The papers of ceramicist Robert Sperry measure 13.6 linear feet and 0.907 GB and date from 1951-2002. The collection documents Sperry's career as an artist, teacher, and filmmaker through biographical information, correspondence, exhibition files, gallery files, material on projects and workshops, writings, a scrapbook, financial files, printed and digital material, photographs, moving image materials, and artwork.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of ceramicist Robert Sperry measure 13.6 linear feet and 0.907 GB and date from 1951-2002. The collection documents Sperry's career as an artist and teacher through biographical information, correspondence, exhibition files, gallery files, material on projects and workshops, writings, a scrapbook, financial files, printed and digital material, photographs, video recordings, films, and artwork.
Biographical files contain items outlining Sperry's career including resumes, teaching evaluations, awards, and interviews. Correspondence includes general correspondence with family, friends, colleagues, schools, galleries, art organizations, and publications as well as named files for those with whom Sperry exchanged a significant amount of correspondence over a long period of time. The Exhibition Files contain materials on group and solo exhibitions Robert Sperry participated in, while Gallery Files hold material, such as correspondence and contracts, related to the galleries which exhibited Sperry's work primarily after 1979. The Project and Workshop Files in Series 5 contain material related to public commissions he completed and workshops he gave during the 1980s and 1990s.
Writings encompass writings by Sperry and others. Sperry's writings vary greatly and include drafts of articles, a family history, poetry, notes and a screenplay, while writings by others are primarily essays on art. Within this series Sperry's event calendars are also found. Sperry compiled a scrapbook which spans 1955 to 1964 and includes correspondence and printed material about exhibitions and newspaper clippings which feature his artwork. He and his wife, Patti Warashina, also compiled Financial Records primarily of their business and living expenses from 1976 to 1984 and earnings as artists and professors at the University of Washington.
The largest series in this collection, Printed Material, provides information largely on Sperry's career through press clippings, exhibition announcements, catalogs, and publications, and also includes other materials on ceramics in general. The Photographs series contains both photos and negatives from Sperry's trip to Japan to film "Village Potters of Onda" as well as photographs of his artwork and his family. Also found in this collection are a few sketches and drawings by Sperry and one drawing by Patti Warashina. Moving image material includes video recordings and motion picture film with a wide range of content, including documentaries about Sperry, studio footage, and experimental and narrative films created by Sperry in a range of styles and genres, including animation such as the animated film "Henry," hand colored film, live action footage, abstract design, and narrative short films by Sperry. There are digital research copies of some of the films.
Arrangement:
The Robert Sperry papers are arranged as thirteen series, according to type of material. Each series is arranged either in rough chronological or alphabetical order.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Files, 1954-circa 2000, undated (Box 1; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence Files, 1951-2000, undated (Boxes 1-2; 0.9 linear feet)
Series 3: Exhibition Files, 1963-1999, undated (Boxes 2-3; 1.2 linear feet)
Series 4: Gallery Files, 1960-2000, undated (Boxes 3-4; 0.8 linear feet)
Series 5: Project and Workshop Files, 1967-1996, undated (Box 4; 0.4 linear feet)
Series 6: Writings, 1966-1990, undated (Box 5; 0.5 linear feet)
Series 7: Scrapbook, 1955-1964 (Box 5; 8 folders)
Series 8: Financial Records, 1961-1995, undated (Boxes 5-6; 1.0 linear feet)
Series 9: Miscellaneous Subject Files, 1975-1998, undated (Box 6; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 10: Printed Material, 1955-2002, undated (Boxes 6-10; 3.4 linear feet)
Series 11: Photographs, 1963, undated (Box 10; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 12: Sketches and Drawings, 1984, undated (Box 10; 2 folders)
Series 13: Moving Image Material, circa 1962-1998, undated (Boxes 10-12, FC 13-18; 3.1 linear feet, ER01; 0.907 GB)
Biographical Note:
Robert Sperry was born in Bushnell, Illinois, in 1927. He grew up on his family's farm in Druid, Saskatchewan, Canada, and in 1945 was drafted into the U.S. Army, where he first developed an interest in art. After serving in the military, he returned home and completed his B.A. at the University of Saskatchewan in 1950 and a B.F.A. at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1953. While working on his B.A. he met and married Edyth MacDonald and they had one child, Van, in 1950. Sperry spent one summer as Artist in Residence at the Archie Bray Foundation, in Helena, Montana, and then moved his family to Seattle so that he could complete his M.F.A. at the University of Washington. After graduating in 1955 he stayed at the University and became a professor, teaching ceramics until retiring in 1982. During this time, Sperry widely exhibited his clay vessels in both group and solo exhibitions and was active in the American Craft Council.
When not teaching, Robert Sperry pursued his interest in photography and filmmaking and, in 1963, traveled to Japan to make "Village Potters of Onda," a project that included a documentary film and a collection of black and white photographs. Sperry continued experimenting with film and, in 1967, created a fictional film entitled, "Profiles Cast Long Shadows," which was shown at film festivals throughout the United States. After abandoning another film project in 1970 while going through a divorce, he returned to ceramics as his focus. During the 1970s Sperry developed his techniques, modifying glazes and moving away from the vessel shape. In 1976 Sperry married Patti Warashina, fellow ceramicist and professor at the University of Washington. He began producing murals, which led to several public commissions such as a mural for the IBM Field Engineering Educational Center in Atlanta, created in 1983. Robert Sperry: A Retrospective, was exhibited in 1985-1986 at the Bellevue Art Museum, however, Sperry would continue producing and exhibiting new work, and giving lectures and workshops for thirteen more years, until his death in 1998.
Related Material:
Also found in the Archives of American Art are the Patti Warashina papers, circa 1900-1991. An online finding aid is available.
Provenance:
The Robert Sperry papers were donated by Sperry's wife Patti Warashina in 2003 and 2004.
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.
Galería de la Raza (San Francisco, Calif.) Search this
Type:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Carmen Lomas Garza, 1997 Apr. 10-May 27. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
The papers of painter and educator Max Beckmann measure 1.4 linear feet and date from 1917 to 1954. The collection documents Beckmann's art career in Germany as well as New York and includes biographical material, correspondence, printed material and photographs.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of painter and educator Max Beckmann measure 1.4 linear feet and date from 1917 to 1954. The collection documents Beckmann's art career in Germany as well as New York and includes biographical material, correspondence, printed material and photographs.
Biographical material consists of an art class student register, art organization membership card, bibliography, customs forms for a pet, exhibition price lists, and assorted travel identification documents.
Correspondence is with universities, museums and galleries regarding teaching positions, lectures, exhibitions and art sales. There are also numerous letters and telegrams with his wife Mathilde.
Printed material includes clippings, catalogs, postcards, and miscellany.
Photographs are of Max Beckmann, family, friends, exhibition installations, and houses. Most of the series consists of photographic prints, but there are also a few negatives. Many of the photographs are annotated in German.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as four series.
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1939-1954 (Box 1; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1922-1950 (Boxes 1-2; 1 linear foot)
Series 3: Printed Material, circa 1937-1950 (Box 2; 4 folders)
Series 4: Photographs, 1917-1950 (Box 2; 7 folders)
Biographical / Historical:
Max Beckmann (1884-1950) was a painter and educator who was born and educated in Germany and based in New York after World War II.
Max Beckmann was born in 1884 in Leipzig, Germany. He studied art at the Weimar-Saxon Grand Ducal Art Academy from 1900 to 1902 and graduated with honors. During World War I, he volunteered as a medical orderly from 1914 t0 1915, an experience that haunted him and deeply impacted his artwork. Beckmann's art is considered part of the German New Objectivity movement.
In 1925, Beckmann's first marriage to Minna Tube ended in divorce, and he married Mathilde von Kaulbach. That same year he began teaching art at the Städelschule Academy of Fine Art in Frankfurt. By the late 1920s he had several major exhibitions in museums and galleries in Germany and Switzerland, had his first exhibition in the US (1926), and his paintings were acquired by the National Gallery in Berlin.
When Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany in 1933 and the Nazis came to power, marking the end of the Weimar Republic, modern art was quickly suppressed and derisively referred to as "degenerate art." Consequently, Beckmann lost his teaching job at the Frankfurt Art Academy and several of his paintings were included in the Degenerate Art or Entartete Kunst exhibition (1937) in Munich. Shortly thereafter, Beckmann left Germany and never returned to the country again.
Beckmann and his wife Mathilde settled in Amsterdam, where they stayed for approximately ten years. Beckmann continued to paint during this time. After the end of World War II, Beckmann immigrated to the United States where he taught, painted, and regularly exhibited his work. He taught art at Washington State University in St. Louis, Missouri, for a time and then became an art professor at the Brooklyn Museum's Art School in New York. Max Beckmann died in 1950.
Related Materials:
The Max Beckmann Archive in Munich, Germany also holds papers of Max Beckmann including correspondence, clippings, photographs and artifacts.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming (reels 1213-1214 and 1237) including ten personal diaries of Max Beckmann and three notebooks containing lists of works, sketches, and some daily entries of activities and observations. Loaned materials were returned to the donor and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
Mathilde Q. Beckmann, the artist's widow, loaned diaries and notebooks for microfilming in 1977 and donated additional material in 1983.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center.
A typescript "The Spokane Art Center-Notes on its History," by Jane Baldwin; 2 copies of the Art Center's bulletin, "Art Horizons"; a list of contributors to exhibitions; fund raising committee notes; clippings; and a reproduction of a lithograph by John Davis.
Biographical / Historical:
Art school and gallery; Spokane, Wash. Created in 1937 under State of Washington Federal Art Project, the Art Center offered free classes to the community, and displayed travelling WPA exhibits. It closed in 1942 as a result of lack of support due to wartime economies.
Provenance:
Provenance unknown.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm. Contact Reference Services for more information.
An interview of Carmen Lomas Garza conducted 1997 Apr. 10-May 27, by Paul Karlstrom, for the Archives of American Art.
Lomas Garza discusses her working environment at Hunter Point Shipyard, a former naval facility on San Francisco Bay, near Candlestick Park, occupied by artists and small businesses; growing up in Kingsville, Tex., near Corpus Christi; her education at Texas A and I University (now Texas A and M) and graduating from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.S. in art education (1969); her activism in the Chicano movement during her college years; joining the farm workers march in Kingsville in 1965; installing an art show for MAYO (Mexican Workers Youth Organization) conference in 1969; the impact upon her of MAYO's walkout at Robstown High School, Tex., while she was a student teacher there, in protest of the lack of Mexican American teachers and curriculum; joining Galeria de La Raza in San Francisco, 1976, while a graduate student at Washington State University and the effect it had on the development of her career as an artist; the inspiration of her mother, who painted "lotteria tablas" (figures on boards; game cards); her interest in children's art; using family experiences for her "monitos" or "little figures" (cards painted with sets of fifteen numbers); and preserving her Mexican-American traditions as a basis for her identity.
Biographical / Historical:
Carmen Lomas Garza (1948-) is a painter from California.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators. Funding for the interview received from a donation to AAA from the Los Angeles women's art organization Double X.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
