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:
For information on how to access this interview contact Reference Services.
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.
The papers of painter and educator Vera Klement measure 3.3 linear feet and 1.36 GB and date from 1950 to circa 2016. The papers include scattered correspondence with Franz Schulze and others, writings and notes including digital copies of a memoir, an interview, and a film, personal business records, printed and digital material, fourteen sketchbooks and other works of art, and photographs, including a photo of the MacDowell Colony in 1957.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of painter and educator Vera Klement measure 3.3 linear feet and 1.36 GB and date from 1950 to circa 2016. The papers include scattered correspondence with Franz Schulze and others, writings and notes including digital copies of a memoir, an interview, and a film, personal business records, printed and digital material, fourteen sketchbooks and other works of art, and photographs, including a photo of the MacDowell Colony in 1957.
Of note is Blunt Edge, an unpublished memoir by Klement in born-digital format; a born-digital recording of an oral history by Linda Kramer and Sandra Binion (2010); a born-digital copy of a film entitled Vera Klement: Blunt Edge, by Wonjung Bae; a bound volume, Disorder and Early Sorrow: a Meditation on War and Death in Homage to Picasso's Guernica 1937, by Vera Klement; and a poetry project compiled by Klement entitled Born of Silence.
Arrangement:
Due to its small size the collection is arranged as one series.
Biographical / Historical:
Vera Klement (1929-) is a painter and educator in Chicago, Illinois. She is a founding member of "The FIVE."
Vera Klement was born in Danzig, Germany (now Gdańsk, Poland). She came to the United States in 1938 to escape the Nazi regime and settled in New York City. Klement studied at the Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture, graduating in 1950. After moving to Chicago in 1965, she taught at the University of Chicago from 1969 to 1995 and is a Professor Emerita. She became a founding member of "The FIVE," a group of artists, who protested what they saw as a regionalist bent in Chicago art during the early 1970s.
Klement continues to live and work in Chicago, Illinois.
Related Materials:
Also found in the Archives of American Art are two oral history interviews with Vera Klement conducted for the Archives of American Art's Chicago Art and Artists: Oral History Project. The interviews were conducted by Lanny Silverman, 2015 June 12 and 14, and by Jason Stieber, 2016 May 25.
Provenance:
Vera Klement donated her papers to the Archives of American Art in several installments in 1986, 2004, and 2017.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Researchers interested in accessing born-digital records or audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact Reference Services for more information.
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.
Vera Klement papers, 1950-circa 2016. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Processing of this collection received federal support from the Collections Care Initiative Fund, administered by the Smithsonian American Women's History Initiative and the National Collections Program
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 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.
Occupation:
Painters -- Illinois -- Chicago -- Interviews Search this
Topic:
Women artists -- 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 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 Suellen Rocca conducted 2016 May 26, by Jason Stieber, in Chicago, Ill, for the Archives of American Art's Chicago Art and Artists: Oral History Project.
Biographical / Historical:
Interviewee Suellen Rocca (1943- 2020) was an artist, curator, and educator in Romeoville, Ill. Interviewer Jason Stieber (1973- ) is the National Collector for the Archives of American Art.
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:
For information on how to access this interview contact Reference Services.
