Letters to the Sterners, primarily regarding art and cultural matters.
Letters are from: John Barbirolli, George G. Barnard, Cecelia Beaux, George Bellows, Emile Bourdelle, Poultney Bigelow, Emma Calve, William M. Chase, Winston Churchill, Constance Collier, John Dewey, Gerald du Maurier, John Drew, James N. Dunn, Joseph Duveen, Elsie Ferguson, Arnold Genthe, Charles D. Gibson, Warren G. Harding, Charles W. Hawthorne, Robert Henri, Walter Hampden, Oliver Herford, Leslie Howard, Sir Henry Irving, Eva Le Gallienne, Julie Marlow, Philip Merivale, Maurice Mozkowski, Alla Nazimova, Joseph Pennell, Raphael Pompelli, Howard Pyle, Theodore Roosevelt, John S. Sargent, G. Bernard Shaw, Sir Herbert B. Tree, Mary A. Ward, J. Alden Weir, Edith Wharton, Francis Wilson, and Israel Zangwill.
Biographical / Historical:
Illustrator and painter; New York City. Sterner's wife, Marie, was an art dealer.
Provenance:
Microfilmed 1956 by the Archives of American Art with other art-related papers in the Manuscript Division of the New York Public Library. Included in the microfilming project were selected papers of the Art Division and the Prints Division.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Occupation:
Art dealers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Illustrators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
An interview of Isamu Noguchi conducted 1973 Nov. 7-Dec. 26, by Paul Cummings, for the Archives of American Art.
NOVEMBER 7, 1973 session: Noguchi discusses his family background; growing up in Japan; returning to the United States in 1917; his identity as an artist; Gutzon Borglum; Columbia University and studying pre-med; attending Leonardo da Vinci Art School; apprenticing to Onorio Ruotolo; quitting Columbia to become a sculptor; Guggenheim Fellowship in 1927; J.B. Neumann; Alfred Stieglitz; George Grey Barnard; James Earle Fraser; Brummer and the Brummer Gallery; studying at Chaumiere and Collarosi; working with Brancusi; meeting Sandy Calder in Paris; Stuart Davis; Morris Kantor; Andrée Ruellan; his work, "Sphere"; reacting against Brancusi; Eugene Schoen's; his Carnegie Hall studio; Michio Ito; Martha Graham; Buckminster Fuller; traveling in China and Japan; meeting Chi Pai Shi; John Becker; his works, "Play Mountain," "Monument to the Plow," "Monument to Ben Franklin," and "Orpheus" for Balanchine; designing for the stage; Audrey McMahon; Harry Hopkins; Holger Cahill; Mexico; Diego Rivera; Miguel Covarrubias; and the Artists Union.
DECEMBER 10, 1973 Session: His reaction to the Spanish Civil War- avoided direct involvement; Stuart Davis; Gorky; Andre Breton; David Hare; Marcel Duchamp; John Graham; Julien Levy; his artist friends dying at the peak of their success; Leger; Stirling Calder; associating himself with the laboring class; Buckminster Fuller; being American; expanding the possibilities of sculpture; his Associated Press Building project in Rockefeller Center, it being done in stainless steel instead of bronze; John Collier; Japanese-American Citizens League; organizing Nisei Artists and Writers Mobilization for Democracy; Jeanne Reynal; going to Poston, Ariz. to assist with American Indian Service camp under John Collier and becoming an internee there; returning to New York in 1942; Bollingen Foundation; trip around the world in 1949; and Philip Guston.
DECEMBER 18, 1973 session: Best work in studio; reaction against expressionism; artists protesting against the Establishment; his objection to the WPA, influenced by William Zorach; exhibiting in group show called, "Fourteen Americans at the Museum of Modern Art"; show at Egan Gallery in 1949; accepting art in its most aesthetically pure form without reference to social issues; movement in Japan since war to get away from refinement of Japan; Yoshiro Hiro responsible for Gutai and the happenings; his work, "Monument to Heroes," using bones; his work takes years to do; materials used in his work; his work, "Cronos"; doing theater stage sets for the Library of Congress including, "Appalachian Spring" and "Herodiade"; wants a given space which he can call his own and do something with it, has to be a work of art.
DECEMBER 26, 1973 Session: Show with Charles Egan in 1948 arranged by de Kooning; applying to the Bollingen Foundation to write a book on leisure, which was never written; traveling to Italy, Egypt, and India for two years; being removed from the New York scene with Franz Kline and de Kooning; his light objects; sculpture as environment; respect for material; Mondrian and his art deriving from nature; his time in Japan in 1931; visiting Japan in 1951; working in stone; projects in Japan; Taniguchi; Antonin Raymond; designing Japanese gardens; discovery of Zen; Hasegawa Saburo; Skidmore; Hans Knoll; Edison Price; Italy in the 1960s; Peter Gregory; Henry Moore; Louis Kahn; UNESCO; Noguchi Foundation and Plaza Company; Shoji; Eleanor Ward; and his autobiography, "A Sculptor's World."
Biographical / Historical:
Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988) was a Japanese American sculptor based in Long Island City, New York.
General:
Originally recorded on 4 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 7 digital wav files. Duration is 6 hrs., 25 min.
Provenance:
These interviews are part of the Archives' Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and others.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
The microfilmed George Grey Barnard selected papers include correspondence with dealers, museums, John D. Rockefeller, and others; a few exhibition files; letters from Theodore Roosevelt; files on Barnard's Lincoln sculpture and Rainbow Arch; and drawings and sketches.
Files selected for microfilming in the correspondence subseries A, correspondence with individuals, include Piccirilli Bros., John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Lorado Taft, and Abbott Handerson Thayer and family. The two remaining subseries, correspondence with dealers and with museums were microfilmed in their entirety; among the correspondents are American Art Galleries, Brummer Gallery, G.J. De Motte, Jacques Seligmann, Yamanaka & Co., Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Washington Cathedral, and many others.
Files on the Carnegie Institute Exhibition (1938), Grand Central Art Galleries Exhibition (1935), 1st Annual International Exhibition (1912-1913), and Theodore Roosevelt's letters to Barnard (1917 and 1937) were microfilmed. Files regarding Barnard's Lincoln statue and the Rainbow Arch were microfilmed in their entirety; only a few files, mainly sketches and drawings, were selected from subseries C regarding other sculpture projects.
Arrangement:
Material selected for microfilming from Series I-III: I. Correspondence (reels 3658-3661) II. Subjects (Exhibition files only, reels 3661-3662) III. Sculpture (Lincoln, Rainbow Arch, misc. sketches, reels 3662-3664)
Biographical / Historical:
George Grey Barnard (1863-1938) was an American sculptor, collector, and dealer, whose collection of medieval art formed the nucleus of the Cloisters, the branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art dedicated to the art of the middle ages. Barnard was born to a Presbyterian minister and his wife in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania in 1863. While he was still a young boy, the family left Pennsylvania for the Midwest, eventually settling in Muscatine, Iowa. He married Edna Monroe in 1895 and had three children: Monroe, Vivia, and Barbara.
Related Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds the George Grey Barnard papers, circa 1860-1969, bulk 1880-1938; the George Grey Barnard letters to Mr. Van der Weyde, [ca. 1910-1921]; and the Photograph of Barnard's sculpture of Lincoln.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art Archives holds the George Grey Barnard Papers. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cloisters Library holds the George Grey Barnard Collection (1889-1967).
Provenance:
Papers received at Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1945 along with the Barnard Abbaye of Medieval art, purchased from the Barnard estate. The collection consists of 18 linear feet of manuscript material, and 1 foot of special format materials, of which 4 feet were selected by the Archives of American Art for microfilming.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Rights:
Authorization to publish, quote, or reproduce requires written permission from Archivist, Philadelphia Museum of Art. Contact Reference Services for more information.
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.
