Interview of John W. Outterbridge conducted 1973 January 3, by Allen Bassing, for the Archives of American Art.
Outterbridge speaks of his family background and how that influenced him to lean toward the arts; attending Agriculture & Technical University and majoring in engineering even though he wanted to become an artist; joining the Army in order to get the G.I. Bill so he could afford school; painting during his three-year stint in the service, and how his company commander admired his work and got him a studio; attending the Chicago Academy of Art, then the American Academy of Art after leaving the military; moving to Los Angeles to pursue a career as an artist full-time; quitting painting and deciding to focus on sculpture; working at the Pasadena Art Museum, and how it disturbed him that there weren't any Black artists being represented in the shows he was installing there; getting involved with the Compton Communicative Arts Academy just as it was starting; and the present situation of the Compton Communicative Arts Academy and where he sees it going. He recalls Andy Warhol, Peter Alexander, Richard Serra, Robert Rauschenberg, Mark di Suvero, John Coplans, Judson Powell, Noel Puerefoy, Charles Dickson, Bobby Gilmore, and many others.
Biographical / Historical:
John Outterbridge (1933-2020) was an art administrator, painter, and sculptor from Los Angeles, California.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives' Oral History Program, started in 1959 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and others.
Restrictions:
This transcript is open for research. No audio exists. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Occupation:
Arts administrators -- California -- Los Angeles Search this
An interview of Peter Alexander conducted 2009 September 24 and 2010 January 19, by Jason Stieber, for the Archives of American Art, at Alexander's studio, in Santa Monica, California.
Biographical / Historical:
Peter Alexander (1939- ) is a painter, printmaker, and sculptor in Santa Monica, California.
General:
Originally recorded on 3 memory cards. Reformatted in 2010 as 9 digital wav file. Duration is 3 hr., 1 minutes.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Topic:
Painters -- California -- Los Angeles -- Interviews Search this
Sculptors -- California -- Los Angeles -- Interviews Search this
Printmakers -- California -- Los Angeles -- Interviews Search this
Genre/Form:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Sponsor:
Funding for this interview was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
An interview of Peter Alexander conducted 1995 December 13-1996 May 8, by Paul Karlstrom, for the Archives of American Art.
This interview begins with an account of Alexander's family and educational background, including his study of architecture with Richard Neutra and further study in Philadelphia, London, and at USC, Los Angeles. He recalls working for architect William Pereira; his first New York exhibition; Robert Elkon and Leo Castelli, Los Angeles artists, the Hollywood connection; and Los Angeles in the 1960s. Alexander discusses the differences between New York and Los Angeles art worlds; his attachment to southern California; his arrogance in resisting the New York system and all it implied. He goes on to describe himself as a pagan, senusualist, and voyeur, qualities that inform his work, as does entertainment and popular culture.
Autobiographical in quality, his work embodies the notion of personality and character in determining his expression. He further discusses lessons learned from the old masters, the idea of artists as manipulators and art as voyeurism. Alexander considers his possible placement as a contemporary symbolist, contrasting his work to other current art which he sees as cynical. Finally, he claimed to see a new context and position for his art as a result of the interview, providing fresh insight into his activity as an artist.
Biographical / Historical:
Peter Alexander (1939- ) is a sculptor from Los Angeles, California.
General:
Originally recorded on 7 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 12 digital wav file. Duration is 6 hrs., 7 minutes.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators. Funding for the transcription provided by the Pasadena Art Alliance.
Funding for this interveiw provided by Pasadena Art Alliance
Topic:
Sculptors -- California -- Los Angeles -- Interviews Search this
Genre/Form:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Sponsor:
Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service.
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Peter Alexander, 1995 December 13-1996 May 8. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Topic:
Sculptors -- California -- Los Angeles -- Interviews Search this
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Peter Alexander, 2009 September 24-2010 January 19. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Topic:
Painters -- California -- Los Angeles -- Interviews Search this
Sculptors -- California -- Los Angeles -- Interviews Search this
Printmakers -- California -- Los Angeles -- Interviews Search this
The papers of southern California Pop artist Billy Al Bengston measure 10.4 linear feet and date from circa 1940s to 1989, with the bulk of the materials dating from 1960 to 1988. The collection documents the life and work of the artist through biographical materials, correspondence, personal business records, gallery and museum files, teaching files, project and commission files, scattered artwork, printed materials, and photographs.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of Billy Al Bengston measure 10.4 linear feet and date from circa 1940s to 1989, with the bulk of the materials dating from 1960 to 1988. The collection documents the life and work of the southern California artist through biographical materials, correspondence, personal business records, gallery and museum files, teaching files, project and commission files, scattered artwork, printed materials, and photographs.
Found within the biographical materials series are three feet of calendars which extensively document Bengston's personal and professional activities for fourteen years, and include ephemera related to these activities. This series also includes health records, wills, and passports.
Correspondence is with galleries, museums, universities, businesses, friends, and colleagues, and primarily concerns exhibitions, sales, consignments, commissions, and Bengston's personal finances. Bengston's relationship with the James Corcoran Gallery, Janie C. Lee Gallery, John Berggruen Gallery, Martha Jackson Gallery, and Texas Gallery are well-documented here, as well as in the Museum and Gallery Files series. Also found is a limited amount of personal correspondence with collectors, researchers, and friends. A few letters from other artists, including Peter Plagens and a letter from Richard Diebenkorn are interfiled here.
Bengston's professional relationships with galleries, museums, and universities are well-documented in the gallery and museum files, including the galleries mentioned above, Ferus Gallery, and others. Lists of consignments and prices, invoices, records of sales, loan agreement forms, shipping receipts, exhibition checklists, and exhibition floor plans provide information about sales, exhibitions, and loans. A few files provide further information about Bengston teaching activities. His personal business records include art sales records, price lists, lists of purchases, records of investment, and personal finance records. Project files include correspondence, notes, and printed materials related to Bengston's commissions for artwork and personal projects, including a book he worked on with Ed Ruscha, Business Cards.
Writings by Bengston include responses to exhibitions of West Coast art and his thoughts on his career, art, the artistic community, motorcycles, as well as a recollection of John Altoon. Also found are questionnaires sent out by Bengston for an art survey, with responses from Peter Alexander, Carl Andre, John Chamberlain, Dan Flavin, Joe Goode, Robert Graham, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Motherwell, Ed Ruscha, and others. Writings by others consist primarily of exhibition catalog essays, manuscripts of interviews with Bengston, and other writings about Bengston. Also found is an essay by Walter Hopps. Photographs of Bengston include a family picture from the 1940s, Bengston at work on projects in Los Angeles and Syracuse, New York, and Bengston at social events. Other photographs consist of pictures of friends and artists, Bengston's artwork, documentary evidence of damaged artwork, and of commission sites.
Printed materials from the 1960s - 1980s include clippings, full articles, exhibition announcements and catalogs, and posters. They document exhibitions, art in southern California, and society and art events. The collection houses limited amounts of artwork including sketches, cut-outs, doodles and drawings.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into 10 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1958-1987 (Boxes 1-4, 11; 3.7 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1966-1989 (Boxes 4-6; 1.75 linear feet)
Series 3: Gallery and Museum Files, 1961-1989 (Boxes 6-7; 1.5 linear feet)
Series 4: Teaching Records, 1968-1982 (Box 7; 7 folders)
Series 5: Personal Business Records, circa 1960-1987 (Boxes 7-8; 1.0 linear foot)
Series 6: Project Files, 1968-1987 (Boxes 8-9; 0.25 linear feet)
Series 7: Writings, 1967-circa 1988 (Box 9, OV 12; 0.25 linear feet)
Series 8: Artwork, 1960s-1987 (Box 9; 7 folders)
Series 9: Printed Materials, 1958-1988 (Boxes 9-10, OV 12-13; 1.25 linear feet)
Series 10: Photographs, circa 1940s-1987 (Box 10; 0.5 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Billy Al Bengston was born in Dodge City, Kansas on June 7, 1934. After moving back and forth from Kansas to California multiple times, he and his family settled in Los Angeles in 1948. While attending the Manual Arts High School, Bengston became interested in art, especially ceramics. After a brief stint at Los Angeles Junior College, Bengston worked as a beach attendant at Doheny State Beach. While working there he met fellow surfer and future ceramicist Kenneth Price, who became one of Bengston's closest friends. In 1953, he reenrolled in Los Angeles Junior College to study ceramics. For the next four years he attended both the California College of Arts and Crafts and the Los Angeles County Art Institute (now the Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design). At these institutions he studied with Richard Diebenkorn, Sabro Hasegawa, Nathan Oliveira, and Peter Voulkos.
Around 1957, Bengston shifted his emphasis from ceramics to painting, and became affiliated with the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles, founded that same year by Edward Kienholz and Walter Hopps. Bengston's first solo exhibition was held at the Ferus Gallery in 1958, and a second followed in 1960. At this time Bengston began to work with Pop icons combined with Color Field abstractions. His early bold paintings often featured symmetrical strong color compositions with a central image of a valentine, star, cross, chevron, or iris. The irises he called "draculas," after Kenneth Price remarked that they resembled Dracula flying through a window. He first showed his chevron paintings in 1962 at the Martha Jackson Gallery in New York. In the early 1960s, Bengston extended his imagery to the California subculture and created paintings of leisure time activities, focusing on motorcycles, racing, and scuba diving - his own interests as well.
Throughout his career, Bengston experimented with technique and materials. He experimented with automobile lacquer and spray painting techniques associated with car customization. He also used non-traditional surfaces, such as masonite and aluminum. In 1965, Bengston began creating paintings on sheets of aluminum into which he hammered dents and sometimes bent and buckled; these subsequently came to be known as "dentos." Along with painting, Bengston has also created watercolors, ceramics, and furniture. He was also one of the artists selected by Carol and Roy Doumani to design their home.
Bengston first visited Hawaii in 1974, and after several subsequent trips, established a second studio there in 1979. The work Bengston created in the following years was characterized by the use of tropical colors and representational images of running figures, airplanes, and the moon. In 1988, the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston organized a retrospective entitled "Billy Al Bengston: Paintings of Three Decades," which traveled to the Oakland Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Contemporary Museum of Art, Honolulu. Bengston also completed several years as an art instructor and lecturer at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles and The University of California at Los Angeles. Bengston continues to create and exhibit new work.
Related Material:
Found in the Archives of American Art are oral history interviews with Bengston conducted by Susan Larsen, September 9, 1980, and Susan Ford Morgan, August 2-October 7, 2002. Also found are portraits of Bengston in the Photographs of artists taken by Mimi Jacobs collection, and a rare copy of the book Business Cards by Bengston and Ed Ruscha in the Wallace Berman papers.
Provenance:
The collection was donated to the Archives of American Art by Billy Al Bengston in 1990.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Use requires an appointment.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
