The papers of art historian, art critic, author, librarian and educator Ellen Hulda Johnson measure 61.5 linear feet and date from 1872-2018, with the bulk of the material dating from 1921-1992. The papers include biographical materials; personal and family files; personal, professional, and business correspondence; extensive research and writing files; teaching files; subject files; professional and curatorial files; and artists' files. Johnson's papers reflect the full range of her career, interests, and close relationships with many artists. There is a 0.2 linear foot unprocessed addition to this collection donated in 2021 that includes letters to Ellen Johnson from others, letters from Johnson to Carl Gerber, and a sketch by Johnson. Materials date from circa 1956-1991.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of art historian, art critic, author, librarian and educator Ellen Hulda Johnson measure 61.5 linear feet and date from 1872-2018, with the bulk of the material dating from 1921-1992. The papers include biographical materials; personal and family files; personal, professional, and business correspondence; extensive research and writing files; teaching files; subject files; professional and curatorial files; and artists' files. Johnson's papers reflect the full range of her career, interests, and close relationships with many artists. There is a 0.2 linear foot unprocessed addition to this collection donated in 2021 that includes letters to Ellen Johnson from others, letters from Johnson to Carl Gerber, and a sketch by Johnson. Materials date from circa 1956-1991.
Personal papers consist of biographical materials and personal and family files, including "memorabilia" files compiled by Johnson. Correspondence is a mix of personal, business, and professional correspondence. Significant correspondents include David Saunders (who painted a portrait of Johnson), Claes Oldenburg, Jack Tworkov, Robert Venturi, the American Scandinavian Foundation. A folder of correspondence compiled for the Archives includes letters from Alfred Stieglitz, Wendell Wilkie, Carl Milles, Jim Dine, and Alexander Archipenko.
Extensive and comprehensive writing and research project files include articles, lectures, presentations, manuscripts, notes and notebooks, including her class notebooks from courses she attended in Paris in 1935, and additional notes and notebooks on a wide variety of subjects. The numerous articles, lectures, papers, and drafts were written primarily by Johnson for the College Art Association, the Allen Memorial Art Museum bulletin, and numerous additional publications and presentations; but there are also writings by others included in the research files. Major writing projects and related research files cover Scandinavian art, the Ossabaw Island artist's colony, Cezanne, Eva Hesse, John Frederick Kensett, Claes Oldenburg, Picasso, David Saunders, Athena Tacha, Pop Art, and many other topics. Johnson's research files, manuscripts, correspondence, and photographs for major exhibitions, including one on Eva Hesse (1982) and for her published books including American Artists on Art from 1940-1980 (1982), Claes Oldenburg (1971), Fragments Recalled at 80: The Art Memoirs of Ellen H. Johnson (1993), and Modern Art and Object (1976) are arranged with the writing project files. Johnson's bibliographic index cards are found here as well.
The collection contains extensive teaching files for courses taught by Johnson at Oberlin and as a visiting professor at other institutions; professional and curatorial files reflecting her curatorial career at Allen Memorial Art Museum, as a consultant, jury member, and continuing education courses she later attended, including the Baldwin Lecture Series; and 18 linear feet of artist's files assembled by Johnson.
Arrangement:
The Ellen Hulda Johnson papers are arranged into seven series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Personal Papers, circa 1905-2009 (5 linear feet; Boxes 1-2, 56-59)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1927-2009 (5.5 linear feet; Boxes 3-7, 60)
Series 3: Writing and Research Projects, 1872, 1932-1994 (15.5 linear feet; Boxes 7-20, 56, 61-62)
Series 4: Subject Files, 1930-1993 (5 linear feet; Boxes 21-25, 62)
Series 5: Teaching Files, 1928-1989 (6 linear feet; Boxes 26-31, 62)
Series 6: Professional and Curatorial Files, 1936-1991 (6 linear feet; Boxes 32-37, 56)
Series 7: Artists Files, 1935-1992 (18.3 linear feet; Boxes 37-55, 62)
Series 8: Unprocessed Addition, 1956-1991 (0.2 linear feet; Box 63)
Biographical / Historical:
Ellen Hulda Johnson (1910-1992) was an art historian, critic, and professor who worked and taught at Oberlin College in Ohio for most of her career.
Ellen Hulda Johnson was born in 1910 in Warren, Pennsylvania. She received her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in art history at Oberlin in 1933 and 1935. She worked briefly at the Toledo Museum of Art before returning to Oberlin as the art librarian. In 1940 she started Oberlin's art rental program, the first of its kind in the country. She was appointed to the faculty in 1948 and taught nineteenth and twentieth century art, American art from colonial times to the present, contemporary art, and Scandinavian art. She was a member of the Allen Memorial Art Museum's acquisition committee and was appointed honorary curator of modern art in 1973. She remained at Oberlin her entire career, retiring from teaching in 1977.
Johnson was a scholar of Cézanne, Claes Oldenburg, Eva Hesse, Pablo Picasso, Edvard Munch, John F. Kensett and other modern masters, as well as Scandinavian art. In 1962 she wrote the first important article on Claes Oldenburg and, in 1970, assisted curator Athena Tacha commission his first permanent large sculpture (3-Way Plug) for the grounds of the Allen Memorial Art Museum. She was the first to show the black-striped paintings that established Frank Stella's reputation. Her efforts in promoting acquisitions of young contemporary artists helped make the Allen Memorial Art Museum a leading institution in contemporary art. Her Oberlin lectures on modern art became so popular that they had to be held in the college's largest auditorium and influenced generations of students, many of whom went on to signficant positions in the field. A new wing of the museum designed by Robert Venturi opened in 1977 and was named in honor of Johnson.
Johnson was the author of numerous articles, books, and exhibition catalogs including Cezanne (Penquin, 1967); Claes Oldenburg (Penquin, 1971); American Artists on Art from 1940-1980 (Harper and Row, 1982); and Modern Art and the Object (Thames and Hudson, 1976).
In 1968, Johnson purchased the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Weltzheimer house in Oberlin, and spent a considerable part of her time and money restoring the building where she lived the rest of her life. She bequethed the house and her significant art collection to Oberlin upon her death in 1992.
Related Materials:
Papers of Ellen H. Johnson, 1933-1992, are also located at Oberlin College Archives.
Separated Materials:
Shortly after aquisition, the Archives transferred Ellen Hulda Johnson's vertical file (16 linear feet) of clippings, press releases, and exhibition announcements to the library of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery.
Provenance:
The Ellen Hulda Johnson papers were donated in 1994, 1998, 2019 and 2021 by the estate of Ellen Hulda Johnson via exectutor Athena Tacha.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Washington D.C. Center. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice. 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.
Ellen Hulda Johnson papers, 1872-2018, bulk 1921-1992. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
The processing of this collection received Federal support from the Smithsonian Collections Care and Preservation Fund, administered by the National Collections Program and the Smithsonian Collections Advisory Committee.
The papers of art historian, writer, and educator Millard Meiss measure 11.4 linear feet and date from circa 1918 to circa 1977, with the bulk of the material dating from 1950 to 1975. The papers are comprised of biographical material, correspondence, writing projects and lectures, and professional files that document his post World War II work as chairman of the American Committee for the Restoration of Italian Monuments, among other work.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of art historian, writer, and educator Millard Meiss measure 11.4 linear feet and date from circa 1918 to circa 1977, with the bulk of the material dating from 1950 to 1975. The papers are comprised of biographical material, correspondence, writing projects and lectures, and professional files that document his post World War II work as chairman of the American Committee for the Restoration of Italian Monuments, among other work.
Biographical material includes various awards and honorary degrees received; a bibliography of published and unpublished books, articles, essays, and editing projects by Meiss; memorial materials and obituaries for Meiss as well as for Dora and Erwin Panofsky (to whom he was close); and resumes and education materials among other files.
Correspondence is predominantly professional in nature and is with colleagues, peers, museums, and institutions. Some correspondents include Ernst Gombrich, Irving Lavin, Carl Nordenfalk, and Erwin Panofsky, among many others.
Writing project and lecture files document Meiss's work on numerous published and unpublished articles and book projects, and lectures. Books include The Boucicaut Hours, De Artibud Opscula XL: Essays on Erwin Panofsky, French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry, and Painting in Florence and Siena, among many other works. Files contain manuscripts, notes, book proposals, reviews, correspondence, and clippings.
Professional files document the many committees, institutions, and organizations in which Meiss was involved, including the American Committee for the Restoration of Italian Monuments, Committee to Rescue Italian Art, and International Committee of the History of Art. Also included are general files on The Art Bulletin, College Art Association, Institute for Advanced Study, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Princeton University, among others.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged as 4 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1918-circa 1977 (0.3 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 2: Correspondence, circa 1936-circa 1977 (4.3 linear feet; Boxes 1-5)
Series 3: Writings Projects and Lectures, circa 1934-circa 1975 (2.4 linear feet; Boxes 5-8)
Series 4: Professional Files, circa 1933-circa 1975 (4.4 linear feet; Boxes 8-12)
Biographical / Historical:
Millard Meiss (1904-1975) was an art historian and educator whose expertise was medieval and Renaissance art. He taught at Columbia University and Princeton, and was a curator at the Fogg Museum for four years. Following World War II, Meiss served as chairman of the American Committee for the Restoration of Italian Monuments until 1951.
Millard Meiss received a B. A. from Princeton University in 1926, and a Ph. D. from New York University in 1933. He was a professor of fine arts and archaeology at Columbia University from 1934-1953. In 1954, Meiss accepted the position of professor of fine arts and curator of paintings at the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University. In 1958, he returned to Princeton, New Jersey to become professor of art history at the Institute for Advanced Study, where he remained for the rest of his career.
While at Columbia University, Meiss acted as editor-in-chief of The Art Bulletin, and also stayed on the editorial board for the next thirty-three years until his death in 1975. Throughout his career, Meiss edited several leading art journals, and wrote numerous articles and books on medieval and Renaissance painting, including Painting in Florence and Siena after the Black Death (1951), and his multi-volume French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry (1967-1974), as well as many others.
In addition to serving as chairman of the American Committee for the Restoration of Italian Monuments after World War II, Meiss organized the Committee to Rescue Italian Art in 1966 after the flood of the Arno River in Italy. He worked to help organize the first meeting in the United States of the International Congress of the History of Art and served as president and vice-president. He was actively involved in the College Art Association of America.
Meiss was a member of many arts and scholarly organizations in Europe and the United States including the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, Accademia Senese degli Intronati, Accademia Clementina, Accademia Toscana Colombaria, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, American Philosophical Society, British Academy, and the Société des Antiquaires de France. In addition, he was a Fellow of the Mediaeval Academy of America and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as an honorary trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Meiss was also the recipient of many awards, including the Wanamaker English Prize, 1925; Haskins Medal from the Mediaeval Academy of America, 1953; Lewis Prize from the American Philosophical Society, 1967; Morey Award from the College Art Association of America, 1969, and posthumously in 1976; and the Art Dealers Association of America Award, 1974.
Provenance:
The Millard Meiss papers were donated to the archives in 1976 and 1986 by Meiss's widow Margaret L. Meiss.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. 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.
Occupation:
Art historians -- New Jersey -- Princeton Search this
Art on campus : the College Art Association's official guide to American college and university art museums and exhibition galleries / edited by John J. Russell and Thomas S. Spencer
