Correspondence, photographs, writings, scrapbooks, sketchbooks, awards and printed material.
REEL D295: Correspondence with buyers, museum curators, and students, and with Irving Berlin, George A. Dondero, Robert Philipp, and Malcolm Vaughan; drafts of articles; scrapbooks; photographs of Brackman's paintings; clippings; and other publications.
REELS 2339-2340: Biographical data, with typescript of Kristin Smith's 1968 unpublished essay on Brackman; correspondence, including letters from Irving Berlin, Huntington Hartford, Harold L. Ickes, Robert Philipp, John D. Rockefeller, David O. Selznick, and others; printed material, including newspaper clippings, magazine articles, reproductions, exhibition catalogs, and announcements; awards; 2 scrapbooks, 1930-1952; and 8 undated sketchbooks.
REEL 2380: Photographs, including personal photographs of Brackman, his friends, his students; of Herbert Turner, his home, his school, and studio; and photographs of Brackman's works of art.
UNMICROFILMED: Writings by Brackman for his lectures; typescripts and a copy of BRACKMAN: HIS ART AND TEACHING by Kenneth Bates; and printed material including newspaper clippings, by-laws for the "Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts Manufacturers and Commerce," London, and the "Royal Society of Arts," London, and a 1957 edition of the journal, THE ARTIST.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter and educator; New York, N.Y. Born in Russia. Studied at Francisco Ferrer School, with Robert Henri, and with George Bellows. Came to United States in 1908. Taught at the Art Students League. Died 1980.
Provenance:
Material on reel D295 lent 1966 by Robert Brackman. Portions of this material were subsequently given by Brackman's widow, Frances, with her gift of all other materials, 1981. Twenty-seven personal photographs from reel 2380 were returned to Frances Brackman at her request.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Occupation:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Topic:
Painting, American -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Art -- Study and teaching -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
This collection, which measures 3.02 linear feet and dates from circa 1900 to 1986, documents the lives of painter and educator Leon Berkowitz and his first wife, poet Ida Fox Berkowitz, and provides insight into the cultural and artistic climate in 1940s and 1950s Washington D.C. through correspondence, notes, sketches, photographs, printed material, and audio cassettes.
Scope and Content Note:
The collection measures 3.02 linear feet and dates from circa 1900 to 1986. In addition to documenting the artistic development of Leon Berkkowitz and, to a lesser extent, Ida Fox, the collection provides insight into the cultural and artistic climate in Washington D.C. during the 1940s and 1950s.
The collection includes correspondence, primarily between Leon and Ida Fox Berkowitz, notes, sketches, personal photographs, printed material, and a cassette tape. There are notes on Leon Berkowitz's philosophy of painting, reports from a 1940s U.S. Army art therapy project in which he participated, and scattered correspondence, financial records, and promotional materials from the Washington Workshop Center for the Arts and WCFM radio. Also found here are lecture notes and administrative materials relating to Leon's Berkowitz's teaching career, papers he wrote for several education courses, his master's thesis, sporadic business records concerning shipments and sales of paintings and gallery exhibitions, and drafts of catalogs.
Series 4: Exhibitions, 1944-1985, undated (box 2, MMs, 10 folders)
Series 5: Washington Workshop Center for the Arts, 1940s-1950s (boxes 2-3, 14 folders)
Series 6: Other Projects, 1944-1985 (box 3, 4 folders)
Series 7: Notes and Writings, 1940s-1971, undated (box 3, 8 folders)
Series 8: Artwork, circa 1950s, undated (box 3, 5 folders)
Series 9: Photographs, circa 1900-1970s (box 3, 5 folders)
Series 10: Interview on Audio Cassette, [1974?] (box 3, 1 folder)
Biographical Note:
Leon Berkowitz (1911-1987), a painter associated with the Washington Color School, was born in Philadelphia (the 1919 birth date given by Berkowitz in Who's Who in American Art is incorrect). He met and married his first wife, Ida Fox, between 1935 and 1937. Berkowitz received a B.F.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1942 and an M.A. from George Washington University in 1948.
From 1943 to 1945, he served as a private in the U.S. Army, participating in a psychiatric program involving art therapy at Camp Lee, Virginia. Berkowitz taught art at Eastern and Western high schools in Washington, D.C. from 1945 to 1956 and taught at Western again in the late 1960s. In 1969 Berkowitz became chairman of the Corcoran School of Art's painting department and taught there until his death.
In 1945, the Berkowitzes founded the Washington Workshop Center for the Arts with Helmuth Kern. The Center, an important part of the city's cultural life during the 1940s and 1950s, offered courses in art, music, theatre and dance. Many of the artists who later became prominent in the Washington Color School taught at the center, including Morris Louis, Ken Noland, Gene Davis, Jacob Kainen and Jack Perlmutter. The center also sponsored a retrospective for Willem de Kooning in 1953. The Berkowitzes and Kern were also active in establishing the shortlived (1949-1953) cooperative radio station WCFM.
The center collapsed in 1956, shortly after the Berkowitzes' departure on a sabbatical painting trip to Spain. They spent much of the next decade abroad, including a two-and-a half year stay in Wales and a visit of several months to Jerusalem. During this period, Berkowitz expanded his interest in light, creating paintings by priming canvases with a white ground, then using multiple layers of thin oil paint washes.
Berkowitz had his first one-man museum show at the Corcoran in 1966. Ida Fox died during the 1970s and Berkowitz then married his second wife, Maureen. He continued to paint and exhibit until his death from cancer in 1987.
Poet Ida Fox (1913-197?) was born in Philadelphia. She married Leon Berkowitz between 1934 and 1937 and moved with him to Washington, D.C. where she attended American University from 1942 to 1945. During World War II she worked as a statistician for the U.S. government. In 1945 she cofounded the Washington Workshop Center for the Arts. Fox became its director in 1947, resigning the position in 1955 to accompany her husband to Spain. She published poetry in several literary and artistic periodicals, including a series, "Painting Thru a Poet's Eye," inspired by works of art. In 1970 she published a collection of poetry, In the Wind: An American Poet in Wales (St. David's, Wales: Antiphon Press, 1970), illustrated by Arthur Okamura.
Related Material:
Also available in the Archives of American Art are two audio cassettes of a transcribed oral history interview with Leon and Ida Fox Berkowitz, June 5, 1979.
Provenance:
Leon Berkowitz donated the papers of his first wife, Ida Fox, in 1987. After his death in 1987, his second wife, Maureen Berkowitz, donated his papers to the Archives of American Art. In addition to these two accessions, one folder of material on Leon Berkowitz was donated in 1979. This material was microfilmed on reel 2786.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Microfilmed portion must be consulted on microfilm. Use of unmicrofilmed material requires an appointment and is limited to the Washington, D.C. research facility.
Rights:
The Leon Berkowitz and Ida papers are owned by the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Literary rights as possessed by the donor have been dedicated to public use for research, study, and scholarship. The collection is subject to all copyright laws.
This small collection measures 0.2 linear feet and comprises 13 letters written by renowned Hudson River School landscape painter Albert Bierstadt between 1860 and 1900. The majority of the letters were penned in the last two decades of his life and discuss his painting, the inspiration he found in nature, his studio, and concerns relating to commissions and finances.
Scope and Content Note:
This small collection measures 0.2 linear feet and comprises 13 letters written by renowned Hudson River School landscape painter Albert Bierstadt between 1860 and 1900. The majority of the letters were penned in the last two decades of his life.
Bierstadt writes specifically of his work in several of the letters and refers to two paintings, Laramie Peak and The Jungfrau. In one letter he writes of the inspiration he finds in nature through his love of the mountains. Bierstadt invites friends to his studio in New York City, mentions a trip to Yosemite in the 1870s and writes letters of introduction on behalf of friends. Two of the letters concern commissions and discuss financial matters.
Arrangement:
Due to the small size of this collection, items are arranged as one chronological series.
Series 1: Albert Bierstadt Letters, 1860-1900 (Box 1; 13 items)
Biographical Note:
Albert Bierstadt was born in Solingen, Germany, in January 1830. His family emigrated to the United States when he was two years of age and settled in Bedford, Massachusetts.
In 1853 Bierstadt traveled to Germany to study painting at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. In 1858, following his return to the United States, he gained national attention for organizing a large exhibition of paintings including fifteen of his own works. Bierstadt drew inspiration from the painters of the Hudson River School, and regularly visited the White Mountains of New Hampshire to make sketches for his landscape paintings.
In 1859 Bierstadt traveled to the Colorado and Wyoming territories sketching landscapes in the company of a United States government survey expedition. On his return he took studio space at the new Tenth Street Studio Building in New York City and began a series of large-scale western landscape paintings, including Yosemite Valley and Thunderstorm in the Rocky Mountains. These paintings, known for their theatrical and romantic depiction of the grandeur and drama of the American West, brought Bierstadt great popularity during the 1860s.
Bierstadt's paintings were widely exhibited in the United States and abroad and commanded some of the highest prices in American art at the time, although his reputation began to decline somewhat in the 1880s in the face of changing public tastes.
Bierstadt was a member of the Century Association from 1862-1902 and a member of the National Academy of Design from 1860 until his death in 1902.
Related Material:
Also found at the Archives of American Art are the Robert Neuhaus papers concerning Clyfford Still and Albert Bierstadt, 1884-1984 (bulk 1941-1984). A circa 1875 photograph of Bierstadt by Bierstadt Brothers given to the Archives by an unknown donor is available in the Archives of American Art's Photographs of Artists Collection I and online.
Provenance:
The collection was acquired by the Archives of American Art in a series of accessions between 1955 and 2001. Six letters were donated by Charles Feinberg in 1955-1957; one letter was donated by Letitia Howe in 1976; one letter was donated by Mrs. Miles Reber, grandaughter-in-law of General Nelson in 1976; two letters were purchased from Charles Hamilton Autographs in 1956; one letter was purchased from Steele in 1956; and one letter was purchased from Scott J. Winslow Associates in 2001.
Restrictions:
The collection has been digitized and is available online via the Archives of American Art website.
Rights:
The Albert Bierstadt letter collecton is owned by the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Literary rights as possessed by the donor have been dedicated to public use for research, study, and scholarship. The collection is subject to all copyright laws.
The collection measures 0.2 linear feet, dates from 1932 to 1981 (bulk dates 1932-1963), and primarily documents the friendship of painter Paul Bodin with abstract expressionist painter Adolph Gottlieb. Found within the papers are letters from Gottlieb; printed material; and photographs of Bodin's art work.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of painter Paul Bodin measure 0.2 linear feet and date from 1932-1981 (bulk dates 1932-1963). Found within the papers are letters from Bodin's mentor, abstract expressionist Adolph Gottlieb. These letters document Bodin's long friendship with Gottlieb and provide details about Gottlieb's activities and interests. There is one letter from Gottlieb's wife, Esther. Also found with the papers are a clipping, exhibition announcements for Bodin, and photographs of Bodin's art work.
Biographical Note:
Paul Bodin was born in New York City on October 30, 1910. He studied first at the National Academy of Design, but transferred to the Art Students League in 1928, briefly studying under Boardman Robinson.
During the 1930s and early 1940s, Bodin was part of a circle of artists that included Milton Avery, Mark Rothko, and Adolph Gottlieb, who worked in New York City, and Gloucester and Provincetown, Massachusetts. During the Depression, Bodin worked with the WPA Federal Arts Project, completing many paintings of tenement interiors, portraits of family members, and self-portraits. His first solo exhibition was in 1936.
He made his first abstract paintings in 1945 and exhibited regularly in Manhattan until the early 1960s.
Paul Bodin died on February 15, 1994.
Provenance:
The Paul Bodin papers were donated in 1993 by Paul Bodin and Aaron Bodin, the artist's son.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Use requires an appointment.
Rights:
The Paul Bodin papers are owned by the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Literary rights as possessed by the donor have been dedicated to public use for research, study, and scholarship. The collection is subject to all copyright laws.
Topic:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The papers of New York painter and art instructor, William Merritt Chase, measure 0.3 linear feet and date from circa 1890 to 1964. Papers include a resolution of the Art Club of Philadelphia on Chase's death, letters, writings by Chase consisting of typescripts of lectures and lecture notes, blank postcards primarily depicting reproductions of artwork, a scrapbook, and photographs of Chase, his family, homes, and studios, and photographs of works of art.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of New York painter and art instructor, William Merritt Chase, measure 0.3 linear feet and date from circa 1890 to 1964. Papers include a resolution of the Art Club of Philadelphia on Chase's death, letters, writings by Chase consisting of typescripts of lectures and lecture notes, blank postcards primarily depicting reproductions of artwork, a scrapbook, and photographs of Chase, his family, homes, and studios, and photographs of works of art.
Letters include a photocopy of a 1901 letter signed by 28 students of the Shinnecock Summer School thanking Chase for a painting; a 1903 postcard to Mr. Harold R. Shiffer from his aunt; a 1912 letter to Chase signed by 32 pupils of the Art Students League thanking him for his efforts on their behalf and acknowledging his "qualities of sympathy, interest, and an understanding of our individual needs;" a 1915 note from an unidentified writer; a 1920 letter to Chase's wife Alice, from Gertrude Abbey, wife of Edwin Austin Abbey, referencing a tile possibly created by Edwin Abbey that Mrs. Chase owns; a 1935 postcard to Chase's daughter Helen from an unidentified writer; and a 1964 letter to Helen Storm from Ala Story in which Story describes a Chase exhibition that he is organizing and apologizes for having given a sketchbook of drawings owned by Helen to the Morgan Library.
Writings include 4 sets of lecture notes (one labeled as being notes for a lecture at Shinnecock), which are a combination of annotated typescripts and handwritten pages, and a typescript of a 1906 "Talk on the Old Masters by Mr. Chase" for the New York School of Art. Also found is a notebook with handwritten notes on a talk Chase gave to students in Philadelphia, presumably at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
Writings by others consist of a six-page typescript entitled "Reminiscences of a Student," by F. Usher De Voll, describing his experiences of Chase as a teacher.
Postcards (blank) include 3 reproductions of works of art by Chase, 8 reproductions of works of art by other artists, and 2 scenic views.
A Chase family scrapbook consists of mounted prints, primarily cyanotypes, that document Chase's travels to Rome, Milan, Gibraltar and the Loire Valley, and visits to major monuments, and also includes images of Chase and his family at leisure during their travels, as well as five family portraits.
Photographs of the Chase family include one of Chase with his son, Dana, and one of Chase with his wife, Alice, both undated. Other family members and friends are generally unidentified but do include Virginia Gerson and possibly Alice Gerson. Also found are four portraits of Chase, four photographs of Chase in his studio, a copy print of students at the Shinnecock Art School in circa 1895, and a copy print of an 1880 Tile Club trip up the Hudson River. In addition to circa 1960 copy prints, photographs include a variety of vintage prints such as albumen cabinet cards, silver gelatin prints, and a tintype.
Arrangement:
Due to the small size of the collection, the papers are arranged as 1 series.
Series 1: William Merritt Chase Papers, circa 1890-1964 (0.3 linear feet.; Box 1, OV 2)
Biographical / Historical:
William Merritt Chase (1849-1916) was one of America's most prominent painters and art instructors in New York, New York and Shinnecock, Long Island, during the late 19th century. One of the first Impressionist landscape painters in the U. S, Chase was also a highly accomplished portrait and still life painter.
Born in Indiana, Chase lived in New York and St. Louis, Missouri, before traveling to Europe and studying at the Royal Academy in Munich. After returning to New York in 1878, he taught at the Art Students League until 1896. His studio in the Tenth Street Studio building became an important gathering place for artists, students and patrons. Chase was also a member of the Tile Club whose members shared an interest in the decorative arts and sought to have their designs translated into ceramic tiles, from 1877-1887.
Chase became one of the most important teachers of American artists around the turn of the century. He opened the Shinnecock Hills Summer Art School in 1891 and taught there until 1902, living in a house at Shinnecock designed by Stanford White. In 1896 he opened the Chase School of Art and also taught at the Brooklyn Art Association in 1887, and 1891-1896, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts from 1896-1909.
Chase was a member of the National Academy of Design, and was president of the Society of American Artists from 1885 to 1895.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming. Reel N69-115 includes an additional family scrapbook, undated, containing photographs of Chase, his wife and children, a notice of sale of the Chase house in Shinnecock Hills, N.Y. designed by Stanford White, and photographs of the house. Found on reel N69-119 are circa two hundred photographs of Chase at work, his wife, his studios in Philadelphia and on 5th Avenue and 10th Street New York City, and numerous snapshots of characters in a tableau vivant that include his family, friends, Mary S. Moore Cross, and others. Reel N69-137 contains letters from Chase to his wife during his travels abroad, one note from John Singer Sargent requesting the use of Chase's studio for the famous party Sargent gave for Isabella Stewart Gardner in 1890, and a six-page typescript, "Reminiscences of a Student," by F. Usher De Voll, and photographs of Chase's studio. Loaned materials were returned to the lenders and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
The papers were received in a series of accessions between 1969 and 2010. A portion was loaned for microfilming by Robert S. Chase and Chapellier Galleries in 1969. Roger Storm, the widower of Chase's daughter Helen, donated lectures and speeches, a 1912 letter, and photocopies of a dinner menu and photos of artwork in 1969. Art collector Fred D. Bentley gave photographic copy prints of Chase's summer home, studio and art school. D. Frederick Baker, the author of the Chase catalogue raisonné, gave two letters, two postcards, the Chase family scrapbook, vintage photographs, and blank postcards in 2010. Baker received the material from Chase's estate via Chase's grandson, Jackson Case Storm.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment.
Rights:
The William Merritt Chase papers are owned by the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Literary rights as possessed by the donor have been dedicated to public use for research, study and scholarship. The collection is subject to all copyright laws.
