An interview of John Yeon conducted 1982 December 14-1983 January 10, by Marian W. Kolisch, for the Archives of American Art's Northwest Oral History Project.
Yeon speaks of his family background; his early interest in art; educational experiences; his early travels; his early interest in architecture and the influence of the Bauhaus architects; his involvement in landscape, city planning and conservation; and various architectural projects he has been involved in. He recalls the architect Pietro Belluschi.
Biographical / Historical:
John Yeon (1910-1994) was an architect from Portland, Oregon.
General:
Originally recorded on 5 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 9 digital wav files. Duration is 4 hrs., 27 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives' Northwest Oral History Project, begun in 1982 to document the Northwest artistic community through interviews with painters, sculptors, craftsmen, educators, curators, and others, in Oregon, Washington and Montana.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
An interview of Lawrence Anderson conducted 1992 January 30-March 30, by Robert F. Brown, for the Archives of American Art.
Anderson speaks about: his childhood in rural Minnesota, youth in Minneapolis, education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's School of Architecture and Planning, and at L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris; his studies, teachers and fellow students; teaching at the University of Virginia and MIT; colleagues and students at MIT; partnership with Herbert Beckwith and buildings by their firm; Alvar Aalto, Deans William Emerson, William Wurster and Pietro Belluschi; projects on which he has served as an architectural advisor; and competitions he has juried.
Biographical / Historical:
Lawrence B. Anderson (1906-1994) was an architect and educator from Cambridge, Massachusetts.
General:
Originally recorded on 9 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 17 digital wav files. Duration is 12 hrs., 43 minutes.
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, and critics.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Pietro Belluschi, 1983 August 22-September 4. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
An interview of Pietro Belluschi conducted 1983 August 22-September 4, by Meredith Clausen, for the Archives of American Art's Northwest Oral History Project.
Belluschi speaks of his family background, his military service, his education, the beginning of his interest and experience in architecture, his gradual transition into modernism and his experiences as a dean at M.I.T. He discusses his design philosophy and the roles of style versus problem solving, shopping center design, church design, the stylistic differences between architects, and historic preservation. He comments on the influence of Le Corbusier and Alvar Aalto on his work and talks about some of his major designs, including the Portland Art Museum, the Equitable Building, the Seattle Convention Center, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Pietro Belluschi (1899-1994) was an architect from Portland, Oregon.
General:
Originally recorded on 8 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 14 digital wav files. Duration is 7 hrs., 10 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives' Northwest Oral History Project, begun in 1982 to document the Northwest artistic community through interviews with painters, sculptors, craftsmen, educators, curators, and others, in Oregon, Washington and Montana.
The papers of Massachusetts-based designer, sculptor, painter, filmmaker, and educator Richard E. Filipowski measure 4.1 linear feet and date from circa 1940 to 1998. The papers document his career through biographical material, correspondence, writings, teaching files, project files, printed material, photographic material, artwork, and a sound recording.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Massachusetts-based designer, sculptor, painter, filmmaker, and educator Richard E. Filipowski measure 4.1 linear feet and date from circa 1940 to 1998. The papers document his career through biographical material, correspondence, writings, teaching files, project files, printed material, photographic material, artwork, and a sound recording.
Biographical material consists of a Bauhaus questionnaire, marriage license, various identification documents, Canadian selective service documents, resumes, and other miscellaneous material.
Correspondence mostly relates to Filipowski's teaching and sculpture, including letters from Herbert M. Agoos, Lawrence B. Anderson, Pietro Belluschi, Stuart Davis, Garrett Eckbo, Walter Gropius, Gyorgy Kepes, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and others.
Writings consist of Filipowski's lectures on art, notes, and other material. There is also one sound recording of a lecture.
Teaching files are mostly from the Institute of Design, Harvard University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The series includes syllabi, faculty meeting minutes, notes and drafts for lectures, school catalogs and schedules, and files on student exhibitions and projects, including two films, Do Not Disturb and Hearts and Arrows.
Project files contain correspondence, business records, printed material, sketches and photographs on commissions in architecture, sculpture and furniture design. There are also files on programs which Filipowski assisted in planning and organizing, including the Boston Art Festival and a few exhibitions.
Printed material consists of exhibition catalogs, announcements, and clippings mostly about Filipowski.
Photographs, slides, and negatives are of Filipowski and others, sculpture, furniture designs, and works of art by his students from Harvard and MIT.
Art work includes sketches, sketchbooks, cardboard studies for sculptures, and Christmas card designs.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged as eight series.
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1941-1974 (Box 1; 7 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1941-1998 (Box 1, OV 6; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 3: Writings, 1951-1969 (Box 1; 0.4 linear feet)
Series 4: Teaching Files, 1943-1970 (Box 2, OV 6; 0.7 linear feet)
Series 5: Project Files, 1944-1976 (Boxes 2-3, OV 6-7; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 6: Printed Material, 1941-1989 (Box 3, OV 7; 0.4 linear feet)
Series 7: Photographic Material, circa 1940-1989 (Boxes 3-4, OV 8; 0.7 linear feet)
Series 8: Artwork, circa 1940-circa 1985 (Boxes 4-5, OV 6, 8; 0.7 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
Richard E. Filipowski (1923-2008) was a designer, sculptor, painter, filmmaker and educator mostly based in Massachusetts. Richard Filipowski was born in Poland in 1923 and he and his family moved to Ontario, Canada in 1927. He studied under Laszlo Moholy-Nagy at the Institute of Design (formerly known as the New Bauhaus) from 1942 to 1946 and taught there after graduating, 1946-1950. Filipowski was invited by Walter Gropius to organize and teach Design Fundamentals at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design where he stayed until 1952. He then taught as an Associate Professor of Visual Design in the Department of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1953-1989.
Filipowski also took on numerous commissions for sculptures and artwork. One especially noteworthy commission was a sculpture for an Ark created for the Temple B'Rith Kodesh in Rochester, New York. The sculpture was intricately wrought and welded from bronze and silver alloys and it remained a source of inspiration for other later sculptures and commissions which had a similar style of metal-working. Many of his works were also marked by his Bauhaus training. Filipowski passed away in 2008.
Related Materials:
Also found in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Richard E. Filipowski conducted by Roger Brown on September 25, 1989 through March 14, 1990.
Provenance:
The papers were donated to the Archives of American Art by Richard E. Filipowski in multiple installments from 1989 to 1998.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center.
