An interview of Ruben Torres-Llorca conducted 1998 January 31, by Juan A. Martínez, in Torres Llora's home/studio, Miami, Florida, for the Archives of American Art.
Torres Llora discusses his early interest in art; his father, whom he never met, who was a talented commercial artist; studying art at San Alejandro Academy of Art, Havana and fellow students Jose Bedia and Ricardo Rodriguez Brey; graduate studies at Havana's Instituto Superior del Arte; participating in the "Volumen I" exhibition in 1981; travels to Mexico, where he began sculpture and installations; returning to Cuba and curating exhibitions of younger artists; moving to Buenos Aires, Mexico City, and since 1993, Miami; artistic influences, including literature, anthropology, sociololgy, film, and other disciplines on him; his mixed media figurative objects of the 1990s which tell a narrative, are socially oriented, and at best, provide a shared experience for the viewer.
Biographical / Historical:
Ruben Torres-Llorca (1957-) is a painter and sculptor in Miami, Florida.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 3 digital wav files. Duration is 2 hr., 6 min.
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 this interview provided by Smithsonian Institution's Latino Pool Fund.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
An interview with Allan Sekula conducted 2011 August 20-2012 February 14, by Mary Panzer, for the Archives of American Art at Sekula's studio and home in Los Angeles, California and at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, New York.
Sekula speaks of his career and some of the mediums he works in; language and contemporary art; Roland Barthes; his relation to contemporary art; west coast conceptualism; genre switches; realism; documentary photography; Belgium and the industrial revolution; Meunier; minor figures; art history and marginalism; Roberto Matta; World War I; Homer Folks; Fish Story; historic cinema; economic factors of art shows and publication; galleries and the art world; growing up and his family; his father and moving; Ohio; his brothers and sisters; San Pedro; demographics of students at school; sports at school; Vietnam; protests; cross country and swimming; California; fishing; college; U.C. system; declaring a major; John Altoon; Ed Kienholz; exposure to art; visiting museums; Marcuse's classes; Baldessari's classes; course work and student life; student demonstrations; working in a library and exposure to books; father losing his job; science and working as a chemical technician; politics; his uncle committing suicide; moving away from his father; the draft; John Birch; Students for a Democratic Society; his mother; politics of his parents; Aerospace Folk Tales, autodidacts and scholarship; San Diego and Mexico; obtaining a camera and starting to use it; art school; CalArts; UCSD; Meditations on a Triptych; David Salle; Fred Lonidier; Phel Steinmetz; MFA and art training; poets; story of Allen Ginsberg and one of Sekula's sculptures; production and the audience; A Photograph is Worth a Thousand Questions, photography and the burden of tradition; pictorialism; moving to New York; Artforum; October; New York music scene; Captain Beefheart; Bo Diddley; Little Richard; Steichen and aerial photography; origins of October; New Criterion; Art Critic's Grant; teaching at Ohio State; television; technological historians; New York subway and getting a ticket for using French money; RISD lectures; Long Beach; photography; collages; Metro Pictures; New Topographics; School as a Factory; moral choice and the viewer; work method and the audience; Social Criticism and Art Practice; east and west coasts; Ed Ruscha; documentary; film, Los Angeles; cinema and social history; Ohio State Department of Photography and Cinema; Los Angeles Plays Itself; Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador; Ohio State campus, anti-Semitism; Ronald Reagan and protest; influences and colleagues; intellectual genealogy; Michael Graves and Ohio State architecture; Bad Ohio; tenure; University Exposed; AIDS issue of October; The Body and the Archive; making film; Korean War; collectors and images. Sekula also recalls Eleanor Antin, Jeff Wall, Terry Fox, Lewis Hine, Walker Evans, Paul Saltman, Marcuse, Baldessari, Sacvan Bercovitch, Stanley Miller, Jef Raskin, Paul Brach, David Antin, Howard Fried, Peter Van Riper, Alison Knowles, Dick Higgins, Manny Farber, Ihab Hassan, Diane Wakoski, Jackson Mac Low, Martha Rosler, Lenny Neufeld, Joshua Neufeld, David Wing, Brian Connell, Max Kozloff, Ian Burn, Mel Ramsden, Carole Conde, Karl Beveridge, Barry Rosens, Tom Crow, John Copeland, Harry Lunn, Hilton Kramer, Grace Mayer, Carol Duncan, Eva Cockroft, Richard Pommer, Rosalind Krauss, Sally Stein, Paddy Chayefsky, John Hanhardt, Mel Ramsden, Sarah Charlesworth, Jospeh Kosuth, Baruch Kirschenbaum, Robert Heinecken, Brian O'Doherty, Howard Becker, Jay Ruby, Jerry Liebling, Anna Wilkie, Ronald Feldman, John Gibson, David Ross, Britt Salvesen, Larry Sultan, Mike Mandel, Roy Ascott, Ilene Segalove, Paul Schimmel, DeeDee Halleck, Noel Burch, Joan Braderman, Woody Hayes, Thom Andersen, John Quigley, Ron Green, Kasper Koenig, Dan Graham, Jonathan Green, Christa Wolf, Catherine Lord, Ben Lifson, and Annette Michelson.
Biographical / Historical:
Allan Sekula (1951-2013) was a photographer, filmmaker, and writer, based at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California. Mary Panzer (1955- ) is a historian from New York, New York.
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.
An interview of Abraham Walkowitz conducted by Abram Lerner and Mary Bartlett Cowdrey for the Archives of American Art.
Walkowitz discusses his childhood and schooling; travelling abroad; influence of Claude Monet exhibit; his book, "Artists of Walkowitz: 100 Portraits"; Paul Cezanne's death; meeting artists in Europe; his 1908 exhibition of modern art at the Julius Haas Gallery, New York; getting Max Weber a show at the Haas Gallery; Steiglitz and his "291" Gallery; the Armory Show, especially the roles of Arthur B. Davies, Walt Kuhn, and Walter Pach; reactions to Nude Descending a Staircase; the Society of Independent Artists; thoughts on criticism of his work; his relationship with the critic Peyton Boswell; the importance in his work of dancer Isadora Duncan; opinions on American art, modern art, art schools, students and patrons; good art versus bad art; and the role of critics. Among others he recalls are Lizzie Bliss, William Merritt Chase, Kenyon Cox, The Eight, Jacob Epstein, Childe Hassam, and Georgia O'Keeffe.
Biographical / Historical:
Abraham Walkowitz (1880-1965) was a painter in New York, New York.
General:
Sound has been lost on tape reels; reels discarded.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives' Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and others.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
An interview of Lee Mullican conducted 1992 May 22-1993 Mar. 4, by Paul Karlstrom for the Archives of American Art, at the artist's home/studio in Santa Monica, Calif.
Mullican speaks of his family background, childhood, and his first introductions to art; the influence of abstraction and surrealism in his work; his studies at Abilene College, University of Oklahoma, and the Kansas City Art Institute; his service in WWII; his interest in French painting, theater, opera and ballet; meeting Jack Stauffacher; the influence of Wolfgang Paalen in Mexico; and the connection between modern and primitive, and tribal art, especially in the American Indians of Mexico. He discusses his arrival in San Francisco and the art world and lifestyle there; the Dynaton group; early years in Los Angeles; his trip and exhibition in Rome; UCLA politics; his relationship to modernism and place in American art; regionalism; and the mystical and transcendental expressed in his work. He recalls Gordon Onslow-Ford, Jack Stauffacher, Peggy Guggenheim, Rachel Rosenthal, Richard Diebenkorn, David Hockney, Ed Moses, Isamu Noguchi, Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Lee Mullican (1919-1998) was a painter from San Francisco and Santa Monica, Calif.
General:
Originally recorded on 8 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 14 digital wav files. Duration is 7 hrs., 4 min.
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 administrators. Funding for this interview was provided by the Lannan Foundation.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Topic:
Art, Modern -- 20th century -- California Search this
Painters -- California -- Santa Monica -- Interviews Search this
An interview of Anne Rorimer conducted 2010 November 15-16, by Judith Olch Richards, for the Archives of American Art's Elizabeth Murray Oral History of Women in the Visual Arts project, at Rorimer's home, in Chicago, Illinois.
Rorimer speaks of her family background; her early life and education in New York City; her father, James Rorimer, and his influence as director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; college life at Bryn Mawr; how she became interested in modern art; her internship at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London after college; her master's degree thesis on Tony Smith; her job as a curator at the Albright-Knox Gallery and then at the Art Institute of Chicago; memorable exhibitions at the AIC throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, including the annual "American Exhibition," "Europe in the Seventies: Aspects of Recent Art," (1977), and "Idea and Image in Recent Art" (1974); her close relationship with Anne D'Harnoncourt; how she left the AIC in 1984 to write, "New Art in the '60s and 70s: Redefining Reality," (2001); her role in acquisitions of contemporary art at the AIC; her thoughts on art education; her work with collectors; the process of getting her book published and reactions to it; her curatorial projects in the 1980s and early 1990s that focused on conceptual art; her relationship with artists like Michael Asher and Daniel Buren; her extensive book collection; her thoughts on being a freelance curator and writer. She recalls Whitney Stoddard, Robert Beverly Hale, Theodoros Stamos, Leo Castelli, Henry Geldzahler, Anne D'Harnoncourt, Renee Marcuse, Bates Lowry, Tony Smith, Marcia Tucker, A. James Speyer, Bruce Nauman, Lawrence Weiner, Vito Acconci, William Wegman, Robert Morris, Lucy R. Lippard, Katharine Kuh, Sol Lewitt, John Maxon, Eva Hesse, Muriel Newman, Judith Kirschner, Dan Graham, Benjamin Buchloh, and Marcel Broodthaers.
Biographical / Historical:
Anne Rorimer (1944-) is a curator and art historian in Chicago, Illinois. Judith Olch Richards (1947-) is a former executive director of iCI in New York, New York.
General:
Originally recorded on 4 memory cards. Reformatted in 2010 as 6 digital wav files. Duration is 5 hr., 36 min.
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.
Occupation:
Art historians -- Illinois -- Chicago -- Interviews Search this
Interview of Tony Vevers, conducted on August 25, 1998, by Robert F. Brown for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Vevers speaks of being sent by his parents to the United States in 1940; secondary schooling in Madison, Connecticut and at the Hotchkiss School, Lakeville, Connecticut (1944); serving in the U.S. Army infantry in Europe, 1944-1946; attending Yale University on the GI Bill and graduating with a BA in painting and drawing, 1950; further art training in Florence, Italy and at the Hans Hofmann School, NYC (1950-1953); his marriage to Elspeth Halvorsen, fellow artist, 1953; his studies in Italy; the unexciting nature of contemporary Italian art; contemporary art in Paris, where Picasso impressed him but work of Hans Hartung and (Marie Elena) Vieira da Silva did not; studying with Hans Hofmann; working at the non-profit City Center Gallery, which was designed to give younger artists exposure through juried exhibitions; and living in poverty in NYC and Provincetown until 1963. Vevers also recalls Tom Blagden, Alfred Stieglitz, Deane Keller, Rudolph Zallinger, Claes Oldenburg, Stephen Pace, Lawrence Calcagno, Hans Hofmann, Milton Avery, Adolph Gottlieb, Jack Levine, Franz Kline, Louise Nevelson, Max Weber, Richard Lippold, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Tony Vevers (1926-2008) was a painter from Provincetown, Massachusetts.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 4 digital wav files. Duration is 2 hr., 49 min.
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.
An interview of Oscar Chelimsky conducted 1990 August 28-September 5, by Michael Plante, for the Archives of American Art.
Chelimsky recalls his studies at Cooper Union, the Art Students League (1939-1943), and the Hans Hofmann School of Art (1946-1947) and describes Hofmann's teaching methods. Chelimsky discusses his decision to go to Paris in 1948; his brief studies at the Fontainebleu School and the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere; his studio in Paris; the French attitude toward Americans in postwar Paris; a proposed exhibition of American painters in France at the Galerie des Beaux Arts in 1963; Americans exhibiting at the various salons and galleries in Paris; and the founding of the cooperative Galerie Huit and the artists involved including Bill Rivers, Jules Olitski, Reginald Pollack, Robert Kulicke, Sidney Geist, and Paul Keene. Chelimsky also discusses the evolution of his style, his move back to the United States in 1970, and his continuing investigation of the "open form" in his paintings.
Biographical / Historical:
Oscar Chelimsky (1923-2010) was a painter.
General:
Originally recorded on 4 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 6 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hr., 34 min.
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.
An interview of Arturo Rodríguez conducted 1997 November 14, by Juan A. Martínez, in Rodriquez's home/studio, Miami, Fla., for the Archives of American Art.
Rodriguez speaks of his birthplace, Ranchuelo, Cuba, his early interest in drawing, his move to Madrid at 16, and his self-directed art education. He discusses the intertwined relationship of literature, poetry, and music. He comments on Spanish realists such as Antonio Lopez Quintanilla and American expressionists Willem de Kooning and others. He also recalls his exhibitions and art collectors, particularly Judith and William Ladner. He describes his paintings as a combination of expressionism, realism, surrealism, abstraction, and a pessimistic vision of the human condition.
Biographical / Historical:
Arturo Rodríguez (1956- ) is a painter from Miami, Fla. Rodriguez is a self-taught artist born in Cuba. His wife is the painter, Demi.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound cassette. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 1 hr., 17 min.
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 this interview provided by the Smithsonian Institution's Latino Pool Fund.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Topic:
Artists -- Florida -- Miami -- Interviews Search this
Expatriate artists -- Florida -- Miami -- Interviews Search this
An interview of José Maria Mijares conducted 1998 Jan. 17, by Juan A. Martínez, in Mijares' home/studio, Miami, Fla., for the Archives of American Art.
Mijares discusses his background; his early interest in drawing; attending Cuba's main art school, the San Alejandro Academy of Art, Havana; his professors, Leopoldo Romanach and Armando Menocal; artistic influences of Cuban modernist painters Fidelio Ponce and Amelia Peláez; being awarded the second prize in a national exhibition in Hanava, 1944 for his work Alameda; the art movement in the 1950s "arte concreto," which involved geometric abstraction and art for art's sake; difficulties of being an artist in Cuba due to lack of galleries and collectors; teaching at San Alejandro in the late 1950s; going into exile in the mid-1960s to Miami; his work schedule of drawing and painting about 6 hours daily; favorite medium being oil on canvas, but also works with serigraphy and watercolor; briefly mentions his artistic style; and his nostalgia for Cuba which is a source of inspiration in his work.
Biographical / Historical:
José Maria Mijares (1921-2004) was a painter from Miami, Fla. Born in Cuba.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound cassette. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 1 hr., 30 min.
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 this interview provided by the Smithsonian Institution's Latino Pool Fund.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
An interview of Peter Selz conducted 1999 November 3, by Paul J. Karlstrom, for the Archives of American Art, in Selz's home, Berkeley, California.
This interview was conducted at Selz's request to provide a narrative conversation for a catalogue to accompany "Cross-Currents in Modern Art: A Tribute to Peter Selz," an exhibition at Achim Moeller Gallery in New York City, February 2 to March 3, 2000.
The interview focused on Selz's career as an art historian, and on the subject of modernism, with particular attention to Selz's writings and the many exhibitions in which less familiar artists (German Expressionists, Klimt, Schiele, Californians, Leon Golub, other figurative painters) and even movements (Art Nouveau, Futurism, Exhibition Momentum, Funk) were introduced. Selz discussed teaching at Moholy-Nagy's New Bauhaus in Chicago; his divergent ideas from more typical mainstream thinking about modernism primarily in formalist terms; his views on and understanding of modern art through his teaching and as a museum curator (Museum of Modern Art, NYC) and director (University Art Museum, Berkeley).
Biographical / Historical:
Peter Howard Selz (1919-2019 ) was a curator and art historian from Berkeley, California.
General:
Originally recorded 1 sound cassette. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 1 hr., 1 min.
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.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Occupation:
Art historians -- California -- Berkeley -- Interviews Search this
An interview of Enrique Guy Garcia conducted 1998 Mar. 18, by Juan A. Martinez, in Garcia's studio, Miami, Fla., for the Archives of American Art.
Garcia discusses his early interest in drawing; enrolling in art school as a teenager in Santiago de Cuba; attending Havana's San Alejandro Art Academy and studying painting with Leopoldo Romanach and Domingo Ramos, and modeling for sculpture classes where his interest in sculpture developed; going to Mexico City upon graduation to study fresco painting; returning to Cuba and working in organizing craft workshops; becoming dissatisfied with the political situation in Cuba and accepting an UNESCO grant to study art in Italy; seeking political asylum on his return from Italy; living in New York and working in a foundry; moving to Miami in the mid-1970s; his sculpture, which is primarily bronzes; his abstract expressionist style; his series of works in the 1980s, "Head," and "Icarus"; his current work, "Columns"; and an upcoming exhibition in Venezuela.
Biographical / Historical:
Enrique Guy Garcia (1928-) is a sculptor and painter from Miami, Fla. Born in Havana, Cuba.
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 this interview provided by the Smithsonian Institution's Latino Pool Fund.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Topic:
Hispanic American artists -- Interviews Search this
Artists -- Florida -- Miami -- Interviews Search this
Painters -- Florida -- Miami -- Interviews Search this
Sculptors -- Florida -- Miami -- Interviews Search this
Expatriate artists -- Florida -- Miami -- Interviews Search this
An interview of Demi conducted 1997 November 20, by Juan A. Martínez, in Demi's home/studio, Miami, Florida, for the Archives of American Art.
Demi speaks of her birthplace, Camaguey, Cuba; the death of her father in 1960, and being sent to Puerto Rico in 1971; her move to New York, and arrival in Miami in 1978; her theater studies at Miami Dade Community College. She recalls an opening at the Meeting Point Gallery in Coral Gables in 1980, where she met her husband, painter Arturo Rodriguez. She talks about her first painting in 1984, the role Arturo plays in her life, her first exhibition at the Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture in 1987, and the importance of touching the human spirit.
Biographical / Historical:
Demi (1955- ) is a painter from Miami, Florida. Demi (who uses only her first name) is a self-taught artist born in Cuba. Her husband is the painter Arturo Rodriguez.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound cassette. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav file. Duration is 1 hr., 9 min.
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:
Artists -- Florida -- Miami -- Interviews Search this
Expatriate artists -- Florida -- Miami -- Interviews Search this
An interview of Margarita Cano conducted 1998 April 22, by Juan A. Martínez, in Cano's home, Miami, Florida, for the Archives of American Art.
Cano recounts her interest in art, which developed after graduating as a science major at the University of Havana; arriving in Miami around 1962, where she found work at the main Public Library of Dade County, instituting an arts program focusing on the work of African American and Cuban American artists, which included building a permanent collection of local artists' work and arranging exhibitions; her work on the board of the Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture, including organizing the pivotal exhibition "The Miami Generation: Nine Cuban American Artists" in 1983; her own art, mostly painting on wood using a miniature style and reflecting mostly Cuban scenes; her son Pablo Cano, a successful artist; and her views on her Cuban background and her North American cultural identity.
Biographical / Historical:
Margarita Cano (1932-) is a painter, librarian, and curator in Miami, Florida. Born in Havana, Cuba.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound cassette. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 55 min.
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 this interview provided by the Smithsonian Institution's Latino Pool Fund.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
An interview of José Bedia conducted 1998 February 13, by Juan A. Martínez, in Bedia's studio/home, Miami, Florida, for the Archives of American Art.
Bedia discusses his early inclination toward drawing and interest in cartooning; receiving rigorous academic training at San Alejandro Art Academy in Havana and being introduced also to non-western art; attending graduate school at the Instituto Superior del Arte, 1976-1981; participating upon graduation in the Volumen I exhibition which was a turning point for Cuban artists; travel outside of Cuba to Budapest via Berlin, to New York, to an Indian reservation in the Southwest where he became acquainted with North American native art and artists, and to Angola with the Cuban military, where he came into contact with African roots of Cuban culture; moving to Mexico City and then to Miami; his art and inspirations; religion; his collection of African and American Indian art; and exhibitions in which he has participated.
Biographical / Historical:
José Bedia (1959-) is a painter from Miami, Florida.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 3 digital wav files. Duration is 2 hr., 15 min.
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 this interview provided by the Smithsonian Institution's Latino Pool Fund.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
An interview of Henry Plumer McIlhenny conducted 1974 Oct. 28, by Paul Cummings, for the Archives of American Art.
McIlhenny speaks about his parent's interest in collecting; his own collecting; studying with Paul Sachs at Harvard; his interest in 19th century art, travels to Europe, purchasing works by Seurat, Degas, Ingres, and Chardin; dealers he worked with including Paul Rosenberg and Valentine Dudensing; his tenure as decorative arts curator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, staff, and exhibitions; the completion of the museum building by the WPA; and commissioning paintings from Franklin Watkins.
Biographical / Historical:
Henry McIlhenny (1910-1986) was an art collector, curator, and arts administrator from Philadelphia, Pa.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound tape reel. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 2 hrs., 4 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives' 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.
Topic:
Art, Modern -- 20th century -- Pennsylvania -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia Search this
Art -- Collectors and collecting -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia -- 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.
An interview of Sonia Wolfson conducted 1990 August 19, by Ilene Fort, for the Archives of American Art.
Wolfson speaks of her childhood in New York; moving to California in the 1980s; writing for California Graphic and Game and Gossip; traveling to view various art collections in San Francisco, Chicago, Cleveland, Toledo, Washington D.C., and Europe; working as a secretary for three days at Columbia Studio; working as a writer and art critic for Stendhal Art Galleries in Los Angeles; taking a job for 20th Century Fox as a unit publicist in 1933 during the Depression. Wolfson discusses several of the actors she worked with, including Jane Withers, Darryl Zanuck, George Arliss, and Winfield Sheehan; she reminisces about writing about the 1925-26 Pan-American Exhibition in Los Angeles.
Biographical / Historical:
Sonia Wolfson (1903-1997) was an art critic from Los Angeles, California.
General:
Originally recorded on 3 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 5 digital wav files. Duration is 2 hr., 9 min.
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.
Occupation:
Art critics -- California -- Los Angeles -- Interviews Search this
Topic:
Women art critics -- California -- Los Angeles -- Interviews Search this
Art, Modern -- 20th century -- California, Southern Search this
Genre/Form:
Interviews
Sound recordings
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.
An interview of María Brito conducted 1997 October 25, by Juan A. Martínez, in Brito's home/studio, Miami, Florida, for the Archives of American Art.
Brito speaks of her birthplace, Havana, Cuba, and her early art education at the Edison School; her travels to Miami as part of the Peter Pan Project in 1961; her art studies at the Miami-Dade Community College and the University of Miami. She also comments on the Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art (MOCHA) in New York, The Decade Show, her first exhibition in Miami at Gallery 24 in 1980, and other exhibitions.
Biographical / Historical:
María Brito (1947-) is a sculptor from Miami, Florida. Born in Havana, Cuba.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 3 digital wav files. Duration is 2 hr., 2 min.
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 this interview provided by the Smithsonian Institution's Latino Pool Fund.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Topic:
Artists -- Florida -- Miami -- Interviews Search this
Sculptors -- Florida -- Miami -- Interviews Search this
Expatriate artists -- Florida -- Miami -- Interviews Search this
Interview of Thomas Carr Howe and Robert Neuhaus, conducted by Peter Fairbanks and Paul Karlstrom for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution in San Francisco, CA, on September 25, 1987.
Carr and Neuhaus, both former directors of the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, speak of the San Francisco art scene in the 1930s, with emphasis on museums, patronage, and collecting; their backgrounds and schooling; the Panama-Pacific Exhibition; art galleries in the 1930s; the museum staff at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in the 1930s; and the art climate in the Bay Area. Carr and Neuhaus also recall the McAgys, Grace Morley, Clyfford Still, Alma Spreckels, the Crockers, the Gettys, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Carr and Neuhaus were former directors of the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, in the 1930s. Howe was Assistant Director, 1931-1939, and Director, 1939-1968. Neuhaus was Director of Education, 1938-1940; he establishedd a gallery in 1941, Robert Neuhaus Services, which remained opened for about six months. Artists represented included Clyfford Still, George Post, and Joseph Raphael.
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:
Art, Modern -- 20th century -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Museum directors -- California -- 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.
An interview of Rafael Ferrer conducted 1990 Sept. 19, by Cynthia Veloric, for the Archives of American Art Philadelphia Project.
Ferrer speaks about his childhood in Puerto Rico; his education in Catholic school and military school; his interest in music including his professional work as a drummer in Latin jazz bands both in Puerto Rico and New York City; studies at Syracuse University and the University of Puerto Rico; his interest in painting; meeting the surrealist Eugenio Granell and Granell's influence, including Ferrer's involvement in the 1950's with surrealists in Puerto Rico and Europe, and a discussion of his feelings on Dada and surrealism; the shift toward conceptual and process art in the 1960's; moving to Philadelphia in the 1960's, teaching at the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts) and exhibiting at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; installations and exhibits in New York City in the late 1960's and 1970's, including his twenty year association with the Nancy Hoffman Gallery; the deflected fountain piece at the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the transition to handmade art works and then to painting and figurative works partially inspired by Alex Katz; collectors Sydney and Frances Lewis; and several commissions.
Biographical / Historical:
Rafael Ferrer (1933-) is a painter and conceptual artist from Puerto Rico and Philadelphia, Pa.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and others.
Restrictions:
Transcript: Patrons must use microfilm copy.
Occupation:
Painters -- United States -- Interviews Search this
Conceptual artists -- Puerto Rico -- Interviews Search this
Conceptual artists -- United States -- Interviews Search this
