Mark Rothko and His Times Oral History Project Search this
Type:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Katharine Kuh, 1982 Mar. 18-1983 Mar. 24. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
An interview with Rhona Hoffman, conducted 2015 June 18-22, by Lanny Silverman, for the Archives of American Art's Chicago Art and Artists: Oral History Project, at Hoffman's home in Chicago, Illinois.
Hoffman speaks of growing up in New York City; training as an artist; opening and running the store at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA); the role of the MCA and its opening; marrying, working with, and divorcing Donald Young; opening the Young Hoffman Gallery; changes in the Chicago art gallery scene; her relationships with artists and collectors; feminist art and artists; Chicago arts writers; the relationship between international art fairs and changes in the art market; Hoffman's opinions on contemporary political art; art and irony; and public art. Hoffman also recalls Sol LeWitt, Vito Acconci Michael Rakowitz, Jenny Holzer, Natalie Frank, Helyn Goldenberg, Grace Hokin, Donald Young, Marianne Deson, Kehinde Wiley, Raymond Pettibon, Ian Wilson, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Interviewee Rhona Hoffman (1934- ) is a art dealer in Chicago, Illinois. Interviewer Lanny Silverman (1947- ) is a curator at the Chicago Cultural Center in Chicago, Illinois.
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:
This interview is open for research. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Topic:
Art dealers -- Illinois -- Chicago -- Interviews Search this
Genre/Form:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Sponsor:
Funding for this interview was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
An interview with Suellen Rocca conducted 2015 November 5-6, by Lanny Silverman, for the Archives of American Art's Chicago Art and Artists: Oral History Project, at Elmhurst College in Elmhurst, Illinois.
Biographical / Historical:
Suellen Rocca (1943-2020) was an artist, curator, and educator in Romeoville, Illinois. Interviewee Lanny Silverman (1947- ) is a curator at the Chicago Cultural Center in Chicago, Illinois.
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.
Occupation:
Art museum curators -- Illinois -- Chicago Search this
An interview with Art Green conducted 2015 September 17-18, by Lanny Silverman, for the Archives of American Art's Chicago Art and Artists: Oral History Project at Green's home in Stratford, Ontario, Canada.
Green speaks of growing up in Frankfurt, Indiana; his parents; quilt making and engineering; Necker cubes; early art pursuits; early art education; Fort Wayne Museum of Art; Chicago; Found Titles; Hairy Who; drawing and painting courses; Art Institute of Chicago; silk screening; art school and interests; Chicago imagists; Surrealism; Don Baum; Animal, Vegetable, Mineral; transfers and technique; response to art work; deciding to be an artist; New York; Art Forum; Pop Art; first shows; early influences; abstraction; looking at art; ideal viewer; Nova Scotia; teaching; Canada; signs and ice cream cones; inspiration; painting process; engineering; bridges; politics; Secretary McNamara; color; flames; inspiration; books and magazines; Ray Johnson; puzzles and discovery; Art Expo; the art world; use of technology; patterns; knots; making a living as an artist; self-portraits; and new work. Green also recalls Douglas Craft, Elizabeth Ruprecht, Whitney Halstead, Ray Yoshida, Carolyn Hoyle, George Cohen, Ted Halkin, June Leaf, Robert Frank, Bill Grams, Karl Wirsum, Jim Nutt, Murray Simon, Cynthia Carlson, Bill Schwedler, Marjorie Dell, Roger Brown, Vera Berdich, Thomas Kapsalis, Mogen David, Bill Conger, Evelyn Statsinger, Gary Kennedy, Paul Weighardt, Jim Falconer, Matthew Marks, Phyllis Kind, and Allen Frumkin Gallery.
Biographical / Historical:
Interviewee Art Green (1941- ) is an painter and educator in Stratford, Ontario, Canada. Interviewer Lanny Silverman (1947- ) is a curator at the Chicago Cultural Center in Chicago, Illinois.
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:
This transcript is open for research. Access to the entire audio recording is restricted. Contact Reference Services for more information.
An interview with Ted Halkin conducted 2015 July 29- August 17, by Lanny Silverman, for the Archives of American Art's Chicago Art and Artists: Oral History Project, at Halkin's home in Evanston, Illinois.
Halkin speaks of growing up during the Depression; his family members' emigration from Russia to Canada and Argentina, and eventually the U.S.; his childhood interests in art-making; serving in World War II, including at Iwo Jima; being dyslexic; attending the Art Institute of Chicago on the GI Bill; working at the Field Museum; Halkin's attitude towards cultural appropriation; early exhibitions, including in the Chicago show; painting on the Chicago Midway with George Cohen and Leon Golub; influences on his work, including Cubism, Romanesque cathedrals, and certain Renaissance art; teaching art history at the Art Institute; the impact of the internet on art and the art business; visiting the cave paintings of Lascaux; the use of the grotesque in his work; incorporating sculptural elements into his art; and the impact of the death of his wife on his painting style. Halkin also recalls Edith Altman, Leon Golub, Ray Yoshida, Cosmo Campoli, Franz Schulze, Jim Nutt, Whitney Halstead, Evelyn Statsinger, George Cohen, Phyllis Kind, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Interviewee Ted Halkin (1924- ) is a multimedia artist working in Evanston, Illinois. Interviewer Lanny Silverman (1947- ) is a curator at the Chicago Cultural Center in Chicago, Illinois.
General:
Originally recorded as 3 sound files. Duration is 3 hr., 36 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:
This transcript is open for research. Access to the entire recording is restricted. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Topic:
Artists -- Illinois -- Chicago -- Interviews Search this
An interview with Kenneth Josephson conducted 2015 September 29-30, by Lanny Silverman, for the Archives of American Art's Chicago Art and Artists: Oral History Project, at Josephson's home and studio in Chicago, Illinois.
Josephson speaks of visiting libraries and museums as a child growing up in Detroit, MI; his undergraduate education at the Rochester Institute of Technology; his photographic influences, including Conceptual and avant-garde photographers; joining the Army at the end of the Korean War; how working as a photographer at Chrysler influenced his style; attending graduate school at the Illinois Institute of Design; his early film artworks; his style of incorporating images within images; showing his work at galleries in New York, including the Light Gallery; his more recent collaborations with his partner, Marilyn Zimmerwoman; his compositional style and aesthetic choices; and censorship in art and photography. Josephson also recalls Beaumont Newhall, Minor White, Ansel Adams, Harry Callahan, Aaron Siskind, Arthur Sinsabaugh, John Szarkowski, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Kenneth Josephson (1932- ) is a photographer in Chicago, Illinois. Lanny Silverman (1947- ) is a curator at the Chicago Cultural Center in Chicago, Illinois.
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:
This transcript is open for research. Access to the entire recording is restricted. Contact Reference Services for more information.
An interview with Evelyn Statsinger, conducted 2015 May 11-13, by Lanny Silverman, for the Archives of American Art's Chicago Art and Artists: Oral History Project, at Statsinger's studio in Chicago, Illinois.
Statsinger speaks of studying at the High School of Museum and Arts in New York, the Art Students League, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; showing at Chicago galleries, including Frumkin, Artemisia, Kovler, and Jan Cicero; how her work fits in with contemporary Chicago artists, including Monster Roster and Imagists; the use of ambiguity in her work; how her travels in Japan and Mexico influenced her style; Japanese theater; and contemporary art and popular culture. Statsinger also recalls Ossip Zadkine, Katherine Kuh, Carl Schniewind, Mies van der Rohe, Leon Golub, Kathleen Blackshear, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Interviewee Evelyn Statsinger (1927-2016) was a painter in Chicago, Illinois. Interviewer Lanny Silverman (1947- ) is a curator at the Chicago Cultural Center in Chicago, Illinois.
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:
This transcript is open for research. Access to the entire recording is restricted. Contact Reference Services for more information.
An interview with Franz Schulze conducted 2015 October 19-21, by Lanny Silverman, for the Archives of American Art's Chicago Art and Artists: Oral History Project, at Schulze's home in Lake Forest, Illinois.
Schulze speaks of his early life near Pittsburgh, PA; studying at the University of Chicago and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; working for Raymond Loewy after World War II; teaching at Purdue University and Lake Forest College; the artists he admires, including Lucien Freud, Masaccio, John Singleton Copley, Rembrandt, Georges Braque, and Max Beckmann; moving from primarily painting to writing and teaching; writing arts criticism in Chicago versus in New York; developing the terms Monster Roster and Chicago Imagists; writing a biography of Mies van der Rohe; the development of the artists' groups The Hairy Who and Momentum; the lack of interest in Abstract Expressionism in Chicago; Chicago arts publications, including The New Art Examiner; how he got interested in writing about architecture; his opinions on newer Chicago artists; the development of Art Brut; his interest in portraiture; and his love of music, especially Bach; Schulze also recalls Mies van der Rohe, Raymond Loewy, Leon Golub, Seymour Rosofsky, Alan Frumkin, John Canaday, Paul Carroll; Peter Selz; Kathleen Blackshear; Katherine Kuh; Vera Klement, Martin Hurtig, Larry Solomon, Alan Artner, Nancy Spero, Blair Kamin, Dennis Adrian, H.C. Westermann, Jim Nutt, Evelyn Statsinger, Studs Terkel, Don Baum, Phyllis Kind, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Franz Schulze (1927-2019 ) was an art historian, art critic, and educator in Lake Forest, Illinois. Lanny Silverman (1947- ) is a curator at the Chicago Cultural Center in Chicago, Illinois.
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:
The transcript and recording are open for research. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Occupation:
Art historians -- Illinois -- Interviews Search this
An interview with Vera Klement conducted 2015 June 12 and 14, by Lanny Silverman, for the Archives of American Art's Chicago Art and Artists: Oral History Project, at Klement's home and studio in Chicago, Illinois.
Klement speaks of her early childhood in Danzig (now, Gdansk, Poland) on the eve of World War II; her family's immigration to New York; her early experiences with music and art; her decision to become a painter; her interactions within New York's art community of the 1950s; the change in New York's art scene after the emergence of Pop art; her move to Chicago and subsequent difficulties in showing her work; her involvement within the Chicago art community; the founding of the women's artist cooperative, Artemisia; her involvement with the women's movement in the 1970s; teaching at the University of Chicago; her conception of her artwork as representational and apolitical; her literary influences; and her distaste for the contemporary art world. Klement also recalls Dennis Adrian, Dore Ashton, Marianne Deson, Angelo Ippolito, Miyoko Ito, Phyllis Kind, Harold Rosenberg, Ralph Shapey, Theodoros Stamos, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Vera Klement (1929- ) is a painter in Chicago, Illinois. Lanny Silverman (1947- ) is a curator at the Chicago Cultural Center in Chicago, Illinois.
General:
Originally recorded as 3 sound files. Duration is 3 hr., 24 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.
An interview with William Conger, conducted 2015 May 18-20, by Lanny Silverman, for the Archives of American Art's Chicago Art and Artists: Oral History Project, at Conger's home and studio in Chicago, Illinois.
Interview of William Conger, conducted by Lanny Silverman for the Archives of American Art, at Conger's home and studio on May 18th and 20th 2015. Conger speaks of Dixon, IL; his family history; moving around as a kid; his parents; Chicago; going to the Art Institute as a child; his mother and her painting; deciding to be an artist; Encyclopedia Britannica; realism and technique; regionalism; highs school; Lane Tech; drafting and architecture; getting into college; excellence and doing your best; University of New Mexico; Art Institute of Chicago; Grand Jatte; abstraction, New York; color and regionalism; philosophy; Montgomery Ward; Hyde Park Art Center; monster roster; pop and high art; Lion Act; To the East Were Flowing Waters; Chicago architecture; open works; Flossy's Night ; pictorial space; music; poetry; synesthesia; Abstract Expressionism; literature; Proust; Battle of Hastings; history; color; circus; improvisation; changes in the art world; education; technology; painting; gatekeepers; Chicago vs. New York; traveling; the Grand Canyon; studio practice; and impulse and final works. Conger also recalls William Boynton, William Nichols, Walter Yust, Briggs Dyer, Robert Lewis, Raymond Jonson, Elaine de Kooning, Bob Lewis, Archie Bahm, Robert Mallory, Virginio Ferrari, Ruth Duckworth, Seymour Rosofsky, Don Baum, Karl Wirsum, Ivan Albright, Larry Poon, Emil Bisttram, and Kathy Onderak.
Biographical / Historical:
Interviewee William Conger (1937- ) is a painter in Chicago, Illinois. Interviewer Lanny Silverman (1947- ) is a curator at the Chicago Cultural Center in Chicago, Illinois.
General:
Originally recorded as 2 sound files. Duration is 3 hr., 44 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.
Occupation:
Painters -- Illinois -- Chicago -- Interviews Search this
Genre/Form:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Sponsor:
Funding for this interview was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
An interview with Dennis Adrian conducted 2015 October 8-9, by Lanny Silverman, for the Archives of American Art's Chicago Art and Artists: Oral History Project, at Adrian's home in Seaside, Oregon.
Adrian speaks of growing up in Astoria; traveling to Chicago and New York; Cannon Beach; aging and getting older; his origins; curators and curating; visual sensibilities; the Portland Public Library; opera; his parents, grandparents, and family; Finnish sensibility and humor; Portland Art Museum and classes for children; curator as voyeur; credit and accomplishments; hands on experiences; Artforum; art history; attending University of Chicago; homosexuality and coming out; looted European masterworks; Botticelli; exposure to real art; connoisseurship; collectors and collecting; a Robert Louis Stevenson letter; violin making; growing into yourself; Chicago; war; New York University; Frumkin Gallery; New York; the art world; Madison Art Center; Akron Art Museum; friendship and role models; Art Institute of Chicago; meeting Mies van der Rohe; meeting idols; education; Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Monster Roster; traveling; Chicago art politics; writing and critics; Eurocentric curators; Chicago as an undervalued city; Dog Day Afternoon; discovering art; New York sightings; and experiences running into artists. Adrian also recalls Roger Brown, Ruth Horwich, Gilda Buchbinder, Don Baum, Sherman Lee, Victor Carlson, Peter Voulkos, Lawrence Alloway, Rhona Hoffman, Allan Frumkin, June Leaf, Leon Golub, Jeremy Anderson, Robert Barnes, Tom Garver, Bruce Conner, Natasha Nicholson, H. C. Westermann, Franz Schulze, Bertha Harris Wiles, Muriel Newman, Aaron James Spire, Lillian Florsheim, John Maxon, Greg Knight, P.B. Maryan, Philip Pearlstein, Sylvia Sleigh, Nancy Spero, Irving Petlin, John Coplans, Alan Artner, Alice Shaddle, Phyllis Kind, Andy Warhol, Joseph Cornell, Tilda Swinton, Leo Castelli, Philip Guston, Dubuffet, Pussy Pepke, Bumpy Rogers, Barbara Rossi, Christina Ramberg, Philip Hanson, Miyoko Ito, Mark Jackson, Rolf Achilles, and Vito Acconci.
Biographical / Historical:
Dennis Adrian (1937- ) is an art critic, educator, and curator in Chicago, Illinois. Lanny Silverman (1947- ) is a curator at the Chicago Cultural Center in Chicago, Illinois.
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.
Occupation:
Art critics -- Illinois -- Chicago -- Interviews Search this
