Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Walker Hancock, 1977 July 22-August 15. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Topic:
Sculptors -- Massachusetts -- Gloucester -- Interviews Search this
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Dale and Doug Anderson, 2005 July 21-22. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Topic:
Art -- Collectors and collecting -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews Search this
Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America Search this
Type:
Interviews
Sound recordings
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Rosanne Somerson, 2006 August 7 and 2007 June 22. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America Search this
Type:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Ron Kent, 2010 April 20-22. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
The papers of the painter, muralist, and illustrator John White Alexander measure 11.9 linear feet and date from 1775 to 1968, with the bulk of materials dating from 1870 to 1915. Papers document Alexander's artistic career and many connections to figures in the art world through biographical documentation, correspondence (some illustrated), writings, 14 sketchbooks, additonal artwork and loose sketches, scrapbooks, photographs, awards and medals, artifacts, and other records. Also found is a souvenir engraving of a Mark Twain self-portrait.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of the painter, muralist, and illustrator John White Alexander measure 11.9 linear feet and date from 1775 to 1968, with the bulk of materials dating from 1870 to 1915. Papers document Alexander's artistic career and many connections to figures in the art world through biographical documentation, correspondence (some illustrated), writings, 14 sketchbooks, additonal artwork and loose sketches, scrapbooks, photographs, awards and medals, artifacts, and other records. Also found is a souvenir engraving of a Mark Twain self-portrait.
Biographical Information includes multiple essays related to Alexander, his family, and others in his circle. Also found is an extensive oral history of Alexander's wife Elizabeth conducted in 1928. Correspondence includes letters written by Alexander to his family from New York and Europe at the start of his career, and later letters from fellow artists, art world leaders, and portrait sitters of Alexander's. Significant correspondents include Charles Dana Gibson, Florence Levy, Frederick Remington, Robert Louis Stevenson, Henry James, John La Farge, Francis Davis Millet, and Andrew Carnegie. Correspondence includes some small sketches as enclosures and illustrated letters.
Certificates and records related to Alexander's career are found in Associations and Memberships, Legal and Financial Records, and Notes and Writings, which contain documentation of Alexander's paintings and exhibitions. Scattered documentation of Alexander's memberships in various arts association exists for the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Academy in Rome, the National Academy of Design, the Onteora Club in New York, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, Germany, the Ministère de L'Instruction Publique et des Beaux-Arts, the Union Internationale des Beaux Arts et des Lettres, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Notes and Writings include speeches written by Alexander, short stories and essays written by his wife, and articles by various authors about Alexander. Extensive documentation of the planning and construction of the Alexander Memorial Studio by the MacDowell Club is found, along with other awards, medals, and memorial resolutions adopted by arts organizations after Alexander's death.
Artwork includes fourteen sketchbooks with sketches related to Alexander's commercial illustration and cartooning, murals, paintings, and travels. Dozens of loose drawings and sketches are also found, along with two volumes and several dozen loose reproductions of artwork, among which are found fine prints by named printmakers. Many sketches are also interspersed throughout the correspondence. Eight Scrapbooks contain mostly clippings, but also scattered letters, exhbition catalogs, announcements, invitations, and photographs related to Alexander's career between 1877 and 1915. Additional Exhibition Catalogs and later clippings, as well as clippings related to the career of his wife and other subjects, are found in Printed Materials.
Photographs include many portraits of Alexander taken by accomplished photographers such as Zaida Ben-Yusuf, Aimé Dupont, Curtis Bell, Elizabeth Buehrmann, and several signed Miss Huggins, who may have been Estelle Huntington Huggins, a New York painter and photographer. Portraits of others include Alexander's friends William Merritt Chase and Edward Austin Abbey. Also found are photographs of groups, juries, family, friends, and studios in New York, Paris, and New Jersey, and a handful of scenic photographs of Polling, Bavaria, where Alexander had an early studio. A large number of photographs of works of art are found, many with annotations. Among the photographs of murals are a small collection of snapshots of the Carnegie Institute murals in progress. Miscellaneous artifacts include a palette, several printing plates, and an inscribed souvenir engraving of a self-portrait caricature of Mark Twain.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into 11 series. Glass plate negatives are housed separately and closed to researchers.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Information, circa 1887-1968 (Box 1, OV 23; 0.1 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, circa 1870-1942 (Box 1; 0.7 linear feet)
Series 3: Associations and Memberships, circa 1897-1918 (Box 1; 2 folders)
Series 4: Legal and Financial Records, 1775, 1896-1923 (Box 1; 5 folders)
Series 5: Notes and Writings, circa 1875-1943 (Boxes 1-2; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 6: Awards and Memorials, circa 1870-1944 (Box 2, OV 24; 0.8 linear feet)
Series 7: Artwork, circa 1875-1915 (Boxes 2-3, 6, 14-16, OV 23; 1.5 linear feet)
Series 8: Scrapbooks, circa 1877-1915 (Boxes 17-22; 1.8 linear feet)
Series 9: Printed Materials, circa 1891-1945 (Boxes 3-4, OV 23; 1.5 linear feet)
Series 10: Photographs, circa 1870-1915 (Boxes 4-8, MGP 1-2, OV 25-43, RD 44-45; 4.2 linear feet)
Series 11: Artifacts, circa 1899-1915 (Box 6, artifact cabinet; 0.4 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
John White Alexander was born in 1856 in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania. He was orphaned at age five and taken in by relatives of limited means. When Alexander left school and began working at a telegraph company, the company's vice-president, former civil war Colonel Edward Jay Allen, took an interest in his welfare. Allen became his legal guardian, brought him into the Allen household, and saw that he finished Pittsburgh High School. At eighteen, he moved to New York City and was hired by Harper and Brothers as an office boy in the art department. He was soon promoted to apprentice illustrator under staff artists such as Edwin A. Abbey and Charles Reinhart. During his time at Harpers, Alexander was sent out on assignment to illustrate events such as the Philadelphia Centennial celebration in 1876 and the Pittsburgh Railroad Strike in 1877, which erupted in violence.
Alexander carefully saved money from his illustration work and traveled to Europe in 1877 for further art training. He first enrolled in the Royal Art Academy of Munich, Germany, but soon moved to the village of Polling, where a colony of American artists was at its peak in the late 1870s. Alexander established a painting studio there and stayed for about a year. Despite his absence from the Munich Academy, he won the medal of the drawing class for 1878, the first of many honors. While in Polling, he became acquainted with J. Frank Currier, Frank Duveneck, William Merritt Chase, and other regular visitors to the colony. He later shared a studio and taught a painting class in Florence with Duveneck and traveled to Venice, where he met James Abbott McNeill Whistler.
Alexander returned to New York in 1881 and resumed his commercial artwork for Harpers and Century. Harpers sent him down the Mississippi river to complete a series of sketches. He also began to receive commissions for portraits, and in the 1880s painted Charles Dewitt Bridgman, a daughter of one of the Harper brothers, Parke Godwin, Thurlow Weed, Walt Whitman, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. Alexander met his wife Elizabeth, whose maiden name was also Alexander, through her father, James W. Alexander, who was sometimes mistaken for the artist. Elizabeth and John White Alexander married in 1887 and had a son, James, in 1888.
Alexander and his family sailed for France in 1890, where they became a part of the lively literary and artistic scene in Paris at the time. Among their many contacts there were Puvis de Chavannes, Auguste Rodin, and Whistler, who arrived in Paris shortly thereafter. Alexander absorbed the new aesthetic ideas around him such as those of the symbolists and the decorative style of art nouveau. Critics often note how such ideas are reflected in his boldly composed paintings of women from this period, who titles drew attention to the sensual and natural elements of the paintings. His first exhibition in Paris was three paintings at the Société Nationale des Beaux Arts in 1893, and by 1895 he has become a full member of the Société.
Independent and secession artist societies emerged throughout Europe during this period, and Alexander exhibited with several of them, including the Société Nouvelle in Paris, the Munich Secession, and the Vienna Secession. He was also elected an honorary member of the Royal Society of Belgian Artists and the Royal Society of British Painters in London. His exhibited works sold well, and his influence began to be felt back in the United States. Andrew Carnegie and John Beatty of the Carnegie Institute consulted closely with Alexander in the planning and execution of the first Carnegie International Exhibitions. Alexander also became active in supporting younger American artists who wanted to exhibit in Europe, a stance which resulted in his resignation from the Society of American Artists in Paris, which he felt had become a barrier to younger artists. His promotion of American art became an central aspect of his career for the remainder of his life, most visibly through his presidency of the National Academy of Design from 1909 until shortly before his death in 1915. He also served frequently on juries for high-profile exhibitions, and was a trustee at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Public Library, and the national Institute of Arts and Letters. Around 1912, he helped to form the School Art League in New York, which provided art instruction to high school students.
Alexander returned to the United States nearly every summer while based in Paris, and among his commissioned paintings were murals for the newly-constructed Library of Congress, completed around 1896. In 1901, the Alexanders returned to New York permanently. The demand for portraits continued, and he had his first solo exhibition at the Durand-Ruel Galleries in 1902. Around 1905 he received a commission for murals at the new Carnegie Institute building in Pittsburgh for the astounding sum of $175,000. He created 48 panels there through 1908. During this period, the Alexanders spent summers in Onteora, New York, where Alexander painted his well-known "Sunlight" paintings. There they became friends and collaborators with the actress Maude Adams, with Alexander designing lighting and stage sets, and Elizabeth Alexander designing costumes for Adams' productions such as Peter Pan, the Maid of Orleans, and Chanticleer. The couple became known for their "theatricals" or tableaux, staged at the MacDowell Club and elsewhere, and Elizabeth Alexander continued her design career when her husband died in 1915.
Alexander left several commissions unfinished upon his death at age 59, including murals in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Elizabeth Alexander held a memorial exhibition at Arden Galleries a few months after his death, and a larger memorial exhibition was held by the Carnegie Institute in 1916. Alexander won dozens of awards for artwork in his lifetime, including the Lippincott Prize at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1899, the Gold Medal of Honor at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1900, the Gold Medal at the Panama Pacific Exposition of 1901, and the Medal of the First Class at the Carnegie Institute International Exhibition in 1911. In 1923, the Alexander Memorial Studio was built at the MacDowell colony in New Hampshire to honor his memory.
Provenance:
Papers were donated in 1978 and 1981 by Irina Reed, Alexander's granddaughter and in 2017 by Elizabeth Reed, Alexander's great grandaughter.
Restrictions:
Use of the original papers requires an appointment. 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.
Topic:
Muralists -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Portrait painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
John White Alexander papers, 1775-1968, bulk 1870-1915. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization 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.
The papers of museum director Perry Townsend Rathbone measure 6.1 linear feet and date from 1929 to 2022. The papers document Rathbone's career as museum director of the City Art Museum of St. Louis and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and his later work with Christie's New York office. Found within the papers are biographical materials, correspondence with friends and colleagues, writings, professional and project files, printed materials, and photographs, mostly of exhibitions.
There is a 1.8 linear foot unprocessed addition to this collection donated in 2023 that includesfiles on exhibitions, speeches, lectures; files on artists; slides and photographs of works of art; correspondence; writings by Belinda Rathbone and others. Materials date from circa 1940-2022.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of museum director Perry Townsend Rathbone measure 6.1 linear feet and date from 1929 to 2022. The papers document Rathbone's career as museum director of the City Art Museum of St. Louis and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and his later work with Christie's New York office. Found within the papers are biographical materials, correspondence with friends and colleagues, writings, professional and project files, printed materials, and photographs, mostly of exhibitions.
Biographical materials contain curriculum vitae, biographical sketches, citations for honorary degrees and for Rathbone's appointment as Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, a passport, a transcript of an interview with Rathbone and articles written by others about Rathbone, including one by S. Lane Faison.
Correspondence is with Rathbone's friends and colleagues. Notable correspondents include Max Beckmann, Xavier Gonzalez, Hanns Swarzenski, Curt Valentin, Jane Sabersky, William R. Valentiner, and Marian Willard, among others. Rathbone knew several art historians and conservators who served in the U.S. Army as members of the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section, also known as the Monuments Men. Correspondence with these colleagues is arranged together as a subseries and includes correspondence with S. Lane Faison, Thomas Carr Howe, Lamont Moore, Charles Parkhurst, Andrew Ritchie, George Leslie Stout, and Otto Wittman. Most of the correspondence with other Monuments Men is post World War II.
Writings by Rathbone consist of student papers, typescript drafts of articles and entries for exhibition catalogs, notes and notebooks from European trips, and lectures.
Professional files encompass a range of documents related to Rathbone's museum directorships, projects, travels and professional affiliations. The folders about his work at the City Art Museum of St. Louis and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston include correspondence, reports, meeting minutes, press releases and notes. There are also folders on specific projects such as the renovation of the historic Dederer-Blodgett House and Rathbone's membership on various art commissions and committees. Also found within this series are correspondence, notebooks, receipts, itineraries and vouchers for Rathbone's business trips to Europe and other locations while working for the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
Printed materials include news clippings, articles, press releases, a few art magazines and exhibition catalogues, and invitations to events. There are also black and white photographs of exhibitions, including a Max Beckmann exhibit, and a few images of Rathbone.
There is a 1.8 linear foot unprocessed addition to this collection donated in 2023 that includesfiles on exhibitions, speeches, lectures; files on artists; slides and photographs of works of art; correspondence; writings by Belinda Rathbone and others. Materials date from circa 1940-2022.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 7 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1930-1982 (0.1 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1940-1985 (1.1 linear feet; Box 1-2)
Series 3: Writings, 1929-1967 (0.8 linear feet; Box 2)
Series 4: Professional Files, 1938-1984 (2 linear feet; Box 2-4, OV 6)
Series 5: Printed Materials, 1954-1975 (0.2 linear feet; Box 4-5, OV 6)
Series 6: Photographs, 1936-1972 (0.1 linear feet; Box 5)
Series 7: Unprocessed Addition, (1.8 linear feet; Box 7-9)
Biographical / Historical:
Perry Townsend Rathbone (1911-2000) was a prominent museum director who worked primarily in Boston and New York City. He was an early supporter of German Expressionism in America.
Rathbone was director of the City Art Museum of St. Louis from 1940-1955, moving on to direct the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston from 1954-1972, where he led a period of extensive reform. After retiring from the museum, he worked for one year for the Chase Manhattan Bank as an art consultant. Rathbone worked as director and senior vice president of Christies USA auction house from 1973-1987. After 1987, he continued working at Christies as a consultant.
Rathbone was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania on July 3, 1911 and grew up in New Rochelle, New York. He attended Harvard College, majoring in Art History and graduating in 1933. He then completed the graduate "museum course" taught by Professor Paul Sachs in 1934. The Paul Sachs museum course was famous for cultivating future directors at some of this country's most prestigious museums. After Harvard, Rathbone was appointed as curator of Alger House (later renamed the Grosse Pointe War Memorial), a branch of the Detroit Institute of Arts. Rathbone directed the ''Masterpieces of Art'' exhibit at the 1939 New York World's Fair. The success of the exhibit led to his appointment as director of the City Art Museum of St. Louis, Missouri in 1940 at the age of 29, making him the youngest American museum director at the time.
During World War II, Rathbone served in the U.S. Navy from late 1942-1945. He was a commissioned officer in charge of the Navy Art and Poster Section, Office of Public Relations in Washington, D.C. He supervised five Navy "combat artists," who painted naval battles and depicted the daily lives of soldiers. He also served as an officer in New Calcedonia. He separated from service as a Lieutenant Commander in late 1945. This collection does not contain records directly related to his military service. In 1945 Rathbone married Euretta de Cosson while on leave in Washington, D.C. They had three children together: Peter, Eliza, and Belinda.
Rathbone resumed his position as the director of the City Art Museum of St. Louis after the war. The Detroit Institute of Arts director William R. Valentiner introduced Rathbone to German Expressionism. Rathbone helped the German Expressionist painter Max Beckmann, labeled a ''degenerate artist'' by Hitler, and his wife immigrate to America and then arranged a teaching position for Beckmann at Washington University. Rathbone and Beckmann became close, and in 1948, Rathbone organized a Beckmann retrospective at the City Art Museum. Beckmann made a portrait of Rathbone and one of his wife Euretta. Rathbone gave the eulogy at Beckmann's funeral in 1950.
In 1955 Rathbone became the director of the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston. During his tenure there he expanded the museum by 80,000 square feet, doubled the staff, and oversaw the renovations of 57 of the Museum's 189 galleries. He mounted exhibitions of Rembrandt, Matisse, Modigliani, Cezanne, van Gogh and Courbet. The Boston Museum's first acquisitions of Pablo Picasso, Alexander Calder, Constantine Brancusi, Paul Klee, Alberto Giacometti and other works by 20th-century artists occurred under Rathbone's directorship. Rathbone also served as curator of paintings and wrote the catalog essays for many of the museum's exhibitions. Working with Frances Weeks Hallowell, he established the first "Ladies Committee" for the museum, which substantially increased membership. He was appointed as Chevalier de Légion d'Honneur by the French government in 1964.
In 1969, the Museum of Fine Arts purchased what was believed to be a Raphael portrait of Eleonora Gonzaga, 1505, from a Genoa art dealer. The work was meant to be the highlight of the museum's centennial celebration. However controversy arose when the Italian government alleged that the work was smuggled out of the country and the museum was forced to return the painting to the Italian government. The situation caused Rathbone to resign in 1972.
At the request of David Rockefeller, Rathbone became an art consultant to Chase Manhattan Bank for one year. In 1973, he became director of Christie's auction house in New York and senior vice president in 1977, working there until 1987, when he retired but still worked as a consultant.
Perry Townsend Rathbone died on January 22, 2000 at the age of 88.
Related Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds an oral history interview of Perry Townsend Rathbone conducted in 1975-1976 by Paul Cummings for the Archives of American Art's oral history program.
Provenance:
Perry Townsend Rathbone donated his papers to the Archives of American Art in 1977 and 1988. Additional material donated by the heirs to Parry T. Rathbone represented by his daughter, Belinda Rathbone, in 2023.
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.
The donor has retained all intellectual property rights, including copyright, that they may own in the following material: Art is for Everyone: The Life and Times of Perry T. Rathbone by Belinda Rathbone, 2022.
Topic:
Museum directors -- Massachusetts -- Boston Search this
Genre/Form:
Transcripts
Photographs
Interviews
Citation:
Perry Townsend Rathbone papers, 1929-2022. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Processing of this collection was funded by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.
The records of Modern Multiples printmaking workshop measure 26.1 linear feet and date from the 1970s to 2017. The collection contains administrative files related to the daily operations of the print workshop, gallery, and other associated businesses owned and operated by Richard Duardo. Also included are correspondence with artists and arts institutions, as well as some personal correspondence; project and artist files; printed material; photographic material, including photograph albums; artwork; and a small amount of material related to Richard Duardo, including biographical statements, a recorded interview, and journals.
There is a 0.9 linear foot addition to the Modern Multiples records including administrative files, project and artist files; catalogs and announcements and other printed material; event files; certificates of authenticity; correspondence; photographs of Richard Duardo and others; and biographical material regarding Richard Duardo. Material dates from 1990-2016.
Scope and Contents:
The records of Modern Multiples printmaking workshop measure 26.1 linear feet and date from the 1970s to 2017. The collection contains administrative files related to the daily operations of the print workshop, gallery, and other associated businesses owned and operated by Richard Duardo. Also included are correspondence with artists and arts institutions, as well as some scattered personal correspondence; project and artist files; printed material; photographic material, including photograph albums; artwork; and a small amount of material related to Richard Duardo, including biographical statements, a recorded interview, and journals.
There is a 0.9 linear foot addition to the Modern Multiples records including administrative files, project and artist files; catalogs and announcements and other printed material; event files; certificates of authenticity; correspondence; photographs of Richard Duardo and others; and biographical material regarding Richard Duardo. Material dates from 1990-2016.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as eight series.
Series 1: Administrative Files, 1978-2013 (Boxes 1-7, OV 26; 7.1 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1982-2014 (Boxes 7-10, OV 26; 2.6 linear feet)
Series 3: Project Files, 1981-2014 (Boxes 10-22; 12.2 linear feet)
Series 4: Printed Material, 1980-2017 (Boxes 22-24, OV 27; 1.9 linear feet)
Series 5: Photographic Material, 1970s-2000s (Boxes 24-25; 1 linear foot)
Series 6: Artwork, circa 1980s-2000s (Box 25, OV 26; 0.3)
Series 7: Richard Duardo Papers, 1988-2005 (Box 25; 0.1)
Series 8: Unprocessed Addition, 1990-2016 (Boxes 28-29, OV 30; 0.9 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
Modern Multiples is a printmaking workshop in Los Angeles founded by Richard Duardo (1952-2014). Richard Duardo, an artist and fine art printer, was prominent in the Chicano art movement in Los Angeles, California. After helping to found the Centro de Arte Publico, Duardo opened Hecho en Aztlán, which became Aztlán Multiples, Multiples Fine Art Printing, and finally Modern Multiples. His sister, Lisa Duardo, took over the organization in 2015. Along with the printing workshop, Duardo also opened Future Perfect Gallery and started Art & Commerce, a business to sell the work of up-and-coming artists. In the early 2000s, Duardo sat on the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's Board of Trustees and chaired the Print Commission for the Prints and Drawings Council.
Modern Multiples and its predecessor studios worked with artists including Carlos Almaraz, Banksy, Chaz Bojorquez, Shepard Fairey, Camille Rose Garcia, John Van Hamersveld, and Bob Zoell.
Provenance:
The Modern Multiples records were donated to the Archives of American Art by Lisa Duardo, Richard Duardo's sister, in 2019 and 2022.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Researchers interested in accessing born-digital records or audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
The papers of painter and co-founder of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture Willard Warren Cummings measure 19.3 linear feet and date from 1911 to 1997 with the bulk of the papers dating from 1930 to 1975. The collection documents Cummings's career as an artist through biographical material, correspondence, writings, printed materials, scrapbooks, artwork, and photographic material.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of painter and co-founder of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture Willard Warren Cummings measure 19.3 linear feet and date from 1911 to 1997 with the bulk of the papers dating from 1930 to 1975. The collection documents Cummings's career as an artist through biographical material, correspondence, writings, printed materials, scrapbooks, artwork, and photographic material.
Biographical material includes an interview transcript, material for a mural commissioned by Warner Brothers Company, and records documenting Cummings's memorial. Personal and professional correspondence with family, friends and colleagues, and clients. Writings are by Cummings, his wife Mildred, and others, and includes a 1928 diary from his time in Paris. Printed material and six scrapbooks document Cummings's career, activities at Colby College, and the work of other artists. Artwork includes student work, six sketchbooks, and a substantial number of drawings. Photographs, slides, and negatives depict Cummings, his family, the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, works of art, and images from military service in the War Art Unit.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as seven series.
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1930-1997 (Boxes 1, 18, OVs 20-22; 1.2 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1911-1975 (Boxes 2-13, OVs 20, 23; 12.0 linear feet)
Series 3: Writings, 1928-1974 (Box 14; 0.8 linear feet)
Series 4: Printed Materials, 1928-1996 (Boxes 14-16, 18; 1.9 linear feet)
Series 5: Scrapbooks, circa 1930-circa 1960 (Boxes 16, 19, OV 33, BV 35; 0.4 linear feet)
Series 6: Artwork, 1929-circa 1965 (Boxes 16, 18, OVs 24-32; 1.0 linear feet)
Series 7: Photographic Materials, circa 1930-circa 1970 (Boxes 16-18, OV 34; 2.0 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
Willard Warren Cummings (1915-1975) was a painter and co-founder of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, Maine.
Cummings was born to Willard H. and Helen Cummings in Old Town, Maine. He studied at the Académie Julian in Paris, received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Yale University, and was presented with an honorary doctorate degree from Colby College in 1960. Cummings was notable for his portraits of military generals, politicians including Margaret Chase Smith and Adlai Stevenson, actors such as Bette Davis, and other notable figures.
Cummings joined the U.S. Army in 1941. He organized a mural project for soldiers, painted portraits for the War Department, and served as an artist-correspondent with the War Art Unit in the Aleutian Islands. Cummings met artists Sidney Simon, Henry Varnum Poor, and Charles Cutler while assigned to the unit. After completing their military service, Cummings, Simon, Poor, and Cutler founded the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, Maine. Additionally, Cummings played an important part of organizing Soldier Art, an exhibition of the National Army Arts Contest winners.
Cummings was married to Mildred "Milly" Cummings with whom he had a daughter, Daphne, and son, William. Cummings died in 1975 in Skowhegan, Maine.
Related Materials:
Also found at the Archives of American Art are the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture records, 1945-2013, and an oral history interview of Willard Cummings conducted by Paul Cummings on March 20, 1973 for the Archives of American Art.
Provenance:
The Willard Warren Cummings papers were acquired from Willard H. and Willard W. Cummings from 1974 to 1976.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center.
Collection consists of posters featuring lowrider imagery.
Content Description:
Posters for fundraisers, social actions, and community events for the Latino community of Northern California; all prominently feature lowrider imagery.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into one series.
Series 1: Posters, 1975-2016
Biographical:
Rudolfo "Rudy" Ojeda Cuellar was born and raised in Roseville, California. Rudy graduated from Roseville High School where he learned about screen printing, linoleum block printing and a deeper understanding of what being an artist was about. He enrolled at Sierra College, three miles from his hometown, where he was exposed to ceramics and cultural sculptural images. A friend helped him transfer to Sacramento State University where he met professors Jose Montoya and Esteban Villa and many other members of the Royal Chicano Artist group. At Sacramento State, he learned mask making, mold making, and silversmithing. From 1971 to 1979 he worked for Centro de Artistas Chicanos teaching at risk kids from the local school district screen printing skills, art and design and how to get along with one another. While working at the Centro de Artistas he taught and helped the other Royal Chicano Art Front members with the silk-screening process, and creating prints, signs and posters for other community events.
In 1980 Cuellar started Centro Screen Print & Associates with Louie "the Foot" Gonzalez (another founding member of RCAF). Rudy taught silk screening at Folsom State Prison and Louie became a rural mail carrier. His work as printer and as artist has been in numerous exhibits and publications such as Triumph of our Communities, Posada's Mexico 1979, CARA Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation, 1965-1985 Wight Art Gallery – University of California, Los Angeles. Design in California and Mexico 1915 – 1985 and Printing the Revolution! The Rise and Impact of Chicano Graphics, 1965 to Now. Cuellar was deeply influenced by his trips to Mexico and especially art teachers, counselors, and friends such as George Lem and Mr. Otis, John Adams, Juan Cervantes, and Stephan Kaltenbach that each taught him to never put boundaries on his quest to create Mexican and pre-Colombian images.
Historical:
The Rebel Chicano Art Front was created in 1969 by art professors José Montoya and Esteban Villa along with many other artists, activists, community organizers, poets, and teachers while at California State University, Sacramento. As artists and art students, they often loosely worked to support community events with creative endeavors. The group eventually came together under Joe Serna and was managed by Ricardo Favela in 1972 to form the Centro de Artistas Chicanos, an organization that provided much needed community space and support for after school arts programs, a library and bookstore, training programs, family and child programs such as Día de Los Muertos festivals, acting classes, and even an auto body repair training program. As part of the after-school arts program (and print shop), RCAF artists came together to teach community children about history and culture through art.
To supplement the meager city and private funds for the Centro, the artists organized art and gallery shows, art auctions, and sale of prints in the bookstore. As this collective of artists started having art shows, they would shorten their name to the "RCAF," often being confused with the Royal Canadian Air Force. Being a creative bunch, they changed their name from the Rebel Chicano Art Front to the Royal Chicano Air Force. They embraced this new identity/confusion, getting Army surplus clothing, and creating "ranks" of general or "creative mechanicos comsimcos" [cosmic mechanics] for everyone. They created a mythical origin story that states that they flew here from the mythical homeland of Aztlán in adobe airplanes. This playfulness broke down many social barriers in the barrio as well as within the larger Sacramento community and helped them tackle serious subjects through their programs and art.
The 1960's and 70's ushered in a wave of political and social awareness for communities of color. Community organizations around the country began advocating and organizing for more political and social empowerment as a counter to the discrimination, oppression, and neglect that many Chicanos (and other Latino communities) encountered. The GI Bill sent many Chicanos to college, opening young Chicano eyes to new ways to fight injustice. Many young social reformers started to take advantage of funds from the War on Poverty programs to establish community service organizations. Chicano and Latino artists were very aware of neglect and lack of representation in mainstream galleries and art institutions and started to rethink and reinvent cultural spaces. The RCAF was formed as a way to creatively instill pride, dignity, and respect for the Chicano community of Sacramento (Los Angeles Times, July 22, 1979 "Chicano Air Force Flies High").
In addition to the RCAF, other Latino groups and organizations formed during the late 1960's and 1970's in the Bay area such as the Mexican American Liberation Art Front, La Raza Graphics Center, and Artist Sies that cultivated artist collectives and artist support networks. Galleria de La Raza, the first Mexican American "museum" in the Bay area opened to encourage Chicano and Latino art within their own community. Throughout the country, Latinx artists and activists formed organizations and galleries such as Self-Help Graphics in Los Angeles. The East coast also saw their share of organizations develop such the Taller Puertorriqueño in Philadelphia in 1972. In New York, the Taller Boriqua and El Museo de Barrio saw the Puerto Rican activist community grow and build their own galleries, arts spaces, and educational spaces to reach Latino communities in ways that traditional art and cultural centers did not.
Art, and the inexpensive silk screen process, became one of the fronts in the fight for community self-empowerment and advocacy. The traditions of mural and poster art in California were already very strong by the time RCAF was formed. In the 1930's, 40's, and 50's, African American and labor organizations had formed art workshops developing poster woodcut technique both as an art form and a way to advance political awareness. Art schools and colleges in California (and New York) organized artistic workshops to help combine art with social movements. The RCAF members also drew artistic and activist inspiration from a long tradition of printmaking in Mexico such as political and cultural artist José Posada in the 1890's and the Taller Grafica Popular in the 1930's. The reliance on silk screen poster art created a whole new movement and vocabulary of artistic forms, colors, and representations that drew from Mexican heritage but was also quick and easy to replicate. Artists like Montoya and Favela used these posters as their canvas to create a body of work that was bought and sold like other traditional art pieces, but was inexpensive to create and could relate and engage with the community not accustomed to gallery shows.
The silk screen process was eventually replaced by the screen print process, a technologic change that cut reliance on harmful chemicals, but still retained the "look and feel" of a DIY silk screen. However, what was crucial among RCAF were all the commissioned pieces, like these lowrider posters, that showcased how the artistic forms melded with community activism and documentation. While some of the artworks were bought and sold and made for art spaces, most art was primarily displayed in storefronts, restaurants, and community centers. The community and street space became the gallery that advertised United Farm Worker events, social justice gatherings, health initiatives, etc. The Chicano Civil rights movement succeeded and was sustained in part, by posters like these. The poster "transcended" the advertisement of events into a production of art. More importantly, these posters help document the Chicano movement, bridging community activism, art, advertisement, and social formation.
Source
Historical content note courtesy, Steve Velasquez, Curator, Division of Cultural and Community Life, National Museum of American History, August 13, 2020.
Related Materials:
Materials at the Smithsonian Institution
Archives of American Art
Roberto Sifuentes papers, circa 1988-2006, bulk 1993-2000. The papers document Chicano performance artist and educator Roberto Sifuentes.
Philip Brookman Papers, 1977-1993. The collection documents Brookman's exhibition, writing, and filmmaking projects in the form of artist files, exhibition files, professional files, and subject and research files. Much of the material concerns the production and distribution of Brookman's 1988 video documentary about Chicano art in California, Mi Otro Yo (My Other Self), that grew out of the exhibition and conference "Califas: An Exhibition of Chicano Art and Culture in California," held at University of California, Santa Cruz in 1981 and 1982.
National Museum of American History
Tomas Ybarra-Frausto Calendar Collection, NMAH.AC.0660
Lowrider "Dave's Dream," 1982. See accession: 1990.0567.
Smithsonian Institution Archives
Exhibition Records, circa 1983-1994 and undated. Accession 00-002. INcludes records for the exhibition American Encounters
Exhibition Records, 1970-1995. Accession 01-097. INcludes documentation for American Encounters Lowriders, 1992.
Productions, 1991-1994, 1997-1998. Accession 02-123. Includes Smithsonian Productions video program entitled, ""Spreading Beauty Wherever I Go," on the lowrider cars of New Mexico, 1992.
Productions, 1987, 1989, 1991-1993, 1997. Accession 02-202. Includes video footage for "Spreading Beauty Wherever I Go," on the "lowrider" cars of New Mexico.
Productions, 1991-2000. Accession 05-231. Includes video footage from the exhibit American Encounters Lowrider show, 1978 from the Museum of Fine Arts.
Materials at Other Organizations
Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library
University of San Diego, San Diego Lowriders Archival Project
The San Diego Lowrider Archival Project documents the history of lowriding in San Diego and the surrounding borderlands, from the 1950s through today. The project includes photographs, car club documents and memorabilia, official records, meeting minutes, dance posters and lowrider art.
University of Southern California, Boeckmann Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies
Lowrider magazine collection 0589
A collection of 56 issues of Lowrider magazine, along with three issues of Q-VO: A National Lowrider's Magazine -- all spanning from 1977 to 2003
UC Santa Barbara, Special Research Collections
Royal Chicano Air Force Archives, CEMA 8
Extensive collection of slides and silkscreen prints, along with administrative records, news clippings, correspondence, exhibition descriptions and flyers, photographs, creative writings, and miscellaneous publications of the Sacramento-based artists collective. Founding members of the RCAF include José Montoya, Esteban Villa, Juanishi V. Orosco, Ricardo Favela, and Rudy Cuellar.
UCLA Chicano Research Center
Alturas Films Records, CSRC.2018.009
Alturas Films is a film production company based in Emeryville, Californis. Founded by Rick Tejada-Flores, it specializes in documentaries that focus on overlooked topics in Latino and Latin American culture, many of which were broadcast on public television. Among its films are Low 'n Slow, Rivera in America, and Elvia.
Provenance:
Fifteen posters were purchased from Rudy Cuellar in 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.
