue Raisonne by Donald Karshan, Ernst Wasmuth Verlag (Tubingen, Germany, 1974).
Missing Title
1887 -- Born to Porfiry Antonovich and Poroskovia Wassilievna Machova Archipenko in Kiev, Ukraine, Russia. Father a mechanical engineer, professor of engineering, and inventor; grandfather an icon painter.
1900 -- Studied and copied Michelangelo drawings from a book given him by his grandfather during a long confinement following a leg injury.
1902-1905 -- Painting and sculpture student in Kiev art school; expelled for criticizing his teachers.
1906 -- First one-man show in the Ukraine. Worked in Moscow and exhibited in several group shows.
1908 -- Moved to Paris and enrolled in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Quit formal art instruction after two weeks, continued to study art on his own by visiting museums.
1910 -- Exhibited in the Salon des Independants with the cubists (also in 1911-1914 and 1919).
1912 -- Opened art school in Paris. "Section d'Or" formed in Paris with Archipenko among its members. The group exhibited until 1914, and briefly after World War I. First solo exhibition in Germany, Folkwant Museum, Hagen.
1913 -- Represented in the Armory Show. Executed first prints (lithographs).
1914 -- Began making sculpto-paintings.
1914-1918 -- Spent the war years working near Nice.
1919-1920 -- Began extensive tour exhibiting his works in various European cities (Geneva, Zurich, Paris, London, Brussels, Athens, Berlin, Munich, etc.).
1920 -- One-man exhibition in the Venice Biennale.
1921 -- First solo exhibition in the United States at the Societe Anonyme, Inc., New York; a symposium, Psychology of Modern Art and Archipenko, was held during the course of the show. Moved to Berlin and opened art school. Married sculptor Angelica Bruno-Schmitz [known professionally as Gela Forster]. First print commission.
1923 -- Moved to the United States and opened art school in New York City.
1924 -- Established a summer school at Woodstock, New York.
1927 -- "Archipentura" patented ("Apparatus for displaying Changeable Pictures and methods for Decorating Changeable Display Apparatus," nos. 1,626, 946 and 1,626,497).
1928 -- Became an American citizen.
1929 -- Bought land near Woodstock, New York, and began construction of school and studio buildings.
1932 -- Lectured on his theories of creativeness at colleges and universities throughout the United States.
1933 -- Taught summer session at Mills College, Oakland, California, and Chouinard School, Los Angeles.
1935 -- Moved to Los Angeles and opened art school.
1935-1936 -- Taught summer sessions at the University of Washington, Seattle.
1936 -- Moved to Chicago and opened art school. Associate instructor at New Bauhaus School, Chicago.
1938 -- Returned to New York; reopened art school and Woodstock summer school.
1944 -- Taught at the Dalton School, New York City.
1946-1947 -- Returned to Chicago; taught at the Institute of Design.
1947 -- Began making carved plastic sculptures with internal illumination.
1950 -- Taught at University of Kansas City, Missouri.
1950-1951 -- Lecture tour of the southern cities of the United States.
1951 -- Taught at Carmel Institute of Art, California, University of Oregon, and University of Washington, Seattle.
1952 -- Taught at University of Delaware, Newark.
1953 -- Elected Associate Member of International Institute of Arts and Letters.
1955-1956 -- One-man exhibition tours in Germany (Dusseldorf, Darmstadt, Mannheim, and Recklinghausen).
1956 -- Taught at University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
1957 -- Death of Angelica.
1959 -- Awarded gold medal, XIII Biennale de'Arte Triveneta, III Concorso Internationale del Bronzetto, Padua, Italy.
1960 -- Archipenko: Fifty Creative Years, 1908-1958 by Alexander Archipenko and Fifty Art Historians published by Tekhne (a company established by Archipenko for the purpose). Married Frances Gray, a sculptor and former student. Recovered plasters of early work stored by French friends since the end of World War I. Traveling exhibition in Germany (Hagen, Münster, and Dusseldorf).
1962 -- Elected to the Department of Art, National Institute of Arts and Letters.
1964 -- Dies in New York City.
Related Material:
Among the holdings of the Archives are the Donald H. Karshan papers relating to Alexander Archipenko, originally accessioned as part of the Alexander Archipenko papers, but later separated to form a distinct collection.
The Archives also has the National Collection of Fine Arts records relating to Alexander Archipenko.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming (reels NA11-NA12, NA16-NA18, and NA 20-NA22) including biographical material, correspondence, exhibition records, writings, printed material and photographs. Loaned materials were returned to the lender and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
In 1967, the Alexander Archipenko papers, previously on deposit at Syracuse University, were loaned to the Archives of American Art for microfilming by his widow Frances Archipenko Gray. In 1982, Ms. Gray donated most of the material previously loaned and microfilmed to the Archives of American Art, along with additional items.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. research facility. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice. Lantern slides and glass plate negatives are housed separately and not served to researchers.
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.
Alexander Archipenko papers, 1904-1986, bulk 1930-1964. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art. Glass plate negatives in this collection were digitized in 2019 with funding provided by the Smithsonian Women's Committee.
Biographical materials, including certificates of U.S. citizenship, voter registration, and marriage for Sambugnac and his wife Ana; addresses of artists and construction contractors; letters from his family in Hungary, from Capital Products Inc., and the governments of Cuba and the Dominican Republic concerning sculpture commissions; notes and drawings, including blueprints of airplane designs for Pan American Airways; business records, including contracts with the U.S. Treasury Department for sculptures in U.S. post offices and courthouses; receipts for construction services and materials;
a ledger listing bills paid and medical information; printed materials on Sambugnac, his work, and other artists; and photographs of Sambugnac, of him in his studio, with his family and friends, and of his sculptures and paintings.
Biographical / Historical:
Sculptor and teacher; Florida. Born April 22, 1888 in Zemun, Yugoslavia and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1938. Studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest, Hungary and Munich, Germany before going to Paris in 1913 to study under Antoine Bourdelle. Executed sculptures in numerous post offices around the States for the U.S. Treasury Department in the 1930's. Is represented in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, a cathedral in Vienna, and the capitol in Havana. Was a member of the Architectural League of New York and the National Sculpture Society.
Provenance:
Donated 1984 by Dinorah Wilkins step-daughter of Sambugnac.
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 records of the American Federation of Arts (AFA) provide researchers with a complete set of documentation focusing on the founding and history of the organization from its inception through the 1960s. The collection measures 79.8 linear feet, and dates from 1895 through 1993, although the bulk of the material falls between 1909 and 1969. Valuable for its coverage of twentieth-century American art history, the collection also provides researchers with fairly comprehensive documentation of the many exhibitions and programs supported and implemented by the AFA to promote and study contemporary American art, both nationally and abroad.
Scope and Content Note:
The records of the American Federation of Arts (AFA) provide researchers with a complete set of documentation focusing on the founding and history of the organization from its inception through the 1960s. The collection measures 79.8 linear feet, and dates from 1895 through 1993, although the bulk of the material falls between 1909 and 1969. Valuable for its coverage of twentieth-century American art history, the collection also provides researchers with fairly comprehensive documentation of the many exhibitions and programs supported and implemented by the AFA to promote and study contemporary American art, both nationally and abroad.
The earliest documentation from 1895 to 1909 concerns the organization's history and founding and is located in Series 1: Board of Trustees. Also found in this series are meeting minutes, 1909-1963 and 1968. Interfiled with the board meeting minutes are minutes of the executive committee and other special and ad hoc committees, reports to the board, financial statements and reports, and lists of committee appointments and board membership. This series also contains the scattered correspondence and subject files of various officers. Although not a complete set of officers' files, Presidents' Frederick Allen. Whiting (1931-1936), Lawrence M.C. Smith (1948-1952), Thomas Brown Rudd (1952-1954), Daniel Longwell (1954-1956), James S. Schramm (1956-1958), and Roy R. Neuberger (1958-1961) are represented. Leila Mechlin served on AFA's board as secretary from its founding to 1929, and her files are a particularly rich resource for AFA's activities during its early years. Lawrence M.C. Smith's files documenting his years as board treasurer are also arranged in this series. Additional officers' correspondence is interspersed throughout the Alphabetical Files and other series.
General information about the scope of AFA's programs, affiliations, founding, functions, and proceedings are arranged in Series 2: Administrative Records. The first subseries, Alphabetical Files, houses a wide variety of subject files that contain memoranda, correspondence, printed materials, lists, reports, and other papers. These files document the AFA's general history and founding, organizational affiliations, buildings and moves, grants, federal and state government art programs, auctions and other fund-raising efforts, publicity and public relations, publications, and fiftieth anniversary celebration. The subject headings by which these files are arranged are, for the most part, the ones designated by the AFA. The second subseries, Staff Records, houses the scattered files of AFA's director, assistant director, registrar, and special state representative, Robert Luck.
During its most active period, the AFA sponsored or participated in several special programs and Series 3: Special Programs houses the files that document many of them. The first subseries consists of the files for the Artists in Residence program that was funded by the Ford Foundation. Awarded in 1963, the grant sponsored short-term teaching residencies for artists in museums throughout the United States. The host museums were encouraged to hold exhibitions of the artists' works. This subseries contains both the general files of the program, as well as individual files on the participating artists. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, the AFA and the Ford Foundation also sponsored additional programs for artists, including Grants in Aid, Purchase Awards, and the Retrospective Exhibitions Program. The files documenting these three programs are also arranged in Series 3, under the subseries Ford Foundation Program for Visual Artists. In the late 1950s, the AFA implemented the Museum Donor Program with benefactors and philanthropists Audrey Bruce Currier and Stephen Richard Currier. Through the administration of the AFA, the Curriers donated funds to selected institutions specifically for the purchase of contemporary American art. The Curriers preferred to remain anonymous throughout the program. Files documenting this program include correspondence, applications from the accepted institutions, rejections, a summary report, and clippings about the untimely deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Currier in 1967.
Also found in Series 3 are the files documenting AFAs working relationship with the first state arts council, the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA). In 1961, AFA and NYSCA implemented a traveling exhibition program in New York State. Found here are files for possible itineraries, proposals, publicity, loans, budgets, and the actual exhibition files. Additional AFA special programs documented in Series 3 include the Picture of the Month program of the mid-1950s and the Jean Tennyson Foundation Color Slide Lecture Program.
AFA Annual Convention files constitute Series 4. Beginning with the Third Annual Convention in 1912 and continuing through the 1963 Annual Convention, the files contain official proceedings, speeches, programs, clippings, correspondence, and press releases. Files are missing for 1913, 1915, 1918, 1922, 1923, 1925, 1926, 1931, 1936-1949, 1952, 1956, 1958, 1960, and 1962. There are also audio recordings in the form of reel-to-reel tapes for the 1951 Annual Convention.
Series 5: Exhibition Files forms the bulk of the collection at circa 62 linear feet and is arranged into twenty subseries. The first subseries, Exhibitions, General, houses primarily the records of the Board of Trustees Exhibition Committee and documents the AFA's earliest involvement with traveling exhibitions. These files contain reports, budgets, correspondence, memoranda, scattered exhibition catalogs, and photographs. They are primarily the files of the chair of the Exhibition Committee and include the files of Juliana R. Force, Eloise Spaeth, and Mrs. John Pope. Also found in this series is a subseries of Mrs. John Pope's records documenting circulating exhibitions from 1934 to 1955, arranged by state.
The remaining nineteen subseries of the Exhibition Files reflect either specific exhibition programs, many of which have unique numbers assigned by AFA to individual exhibitions, or other exhibition-related files, such rejected, canceled, and suggested exhibitions and miscellaneous installation photographs. The Annual Exhibitions files constitute the largest of the subseries and are numbered according to the system assigned by AFA, following a typical chronological order. Although the documentation for each exhibition varies widely by both type and amount, most of the files contain contracts and legal agreements, correspondence, memoranda, itinerary information, condition reports, publicity materials, catalogs, announcements, price lists, and other such information arranged into one or more files. The files were labeled "documentation files," "dispersal files," "report form files," "loan agreement files," and "publicity files" according to the filing system devised by AFA. Many of the files also house a significant amount of correspondence with museum officials, lenders, and artists.
Additional subseries document AFA's exhibition venues and partnerships with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the New York State Council on the [UNK] Life magazine, and Addison Gallery. A complete list of all of the subseries, including specific exhibition programs, follows in the Series Outline.
The final three series of the collection are small: Printed Material, Miscellaneous Files, and Oversized Material. The printed material was donated much later to the Archives and dates from 1990 to 1993. Found here are scattered press releases, annual reports, and an exhibition program. Miscellaneous Files contain scattered records, 1926-1962, of the Architectural League of New York relating to national award programs. It is not clear why this small group of Architectural League records was found mixed with the AFA records but perhaps the collaboration between the two organizations on several special projects provides an explanation. Also found in Miscellaneous Files is a group of black and white lantern slides from a lecture series, "New Horizons in America." Oversized Material includes a portfolio, a work of art, and posters.
See Appendix for a list of artists exhibiting with the American Federation of Arts
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into eight primary series based primarily on administrative units or program areas. Several of the series are further subdivided into subseries. While processing, it became clear that the two filing systems were redundant and overlapped in both subject area and type of material. Most of these files were subsequently merged into the now broader Alphabetical Files or into separate series. Oversized material may be found at the end of the collection arranged in a separate series.
In most cases, files related to one another by subseries or subject areas (in the case of the Alphabetical Files) or by individual name (in the case of officers and staff files) are arranged in chronological order. The entire subseries of Alphabetical Files in Series 2 is arranged by subject heading, as assigned by the AFA, or individual name. The Alphabetical Files originally formed two broad filing systems as established by the AFA: one for general correspondence arranged by subject; and one for director's and other staff correspondence, also arranged by subject.
Series 1: Board of Trustees, circa 1895-1968 (Boxes 1-3)
Series 2: Administrative Records, 1910-1966 (Boxes 4-8)
Series 3: Special Programs, 1950-1967 (Boxes 9-13)
Series 4: Annual Conventions, 1912-1963 (Boxes 14-16)
Series 5: Exhibition Files, 1934-1969 (Boxes 17-78)
Series 6: Printed Material, 1990-1993 (Box 78)
Series 7: Miscellaneous Files, 1926-1962, undated (Box 79)
Series 8: Oversized Materials, 1890, undated (Boxes 80-85)
Historical Note:
Founded in 1909 by Elihu Root, the American Federation of Arts (AFA) exists today as a national nonprofit museum service organization striving to unite American art institutions, collectors, artists, and museums. Elihu Root, then secretary of state in the administration of Theodore Roosevelt, spoke of his idea at the first meeting of the AFA held in New York at the National Academy of Arts. He envisioned an organization that would promote American art most often seen only by the elite in the major cities of the East and upper Midwest by sending "exhibitions of original works of art on tour through the hinterlands across the United States."
The American Academy in Rome, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, and Metropolitan Museum of Art were influential organizing member institutions. Individual members included such notables as William Merritt Chase, Charles L. Freer, Daniel C. French, Charles L. Hutchinson, Henry Cabot Lodge, J.P. Morgan, and Henry Walters. The founding of the AFA provided the American art world with a forum for communication and participation among artists, cultural institutions, patrons of the arts, and the public.
To accomplish its mission, the AFA established volunteer committees for membership, exhibitions, and publications. During its first year, the AFA began publishing Art and Progress (later changed to Magazine of Art) and the American Art Annual (now the American Art Directory). In 1909, the AFA also organized its first traveling exhibition, Paintings by Prominent American Artists, which was shown at museums in Fort Worth, New Orleans, Minneapolis, and New Ulm, Minnesota.
By the end of the first year, the headquarters of the organization moved to Washington, D.C., to facilitate lobbying the federal government for favorable art legislation. In 1913, the AFA lobbied successfully for the removal of the tariff on foreign art entering the United States. In 1916, the Federation met with the Interstate Commerce Commission to protest prohibitively high interstate taxes on traveling art exhibitions.
Throughout the next fifteen years, the AFA continued to grow in membership and influence. By 1919, membership included 438 institutions and 2,900 individuals. The AFA's annual conventions were held in major national art centers and were attended by members, chapter delegates, and the public. At the conventions, scholars, patrons, and curators lectured on and discussed subjects of national interest, thereby fostering an exchange of ideas. The AFA also sponsored periodic regional conferences to promote institutional cooperation and to discuss mutual problems and needs. To facilitate exhibition venues west of the Mississippi River, in 1921 the AFA opened regional offices at the University of Nebraska and at Stanford University. The AFA produced and circulated slide programs and lecture series to museums and educational institutions that fostered art education. By 1929, the Federation had developed forty-six slide-lecture programs that covered American mural painting, European and American contemporary art, and textiles.
During the 1930s, the Federation expanded its services by providing schools with teaching guides, student workbooks, slides, and films about art. In 1935, the AFA began publishing Who's Who in American Art, later publishing The Official Directory of Illustrators and Advertising Artists and Films on Art reference guides. To reach an even larger audience, the AFA began collaborating with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to organize national circulating exhibitions to "bring the museum to the people."
One of AFA's priorities was to make American art more visible abroad. The Federation focused on encouraging the representation of American artists in foreign exhibitions, and in 1924 it lobbied successfully for additional American participation in the Venice Biennale. The AFA's focus on exhibiting American art abroad continued to expand, particularly following World War II. In 1950, recognizing that the AFA could assist in promoting American culture, the State Department awarded the AFA a grant for a German "re-orientation program" consisting of educational exhibitions shown in German museums. Additional government funding further enabled the AFA to organize American participation in exhibitions in India, Japan, Paris, Switzerland, and Rotterdam between 1950 and 1970. Later, the AFA collaborated with the United States Information Agency (USIA) to create the Overseas Museum Donor Program which permitted donations of American art to foreign institutions on a restriction-free, tax-deductible basis. During the 1950s, the AFA was a very active member of the Committee on Government and Art, a national committee with members from across the art and museum world concerned with government sponsorship of and legislation affecting art sales, commissions, and trade.
In 1952, the headquarters of the AFA returned to New York, sparking a period of innovation and expanded of programs. Throughout the 1950s, the AFA distributed films about art and co-sponsored the Films on Art Festival in Woodstock, New York. The AFA also introduced its Picture of the Month Program in 1954, renting original works of art to small American art and educational institutions. In 1956, the AFA organized the Art Collectors Club of America to provide fellowship for art collectors through meetings and activities. The club disbanded in the 1970s.
The Federation's exhibition programs continued to flourish during the 1950s and 1960s. Private and public financial support allowed the AFA to achieve many of its goals. In 1958, the Ford Foundation awarded an important grant to organize a series of traveling one-person shows and a series of monographs devoted to contemporary American artists. Milton Avery, Andrew Dasburg, José DeCreeft, Lee Gatch, Walter Quirt, Abraham Rattner, and others were among the artists who participated. Private foundation support for the AFA's Museum Donor Program provided an annual allowance that was distributed to regional museums for the pourchase of contemporary American art. Cooperative programs and joint venues also became popular during this period. For example, public support from the New York State Council on the Arts allowed the AFA to circulate exhibitions to small New York State communities, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts provided the AFA with five exhibitions for national tours.
Throughout its history, the American Federation of Arts has concentrated on its founding principle of broadening the audience for contemporary American art. Through its numerous exhibition and film programs, the AFA has succeeded in "breaking down barriers of distance and language to broaden the knowledge and appreciation of art." Annual exhibitions such as New Talent in the USA and Art Schools USA, organized by the AFA, brought before the public the most contemporary American artists and craftspeople, genres, and artistic forms of experimentation, exposing viewers to new ways of thinking and expression. In 1965, AFA produced The Curriculum in Visual Education, a series of films created to heighten the aesthetic awareness of children.
A vital part of American art history, the AFA was one of the first organizations to develop successfully the concept of traveling art exhibitions on a national and international level. The AFA was instrumental in assisting museums with circulating important juried exhibitions of contemporary art, such as the Whitney Annual and Corcoran Biennial. The AFA also recognized the importance of the exchange of cultural ideas, and it brought exhibitions of the European masters to the American public as well as exhibitions focusing on foreign contempoorary art, photography, and architecture. Many organizations and museums have followed the AFA's precedent, and traveling national and international venues are now commonplace.
Since 1909, women have served as officers and members of the Board of Trustees. Leila Mechlin was a founding participant and served as secretary from 1909 to 1933. Juliana R. Force and Eloise Spaeth both chaired the Exhibition Committee in the late 1940s. Women and artists of diverse backgrounds and nationalities were widely represented in the AFA's exhibition programs, most notably during the 1960s. In 1960, the AFA organized, with financial support from the Ford Foundation, a major Jacob Lawrence retrospective. Additional culturally diverse exhibitions included Contemporary Jewish Ceremonial Art (1961), The Heart of India (1962), 1,000 Years of American Indian Art (1963), and Ten Negro Artists from the United States (1966).
The AFA also had an impact on patronage in the arts. AFA exhibitions of contemporary art provided collectors with knowledge of new artists and avant-garde art forms, creating a broader demand and market for this type of work. Museums and collectors began purchasing work by new or obscure American artists whom they learned about through AFA exhibitions and programs.
The historical records of the American Federation of Arts offer the researcher a unique opportunity to study the development of American art and artists in the twentieth century as well as providing insight into trends in American culture.
Missing Title
1909 -- Founded in New York City. Began publishing Art and Progress (later retitled Magazine of Art) and the American Art Annual.
1910 -- Moved headquarters to Washington, D.C.
1913 -- Lobbied successfully for the removal of the tariff on art entering the United States.
1915-1916 -- Lobbied successfully against the Cummins Amendment and the Interstate Commerce Commission's prohibitively high interstate tax on traveling art.
1920 -- Organized a lobbying campaign for the development of a national gallery of art at its national convention.
1921 -- Opened two new offices at the University of Nebraska and at Stanford University.
1924 -- Arranged American participation in the Venice Biennale exhibition.
1927 -- Closed office at Stanford University.
1929 -- Organized American participation in exhibitions in France and Germany.
1933 -- Closed office at the University of Nebraska.
1935 -- Began publishing Who's Who in American Art.
1948 -- Published The Official Directory of Illustrators and Advertising Artists.
1949 -- Collaborated with the Metropolitan Museum of Art to circulate exhibitions from its collections.
1950 -- Participated in the U.S. government's German re-orientation program.
1951 -- Joined forces with the United States Information Agency (USIA) to create the Overseas Museum Donor Program. Published the reference guide Films on Art. Co-sponsored the Films on Art Festival in Woodstock, New York, through 1957.
1952 -- Moved headquarters to New York City.
1953 -- Magazine of Art liquidated.
1954 -- Introduced the Picture of the Month Program.
1956 -- Founded the Art Collectors Club of America.
1958 -- Received a Ford Foundation grant to finance a series of one-person shows of contemporary American artists.
1960 -- Created the Museum Donor Program.
1961 -- Received a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts to circulate exhibitions to small New York state communities.
1963 -- Received a grant from the Ford Foundation for the Artists in Residence program.
1964 -- Introduced the List Art Poster Program.
1965 -- Produced The Curriculum in Visual Education, a series of films that attempted to heighten the aesthetic awareness of children.
Appendix: List of Artists Exhibiting with American Federation of Arts:
The following is an alphabetical list of artists who exhibited with the American Federation of Arts; many are obscure. The alpha-numeric codes and numbers appearing with the artist's name represent specific AFA exhibition programs and, most often, AFA's exhibition numbering system. In cases where the AFA did not assign an exhibition number, Archives' staff have done so.
The primary reference source for the names and name variants is the American Federation of Arts Records. The names are documented in handwritten notes and lists, typed lists, and exhibition catalogs and announcements. The Archives of American Art name authority file was also consulted in questionable cases. The majority of names, however, were not found in either the AAA name authority file or standard bibliographic resources, and only in the AFA records.
Examples:
55-1: AFA annual exhibitions program
AD-1: Addison Gallery exhibitions
L-1: Life Magazine Exhibitions
ME-1: Misceallaneous exhibitions (numbers assigned by AAA staff)
NMA-1: Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibitions
NE-96: Contemporary Color Lithography
NY-1: New York State Council on the Arts exhibitions
VA-1: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts exhibitions
Missing Title
A. Quincy Jones, Frederick E. Emmons & Assoc: 62-34
The records of the American Federation of Arts (AFA) were donated to the Archives of American Art (AAA) over a thirteen-year period, with the bulk of the material arriving between 1964 and 1966. In 1979, Preston Bolton donated his letters and those from John de Menil, Ann Drevet, Lee Malone, and others regarding planning for the 1957 AFA annual convention held in Houston, Texas; convention committee minutes from 1956; and AFA newsletters. This material, as well as a 1979 gift from Louise Ferrari of transcripts from a panel discussion from the 1957 AFA convention in Houston, was microfilmed on AAA Reel 1780. All material previously microfilmed on Reel 1780 has been fully integrated into the collection and arranged within proper series and subseries. The provenance of the 1990-1993 printed material is unknown.
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