An interview of Rockwell Kent conducted 1969 Feb. 26-27, by Paul Cummings, for the Archives of American Art. Kent speaks of his family background; his early interest and talent in art; studying painting with Robert Henri and William Merritt Chase; his early studies and work in architecture; Kenneth Hayes Miller as a teacher; experiences which influenced him and inspired him; his travels and explorations; his work in book design and illustration; mural commissions; the American Artists Group; his political life and public affairs. He recalls Merle Armitage and Carl Zigrosser.
Biographical / Historical:
In addition to being a successful painter, printmaker, illustrator, designer, and commercial artist, Kent pursued careers as a writer, professional lecturer, and dairy farmer. He travelled extensively, and was a political activist who supported the causes of organized labor, civil liberties, civil rights, anti-Fascism, and peace and friendship with the Soviet Union.
Provenance:
These interviews are part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and others.
Merle Armitage. Merle Armitage letter to Imogen Cunningham, October 1955. Imogen Cunningham papers, 1903-1991. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
The papers of Cambridge sculptor and illustrator, Lilian Swann Saarinen, measure nine linear feet and date from circa 1909 to 1977. The collection documents Saarinen's career through correspondence with artists, architects, publishers, and gallery owners; writings and notes, including manuscripts and illustrations for children's books and publications; project and teaching files; financial records; artwork, including numerous project sketches; and photos of Saarinen and her artwork. Saarinen's personal life is also documented through diaries and correspondence with friends and family members, including Eero Saarinen, to whom she was married from 1939-1953.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Cambridge sculptor and illustrator, Lilian Swann Saarinen, measure nine linear feet and date from circa 1909 to 1977. The collection documents Saarinen's career through correspondence with artists, architects, publishers, and gallery owners; writings and notes, including manuscripts and illustrations for children's books and publications; project and teaching files; financial records; artwork, including numerous project sketches; and photos of Saarinen and her artwork. Saarinen's personal life is also documented through diaries and correspondence with friends and family members, including Eero Saarinen, to whom she was married from 1939-1953.
Biographical material consists of resumes and biographical sketches, as well as a 1951 blueprint for the Eero Saarinen and Associates Office Building in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
Correspondence documents Saarinen's personal and professional life through letters to and from Eero Saarinen and other family members, including six letters from Loja Saarinen; correspondence with artists and architects, including Merle Armitage, Charles and Ray Eames, Carl Koch, Henry Kreis, Carl Milles, Laszlo and Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, Robert Venturi, and Harry Weese; and friends and colleagues at the Cranbrook Academy of Art and Knoll Associates. Also documented is Saarinen's business relationship with Midtown Galleries and Caresse Crosby, and publishers and publications including Child Life, Interiors, Otava Publishing Company, and Reynal & Hitchcock, Inc.
Writings and Notes document Saarinen's work on several children's publications, including Picture Book Zoo (1935) and Who Am I? (1946), through correspondence, notes, manuscript drafts, and extensive sketches. This series also includes Saarinen's ideas for other publications and incorporates some early writings and notes, as well as typescripts of her reminiscences about Eliel Saarinen, the Saarinen family, and the Cranbrook Academy of Art.
Diaries consist of bound diary volumes, loose-leaf journal entries, and heavily annotated engagement calendars, documenting Saarinen's personal life, artistic aspirations, and career development from the 1930s-1970s. This material provides a deeply personal view of the emotional landscape of Saarinen's life, her struggles to balance her identity as a working artist with the roles of wife, mother, and homemaker, and the complex, and often competing, relationships within the renowned architectural family into which she married.
Project files document Saarinen's work on book cover designs, federal and post office commissions in Bloomfield, Indiana, Carlisle, Kentucky, and Evanston, Illinois, reliefs for the Crow Island School in Winnetka, Illinois, and other important commissions including the Harbor National Bank Clock in Boston, Massachusetts, the KLM Airlines installation at JFK Airport, the Fountain of Noah sculpture at the Northland Center in Detroit, Michigan, and the interior of Toffenetti's restaurant in Chicago, Illinois. Also documented is her role in designs for the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, with Eero Saarinen.
Teaching files document Saarinen's "Language of Clay Course" which she taught at Cambridge Art Center and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Financial records document exhibition and sales expenses for two exhibitions, including her show at G Place Gallery in 1944.
Printed material consists of clippings about Saarinen and her family, exhibition announcements and catalogs for herself and others, and reference files from the 1930s-1940s, primarily comprising clippings of animals.
Additional printed material documenting Saarinen's career can be found in one of two scrapbooks found in the collection. An additional scrapbook consists of clippings relating primarily to Saarinen's parents.
Artwork comprises extensive sketches, particularly animal and figure sketches, in graphite, crayon, ink, pastel, and watercolor. The sketches demonstrate in particular Saarinen's developing interest in and skill with animal portraiture from her childhood to the 1960s.
Photographs are primarily of artwork and Saarinen's 1944 exhibition at G Place Gallery. Also found are one negative of Saarinen, probably with Eero Saarinen, and a group photo including Lilian, Eero, and Eliel Saarinen with the model for the Detroit Civic Center, circa 1940s.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 11 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1930s-1960s (3 folders; Box 1, OV 12)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1920-1974 (1.9 linear feet; Boxes 1-2, 8, OV 12)
Series 3: Writings and Notes, 1920s-1973 (1.3 linear feet, Boxes 2-3, 8, OVs 13-16)
Series 4: Diaries, 1930-1973 (1.4 linear feet, Boxes 3-5, 8)
Series 5: Project Files, 1931-1966 (1.7 linear feet, Boxes 5-6, 8, OVs 17-19)
Series 6: Teaching Files, 1966-1970 (3 folders, Box 6)
Series 7: Financial Records, 1940s-1970s (2 folders, Box 6)
Series 8: Printed Material, circa 1930s-1970s (0.2 linear feet, Box 6)
Series 9: Scrapbooks, circa 1909-1974 (2 folders; Boxes 6, 9)
Series 10: Artwork, circa 1920s-circa 1960s (1.7 linear feet, Boxes 6-7, 9-10, OVs 20-27)
Series 11: Photographs, circa 1940s, 1977 (0.5 linear feet, Boxes 7, 11, OV 27)
Biographical / Historical:
Cambridge artist and sculptor, Lilian Swann Saarinen (1912-1995), studied at the Art Students League with Alexander Archipenko in 1928, and later with Albert Stewart and Heninz Warneke from 1934-1936, before moving to Michigan where she studied with Carl Milles at the Cranbrook Academy of Art from 1936-1940. Saarinen was an accomplished skier and a member of the 1936 US Olympic ski team.
At Cranbrook, Swann met architect Eero Saarinen, whom she married in 1939. She subsequently worked with Saarinen's design group on a variety of projects, including the Westward Expansion Memorial, which later became known as the "Gateway Arch" in St. Louis. Lilian and Eero had a son, Eric, and a daughter, Susie, before divorcing in 1953.
Saarinen, who had developed an affinity for drawing animals in childhood, specialized in animal portraits in a variety of sculptural media. In 1939, she exhibited her sculpture Night, which depicted Bagheera the panther from Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book, at the World's Fair. The sculpture was placed in the Boston Public Garden in 1986. In the 1930s and 1940s Saarinen was commissioned to work on a variety of architectural projects, including reliefs for post offices in Bloomfield, Indiana, Carlisle, Kentucky, and Evanston, Illinois, and the Crow Island School in Winnetka, Illinois. She also executed commissions for the Harbor National Bank in Boston, KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines) at JFK Airport, the Northland shopping Center in Detroit Michigan, and Toffenetti's Restaurant in Chicago.
Saarinen was a contributing author and illustrator for a variety of publications, including Child Life, Interiors and Portfolio: An Intercontinental Quarterly. In 1935 she illustrated Picture Book Zoo for the Bronx Zoo and in 1946 Reynal & Hitchcock, Inc. published Who Am I?, a children's book which Saarinen wrote and illustrated.
Saarinen taught ceramic sculpture to soldiers for the Red Cross Arts and Skills Unit rehabilitation program in 1945, served on the Visiting Committee to the Museum School at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, from 1959-1964, where she taught ceramics, and later taught a course entitled "The Language of Clay" at the Cambridge Art Center and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. One of Saarinen's private students at Cambridge was her cousin, Edie Sedgwick.
Saarinen died in Cohasset, Massachusetts, in 1995 at the age of 83.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds material lent for microfilming (reels 1152 and 1192) including a scrapbook containing clippings, copies of letters and telegrams received, and reproductions of Saarinen's work. There is a copy of Saarinen's book, "Who Am I?", and three albums containing photographs of Saarinen, photographs and reproductions of her work, a list of exhibitions, quotes about her, and writings by her about sculpture. Lent material was returned to the lender and is not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
Lilian Swann Saarinen donated the collection in 1975. She lent additional materials for microfilming in 1976.
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.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Occupation:
Sculptors -- Massachusetts -- Cambridge Search this
Lilian Swann Saarinen papers, circa 1909-1977. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by The Walton Family Foundation; and John R. & Barbara Robinson and Deborah Schmidt Robinson & Dr. R. Perry Robinson, The Widgeon Point Charitable Foundation.
New Deal and the Arts Oral History Project Search this
Type:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Merle Armitage, 1964 February 6. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Schoenberg / edited by Merle Armitage ; articles by Arnold Schoenberg ... [et al.] ; foreword by Leopold Stokowski ; affirmations by Arnold Schoenberg ; a bibliography of Schoenberg works ; ports. by Edward Weston and George Gershwin ; a self port. by Arnold Schoenberg ; candid camera photos. by Otto Rothschild and two ink drawings by Carlos Dyer
An interview of Merrell Gage conducted 1964 May 27, by Betty Hoag for the Archives of American Art.
Gage speaks of the origin of his interest in Abraham Lincoln; studying under Gutzon Borglum; the formation of the Public Works of Art Project art committee in 1932; how the committee functioned; and the effect of the Project on the community. He recalls Merle Armitage.
Biographical / Historical:
Sculptor; New York, Kansas, Connecticut, and Santa Monica, Calif.; d. 1981.
General:
An interview of Nick Brigante conducted by B. Hoag is also on this tape.
Provenance:
This interview conducted as part of the Archives of American Art's New Deal and the Arts project, which includes over 400 interviews of artists, administrators, historians, and others involved with the federal government's art programs and the activities of the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s and early 1940s.
Restrictions:
This interview is open for research. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Topic:
Sculptors -- United States -- Interviews Search this
An interview of Merle Armitage conducted 1964 February 6, by Sylvia Loomis, for the Archives of American Art.
Armitage speaks of his role as Public Works of Art Project regional chairman of Southern California, including his supervision of 126 artists involved in painting, drawing, sculpture, lithography and mural projects; experimental work in PWAP easel painting projects; censorship of subject matter in a mural for the Frank Wiggins Trade School; his opposition to government subsidized art programs; his impressions of Edward Bruce, Dalzell Hatfield, James Milford Zornes, and others associated with the PWAP. Armitage also speaks of the American Institute of Graphic Arts and contemporary book design.
Biographical / Historical:
Merle Armitage (1893-1975) was an art administrator and graphic artist of Santa Fe, New Mexico.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound tape reel. Reformatted in 2010 as 1 digital wav file. Duration is 48 min.
Provenance:
This interview conducted as part of the Archives of American Art's New Deal and the Arts project, which includes over 400 interviews of artists, administrators, historians, and others involved with the federal government's art programs and the activities of the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s and early 1940s.
Restrictions:
This interview is open for research. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Correspondence, a photograph, and printed material documenting Israel and Idee Levitan's involvement in the New York art community after WWII. Correspondence includes letters from Elaine de Kooning, Katherine Dreier, Noah Koff, Merle Armitage, Howard Dearstyne, James Aronson, and others and one letter from the Levitans to Howard Dearstyne. The photographs are of Carl Milles, Svea Kline, and Lillian Helm. Among the printed material are exhibition announcements, including one for a faculty exhibition at the Parsons School of Design featuring Elaine de Kooning in 1976 and various newspaper clippings, including an obituary for Amedee Ozenfant.
Biographical / Historical:
Sculptors, New York, N.Y.
Provenance:
Donated 2007 by Mark Borghi, gallery owner and art dealer, Mark Borghi Fine Arts. Borghi purchased the papers from the Levitan estate in 2006.
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.
Occupation:
Sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Martha Graham / edited and with a foreword by Merle Armitage; articles by John Martin, Lincoln Kirstein, Evangeline Stokowski [and others] ... Biography by Winthrop Sargeant, the Martha Graham repertoire, paintings by Edward Biberman and Carlos Dyer, a portrait of Louis Horst, affirmations by Martha Graham
