The papers of modernist painter and printmaker George Constant measure 4.6 linear feet and date from 1912-2007, with the bulk of the material dating from 1932-1978. They consist of biographical material, inventories of artwork, audio interviews and recorded statements on art, personal and business related correspondence, holiday cards, printed material, an exhibition related video recording, and photographs of Constant, his family and friends, and his work.
Scope and Contents note:
The papers of modernist painter and printmaker George Constant measure 4.6 linear feet and date from 1912-2007, with the bulk of the material dating from 1932-1978. They consist of biographical material, inventories of artwork, audio interviews and recorded statements on art, personal and business related correspondence, holiday cards, printed material, an exhibition related video recording, and photographs of Constant, his family and friends, and his work. A small portion of the correspondence and printed materials are written in Greek.
Biographical material includes artist statements written and recorded by Constant, two audio interview recordings discussing his philosophies on art and his work, inventories of artwork, personal property deeds and legal correspondence, and other miscellaneous material.
Correspondence is predominantly in the form of business and personal letters, postcards, and holiday cards received from family and friends. These include correspondence from Constant's daughter, Georgette Preston, and extended family members. Other frequent personal correspondents include Milton and Sally Avery, Lewis Balamuth, Margaret Brunning, David Burliuk, Nathaniel Burwash, Rhys Caparn, Julia Shaw Patterson Carnell, Phillip Cavanaugh, Morris Davidson, Charles Eaton, Vilko Gecan, Marchal Landgren, Roy Neuberger, Walter Pach, Nell Perret, Constantine Pougialis, Wallace Putnam and Consuelo Kanaga, Hi Simons, and Helen Slosberg. Business related correspondents include Audubon Artists, Art Institute of Chicago, Brooklyn Museum, Carnegie Institute, Dayton Art Institute, Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors, Ferargil Galleries, Guild Hall, Heckscher Museum, Lyman Allyn Museum, Metropolitan Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Spanish Refugee Appeal, and the Whitney Museum. Other business correspondence related to Constant's work with the WPA are also included in the series.
Printed material includes books and booklets on American and Greek art, including a limited print edition of George Constant by George Constant, clippings and articles reviewing Constant's work, exhibition announcements and catalogs of Constant's shows, periodicals profiling his artwork, and dance and theater related programs that Constant consulted on.
Photographs include black and white prints of Constant and his family and friends in St. Louis, Missouri, Dayton, Ohio, and in and around his studio in Shinnecock Hills, New York. The collection also includes photo stills from his 1965 exhibition at the Parrish Art Museum and a comprehensive set of black and white prints, a handful of color prints, and several color slide sheets of Constant's artwork from the 1920s to 1978.
Arrangement note:
The collection is arranged into 4 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1923-2007 (Box 1; 17 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1930-1979 (Box 1-2; 1.4 linear feet)
Series 3: Printed Material, 1927-2005 (Box 2-3; 2 linear feet)
Series 4: Photographic Material, 1912-1978 (Box 4-6; 1 linear foot)
Biographical/Historical note:
Greek American George Zachary Constant (1892-1978) worked from his studios in Shinnecock Hills, and New York City, New York as a painter and printmaker. A founder and lifelong member of the Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors, Constant worked for the Work Projects Administration (WPA) during the Depression and early years of World War II, and exhibited regularly at major galleries and museums from the 1920s to 1970s.
Born in Arahova, Greece, Constant was raised by his two uncles after the death of his parents in 1896. In school and at the monestary one of his uncles led, Constant showed an early interest in classical Greek aesthetics. At the age of eighteen, he immigrated to the United States and continued his art studies at Washington University before transferring to the Art Institute of Chicago. From 1918 to 1922, Constant taught at the Dayton Art Institute and continued to produce and exhibit his work locally. In 1922, he moved to New York, joined the Society of Independent Painters, and became close friends with Society founder and art critic Walter Pach. During the 1920s, his etchings were shown at the Valentine and Downtown Galleries, and at the New Art Circle of J.B. Neumann, where he presented his first one man gallery show in 1929.
From the 1930s to 1940s, Constant produced prints, watercolors, and oil paintings for the WPA, many of which were purchased by museums and public institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Museum. During this same period, Constant exhibited his work at the Boyer Gallery in the late 1930s, and at the Ferargil Gallery from the 1940s to early 1950s. In the decade between 1955 and 1965, Constant also worked on color and set design for seventeen dance productions created by the choreographer Alwin Nikolais. In the last two decades of his career, Constant produced works from his studio in Shinnecock Hills, New York and continued to exhibit at numerous galleries, including Grace Borgenicht Gallery, Guild Hall, Mari Galleries, Tirca Karlis Gallery, and Artium Gallery.
Provenance:
The papers of George Constant were donated by the artist in 1969 and 1978. Additional materials were donated in 2001 and 2007 by his daughter Georgette Preston.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers 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
The papers of writer and art critic Eleanor Munro measure 36.7 linear feet and 0.001 GB and date from circa 1880-2011, bulk 1950-2011. The collection documents Munro's life, career, and research on women artists, through biographical and family material, correspondence, writing projects, diaries, dream journals and notebooks, subject and research files, printed and digital material, and photographic material.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of writer and art critic Eleanor Munro measure 36.7 linear feet and 0.001 GB and date from circa 1880-2011, bulk 1950-2011. The collection documents Munro's life, career, and research on women artists, through biographical and family material, correspondence, writing projects, diaries, dream journals and notebooks, subject and research files, printed and digital material, and photographic material.
Correspondence is both personal and professional in nature and is with family, friends, colleagues, agents, editors, and others regarding speaking engagements, writings, and other professional projects.
Writing projects make up a significant portion of the collection (10 linear feet) and include non-fiction works as well as fiction and poetry. Files contain drafts, notes, manuscripts, research, correspondence, contracts and agreements, royalty statements, and other business records for articles, books, reviews, talks, lectures, and other writing projects.
Diaries comprise twenty-six volumes of frequent entries that chronicle thoughts and feelings relating to Munro's personal and professional life. Dream journals and notebooks total 210 volumes plus additional loose pages and capture thoughts, reflections, and fragments of remembered dreams.
Subject and research files compiled and organized by Eleanor Munro make up the most substantial portion of the collection (20.6 linear feet) and reflect a wide variety of research interests, work projects, activities, and topics of interest. Types of material in this series are varied and include notes, drafts, printed and digital material, correspondence, proposals, interview transcripts, bibliographies, annotated articles, slides, photographs, original artworks, manuscripts by others, and four sound recordings. Many files relate to Munro's interest in women artists and serve as research for Originals: American Women Artists (1979). Interview transcripts are with women artists Eleanor Antin, Nell Blaine, Lee Bontecou, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Mary Frank, Maya Lin, Joan Mitchell, Beverly Pepper, Sylvia Stone, Alma Thomas, and others.
The remainder of the collection is comprised of biographical and family material, printed material, and photographic material.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 7 series
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical and Family Material, circa 1880s-2008 (0.4 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1959-circa 2000s (0.7 linear feet; Box 1-2)
Series 3: Writings Projects, 1921-circa 2000s (10 linear feet; Box 2-12)
Series 4: Diaries, Dream Journals, and Notebooks, circa 1939-2011 (3.8 linear feet; Box 12-15)
Series 5: Subject and Research Files, circa 1950s-2000s (20.6 linear feet; Box 15-36, OV 38-40, 0.001 GB; ER01)
Series 6: Printed Material, circa 1959-circa 2000s (0.6 linear feet; Box 36)
Series 7: Photographic Material, circa 1980s-1990s (0.6 linear feet; Box 36-37)
Biographical / Historical:
Eleanor Munro (1928- ) is a writer and art critic working in New York City and Truro, Massachusetts. She is best known for her groundbreaking work Originals: American Women Artists (1979), one of the first books to argue for the importance of women artists who were generally ignored by the art world. Munro was active in feminist art circles in New York.
Munro's father, Thomas Munro, was an art educator and modernist intellectual. Her mother, Lucile Nadler, was a pianist. She grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, after her father accepted a joint appointment at the Cleveland Museum of Art and Western Reserve University. Munro graduated from Smith College majoring in art history and earned a master's degree in comparative literature from Columbia. She was married to Alfred Frankfurter, editor of ArtNews, from 1955 until his death in 1965. Munro remarried to the writer E. J. Kahn until his death in 1994.
While working on Originals, Munro interviewed forty women artists including Georgia O'Keeffe, Louise Bourgeois, Jennifer Bartlett, Helen Frankenthaler, and Louise Nevelson. Her thesis sought to highlight the relationship between biography and the content of an artist's work. The book serves as an illustration of Munro's idea that the "narrative memory" these artists had constructed for themselves was an important "generative source" of their creativity. Women artists continued to be a prominent interest of Munro's throughout her life.
Munro is also the author of On Glory Roads: a Pilgrim's Book about Pilgrimage (1987), Memoir of a Modernist's Daughter (1988), and other books. In 1988, Munro received the Cleveland Arts Prize for Literature.
Provenance:
Donated by Eleanor Munro's son, David T. M. Frankfurter, in 2015.
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.
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.
Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America Search this
Type:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Paul Soldner, 2003 April 27-28. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
An interview of Paul Soldner conducted 2003 April 27-28, by Mija Riedel, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, in Claremont, California.
Soldner describes his "wonderful" childhood; learning early in life that critiques hinder creativity; early interest in photography, including building his own enlargers; making a pottery wheel in high school; he recalls the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago and a wheel throwing demonstration by an "Appalachian potter"; his studies at Bluffton College in Ohio; teaching art in Ohio; his art studies at University of Colorado; working with Peter Voulkos at the Los Angeles County Art Institute [now Otis College of Art and Design] and constructing a studio with Voulkos; the importance of accidents, intuition, and invention in his work; how art movements and Eastern artists have influenced him; clay's durability and expressive qualities; he discusses his teaching philosophy and grading system; for beginners, the importance of producing quantity over quality; his role as the "godfather" of Anderson Ranch in Snowmass, Colorado; how he transformed the Scripps Annual ceramics show; he describes the evolution of his work in ten-year cycles, including his tall pots, raku, and "low-salt fuming" periods; his low-tech inventions; traveling and workshops; his definition of a craftsman; his evolution from pottery to sculpture; encouraging his students to "go farther" and experiment; dealers, galleries, and collectors; his aversion to art criticism; the impact of Eastern and Western religion on art; the importance of "surprise," "playfulness," and "energy" in the work; he compares his work to music; commissions and collaborations; subconscious and environmental influences on his work; and the future direction for contemporary ceramics. Soldner also recalls Katie Horsman, Kenneth Price, Jun Kaneko, Millard Sheets, Kaneshige, Cheever Meaders, Robert Arneson, John Mason, Fred Marer, Louana Lackey, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Interviewee Paul Soldner (1921- ) is a ceramicist of Aspen, Colorado. Interviewer Mija Riedel is a curator, writer of San Francisco, California.
General:
Originally recorded on 5 sound discs. Reformatted in 2010 as 6 digital wav files. Duration is 6 hr., 1 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with John Weber, 2006 March 21-April 4. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Angela Westwater, 2006 July 18-August 1. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Paul Marioni, 2006 September 18-19. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
An interview of Angela Westwater conducted 2006 July 18 and August 1, by James McElhinney, for the Archives of American Art, at the Sperone Westwater Gallery in New York, N.Y.
Westwater speaks of traveling with family as a child; the art environment in Columbus, Ohio; studying art history at Smith College while majoring in government; her first job in the art field at John Weber Gallery in New York; working as an editor at Artforum with John Coplans; differing artistic philosophies of the early staff of Artforum; establishing Sperone Westwater Fischer Gallery with Gian Enzo Sperone in New York in collaboration with Konrad Fischer Gallery in Düsseldorf, Germany; the gallery's aspiration to raise the profile of European artists in the United States; the importance of documenting the work of the gallery's artists for future archival reference and posterity; publishing catalogues and monographs; the process of moving the gallery from Greene Street 142 to its current location at 415 West 13th Street; competition between art dealers and auction houses; her involvement in the Art Dealers Association of America; her personal collecting preferences; the evolving role of the art critic in the contemporary art scene; and current and future levels of collaboration between art dealers and galleries. Westwater also recalls Phyllis Lehmann, Oliver Larkin, Mahonri Young, Carl Andre, Robert Smithson, Nancy Holt, Leo Castelli, Robert Rosenblum, Max Kazloff, Bruce Nauman, Susan Rothenberg, Richard Tuttle, Richard Long, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Angela Westwater (1942- ) is an art dealer from New York, N.Y. James McElhinney (1952- ) is a painter and educator from New York, N.Y.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound discs. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 1 hr., 43 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art's website.
An interview of John Weber conducted 2006 March 21 and April 4, by James McElhinney, for the Archives of American Art, at Weber's home, in Chatham, New York.
Weber discusses his education at St. Catherine's Military School in Anaheim, California, and Admiral Farragut Academy in St. Petersburg, Florida; attending the Citadel in South Carolina and then joining the Navy; attending Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, after getting out of the Navy; accepting a job at the Dayton Art Institute on the curatorial staff and working for the director, Thomas C. Colt; moving to New York and attending the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University; working at the Martha Jackson Gallery and his involvement in various influential shows there, including "Environments, Spaces, Situations," and "New Forms, New Media"; moving to Los Angeles in 1962 to work for the Dwan Gallery; getting involved with land artists, including Robert Smithson, Michael Heizer, and Walter De Maria; moving back to New York to take on the directorship of the East Coast location of the Dwan Gallery, in SoHo, then the newest gallery neighborhood; opening his own gallery, the John Weber Gallery, on West Broadway in 1972; his involvement with the Fluxus Group and Arte Povera; the international nature of the art world in the 1960s and 70s; his business arrangements with artists, including the monthly stipends he gave them as advances on sales; his relationships with collectors, including Giuseppe Panza di Biumo and Emily and Burton Tremaine; his advocacy of Aboriginal art; the studios of Robert Smithson and Claes Oldenburg; his belief in the importance of originality; his adverse reaction when he first saw a piece by Dan Flavin; his interaction with art critics, including Irving Sandler and Grace Gluck; and his experience with art fairs. He also recalls Kirk Varnedoe, Jim Dine, Michael Goldberg, Jean Tinguely, Martial Raysse, Arman, Yves Klein, Franz Kline, Andre Emmerich, Mary Boone, Sol LeWitt, Andy Warhol, Gilberto Zorio, Richard Long, Hamish Fulton, Anina Nosei, Sven Lukin, Robert Ryman, Alighiero Boetti, Konrad Fischer, Ivan Karp, Paula Cooper, Angela Westwater, Jeff Koons, Joseph Beuys, Hans Haacke, Leo Castelli, Tom Otterness, Joyce Nereaux, Dorothea Rockburne, Eva Hesse, Lucas Samaras, and Joseph Hirshhorn, among others.
Biographical / Historical:
John Weber (1932-2008) is an art dealer from Chatham, New York. James McElhinney (1952- ) is a painter and educator of New York, New York.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound discs. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hrs., 11 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Paul Marioni (1941- ) is a glass artist from Seattle, Washington. Mija Riedel (1958- ) is a curator and writer, from San Francisco, California.
General:
Originally recorded on 4 sound discs. Reformatted in 2010 as 11 digital wav files. Duration is 8 hrs., 18 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
