Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Rosalind Bengelsdorf Browne, 1968 January 29-February 16. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
An interview of Rosalind Bengelsdorf Browne conducted 1968 January 29-February 16, by Irving Sandler, for the Archives of American Art. Bengelsdorf Browne discusses her association with the American Abstract Artists group during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. She speaks at length of her late husband, Byron Browne, and her associations with artists including Arshile Gorky and Willem de Kooning, among others. She reads excerpts from her speeches to artist groups.
Biographical / Historical:
Rosalind Bengelsdorf Browne (1916-1979) was a painter, art critic and teacher in New York, New York. She was a member of the New York Art Students' League and the American Abstract Artists.
General:
Originally recorded on 3 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 12 digital wav files. Duration is 6 hrs., 20 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.
Restrictions:
This interview is open for research. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Occupation:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Art critics -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Educators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The André Emmerich Gallery records and André Emmerich papers measure 311.4 linear feet and date from 1929 to 2009. The collection documents the business of the André Emmerich Gallery as well as André Emmerich's life and activities related to the business of selling art. Gallery records include correspondence; appointment books; administrative and subject files; exhibition files; artist files and accounts; inventory, sales, purchase, and consignment records; chronological files; financial and legal records; printed materials; original artwork; photographic and audiovisual materials. Also found are personal papers and records relating to André Emmerich. A small addition received in 2014 includes general correspondence, administrative files, exhibition files, artists' files, inventory records, consignment records, printed material, photographic materials, and André Emmerich personal papers and records.
Scope and Content Note:
The André Emmerich Gallery records and André Emmerich papers measure 311.4 linear feet and date from 1929 to 2009. The collection documents the business of the André Emmerich Gallery as well as André Emmerich's life and activities related to the business of selling art. Gallery records include correspondence; appointment books; administrative and subject files; exhibition files; artist files and accounts; inventory, sales, purchase, and consignment records; chronological files; financial and legal records; printed materials; original artwork; photographic and audiovisual materials. Also found are personal papers and records relating to André Emmerich.
The records document the gallery's daily business operations, exhibitions, and relationships with artists, dealers, clients, galleries, and museums. Artists particularly well-represented throughout the collection include Anthony Caro, Sam Francis, Helen Frankenthaler, David Hockney, Hans Hofmann, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, and Beverly Pepper.
Records pre-dating the gallery's establishment in 1954 are primarily newspaper and magazine clippings related to artists, personal photographs and photographs of artists, an original etching, and some of André Emmerich's personal records including biographical materials, correspondence, writings, and legal and financial records. Records post-dating the gallery's closure in 1998 are primarily residual business records related to the final disposition of artwork, clippings, photographs of André Emmerich and gallery staff, biographical materials, personal correspondence, writings, legal and financial records, and condolences received by Emmerich's wife upon his death in 2007.
Correspondence is primarily with galleries, museums and clients about business matters. Correspondence files also cover topics such as appraisals, authentications, offers of sale, artists seeking representation, image requests, job applications and recommendations. Also included are the New York gallery's copies of correspondence between the New York staff and the Zurich staff.
André Emmerich's appointment books document appointments, notes, and reminders about Emmerich's business and personal activities. Four appointment books relating to the birth of Emmerich's three sons and second marriage were kept by the family. The appointment books are access restricted and require written permission to use.
Administrative files include corporate records establishing the Andre Emmerich gallery's structure, records documenting the gallery's daily operations, advertising and publicity material, and records about the Sotheby's acquisition. There are also materials related to Top Gallant Farm, from its establishment to its closure. Travel records relate to André Emmerich's business trips and vacations along with some files on the travels of a several staff members at the gallery. Files about the operations of the Galerie André Emmerich in Zurich, Switzerland are included in the series as well.
Subject files relate to Emmerich's gallery business as well as personal and political interests, such as antiquities, art fairs and exhibitions, lecture research, art associations, and sculpture parks. There are several files on the art critic Clement Greenberg and former president of Gay Men's Health Crisis, Nathan Kolodner, who was also an art dealer and director of the Andre Emmerich Gallery.
Exhibition files contain numerous exhibition catalogs and printed materials related to exhibitions held or organized by the André Emmerich Gallery in Manhattan and Galerie André Emmerich in Zurich. The files contain materials ranging such as exhibition invitations, posters, printed materials, press releases, and guest books. Photographs of exhibitions can be found in the Photographic Materials series.
Artist files include biographical materials, clippings, correspondence, mailing lists, price lists, printed materials, and occasionally lectures, writings, and audiovisual materials for many of the artists represented or shown by André Emmerich Gallery. The General Correspondence files might contain duplicates or expanded versions of some of the correspondence. Photographs of artists can be found in the Photographic Materials series.
Artist accounts comprise account statements prepared periodically by the gallery documenting each artist's expenses and sales. Ledgers and general accounting files can be found in the Other Financial and Legal Records series.
Inventory records include inventory cards describing artwork entering and leaving the gallery and files containing various gallery inventories. Artist inventory cards, representing artists from both the New York and Zurich galleries, list the artist, title, date, media and measurements of an artwork. The cards also indicate whether the work was ultimately sold, returned to the artist, consigned, etc., and divided into categories accordingly. Inventory files show various gallery inventories.
Sales records document gallery sales and include paid invoices, records relating to Zurich sales, general sales records such as price lists and canceled sales, and Sotheby's Parke-Bernet auction reports. There are gaps in sales invoices in 1961-1964 and 1969-1971.
Purchase records include correspondence and invoices related to purchases and offers; annotated invoices for works of art bought by the gallery; André Emmerich, Inc. related purchase records; "Non-Modern" art related purchase records.
Consignment records include correspondence and consignment agreements documenting consignments to and from the André Emmerich Gallery; consignments from other galleries to André Emmerich, Inc.; and general consignment records.
Chronological files include copies of invoices or cover letters documenting the movement of artwork into and out of the gallery through sales, consignments, loans, and approvals. Records dating January through August 1968, January through March 1969, and September 1969 through July 1971 are missing.
Financial and legal records include client and partner account statements, resale and exempt organization certificates, accounting ledgers, and legal files related to disputes involving or of interest to the gallery.
Printed materials include auction catalogs and reports, books, and clippings describing André Emmerich, the galleries in New York and Zurich, Top Gallant Farm, and the art world. Also included is a large scrapbook created by the gallery containing clippings and gallery announcements dated 1955-1958. Clippings relating to particular artists can be found in the Artists Files series.
There are two pieces of original artwork in the collection. One is a 1974 print of a 1933 composite etching by Esther Dick Gottlieb, Adolphe Gottlieb, Edgar Levy, Lucille Corcos Levy, David Smith, and Dorothy Dehner Smith. The second is a 1998 lithograph by Louise Bourgeoise, called The Face of the Critic. The artist gave the lithograph as a gift in honor of Robert Hughes and the Archives of American Art and is numbered 61 out of a series of 300.
Photographic materials include prints, slides, negatives, and transparencies. Subjects include artists, André Emmerich, gallery installations, Top Gallant Farm, events, artists' studios, gallery staff, gallery space, and artwork. Photographs which show André Emmerich are indicated as such in the finding aid.
Audiovisual materials includes videocassettes and one audiocassette related to the art world. Videocassettes related to specific artists can be found in the Artists Files series. Videocassettes related to André Emmerich can be found in the André Emmerich Personal Papers and Records series. Videocassettes related to Top Gallant Farm and Sotheby's can be found in the Administrative Files series.
Personal papers and records relating to André Emmerich include biographical materials, personal correspondence, writings and lectures, and legal and financial records. The biographical materials include an address book, interviews and identifying documents. Writings include articles, edits, dissertations, lectures, etc. There are also some miscellaneous correspondence which is organized chronologically.
The small addition received in 2014 includes general correspondence, administrative files, exhibition files, artists' files, inventory records, consignment records, printed material, photographic materials, and André Emmerich personal papers and records.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 19 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: General Correspondence Files, 1958-2006 (boxes 1-18, OV 314-315; 18.2 linear feet)
Series 2: André Emmerich Appointment Books, 1954-2007 (boxes 19, 325, 326; 1.7 linear feet)
Series 3: Administrative Files, 1954-2003 (boxes 20-31, 306, OV 314, OV 316-319; 11 linear feet)
Series 4: Subject Files, 1958-1967, 1971-2000 (boxes 31-32, 306, OV 318, OV 320; 2 linear feet)
Series 5: Exhibition Files, circa 1954-1998 (boxes 32-40, 306, 307, OV 318-322; 8.5 linear feet)
Series 6: Artists Files, 1929-1932, 1938-2007 (boxes 40-68, 307, 308, OV 320-323; 28 linear feet)
Series 7: Artist Accounts, 1958-1998 (boxes 68-81; 13.5 linear feet)
Series 8: Inventory Records, circa 1954-2000(boxes 82-128; 46.5 linear feet)
Series 9: Sales Records, 1959-1998 (boxes 128-168; 40 linear feet)
Series 10: Purchase Records, 1961-1966, 1972-1994 (boxes 168-170; 2 linear feet)
Series 11: Consignment Records, 1961-2002 (boxes 170-177; 7.7 linear feet)
Series 12: Chronological File of Incoming and Outgoing Artwork, 1968-1998 (boxes 178-185; 8 linear feet)
Series 13: Other Financial and Legal Records, 1956-1999 (boxes 186-202; 16.5 linear feet)
Series 14: Printed Materials, 1955-1960, 1965-2008 (boxes 202-204, 308, 309; 3 linear feet)
Series 15: Original Artwork, 1933, 1974, 1998 (box 205, 310; 0.7 linear feet (2 folders))
Series 16: Photographic Materials, circa 1930-1935, 1941-1998, circa 2005 (Boxes 205-296, 311-313, OV 324; 92.8 linear feet)
Series 17: General Audio and Video Recordings, 1985, 1990-1995 (Boxes 297-298; 1.3 linear feet)
Series 18: André Emmerich Personal Papers and Records, 1937-1940, 1946-2008 (Boxes 298-305, OV 321, OV 323; 7.7 linear feet)
Series 19: Addition to the The André Emmerich Gallery records and André Emmerich papers, 1956-2009 (Boxes 328-329, OV 330; 2.1 linear feet)
Historical Note:
André Emmerich (1924-2007) was one of America's most noted contemporary art dealers and opened the André Emmerich Gallery in New York in 1954. The gallery showcased contemporary art, particularly Color Field painting and monumental sculpture.
André Emmerich was born on October 11, 1924 in Frankfurt, Germany. From age 7 he was raised in Amsterdam before emigrating with his family to New York City in 1940. He studied at Oberlin College and developed an interest in pre-Columbian art and antiquities. After graduation, he spent ten years in Paris working as a writer and editor before returning to New York. He married Constance Emmerich and the couple had three sons, Adam, Noah, and Toby.
In 1954 Emmerich opened the André Emmerich Gallery at 18 East 77th Street and initially specialized in contemporary American and European art and pre-Columbian antiquities. In 1956, the gallery moved to 17 East 64th Street, and in 1959 to the Fuller Building at 41 East 57th Street. Emmerich wrote two books about pre-Columbian art, Art Before Columbus in 1963 and Sweat of the Sun, Tears of the Moon: Gold and Silver in Pre-Columbian Art in 1965.
In 1961, Emmerich learned that French and Company, a gallery advised by art critic Clement Greenberg, was closing its department of contemporary art. French and Company had represented Color Field painters Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, and Jules Olitski. Emmerich immediately invited Louis and Noland to be represented by his gallery. In 1966 he extended the invitation to Olitski as well, and Helen Frankenthaler joined soon after. The gallery's reputation as one of the earliest and most important promoters of Color Field painters was launched.
In addition to Color Field painters, the gallery represented, among others, Pierre Alechinsky, Karel Appel, Milton Avery, Herbert Ferber, Sam Francis, John Graham, Al Held, David Hockney, Hans Hofmann, John Hoyland, Judy Pfaff, Miriam Schapiro, and Anne Truitt.
Until January 1983, sales of pre-Columbian art primarily went through an entity called André Emmerich Inc. (AE Inc.), while sales of contemporary went through the André Emmerich Gallery Inc. (AEG). In 1983, the two entities were merged and operated under the name André Emmerich Gallery Inc.
In 1971, Emmerich began operating a downtown gallery at 420 West Broadway, in SoHo, in space shared with Leo Castelli, Virginia Dwan, and Ileana Sonnabend. In 1972, Emmerich opened a branch of his gallery in Zurich. He incorporated the Galerie André Emmerich Gmbh primarily for the purpose of leasing gallery space in Zurich. Until February 1974, sales of Pre-Columbian art in Zurich were made by an entity called André Emmerich Gallery Inc., New York Filiale Zurich. The Galerie André Emmerich Gmbh was officially liquidated in May 1982. The Filiale was formally closed in October 1996. Galerie André Emmerich also enjoyed a short-lived joint venture with Gimpel & Hanover.
André Emmerich served as president of the Art Dealers Association of America from 1972-1974 and again from 1991-1994.
Emmerich opened a private 150 acre sculpture park, Top Gallant Farm, on his estate in Pawling, New York, in 1982, where he stored and exhibited monumental sculptures by artists his gallery represented including Anthony Caro, Beverly Pepper, Alexander Liberman, Alexander Calder, Mark di Suvero, George Rickey, and Keith Haring. David Hockney painted waves onto floor of the property's swimming pool in 1986. Emmerich operated the sculpture park until 1996.
Emmerich sold his gallery to Sotheby's in 1996. He continued to be affiliated with the gallery until Sotheby's closed the gallery in 1998. Emmerich then began work on his memoir, My Life With Art, excerpts of which have been published in Art News, the Wall Street Journal, and The New Criterion.
Andre Emmerich died in New York 2007 and is survived by his second wife, Susanne Emmerich.
Related Material:
Among the holdings of the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with André Emmerich conducted by Mona Hadler on January 18, 1993.
Provenance:
The André Emmerich Gallery records and André Emmerich papers were donated to the Archives of American Art by André Emmerich in eight accretions between 1999 and 2002. Two additional accretions were donated by Emmerich's wife Susanne in 2008 and 2009; and by James Yohe, executive director (1990-1999), in 2009 and 2014.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Access of diaries and appointment books required written permission.
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 African American art historian, curator and arts administrator, Lowery Stokes Sims, measure 34.0 linear feet and date from 1967 to 2019. The collection documents Sims's career, and her work towards the inclusion of women artists and artists of color into the mainstream art world. The collection comprises biographical materials, datebooks, correspondence, writings, notebooks, exhibition files, professional files that include Sims's files from the Studio Museum in Harlem, Metropolitan Museum of Art records, research files, files on Robert Colescott, printed materials, photographic materials, and unidentified audiovisual and born-digital materials.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of African American art historian, curator and art administrator, Lowery Stokes Sims, measure 34.0 linear feet and date from 1967 to 2019. The collection documents Sims's career, and her work towards the inclusion of women artists and artists of color into the mainstream art world. The collection comprises biographical materials, datebooks, correspondence, writings, notebooks, exhibition files, professional files that include Sims's files from the Studio Museum in Harlem, Metropolitan Museum of Art records, research files, files on Robert Colescott, printed materials, photographic materials, and unidentified audiovisual and born-digital materials.
Biographical materials contain address books, awards, interviews with Sims, and resumes. Fifty datebooks highlight Sims's daily activities for over four decades. Personal and professional correspondence is with Audrey Flack, Za, Betye Saar, Hale Woodruff, Susan Schwalb, Margo Machida, William McKnight, and others.
Writings include drafts and typescripts on Alma Thomas, Elizabeth Catlett, Romare Bearden, Wifredo Lam, African American and women artists; a transcript of a conversation between Sims and Maren Hassinger; and born digital material of presentations. Also in the collection are 60 notebooks containing personal and professional notes and journal entries.
Exhibition files consist of correspondence, budget records, writings about the exhibition and for the catalog, clippings, exhibition announcements, loan forms, artist biographies, and artwork lists for Living Space: An Exhibition on Low Income Housing (1977), Art as a Verb (1988), Next Generation: Southern Black Aesthetic (1990), and Richard Pousette-Dart, 1916-1992 (1997).
Professional files document Sims's memberships, conferences, projects, and teaching activities, as well as her work at the Studio Museum of Harlem. The Metropolitan Museum of Art records consist of research on the museum's collection of works by African American artists, program and staff files, and snapshots of Sims with colleagues on a trip to Patagonia.
Research files contain printed materials, notes, 32 audiovisual recordings and nine born digital discs, and biographical material on artists Frederick Brown, Elizabeth Catlett, Stuart Davis, Maren Hassinger, Edgar Heap of Birds, Al Loving, Faith Ringgold, Jaune Quick-To-See Smith, Kara Walker, and others. The files on Robert Colescott include a book proposal, artwork lists, exhibition files, four sound recordings of an interview between Colescott and Sims, and research material on related topics.
Printed materials consist of clippings featuring Sims, posters, event programs, a few newsletters and magazines, exhibition catalogs that include essays written by Sims, and three documentary recordings. Photographic materials include prints, negatives, transparencies, photograph albums, and slides of Sims, colleagues and friends, exhibitions and professional events, Russ Thompson and Benny Andrews, Beverly Buchanan, Rick Powel, Vaclav Havel, Jeff Donaldson, Samella Lewis, and others.
The final series consists of nine sound recordings and one born digital disc (CD) that could not be placed into a series as the material is either unlabeled or the labels are illegible.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 13 series.
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1980-circa 2005 (0.5 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 2: Datebooks, 1975-2017 (4.0 linear feet; Boxes 1-5)
Series 3: Correspondence, 1971-2018 (1.0 linear feet; Boxes 5-6)
Series 4: Writings, circa 1970s-2018 (2.6 linear feet; Boxes 6-8, OV 33)
Series 5: Notebooks, 1975-2016 (2.6 linear feet; Boxes 39-42)
Series 6: Exhibition Files, 1967-2017 (1.6 linear feet; Boxes 9-10, OV 36)
Series 7: Professional Files, 1969-2018 (6.3 linear feet; Boxes 10-16, OV 34)
Series 8: Metropolitan Museum of Art Records, 1972-2008 (6.0 linear feet; Boxes 16-22, OV 38)
Series 9: Research Files, circa 1970-2017 (6.0 linear feet; Boxes 22-28, OV 35)
Series 10: Files on Robert Colescott, 1971-2019 (1.6 linear feet; Boxes 28-30)
Series 11: Printed Materials, 1970s-2017 (1.8 linear feet; Box 30, OV 37)
Series 12: Photographic Materials, 1970s-2018 (0.8 linear feet; Boxes 31-32)
Series 13: Unidentified Audio and Born Digital Material, circa 1985-2009 (1 folder; Box 32)
Biographical / Historical:
Lowery Stokes Sims (1949-) is an African American art historian, curator, and arts administrator. Sims began her career at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1972 where she became the museum's first African American curator. She left the Met in 1999 for the Studio Museum in Harlem where she served as Executive Director, President, and then Adjunct Curator of the Permanent Collection from 2000 to 2007. From 2007 to 2015, she was curator for the Museum of Art and Design.
Sims was born in Washington D.C. but moved to New York when she was 2 years old. She graduated from Bishop Reilly High School in Queens, N.Y. in 1966. She went on to receive a bachelor of arts degree in art history from Queens College in 1970 and a master of arts degree in art history from Johns Hopkins University in 1972. In 1995, Sims completed her dissertation, published as Wifredo Lam and the International Avant-Garde, 1923-1982 in 2002, to receive her doctoral degree from The Graduate Center, City University of New York.
Sims is a member of the College Art Association, the International Committee of Art Critics, Art Matters Foundation, and has served on the boards of Just Above Midtown (JAM) Gallery, Caribbean Cultural Center, National State Council on the Arts, and the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, among others. She was awarded the Frank Jewett Mather Award for Distinction in Art Criticism in 1991, a Leadership by Example Award from the New York coalition of 100 Black women in 1997, and a Lifetime Achievement in the Arts Award from the Queens Museum of Art in 1998. Sims has also lectured at Queens College, the Institute of Fine Art at New York University, the Studio Museum in Harlem, Rutgers University, and Bard College.
Related Materials:
Also found in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview of Lowery Stokes Sims conducted on July 15 and 22, 2010 by Judith Olch Richards, for the Archives of American Art's Elizabeth Murray Oral History of Women in the Visual Arts project, at Sims' home, in New York, N.Y.
Provenance:
The collection was donated in 2019 by Lowery Stokes Sims as part of the Archives' African American Collecting Initiative funded by the Henry Luce Foundation.
Restrictions:
Notebooks in Series 5 are access restricted; written permission is required. Contact Reference Services for more information. 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.
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:
Art historians -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Arts administrators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Art museum curators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The Michèle Cone papers measure 7.3 linear feet and date from 1959 to 2020. The collection documents Michèle Cone's professional activities as an art critic, educator, and scholar through biographical material, personal and professional correspondence, recorded interviews and interview projects, AICA-USA files, professional files with recorded lectures and discussions, writing projects, curatorial projects, teaching files, and photographic materials.
Scope and Contents:
The Michèle Cone papers, 1959-2020, measure 7.3 linear feet and document Michèle Cone's professional activities as an art critic, educator, and scholar through biographical material, personal and professional correspondence, recorded interviews and interview projects, AICA-USA files, professional files with recorded lectures and discussions, writing projects, curatorial projects, teaching files, and photographic materials.
Biographical materials include curriculum vitaes and planning drafts for Cone's website, among other personal materials. Personal and professional correspondence is with arts publications and magazines, museums and galleries, and artists and colleagues, with much written in French. Letters and postcards are from Miguel Cervantes, David Diao, Albert Féraud, Anna Belle Geiger, Francoise Gilot, Grace Glueck, Joseph Nechvatal, Archie Rand, Pierre Restany, Sandy Skoglund, and Maro Gorky and Matthew Spender, among others. Interviews and interview projects include interview transcripts and 28 recordings with artists and colleagues, including Vito Acconci, Leo Castelli, Christo, Robert Gober, Red Grooms, Peter Halley, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Roy Lichtenstein, Allan McCollum, Cady Noland, Pierre Restany, Richard Rogers, Daniel Spoerri, Haim Steinbach, Ben Vautier, and others.
Michèle Cone's time spent as a member of the board of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA-USA) is represented through AICA-USA files, and professional files document Cone's varied professional activities. Cone attended and presented at conferences; gave lectures at galleries, universities, and other organizations; and organized and participated in panel discussions, roundtables, and symposia. Some were recorded on sound cassette and include Roland Barthes, John Cage, Anne D'Harnoncourt, Michel Foucault, Harold Rosenberg, Philippe Sollers, and others. Critical reviews and articles, book projects, essays, museum catalog contributions, an unfinished memoir project, and other scholarly writing activities are found among writing projects, and curatorial projects document planned and proposed exhibitions. Teaching files primarily document Cone's time instructing at the School of Visual Arts in New York, with some material for NYU, and various slides and snapshots of events and artworks are found with photographic materials. The collection also includes assorted unidentified video recordings and born digital files. Researchers should note that some of Michèle Cone's projects continued to evolve into additional projects, speaking engagements, curatorial endeavors, and writings.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 10 series.
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1972-2019 (8 folders; Box 1)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1965-2020 (0.5 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 3: Interviews and Interview Projects, 1969-2019 (0.8 linear feet; Boxes 1, 7-8)
Series 4: AICA-USA Files, 1989-2009 (0.4 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 5: Professional Files, 1974-2013 (1.2 linear feet; Boxes 1-2, 7-8)
Series 6: Writing Projects, 1959-2019 (2.7 linear feet; Boxes 2-5, OV 9)
Series 7: Curatorial Projects, 1990-2014 (1.2 linear feet; Boxes 5-6, OV 10-11)
Series 8: Teaching Files, 1988-2010 (0.2 linear feet; Box 6)
Series 9: Photographic Materials, circa 1970-1992 (5 folders; Box 6)
Series 10: Unidentified Video Recordings and Born Digital Files, circa 1980s-circa 1990s (0.3 linear feet; Box 6)
Biographical / Historical:
Michèle Cone (1932- ) is a French-born art critic and scholar of 20th century art, especially the art of France under Vichy and Nazi occupation. Cone taught at New York's School of Visual Arts from 1980 to 2008 and received her PhD from NYU in 1988. In addition, she received a Chateaubriand Fellowship in the 1980s to conduct research for her PhD in Paris; was the New York editorial coordinator for the Italian magazine Flash Art; and is also a former board member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA-USA).
Cone's publications include three books: The Roots and Routes of Art in the 20th Century (Horizon Press, 1975); Artists under Vichy: A Case of Prejudice and Persecution (Princeton University Press, 1992), which is a revised version of her doctoral thesis, "Art and Politics in France, 1940-1944" (UMI, 1988); and French Modernisms: Perspectives on Art before, during and after Vichy (Cambridge University Press, 2001). In addition, she has published numerous critical reviews; contributed to anthologies and museum catalogs; written essays for various arts publications; planned and led lectures, panel discussions, roundtables, and symposia; conducted interviews with artists for publication, television programs, and oral history projects; and curated exhibitions.
Related Materials:
The Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library also holds the Michèle C. Cone collection of Artists under Vichy.
Provenance:
The Michèle Cone papers were donated in 2021 by Michèle Cone.
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 References 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:
Art critics -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Art historians -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The Betty Parsons Gallery records and personal papers measure 61.1 linear feet and date from 1916 to 1991, with the bulk of the material dating from 1946-1983. Records provide extensive documentation of the gallery's operations from its inception in 1946 to its closing in 1983 and of the activities of Betty Parsons as one the leading art dealers of contemporary American Art in the latter half of the twentieth century, particularly the work of the Abstract Expressionists. Over one third of the of the collection is comprised of artists files containing correspondence, price lists, and printed materials. Additional correspondence is with galleries, dealers, art institutions, private collectors, and the media. Also found are exhibition files, exhibition catalogs and announcements, sales records, stock inventories, personal financial records, and photographs. Betty Parsons's personal papers consist of early curatorial files, pocket diaries, personal correspondence, and evidence of her own artwork, including sketchbooks, and files documenting her personal art collection.
Scope and Content Note:
The Betty Parsons Gallery records and personal papers measure 61.1 linear feet and date from 1916 to 1991, with the bulk of the material dating from 1946-1983. Records provide extensive documentation of the gallery's operations from its inception in 1946 to its closing in 1983 and of the activities of Betty Parsons as one the leading art dealers of contemporary American Art in the latter half of the twentieth century, particularly the work of the Abstract Expressionists. Over one third of the of the collection is comprised of artists files containing correspondence, price lists, and printed materials. Additional correspondence is with galleries, dealers, art institutions, private collectors, and the media. Also found are exhibition files, exhibition catalogs and announcements, sales records, stock inventories, personal financial records, and photographs. Betty Parsons's personal papers consist of early curatorial files, pocket diaries, personal correspondence, and evidence of her own artwork, including sketchbooks, and files documenting her personal art collection. Personal papers also include personal photographs.
Artists files, the largest and most extensive series, consist of a wide variety of documents, including biographical materials, correspondence with or related to the artist, exhibition catalogs and announcements, sales and expense invoices, clippings, price lists, and photographs of the artist, exhibitions, and artwork. The files reflect Parsons's close personal relationships with certain artists, particularly Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, and Barnett Newman. Extensive documentation is also found for Forrest Bess, William Congdon, Paul Feeley, Thomas George, Alexander Liberman, Seymour Lipton, Richard Pousette-Dart, Jesse Reichek, and Jack Youngerman. Historians and researchers will find these files to be an invaluable resource both in tracing Betty Parsons's role in promoting Abstract Expressionism and researching individual artists.
Exhibition files primarily document the gallery's infrequent group or themed exhibitions. Of particular note are the files on The Ideographic Picture, which was organized by Barnett Newman and included his work, as well as that of Pietro Lazzari, Boris Margo, Ad Reinhardt, Mark Rothko, Theodoros Stamos, and Clyfford Still. Price lists, artist biographies and exhibition schedules are housed in the general exhibition files. Loan exhibition files provide documentation of artwork borrowed by other galleries or institutions for exhibitions, as well as shows outside of the gallery that were organized by Betty Parsons. Also found are gallery exhibition guest books, and announcements and catalogs.
Gallery correspondence is primarily with galleries and dealers, museums, arts organizations, and collectors. Scattered letters from artists are also found, although the bulk of the artists' correspondence is filed in the Artists Files. Also found here are memoranda and letters between Betty Parsons and her staff that contain detailed information concerning Parsons's schedule and gallery activities. Similar correspondence is found amongst the correspondence files within the series Betty Parsons papers.
Appraisal and conservation files include correspondence, appraisal invoices, forms, and appraisal requests and other information from the Art Dealers Association of America, and conservation invoices and reports. The majority of the appraisal records contain information about the specific works of art, including artist, title, date, current owner and the estimated value at the time of the request. Conservation records document conservation treatments undertaken by outside conservators to gallery stock.
Sales, purchases, stock and inventory are well documented in the sales and inventory records. The records provide detailed information about individual sales, prices of individual pieces of artwork, consignments, and loans. Most sales records also include detailed information about the buyer and are a valuable resource for provenance research. Files documenting the general administration, routine business operations, and financial transactions (not individual sales) of the gallery are housed in the general business and financial records. These records include ledgers, receipts, tax records, and banking records. There is some limited information about works of art scattered amongst the receipts and in the "in/out slips" files. Legal records house general legal documents and those concerning specific lawsuits. Of particular note is the file detailing the lawsuit between Betty Parsons and Sidney Janis over the fifth floor of 24 West 57th Street.
The remainder of the collection consists of Betty Parsons's personal papers which document her career prior to opening her own gallery, her work as an artist, and her personal art collection.
Some information about Parsons's work prior to opening her own gallery is found in the early curatorial files she retained from her curatorial and administrative work at the Wakefield Gallery and the Mortimer Brandt Gallery. Clippings, correspondence, announcements, exhibition lists and exhibition files are found. For both positions, she kept only the exhibition files for a small group of exhibitions organized around a specific theme, the most notable being the exhibition of Pre-Columbian Sculpture at the Wakefield Gallery.
Biographical materials include copies of her biography, family genealogies, photographs of Parsons, interviews with Colette Roberts and WYNC radio, memberships, photographs, and ephemera, including a collection of programs and invitations from events that she attended. Throughout her life Parsons gave generously of her time to various cultural and charitable institutions and was awarded for her contributions. There are also a number of files that document her speaking engagements, her participation as a juror in numerous juried exhibitions, charitable work, and awards that she received.
Parsons's personal correspondence files reflect how deeply Parsons's life was intertwined with the gallery. There are letters from museum directors, dealers, artists seeking representation, and personal letters from artists with whom she had close personal relationships, most notably Larry Bigelow, Alexander Calder, William Condon, and Ad Reinhardt. There are also letters from the English artist Adge Baker, with whom Parsons was romantically involved. Correspondence also includes several files of postcards and Christmas cards.
Pocket diaries and engagement calendars, spanning from 1933-1981, record social engagements, meetings, vacations, and telephone numbers. Also found are circa two linear feet of notebooks and sketchbooks, many of which are annotated with addresses, poetry, journal entries, and other observations of people, places, and travels. Writings by others include writings about Betty Parsons or the Betty Parsons Gallery, such as Lawrence Alloway's unpublished typescript titled "An American Gallery" and other topics.
Printed material consists of exhibition announcements and catalogs, art magazines, and newspaper and magazine clippings about Betty Parsons, her family and acquaintances, artists, and other art related topics, coupled with a miscellaneous selection of clippings, and a video recording, on topics that presumably captured Parsons's attention.
Personal art work records document Betty Parsons's career as an artist through inventories, group and solo exhibitions files, price lists, appraisals, sales and consignment invoices. Photographs are primarily reproductions of her works of art, although there are scattered photographs of exhibition installations.
Betty Parsons's private art collection files document her extensive personal collection of art that included works by Jackson Pollock, Agnes Martin, Romare Bearden, Barnett Newman, and Mark Rothko, in addition to Amlash sculpture from ancient Persia and primitive sculpture from New Hebrides. These files include inventories, lists, exhibition records, sales and purchase invoices, and photographs. There are also files for donations and loans from Parsons's personal collection to museums and fund raising auctions for several non-profit institutions.
Finally, the personal financial records provide information about the Parsons's family finances and her personal financial success as an art dealer. In addition to her own investments, Parsons inherited shares in family investments through the estates of her parents, J. Fred Pierson, Jr. and Suzanne Miles Pierson, and younger sister, Emily Rayner. Real estate files include correspondence, utility bills, receipts, area maps, and land plots for houses in Sheepscot, Maine and St. Maartens, Netherlands Antilles. Tax returns, ledger worksheets, receipts, banking statements, deposit slips, and cancelled checks are among the other financial records.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as seven series. Many of the series are further divided into subseries.
Missing Title
Series 1: Artists Files, 1935-1983 (19.4 linear feet; Boxes 1-18, 51, 55-56, OVs 53, 65)
Series 2: Exhibition Files, 1941-1983 (2.9 linear feet; Boxes 18-21, 51, 55, OVs 54, 66)
Series 3: Correspondence Files, 1941-1983 (3.9 linear feet; Boxes 21-24, 52, 56)
Series 4: Appraisal Files, 1954-1983 (0.7 linear feet; Box 24)
Series 5: Sales and Inventory Records, 1946-1983 (3.9 linear feet; Boxes 25-28, 51)
Series 6: General Business and Financial Records, 1946-1983 (9.3 linear feet; Boxes 28-38, 51, 56)
Series 7: Betty Parsons Personal Papers, 1916-1991 (21 linear feet; Boxes 38-51, 55-64, OVs 65-67)
Historical Note:
Betty Parsons (1900-1982) was one of the leading art dealers in New York City specializing in modern art, particularly the work of the Abstract Expressionists, and an abstract painter and sculptor in her own right. She opened Betty Parsons Gallery in 1946 at 15 E. 57th St., later moving to 24 W. 57th St.
The history of the Betty Parsons Gallery is inextricably bound to the life and experiences of its founder. Betty Parsons was born Betty Bierne Pierson on January 31, 1900 in New York City. She enjoyed a privileged childhood, which included vacation homes in Newport and Palm Beach. Her only formal education was a five-year stint at the prestigious Chapin School from 1910-1915, where she met many of the women who would become life-long friends and supporters. In the spring of 1920, she married Schuyler Livingston Parsons from one of New York's oldest families. The marriage ended after only three years and the couple traveled to Paris where they could obtain a divorce on the grounds of incompatibility. She retained her married surname and purchased a house on the rue Boulard in Paris, where she remained for ten years, pursuing studies in painting and sculpture.
Financial constraints forced Parsons to return to the United States in 1933. She first traveled west to California, but it was her return to New York in 1935 that marked the start of her career as an art dealer. Her first opportunity to connect with the New York art world came after a successful exhibition of her watercolors at the Midtown Galleries where the owner, Alan Gruskin, noted Parson's faithful and wealthy group of supporters and offered her work installing exhibitions and selling paintings on commission. Her work for the Midtown Galleries led to a second position in the Park Avenue gallery of Mary Sullivan, one of the founders of the Museum of Modern Art. Here, Parsons learned the business of running a gallery. By 1940 Parsons was ready to take on more independent responsibility and agreed to manage a gallery within the Wakefield Bookshop. In this job, she exercised full curatorial control by selecting artists and organizing exhibitions. She championed then unknown contemporary American artists and the gallery's roster soon included Saul Steinberg, Hedda Sterne, Alfonso Ossorio, Joseph Cornell, Walter Murch, and Theodore Stamos. Although the majority of the exhibitions were solo shows, there were a few group shows and themed exhibitions, such as Love in Art (1941) and Ballet in Art (1942). Under Parson's direction, the gallery hosted an important exhibition of Pre-Columbian sculpture, curated by Barnett Newman.
When the owners of the Wakefield Bookshop decided to close the gallery late in 1944, Mortimer Brandt, a dealer who specialized in Old Master paintings and drawings, offered her a position as head of the newly created contemporary section of his gallery. Many of the artists who had shown with Parsons at the Wakefield Gallery followed her to her new gallery, where they were joined by Ad Reinhardt, Boris Mango, and Hans Hofmann. While the exhibitions garnered attention from the press and the interest of contemporary artists, the contemporary section was not a financial success and Brandt opted to close his gallery in 1946.
Using $1000 of her own money and an additional borrowed $4000, Parsons sublet the space that previously housed Mortimer Brandt's contemporary section, on the fifth floor of 15 East 57th Street, and opened the Betty Parsons Gallery.
In many respects the early years of the Betty Parsons Gallery were the most vital, as it was during the period of 1947-1951 that the gallery became linked with the Abstract Expressionists and the history of post-WWII American Art. In an unpublished history of the gallery, noted art critic Lawrence Alloway stated that the significance of the gallery's early exhibitions ranks with Durand-Ruel's Impressionists exhibitions or Kahnweiler's shows of the Cubists. Betty Parsons Gallery quickly became one of the most prestigious galleries in New York City associated with new American Art of all styles. Her close friend Barnett Newman organized the gallery's inaugural exhibition of Northwest Coast Indian Art and he soon began to exhibit his own work at the gallery. When Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century Gallery closed, Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still, and Mark Rothko joined Parsons' growing stable of artists. Although Parsons continued to promote and exhibit many of the artists whom she had previously discovered, these four artists dominated this period. Newman, Pollock, Still, and Rothko worked closely together, holding themselves apart from the other artists somewhat. They were actively involved in the curatorial process and often hung their own shows. For these artists, the exhibition itself was an artistic act of creation.
Parsons provided a supportive environment and allowed her artists enormous freedom in planning and designing their exhibitions. She was not, however, an aggressive salesperson. During this early period the gallery ledgers document sales to an impressive array of museums including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as important collectors such as Edward Root and Duncan Phillips. Nevertheless, the art that the gallery promoted was not yet widely accepted. Sales were few, prices were low and the business would not turn a profit for several years. Meanwhile, there was mounting pressure from Pollock, Newman, Still, and Rothko to drop some of the other artists from Parsons' stable and focus all resources on them. They wanted to be promoted to a larger audience and have their work sold at higher prices, but Parsons enjoyed discovering new artists and did not want to be restricted in this endeavor. The year 1951 marks the last time that Pollock's drip paintings or the monumental works of Newman, Rothko or Still were shown at the Betty Parsons Gallery.
In the following years the Betty Parsons Gallery continued to attract a diverse group of talented artists. Ellsworth Kelly, Richard Tuttle, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jack Youngerman had their first New York exhibitions at the Betty Parsons Gallery. Parsons opened Section Eleven in 1958, a short-lived annex to the main gallery, so that she could promote younger, less well-known artists. It closed in 1960 due to the administrative difficulties in running two essentially separate galleries.
In 1962, Sidney Janis, another prominent art dealer, started proceedings to evict Parsons from the floor that they shared on 15 East 57th Street. The Betty Parsons Gallery moved to 24 West 57th Street in 1963, where it remained until it closed in 1983, following Parsons' death the preceding year. Throughout the gallery's history, Parsons continued to promote faithful artists such as Hedda Sterne and Saul Steinberg, who had been with her from the beginning and to seek out new talent, both for her main gallery and for other venues, such as the short-lived Parsons-Truman Gallery, which she opened in 1974 with former Parsons Gallery director Jock Truman to show works on paper by emerging artists.
In addition to being an art dealer, Betty Parsons was a respected artist and collector. With her connoisseur's eye and connections, Parsons amassed an impressive private collection of art. She bought her first piece while an art student in Paris in the 1920s, a small gouache by Zadkine, but did not begin acquiring works in earnest until she was established as an art dealer. Partial inventories of her personal collection show that the majority of her collection contained works by artists associated with the gallery. Mark Rothko, Hans Hofmann, Ad Reinhardt, Agnes Martin, and Kenzo Okada were among the artists represented. Many were gifts from the artists, such as an ink drawing by Jackson Pollock, inscribed "For Betty." Selections from her collection appeared in small museums across the United States, including a traveling exhibition organized by Fitch College, New York, in 1968. In her role as a promoter of contemporary American art, Parsons lent generously from her collection, particularly to the federal Art in the Embassies Program. Throughout her life she also donated works to a variety of museums, most notably, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark.
Parsons frequently claimed that her desire to pursue a career as an artist stemmed from a visit to the Armory Show when she was thirteen. In her late teens, after pressuring her father for art lessons, she studied with the sculptor Gutzon Burglum of Mount Rushmore fame. In Paris, she continued her studies first with Antoine Bourdelle, whose sculptures she had admired at the Armory Show, and later with Ossip Zadkine. The first exhibition of her work, figurative watercolors and sculptures, took place in Paris in 1927. As she matured as an artist, her art became more abstract. Her late works were painted wood sculptures that she pieced together from wood that she found near her studio in Long Island. Parsons's work was exhibited in more than thirty solo exhibitions, including, Betty Parsons; Paintings, Gouaches and Sculpture, 1955-1968, at the Whitechapel Gallery in London. During her lifetime, she would not allow her works to be shown in her own gallery. Shortly after she died of a stroke in 1982, In Memoriam, Betty Parsons: Late Sculptures, opened at the Betty Parsons Gallery.
Related Material:
Also found in the Archives of American Art are oral history interviews with Betty Parsons, June 4-9, 1969, by Paul Cummings, and June 11, 1981 by Gerald Silk.
Separated Material:
Some of the material originally loaned for microfilming in 1968 and 1969 was not included in later donations and can be viewed on microfilm reels N68/62-N68/74 and N69/105-N69/106. Loaned materials are not described in the container listing in this finding aid.
Provenance:
The gallery donated some records in 1974, many of which had been loaned earlier for microfilming. The bulk of the collection was donated in 1984 and 1986 by William Rayner and Christopher Schwabacher, executors of the Estate of Betty Parsons. Additional material was donated by William Rayner in 1998 and Christopher Schwabacher in 2017. Additional material was donated in 2018 by the Lee Hall estate via Carolyn Crozier and Deborah Jacobson, co-executors. Hall was Parsons's biographer and had the material in her possession at the time of Parsons's death. An additional photograph of Parons and Marie Carr Taylor by Henri Cartier-Bresson was donated in 2021 by Mary Carpenter, who inherited the photograph from her mother, Nan Thorton Jones, who received it as a gift from Taylor.
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 audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References 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:
Gallery owners -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Art dealers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The papers of writer and art critic Dodie Kazanjian measure 14.1 linear feet and 0.546 GB, and date from 1949-2017, bulk 1980-2017. The collection is comprised of writings, interviews, and research material related to Kazanjian's career as an art writer for Vogue and House and Garden magazines. Included are manuscripts, correspondence, notes, printed material, photographs of artwork, and interviews with various artists and art world figures. The interviews were conducted by Kazanjian as part of her research process and were recorded on over 230 sound cassettes found in the collection. Many of the interviews are also transcribed. A small amount of born-digital material includes images of artworks and artists and audio recordings of interviews.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of writer and art critic Dodie Kazanjian measure 14.1 linear feet and 0.546 GB, and date from 1949-2017, bulk 1980-2017. The collection is comprised of writings, interviews, and research material related to Kazanjian's career as an art writer for Vogue and House and Garden magazines. Included are manuscripts, correspondence, notes, printed material, photographs of artwork, and interviews with various artists and art world figures. The interviews were conducted by Kazanjian as part of her research process and were recorded on over 230 sound cassettes found in the collection. Many of the interviews are also transcribed. A small amount of born-digital material includes images of artworks and artists and audio recordings of interviews.
Arrangement:
Due to the content of this collection the papers are arranged as one series.
Series 1: Writing Project Files and Interviews, 1949-2017, bulk 1980-2017 (Boxes 1-14, OVs 15-16, RD 17, 14.1 linear feet; ER01-ER05, 0.546 GB)
Biographical / Historical:
Kazanjian is a writer and art critic in New York City. She is a contributing editor to Vogue magazine and director of Gallery Met at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. She is married to Calvin Tomkins, long-time critic for The New Yorker.
Related Materials:
Also found in the Archives of American Art is the Dodie Kazanjian and Calvin Tomkins research material on Alexander Liberman.
Provenance:
Donated to the Archives of American Art by Dodie Kazanjian, 2001-2017.
Restrictions:
This collection is access restricted; written permission is required. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Access, with permission, to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Researchers interested in accessing, with permission, born-digital records or audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References 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:
Art critics -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Authors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Genre/Form:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Citation:
Dodie Kazanjian papers, 1949-2017. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
The papers of craft expert Rose Slivka, an editor, writer, critic, and educator, measure 20.8 linear feet and date from circa 1947-2006. The papers reflect Slivka's work with associations and universities to encourage the recognition of crafts as an international and broadly defined art form. The routine business of publishing Craft Horizons magazine and the founding and operation of Craft International magazine are documented by correspondence and subject files. Correspondence is mainly professional with some scattered personal letters. Subject files concern various organizations, individuals and events related to Slivka's work and interests. Among the writings are manuscripts, notes, and research materials for her book about Peter Voulkos; also included are shorter writings on a variety of topics, poems, 2 diaries, lectures and talks. There are many interviews with craftspeople and artists conducted by Slivka and others, some undertaken as research for articles. Photographs include views of Slivka, craftspeople she observed when traveling abroad, and artwork.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of craft expert Rose Slivka, an editor, writer, critic, and educator, measure 20.8 linear feet and date from circa 1947-2006. The papers reflect Slivka's work with associations and universities to encourage the recognition of crafts as an international and broadly defined art form. The routine business of publishing Craft Horizons magazine and the founding and operation of Craft International magazine are documented by correspondence and subject files. Correspondence is mainly professional with some scattered personal letters. Subject files concern various organizations, individuals and events related to Slivka's work and interests. Among the writings are manuscripts, notes, and research materials for her book about Peter Voulkos; also included are shorter writings on a variety of topics, poems, 2 diaries, lectures and talks. There are many interviews with craftspeople and artists conducted by Slivka and others, some undertaken as research for articles. Photographs include artwork, views of Slivka, and craftspeople she observed when traveling abroad.
Interviews with craftsmen and other artists were conducted by Rose Slivka and others. Peter Voulkos is espcially well-documented. Among the artists interviewed are: Elaine de Kooning, Philip Guston, Jack Lenor Larsen, Louise Nevelson, and David Slivka. Also found are intereviews with John Cage, Stanley Kunitz, and Rose Slivka.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 7 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1947-2005 ( Box 1; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1950-2004 (Boxes 1-4: 3.6 linear feet)
Series 3: Interviews, 1974-2001 (Boxes 5-6; 1.6 linear feet)
Series 4: Writings, Notes, and Related Research, 1954-2001 (Boxes 6-11, OV 23; 4.8 linear feet)
Series 5: Subject Files, 1958-2004 (Boxes 11-18, 22, OV 23; 7.4 linear feet)
Series 6: Printed Material, 1952-2006 (Boxes 18-20, OV 23; 1.9 linear feet)
Series 7: Photographs, circa 1947-1990s (Boxes 20-21; 1 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
Crafts expert Rose Slivka (1919-2004) was an editor, educator, and critic in New York City and East Hampton, NY. Slivka edited Craft Horizons magazine from 1957-1979, and then founded Crafts International, which published its first issue in 1980.
Rose Slivka was very active in the American Crafts Council and World Crafts Council, and promoted crafts by participating in conferences around the world, acting as a juror of competitions, writing, and teaching. The author of books and articles about crafts, including the entry on "Handicrafts" in the 1961 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica, Slivka was tireless in her search for information pertaining to crafts of all nations. Her study of the subject was integrated into a strong, far-reaching campaign to include sculpture as a craft and promote crafts on a par with fine art. She was also interested in poetry and taught courses in art criticism at New York University and the New School for Social Research.
Many of Slivka's articles on craft, painting and sculpture have been published in periodicals such as Art in America, Architectural Digest, and The New York Times. Books and exhibition catalogs include The Crafts of the Modern World (1964); The Object as Poet (1976), Renwick Gallery, Washington, DC; Peter Voulkos: A Dialogue in Clay (1978); California Clay (1979), Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and The Book as Art and Artist (1979), Elaine Benson Gallery, Bridgehampton, NY. Slivka's writings have been translated into at least 7 languages.
Slivka was awarded the National Endowment for the Arts Critics Fellowship in 1976 and between 1980 and 1982 conducted a research project on "Criticism and Scholarship in Modern Craft" also sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts. She was awarded The Rhode Island School of Design President's Fellows Award in 1982, and its highest honor, the Athena Medal. In addition, she served on the boards of directors for several New York City organizations including Clayworks Studio Workshop, New York Experimental Glassworks, and Center for Book Arts.
Following her career as a magazine editor, international speaker on crafts, writer, and educator, Slivka moved to East Hampton, Long Island, where she continued to write poetry and was art critic for The East Hampton Star newspaper.
Rose Slivka's was married to sculptor David Slivka; the couple had 2 children and eventually divorced. She died of heart failure in Southampton, NY, on September 2, 2004.
Provenance:
The Rose Slivka papers were donated to the Archives of American Art by Slivka's daughter, Charlotte Slivka, in 2008 and 2012.
Restrictions:
Use of original materials requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington D.C. research center. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
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:
Editors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Art critics -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The papers of art critic Emily Genauer measure 11.4 linear feet and date from circa 1920 to 1990. Found within the papers are correspondence with artists, gallery owners, and friends; extensive writings; research and reference files; personal business records; and photographs. Notable correspondents include David Aronson, Mrs. Max Beckman, Isabel Bishop, Dorothy Carnegie, Marc Chagall, Salvatore Dali, Stuart Davis, Martha Graham, Harry F. Guggenheim, Irene Rice Pereira, Clyfford Still, Rufino Tamayo, and Frank Lloyd Wright, among many others.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of art critic Emily Genauer measure 11.4 linear feet and date from circa 1920 to 1990. Found within the papers are correspondence with artists, gallery owners, and friends; extensive writings; research and reference files; personal business records; and photographs.
Notable correspondents include David Aronson, Mrs. Max Beckman, Isabel Bishop, Dorothy Carnegie, Marc Chagall, Salvatore Dali, Stuart Davis, Martha Graham, Harry F. Guggenheim, Irene Rice Pereira, Clyfford Still, Rufino Tamayo, and Frank Lloyd Wright, among numerous others. Extensive writings consist largely of drafts of columns written by Genauer and supporting research notes, as well as essays, speeches, lectures, book manuscripts, and memoirs. Research and reference files include source material for columns and essays. Personal business records document Genauer's work on committees and arts organizations, juries, awards, honors and also include interview transcripts and other personal scattered files. There is material regarding her leaving the New York World-Telegram. Printed material includes two of Genauer's books, magazines, newspaper clippings, and exhibition catalogs. Photographs are portraits of Genauer and of artwork.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged as 6 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Correspondence and Letters, 1938-1991 (Box 1, 12, 0.8 linear feet)
Series 2: Writings, circa 1930s-1990s (Box 1-3, 2.5 linear feet)
Series 3: Research and Reference Files, circa 1920s-1990s (Box 4-6, 2.6 linear feet)
Series 4: Personal Business Records, 1933-1992 (Box 6-7, 0.8 linear feet)
Series 5: Printed Materials, circa 1920s-1990s (Box 7-9, 12, 1.6 linear feet)
Series 6: Photographs, circa 1930s-1970s (Box 9-11, 12, 1.8 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
Emily Genauer (1911-2002) was a modern art critic and columinst working in New York City from 1932 until well into the 1980s. In 1974, she won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished art criticism.
Genauer was born in 1911 in Staten Island. She attended Hunter College and Columbia University, majoring in Journalism. She began her writing career in 1929 with the New York World, which later became the New York World-Telegram. She became a strong advocate for modern art and sculpture and introduced modern artists like Marc Chagall and Diego Rivera to the newspaper audience. She also followed lesser known artists and often visited their studios, and they, in return, regularly read her articles and reviews of their shows.
Genauer left the New York World-Telegram in 1949 after a dispute with the owner who accused her writing as overly sympathetic to "Communists and left-wingers" and told her she could no longer write about Picasso. She immediately went to work as the art critic for the New York Herald Tribune, where she worked until 1967, when it folded. She then wrote a regular column for the Newsday Syndicate until the mid-1970s. She also worked for Harper's and in television and served on the council for the National Endowment for the Humanities from 1966 to 1970. Genauer was the author of a number of books, including The Best of Art, Chagall at the Met, and Rufino Tamayo.
Genauer passed away in 2002 in New York City at the age of 91.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming (reel NG1) including 300 letters, photographs, and printed material. Loaned materials were returned to the lender and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
Emily Genauer lent letters on reel NG1 for microfilming 1959. Constance Roche, daughter of Emily Genauer, donated additional papers in 2000 and 2003.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice. 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:
Art critics -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Gallery owners -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The papers of New York and New Mexico writer, art critic, and curator, Lucy R. Lippard, measure 88.9 linear feet and 0.454 GB and date from the 1930s to 2007, with the bulk of the material dating from the 1960s to the 1990s. Over half of the collection consists of correspondence files documenting Lippard's professional relationships with artists, writers, galleries, art institutions, and political organizations, and her interest in conceptual and minimalist art, feminism and political activism. Also found are Lippard's notes and writings including sound recordings and interviews, teaching and exhibition files, printed and digital material, several works of art, and photographs of artwork and artists. Scattered throughout the collection are a small number of records concerning Lippard's personal life. An addition of 3.0 linear feet donated 2015 includes subject files on feminist and conceptual art as well as land use, development, and local politics and history in New Mexico.
There is a 35.4 linear foot unprocessed addition to this collection donated in 2015, 2021 and 2023 that incudes research files (press clippings, notes, correspondence, ephemera) related to the publications 'Lure of the Local' and 'Undermining' are a significant portion. In addition there are approximetley numerous notebooks ranging from 1965-1996, containing notes and daily tasks. Printed material and ephemera includes promotional materials for talks and public engagements, as well as press clippings of reviews and other news items featuring Lippard. Another significant portion of the addition is labeled "miscellaneous professional correspondence." Materials date from circa 1965-2010.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of New York and New Mexico writer, art critic, and curator, Lucy R. Lippard, measure 70.5 linear feet and 0.454 GB and date from the 1930s to 2007, with the bulk of the material dating from the 1960s to the 1990s. Over half of the collection consists of correspondence files documenting Lippard's professional relationships with artists, writers, galleries, art institutions, and political organizations, and her interest in conceptual and minimalist art, feminism and political activism. Also found are Lippard's notes and writings including sound recordings and interviews, teaching and exhibition files, printed and digital material, several works of art, and photographs of artwork and artists. Scattered throughout the collection are a small number of records concerning Lippard's personal life. An addition of 3.0 linear feet donated 2015 includes subject files on feminist and conceptual art as well as land use, development, and local politics and history in New Mexico.
A small amount of biographical material comprises resumes and an address book.
Correspondence files document all aspects of Lippard's professional life including her relationships with artists such as Carl Andre, Judy Chicago, Hanne Darboven, Ray Johnson, Sol LeWitt, and Henry Pearson; feminist artists including Mary Beth Edelson, Harmony Hammond, Donna Henes, and May Stevens; political and art-related activist groups such as Alliance for Cultural Democracy, Art Workers Coalition, Political Art Documentation/Distribution, Printed Matter, and Women's Caucus for Art; galleries and museums including Addison Gallery of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art, and publishers including Art International and Art Forum. The series also traces the development of Lippard's involvement in activist causes including censorship and the rights of artists, Central America and the impact of U.S. policy on the region, and equality and reproductive rights for women, as well as her interest in conceptual and minimalist art. The series includes scattered artwork and photographs of artists.
Writings are primarily by Lippard and include correspondence, manuscript drafts, extensive notes, and publication records for some of her best-known books such as The Graphic Work of Philip Evergood (1966), Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object (1973), Eva Hesse (1976), Ad Reinhardt (1985), and Mixed Blessings: New Art in a Multicultural America (1990), as well as essays for publications such as Art Forum and Studio International and contributions to exhibition catalogs. Also found are edited transcripts from conferences, symposia and interviews conducted by and of Lippard, some audio recordings of interviews and symposia, including an interview with Donald Judd, and notes and typescripts for lectures and speeches.
A small number of files document Lippard's teaching work during the 1970s and 1980s, primarily at the University of Colorado, Boulder where she taught several courses and seminars.
Exhibition files document Lippard's involvement with exhibitions she helped to organize or curate such as A Different War: Vietnam in Art (1989-1991) 557,087 and 955,000 (1969, 1970), 2,972, 453 (1971) c.7,500 (1973-1974) and those for which she wrote catalog contributions.
Printed material includes a collection of articles written by Lippard and a small amount of material concerning events, such as speaking engagements, in which Lippard was involved. Other printed material reflects Lippard's wide range of artistic, political and activist interests and documents exhibitions and performances and the activities of art-related and political groups. Material includes many exhibition catalogs, announcements, invitations, printed posters, news clippings, journal articles, brochures, pamphlets and other publications.
Artwork includes sixteen items by unidentified artists, including two by children. Photographs consist primarily of photographs of works of art in addition to a small number of photos of exhibition installations.
There is a 35.4 linear foot unprocessed addition to this collection donated in 2015, 2021 and 2023 that incudes research files (press clippings, notes, correspondence, ephemera) related to the publications 'Lure of the Local' and 'Undermining' are a significant portion. In addition there are approximetley numerous notebooks ranging from 1965-1996, containing notes and daily tasks. Printed material and ephemera includes promotional materials for talks and public engagements, as well as press clippings of reviews and other news items featuring Lippard. Another significant portion of the addition is labeled "miscellaneous professional correspondence."Materials date from circa 1965-2010.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as nine series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1960s-circa 1980s (Box 1; 2 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1950s-2006 (Boxes 1-28, 51, OVs 54-63; 28.8 linear feet)
Series 3: Writings, 1930s-1990s (Boxes 28-41, 51-52, OVs 64-66; 13.24 linear feet, ER01; 0.454 GB)
Series 4: Teaching Files, 1966-1993 (Boxes 41, 52; 0.76 linear feet)
Series 5: Exhibitions, 1960s-1990s (Boxes 42-45, 52, OVs 67-68; 4.2 linear feet)
Series 6: Printed Material, 1940s-2007 (Boxes 45-49, 52, OVs 69-77; 5.3 linear feet)
Series 7: Artwork and Ephemera, circa 1960s-circa 1990s (Boxes 50, 53; 4 folders)
Series 8: Photographs, 1950s-circa 1990s (Boxes 50, 53, OV 71; 1.0 linear foot)
Series 9: Unprocessed Addition, circa 1965-2010, (Boxes 78-113; 35.4 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
New York and New Mexico writer and art critic, Lucy R. Lippard, is the curator of numerous exhibitions and the author of over twenty-four books and other writings that trace the emergence of minimalist and conceptual art and document Lippard's commitment to feminism and political activism.
Born in New York City in 1937, Lippard earned a B.A. from Smith College in 1958 and an M.A. in 1962 from New York University's Institute of Fine Arts. In the 1960s she began writing art criticism for the journals Art International and Artforum. In 1966 she curated the landmark exhibition Eccentric Abstraction at the Fischbach Gallery in New York City. Lippard then curated the first of four defining conceptual art exhibitions that became known as her "numbers" shows, each titled after the populations of the cities in which they took place, with catalogs in the form of a set of 10 x 15 cm index cards. Opening at the Seattle Art Museum in 1969, 557,087 was followed by 955,000 in Vancouver, Canada, a few months later. 2,972,453 was held at the Centro de Arte y Comunicacíon in Buenos Aires in 1971 and c.7500 opened in Valencia, California, in 1973-1974 before traveling to several other venues in the United States and Europe.
Lippard's first book, The Graphic Work of Philip Evergood was published in 1966, followed by Pop Art the same year, and a collection of her early essays, Changing, in 1971. Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object (1973) and From the Center: Feminist Essays on Women's Art (1976) documented the emergence of conceptual art and the early years of feminist art respectively. In 1976 Lippard published her seminal book on the life and work of Eva Hesse.
Between 1977 and 1978 Lippard lived on a farm in Devon, England, and worked on a novel, The First Stone, about the role of politics in the lives of three generations of women. During her walks across the English countryside she became interested in landscape art and conceived of her book Overlay: Contemporary Art and the Art of Prehistory which was subsequently published in 1983. Other books include Get the Message?: A Decade Of Art For Social Change (1984), Ad Reinhardt (1985), and Mixed Blessings: New Art in a Multicultural America (1990). Lippard has also written regular columns on art and politics for the Village Voice, In These Times and Z Magazine, and has been a contributing editor of Art in America.
Lippard was radicalized during a trip to Argentina in 1968 when she was invited to be a juror at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires. On her return to the United States she became heavily involved in anti-war activities and the Art Workers Coalition. She is a co-founder of several feminist and artist organizations including the feminist collective Heresies, which produced Heresies: A Feminist Journal on Art and Politics from 1977-1992, Ad Hoc Women Artists, Alliance for Cultural Democracy, Artists Call Against U.S. Intervention in Central America, Women's Action Coalition, and Women's Art Registry. In 1976 she was a founder of Printed Matter, a New York nonprofit dedicated to producing artists' publications. She also worked closely with Franklin Furnace, an artist-run space devoted to the promotion of artists' books, installation art, and video and performance art, and served on the organization's International Committee.
Lippard has been a visiting professor at the School of Visual Arts, the University of Colorado, Boulder, and the University of Queensland, Australia, and was Eminent Artist in Residence at the University of Wyoming Department of Art in 2015. She has received honorary doctorates in fine arts from Maine College of Art, the Massachusetts College of Art, Moore College of Art, San Francisco Art Institute, and others, and awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts grants in criticism, the Smith College Medal, the ArtTable Award for Distinguished Service to the Visual Arts, and the Bard College Center for Curatorial Studies Award for Excellence.
Lippard has lived in New Mexico since 1992 and works as a freelance writer and speaker.
Related Materials:
Also found in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Lucy Lippard conducted in 2011 March 15, by Sue Heinemann, for the Archives of American Art's Elizabeth Murray Oral History of Women in the Visual Arts project, funded by a grant from the A G Foundation.
Provenance:
Lucy R. Lippard donated her papers in several increments between 1972-1995, 2006, 2015, 2021 and 2023.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice. 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:
Curators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Authors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Art critics -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The Barbara Rose papers date from 1962 to circa 1969 and measure 1.4 linear feet. Papers include letters, writings, printed material, interviews with artists, panel discussions, and lectures relating to Barbara Rose's research as an art historian.
Scope and Contents:
The Barbara Rose papers date from 1962 to circa 1969 and measure 1.4 linear feet. Papers include letters, interviews with artists, panel discussions, lectures, writings, and printed material relating to Barbara Rose's work as an art historian and critic.
Letters consist of responses to queries and questionnaires Rose and Irving Sandler sent to contemporary artists as research for writing projects. Questionnaires were sesnt in preparation for an article in Art in America on artists' sensibility of the 1960s, with responses from Robert Motherwell, Robert Craig Kauffman, Len Lye, Robert Morris, George Segal, David Hare, and others. A separate query asked sculptors for their assessment of contemporary sculptor's needs and the potential for patronage, and responses are found from Carl Andre, Charles Frazier, Robert Murray, Anthony Padovano, Ron Bladen, Roy Lichtenstein, Len Lye, Sol LeWitt, Heinz Mack, Otto Peine, Dan Flavin, and Donald Judd.
Interviews conducted by Rose between 1965 and circa 1969 are found with Richard Bellamy, Leo Castelli, James E. Davis, Henry Geldzahler, Ivan Karp, Lee Krasner, John Lefebre, John Myers, Donald Judd with Frank Stella, and Tom Wesselmann. All interviews include original sound recordings, and the Judd and Stella, Krasner, and Myers interviews include transcripts. Panel discussions and lectures include sound recordings and transcripts of seven events on a variety of contemporary art and architecture subjects held between 1962 and 1968. Sound recordings are present for five of the events on 10 sound tape reels, and transcripts are present for all events. Participants in the panel discussions and lectures include Barbara Rose, Ronald Davis, Dan Flavin, Robert Kauffman, John Harvey McCracken, Friedel Dzubas, Ansel Adams, Arthur Bierman, Kenneth Rexroth, Edward Taylor, Ernst Karl Mundt, John Bowles, Roy Dean De Forest, Seymour Locks, Walter Hopps, Mark Di Suvero, Donald Judd, Robert Morris, Kynaston McShine, Walter Darby Bannard, Donald Judd, Larry Poons, Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Meier, Paul Rudolph, Claes Oldenburg, and Robert Murray.
Writings include photocopied typescripts of "Myth, Symbol, or Me," by Emily Wasserman and "Excerpts from a Work Journal on Flying Sculpture," by Charles Frazier. Printed material consists of two copies of the premiere issue of the 57th Street Review, from Nov. 15, 1966.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged as 4 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Letters (0.2 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 2: Interviews (0.6 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 3: Panel Discussions and Lectures (0.5 linear feet; Boxes 1-2)
Series 4: Writings and Printed Material (0.1 linear feet; Box 2)
Biographical / Historical:
Barbara Rose is an American art historian and critic who has published widely in the field of modern American art. Born in 1938 in Washington, DC, Rose studied at the Sorbonne, Smith College, Barnard, and finally, Columbia University under Meyer Shapiro. Rose became immersed in the New York-based circle of modernist artists and curators in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and made her substantial contribution to the discourse on contemporary art with the insider's perspective this afforded her. In 1961, she married the painter Frank Stella and they had two children before their divorce in 1969.
Rose taught at Yale University, Sarah Lawrence, University of California at Irvine and San Diego, and the American University Art in Italy program, and was senior curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, from 1981-1985. A prolific writer, Rose is the author of American Art Since 1900 (1967), The Golden Age of Dutch Painting (1969), American Painting: The 20th Century (Skira, 1969), and monographs on the artists Magdalena Abankawicz, Helen Frankenthaler, Robert Rauschenberg, Alexander Liberman, Larry Rivers, and others, as well as dozens of exhibition catalog essays. She held editorial positions at Art in America, Vogue, Artforum, Partisan Review, and Journal of Art, and her writing has also appeared in Art International, Studio International, Arts Magazine, and ARTnews, among many others.
Related Materials:
Barbara Rose papers, 1940-1993 (bulk 1960-1985) are located at The Getty Research Institute Special Collections.
Separated Materials:
Additional papers of Barbara Rose are held by The Getty Research Institute.
Provenance:
Donated 1971-1977 by Barbara Rose.
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:
Art historians -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Art critics -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The papers of art critic and curator Gene Swenson measure 2.8 linear feet and date from 1950-1969. Included are correspondence with art world and political figures Jim Dine and Harry Truman among others; loose writings and 24 diaries by Swenson, and 13 audio cassette tapes of interviews with artists.
Biographical / Historical:
Gene Swenson (1934-1969) was an art critic and curator in New York, N.Y.
Provenance:
The collection was donated in 2018 by by Anne Wilson, Gene Swenson's companion.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Use of audio visual recordings with no duplicate copy requires advance notice.
Portions of the collection are temporarily closed to researchers due to conservation treatment. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Occupation:
Art critics -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The papers of sculptor, painter, and author Robert Smithson and sculptor, filmmaker, and earthworks artist Nancy Holt measure 18.9 linear feet and date from 1905 to 1987, with the bulk of the material dating from 1952 to 1987. Also included is Smithson's personal library of books, vinyl records, and magazine, measuring 48.4 linear feet. The papers consist of Smithson's biographical material; business and personal correspondence, much of it with artists; interview transcripts; extensive writings and project files; financial records; printed material; a scrapbook of clippings; holiday cards with original prints and sketches; photographic material; and artifacts. Also found are project files related to Nancy Holt's motion picture film Pine Barrens and her seminal environmental work of art Sun Tunnels, including a video documentary about Sun Tunnels.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of sculptor, painter, and author Robert Smithson and sculptor, filmmaker, and earthworks artist Nancy Holt measure 18.9 linear feet and date from 1905 to 1987, with the bulk of the material dating from 1952 to 1987. Also included is Smithson's personal library of books, vinyl records, and magazine, measuring 48.4 linear feet. The papers consist of Smithson's biographical material; business and personal correspondence, much of it with artists; interview transcripts; extensive writings and project files; financial records; printed material; a scrapbook of clippings; holiday cards with original prints and sketches; photographic material; and artifacts. Also found are project files related to Nancy Holt's film Pine Barrens and her seminal environmental work of art Sun Tunnels, including a video documentary about Sun Tunnels.
Biographical material includes Robert Smithson's curriculum vitae, personal identification and medical documents, eight engagement/day planners Smithson and Holt maintained from 1966 to 1973, and Smithson's funeral register.
Correspondence is primarily with Smithson's family, friends, fellow artists, and business associates discussing personal relationships, proposed art projects, and exhibitions. Correspondents of note include Carl Andre, the Dwan Gallery (Virginia Dwan), Dan Graham, Will Insley, Ray Johnson, Gyorgy Kepes, Sol Lewitt, Lucy Lippard, and Dennis Wheeler. There is also substantial correspondence received by Holt upon Smithson's death in 1973, and between Holt and the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art regarding Smithson's retrospective exhibition in 1982.
There are nine interview transcripts with Smithson discussing his works and his general philosophy on art, and one transcript of the Andrew Dickson White Museum's Earth Art Symposium (1969) featuring the following artists: Mike Hiezer, Dennis Oppenheim, Robert Smithson, Neil Jenney, Gunther Uecker, Jan Dibbets, Richard Long, and Hans Haacke.
Writings are substantial and include 73 drafts of published and unpublished essays by Smithson on art, artists, and works in progress. The series also includes poems by Smithson, six notebooks containing notes and sketches by Smithson, and drafts of writings sent to Smithson and Holt by friends and colleagues, including Carl Andre, Terry Atkinson, Dan Flavin, Dan Graham, and Jack Thibeau.
Project files contain correspondence, project instructions, diagrams and sketches, research materials, photographic material, and maps related to over 50 of Smithson's artworks. These include concepts, proposed projects, sculptures, non-sites, and earthwork projects, including Spiral Jetty, Broken Circle, and Spiral Hill.
Personal business records include gallery related loan arrangements and receipts for miscellaneous art supplies. Financial records include tax forms and preparation documents, including cancelled checks, receipts, statements, and related correspondence.
Printed materials include books, clippings, and periodicals related to Smithson, either containing writings or sketches by him, or containing articles reviewing his work. There are also exhibition announcements and catalogs of Smithson's group and solo shows from 1959 to 1985.
The scrapbook contains clippings of Smithson's published articles from 1966 to 1973 with annotated shorthand notes.
Artwork consists of Christmas cards collaged by Smithson, and sketches by Smithson and Leo Valledor.
Photographic materials include prints and negatives of Smithson with friends, promotional Hollywood movie stills, and original prints and copyprints of other artists' artwork.
Artifacts consist of a paper bag silkscreened with a Campbell's soup can (Warhol), promotional buttons (N.E. Thing Co.), various organic materials, and two art kits.
Nancy Holt's papers consist of correspondence, a grant application, printed materials, and project files and audio visual material related to her motion picture film Pine Barrens (1975) and her seminal environmental work of art Sun Tunnels (1975).
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 14 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1905-1974 (Box 1; 14 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1959-1987 (Boxes 1-2, OV 21; 1.7 linear feet)
Series 3: Interview Transcripts, 1966-1973 (Box 2; 11 folders)
Series 4: Writings, 1959-1975 (Boxes 2-3; 1.1 linear feet)
Series 5: Project Files, circa 1950s-1982 (Boxes 4-5, Boxes 17-18, OV 20, OV 22-26, OV 36, RD 28-30, RD 32-35; 6.5 linear feet)
Series 6: Personal Business Records, circa 1967-1970s (Box 5; 4 folders)
Series 7: Financial Records, 1962-1972 (Box 6-7; 0.4 linear feet)
Series 8: Printed Material, 1955-1985 (Boxes 7-11, Box 18, RD 31; 5.6 linear feet)
Series 9: Scrapbook, 1966-1973 (Box 11, Box 16; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 10: Artwork, circa 1950s-1970s (Box 11; 4 folders)
Series 11: Photographs, circa 1950s-1970s (Box 11, Box 18; 5 folders)
Series 12: Artifacts, circa 1950s-1970s (Box 11, Box 14, OV 19; 0.5 linear feet)
Series 13: Nancy Holt Papers, circa 1960s-1980s (Box 12-13, 15, OV 27, FC 37-38; 1.9 linear feet)
Series 14: Robert Smithson Personal Library (Boxes 39-87; 48.4 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Robert Smithson (1938-1973) was a sculptor, painter, author, and lecturer who was known as a pioneer of land and earthworks art, based primarily in New York City. Nancy Holt (1938-2014) was a land artist, conceptual artist, and filmmaker. Smithson and Holt were married from 1963 until Smithson's death in 1973.
Born in Passaic, New Jersey, Smithson expressed an early interest in art, enrolling in classes at the Brooklyn Museum School and the Art Student's League in New York while still attending high school. Smithson's early works were primarily paintings, drawings, and collages. In 1959, he exhibited his first solo show of paintings at the Artists' Gallery in New York and had his first solo international show in Rome with the Galleria George Lester in 1961.
During the early to mid-1960s, Smithson was perhaps better known as a writer and art critic, writing numerous essays and reviews for Arts Magazine and Artforum. He became affiliated with artists who were identified with the minimalist movement, such as Carl Andre, Donald Judd, Nancy Holt, Sol LeWitt, Robert Morris and others. In 1963, Smithson married sculptor and filmmaker Nancy Holt and a year later started to create his first sculptural works. In 1966, Smithson joined the Dwan Gallery, whose owner Virginia Dwan was an enthusiastic supporter of his work.
Smithson's interest in land art began in the late 1960s while exploring industrial and quarry sites and observing the movement of earth and rocks. This resulted in a series of sculptures called "non-sites" consisting of earth and rocks collected from a specific site and installed in gallery space, often combined with photographs, maps, mirrors, or found materials. In September 1968, Smithson published the essay "A Sedimentation of the Mind: Earth Projects" in Artforum that promoted the work of the first wave of land art artists. Soon thereafter, he began creating his own large scale land art and earthworks.
From 1967 to 1973, Smithson's productivity was constant as he wrote, lectured, and participated in several solo and group shows a year, both at home and abroad. He explored narrative art as essay in "The Monuments of Passaic" and fully committed to his idea of visiting sites and using them as the basis for creating non-sites, Non-Site, Pine Barrens, (1968); incorporated and documented the use of mirrors at sites in Mirror Displacement, Cayuga Salt Mine Project (1968-1969); and created his first site-specific works through liquid pours of mud, asphalt, and concrete, including Asphalt Rundown (1969). In 1969, he also completed his first earth pour at Kent State University with his project Partially Buried Woodshed. Later that year, he created the sculptural artwork for which he is best known, Spiral Jetty (1969) on the Great Salt Lake in Utah. This was the first of his pieces to require the acquisition of land rights and earthmoving equipment, and would be followed two years later by Broken Circle and Spiral Hill in 1971.
On July 20, 1973, while surveying sites in Texas for the proposed Amarillo Ramp, Smithson died in a plane crash at the age of 35. Despite his early death, Smithson's writings and artwork had a major impact on many contemporary artists.
Nancy Holt began her career as a photographer and video artist. Today, Holt is most widely known for her large-scale environmental works, Sun Tunnels and Dark Star Park. Holt has also made a number of films and videos since the late 1960s, including Mono Lake (1968), East Coast, West Coast (1969), and Swamp (1971) in collaboration with her late husband Robert Smithson. Points of View: Clocktower (1974) features conversations between Lucy Lippard and Richard Serra, Liza Bear and Klaus Kertess, Carl Andre and Ruth Kligman and Bruce Brice and Tina Girouard. In 1978, she produced a film about her seminal work Sun Tunnels.
Related Material:
The Archives also holds several collections related to Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt, including an oral history interview with Robert Smithson conducted by Paul Cummings in 1972; an interview with Robert Smithson conducted by Tony Robbin in 1968; Robert Smithson letters to George B. Lester, 1960-1963; an oral history interviews with Nancy Holt conducted by Scott Gutterman in 1992 and Joyce Pomeroy Schwartz in 1993; and the Nancy Holt Estate records, circa 1960-2001.
Provenance:
The papers of Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt were donated by Nancy Holt in several accretions between 1986 and 2011.
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 audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, holds the intellectual property rights, including copyright, to all materials created by Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt with the exception of the following items: two holiday cards found in box 11, folders 22-23. For these two items, copyright held by Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Requests for permission to reproduce should be submitted to ARS.
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:
Conceptual artists -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt papers, 1905-1987. 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 and the Alice L. Walton Foundation.
The papers of photographer and art critic John Gruen and painter Jane Wilson measure 25 linear feet and 21.65 GB and date from 1909 to 2016. The papers document their careers through biographical material; correspondence with family, friends, colleagues, and art institutions; book manuscripts, articles, interview transcripts, notes, and other writings; loan agreements, commissions, and other documentation related to exhibitions and writing articles for publications; inventories, price lists, royalty statements, and other personal business records; photographs; and artwork. Some of the documents, photographs and interviews are in digital format.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of photographer and art critic John Gruen and painter Jane Wilson measure 25 linear feet and 21.65 GB and date from 1909 to 2016. The papers document their careers through biographical material; correspondence with family, friends, colleauges, and art institutions; book manuscripts, articles, interview transcripts, notes, and other writings; loan agreements, commissions, and other documentation related to exhibitions and writing articles for publications; inventories, price lists, royalty statements, and other personal business records; photographs; and artwork. Some of the documents, photographs and interviews are in digital format.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into two series.
Series 1: John Gruen papers, 1946-2013 (19.5 linear feet; Boxes 1-19, 26, 11.88 GB; ER01-ER21)
Series 2: Jane Wilson papers, 1909-2014 (5.3 linear feet; Boxes 19-25, 9.77 GB; ER22-ER25)
Biographical / Historical:
John Gruen (1926-2016) was an art critic and photographer who lived and worked in New York. Jane Wilson (1924-2015) was a landscape and expressionism painter who primarily lived and worked in New York. Gruen and Wilson married in 1948.
John Gruen was born in France and moved with his family to New York City at the outbreak of World War II. Gruen completed his studies in art history at the University of Iowa. Initially, Gruen became a music composer and contributed music reviews for the New York Herald Tribune. Gruen became the chief art critic for the New York Times, and he wrote pieces for other outlets such as ART News and Architectural Digest. Gruen was also a photographer, taking photographs of friends and colleagues such as Willem de Kooning and Larry Rivers. He featured his images in various exhibitions as well as written works.
Jane Wilson was born and raised in Seymour, Iowa. Wilson studied and, for a short time, taught at the University of Iowa before moving to New York in 1949 with her husband, John Gruen. In New York, Wilson became associated with the New York School, an informal group of artists, musicians, artists, and writers. Wilson served on the board for organizations such as the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the National Academy of Design. Wilson exhibited her landscape paintings around the country at museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Provenance:
The papers were donated in several installments between 1982 and 2016. Donations between 1982 and 2003 were made by John Gruen and Jane Wilson, and the 2016 donation was made by Julia Gruen, daughter of Gruen and Wilson.
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 References 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:
Art critics -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Photographers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
John Gruen and Jane Wilson papers, 1909-2016. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
The processing of this collection received Federal support from the Smithsonian Collections Care and Preservation Fund, administered by the National Collections Program and the Smithsonian Collections Advisory Committee.
The papers of painter and instructor Edward Dugmore measure 2.0 linear feet and date from 1937-1993. Found within this small collection are biographical materials, scattered business and financial records, notes, a file concerning the Drake University Summer Session, printed material, and photographs. The bulk of the papers consist of correspondence exchanged with art critic Hubert Crehan and artist colleagues including George Abend, Ernie Briggs, Herman Cherry, Lucien Day, Harvey Harris, Reuben Kadish, Mary Fuller McChesney, and Clyfford Still.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of painter and instructor Edward Dugmore measure 2.0 linear feet and date from 1937-1993. Found within this small collection are biographical materials, scattered business and financial records, notes, a file concerning the Drake University Summer Session, printed material, and photographs. The bulk of the papers consist of correspondence exchanged with art critic Hubert Crehan and artist colleagues including George Abend, Ernie Briggs, Herman Cherry, Lucien Day, Harvey Harris, Reuben Kadish, Mary Fuller McChesney, and Clyfford Still.
Printed materials include clippings, exhibition catalogs and announcements, and press releases. Photographs are of artwork, Dugmore, and colleagues, including Lewin Alcopley, Anne Arnold, Warren Brandt, Ernest Briggs, Herman Cherry, Hubert Crehan, Lucien Day, Rosalyn Drexler, John Grillo, John Hultberg, Reuben Kadish, Aristodemus Kaldis, Kyle Morris, Stephen and Pam Pace, Charles Pollock, Peter Voulkos, and Hugo Weber.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into 7 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1948-1993 (Box 1; 3 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, circa 1943-1992 (Box 1, 2; 1.5 linear feet)
Series 3: Business Records, circa 1951-1972 (Box 2; 2 folders)
Series 4: Notes, circa 1969-1980 (Box 2; 1 folder)
Series 5: Drake University Summer Session File, 1972-1973(Box 2; 5 folders)
Series 6: Printed Material, circa 1937-1993 (Box 2; 25 folders)
Series 7: Photographs, circa 1960-1983 (Box 2; 9 folders)
Biographical Note:
Edward Dugmore (1915-1996) was a painter and arts instructor working in New York, San Francisco, Illinois, and Maryland.
Edward Dugmore was born in 1915 in Hartford Connecticutt, the son of Walter and Ellen Spragg Dugmore. Dugmore received a four year scholarship to study painting at Hartford Art School from 1934 to 1938. In 1938, he also married Edith Oslund. He briefly studied lithography and etching under Thomas Hart Benton at the Kansas City (Missouri) Art Institute in 1941. After serving in the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II, he returned to New York City. From 1946 to 1948, he taught painting and drawing at St. Joseph's College in West Hartford, Connecticut.
In 1948, Dugmore moved to San Francisco and began two year's study of art under the G.I. Bill at the California School of Fine Arts, were he befriended Clyfford Still and Ernest Briggs. He co-founded the artists' collaborative Metart Gallery, where he had his first solo exhibition in 1950.
From 1951 to 1952, Dugmore studied at the University of Guadalajara, Mexico, earning a master's degree in fine arts. In 1952, he moved back to New York City where he had solo exhibitions at the Stable Gallery over the following three years. He also had solo exhibitions at the Howard Wise Gallery in New York and Cleveland during the 1960s.
Between 1961 and 1962, Dugmore was Visiting Artist at the University of Southern Illinois, and in 1970, he was Visiting Artist at the Des Moines Art Center and Drake University. From 1964 to 1974, he taught painting and drawing part time at the Pratt Institute, and in 1965, he was Artist-in-Residence at the Montana Institute of Fine Arts, sponsored by a Ford Foundation Grant. From 1973 to 1982, he taught part time at the Maryland Institute, College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland.
Dugmore's paintings are in the collections of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Walker Art Center, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.
Edward Dugmore died in 1996 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Related Material:
Among the holdings of the Archives of American Art is a transcribed oral history interview with Edward Dugmore conducted by Tram Combs in 1994.
Provenance:
The Edward Dugmore papers were donated in several increments between 1980 to 1993 by the artist.
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.
Topic:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Citation:
Edward Dugmore papers, 1937-1993. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Nina von Eckardt, 2012 July 31 and August 13. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Topic:
Arts administrators -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews Search this
The papers of influential New York author and art critic Clement Greenberg measure 8.6 linear feet and date from 1937 to 1983. The bulk of the papers consists of letters from art critics, artists, family, friends, curators, collectors, publishers, galleries, and museums, with scattered letters from Greenberg. Also found are Greenberg's business and financial records along with small amounts of biographical material, printed material, and writings consisting of two reports.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of influential New York author and art critic Clement Greenberg measure 8.6 linear feet and date from 1937 to 1983. The bulk of the papers consists of letters from art critics, artists, family, friends, curators, collectors, publishers, galleries, and museums, with scattered letters from Greenberg. Also found are Greenberg's business and financial records along with small amounts of biographical material, printed material, and writings consisting of two reports.
Correspondence includes letters to Greenberg, often documenting the lives and careers of many of the correspondents in significant detail, and scattered copies of Greenberg's replies. Much of the correspondence is rich and substantive, and is indicative of Greenberg's influence in the art world. Correspondents include Darby Bannard, Ethel Baziotes, Anthony Caro, Richard Diebenkorn, Piero Dorazio, Andre Emmerich, Paul Feeley, Sam Francis, Helen Frankenthaler, Robert Goodnough, Adolf Gottleib, Hans Hofmann, Philippe Hosiasson, Jacob Kainen, Rosalind Krauss, Robert Motherwell, Ken Moffett, Barnett Newman, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Beverly Pepper, Ludwig Sander, David Smith, Kimber Smith, Clyfford Still, Anne Truitt, Leslie Waddington and many others.
Biographical material includes notes from an interview with Greenberg conducted by Deborah Solomon in 1983. Greenberg's personal business and financial records include correspondence and other documentation related to Greenberg's appearances, such as for lectures and on television, and documents relating to Greenberg's testimony at the Mark Rothko Trial in 1974.
Artwork consists of one etching by Kurt Wisenski. Although the papers contain very few of Greenberg's writings about art, there are lists of artists and reports written by Greenberg on the state of art in Japan and India in 1967 which are probably related to his membership in the American Committee for Cultural Freedom. Printed material includes scattered clippings concerning art and exhibition announcements.
One series of access restricted papers contains documents relating to Greenberg's role as executor for the David Smith estate.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 7 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Information, circa 1968-1983 (Box 1; 2 folders)
Series 2: Business and Financial Records, 1939-1983 (Box 1; 0.4 linear feet)
Series 3: Correspondence, 1937-1983 (Boxes 1-8, 11; 7 linear feet)
Series 4: Artwork, 1973 (Box 8; 1 folder)
Series 5: Writings and Notes, 1967-1983 (Box 8; 3 folders)
Series 6: Printed Material, 1950-1982 (Box 8; 2 folders)
Series 7: David Smith Estate Materials, 1965-1982 (Boxes 9-11; 1.1 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
New York City author Clement Greenberg, was one of the most influential art critics of the twentieth century, primarily from the 1940s-1960s. He was an advocate of modern art, particularly the Abstract Expressionist movement, and was one of the first critics to recognize the significance of Jackson Pollock's work.
Greenberg was born in 1909 to Russian immigrants in Bronx, New York. After graduating from Syracuse University in 1930, he married and had a child, David. He settled in New York City while working at the United States Customs Department as an appraiser.
In the late 1930s, Clement Greenberg attended a meeting of the U.S. Works Progress Administration and heard Hans Hofmann speak of avant-garde art. In 1939, he wrote one of his first important critical pieces "Avant-Garde and Kitsch" for the Partisan Review. Greenberg argued that the avant-garde art movement rose out of the need to defend and maintain high art standards against the decline in taste brought about by America's consumerist and capitalist culture.
In 1940 Greenberg joined Partisan Review as an editor. He became art critic for the Nation in 1942 and was associate editor of Commentary from 1945 until 1957. In December 1950, he joined the CIA-fronted American Committee for Cultural Freedom.
Throughout the 1940s through the 1960s Greenberg continued to write essays and articles in which he promoted the work of the abstract expressionists, among them Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Hans Hofmann, Barnett Newman, and Clyfford Still. He particularly championed Jackson Pollock. Greenberg wrote several seminal essays that defined his views on art history in the twentieth century, with "Greenberg on Collage" being one of his most important.
Greenberg's views on pop art were mixed. He also became less enamored with the second generation of abstract expressionists over time, while developing an interest in the Color-Field and Hard-Edge painters.
Through the 1960s Greenberg's views informed a younger generation of art critics including Michael Fried and Rosalind E. Krauss. Some writers maintain that Greenberg's views were so well-respected that he held too much of an influence in the art world. In time, Greenberg's antagonism to postmodernist theories and other modern art movements caused him to lose much of his credibility among both artists and art critics.
Greenberg was a long-time champion of sculptor David Smith's work and he became an executor of Smith's estate when the artist died suddenly in 1965. Greenberg resigned as executor in 1979 following controversy over his decision to strip white paint from five of Smith's outdoor sculptures, insisting that Smith had never intended to leave them white.
Greenberg died at the age of eighty-five in 1994. Since his death, letters edited by Greenberg's widow, Janice Van Horne, and a re-evaluation of his writings have helped to restore his reputation in the art world.
Related Material:
The Portland Art Museum holds Clement Greenberg's private art collection as well as a library of exhibition catalogs.
Separated Material:
The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming (reels N69-91, N70-7, and N737). Most, but not all, of these papers were later donated by Greenberg. Loaned materials not donated at a later date are not described in the container listing of this finding aid.
Provenance:
Clement Greenberg initially lent material for microfilming in 1968-1969. He donated most of this material to the Archives of American Art with additional papers in several accretions between 1984 to 1991.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Portions of the collection are access restricted including: documents relating to the estate of David Smith; some correspondence with Peter Fuller, Nuala O'Faolain, the Greenberg family, and other correspondents; and sales records and loan agreements. Written permission is required. Contact Reference Services for more information. 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.
Occupation:
Art critics -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Authors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The Clement Greenberg papers, 1937-1983. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art. Funding for the digitization of the papers was provided in part by The Walton Family Foundation.
