Art Collectors: A Project in Partnership with the Center for the History of Collecting in America at The Frick Collection Search this
Extent:
110 Pages (Transcript)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Pages
Interviews
Sound recordings
Date:
2016 December 5-6
Scope and Contents:
An oral history interview with Helen Zell conducted 2016 December 5-6, by Avis Berman, for the Archives of American Art and the Center for the History of Collecting in America at the Frick Art Reference Library of The Frick Collection, at Zell's home, in Chicago, Illinois.
Zell discusses growing up as a Jewish Northerner in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; her parents and their extended family and the impact on her of visiting with her father's bohemian relatives in Brooklyn; her early interest in reading and English studies; her enthusiasm for collecting and organizing paper dolls and books as a young girl; the family's relocation to Rockville Centre, New York on Long Island; her visit as a teenager to Europe and the Rome Olympics with her grandparents; her college years at the University of Michigan, where she met her first husband, James Fadim; her work as an editor for the American Society for Microbiology; the couple's meeting and socializing with Sam and Janet Zell at the University of Michigan; their move to Chicago in 1967; her first purchases of art at the Old Town Art Fair in Chicago; her work as the general manager for the Chicago String Ensemble; her work on the Women's Board at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago; her divorce from her first husband and her return to school to study interior design at the Harrington Institute and her subsequent work as an interior designer; her deeper involvement with Chicago-based art collectors through her work at the MCA. Zell also describes her reintroduction to Sam Zell after many years apart at an art fair in Chicago in 1995; their burgeoning relationship and his desire to help her acquire and develop an art collection, initially concentrating on Surrealist work; their marriage and acquisition of a neighboring apartment in their condominium building which they renovated in order to create space for their growing collection; the expansion of their collection into photography; her enthusiasm for the work of Joseph Cornell, Louise Bourgeois and Lee Bontecou, among others; the assistance of the gallerist Alan Koppel in acquiring work for the collection; her feelings about loaning from the collection for exhibitions; the valuable assistance of curators and dealers in expanding her knowledge and expertise; and her and her husband's feelings about eventually creating a legacy for their collection. Zell also recalls Robert Natkin; Grace Hokin; Bud Holland; Helyn Goldenberg; Marilynn Alsdorf; Allen Turner; Stefan Edlis; Gael Neeson; Kevin Consey; Madeline Grynsztejn; Elizabeth Smith as well as Michael Heltzer; Meredith Palmer; John Vinci; David Tunkl; Lynne Warren; and Wilbur Ross, among others.
Biographical / Historical:
Helen Zell (1942- ) is a philanthropist and art collector in Chicago, Illinois. Avis Berman (1949- ) is an art historian and author in New York, New York.
General:
Originally recorded as 2 digital wav sound files. Duration is 4 hr., 53 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 interview is access restricted; written permission is required. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Topic:
Philanthropists -- Illinois -- Chicago -- Interviews Search this
An interview of Katharine Kuh conducted 1982 Mar. 18-1983 Mar. 24, by Avis Berman, for the Archives of American Art's Mark Rothko and His Times oral history project.
Kuh speaks of her invalid childhood in Chicago, the development of her interest in art, classes in art history at Vassar College, and her career as curator of modern art at the Art Institute of Chicago. She recalls in particular the "Sanity in Art" movement against modern art in Chicago. Kuh describes her relationship with Mark Rothko and Rothko's relationships with Mark Tobey, Clyfford Still, Kate Rothko, Theodoros Stamos, Milton Avery, Stanley Kunitz, and Hans Hofmann.
Kuh discusses her parents, the family silk business, travelling in Europe as a child, life in Chicago, the effects of polio and other illnesses on her interests, and her student years at Vassar College. She remembers visiting Bernard Berenson in Italy with her family and again with Daniel Catton Rich, with whom she worked very closely at the Art Institute of Chicago. She speaks of the Katharine Kuh Gallery, which she started in the mid-1930s and its place in the vanguard of the Chicago art scene.
Kuh remembers the effects of the stock market crash on her personal situation, her marriage to businessman George Kuh, distaste for life in the suburbs, and her divorce. She discusses the Katharine Kuh Gallery and the actions taken against her business by members of the reactionary "Sanity in Art" movement (including a very funny anecdote concerning Carlos Merida). She speaks of the classes in modern art that she taught at her gallery and of some of the artists she exhibited there, including the photographers Ansel Adams, Alfred Stieglitz, and Edward Weston.
Kuh remembers the McCarthy era and the political conservatism in Chicago, including her testimony on behalf of Bill Zimmerman, Acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs. She criticizes blockbuster exhibitions and the changes in the role of a museum curator. She reminisces about building the collection at the Art Institute of Chicago and the art education program she ran there, and recalls Stuart Davis, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Gyorgy Kepes, and Ivan Albright.
Kuh remembers Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Marcel Duchamp, as well as the collectors Walter Paepcke and Walter and Louise Arensberg (whose collection she surveyed in their home for an exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago).
Kuh focuses on her memories of Mark Rothko, recalling when they met, their friendship, his manner of working, his feelings about his work, and his worries towards the end of his life. She talks about Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman, and Mark Tobey. Some parts of this tape repeat what she said earlier.
Kuh continues discussing Rothko, particularly his Houston chapel murals and the retrospective exhibition at MOMA in 1961. She remembers visiting Rothko's studio and describes his working methods. She relates Rothko's views on other artists, including Milton Avery, Clyfford Still, Turner, Robert Motherwell, and Adolf Gottlieb; parts repeat things said before. Kuh also discusses Rothko's wife and daughter.
Kuh recounts building the collection at the Art Institute of Chicago and speaks of the museum staff, trustees, and donors. She remembers Alfred Barr at MOMA.
Kuh continues speaking about the Art Institute of Chicago, describing the circumstances of her resignation and subsequent move to New York. She talks of knowing Peggy Guggenheim, Max Ernst, and Fernand Leger.
Kuh describes her work as a consultant to college museums and her writings. She discusses the field of art criticism and her career as art editor at Saturday Review. She recalls Clyfford Still's retrospective exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and his death.
Kuh describes her work as a collector for the First National Bank of Chicago.
Kuh recounts more about her work at Saturday Review and her resignation. She goes into great detail about her travels in Alaska and British Columbia surveying Northwest Indian art for a government report. She speaks again about the McCarthy era.
Kuh speaks again about the Katharine Kuh Gallery and the artists she exhibited there, including Josef Albers (and his Black Mountain College), Alexander Archipenko, Stuart Davis, Paul Klee, Alexander Calder, and Man Ray.
Kuh continues her discussion of artists she exhibited at the Katharine Kuh Gallery, including Mark Tobey, Paul Klee, and Isamu Noguchi.
Kuh continues talking about artists she exhibited at the Katharine Kuh Gallery, including David Smith, Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Eliot Porter, Rufino Tamayo, and Jack Tworkov.
Biographical / Historical:
Katharine Kuh (1904-1994) was an art consultant, curator, and critic from Chicago and New York City.
General:
Originally recorded on 16 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 31 digital wav files. Duration is 21 hrs., 52 min.
Provenance:
This interview was conducted as part of the Archives of American Art's Mark Rothko and his Times oral history project, with funding provided by the Mark Rothko Foundation.
Others interviewed on the project (by various interviewers) include: Sonia Allen, Sally Avery, Ben-Zion, Bernard Braddon, Ernest Briggs, Rhys Caparn, Elaine de Kooning, Herbert Ferber, Esther Gottlieb, Juliette Hays, Sidney Janis, Buffie Johnson, Jacob Kainen, Louis Kaufman, Jack Kufeld, Stanley Kunitz, Joseph Liss, Dorothy Miller, Betty Parsons, Wallace Putnam, Rebecca Reis, Maurice Roth, Sidney Schectman, Aaron Siskind, Joseph Solman, Hedda Sterne, Jack Tworkov, Esteban Vicente and Ed Weinstein. Each has been cataloged separately.
Restrictions:
Transcript: Patrons must use microfilm copy.
Rights:
Authorization to quote or reproduce for the purposes of publication requires written permission from Avis Berman. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Papers, 1959-1987, of Elizabeth Gordon, editor of the periodical, House Beautiful from 1941-1964, mostly related to her research for the August and September 1960 issues of House Beautiful regarding the Japanese aesthetic concept of "shibui", and the subsequent travelling "shibui exhibition" from 1961-1964. Included are correspondence, some photocopies, 1959-1963; notes; drafts for articles and lectures; printed material including magazine and newspaper clippings, 1959-1987; 2 books, and exhibition announcements; drawings of paper and foil art; a photo album containing photos of exhibition installations; and photographs, slides, color transparencies, and lantern slides depicting people, sites, and objects reflecting the "shibui" aesthetic.
Scope and Contents:
The Elizabeth Gordon Papers measure 4.5 linear feet and span the years 1959-1987. The collection mainly documents Ms. Gordon's research for the August and September 1960 issues of House Beautiful regarding the Japanese aesthetic concept of "shibui", and the subsequent travelling "shibui exhibition" from 1961-1964. Included are correspondence, some photocopies, 1959-1963; research notes and materials; articles; lectures; printed material including magazine and newspaper clippings, 1959-1987; 2 books, and exhibition announcements; article materials; a photo album containing photos of exhibition installations; and photographs, slides, color transparencies, and lantern slides depicting people, sites, and objects reflecting the "shibui" aesthetic.
Arrangement note:
This collection is organized into eight series. 1. Biographical data, 2. Shibui research, 3. Shibui issues of, House Beautiful, 4. Correspondence, 5. Shibui promotion, 6. Exhibition files, 7. Printed materials, and 8. Photographs.
Biographical Information:
Born in Logansport, Indiana in 1906, Elizabeth Gordon served as editor of House Beautiful magazine 1941 to 1964. Ms. Gordon first became interested in Japanese aesthetics during the mid-1950s. As a result she began to read and study Japanese art, history and culture. In 1959, Gordon travelled to Japan with three staff people from, House Beautiful. In Kyoto she met Eiko Yuasa, a young woman then employed by the City of Kyoto to handle foreign V.I.P.s, who was assigned to assist Gordon during her stay there. It was Ms. Yuasa who, in the course of discussions of Japanese aesthetics, introduced the term "shibui." Around that term and its related concepts ("iki", "jimi", "hade") the theme for the issue began to crystallize. In August and September, 1960, House Beautiful, under the editorial control of Ms. Gordon, published two extremely popular issues devoted to the subject of "shibui". Due to the popularity of the issues, museum exhibits devoted to the concept of "shibui" travelled around the United States. Ms. Gordon died in Adamstown, Maryland in 2000.
Biographical Overview
1906 -- Born in Logansport, Indiana
1920s -- Attended the University of Chicago
1930s -- Moved to New York to work as a promotional copywriter for several newspapers
1930s -- Syndicated columnist on home maintenance for The New York Herald Tribune
1930s -- Editor at Good Housekeeping (here for 8 years)
1937 -- More House for your Money by Elizabeth Gordon and Dorothy Ducas published by W. Morrow and Company: New York.
1937 -- Married Carl Hafey Norcross
1939 -- Appointed editor of House Beautiful
1964 -- Left the magazine world
1972 -- Published a special issue on Scandinavian design and awarded the insignia of a knight, first class, in the Finnish Order of the Lion
1987 -- American Institute of Architects made her an honorary member
1988 -- Carl Hafey Norcross died
September 3, 2000 -- Died in Adamstown, MD
(The following biography of Elizabeth Gordon comes courtesy of curator Louise Cort. Written in consultation with Elizabeth Gordon, October 23, 1987)
The research papers, memoranda, magazines, books, photographs and color transparencies and other materials in this archives are related to the publication by Elizabeth Gordon (Mrs. Carl Norcross), editor of House Beautiful from 1941 to 1964 and creator of the August, 1960 issue of the magazine on the special theme of the Japanese aesthetic concept of "shibui". The "shibui issue" was followed by the September, 1960, issue of the same publication on the theme, "How to be shibui with American things." As a by-product of the issues, a "Shibui Exhibition" travelled to eleven museums in the United States during 1961-1964. Each exhibition was opened with a slide lecture by Elizabeth Gordon.
Miss Gordon first became curious about Japanese aesthetics in the mid-1950s when she began to see Japanese objects being displayed and used in the homes of Americans who had spent time in Japan during the Occupation and Japanese influence began to appear in wholesale showrooms of home furnishings manufacturers. It was clear that the time had come: she HAD to go to Japan!
She read for five years before going to Japan - history, social mores, art history. (Many of the books on Japan that she collected during this time have been presented to the library at the University of Maryland, College Park.)
An important bit of advice came from Alice Spaulding Bowen, owner of Pacifica, the highest quality shop of Asian antiquities in Honolulu, who told her, "Be sure to read, The Tale of Genji - then you'll understand everything."
She made her first trip to Japan in April, 1959, accompanied by three staff people from, House Beautiful. In Kyoto she met Eiko Yuasa, a young woman then employed by the City of Kyoto to handle foreign V.I.P.s, who was assigned to assist Miss Gordon during her stay there. It was Ms. Yuasa who, in the course of discussions of Japanese aesthetics, introduced the term "shibui." Around that term and its related concepts ("iki", "jimi", "hade") the theme for the issue began to crystallize.
Miss Gordon came home, planning to spend the summer researching "shibui" with the aid of the Japan Society. But she found virtually nothing written in English on the concept. So she returned to Japan in December, 1959 together with staff member Marion Gough, to dig deeper and to work out details and get better educated with Eiko Yuasa. One of their devices was to walk through department stores and discuss with sales personnel whether objects for sale were "shibui", or were "jimi" or "hade", and why. Between themselves, they did the same for the costumes of women they saw on the streets.
Lacking printed sources for information on "shibui", Miss Gordon sought out and interviewed experts, including Douglas Overton, head of the Japan Society in New York. In Japan in December, 1959, she met Yanagi Soetsu, founder of Japan's Folk Craft Movement and head of the Craft Museum in Tokyo (with an introduction from Tonomura Kichinosuke, head of the Craft Museum in Kurashiki). She met the chef Tsuji Kaichi, who was commissioned to write an article on "kaiseki" (that could not be used because of an inadequate English translation) and Frances Blakemore. She met several times with Bernard Leach and attended his lecture at Bonnier's while he was in New York in March, 1960. (He would later write a "fan letter" for the issue)
As the concept of "the shibui issue" began to take shape, a third trip in the spring of 1960 focused on photography - to produce the shooting script decided on the preceding December. This was executed by the noted photographer Ezra Stoller of Rye, New York, and John DeKoven Hill, House Beautiful's Editorial Director. (Mr. Hill worked with Frank Lloyd Wright except for the ten years that he was a member of the House Beautiful editorial staff)
Miss Gordon was back in Japan in Mid-August 1960 as the "shibui issue" was causing a sensation. Altogether she spent sixteen months in Japan.
As one of the experiences that influenced her strong interest in Japanese costumes and textiles, Miss Gordon remembers a spectacularly thorough exhibition at the Tokyo National Museum in Ueno on, 1200 Years of Japanese Costume. She saw it on the last day of its exhibition (possibly 1964).
The August 1960 issue sold out quickly. Copies of the magazine, which sold for fifty cents, were sold on the "black market" for ten dollars.
The publication of the August 1960 issue was followed by an unprecedented avalanche of "fan mail". Many department heads in colleges and universities, including the Harvard-Yenching Institute and the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (where Miss Gordon had worked as an undergraduate) wrote to comment on the issue. Many people in other fields of endeavor wrote: heads of firms concerned with interior design, landscape architecture, and related areas expressed their interest in the concept of "shibui" Other writers include Bernard Leach, Gertrude Natzler, Laura Gilpin, Mainbocher, the architect Yoshimura Junzo, the textile artist Marianne Strengell, Walter Kerr, Craig Claiborne, and Oliver Statler.
The "shibui issue" was followed immediately by the September issue dealing with the use of non-Japanese objects to express the concept of "shibui." (Miss Gordon convinced her advertisers, who had been skeptical about the potential success of the August issue, by promising the September issue dealing with American products.) Four American firms were involved in the production of an integrated line of paints, wallpaper, furniture and carpets expressive of the concept. Products were designed by the firms' designers following the clues offered by objects and fabrics purchased by Miss Gordon in Japan in December 1959 and spring 1960. Miss Gordon has expressed her dissatisfaction with the September issue, although public opinion was positive. She feels that some of the firms failed in the "shibui" project, though some "caught" the message: namely the paint company and the fabric/wallpaper company.
In response to strong public interest, the House Beautiful staff prepared a travelling exhibition to introduce the concept of "shibui" through a series of vignettes, mixing fabrics and objects, colors and textures. The museum installation was designed by John Hill of House Beautiful. Japan Air Lines underwrote shipping costs.
The exhibition began in Philadelphia in late 1961. Ezra Stoller was sent to photograph the installation in considerable detail at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts in January, 1962, so that his photographs cold serve as guidelines for installations at the other museums, which included the San Francisco Museum of Art (April 1962), the Newark Pubic Library, and the Honolulu Academy of Art. Miss Gordon presented a lecture on "shibui" at each of the museum installations.
In appreciation of her work to introduce Americans to the concept of "shibui", the city of Kyoto presented a bolt of especially "shibui" kimono fabric executed by a Living National Treasure textile artist. Miss Gordon eventually tailored the fabric into a dress and jacket. She received the 1961 Trail Blazer Award from the New York Chapter of the National Home Fashions League, Inc. In June, 1987, Miss Gordon was named an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects, with her introduction of the concept of "shibui" and her promotion of an understanding of other culture cited as her major contributions to American architecture.
Provenance:
Elizabeth Gordon donated her papers to the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives in 1988.
Elizabeth Gordon donated her papers to the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives in 1988.
The Elizabeth Gordon Papers. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of Elizabeth Gordon, 1988
Avis Berman research material on Juliana Force measures 12.3 linear feet and dates from circa 1930-2020. The papers document Berman's research for her book Rebels on Eigth Street: Juliana Force and the Whitney Museum of American Art, 1990. Included is correspondence, writings, printed material, audio visual material, transcripts of interviews, administrative and sales records, and photographs. Photographs consist of 93 Rieser/Force family photographs, 45 photographs of Barley Sheaf Farm, Juliana Force's residence in Holicong, Pa., and a photograph album containing 23 images of "Cobweb," Force's cottage in Rosemary Lane, Haddenham, Bucks, England. Also included are 88 contemporary and reproduction photographs.
Biographical / Historical:
Avis Berman (1949- ) is a writer and art historian in New York, N.Y. Berman wrote the book Rebels on Eighth Street: Juliana Force and the Whitney Museum of American Art, 1990.
Provenance:
Donated in 2020 and 2021 by Avis Berman.
Restrictions:
This collection is temporarily closed to researchers due to archival processing. 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.
The donor has retained all intellectual property rights, including copyright, that they may own in the following material: all writings by Avis Berman.
The dates for the Giulio V. Blanc papers range from 1920-1995. Measuring a total of eleven linear feet and 0.001 GB, the collection provides documentation of the art exhibitions Blanc curated during his career, including original writings and exhibition catalogs. The extensive artists files in the collection provide information on numerous Latin American and Caribbean artists. The collection also provides historical information on the life and culture of Cuba.
Scope and Content Note:
The Giulio V. Blanc papers measure approximately 11 linear feet and 0.001 GB and date from 1920 to 1995. Compiled by Blanc since the beginning of his curatorial, writing, and research career in the 1980s, the papers consist primarily of artist files on Cuban, Cuban-American, and Latin American artists (1920-1995 and undated). Also found is biographical information (1994-1995), interviews by Blanc (1984-1987, 1994) and miscellaneous letters from artists and friends (1983-1995 and undated).
The first series, Biographical Files, 1994-1995 includes information about Blanc's career. Series 2: Miscellaneous Letters, 1983-1995, undated, consists of letters from artists and friends on various topics. Series 3: Artist Files, 1920-1995, undated, represents the bulk of the collection (approximately 300 artists in all, 6 linear feet), and contain materials either collected by Blanc or received by Blanc from the artists themselves. These consist of biographical material about the artist, usually two or three paragraphs written by Blanc, scattered resumes and copies of fellowship applications. Also found are newspaper clippings, exhibition announcements and catalogs, and letters or correspondence between Blanc and the artists. Of special interest in this series are numerous taped interviews with celebrated Cuban artists and art historians such as José Gómez Sícre, founder and first director of the Art Museum of the Americas, Organization of American States. Gómez-Sícre describes his early career and involvement with acquisitions for the museum's permanent collection as well as his working relationship with Alfred H. Barr, first director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Gómez-Sícre's notable book, Pintura Cubana de Hoy, published in Havana in 1944 is included in the files.
Elena Peláez de Medero, another interviewee, discusses her sister, Cuban painter Amelia Peláez (1896-1968). Blanc interviewed Elena Peláez in Miami for his 1988 exhibition Amelia Peláez: A Retrospective. The Peláez file includes Blanc's correspondence with her as well as copies of rare 1930s and 1940s exhibition catalogs from Amelia Peláez's early career. Among the catalogs is a copy of Modern Cuban Painters from the 1944 exhibition held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Also found are rare French, German and Spanish newspaper clippings on Peláez dating back to the 1920s. Of interest is a copy of Amado Blanco's 1937 poetry book, Poema desesperado. Published in Havana, the book is dedicated to the memory of Federico García Lorca and includes illustrations by Peláez.
Another prominent artist whom Blanc interviewed was Enrique Riverón (b. 1901) leader of the Cuban vanguardia. He was a member of El Grupo de Montparnasse, a talented group of painters and writers living in the southern district of Paris in the late 1920s, an area noted for its boisterous after-hour activities. The interview was published in the Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts in 1997. Also found in the papers are illustrated letters and greeting cards addressed to Blanc and his parents, Baron Lodovico Blanc and María V. Blanc.
Series 4: Exhibition Files, 1977-1995, undated, consists primarily of material Blanc compiled for exhibitions he curated. Found here are letters from museum directors, artists and colleagues, drafts and finished essays for exhibition catalogs, and printed material such as newspaper clippings of art reviews. This series also includes files on exhibitions Blanc did not curate.
Series 5: Subject Files, 1933-1995, undated, are files relating to Cuban art, culture, and society, the Cuban revolution, book projects, Biennials in Havana and São Paulo, the 1988 controversy surrounding the Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture (Miami, FL) and other topics. Found are letters, drafts of writings, notes, printed material such as newspaper clippings and magazine articles, press releases, and exhibition announcements.
Particularly extensive is the documentation about the 1980s conflict at the Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture. In April 1988, a fund-raising auction at the 24-year-old 'little Havana' institution resulted in heated disputes that escalated to violence. The works auctioned were by Cuban artists still living on the island. Many in Miami's Cuban community considered these artists to be supporters of the Communist regime and were outraged. One of the disputed works purchased the night of the auction, a drawing by Manuel Mendive, was taken across the street by its successful bidder and burned. In addition, the museum building was damaged by a pipe bomb shortly after the sale. In the National Public Radio news story (available in Blanc's papers on audio cassette) Helen Kohen, critic for the Miami Herald commented, "We're not talking about paintings. We're talking about `my brother's in jail'. That's what we're talking about." The situation intensified quickly; transcending local politics and involving the Treasury and Justice Departments, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Sotheby's and Christie's auction houses. Ramón Cernuda, the museum vice-president who organized the auction also had his personal collection of Cuban art impounded by the FBI. A second bombing took place in 1989 to protest an exhibition of Cuban artists who came to the U. S. during the early 1980s Mariel boatlift.
The seriousness of the conflicts in the Miami museum prompted the Museum of Modern Art in New York to withdraw an offer to lend three paintings to the Cuban museum for the 1988 exhibition Amelia Peláez: A Retrospective scheduled to open later that year. Curated by Giulio Blanc, it was the first U.S. retrospective of this important Cuban artist and the exhibition helped situate her work. The Cuban Museum of Art in Daytona Beach, an institution that helped start the Miami museum, also withdrew an offer to lend "Amelias". The result was an exhibition devoid of works owned by the Museum of Modern Art, important paintings created after 1963, the year President Kennedy imposed economic sanctions on Cuba.
To publicize the Peláez exhibition and boost attendance, the museum placed a public invitation in the Spanish section of the Miami Herald. The half page ad, also found in the Blanc papers, lists more than 100 intellectuals and professionals who supported the exhibition. Blanc stated in a letter to the Miami Herald, "It is horrifying to think there are those in Miami who would burn a painting for the sake of politics. This was the same reasoning utilized by Joseph Goebbels when he made bonfires of books and paintings by anti-Nazi and `degenerate' artists and writers in 1930s Germany... One can only pity the ignorance of those who play into the hands of the Castro regime by resorting to uncivilized tactics that can only hurt the image of the Cuban-exile community and of Miami in general."
The files concerning the Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture contain exhibition announcements, copies of court orders, press releases and correspondence between Blanc and the Museum of Modern Art in New York regarding the museum and the Peláez exhibition. Also included are a great number of newspaper articles printed in two of Miami's major newspapers, the Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald which covered the story until it was resolved in the early 1990s. Offering additional information on the controversy are a number of letters addressed to either Blanc or his parents from artists and friends expressing either discontent with the museum's state of affairs or gratitude for the Blanc's financial support during the museum's reconstruction. These provide remarkable insight into a relatively heterogeneous Cuban community.
Series 6: Sound Recordings, 1992, 1994 consists of two untranscribed audio cassette tapes. One is of the 1992 College Art Association's session: Artistic Voices of Latin America: The Aesthetics of Anti-Colonialism held in Chicago, Illinois in which Giulio V. Blanc was a panelist. The other is a rare 1994 interview conducted by Blanc with poet-priest Monseñor Angel Gaztelu, a friend of many Cuban writers and artists, and who presided over Peláez's funeral service in 1968.
The last series, Series 7: Photographs, 1981-1993, undated, includes black and whiteportraits of artists, group shots of Blanc with "Miami Generation" artists María Brito, Pablo Cano, María Martínez-Cañas, Carlos Macía, Arturo Rodríguez, and César Trasobares, and photos of other artists.
Arrangement:
The Giulio V. Blanc papers are arranged into seven series primarily according to type of material. Within each series, materials are arranged chronologically, except for Artist Files and Subject Files which are arranged alphabetically by either name or subject.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Files, 1994-1995, undated (box 1; 3 folders)
Series 2: Miscellaneous Letters, 1983-1995, undated (box 1; 3 folders)
Series 3: Artist Files, 1920-1995, undated (boxes 1-8, ER01; 6 linear ft., 0.001 GB)
Series 4: Exhibition Files, 1977-1995, undated (box 8; 1 linear foot)
Series 5: Subject Files, 1933-1995, undated (boxes 8-12; 2.5 linear feet)
Series 6: Untranscribed Sound Recordings, 1992-1994 (box 12; 2 folders)
Series 7: Photographs, 1981, 1993, undated (box 12; 2 folders)
Biographical Note:
Cuban born independent curator, critic, art historian and consultant Giulio V. Blanc (1955-1995) specialized in Cuban and Latin American art history and in his lifetime collected a wealth of material on the subject. Through his numerous exhibitions and keen articles appearing in national and international art journals, Blanc became a leading authority on Latin American art and successfully established himself as a link between Cuban and Cuban-American artists and US galleries and museums. The Miami Generation (1983) and Amelia Peláez: A Retrospective (1988) are two significant exhibitions Blanc curated for Miami's Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture in addition to the celebrated Wifredo Lam and His Contemporaries, 1938-1952 (1992) for New York's Studio Museum in Harlem. Giulio V. Blanc was among the key figures that catapulted Latin American art onto the mainstream in the early 1980s.
Giulio V. Blanc was born in Havana in 1955 to Baron Lodovico Blanc and María V. Blanc. The Blanc name hails from Italy and the title of Baron was awarded to Alberto Blanc, Lodovico Blanc's grandfather, while he was Secretary of State in 1873 under Victor Emmanuel II of Italy. As young advocates of Cuban culture, the Blanc's collected a number of paintings by Cuban artists but were forced to leave behind the works of Cuban masters such as Carlos Enríquez, Victor Manuel, René Portocarrero, Fidelio Ponce and others to facilitate an uncomplicated exodus from the country during the revolution. Lodovico and María were in their thirties and Giulio was five years old when the family settled in Miami.
Giulio Blanc completed his undergraduate education at Harvard and proceeded to Brown University and the Institute of Fine Arts in New York for graduate work (1979-1980). During his career, he served as an independent curator and consultant to The Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture (Miami), The Metropolitan Museum (Miami), and The Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art (New York) among others. He also lectured on Latin American art history at the Art Museum of the Americas, OAS (Organization of American States), Washington, DC, The University of Miami, and El Museo Nacional de Arte in La Paz, Bolivia. In addition, he worked as a consultant in the Latin American Paintings Department at Sotheby's auction house in New York and served on the editorial board of the magazine Art Nexus. Blanc was pursuing a doctoral degree in art history at the City University of New York before his premature death in 1995 at the age of thirty-nine.
Missing Title
1955 -- Born November 1 in Havana, Cuba to Baron Lodovico and Baroness María V. Blanc, young collectors of Cuban art. The title of Baron was awarded to Alberto Blanc, Lodovico Blanc's grandfather, in 1873 while Alberto was Secretary of State under Victor Emmanuel II of Italy.
1960 -- The Blanc family migrates to the United States because of the escalating revolution. Lodovico and Maria V. Blanc are in their thirties when they flee the island. The works of Cuban painters such as Carlos Enríquez, Victor Manuel, René Portocarrero, Fidelio Ponce and others were left behind to facilitate an uncomplicated exodus.
1976 -- Giulio V. Blanc serves as research assistant for one year at the Tozzer Library, Peabody Museum, Harvard University.
1977 -- Graduates cum laude from Harvard College with a B.A. in Archeology.
1979 -- Graduates from Brown University with a M.A. in Archeology. Was a research assistant until 1980 at the Gallery of the Center for Inter-American Relations, New York city.
1980 -- Receives a certificate in Museum Studies from the Graduate School of Arts and Science, New York University. Curates Emilio Sánchez: Lithographs which opens at the Pagoda, Ransom-Everglades School, Coconut Grove, Florida. Co-curates Cuba in the Nineteenth Century for Miami's Miami-Dade Public Library.
1981 -- Joins the Latin American Paintings Department, Sotheby's Auction House, New York and serves for two years.
1982 -- Co-curates Young Hispanics, USA which opens at the Lehigh University Museum, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and curates Ten Out of Cuba for INTAR Latin American Gallery in New York.
1983 -- Curates Cuban Fantasies at the Kouros Gallery in New York and Pablo Cano en Paris for the 4 Place de Saussaies in Paris, France. Also curates The Miami Generation: Nine Cuban-American Artists for the Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture in Miami and the Meridian House in Washington, DC.
1984 -- Serves as independent curator and consultant to Miami's Metropolitan Museum and Art Center and The Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture; The Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art in New York and other institutions. Lectures at the Art Museum of the Americas (Organization of American States) in Washington, DC; The University of Miami; The Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture (Miami); The Center for the Fine Arts (Miami); Rockland Center for the Arts (West Nyack, NY); and the National Museum of Art, La Paz, Bolivia. Curates Young Collector's of Latin American Art which opened at Miami's Metropolitan Museum and Art Center.
1985 -- Curates Dancing Faces: An Exhibition of Mexican Masks for the Metropolitan Museum and Art Center in Miami and Nuevas Vistas: Latin American Paintings which opens at the Wistariahurst, Holyoke, Massachusetts. Curates Architecture in Cuban Painting, for the Miami Dade Public Library.
1986 -- Receives and M.A. in Art History at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts. Curates Carlos Enríquez for the Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture, Miami, Florida and Into the Mainstream: Ten Latin American Artists Working in New York for the Jersey City Museum in Jersey City, New Jersey.
1987 -- The exhibition Aurelia Muñoz: Selections, curated by Blanc, opens at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Miami, Florida. Serves as juror for Expresiones Hispanas: Coors National Hispanic Art Exhibition, Denver, Colorado. Curates Visions of Self: The American Latin Artist for the Miami-Dade Community College gallery.
1988 -- Receives a grant from the NY State Council on the Arts for research on Cuban artist Wifredo Lam for the exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York. Enrolls in the art history Ph.D. program at the City University Graduate Center, New York city. First bombing of the Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture in Miami takes place. Blanc's Amelia Peláez: A Retrospective successfully opens at the Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture despite much controversy.
1989 -- Curates Urgent Dream: New Work by Mario Bencomo at the Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art (MoCHA), New York. Second bombing of the Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture, Miami FL.
1990 -- New York correspondent for Arte en Colombia, Bogota. Serves as adjunct lecturer at Queens College (CUNY) for the Fall semester. Curates the exhibition, The Post-Miami Generation for the Inter-American Gallery in Miami, Florida. Co-curates Figurative Perspectives: Six Artists of Latin American Background for the Rockland Center for the Arts, West Nyack, NY.
1991 -- Visiting scholar at University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Writes a small play, Tía Carmela: A Cuban Tragicomedy, illustrated by Cuban artist and friend Pablo Cano.
1995 -- Dies at the age of forty of AIDS related complications.
Related Materials:
Papers of Giulio V. Blanc, 1930-1982, are also located at the University of Miami Archival Collections.
Provenance:
Margherite Blanc, sister of Giulio V. Blanc, donated her brother's papers in 1998 to the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. This collection, along with numerous other Latino collections, was acquired through the 1996 Latino Art Documentation Project in South Florida. Initiated to chronicle the thriving art scene so apparent in the city's galleries, museums, and private collections, the project resulted in numerous acquisitions described in the revised edition of the Papers of Latino and Latin American Artists. Both the project and the publication were made possible, in part, with funding provided by the Smithsonian Institution's Center for Latino Initiatives.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Use requires an appointment and is limited to the Washington, D.C. research facility.
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.
Collection consists of records documenting one of the oldest advertising agencies created in Philadelphia. The company then moves to New York and expanses to international markets. During its history NW Ayer & Sons acquires a number of other advertising agencies and is eventually purchased. The largest portion of the collection is print advertisements but also
includes radio and television. NW Ayer is known for some of the slogans created for major American companies.
Scope and Contents:
The collection consists primarily of proof sheets of advertisements created by NW Ayer & Son, Incorporated for their clients. These materials are in series one through thirteen and consist primarily of print advertisements. There are also billboards, radio and television commercials. The advertisements range from consumer to corporate and industrial products. The majority of the advertisements were created for Ayer's New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and international offices. Printed advertisements created by Cunningham & Walsh, Hixson & Jorgensen and Newell-Emmett are also included among these materials. Researchers who are interested in records created by Ayer in the course of operating an advertising agency will find these materials in Series fourteen-nineteen.
Series fourteen consists of advertisements created by NW Ayer & Son to promote their services to potential clients.
Series fifteen are scrapbooks of some of the earliest advertisements created by the company. Series sixteen are publications. Some of the publications were created by Ayer while others were about Ayer or the advertising industry in general. Provides good background materials and puts the company in perspective. Series eighteen are the legal records. Materials relating to employees including photographs, oral histories etc. are found in series nineteen.
Series twenty is one of the smallest amounts of materials and includes information relating to the history of NW Ayer & Son.
The container lists for series one-thirteen are part of a database and are searchable. The list has been printed for the convenience of the researcher and is included in this finding aid. Series fourteen-twenty container lists are also a part of the finding aid but are not in a searchable format.
Series 1, Scrapbooks of Client Advertisements, circa 1870-1920, is arranged into three boxes by chronological date. There are two bound scrapbooks and one box of folders containing loose scrapbook pages. NW Ayer & Son compiled an assortment of their earliest ads and placed them into scrapbooks. Besides the earliest advertisements, the scrapbooks contain requests to run advertisements, reading notices and listings of papers Ayer advertised in. The early advertisements themselves range from medical remedies to jewelry to machines to clothing to education and more. Most of the advertisements in the bound scrapbooks are dated.
Series 2, Proofsheets, circa 1870-1930, NW Ayer was fond of creating scrapbooks containing proofsheets. The series contains proofsheets created between 1892 and 1930, organized into 526 boxes. For convenience of storage, access and arrangement, the scrapbooks were disassembled and the pages placed in original order in flat archival storage boxes. The proofsheets are arranged by book number rather than client name. Usually the boxes contain a listing of the clients and sometimes the dates of the advertisements to be found within the box.
Series 3, Proofsheets, circa 1920-1975, is organized into 532 oversize boxes, and contain proofsheets and tearsheets created between 1920 and 1972. Within this series, materials are arranged alphabetically by company name (occasionally subdivided by brand or product), and thereunder chronologically by date of production. Many major, national advertisers are represented, including American Telephone & Telegraph, Armour Company, Canada Dry, Cannon Mills, Carrier Corporation, Domino Sugar, Caterpillar tractor company, Ford Motor Company, General Electric, Goodyear, Hills Bros. Coffee, Ladies Home Journal, National Dairy, Plymouth (Chrysler Corporation), Steinway, TV Guide, United Airlines and the United States Army. Also contained in this series are three scrapbooks of client advertisements including Canada Dry, Ford Motor, and Victor Talking Machine.
Series 4, 2001 Addendum, circa 1976-2001, is organized into ninety three oversized boxes,one folder and contains proofsheets for select Ayer clients, created between 1975 and 2001. Within this series, materials are arranged alphabetically by client name and there under chronologically by date of production. Major national advertisers represented include American Telephone & Telegraph, Avon, the United States Army, DeBeers Consolidated Diamond Mines, Dupont, TV Guide, Sealtest, Kraft Foods, Gillette, General Motors, Cannon Mills.
Series 5, Billboards, circa 1952-1956, consists of mounted and un-mounted original art/mock-ups. Twenty-two pieces of original art created as mock-ups for Texaco billboards.
Series 6, Film and Video Commercials, 1967-1970,
Series 7, Radio and Television Materials, 1933-1993, undated, is arranged into eight boxes and includes radio scripts, television scripts, and story boards for commercials.
Subseries 7.1, Scripts and storyboards for Radio and Television Commercials, dates Scripts for radio and television commercials includes title, date, length of commercial, advertising agency, client information
NW Ayer's radio and television materials mainly focus on the American Telegraph and Telephone account. Some of Ayer's materials relate to Bell Telephone Hours.
Storyboards are used in television and film to assist the director in working with crew to tell the story. To show the viewer through the use of figures, visual effects and camera angles. When directors first start thinking about their storyboard they create a story in their mind. They think of all the camera angles, visual effects and how the figures will interact in their mind. They try to create an extraordinary story in their head to attract the viewer (YOU) In order for the storyboard to be entirely effective it can't be a passive document. When done properly, a storyboard serves as a central design, meeting the needs of many team members including graphics artists, video personnel and programmers.
Another function of a storyboard is to help the team communicate during the training development process. This communication is very important in working with a large team as in the movie King, produced in 1996. Figures help the director explain to the crew how they are going to record the film and how to present it to the audience. Sometimes the director wants special effects to be added to the film, but his budget might not be that big so the director will have to change the story to fit their budget.
The Visual Effects are an important part in the storyboards it adds a special touch of creativity to your film. Camera angles are an important expects in your film because the camera angles determine where the viewing audience will look. If you want your audience to look at a certain object you must turn their attention to it by focusing on that object and maybe you might try blocking something out. Then you will have your audience's attention and you may do whatever else you have to, it could be scaring them are just surprising them or whatever you do.
Also included is talent information and log sheets relating to the storage of the commercials.
Bell Telephone Hour Program, 1942-[19??], The Bell Telephone Hour, also known as The Telephone Hour, was a five minute musical program which began April 29, 1940 on National Broadcasting Company Radio and was heard on NBC until June 30, 1958. Sponsored by Bell Telephone showcased the best in classical and Broadway music, reaching eight to nine million listeners each week. It continued on television from 1959 to 1968.
Earlier shows featured James Melton and Francia White as soloists. Producer Wallace Magill restructured the format on April 27, 1942 into the "Great Artists Series" of concert and opera performers, beginning with Jascha Heifetz. Records indicate that the list of talents on the program included Marian Anderson, Helen Traubel, Oscar Levant, Lily Pons, Nelson Eddy, Bing Crosby, Margaret Daum, Benny Goodman, José Iturbi, Gladys Swarthout and .The series returned to radio in 1968-1969 as Bell Telephone Hour Encores, also known as Encores from the Bell Telephone Hour, featuring highlights and interviews from the original series.
National Broadcasting television specials sponsored by the Bell System, 1957-1987includes information relating to Science series, Bell system Theshold Series, Bell telephone hour and commercial and public sponsored programs
Series 8, Chicago Office Print Advertisements, 1954-1989, is arranged alphabetically by the name of the client in ninety boxes and six oversize folders. Clients include Illinois Bell Telephone (1955-1989), Microswitch (1969-1989), Teletype (1975-1984), John Deere (1974-1989) and Caterpillar (1966-1972) are particularly well represented. Other clients of interest include Dr. Scholl's shoes (circa 1968-1972), the Girl Scouts (1976-1980), Sunbeam Personal Products Company (1973-1981), Bell and Howell (1974-1983) and Alberto Culver shampoos (1967-1971), Honeywell, Incorporated, Blue Cross and Blue Shield Associations, Kraft, Incorporated, Sears, Roebuck and Company, and YMCA.
Series 9, Los Angeles Office Materials, 1950s-1987, include printed advertisements created by this office and information relating to the employees.
Subseries 9.1, Print Advertisements, 1977-1987, printed advertisements arranged in one box alphabetically by client. There is a sparse sampling of clients from this particular Ayer branch office. The majority of the advertisements contained within this series are from Pizza Hut (1986-1987). Also included are Computer Automation (1977-1978), State of the Art, Incorporated (1982) and Toshiba (1986).
Subseries 9.2, Personnel Files, 1950s-1970s, includes cards of employees who worked in the Los Angeles office. Information on the cards includes name, address, telephone number, birthday, date hired, departure date and why (retired, terminated, resigned, etc) and position. Not all cards have all information. There is also a photograph of the employees on the cards.
Series 10, Foreign Print Advertisements, 1977-1991, undated, NW Ayer maintained partnerships with international companies such as Sloanas Ayer in Argentina, Connaghan & May Paton Ayer in Australia, Moussault Ayer in Belgium, NW Ayer, LTD. in Canada, GMC Ayer in France, Co-Partner Ayer in Germany, Wong Lam Wang in Hong Kong, MacHarman Ayer in New Zealand, Grupo de Diseno Ayer in Spain, Nedeby Ayer in Sweden, and Ayer Barker in United Kingdom. This group of material is a small sampling of advertisements created from these International offices. It is arranged alphabetically by client. There are quite a few automobile advertisements (i.e. Audi, Fiat, General Motors, Mercedes-Benz, and Volkswagen). In addition there are numerous advertisements for various personal items from MacLean's toothpaste to Quick athletic shoes to Labello lip balm, etc. Most of the advertisements have the creator's name printed on the advertisements.
Series 11, Cunningham & Walsh, Incorporated Materials, 1915-1987, undated contains 98 boxes 11 folders materials from the New York advertising agency acquired by NW Ayer in the 1960s. The company began with Newel-Emmett, an agency of nine men which broke up in 1949. Two of the men Fred Walsh and Jack Cunningham formed this agency in bearing their names in 1950. The agency created "let your fingers for the walking campaign for American Telephone & Telegraph, Mother Nature for Chiffon, and Mrs. Olson for Folgers's coffee and let the good times roll for Kawasaki motorcycle. In 1986, NW Ayer Incorporated purchased Cunningham & Walsh Incorporated.
Subseries 11.1, Print Advertisements, 1915-1987, are contained in ninety eight boxes of primarily print advertisements arranged alphabetically by client name. Clients that are particularly well represented are Graybar (electrical implements, circa1926-1937), Johns-Manulle (circa1915-1971), Smith and Corono typewriters (circa 1934-1960), Sunshine Biscuit Company (circa 1925-1961), Texaco Company (circa 1936-1961), Western Electric (circa 1920- 1971) and Yellow Pages (circa 1936-1971). Cunningham and Walsh also represented several travel and tourism industry clients, including Cook Travel Services (circa 1951-1962), Italian Line (circa 1953-1961), Narragansett and Croft (circa 1956-1960) and Northwest Airlines (circa 1946-1955). There are photographs of Texaco advertisements dating from 1913-1962. There is also a scrapbook of advertisements from the Western Electric Company dating from 1920-1922.
Subseries 11.2, Radio and Television Advertisements, 1963-1967, consist of materials created for Western Electric. Materials are arranged in chronological order.
Subseries 11.3, Company Related Materials, 1962-1986, undated include client lists, information relating to NW Ayer purchase and annual report 1962.
Series 12, Hixson & Jorgensen Materials, 1953-1971, a Los Angeles advertising company, merged with Ayer in 1969. This series is housed in one box. Within the box are four scrapbooks and folders with a hodgepodge of materials relating to advertising. Of most interest are the scrapbooks. Two scrapbooks deal with Hixson and Jorgensen's self promotion ad campaign "the right appeal gets action" (1953-1957). The other two scrapbooks contain news clippings about the company and its activities (1959-1971).
Series 13, Newell-Emmet, 1942-1957, founded in 1919 and governed in the 1940s by a partnership of nine men. The partnership broke up in 1949 when the men went their separate ways. The materials consist of print advertisements for one of client, Permutit Company, a water conditioning company. The materials are arranged in one box in chronological order.
Series 14, House Print Advertisements, 1870-1991, 16 boxes consists of advertisements or self-promotion advertisements to campaign for new clients. The series is arranged chronologically by date into fifteen boxes. Within the series are two scrapbooks containing self promotion ads from 1888-1919 and 1892-1895. Numerous house ads relate to Ayer's "Human Contact" campaign. In addition to the self promotion ads, Ayer ran advertisements expounding about particular concepts or themes for example, one month the concept would "understand" while another month would be "teamwork" and yet another would be on "imagination". Some of the self promotion ads target specific groups like Philadelphia businessmen. Other advertisements incorporate the fine arts.
Series 15, Scrapbooks, 1872-1959, relates to company events, records and news clippings about Ayer's history. The six boxes are arranged by chronological date. Two of the boxes focus solely on the death of founder F.W. Ayer (1923). Another box houses a scrapbook that showcases Ayer's annual Typography Exhibition (1931-1959). One box contains a scrapbook that specifically deals with correspondences relating to Ayer's advertising. Yet another box's contents are folders of loose pages from scrapbooks that have newspaper clippings, order forms, correspondences and other company records. In one box, a bound scrapbook houses a variety of materials relating to Ayer and advertising (i.e. newspaper clippings, competitor's advertisements, NW Ayer's advertisements, correspondences for advertisements, clippings regarding the "theory of advertising."
Series 16, Publications, 1849-2006, are housed in thirty four boxes and are arranged into three main categories.
Subseries 16.1, House Publications, 1876-1994, covers diverse topics; some proscriptive works about the Ayer method in advertising, some commemorating people, anniversaries or events in the life of the agency. Materials consist of scattered issues of the employee newsletter The Next Step 1920-1921. The materials are arranged in chronological order by date of publication. Ayer in the News, The Show Windows of an Advertising Agency, 1915, book form of advertisements published on the cover of Printer's Ink, highlighting Ayer's relations with advertisers. The Story of the States, 1916, Reprint in book form of a series of articles published in Printer's Ink for the purpose of adding some pertinent fact, progressive thought and prophetic vision to the Nationalism of Advertising highlights major businesses, manufacturer, natural resources and other qualities or attractions of each state. The Book of the Golden Celebration, 1919, includes welcome address and closing remarks by founder F. Wayland Ayer, The Next Step, 1920 employee newsletter with photographs, employee profiles, in-house jokes, etc., Advertising Advertising: A Series of Fifty-two Advertisements scheduled one time a week. Twenty-seven, thirty and forty inches, a day of the week optional with publisher, 1924
Subseries 16.2, Publications about NW Ayer, 1949-2006, includes a book first published in 1939. Includes articles, documenting events and is arranged chronologically by date of publication.
Subseries 16.3, General Publications about Advertising, 1922-1974, are arranged chronologically by date of publication and relate primarily to the history of advertising.
Subseries 16.4, Publications about Other Subjects, 1948-1964, include four books about the tobacco industry primarily the history of the American Tobacco Company and Lorillard Company from the Cunningham and Walsh library.
Series 17, Business Records, circa 1885-1990s
Subseries 17.1, Contracts, 1885-1908, undated, are arranged alphabetically and span from 1885-1908. The majority of the contracts are with newspaper and magazine publishers from around the country.
Subseries 17.2, General client information, 1911-1999, undated, including active and cancelled lists with dates, client gains, historical client list, (should move this to series 20) Ayer Plan User Guide Strategic Planning for Human Contact, undated
Subseries 17.3, Individual Client Account Information, 1950s-1990s, undated, contain information used by Ayer to create advertisements for some of its clients. American Telephone &Telegraph Corporate Case History, American Telephone &Telegraph Corporate advertisement memo, commissioned artists for DeBeers advertisements, DeBeers information relating to the creative process and photography credits, a case history for DeBeers Consolidated Mines, Ltd., The Diamond Engagement Ring, Managing Communication at all levels, DuPont publications, JC Penny Marketing Communication Plan Recommendation, Leaf, Incorporated, Saturn presentation, and USAREC oral presentation.
Subseries 17.4, Potential Clients, 1993, includes grouping has a questionnaire sent to Ayer by a potential client. Questionnaire response for Prudential Securities, 1993 Prudential Securities advertising account review, 1993.
Subseries 17.5, Financial Records, 1929-1938, includes balance sheet, 1929 May 1 Balance sheet and adjustments Consolidated statement of assets and liabilities, Expenses 191936-37 Business review and expenses, 1937 and 1938 Business review and expenses comparative statement, 1937 and 1938.
Series 18, Legal Records, circa 1911-1982, Ayer's legal records are arranged by twelve subject groupings within four boxes. The twelve groupings are advertising service agreements (circa 1918-1982), bylaws, copyright claims, correspondences, international correspondences, dissolution of trusts, stock information, agreements between partners, incorporation materials, reduction of capital, property information and miscellaneous materials. The bulk of the materials are the advertising service agreements. These agreements are between Ayer and their clients and state the services Ayer will offer and at what cost. The bylaws are Ayer's company bylaws from 1969 and 1972. The copyright claims are certificates stating Ayer's ownership over certain published materials (i.e. "Policy", Media Equalizer Model, and Don Newman's Washington Square Experiment). The correspondences relate to either the voting trust and receipts for agreement or the New York Corporation. The international correspondences are from either Ayer's Canadian office or London office. The dissolutions of trusts contains materials about the dividend trust of Wilfred F. Fry, the investment trust of Winfred W. Fry, the voting trust, and the New York corporation. The stock information has stock certificates and capital stock information. The agreements between partners (1911-1916) specify the terms between F.W. Ayer and his partners. The incorporation materials (circa 1929-1977) deal with Ayer advertising agency becoming incorporated in the state of Delaware. The reduction of capital grouping is a notification that shares of stock have been retired. The property information grouping contains property deeds and insurance policy (circa 1921-1939), a property appraisal (1934), and a bill of sale (1948). The miscellaneous grouping contains a house memo regarding a set of board meeting minutes and a registry of foreign companies in Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (1929-1954).
Subseries 18.1, Advertising Service Agreements, 1918-1982
Subseries 18.2, Bylaw Materials, 1969-1972
Subseries 18.3, Copyright Claims, 1962-1969
Subseries 18.4, Correspondence, 1928-1933
Subseries 18.5, International Office Correspondence, 1947-1948
Subseries 18.6, Dissolution of Trusts, 1934-1937
Subseries 18.7, Stock Information, 1934-1974
Subseries 18.8, Agreements between Partners, 1911-1916
Series 19, Personnel Records, circa 1889-2001, are arranged into eight groupings within eight boxes. The groupings are employee card files, photographs, Ayer alumni, biographies, speeches, recollections, oral histories, and miscellaneous. Typed manuscript of book A Copy Writer Speaks by George Cecil, NW Ayer, Incorporated copy head 1920s-1950s
Subseries 19.1, Employee card files, circa 1892-1915; 1929-1963, consists of index cards with the name, age, job title, date and wage increases, date of hire/fire, as well as remarks about the employee's service and/or reasons for seeking or leaving the job. Materials are arranged alphabetically by the last name of the employee within three boxes.
Subseries 19.2, Photographs, circa 1924-1984, undated, are housed in two boxes. The photographs grouped together by subjects i.e. personnel, company events, Ayer buildings, and miscellaneous. This grouping primarily consists of personnel photographs. Includes a glass plate negative dated 1924 of NW Ayer.
Subseries 19.3, Ayer Alumni, circa 1989-98, include employees who have left Ayer. There is a listing of Ayer "graduates" and their current job. Emeritus, Ayer's alumni newsletter 1989-1996, makes up the majority of materials in this grouping. The newsletter keeps the alumni up to date with the happenings of Ayer and what has become of former Ayer employees. Emeritus is a quarterly newsletter devoted to the activities, thoughts and feelings of Ayer alumni a body of people who consists of retirees and former employees.
Subseries 19.4, Biographical Information, circa 1889-1994, undated, prominent members of Ayer's operations had biographical sketches completed of them. This was true for the bio sketches of Robert Ervin, Louis T. Hagopian, and George A. Rink. There is a substantial file on Dorothy Dignam ("Mis Dig"), a leading woman in the advertising world from the 1930s to the 1950s. Also of interest is a video ("The Siano Man") compiled by Ayer employees to commemorate Jerry Siano's retirement from Ayer in 1994. The series is arranged alphabetically by last name.
Subseries 19.5, Speeches, circa 1919-1931; 1975, contains speeches made by Wilfred W. Fry and Neal W. O'Connor. Wilfred W. Fry had various speaking engagements connected with Ayer. Contained in this group is a sampling of his speeches from 1919 to 1931. Neal O'Connor's speech "Advertising: Who Says It's a Young People's Business" was given at the Central Region Convention for the American Association of Advertising Agencies in Chicago on November 6, 1975. The speeches are arranged alphabetically by the speaker's last name.
Subseries 19.6, Recollections, 1954-1984, undated, are arranged alphabetically by last name. These are recollections from Ayer employees about the company and its advertisements. Some recollections are specifically about certain types of advertisements, like farm equipment while others reflect on F. W. Ayer and the company.
Subseries 19.7, Oral History Interview Transcripts, 1983-1985; 1989-1991, include interviews with key NW Ayer personnel, conducted by Ayer alumnae Howard Davis, Brad Lynch and Don Sholl (Vice President creative) for the Oral History Program. The materials are arranged alphabetically by the last name of the interviewee.
Subseries 19.8, Oral History Interview Audio Tapes, 1985-1990, include interviews on audiotape the materials are arranged alphabetically by the last name of the interviewee.
Subseries 19.9, Internal Communications, 1993-1999, includes information sent to employees relating to retirements, management changes, awards won by the company, promotions, potential new accounts, free items, grand opening of Ayer Café, donation events, sponsorship programs, holiday schedules, discounts for employees from clients, Ayer joins MacManus Group.
Subseries 19.10, General Materials, 1940; 1970, includes agency directory entry including a list of the employees, 1970s, annual banquet program for the Curfew Club May 22, 1940 a group formed by the Philadelphia employee in 1938. It sponsored numerous sports, social and educational activities. Groups were formed in public speaking, music appreciation and a series of talks on Monday evenings title the modern woman. The front page was a series of talks for general interest. A list of officers, 1991, Twenty five year club membership, 1973 December 1, List of NW Ayer graduates, 1970, List of Officers, 1991 May 31, Obituary for Leo Lionni, 1999 October 17, List of photographers of advertisements, 2001
Series 20, Background and History Information, 1817-1999, undated includes a chronology, 1817-1990, quick reference timeline, 1848-1923, loose pages from a scrapbook containing examples of correspondence, envelopes, advertisements dating from 1875-1878; slogans coined by NW Ayer & Sons, Incorporated, 1899-1990, history of management, 1909-1923, articles and photographs about the building and art galleries, 1926-1976, publications about the Philadelphia building, 1929, pamphlet relating to memories of NW Ayer & Sons, Incorporated, 1930s-1950s, television history, 1940-1948, Article about the history of the company, 1950 January, pocket guide, 1982, AdWeek reports about standings for advertising agencies, information relating to Human Contact which is NW Ayer's Information relating to Human Contact, undated which is their philosophy on advertising.
Series 21, Materials Created by other Advertising Agencies, 1945-1978, undated, consists of print advertisements collected by Ayer from other major advertising companies. The companies include Doyle Dane Bernback, Incorporated, Leo Burnett Company, Grey Advertising Agency, D'Arcy Ad Agency, Scali, McCabe, Sloves, Incorporated and Erwin Wasey Company. The materials are arranged in alphabetical order by client and include products from Ralston Purina and Van Camp (Chicken of the Sea), Kellogg, American Export Lines and No Nonsense Fashions.
Series 22, 2010 Addendum of Print Advertisements, circa 1879s-1999, undated, includes material given to the Archives Center in 2010. It is organized into seventy one oversized boxes and contains proofsheets of print advertisements for select Ayer clients. These are arranged alphabetically by client name and include substantial quantities of materials from American Telephone &Telegraph (1945-1996), Bahamas Ministry of Tourism (1967-1987), Carrier (1971-1981), Citibank (1973-1991), DeBeers (1940s-1960s and1990s), Electric Companies Advertising Program [ECAP] (1942-1970s), General Motors (1989-1998), J.C. Penney (1983-1986), Newsweek (1966-1975), and Proctor and Gamble (1980s-1890s). There are also numerous other clients represented by smaller quantities of materials.
Subseries 22.2, Print Advertisements on Glass Plate Negatives, 1879-1881, undated, include Cannon towels, Cheny Brothers silks, Cornish & Company organs and pianos, Enterprise Manufacturing Company, 1879 sad iron, an ad from Harper's Weekly 1881 for ladies clothing, Ostermoor & Company mattresses, Pear's soap, Porter's cough balsam, Steinway pianos.
Series 23, Microfilm of Print Advertisements, circa 1908-1985, consists of three boxes of printed advertisements for the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. Some of the same advertisements might also be found in series two, three and four.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into twenty-three series.
Series 1: Scrapbooks of Client Print Advertisements, circa 1870-1920
Series 2: Proofsheets, circa 1870-1930
Series 3: Proofsheets, circa 1920-1975
Series 4: 2001 Addendum, circa 1976-2001
Series 5: Billboards, circa 1952-1956
Series 6: Audiovisual Materials
Series 7: Radio and Television Materials, 1933-1993, undated
Series 8: Chicago Office Print Advertisements, 1954-1989
Series 9: Los Angeles Office Materials, 1950s-1987
Subseries 9.1: Printed Advertisements, 1977-1987
Subseries 9.2: Personnel Files, 1950s-1970s
Series 10: Foreign Print Advertisements, 1977-1991, undated
Series 11: Cunningham & Walsh Incorporated Materials, 1915-1987, undated
Subseries 11.1: Printed Advertisements, 1915-1987
Subseries 11.2: Radio and Television Advertisements, 1963-1967
Subseries 11.3: Company Related Materials, 1962-1986, undated
Series 12: Hixson & Jorgensen Materials, 1953-1971, undated
Series 13: Newell-Emmet, 1942-1957
Series 14: House Print Advertisements, 1870-1991
Series 15: Scrapbooks, 1872-1959
Series 16: Publications, 1849-2006
Subseries 16.1: House Publications, 1876-1994
Subseries 16.2: Publications about NW Ayer, 1949-1995
Subseries 16.3: General Publications about Advertising, 1922-2006
Subseries 16.4: Publications about other Subjects, 1948-1964
Series 17, Business Records, circa 1885-1990s
Subseries 17.1: Contracts, 1885-1908, undated
Subseries 17.2: General Client Information, 1911-1999, undated
Subseries 22.2: Print Advertisements on Glass Plate Negatives, 1879-1881, undated
Series 23: Microfilm of Print Advertisements, circa 1908-1985
Biographical / Historical:
Founded in Philadelphia in 1869, NW Ayer & Son is one of the oldest and largest advertising agencies in America. For most of its history, it was the undisputed leader and innovator in the field of advertising. In 1876, NW Ayer & Son pioneered the "open contract", a revolutionary change in the method of billing for advertising which became the industry standard for the next hundred years. NW Ayer pioneered the use of fine art in advertising and established the industry's first art department. It was the first agency to use a full-time copywriter and the first to institute a copy department. The agency relocated to New York City in 1974. During its long history, the agency's clients included many "blue-chip" clients, including American Telephone & Telegraph, DeBeers Consolidated Diamond Mines, Ford Motor Company, Nabisco, R. J. Reynolds and United Airlines. However, in later years, the Ayer's inherent conservatism left the agency vulnerable to the creative revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, the advertising industry restructuring of the 1980s and the economic recession of the early 1990s. The agency was bought out by a Korean investor in 1993. In 1996, NW Ayer merged with another struggling top twenty United States advertising agency, Darcy, Masius, Benton & Bowles, under the umbrella of the McManus Group. Ayer continues to operate as a separate, full-service agency.
Through a series of buyouts and mergers, Ayer traces its lineage to the first advertising agency founded in the United States, a Philadelphia agency begun by Volney Palmer in 1841. Palmer began his career in advertising as a newspaper agent, acting as middleman between newspaper publishers and advertisers across the country. By 1849, Palmer had founded his own newspaper, V. B. Palmer's Register and Spirit of the Press, and had developed a complete system of advertising which included securing advertising space and placing ads in scores of commercial, political, religious, scientific and agricultural journals across the country. Palmer went one step further than the "space jobbers" of the day when he began offering "advertisements carefully drawn for those who have not the time to prepare an original copy." Always an enthusiastic promoter of advertising as an incentive to trade and American economic growth, Palmer promised advertisers that "every dollar paid for advertising in country newspapers will pay back twenty-fold" and encouraged skeptical consumers that "he who wishes to buy cheap should buy of those who advertise." When Palmer died in 1863, the agency was bought by his bookkeeper, John Joy, who joined with another Philadelphia advertising agency to form Joy, Coe & Sharpe. That agency was bought out again in 1868 and renamed Coe, Wetherill & Company. In 1877, Coe, Wetherill and Company was bought out by the newly formed NW Ayer & Son.
Francis Wayland Ayer was an ambitious young schoolteacher with an entrepreneurial streak. Having worked for a year soliciting advertisements on a commission basis for the publisher of the National Baptist weekly, Francis Ayer saw the potential to turn a profit as an advertising agent. In 1869, Ayer persuaded his father, Nathan Wheeler Ayer, to join him in business, and with an initial investment of only $250.00, NW Ayer & Son was born. Notwithstanding a smallpox epidemic in Philadelphia in 1871 and the general economic depression of the early 1870s, the agency flourished. The senior Ayer died in 1873, leaving his interest in the agency to his wife, but Francis W. Ayer bought her out, consolidating his interest in the company's management. In 1877, with Coe, Wetherill & Company (the successor to Palmer's 1841 agency) on the verge of bankruptcy and heavily indebted to Ayer for advertising it had placed in Ayer publications, Ayer assumed ownership of that agency. Thus did NW Ayer lay claim to being the oldest advertising agency in the country.
Both Nathan Wheeler and Francis Wayland Ayer began their careers as schoolteachers, and one of their legacies was a commitment to the cause of education: correspondence schools and institutions of higher learning were historically well-represented among Ayer clients. Just after World War I, the agency was heralded as "co-founder of more schools than any citizen of this country" for its conspicuous efforts to advertise private schools. Well into the 1960s, an "Education Department" at Ayer prepared advertisements for over three hundred private schools, camps and colleges, representing almost half the regional and national advertising done for such institutions. In fact, to its clients Ayer presented advertising itself as being akin to a system of education. In 1886, Ayer began promoting the virtues of the Ayer way advertising with the slogan, "Keeping Everlastingly at It Brings Success."
The agency's goals were simple: "to make advertising pay the advertiser, to spend the advertiser's money as though it were our own, to develop, magnify and dignify advertising as a business." Initially, Ayer's fortunes were tied to newspapers, and the agency began to make a name for itself as compiler and publisher of a widely used American Newspaper Annual. During the first years, Ayer's singular goal was "to get business, place it [in newspapers] and get money for it"; after several years as an independent space broker, however, Francis Ayer resolved "not to be an order taker any longer." This decision led NW Ayer and Son to a change in its mode of conducting business which would revolutionize the advertising industry: in 1876, Ayer pioneered the "open contract" with Diggee & Conard, Philadelphia raised growers and agricultural suppliers. Prior to the open contract, NW Ayer & Sons and most agencies operated as "space-jobbers," independent wholesalers of advertising space, in which the opportunities for graft and corrupt practices were virtually unlimited. In contrast, the open contract, wherein the advertiser paid a fixed commission based on the volume of advertising placed, aligned the advertising agent firmly on the side of the advertiser and gave advertisers access to the actual rates charged by newspapers and religious journals. The open contract with a fixed commission has been hailed by advertising pioneer Albert Lasker as one of the "three great landmarks in advertising history." (The other two were Lasker's own development of "reason-why" advertising copy and J. Walter Thompson's pioneering of sex appeal in an advertisement for Woodbury's soap.) Although the transition to the open contract did not happen overnight, by 1884, nearly three-quarters of Ayer's advertising billings were on an open contract basis. Since Ayer was, by the 1890s, the largest agency in America, the switch to direct payment by advertisers had a significant impact on the advertising industry, as other agencies were forced to respond to Ayer's higher standard. Just as important, the open contract helped to establish N W Ayer's long-standing reputation for "clean ethics and fair dealing" -- a reputation the agency has guarded jealously for over a century.
The open contract also helped to establish Ayer as a full service advertising agency and to regularize the production of advertising in-house. From that point forward, Ayer routinely offered advice and service beyond the mere placement of advertisements. Ayer set another milestone for the industry in 1888, when Jarvis Wood was hired as the industry's first full-time copywriter. Wood was joined by a second full time copywriter four years later, and the Copy Department was formally established in 1900. The industry's first Art Department grew out of the Copy Department when Ayer hired its first commercial artist to assist with copy preparation in 1898; twelve years later Ayer became the first agency to offer the services of a full time art director, whose sole responsibility was the design and illustration of ads.
Ayer's leadership in the use of fine art in advertising has roots in this period, but achieved its highest expression under the guidance of legendary art director Charles Coiner. Coiner joined Ayer in 1924, after graduating from the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. Despite early resistance from some clients, Coiner was adamant that "the use of outstanding palette and original art forms bring a greater return in readership, in impact and prestige for the advertiser." To this end, Coiner marshaled the talents of notable painters, illustrators and photographers, including N.C. Wyeth and Rockwell Kent (Steinway), Georgia O'Keefe (Dole), Leo Lionni (DuPont), Edward Steichen (Steinway, Cannon Mills), Charles Sheeler (Ford), and Irving Penn (DeBeers). Coiner believed that there was a practical side to the use of fine art in advertising, and his success (and Ayer's) lay in the marriage of research and copywriting with fine art, an arrangement Coiner termed "art for business sake." Coiner's efforts won both awards and attention for a series completed in the 1950s for the Container Corporation of America. Titled "Great Ideas of Western Man" the campaign featured abstract and modern paintings and sculpture by leading U.S. and foreign artists, linked with Western philosophical writings in an early example of advertising designed primarily to bolster corporate image. In 1994, Charles Coiner was posthumously named to the American Advertising Federation's Hall of Fame, the first full time art director ever chosen for that honor.
Coiner and fellow art director Paul Darrow also created legendary advertising with the "A Diamond Is Forever" campaign for DeBeers; ads featured the work of Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali and other modernist painters. The "A Diamond is Forever" tagline was written in 1949 by Frances Gerety, a woman copywriter at Ayer from 1943 to 1970. In 1999, Ad Age magazine cited "A Diamond is Forever" as the most memorable advertising slogan of the twentieth century.
Coiner also earned respect for his volunteer government service during World War II; he designed the armbands for civil defense volunteers and logos for the National Recovery Administration and Community Chest. As a founding member of the Advertising Council in 1945, Ayer has had a long-standing commitment to public service advertising. In the mid-1980s, Ayer became a leading force in the Reagan-era "War on Drugs". Lou Hagopian, Ayer's sixth CEO, brokered the establishment of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, a media coalition which generated as much as a million dollars a day in donated advertising space and time to prevent the use and abuse of illegal drugs. Famous names appear among NW Ayer's clientele from the very earliest days of the agency. Retailer John Wanamaker, Jay Cooke and Company, and Montgomery Ward's mail-order business were among the first Ayer clients. The agency has represented at least twenty automobile manufacturers, including Cadillac, Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Plymouth, and Rolls-Royce. Other major, long-term clients through the years have included American Telephone & Telegraph, Canada Dry, Cannon Mills, Hills Bros. Coffee Company, Kellogg's, R. J. Reynolds, Steinway and Sons, United Airlines, and the United States Army. By the time of Ayer's hundredth anniversary in 1969, some of these companies had been Ayer clients for decades if not generations, and the longevity of those relationships was for many years a source of Ayer's strength.
But the advertising industry began to change in the late 1960s and 1970s, due in part to a "creative revolution." Small advertising agencies won attention with provocative copywriting and art direction that more closely resembled art than advertising. Advances in market research allowed clients to more narrowly tailor their advertising messages to distinct groups of consumers, and this led to a rise in targeted marketing which could more readily be doled out to specialized small agencies than to larger, established firms like NW Ayer & Son. The civil rights and anti-war movements also contributed to increasing public skepticism with the values of corporate America, and by extension, with some national advertising campaigns. Older, more conservative firms like Ayer were hard pressed to meet these new challenges.
About 1970, in an effort to meet these challenges and to establish a foothold on the West Coast, Ayer bought out two smaller agencies--Hixson & Jorgenson (Los Angeles) and Frederick E. Baker (Seattle). The agency relocated from Philadelphia to New York City in 1974 in an attempt both to consolidate operations (Ayer had operated a New York office since the 1920s) and to be closer to the historic center of the advertising industry. Riding the wave of mergers that characterized the advertising industry in the late 1980s and 1990s, Ayer continued to grow through the acquisition of Cunningham & Walsh in 1986 and Rink Wells in 19xx.
During this transitional period, Ayer received widespread acclaim for its work for the United States Army, which included the widely recognized slogan "Be All You Can Be". Ayer first acquired the Army recruitment account in 1967 and with help from its direct marketing arm, the agency was widely credited with helping the Army reach its recruitment goals despite an unpopular war and plummeting enlistments after the elimination of the draft in 1973. Ayer held the account for two decades, from the Vietnam War through the Cold War, but lost the account in 1986 amid government charges that an Ayer employee assigned to the account accepted kickbacks from a New York film production house. Despite Ayer's position as the country's 18th largest agency (with billings of $880 million in 1985), the loss of the agency's second largest account hit hard.
NW Ayer made up for the loss of the $100 million dollar a year Army account and made headlines for being on the winning end of the largest account switch in advertising history to date, when fast food giant Burger King moved its $200 million dollar advertising account from arch-rival J. Walter Thompson in 1987. Burger King must have had drive-thru service in mind, however, and Ayer made headlines again when it lost the account just eighteen months later in another record-breaking account switch. Another devastating blow to the agency was the loss of its lead position on the American Telegraph and Telephone account. Ayer pioneered telecommunications advertising in 1908, when the agency was selected to craft advertising for the Bell System's universal telephone service. Despite valiant efforts to keep an account the agency had held for most of the twentieth century, and for which they had written such memorable corporate slogans as American Telephone &Telegraph "The Voice with a Smile" and "Reach Out and Touch Someone", the agency lost the account in 1996.
After a wave of mergers and acquisitions in the late 1980s, the economic recession of the early 1990s hit Madison Avenue hard, and Ayer was particularly vulnerable. Despite the agency's long history and roster of "blue-chip" clients, Ayer was not known for cutting-edge creative work. Moreover, though the agency had offices overseas, Ayer had never built a strong multinational presence, and many of the smaller international offices were sold during the financial turmoil of the 1980s. This left a real void in the new climate of global marketplace consolidation. By about 1990, earnings were declining (although Ayer was still among the top twenty United States agencies in billings), and the agency was suffering from client defections, high management turnover, expensive real estate commitments and deferred executive compensation deals, all fallout of the high-flying 1980s. This was the atmosphere in 1993, when W.Y. Choi, a Korean investor who had already assembled a media and marketing empire in his homeland, began looking for an American partner to form an international advertising network. Jerry Siano, the former creative director who had recently been named Ayer's seventh CEO, was in no position to refuse Choi's offer of $35 million to buy the now floundering agency. The infusion of cash was no magic bullet, however. Choi took a wait-and-see approach, allowing his partner Richard Humphreys to make key decisions about Ayer's future, including the purging of senior executives and the installation of two new CEOs in as many years.
The agency's downward trend continued with the loss of another longtime client, the DeBeers diamond cartel in 1995. Adweek reported that Ayer's billings fell from $892 million in 1990 to less than $850 million in 1995. Several top executives defected abruptly, and the agency failed to attract major new accounts. Ayer was facing the loss not merely of revenue and personnel, but the loss of much of the respect it once commanded. Ayer remained among the twenty largest U.S. agencies, but an aura of uncertainty hung over the agency like a cloud. A new CEO was appointed, and Mary Lou Quinlan became the agency's first woman CEO in 1995. A year later, Ayer and another struggling top twenty agency, D'arcy, Masius, Benton & Bowles, combined as part of the McManus Group of companies. In 1998, the McManus Group had worldwide billings of more than $6.5 billion.
Under the McManus Group, Ayer was able to expand its international operations and begin to rebuild a stronger global presence. Several important new clients were won in 1997 and 1998, including Avon, General Motors, Kitchenaid, several Procter & Gamble brands and, most notably, Continental Airlines worldwide accounts. Born in the nineteenth century, Ayer may be one of a very few advertising agencies to successfully weather the economic and cultural transitions of both the twentieth and twentieth first centuries. Ayer was eventually acquired by the Publicis Groupe based in Paris, France which closed down the N.W. Ayer offices in 2002.
Related Materials:
Materials in the Archives Center
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana (AC0060)
Hills Bros. Coffee Incorporated Records (AC0395)
Provenance:
The collection was donated by N W Ayer ABH International, April 15, 1975 and by Ayer & Partners, October 30, 1996.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research use.
Physical Access: Researchers must use microfilm copy. Researchers must handle unprotected photographs with gloves. Researchers must use reference copies of audiovisual materials. When no reference copy exists, the Archives Center staff will produce reference copies on an "as needed" basis, as resources allow.
Technical Access: Viewing the film portion of the collection without reference copies requires special appointment, please inquire; listening to audio discs requires special arrangement. Do not use original materials when available on reference video or audio tapes.
Rights:
Publication and production quality duplication is restricted due to complex copyright, publicity rights, and right to privacy issues. Potential users must receive written permission from appropriate rights holders prior to obtaining high quality copies. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Organization of Black American Culture Search this
World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture Search this
Extent:
12.5 Linear feet
0.003 Gigabytes
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Gigabytes
Sound recordings
Photographs
Interviews
Date:
1918-2005
bulk 1960s-2005
Summary:
The papers of African American artist and educator Jeff Donaldson measure 12.5 linear feet and 0.003 GB and date from 1918 to 2005, with the bulk of the records dating from the 1960s to 2005. The collection documents Donaldson's work as a professional artist, his academic career at Howard University, and his leadership role in the Black Arts Movement through biographical material, a small amount of professional and personal correspondence, personal business records, writings by Donaldson and others, research files, artist files, sound recordings of interviews Donaldson conducted with over 40 artists, teaching files, exhibition files, printed and digital material, and photographs. Also found are detailed records of his professional activities and leadership roles in AfriCOBRA, CONFABA, FESTAC, and the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC), including documentation on the Wall of Respect mural.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of African American artist and educator Jeff Donaldson measure 12.5 linear feet and 0.003 GB and date from 1918 to 2005, with the bulk of the records dating from the 1960s to 2005. The collection documents Donaldson's work as a professional artist, his academic career at Howard University, and his leadership role in the Black Arts Movement through biographical material, a small amount of professional and personal correspondence, personal business records, writings by Donaldson and others, research files, artist files, sound recordings of interviews Donaldson conducted with over 40 artists, teaching files, exhibition files, printed and digital material, and photographs. Also found are detailed records of his professional activities and leadership roles in AfriCOBRA, CONFABA, FESTAC, and the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC), including documentation on the Wall of Respect mural.
Biographical material includes biographical summaries and resumes detailing Donaldson's career, and documents such as his birth certificate, veteran and education records, and passports.
The correspondence series includes 0.3 linear feet of letters to and from colleagues, friends, and educational and art organizations. This correspondence relates primarily to Donaldson's professional activities. Also found are one folder of letters each from Gwendolyn Brooks and Hoyt Fuller. The bulk of Donaldson's professional correspondence can be found in other series.
Interviews consist of transcripts and sound recordings of interviews conducted by Donaldson for research for his dissertation on the Harlem Renaissance, with more than forty artists including Charles Alston, Romare Bearden, Bob Blackburn, Nancy Cox, Mildred Howard, Suzanne Jackson, Senga Nengudi, Mary Lovelace O'Neal, James Phillips, and Lamonte Westmoreland. This series also includes two transcripts of interviews with Donaldson.
Writings by Donaldson include articles, catalog essays, notes and draft excerpts from his dissertation, and draft lectures on TransAfrican art.
Artist files were compiled by Donaldson and relate to various projects including his dissertation, his teaching, and his involvement with FESTAC and other projects. Artists represented include Romare Bearden, John Howard, Jacob Lawrence, Archibald Motley, James Phillips, Hale Woodruff, and others. The files contain scattered correspondence, writings and notes, printed material, and photos of artists and artwork.
Exhibition files document Donaldson's involvement with the TransAfrican Art Invitational Exhibition (1997-1988) at the Orlando Museum of Art through correspondence and other planning documents, catalog essays, artist records, printed and digital material, and photographs. The series also documents solo and group exhibitions of Donaldson's artwork from 1980-2000, and includes correspondence, printed material, and photographs.
Professional files provide a rich and substantial record of Donaldson's leadership roles in the African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists (AfriCOBRA), the Conference on the Functional Aspects of Black Art (CONFABA), the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC), and the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC). The records are particularly extensive for AfriCOBRA and FESTAC, and include correspondence, planning documents, financial records, meeting records, printed and digital material, and photographs. Additional professional files document Donaldson's involvement with other committees and conferences, including his role as guest editor for the International Review of African American Art.
Research files provide additional material related to Donaldson's dissertation and his teaching career. Of particular note is correspondence from the 1940s-1950s between the Harmon Foundation and the Department of Art at Howard University, as well as notes and a photograph of Harlem Renaissance artists outside 306 West 41st Street where Charles Alston taught art classes.
Teaching files document Donaldson's role as art department chairman and subsequently dean of the College of Fine Arts at Howard University, through correspondence and employment records. The files also include his lecture notebooks and other course documentation.
Personal business records document Donaldson's personal art collection, as well as appraisals, sales, and consignments of his own artwork. Printed material includes announcements and catalogs for exhibitions of Donaldson's artwork and the artwork of others, as well as news clippings compiled by him on subjects of interest, particularly African American artists and racial injustice.
Photographs are primarily slides of Donaldson's artwork produced from the 1950s to 2000, but also include some photos of Donaldson, including contact sheets and photographs of late career portraits, and photos of Donaldson with his wife, Arnicia. One set of photos documents a visit to Uganda in 1974, where Donaldson and his travel companions met with Idi Amin.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 12 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1954-2004 (0.3 Linear feet; Box 1, OV 14)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1957-2004 (0.3 Linear feet; Box 1)
Series 3: Interviews, 1959-1997 (1.7 Linear feet; Boxes 1-3)
Series 4: Writings, 1963-2003 (0.5 Linear feet; Box 3)
Series 5: Artist Files, 1928-2003 (1.1 Linear feet; Boxes 3-4)
Series 6: Exhibition Files, circa 1966-2000 (1.3 Linear feet; Boxes 4-6, 0.002 GB: ER01-ER02)
Series 7: Professional Files, 1960s-2005 (5.2 Linear feet; Boxes 6-11, OV 14, 0.001 GB; ER03)
Series 8: Research Files, 1930-2001 (0.4 Linear feet; Box 11)
Series 9: Teaching Files, 1961-2002 (0.6 Linear feet; Boxes 11-12)
Series 10: Personal Business Records, 1966-2001 (0.2 Linear feet; Box 12)
Series 11: Printed Material, 1918-2003 (0.5 linear feet; Box 12)
Series 12: Photographs and Personal Sound Recordings, 1956-2003 (0.4 Linear feet; Box 13)
Biographical / Historical:
Jeff Donaldson (1932-2004) was an African American artist and educator who worked in Chicago and Washington, D.C. He was a leading figure in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s and promoted the "TransAfrican" aesthetic.
Donaldson was born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and graduated from the University of Arkansas with a B.A. in studio art in 1954. He briefly served in the U.S. Army and taught art in a Chicago high school from 1957 to 1965. In 1963, he received his M.S. in Art Education from Illinois Institute of Technology, and taught at Northwestern University while pursuing his Ph.D. there. He received his Ph.D. in art history in 1974 with a dissertation on young African American artists working in Harlem during the 1930s. In 1970, Donaldson became director of the Howard University Art Gallery and chairman of the art department. From 1985 to 1998, he served first as associate dean and then dean of the Howard University, College of Fine Arts.
As a leading member of the Black Arts Movement, Donaldson co-founded the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC) Visual Art Workshop which created the influential Wall of Respect mural in 1967 on the southside of Chicago. He also co-founded the AfriCOBRA artist collaborative in 1968 of which he was a lifelong member. Donaldson promoted the TransAfrican art aesthetic through his leadership role in FESTAC, the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture, held in Lagos, Nigeria in 1977. He was guest editor for a TransAfrican focused issue of the International Review of African American Art which coincided with the TransAfrican Art Invitation Exhibition he curated at the Orlando Museum of Art in 1997.
Donaldson also worked as a professional painter, exhibiting in over a hundred and fifty group and solo exhibitions, and wrote critical essays for several arts publications. He regularly served as an exhibition juror, conference presenter, and served on advisory committees and as a board member for many arts and African American organizations.
Provenance:
Donated 2015 by Jameela Donaldson, Jeff Donaldson's daughter.
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. Use of archival audiovisual recordings and born-digital records with no duplicate access copies requires advance notice.
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.
Art Collectors: A Project in Partnership with the Center for the History of Collecting in America at The Frick Collection Search this
Type:
Interviews
Sound recordings
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Helen Zell, 2016 December 5-6. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Topic:
Philanthropists -- Illinois -- Chicago -- Interviews Search this
Smithsonian Institution. Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage Search this
Type:
Archival materials
Introduction:
Chicago has one of the largest and most diverse Latino communities in the nation, with a rich history and a thriving artistic life; Latino Chicago is a multinational, multicultural community. The largest population is Mexicans, followed by Puerto Ricans, then Guatemalans. Smaller groups from the Caribbean and Central and South America include Ecuadorans, Colombians, Cubans, Peruvians, Salvadorans, and Chileans. A small group of Belizeans and Brazilians also consider themselves part of the community.
In partnership with the Old Town School of Folk Music, the Smithsonian Institution launched a research project in the spring of 2005. Twenty local researchers explored various aspects of Latino folklife in Chicago, recording the stories of artists and organizations, documenting special events and parades, foodways, and more. Two large questions guided the researchers: How do the arts shape, and how are they shaped by, community and identity? And, what characterizes Chicago's Latino community as unique and distinct from other Latino communities elsewhere?
One discovery was that diversity is key to community organization and shaping of identity. In Latino Chicago many types of diversity come into play - ethnic, national, regional, and generationaL Some community organizations are more inclusive of diverse groups and form international, multigenerational, or multiregional groups; others focus on preservation and assemble specialized groups who champion a single form. Besides music and dance, other artists are equally active in theater, poetry and spoken word, film, and graphic and mural arts.
In Chicago, numerous strong communities have formed. Chicago's Latino neighborhoods continue to be ports of entry where many new arrivals can feel right at home. Businesses in these neighborhoods thrive because they do not cater only to the needs of the local neighborhood; they are specialty supply centers for a larger community across the Midwest. Grocery stores, music, entertainment, clothing, and bridal shops line commercial strips that extend for miles.
Because there is such strong neighborhood identity and presence, it is possible for individuals to remain close to their traditions, food, music, language, religion, and other practices for their whole lives. However, those who leave the relative familiarity of the neighborhood and interact with people from other cultures can also explore multiple identities and add to the diversity of the community. Another discovery, then, was that professional musicians who work with various clienteles find that in a diverse community they must command a broad repertoire to appeal to a broader audience and increase their job opportunities.
Wherever you are in Chicago's Latino neighborhoods, you encounter a rich multisensory experience that is also highly localized, rooted in the ethnic and regional identities that define this diverse community. Heading west from the corner of 18th Street and Blue Island in the Pilsen neighborhood you enter a piece of Mexico (indeed, parts of all Mexico), run by Mexicans and catering to more than a million Mexicans who live in the Chicago area or travel there for supplies. Stand on Division Street and California Avenue, just twenty blocks north, and walk into Humboldt Park. You know you are in a Puerto Rican neighborhood because you just walked under a forty-foot-high iron gate in the shape of the Puerto Rican flag. Guatemalans, Peruvians, Ecuadorans, or Colombians also have their own neighborhoods - each unique, but all animated by the sound of nuestra música - the music of Chicago's thriving and vibrant Latino communities. The Smithsonian Folklife Festival offered visitors an opportunity to enjoy these diverse traditions first hand.
The 2006 program was the third in a multi-year sequence devoted to Latino music in the Americas (see also the 2004 2005 and 2009 programs).
Olivia Cadaval and Daniel Sheehy were Co-Curators and Juan Dies was Guest Curator. Cristina Díaz-Carrera was Research Coordinator and Courtney Lutterman was Research Assistant; Carlos Flores, Michael Orlove, Henry Roa, Silvia Rivera, David Roche, and Encarnación Teruel were Project Advisors.
Latino Chicago was part of the multi-year Nuestra Música: Music in Latino Culture project produced in partnership with the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago, in collaboration with the Cultural Institute of Mexico and supported by the Smithsonian Latino Initiatives Fund and the Music Performance Fund. The Smithsonian Institution thanked the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, for supporting the participation of AfriCaribe, Carlos Mejía, Gustavo López, The Mexican Folkloric Dance Company of Chicago, Nelson Sosa, Nahuí Ollin/Tarima Son, and Sones de México Ensemble.
Researchers:
Yolanda Androzzo, Rita Arias Jirasek, Katherinne Bardales, Nashma Carrera Massari, Evelyn Delgado, Juan Dies, Sue Eleuterio, Lilia Fernández, Lidia Huante Mendoza, Melanie Maldonado, Christopher Martin, Argelia Morales, José Luis Ovalle, Lisa Rathje, Paul Tyler
Presenters:
Yolanda Androzzo, Katherinne Bardales, Nashma Carrera Massari, Lidia Huante Mendoza, Lisa Rathje, Cynthia Vidaurri, Matthew Mulcahy
Banda Ansiedad -- Banda AnsiedadJustino Román, managerSimplicio Román, 1981-, keyboard, accordion, Chicago, IllinoisMoisés Román, 1984-, electric bass, Chicago, IllinoisMelesio Román, voice, Chicago, IllinoisSalomón Román, drums, Chicago, IllinoisJesús Ocampo, 1986-, synthesizer, electric tuba, Chicago, IllinoisAlejandro Ocampo, 1983-, alto saxophone, Chicago, Illinois
Los Chalanes -- Los ChalanesRoberto Arce, 1933-, guitar, Kissimmee, FloridaAlfredo Espinosa, 1936-, cajón, guitar, Chicago, Illinois
Latin Street Dancing, Inc. -- Latin Street Dancing, Inc.Victor Manuel Ceja, 1982-, dancer, Chicago, IllinoisRosa Guadalupe Villanueva, 1987-, dancer, Chicago, Illinois
Carlos Mejía Guatemalan Marimba -- Carlos Mejía Guatemalan MarimbaCarlos Mejía, 1957-, marimba, Chicago, IllinoisKatalina Trujillo, 1990-, marimba, Chicago, Illinois
The Mexican Folkloric Dance Company of Chicago -- The Mexican Folkloric Dance Company of ChicagoJosé Luis Ovalle, 1959-, artistic director, Chicago, IllinoisMatiana Medrano Ovalle, artistic director, Chicago, Illinois
Sones de México Ensemble of Chicago -- Sones de México Ensemble of ChicagoVictor G. Pichardo, 1961-, artistic director, vocals, huapanguera, jarana, guitar, clarinet, Oak Park, IllinoisJuan Dies, 1964-, vocals, guitarrón, Chicago, IllinoisLorena Íñiguez, 1976-, vihuela, jarana, small percussion, Chicago, IllinoisVictor Zacbé Pichardo, 1986-, percussion, Oak Park, IllinoisJosé Juan Rivera, 1977-, vocals, requinto, violin, Chicago, IllinoisJavier Saume, drums, percussion, Chicago, Illinois
Nelson Sosa, 1947-, guitar, Chicago, Illinois
Paola Alemán, singer, Chicago, Illinois
Community Radio
Radio Arte -- Radio ArteSilvia Rivera, 1980-, Radio Arte manager, Chicago, IllinoisArgelia Morales, 1978-, interviewer, Chicago, IllinoisTania Unzueta Carrasco, 1983-, youth radio producer, Chicago, IllinoisDulce Jatziri García, youth radio producer, Chicago, Illinois
Son de Madera -- Son de MaderaRamón Gutiérrez Hernández, requintoJuan Pérez, bassLaura Marina Rebolloso Cuellar, leona (jarocho bass guitar)Andrés Vega Hernández, jarana
Suni Paz, 1935-, Canoga Park, California
Rafael Manríquez, voice, guitar, charango, Berkeley, California
Collection Restrictions:
Access to the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections is by appointment only. Visit our website for more information on scheduling a visit or making a digitization request. Researchers interested in accessing born-digital records or audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies.
Collection Rights:
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections. Please visit our website to learn more about submitting a request. The Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections make no guarantees concerning copyright or other intellectual property restrictions. Other usage conditions may apply; please see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for more information.
Collection Citation:
Smithsonian Folklife Festival records: 2006 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.
Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America Search this
Type:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Ruth Duckworth, 2001 April 27. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America Search this
Type:
Interviews
Sound recordings
Place:
Australia -- description and travel
Great Britain -- Description and travel
Japan -- Description and Travel
New Zealand -- description and travel
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Barbara Lee Smith, 2009 March 16-17. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
An interview of Barbara Lee Smith conducted 2009 March 16-17, by Mija Riedel, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, at Smith's home, in Gig Harbor, Washington. Smith speaks of moving around a lot with her family as a child; most of her childhood memories in Cape May, New Jersey where she recalls an early love of the ocean; playing piano from early childhood through young adulthood and its continued influence in her visual art; attending Douglass College at Rutgers University where she graduated with a home economics major; the first time she saw an Abstract Expressionist exhibition in college and the memory of those paintings; her love of color through sunsets and music; learning machine embroidery as a young mother from a Better Homes & Gardens article in the 1960s; falling in love with embroidery and learning as much as she could about the art form; being influenced by artists such as Mariska Karasz and Constance Howard; taking initiative after the Human Potential Movement and started pursuing embroidery art full time; participating in local, national and international embroidery and craft guilds; her love of historic embroideries; receiving her MFA Northern Illinois University; various techniques from her early years of making that still find their way into her work today; teaching workshops and seminars as an adult education teacher for almost 40 years; the influence of traveling to places such as Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom has had on her work; early abstract works in comparison to her recent, more representational work; the role maps have played in a good portion of her work; her work process and rather painterly approach to creating; the love of making and creating; the challenge and problem-solving qualities of taking commissions; writing the book, "Celebrating the Stitch" and the subsequent exhibitions that traveled around the world; the use of layering in her work to create clear layers of color; a collaborative book project with fellow artist, Jane Dunnewold; various exhibitions she has participated in and curated; her studio in Gig Harbor, Washington; relocating to Washington after 30 years in Chicago, Illinois and the influence the move had on her work. Smith also recalls Jill Nordforsclark, Randall Lanou, John Pemberton III, Jane Buckley, Jean Ray Laury, Jens Jensen, Bucky King, Henry Stahmer, Mary Lee Hu, Barbara Krug, Diane and Bill Itter, Renie Breskin Adams, Dimitri and Avra Liakos, Michael James, Chris Timmons, Studs Terkel, Bertil Vallien, Deidre Scherer, Jan Beaney, Tadao Andu, Jacquline Govin, Jean Littlejohn, and Billie Ruth Sudduth among others.
Biographical / Historical:
Barbara Lee Smith (1938- ) is a mixed media artist known for sculptural drawings constructed from fabric and lives and works in Gig Harbor, Washington.
General:
Originally recorded as 6 sound files. Duration is 5 hr., 21 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.
An interview of Ruth Duckworth conducted 2001 April 27, by Kenneth R. Trapp, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, at the studios of Smithsonian Productions, Washington, D.C.
Duckworth speaks of her early life and the time prior to her family leaving Germany; the decision to leave Germany in 1936 due to Hitler and the War; acclimating herself to England; attending Liverpool School of Art; WWII in England and the psychological effects of working in munitions factories; her nervous breakdown and seven years of therapy; her beginning to sculpt; her first exhibition of sculpture in London; her marriage and life with Aidron; difficulties in being an outsider in the world of art, specifically speaking about being a woman in sculpture; her first meeting with Lucie Rie; the devastation she felt after her brother died; attendance at the Hammersmith School of Art and not feeling her place there; switching to Central School of Arts and Crafts; her first job teaching ceramics at the Central School; learning the technique of glazing; visiting museums in London; how poetry nourished her during those early years, specifically the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke; the selling of her first pieces, "pieces that wouldn't sell"; the art scene in London; how the opportunity at the University of Chicago arose; her experience at the University of Chicago, an academic institution rather than a fine arts school; her first big show in the U.S. at the University in 1965; her graduate and undergraduate students; life as a foreigner in the U.S.; the opportunity to teach at the University of Iowa but becoming an associate professor at the University of Chicago instead; the cultural movement and ceramics movement in the U.S. during the 1960's; how her work changed from European influences to American influences; departments in art that were very unfriendly to women; her association with James and Nan McKinnell; her excursions and teaching trips across the U.S. as well as in Canada and Israel; her trip with Aidron across the U.S. and then their eventual separation; her friendship with Alice Westphal and the creation of the gallery Exhibit A; the unconscious changes in her work; her views on stoneware versus porcelain; Jack Lenor Larsen's summer show and the artists she met through that; her relationship with American museums versus European; unfortunate events at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; her continued feelings as an outsider but acceptance in later life as an artist, more so from the ceramic community than from the museum community; publications and catalogues of her work; the influences other artists have had upon her work; the limited use of color in her work; her collection of bones; her love of gardening; her sketches; the therapy coiling clay does for her; her projects at the moment; where she gets her ideas from; how she sees herself fitting in versus not fitting in; her speech at an international symposium in Amsterdam; what she would include in a retrospective of her artwork; her hopes to have her work be therapeutic to viewers and cause them to contemplate it; more thoughts on color; American culture; what matters most to her right now and that is saving the Earth; wishing to continue with her work and have a better relationship with museums. Ruth Duckworth recalls, Henry Moore, Bernard Leach, Nellie Barr, Virginia Ferrari, Hardy Schlick, Richard DeVore, Nicholas Vergette, Jane Goodall and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Ruth Duckworth (1919-2009) was a sculptor and clay artist from Chicago, Illinois. Kenneth Trapp (1943- ) is curator-in-charge at the Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 DAT tapes. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 2 hr., 29 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.
An interview of Alanna Heiss conducted 2010 June 15 and October 28, by James McElhinney, for the Archives of American Art's Elizabeth Murray Oral History of Women in the Visual Arts project, at Art International Radio, on Leonard Street, in New York, New York.
Heiss speaks of the Clocktower Gallery and the AIR offices; New York galleries and museums and the economic depression of the 1970s; art shows in Germany, France, Switzerland, and England and the role of foreign and West Coast curators in New York shows during the 1960s; founding the Institute for Art and Urban Resources with Brendan Gill; her lack of interest in collecting and the problems she feels it poses for organizations showing art; her attitudes about displaying art in the 1970s; growing up in a small town in Southern Illinois; spending summers as a child in South Dakota; her musical training; art in relation to Midwestern cultural values; her work on the exhibition "Stalin's Choice: Soviet Socialist Realism, 1932-1956" in 1993; her degree in music and the philosophy of aesthetics from Lawrence University; taking classes at the University of Chicago; moving to New York and deciding to focus on visual arts; her time in Europe and the various jobs she took while abroad including teaching, inspecting monuments for the Society for Ancient Buildings and Monuments, writing about animals, selling and transporting used cars, and serving as an artist liaison; and the exhibitions she saw during her travels.
Heiss also discusses trips she made across the United States after returning from Europe; working as a band road crew manger; her work in 1993 on the John Cage tribute show for the Venice Biennale called "Il Suono Rapido delle Cose" and the album produced in conjunction with the show called Caged/Uncaged - A Rock/Experimental Homage To John Cage; her marriage to the artist Jene Highstein and their friendships with the artists Richard Nonas and Gordon Matta-Clark; her return to New York from Europe around 1970 and her use of old or abandoned real estate as locations for contemporary art exhibitions; her first show, "Under the Brooklyn Bridge" in 1971; founding PS1; her work as a parole officer and her exposure to the culture of Harlem; the various shows held at PS1; urban art spaces in New York including the New Museum and the Coney Island Sculpture Museum; her exhibition space on Bleecker Street in New York; her disenchantment with the idea of community art; her work with Tom Finkelpearl; the way she publicized exhibitions; the underground culture of the 1970s; and the relationship between the Museum of Modern Art and PS1 and their eventual merger.
Biographical / Historical:
Alanna Heiss (1943-) is director of Art International Radio in New York, New York. James McElhinney (1952-) is an artist and educator in New York, New York.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound disc. Reformatted in 2010 as 4 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hr., 39 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:
Gallery directors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Arts administrators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Curators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
51 Linear feet (115 document boxes, 2 card file boxes, 1 5x6x2.5" box, and 1 record storage box)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
1893-1994
bulk 1930-1993
Scope and Contents:
While these papers primarily consist of Waldo's archeological work in the field and his many publications, the collection also contains Mildred's correspondence and manuscripts, most of which concern her ethnohistorical and archeological work, conferences in which she participated, and her publications, particularly those on La Harpe. Most of the material dates between 1930 and 1990.
A useful way to consider these materials is to conceptualize them as a continuum from project proposals to funding, into fieldwork materials, and ultimately toward manuscripts and publications. These texts generate reputations in academic and museum circles, in this case, drawing Waldo into various organizations and conferences throughout his career. As he rose through the ranks of the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian, his responsibilities and visibility within the museum also increased. This gradual transformation is reflected in the correspondence, organizational and administrative, and research and field work series. Because these and other facets of Waldo's career both constantly and consistently interfaced, the boundaries between the various series and types of materials contained in this collection are highly permeable. This should be kept in mind when reviewing them.
Among Waldo's correspondence are letters from A.T. Hill, F.M. Setzler, and W.D. Strong. The Organizational and Administrative Material contains material from the Department of Anthropology, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Science Foundation, the River Basin Survey, and Tulumniu research. Also included is material from the 5th through the 44th Plains conferences, as well as material from Society for American Archaeology meetings and seminars. Writings include both published and unpublished works. The published works are mainly those by Waldo, however, there are several publications from Mildred. Many of the publications are articles from journals, such as the American Anthropologist and American Antiquity. Drafts and writing notes of both Waldo and Mildred make up the bulk of the writings series. The Research and Fieldwork Materials contains papers relating to Waldo's fieldwork on the River Basin Surveys, as well as his work in Kansas, Missouri and Michigan. In addition, there is material relating to his expert testimony in claims cases brought by the Missouri and Oto, Pawnee, and Kansa Indians (which also involved Mildred) during the 1940s and 1950s. The series of Photographs consists of lantern slides, prints, and negatives. There are extensive photographs of Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, including field sites, artifacts, bones and landscape. The Personal series contains a miscellany of Waldo's materials, such as his business card and materials from his days as a study at UC Berkeley. Finally, there are several drawers of site maps, topographic maps, aeronautical maps and county maps of Kansas, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Missouri.
Please note that the contents of the collection and the language and terminology used reflect the context and culture of the time of its creation. As an historical document, its contents may be at odds with contemporary views and terminology and considered offensive today. The information within this collection does not reflect the views of the Smithsonian Institution or National Anthropological Archives, but is available in its original form to facilitate research.
Arrangement:
The papers of Waldo Wedel and Mildred Wedel are organized into the following series: Correspondence; Organizational and Administrative Material; Writings; Research and Fieldwork Materials; Personal; Photographs; Printing Blocks; and Maps.
Biographical Note:
Waldo R. Wedel was born in Newton, Kansas in 1908. He grew up in and around Newton with Emil Haury. He graduated from Bethel Academy in 1928 and earned his B.A. at the University of Arizona in 1930. It was at Arizona that Waldo began his development as a field archeologist, working under Dean Cummings and Haury. He continued his education at University of Nebraska, where he was a student of William Duncan Strong, who trained him in Plains archeology and introduced him to the direct historical approach. Through an apprenticeship under Strong, Waldo conducted fieldwork in Signal Butte, Loup River Valley, and in eastern Nebraska during 1930-1933. After earning his M.A. in 1931, he enrolled in the doctoral program at University of California, Berkeley (Ph.D., 1936). During his education at Berkeley, although his chief mentor was Alfred Kroeber, he was strongly influenced by the ecological ideas of geographer Carl Sauer. In the late 1930's, Wedel began to concentrate on a survey of his native Kansas, a region little known archeologically. The Kansas survey began during the field seasons of 1937 and 1938. 1n 1938, he also excavated at a Hopewell site in Platte County, Missouri. In the summer of 1946, Wedel was detailed to establish and direct the Missouri Basin Project (MBP) of the Bureau of American Ethnology's River Basin Surveys (RBS). He continued as the MBP director until 1950 and was detailed each summer to the MBP headquarters in Lincoln, Nebraska. He also worked at sites in South Dakota, Colorado, and the Texas Panhandle from the 1950s to the 1970s.
Except for early work for the Nebraska Historical Society and Gila Pueblo Foundation, Waldo's institutional affiliation was with the Smithsonian Institution. In 1936, he was appointed assistant curator under Neil M. Judd in the Division of Archeology, Department of Anthropology of the United States National Museum (USNM). He was made associate curator in 1942. During World War II, he was detailed for a brief period to the Military Planning Division of the Quartermaster Corps, charged with analysis of captured foreign material. In 1950, he was named curator of archeology at the USNM. In 1962, he became head curator of the Department of Anthropology, and in 1964-1965, he was acting head of the newly organized Smithsonian Office of Anthropology. He became Senior Archeologist in 1965. In 1977, he retired from what had become the Department of Anthropology in the National Museum of Natural History and became curator emeritus. He continued activity with the department until 1990 when he moved to Boulder, Colorado. He died in 1996.
Mildred Mott was born in Marengo, Iowa on September 7, 1912. She was trained in history at the University of Iowa (A.B. 1934) and in anthropology with an emphasis on archeology at the University of Chicago (M.A., 1938). She also attended University of New Mexico Jemez Field School in the summer of 1933. She conducted fieldwork under Ellison Orr at Hill Mound Group (13AM105) and Brazell's Island Bear Effigy Mound (13AM81) in Allamakee County in 1936. In the following year, she worked at the Kincaid site in Illinois. She also assisted Florence Hawley in the University of Chicago Dendrochronology Laboratory (1937-38). In 1938, she served as field director for Charles Keyes' archaeological excavation near Webster City, Iowa.
In 1939, Mildred married Waldo Wedel and afterwards accompanied him on many trips to the field. In addition, she pursued an interest in ethnohistory that she developed in school. In particular, she worked on the ethnohistory of regions where her husband was working, often taking advantage of field seasons to retrace routes of early European explorers. Thus, she carried out intensive work on French explorations in the Plains areas (particularly Jean-Baptiste Bénard, Sieur de la Harpe; Pierre-Charles Le Sueur; Claude-Charles Dutisne; and Jean-Baptiste Teuteau). She also published on Plains Caddoan origins and on the Iowa and the Wichita. In 1978-1979, under contract with the Corps of Engineers, she studied the ethnohistory of a Wichita village and French post at the Deer Creek site, Kay County, Oklahoma.
In 1974, Mildred was appointed a Smithsonian Institution research associate in anthropology. In 1985, she was one of several women honored by the American Anthropological Association for their long-time involvement in anthropology. She died in 1995.
Waldo R. Wedel (see also Appendix A: Fieldwork of Waldo R. Wedel)
1908 -- Born in Newton, Kansas
1930 -- B.A. from University of Arizona
1930-1933 -- Apprenticeship under William Duncan Strong at Signal Butte, Loup River Valley, Nebraska
1931 -- M. A. from University of Nebraska
1936 -- Assistant Curator under Neil M. Judd, Division of Archeology, Department of Anthropology, United States National Museum (USNM) Ph.D. from University of California at Berkeley
1937-1938 -- Field work in Kansas
1938 -- Excavation at a Hopewell site in Platte County, Missouri
1939 -- Married Mildred Mott Wedel
1942 -- Associate Curator, Division of Archeology, Department of Anthropology, United States National Museum (USNM)
1946 -- Established Missouri Basin Project (MBP) of the Bureau of American Ethnology's River Basin Surveys (RBS), serves as Director
1946-1950 -- Served with Military Planning Division of the Quartermaster Corps
1950 -- Curator of Archeology, United States National Museum (USNM)
1962 -- Head Curator of the Department of Anthropology
1964-1965 -- Acting Head of newly organized Smithsonian Office of Anthropology
1965 -- Senior Archeologist, Smithsonian Office of Anthropology
1977 -- Curator Emeritus, retired from Department of Anthropology in the National Museum of Natural History
1977-1990 -- Continued involvement with Department of Anthropology
1990 -- Moved to Boulder, Colorado
1996 -- Died
Mildred Mott Wedel
1912 -- Born in Marengo, Iowa
1933 -- Attended University of New Mexico Jemez Field School during the summer
1934 -- A.B. from University of Iowa
1936 -- Fieldwork under Ellison Orr at Hill Mound Group (13AM105) and Brazell's Island Bear Effigy Mound (13AM81) in Allamakee County
1937 -- Fieldwork at Kincaid Site in Illinois Assisted Florence Hawley in the University of Chicago Dendrochronology Laboratory
1938 -- M.A. from University of Chicago Field director for Charles Keyes' archaeological excavation near Webster City, Iowa
1939 -- Married Waldo R. Wedel
1974 -- Research associate, Department of Anthropology in the National Museum of Natural History
1978-1979 -- Studied the ethnohistory of a Wichita village and French post at the Deer Creek site, Kay County, Oklahoma
1990 -- Moved to Boulder, Colorado
1995 -- Died
Appendix A: Fieldwork of Waldo R. Wedel:
This timeline was created by Waldo R. Wedel in the 1990s.
1929 -- Place: Arizona (Turkey Hill Pueblo, near Flagstaff)Organizational Affiliation: University of Arizona field party (BC)
1930 -- Place: Nebraska, eastern and southern (Rock Bluffs, Gates, Dooley, Hill sites)Organizational Affiliation: University of Nebraska field party (WDS)Reported in: Strong, W. D. 1935. An Introduction to Nebraska Archeology. SMC 93:10.
1931 -- Place: Nebraska, Loup valley (Burkett, Gray‑Wolfe, Sweetwater sites)Organizational Affiliation: University of Nebraska field party leaderReported in: Dunlevy, M. L. 1936. A Comparison of the Cultural Manifestations of the Burkett (Nance County) and Gray‑Wolfe (Colfax County) sites.Reported in: Chapters in Nebraska Archeology, pp. 147‑247.Reported in: Champe, J. L. 1936. The Sweetwater Culture Complex. Chapters in Nebraska Archeology, pp. 249‑299.
1932 -- Place: Nebraska (Signal Butte) and South Dakota (Leavenworth)Organizational Affiliation: Bureau of American Ethnology (WDS)Reported in: Strong, W. D. 1935. An Introduction to Nebraska Archeology. SMC 93:10.Reported in: Strong, W. D. 1933. Studying the Arikara and their Neighbors on the Upper Missouri. Explor. and Field Work of the Smithsonian Institution in 1932.
1933 -- Place: Nebraska (Medicine Creek)Organizational Affiliation: Nebraska State Historical Society (ATH)Reported in: Wedel, W. R. 1934. Preliminary Notes on the Archeology of Medicine Valley in Southwestern Nebraska. Nebraska History Magazine, 14:3:144-166. Place: Oklahoma (Comanche ethnography near Layton)Organizational Affiliation: Laboratory of Anthropology Fellow (R Linton)
1933-1934 -- Place: California (Buena Vista Lake)Organizational Affiliation: CWA relief expedition (WDS)Reported in: Wedel, W. R. 1941. Archeological Investigations at Buena Vista Lake, BAE Bulletin 130.
1934 -- Place: Nebraska and Kansas (Republican Valley; Minneapolis, Paint Creek)Organizational Affiliation: Nebraska State Historical Society (ATH)Reported in: Wedel, W. R. 1935. Reports on Field Work by the Archeological Survey of the Nebraska State Historical Society, May 1 to July 23, 1934. Nebraska History Magazine, 15:3:130-256.
1935 -- Place: California (Sacramento Valley: Howells Point, Redding; San Francisco Bay shellmounds)Organizational Affiliation: University of California field party leader
1936 -- Place: Nebraska (survey in Loup River drainage)Organizational Affiliation: Nebraska Historical Society and Gila Pueblo
1937 -- Place: Missouri and Kansas (Renner, Doniphan, Manhattan)Organizational Affiliation: U. S. National Museum field party leaderReported in: Wedel, W. R. 1943. Archeological Investigations in Platte and Clay Counties, Missouri. U.S.N.M., Bulletin 183.Reported in: Wedel, W. R. 1959. An IntroductionReported in: To Kansas Archeology. Bur. Amer. Ethnology, Bulletin 174.
1938 -- Place: Missouri, Colorado (Steed-Kisker, vault mounds; Purgatoire survey)Organizational Affiliation: U. S. National Museum field party leaderReported in: Wedel, W. R. 1943. Archeological Investigations in Platte and Clay Counties, Missouri. U.S.N.M., Bulletin 183.
1939 -- Place: Kansas (Scott and Lane Counties)Organizational Affiliation: U. S. National Museum field party leaderReported in: Wedel, W. R. 1959. An Introduction To Kansas Archeology. Bur. Amer. Ethnology, Bulletin 174.
1940 -- Place: Kansas (Rice and Cowley Counties)Organizational Affiliation: U. S. National Museum field party leaderReported in: Wedel, W. R. 1959. An Introduction To Kansas Archeology. Bur. Amer. Ethnology, Bulletin 174.
1943 -- Place: Mexico (La Venta)Organizational Affiliation: Smithsonian‑National Geographic Society expedition under MWSReported in: Wedel, W. R. 1952. Structural Investigations in 1943. In: La Venta, Tabasco, a Study of Olmec Ceramics and Art, by P. Drucker, BAE ‑ Bull. 153, pp. 34-79.
1946-1949 -- Place: Missouri River BasinOrganizational Affiliation: Field director Missouri Basin Project, River Basin Surveys, Smithsonian InstitutionReported in: Wedel, W. R., 1947. Prehistory and the Missouri Valley Development Program: Summary Report on the Missouri River Basin Archeological Survey in 1946. SMC. 107:6:1‑17.Reported in: Wedel, W. R. 1948. SMC 111:2.Reported in: Wedel, W. R. 1953. River Basin Surveys Papers, No. 1; BAE ‑ Bull. 154, pp. 1‑59.Reported in: Wedel, W. R. 1953. River Basin Surveys Papers, No. 2; BAE ‑ Bull. 154, pp. 61‑101.
1951 -- Place: South Dakota (39ST1)Organizational Affiliation: River Basin Surveys party chief
1952 -- Place: Wyoming (Horner site)Organizational Affiliation: Archeologist on Smithsonian-Princeton expedition.Reported in: Frison, Geo. C. and L. C. Todd, eds. I987 The Horner Site: Type Site of the Cody Cultural Complex. Ch. 2 History of the Princeton and Smithsonian Investigations. Academic Press, Orlando, Fla.
1955 -- Place: South Dakota (39ST1)Organizational Affiliation: River Basin Surveys party chief
1956 -- Place: South Dakota (39ST1)Organizational Affiliation: River Basin Surveys party chief
1957 -- Place: South Dakota (39ST203)Organizational Affiliation: River Basin Surveys party chief
1964 -- Place: Archeological investigations in Southwestern KansasOrganizational Affiliation: NSF grant GS-556
1965 -- Place: Archeological investigations in Central Kansas (Rice Co)Organizational Affiliation: NSF grant GS-556
1966-1967 -- Place: Archeological investigations in Central Kansas (Rice Co)Organizational Affiliation: NSF grant 05-556; Smithsonian Res. Award. 3301
1971 -- Place: Archeological investigations in Central Kansas (Rice Co.)
1972-1973 -- Place: Archeological investigations at Chalk Hollow, Palo Duro Canyon, TexasOrganizational Affiliation: Smithsonian Research AwardReported in: Wedel, W. R. 1975. Chalk Hollow: Culture sequence and chronology in the Texas panhandle. Proceedings, XLI International Congress of Americanists, Mexico, Sept. 2-7, 1974, pp270-278.
Related Materials:
Additional correspondence from Waldo Wedel can be found in various collections at the National Anthropological Archives, including the William Duncan Strong papers, Albert Clanton Spaulding papers, Donald Lehmer papers, Frederick Johnson papers, Manuscript 4846, Manuscript 4192, Department of Anthropology records, River Basin Surveys records, Society for American Archaeology records, Central States Anthropological Society records, and Anthropological Society of Washington records. Photographs of Waldo can be found in Photo lot 33, Photo 83-13, Photo 58, Photo Lot 85-12, Manuscript 4261(1), Negative MHT 65124, Negative 728413, and the Source Print Collection. Manuscript 7450 is a recording of Waldo and others giving a talk on the history of anthropology at the Smithsonian. See Manuscript 2011-29 for an oral history interview with Waldo, conducted by Larry Banks.
Correspondence from Mildred can be found in the Robert King Harris papers and the William Duncan Strong papers. Manuscript 7293 is a recording of the Ewers-Wedel symposium, at which Mildred was a speaker.
At the Smithsonian Institution Archives, photos of Waldo can be found in the Kjell Bloch Sandved Photographic Files and the Smithsonian Institution Office of Public Information, Productions records.
Separated Materials:
The following films were separated from the collection and transferred to the Human Studies Film Archives:
6 reels of 16MM kodachrome film-original reversal 5 reels of Medicine Creek...1947-48 (includes Boysen Camp (1947) and Brule Flat site) 1 reel of Bison Kill (Powder River) Ghost Cave near Billings, MT., 1947
The following artifacts were separated from the collection and transferred to the ethnology and archaeology collections of the Department of Anthropology:
Sherds from Peppiatt-Lyons Metal ice shoe cleats Glass beads
Provenance:
These papers were donated to the National Anthropological Archives by Waldo R. Wedel and Mildred Mott Wedel in 1990. Additional materials were donated by their son, Waldo M. Wedel in 2011.
Restrictions:
The Waldo R. Wedel and Mildred Mott Wedel papers are open for research. Personnel files and grant proposals sent to Waldo Wedel to review are restricted. Waldo and Mildred Wedel's monographs are stored at an off-site facility.
Access to the Waldo R. Wedel and Mildred Mott Wedel papers requires an appointment.
The papers of Abstract Expressionist painters James Brooks and Charlotte Park measure 18.7 linear feet and are dated 1909-2010, bulk 1930-2010. Correspondence, subject files, personal business records, printed material, and a sound recording document his painting career, interests, professional and personal activities. Also found are biographical materials, interviews, writings, and art work. The collection also includes papers of his wife, Abstract Expressionist painter Charlotte Park, regarding her painting career, personal life, activities as executor of James Brooks' estate, and some material concerning the James Brooks and Charlotte Park Brooks Foundation. There is a 1.4 linear foot addition to this collection donated in 2017 that includes 58 "week-at-a-glance" appointment books, three journals and one address/ telephone book of Charlotte Park; a hand written chronology with significant dates and notes; postcards and exhibition announcements sent to Charlotte and James; doodles; and a sketch, possibly by Don Kingman.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Abstract Expressionist painters James Brooks and Charlotte Park measure 18.7 linear feet and are dated 1909-2010, bulk 1930-2010. Correspondence, subject files, personal business records, printed material, and a sound recording document his painting career, interests, professional and personal activities. Also found are biographical materials, interviews, writings, and art work. The collection also includes papers of his wife, Abstract Expressionist painter Charlotte Park, regarding her painting career, personal life, activities as executor of James Brooks' estate, and some material concerning the James Brooks and Charlotte Park Brooks Foundation. There is a 1.4 linear foot addition to this collection donated in 2017 that includes 58 "week-at-a-glance" appointment books, three journals and one address/ telephone book of Charlotte Park; a hand written chronology with significant dates and notes; postcards and exhibition announcements sent to Charlotte and James; doodles; and a sketch, possibly by Don Kingman.
Biographical materials include biographical notes and documents such as copies of birth and death certificates, curricula vitae, family history. Educational records are from Southern Methodist University and documentation of flight training courses at New York University. Brooks' military service in World War II is well documented by United States Army records with related correspondence. Also found is extensive documentation of his death and funeral.
Professional and personal correspondence is addressed to Brooks, the couple, and to Charlotte Park during the later years of Brooks' life when she managed his affairs. A significant amount of correspondence is categorized as art, autograph requests, personal, and teaching; also include is general correspondence that overlaps all categories. Art correspondence with museums, galleries, collectors, artists, and friends concerns exhibitions, Brooks' work, and invitations to exhibit, speak, or serve as a juror. Of note is the correspondence with Samuel M. Kootz Gallery. The personal correspondence is mainly social, and teaching correspondence consists largely of requests that he teach in summer programs, serve as a visiting artist/critic.
Six interviews with James Brooks are in the form of published and unpublished transcripts; a seventh is a sound recording with no known transcript. Charlotte Park participates in one interview.
Writings by Brooks are statements about his work and a tribute to Ilya Bolotowsky. Among the writings by others about Brooks are a catalog essay, academic papers, and lecture; also found are a few short pieces on miscellaneous topics. Three diaries include brief entries regarding his work, exhibitions, and activities.
Subject files maintained by Brooks concerning organizations, exhibitions, mural projects, a commission and teaching document his professional activities, relationships and interests.
Personal business records concern appraisals, conservation, gifts, insurance, loans, sales, shipping, and storage of artwork. Gallery records include agreements, consignments, lists, and receipts. Also, there are accounts for lettering work and personal income tax returns.
Printed material is mostly exhibition announcements, invitations, catalogs, and checklists, as well as articles and reviews. The majority are about/mention Brooks or include reproductions of his work; some concern artist friends, former students, and others.
Artwork by Brooks consists of pencil and ink drawings, two sketchbooks, and "telephone doodles." Other artists include Adolph Gottlieb (ink drawing of sculpture), Philip Guston (three pencil drawings of Brooks), and William King (two silhouettes of Brooks).
Photographic materials (photographs, digital prints, negatives, slides, and color transparencies) provide extensive documentation of Brooks' artwork and, to a lesser extent, exhibitions.There are pictures of Brooks as a very young boy, though the most views of him date from the 1930s through 1980s, and with friends. Places include Brooks' homes and studios in Montauk, New York and the Springs, East Hampton, New York; travel to Maine, Oregon and California. Views of the Middle East from World War II show Brooks with colleagues, local people engaged in daily activities, and scenery. Also of note are a copy print of "The Irascibles" by Nina Leen, and attendees at the dedication of Flight dining in view of Brook's LaGuardia Ariport mural.
Charlotte Park papers document the professional career and personal life of the Abstract Expressionist painter, art teacher, and wife of James Brooks through correspondence, personal business records, exhibition records, printed material, and photographs. In addition, this series documents artwork in the estate of James Brooks and posthumous exhibitions. Twelve years younger than her husband, Park began handling business matters for him as he aged and developed Alzheimer's disease. She also served as his executor. In the 1990s, a curator assumed management of the artwork and loans for exhibitions. After the James Brooks and Charlotte Park Brooks Foundation was established in 2000, its director handled most business activities. Some copies of Foundation minutes and correspondence are found among Park's papers.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged in 11 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1924-1995 (Box 1, OV 19; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1928-1995 (Boxes 1-3; 1.7 linear feet)
Series 3: Interviews, 1965-1990 (Box 3; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 4: Writings, 1952-1999 (Box 3; 0.4 linear feet)
Series 5: Diaries, 1975-1984 (Box 3; 0.1 linear feet)
Series 6: Subject Files, 1926-2001 (Boxes 3-5, OV 20; 2.0 linear feet)
Series 7: Personal Business Records, 1932-1992 (Boxes 5-6; 1.0 linear feet)
Series 8: Printed Material, 1928-1992 (Boxes 6-11, OV 21-OV 22; 4.8 linear feet)
Series 9: Artwork, 1930s-1992 (Box 11; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 10: Photographic Materials, 1909-2000s (Boxes 11-15; 4.1 linear feet)
Series 11: Charlotte Park papers, 1930s-2010 (Boxes 15-18, OV 23; 3.6 linear feet)
Series 12: Unprocessed Additition, circa 1930-2010 (Boxes 25-26; 1.4 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
James Brooks (1906-1992) and Charlotte Park (1919-2010) were Abstract Expressionist painters in East Hampton, N.Y. A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Brooks spent his childhood in Colorado, Oklahoma, Illinois, and Texas. He begn drawing as a young boy, finding inspiration in magazine illustrations and comic strips. Before moving to New York City in 1926, he studied at Southern Methodist University (1923-1924) and at the Dallas Art Institute.
In New York, Brooks studied illustration at the Grand Central Art School. After exposure to museums led him to differentiate between illustration and fine art, Brooks enrolled at Art Students League. During this period he supported himself by doing lettering for magazine advertisements. From 1936-1942 he participated in the WPA Federal Art Project, executing murals at Woodside Library, Queens, New York (destroyed); the Post Office, Little Falls, New Jersey; and his famous Flight at LaGuardia Airport's Marine Air Terminal (painted over in the 1950s and restored in 1980).
During World War II Brooks served in the United States Army as an art correspondent in Cairo. When at the Office of Special Services, Washington, DC, he met Charlotte Park who worked there as a graphic artist and later became his wife. The couple moved to New York City in 1945 and married in 1947. Brooks resumed friendships with artists he knew from the WPA including Philip Guston, Bradley Walker Tomlin, and Jackson Pollock. Brooks and Park were especially close with Pollock and Lee Krasner; after they moved to Long Island, Brooks and Park, soon followed, first to Montauk and later to the Springs, East Hampton, New York.
By the late 1940s, Brooks had turned away from figural painting in the social realist style and moved toward abstraction. In the early 1950s, he was experimenting with enamel, gouache, and diluted oil paints, staining various grounds in ways that produced interesting shapes, adding spontaneous splashes of color over which he painted more deliberately. In the 1960s he switched to acrylics, leading to wider use of color and broader strokes.
Peridot Gallery presented Brooks' first solo exhibition in 1949. He helped organize and participated in the famous Ninth Street Show of 1951, earning critical acclaim. This assured him a place in two of the Museum of Modern Art's most important exhibitions of the period, Twelve Americans (1956) and New American Painting (1958). He showed at the Stable Gallery, Kootz Gallery, Martha Jackson Gallery and others. During his lifetime Brooks enjoyed five traveling retrospective exhibitions.
Prizes and awards included Carnegie Institute's Pittsburgh International Exhibition 5th prize for painting (1952), The Art Institue of Chicago's 62nd American Exhibition Logan Medal and Prize for Painting (1957) and 64th American Exhibition Harris Prize (1961), The National Arts Club Medal (1985), and a citation of appreciation for Flight from The North Beach Club Marine Air Terminal, LaGuardia Airport (1986).
Brooks taught for nearly three decades: drawing at Columbia University (1947-1948) and lettering at Pratt Institute (1948-1955); was a visiting critic, Yale University (1955-1960), University of Pennsylvania (1971-1972), and Cooper Union (1975); and served on the Queens College faculty (1966-1969). In addition, he was an artist-in-residence at The American Academy in Rome (1963), the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (1969), and a National Endowment for the Humanities Grant (1973).
Brooks developed Alzheimer's disease around 1985 and died in East Hampton, New York in 1992.
Charlotte Park graduated from the Yale School of Fine Art (1939) and during World War II, when working in Washington, D.C., she met James Brooks. They moved to New York City in 1945, where she studied with Australian artist Wallace Harrison. Park taught children's art classes at several private schools in the early 1950s and at the Museum of Modern Art, 1955-1967.
Park's approach to Abstract Expressionism featured curved or linear shapes with vibrant colors and dynamic brushstrokes. Tanager Gallery presented her first solo show in 1957 and her work was included in numerous group exhibitions from the 1950s through 2000s, mainly in New York City and Long Island. After Park's second solo exhibition, held in 1973 at Elaine Benson Gallery, Bridgehampton, New York, interest in her work revived; other one-person shows followed at Guild Hall (1979), Ingber Gallery (1980), and paired with James Brooks at Louise Himelfarb Gallery. The National Institute of Arts and Letters honored Park with its Art Award in 1974. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Parrish Art Museum, Guild Hall Museum, Telfair Museum of Art, and in many private collections.
Charlotte Park died in 2010.
Related Materials:
Also among the Archives of American Art's holdings are letters from James Brooks and Sean Scully, 1980-1989 addressed to Theodora ["Teddy"] S. Greenbaum, and an oral history interview with James Brooks conducted by Dorothy Seckler, 1965 June 10 and June 12.
Separated Materials:
Correspondence, interview transcripts, photographs, and printed material were loaned by James Brooks for microfilming in 1969 (reel N69-132). With the exception of an address book, a scrapbook, and a few photographs, Brooks donated almost all of the loan in 1979.
Provenance:
The majority of the collection was donated in 2013 by the James Brooks and Charlotte Brooks Foundation and an additional 1.4 linear feet donated 2017 by the Foundation. In 1979 James Brooks donated most of the material lent for microfilming in 1969.
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 audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more information.
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
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.
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
