An interview with Julie Ault conducted 2017 November 14 and 16, by Theodore Kerr, for the Archives of American Art's Visual Arts and the AIDS Epidemic: An Oral History Project, at a studio in Brooklyn, New York.
Ault speaks of the nature of memory and giving an oral history; her skepticism of linear narratives; leaving rural Maine for Washington, DC at age 17; her family history; her interest in popular culture and commercial culture as a teenager; disco and nightclubs in Washington and New York in the late 1970's; working a variety of day jobs in New York, including a telephone answering service; meeting Tim Rollins for the first time in Maine; her interest in conversation; her relationship to questions; the formation of Group Material in 1979; her relationship with Andres Serrano; Group Material's collaborative dynamic, and its effect on her personal development; the complexities of trying to write or tell history; the shifting configurations and contexts of Group Material over 17 years of activity; mounting, and thinking critically about, individual exhibitions after Group Material; the first AIDS Timeline in 1989; the ephemerality of the Timeline; book projects as a means of depositing personal memories; her first memories of the AIDS crisis beginning in 1983; Group Material's Democracy and AIDS series at Dia in 1988; investigating the tension between art and activism in the context of HIV/AIDS; Karen Ramspacher's entry and contributions to Group Material; the initial decision to employ the form of a timeline and four arenas of research; different audience relationships and reactions to the Timeline; the collaborative process of creating the Timeline; losing NEA funding after the Timeline, amid the early '90s culture wars; Group Material's second exhibition of AIDS Timeline in 1990; her friendship with Felix Gonzalez-Torres; Group Material's third exhibition of AIDS Timeline in 1991; the Macho Man, Tell It To My Heart exhibition; and an acknowledgement of topics that could not be covered in the interview. Ault also recalls Doug Ashford, Vikky Alexander, Yolanda Hawkins, Mundy McLaughlin, Sarat Maharaj, Gertrud Sandqvist, Marybeth Nelson, Patrick Brennan, Hannah Alderfer, Peter Szypula, Sabrina Locks, Larry Rinder, Richard Meyer, Bill Olander, Marcia Tucker, Gary Garrels, Charles Wright, Frank Wagner, Martin Beck, Nayland Blake, Anne Pasternak, Mary Anne Staniszewski, John Lindell, Tom Kalin, Donald Moffett, Marlene McCarty, Jochen Klein, Lisa Phillips, Andrea Miller-Keller, Steven Evans, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Julie Ault (1957- ) is an artist, writer, and curator in New York, New York. Theodore Kerr (1979- ) is a writer and organizer in New York, New York.
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 Dorothy Miller conducted 1970 May 26-1971 Sept. 28, by Paul Cummings, for the Archives of American Art.
Miller speaks of her childhood and family background; the beginning of her career in museums; her first trip to Europe; the Depression and its effect on the art world; the establishment of the WPA Federal Art Project; the scandal over the Diego Rivera mural in Rockefeller Center; getting started with the Museum of Modern Art in its early years; working with Alfred Barr; early exhibitions at the MOMA; meeting Mark Tobey and Morris Graves; meeting Holger Cahill; Cahill's background; Cahill's involvement with the WPA Federal Art Project, and the Project's early years; post-war changes in American art and the post-war years at the MOMA; Shaker design; some of her colleagues at the MOMA.
She recalls Duncan Phillips, Rene D'Harnoncourt, Jackson Pollock, Edward M.M. Warburg, Nelson Rockefeller, Mark Rothko, Louise Nevelson, Alexander Calder, Lyonel Feininger, Walker Evans, and Edwin Dickinson.
Biographical / Historical:
Dorothy C. Miller (1904-2003) was an art museum curator from New York, N.Y.
General:
Originally recorded on 10 sound tape reel. Reformatted in 2010 as 18 digital wav files. Duration is 20 hrs., 42 min.
Provenance:
These interviews are part of the Archives' 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 others.
Restrictions:
Transcript: Available on microfilm.
Topic:
Art museum curators -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews Search this
The papers of New York-based curator and art consultant Richard D. Marshall measure 15.8 linear feet and 26.07 GB and date from 1969-2014. The interviews, exhibitions and research files, client files, other professional files, printed material, photographic material of artwork, and born-digital material primarily reflect Marshall's work outside his role at the Whitney Museum. The exhibition and research files make up the bulk of the collection and document his independent curatorial and writing projects on artists Jean-Michel Basquiat, Alexander Calder, Robert Mapplethorpe, Jack Pierson, and Ed Ruscha, as well as his role in building the Lever House Art Collection. Sound and video recordings are also found in the collection, primarily with interviews and exhibition and research material.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of New York-based curator and art consultant Richard D. Marshall measure 15.8 linear feet and 26.07 GB and date from 1969-2014. The interviews, exhibitions and research files, client files, other professional files, printed material, photographic material of artwork, and digital material predominantly reflect Marshall's work outside his role at the Whitney Museum. Sound and video recordings are also found in the collection, primarily with interviews and exhibition and research material.
Thirteen interviews with artists are in the form of transcripts and sound recordings. Interviews are with many artists that Marshall had organized exhibitions for, including Louise Bourgeois, Robert Mapplethorpe, Ed Ruscha, and many featured in the exhibition New Image Painting at the Whitney in 1978.
Exhibition and research files may contain correspondence with artists, galleries, and museums; writings and notes; printed and research material; press packages; photographic material; and administrative documentation related to exhibition logistics, such as floors plans, items lists, consignment records, and shipping receipts. The most robust files and groups of files relate to the artists that Marshall worked with repeatedly over the course of his career, including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Alexander Calder, Robert Mapplethorpe, Joan Mitchell, Georgia O'Keeffe, Jack Pierson, and Ed Ruscha. Files relating to the Lever House Art Collection are also found here. The series contains sound and video recordings, as well as digital records containing broadcasts, documentaries, exhibition related material, writings, photographic material, and promotional material about artists from galleries.
Client files include correspondence, invoices, photographic material, floor plans, digital records, and other documentation related to Marshall's business as an independent art consultant.
Other professional files consists of business cards, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) Board of Trustee's files, and photographic material Marshall accumulated as art editor of the Paris Review.
Printed and digital material consists of books, exhibition announcements, catalogs, press packages, posters, and other material. Material relates to artists and movements Marshall was interested in.
Photographic material is of artworks and is largely unsorted and not identified with any specific project. Formats include black and white photographs, slides, digital photographs, and transparencies.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as seven series
Series 1: Interviews, 1972-2009 (0.4 linear feet; Box 1, 0.173 GB; ER01)
Series 2: Exhibition and Research Files, circa 1970-2014 (11.5 linear feet; Box 1-12, OV 17-19, 23.40 GB; ER02-ER49)
Series 3: Client Files, 1998-2014 (1.5 linear feet; Box 12-14, 0.077 GB; ER50-ER51)
Series 4: Other Professional Files, circa 1980-2014 (0.9 linear feet; Box 14)
Series 5: Printed Material, 1969-2014 (0.5 linear feet; Box 15, OV 20, 2.27 GB; ER52)
Series 6: Photographic Material, 1990s-2000s (0.9 linear feet; Box 15-16, 0.145 GB; ER53)
Series 7: Unidentified Electronic Records, circa 2005 (1 folder; 1 folder)
Biographical / Historical:
Richard D. Marshall (1947-2014) was a New York-based curator and art consultant. Born in Los Angeles, Marshall attended the University of California, Irvine, and in 1973 moved to New York to attend the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum. He then became a curator at the Whitney from 1974-1993, organizing many biennials and solo exhibitions. While at the Whitney, Marshall also worked as art editor of the Paris Review (1975-1990), and organized exhibitions at other institutions of artists including Louise Bourgeois, Alexander Calder, and Robert Mapplethorpe. In 2003, he became curator of The Lever House Art Collection in New York, and worked with collectors Aby Rosen and Alberto Mugrabi to commission works for the lobby of the building by Tom Sachs, Urs Fischer, Liza Lou, Paula Hayes, and others. Marshall has also published monographs on Ed Ruscha, Jack Pierson, Alex Katz, Georgie O'Keeffe, Joan Mitchell, and Kenny Scharf.
Provenance:
Donated in 2015 by the Richard D. Marshall Estate, via William T. Georgis, executor.
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 with no duplicate access copy 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.
Occupation:
Art consultants -- New York -- New York Search this
The papers of contemporary and folk art curator, historian, and consultant Dorothy C. Miller measure 34.6 linear feet and date from 1853-2013, with the bulk of the material dating from 1920 to 1996. The papers primarily concern Miller's private art consulting work outside of her curatorial work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Found are scattered biographical materials, extensive correspondence and subject files, and project files for her art consulting work for the Rockefeller family, Rockefeller University, Chase Manhattan Bank, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the World Trade Center, and other miscellaneous corporate and private clients. Miller's work as a trustee and committee member of various public and private boards and commissions is also represented here. Additionally, the papers contain Miller's research files on Edward Hicks and folk art, and a small number of files of her husband Holger Cahill about his work as Director of the Federal Art Project. There is a scattered documentation of Miller's early curatorial work with Holger Cahill on the First Municipal Art Exhibition (1934) held at the RCA Building in Rockefeller Center. Also found is Dorothy Miller's collection of artists' Christmas cards and photographs of Miller and others. An addition to the papers includes biographical material; family papers; correspondence; professional files; art collection and client files; printed material; and photographic material. While a small number professional files are included, the majority of the addition relates to her personal life, including correspondence with her husband Holger Cahill, and files pertaining to her personal art collection.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of contemporary and folk art curator, historian, and consultant Dorothy C. Miller measure 34.6 linear feet and date from 1853-2013, with the bulk of the material dating from 1920 to 1996. The papers primarily concern Miller's art consulting work outside of her curatorial work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York city. Found are scattered biographical materials, extensive correspondence and subject files, and project files for her art consulting work for the Rockefeller family, Rockefeller University, Chase Manhattan Bank, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and other miscellaneous corporate and private clients. Her work as a trustee and committee member of various public and private boards and commissions is also represented here. Additionally, the papers contain Miller's research files on Edward Hicks and folk art, and a small number of files related to Miller's husband Holger Cahill and his work as Director of the Federal Art Project. There is important documentation of Miller's early curatorial work with Holger Cahill on the First Municipal Art Exhibition (1934) held at the RCA Building in Rockefeller Center. Artwork includes scattered sketches and drawings enclosed with correspondence and original Christmas cards sent to Miller by various artists. Photographs of Miller date from 1926 - circa 1950.
Scattered biographical material mostly concerns Miller's education at Smith College and awards and honorary degrees that she received. Extensive correspondence and subject files document her professional and personal relationships with family, friends, colleagues, museums, art dealers and artists, as well as her research interests. Individual files may contain a mix of correspondence with, as well as about, the person or subject, compiled research documents, printed materials, and scattered photographs. Files are found for Lewin Alcopley, Alfred Barr, Betty Parsons Gallery, Cahill family members, Lee Bontecou, James Byars, Holger Cahill, Alexander Calder, Christo, Chryssa, Calvert Coggeshall, John Canaday, Maryette Charlton, Stuart Davis, Jay DeFeo, Lorser Feitelson, Arshile Gorky, Peggy Guggenheim, Grace Hartigan, Will Horwitt, Jasper Johns, Julien Levy, Pierre Matisse, Louise Nevelson, Barnett Newman, Isamu Nauchi, Georgia O'Keeffe, Pablo Picasso, Robert Rauschenberg, Ad Reinhardt, Kay Sage, Charles Sheeler, Hedda Sterne, travel, Clyfford Still, William Scharf, among many others.
Detailed records of Miller's art consulting and advisory work for the Rockefeller family include correspondence with Nelson A. Rockefeller and David Rockefeller about building their personal collections of contemporary and folk art, meeting notes and minutes, research notes and writings, and printed materials. The largest group of records concerns the writing and publication of The Nelson A. Rockefeller Collection: Masterpieces of Modern Art. Miller's curatorial work for David Rockefeller and the Rockefeller University's Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Hall art collection is documented in Series 4 through curatorial files, correspondence, printed materials, photographs and slides, artists files, and design records.
Series 5 contains files relating to Miller's work as the first art consutant to the Chase Manhattan Bank and the building of the corporation's extensive collection of contemporary art. There is a draft of Miller's text for the bank's published catalog, Art At Work: Chase Manhattan Bank Collection. A smaller set of records is found in Series 6 documenting Miller's work on the Art Committee of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, including files about selecting artwork for the World Trade Center during the early 1970s. Files concerning Miller's advisory work with additional public and private clients, boards, and commissions are arranged in Series 7 and 8 and concern the Amstar Corporation, Fidelity International Bank, First National Bank of Tampa, First National City Bank, Inmont Corporation, Pepsico, United Mutual Savings Bank, the Empire State Plaza Art Commission, the Hancock Shaker Village, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Mark Rothko Foundation, the Museum of American Folk Art, and the Smith College Museum of Art.
Miller's papers include a small group of files relating to the WPA Federal Art Project (FAP)created by her husband Holger Cahill when he was director of the FAP, Holger Cahill. A small series is devoted to Miller's work with Eleanore Price Mather researching and writing Edward Hicks: His Peaceable Kingdom and Other Paintings. A series of general research files contain miscellaneous research notes and photographs related to Miller's interests in early American art and folk art. Series 12 contains important documentation of Miller's early curatorial work with Holger Cahill on the First Municipal Art Exhibition (1934) held at the RCA Building in Rockefeller Center.
Works of art are primarily in the form of Christmas cards sent to Miller by various artists including Elise Asher, Lyonel Feininger, Bernard Karpel, and Irene Rice Pereira. A small group of photographs includes photographs of Miller from 1926-circa 1950 and a few photographs of others.
The addition includes biographical material; family papers; correspondence; professional files; art collection and client files; printed material; and photographic material. While a small number of professional files are found here, the majority of material relates to Miller's personal life, including correspondence with her husband Holger Cahill, and files pertaining to her personal art collection. Scattered correspondence, inventories, research, and notes created by curator and donor of the papers, Wendy Jeffers, are found throughout the collection. These materials date from the 1980s-2000s.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 15 series:
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1917-1986 (Box 1; 0.3 linear ft.)
Series 2: Correspondence and Subject Files, circa 1912-1992 (Boxes 1-8, OV 27; 7.2 linear ft.)
Series 3: Rockefeller Family Art Collections, circa 1949-1985 (Boxes 8-12, 25; 3.9 linear ft.)
Series 4: Rockefeller University Collection, 1923-1984 (Boxes 12-13, OV 27; 1.0 linear ft.)
Series 5: Chase Manhattan Bank Collection, 1959-circa 1985 (Boxes 13-14, 26; 1.4 linear ft.)
Series 6: Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Art Committee, circa 1965-1987 (Boxes 14-15, OV 27; 0.8 linear ft.)
Series 7: Other Corporate and Private Clients, 1968-1984 (Boxes 15-16; 1.3 linear ft.)
Series 8: Other Boards, Committees and Commissions, 1925, 1949-1985 (Boxes 16-20; 3.6 linear ft.)
Series 9: Works Project Administration Federal Art Project Files, 1935-1979 (Box 20, OV 27; 0.5 linear ft.)
Series 10: Edward Hicks Catalog, 1934-1984 (Boxes 20-22; 1.5 linear ft.)
Series 11: Research Files, 1930s-1980 (Boxes 22-23; 0.8 linear ft.)
Series 12: Exhibition Files, 1932-1986 (Box 23; 0.6 linear ft.)
Series 13: Works of Art, circa 1924-circa 1982 (Boxes 23-25; 1.5 linear ft.)
Series 14: Photographs, 1926-circa 1970s (Boxes 24-25; 0.3 linear ft.)
Series 15: Addition to the Dorothy C. Miller Papers, 1853-2003, bulk 1920-1996 (Boxes 28-38, OVs 39-41; 9.9 linear ft.)
Biographical Note:
Dorothy Canning Miller (1904-2003) worked in New York City as a highly influential curator of contemporary and folk art at the Museum of Modern Art and as the first curator of the museum. Later, she was the primary art consultant for Nelson A. Rockefeller, the Rockefeller family, Rockefeller University, Chase Manhattan Bank, and the Port Authority of and New Jersey. Dorothy Miller was also married to Holger Cahill, director of the WPA Federal Art Project.
Dorothy C. Miller was born in Hopedale, Massachusetts in 1904 and received her Bachelor of Arts from Smith College in 1925. She was first introduced to modern art through classes at the Newark Museum taught by John Cotton Dana and Holger Cahill. Miller joined the curatorial staff of the Newark Museum in 1926. The museum was one of the first to organize exhibitions of American folk art, American Primitives (1930-1931) and American Folk Sculpture (1931-1932). Miller worked with Cahill and others on the exhibition and developed a life-long interest in folk art.
After four years at the Newark Museum, Miller moved to New York city, hoping to get involved with the newly opened Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), and, likely, to be with Holger Cahill, with whom she lived with on 8th Street prior to their marriage in 1938. Between 1930 and 1932 she took odd jobs and worked with Mrs. Henry Lang cataloging, researching and installing Lang's collection of Native American art Lang donated to the Montclair Art Museum. At the same time, Holger Cahill was serving as Acting Director of the Museum of Modern Art during an absence of Director Alfred H. Barr. In 1932, Cahill asked Miller to assist him with curating the American Painting and Sculpture, 1862-1932 exhibition at MoMA, and together they also curated the First Municipal Art Exhibition, 1934 at the Rockefeller Center.
In 1934, Barr hired Miller as his assistant and one year later appointed her as MoMA's first curator. Miller spent the next 35 years organizing many of this country's most important exhibitions of contemporary art and building personal relationships with new artists and photographers, as well as the collections of MoMA. Miller retired from MOMA in 1969 and focused more on her art consulting work begun in the late 1950s.
Dorothy Miller's most notable client was Nelson A. Rockefeller. She assisted and advised Rockefeller as he acquired a vast personal collection of modern art - some of which was later donated to MoMA. Just prior to her retirement, Miller organized a large exhibition of Rockefeller's collection. The exhibition catalog written by Miller was the basis for the book she worked on with Rockefeller up until and following his death in 1979, ultimately published as The Nelson A. Rockefeller Collection: Masterpieces of Modern Art. In the preface, Rockefeller credited Miller with being one of the four people to whom he was indebted "for the understanding and endless joy I have found in the collecting of modern art in all forms."
Miller also served as the primary art consultant for projects to furnish federal spaces, including Henry Kissinger's State Department office suite, and the official Vice-Presidential residence at the Admiral's House in Washington D.C.
In 1959 Miller was invited to join the art collection committee of the Chase Manhattan Bank and served on the committee until the mid-1980s, contributing her expertise to the development of one of this country's oldest and largest corporate collections of modern and contemporary art.
Miller was also an advisor to other members of the Rockefeller family, including David Rockefeller, and assisted with developing the art collections of Rockefeller Institute/University. From 1960 through the late 1980s Miller was a member of the art committee for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANJY) and was responsible for selecting much of the artwork for the World Trade Center in the 1970s. She served on numerous boards and commissions, including the Hancock Shaker Village, the Smithsonian Institution's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Empire State Plaza in Albany, Smith College Museum of Art, and the Museum of American Folk Art. She also became a member of the Mark Rothko Foundation Board of Directors after the litigation following Rothko's death between Rothko's executors and his daughter.
In the mid-1970s Miller assisted the Whitney Museum of American with planning an exhibition and supporting catalog of the work of folk artist Edward Hicks. Although the exhibition and catalog were only partially realized in 1980, Miller and Eleanore Price Mather compiled and published a book on Hicks, Edward Hicks: His Peaceable Kingdoms and Other Paintings, published in 1983.
In 1982-1983 Miller received the Art Dealers Association Special Award, an honorary degree from Williams College, and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture governor's award. In 1984 she was named honorary trustee of the Museum of Modern Art. In 1985 the Smith College Museum of Art honored her important contributions to museum connoisseurship with the exhibition Dorothy C. Miller: With An Eye to American Art.
Dorothy Miller died in 2003 at the age of 99 at her home in Greenwich, New York.
Related Material:
The Archives of American Art holds two oral history interviews with Dorothy C. Miller. The first was conducted by Paul Cummings between May 26, 1970 and September 28, 1971, and details Miller's life from childhood up to, and including, her years at the Museum of Modern Art. The second was conducted by Avis Berman on May 14, 1981 and covers Miller's relationships with Mark Rothko and Clyfford Still. Also found among the holdings of the Archives are the papers of Holger Cahill, Dorothy Miller's husband and colleague.
The Museum of Modern Art Achives holds Dorothy Miller's papers related to her curatorial work at the museum.
Provenance:
The collection was donated by Dorothy C. Miller via Wendy Jeffers between 1986 and 1997, and Reid White, Executor of Miller's estate, in 2004. Two subsequent additions were donated by Wendy Jeffers in 2014 and 2015.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Occupation:
Art historians -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The Jack Lenor Larsen papers measure 3.7 linear feet and date from 1941-2003. Larsen was a renowned weaver and designer, entrepreneur, and a scholar who wrote and lectured on modernist design. His career in the New York design world is documented by biographical materials, correspondence, writings by and about him, various printed materials and photographs.
Scope and Content Note:
The Jack Lenor Larsen papers measure 3.7 linear feet and date from 1941-2003. Larson was a renowned weaver and designer, entrepreneur, and a scholar who wrote and lectured on modernist design. His career in the New York design world is documented by biographical materials, correspondence, writings by and about him, various printed materials and photographs.
Found are biographical materials and artifacts including items from his early years, 4 volumes of daily planners and numerous awards. Correspondence includes letters from notables such as Isamu Noguchi, Walter F. Mondale, and various craft artists such as Helen W. Drutt English, Magdalena Abakanowicz, and Beatrice Wood, and author Hannah Tillich, widow of Paul Tillich. Business correspondence is from museums, professional societies, magazines and other organizations such as the Josef Albers Foundation. Larsen also curated textile exhibitions and there are records pertaining to these exhibitions.
There are a substantial number of writings, lectures and speeches by Larsen, and proofs of a book he co-authored with Mildred Constantin, Beyond Craft: The Art of Fabric. Also found are writings about Larsen and 3 interviews with him including a 1965 videotaped interview, 2 transcribed interviews, and an audio tape of Larsen's talk "Personal Perspective," presented at a conference of the American Craft Council.
Photographs show Larsen and his employees at work and at professional events. Photographs removed from albums retain their original order. Lastly, there are printed materials include catalogs and announcements, newspaper and magazine clippings, and press and promotional materials.
Arrangement:
The Jack Lenor Larsen papers are organized into 7 series based primarily on record type and arranged chronologically.
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1941-2001, (Box 1, 5; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1958-2003, (Box 1; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 3: Exhibition Records, 1986-1990, (Boxes 1-2; 0.7 linear feet)
Series 4: Writings, 1950-2003, (Boxes 2-3; 1.3 linear feet)
Series 5: Photographs, 1970-1992, (Box 3, 5; 0.5 linear feet)
Series 6: Printed Material, 1972-2002, (Boxes 4-5; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 7: Audio Recordings, 1965, (Box 4; 0.1 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Jack Lenor Larsen (b. 1927), based in New York and of international reputation, has been deeply involved in the design of hand woven fabric and its application to modernist interior design. An international entrepreneur, Larsen also has written books on design and has been a frequent lecturer.
Larsen was born in Seattle, Washington to parents of Canadian/Scandinavian descent; his father was a building contractor. Larsen studied architecture at the University of Washington and became interested in materials design, receiving his M.F.A. from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan in 1951. Following graduation, he opened a studio in New York and established Jack Lenor Larsen Incorporated. Just months later, Larsen successfully competed for the commission to design draperies for the important glass walled Lever House building on Park Avenue designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill.
Larsen was highly successful in marketing his ideas and innovations, which included combining metallic thread with natural polished linen and hand woven fabrics consisting of varied yarns in random and repeating patterns. This later style of fabric became known as the "Larsen Look" and was synonymous with modern design. Larsen's firm successfully adapted technological advances to fabric design but also used ancient techniques; they were first to design fabrics for jet air planes, stretch upholsestry and printed velvets.
In 1958-1960, Larsen represented the United States Department of State in Vietnam and Taiwan, studying those countries' crafts with the goal of developing industry to create jobs and products for export. Larsen then saw the opportunity for international fabric design and production. He travelled to Latin America, Africa and Asia to study local crafts and weaving with an eye towards business opportunites, focusing on hand spun and hand woven silks. By the 1990s Larsen was producing fabric in over 30 countries. In 1997, Jack Lenor Larsen, Inc. merged with the British fabric house, Cowtan and Tout and became the United States subsidiary of the British company, Colefax and Fowler.
Many museums have collected and/or exhibited Larsen fabrics. Notable among them are The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Musee des Arts Decoratifs (in the Louvre Museum), Museum of Modern Art, Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. In addition, Larsen is the author of several books relating to fabric and fabric design including Material Wealth: Living with Luxurious Fabrics (an international survey of contemporary fabric design) and an autobiography, Jack Lenor Larsen: A Weaver's Memoir.
Provenance:
The records were donated to the Archives in 2004 by Jack Lenor Larsen in connection with the Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy 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.
Occupation:
Weavers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Topic:
Textile design -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The papers of art historian and museum educator Ruth Bowman are dated 1936-2006, bulk 1963-1999, and measure 26.7 linear feet and 21.99 GB. Professional correspondence and subject files document Bowman's relationships with colleagues and reflect her interests, activities including curatorial work, and accomplishments as a museum educator. Writings and related research materials include her thesis,"Thomas Pollock Anshutz, 1851-1912" (M.A., Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 1971), and unfinished projects. Also found are interviews conducted by Bowman with a wide range of individuals for a variety of purposes.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of art historian and museum educator Ruth Bowman are dated 1936-2006, bulk 1963-1999, and measure 26.7 linear feet and 21.99 GB. Professional correspondence and subject files document Bowman's relationships with colleagues and reflect her interests, activities including curatorial work, and accomplishments as a museum educator. Writing and related research materials include her thesis, "Thomas Pollock Anshutz, 1851-1912" (M.A., Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 1971), and unfinished projects. Also found are interviews conducted by Bowman with a wide range of individuals for a variety of purposes.
Biographical materials consist of certificates, resumes, and a few photographs of Ruth Bowman. Correspondence concerns Bowman's professional activities and interests. Among the most frequent correspondents are: American Association of Museums, Craft and Folk Art Museum (Los Angeles), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and The Museum of Modern Art.
Subject files--general subjects, artists' files, Ruth Bowman activities, and "Sunrise Semester"--contain the majority of Bowman's professional correspondence along with printed material, writings, photographs, and sound recordings. Among the most thoroughly documented general subjects are: The Brooklyn Museum's Trustees Retreat, Canadian Museums Association, a 1981 Craft Symposium, International Network for the Arts, Long Beach Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, "Museum Directors' Forum", New York University Art Collection, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Council for the Arts. Artists' files are comprised mainly of printed material with a small amount of correspondence and some photographs. The Les Levine file consists of the first issue of Art-Rite featuring a brief article about Levine on its cover; Thomas Wilfred's file includes information about Lumia. Ruth Bowman activities include lectures, radio and television appearances, and participation in professional events. "Sunrise Semester," a collaboration between CBS television and New York University, offered early morning courses for college credit. Ruth Bowman was the instructor for "20th Century American Art," which is documented by general information, scripts, and sound recordings of all 46 classes.
Interviews conducted by Bowman are with English museum administrators and educators; people knowledgeable about a controversial proposal for an Annenberg Fine Arts Center at The Metropolitan Museum of Art; guests on KUSC radio shows "Sounds of Seeing" and "Live from Trump's"; and guests on the WNYC radio program "Views on Art." Interviews with miscellaneous individuals include Josef Albers, Hans Burkhardt, Carl Holty, Isamu Noguchi, and Helen Farr Sloan. Bowman interviewed a dozen American abstract artists, including Ilya Bolotowsky, Rosalind Bengelsdorf Browne, Burgoyne Diller, John Ferren, Carl Holty, Harry Holtzman, Ibram Lassaw, Jacques Lipchitz, Alice Mason, George McNeil, George L. K. Morris, and Ad Reinhardt for a thesis on the subject, but eventually wrote on a different topic. Two interviews with Bowman were conducted by Duncan MacDonald and an unidentified interviewer.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged as 5 series:
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1964-1984 (Box 1; 0.1 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1963-1996 (Box 1; 0.7 linear feet)
Series 3: Writings and Related Research, 1942-1999 (Boxes 1-3; 1.5 linear feet)
Series 4: Subject Files, 1936-2006 (Boxes 3-12, 26; 9.6 linear feet)
Series 5: Interviews, 1963-1989 (Boxes 12-25; 9.2 linear feet, ER01-ER70; 21.99 GB)
Biographical / Historical:
Ruth Bowman (b. 1923) is an art historian and museum educator who worked in New York City and Los Angeles. She is known for her interest in using new communications technology for museum education, discovering Arshile Gorky's long forgotten murals at Newark Airport, and expertise in the work of Thomas Anshutz.
A graduate of Bryn Mawr College (B.A. 1944), where she had studied art history and classical archaeology, Ruth Bowman began a museum career in New York as an assistant curator at the Jewish Museum in the early 1960s. From 1963-1974 Ruth Bowman served as curator of the York University Art Collection and was involved in its transition to the Grey Art Gallery and Study Center. Bowman wrote her master's thesis on Philadelphia artist Thomas Pollock Anshutz and received a degree from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University in 1971. During this same period, she was a staff lecturer at The Museum of Modern Art and taught art history in divisions of New York University. She was the instructor for a "Sunrise Semester" 20th century American art course broadcast nationally on CBS.
In 1974 Bowman and her family moved to California and she began an association with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art as Director of Education. She attended summer courses in arts administration at Harvard University (1975) and similar training provided by the British Arts Council (1976). She taught at University of California Santa Barbara, as well as at California State University at Fullerton and Long Beach. Bowman was active in the Council of the American Association of Museums (vice president), the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles (vice president), and has served as a consultant to several museums and a corporate collection.
Ruth Bowman with her friend Harry Kahn (1916-1999) developed a collection of self-portraits by 20th century American artists, which she donated to the National Portrait Gallery in 2002. Mrs. Bowman is the widow of R. Wallace Bowman and currently resides in New York City.
Provenance:
Donated by Ruth Bowman in 2004.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
Rights:
Research material including correspondence, writings and notes, photographs, and printed material on Cezanne, Thomas Eakins, and Picasso: Authorization to publish, quote, or reproduce requires written permission from Ruth Bowman. Contact Reference Services for more information.
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Occupation:
Art historians -- California -- Los Angeles Search this
Art historians -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The papers of African American art historian, curator and art administrator, Lowery Stokes Sims, measure 24.5 linear feet and date from circa 1918-2017. Included are correspondence; photographs of Lowery and others at events; notes and journals;printed material; exhibition records and administrative records from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Museum of Art and Design and other organizations; VHS videos, DVD and audio cassettes of interviews with Sims regarding artists and exhibitions; and research files on artists.
Biographical / Historical:
Lowery Stokes Sims (1949-) is an African American art historian, curator and art administrator. Sims was the first African American Curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1972-1999), then served as Executive Director, President then Adjunct Curator of the Permanent Collection of The Studio Museum in Harlem (2000-2007), and Senior Curator and then Chief Curator of the Museum of Art and Design (2007-2015).
Provenance:
The collection was donated in 2019 by Lowery Stokes Sims as part of the Archives' African American Collecting Initiative funded by the Henry Luce Foundation.
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 access restricted; written permission is required. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Access, with permission, 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.
Occupation:
Art historians -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Arts administrators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Art museum curators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The papers of Louise Nevelson measure 30.5 linear feet and date from circa 1903 to 1988. The collection documents aspects of the life and work of the sculptor, focusing especially on her later career. Papers include correspondence, personal business records, writings, scrapbooks, early art work, photographs, interviews, awards and honorary degrees, books, and an extensive amount of printed material.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of Louise Nevelson measure 30.5 linear feet and date from circa 1903 to 1988. The collection documents aspects of the life and work of the sculptor, focusing especially on her later career. Papers include correspondence, personal business records, writings, scrapbooks, some of Nevelson's early art work, photographs, interviews, awards and honorary degrees, books, and an extensive amount of printed material.
Interviews, awards, and honorary degrees comprise a series of biographical material, along with scattered personal papers such as a graduation program, wedding announcement, teaching certificate, invitations, miscellaneous notes, and material relating to Nevelson's family. Correspondence consists of letters and enclosures from a wide range of professional contacts, including museums and art centers, universities, art associations, women's and charitable organizations, artists, and philanthropists, among others, concerning the exhibition, sale, and donation of Nevelson's art work, and her various arts-related activities, as well as some letters from friends and family. Correspondence can also be found amongst the subject files, which also include clippings, notes, printed and other material organized according to subject and relating to certain exhibitions, and various artistic and professional activities. Whether this organization originates with Nevelson, one of her assistants, or Archives staff is unknown.
Found amongst Nevelson's business records are consignment receipts, statements, correspondence, inventories, disposition cards, notebooks, and lists, stemming from her business dealings with the Martha Jackson Gallery and related matters, usually carried out by her assistant at the time. Business records relate in particular to the large and complex project of inventorying Nevelson's art work undertaken sometime in the early-1960s. Nevelson's writings consist of poems and poem fragments, a short-lived dream journal, scattered writings on art, and drafts from Dawns and Dusks: Taped Conversations with Diana MacKown by Louise Nevelson and Diana MacKown. Also found are a large number of scrapbooks and an extensive amount of printed material, which likely stem in large part from Nevelson's concern to document and keep a record of her accomplishments. Scrapbooks contain clippings, exhibition announcements and catalogs, and other material documenting Nevelson's early career from roughly the mid-1930s to the mid-1950s. Also included are loose items comprising a scrapbook of sorts on son Mike Nevelson and various scrapbooks compiled by others as mementos of particular events. Printed material includes an extensive amount of clippings and publications, exhibition catalogs and announcements, and a variety of other printed material relating or referring to Nevelson or merely featuring her name in print. Also included are several books, some of which are about or feature segments on Nevelson. This material documents both her critical and commercial success, and her role as personality and minor celebrity in the mass media later in her career, especially during the 1960s and 1970s.
Art work consists of early drawings and watercolors made by Nevelson as a child and adolescent and while studying art in high school and New York, which document her artistic tendencies as youth and her early development as an artist and which provide an interesting contrast to her later work in sculpture. Photographs include ones of the Berliawsky family and Nevelson as a child, adolescent, and young woman in the 1920s and 1930s before she became known as an artist; ones of Nevelson from the mid-1950s to the 1980s, once she had become known, and began to be honored, as an artist; and ones of Nevelson's art work, as well as of various exibitions and installations of her work. Also included are a number of slides of the artist and her art work, including photographs taken by Dorothy Dehner in the mid-1950s at Louise Nevelson's house on Thirtieth Street.
Arrangement:
The Louise Nevelson papers are arranged into nine series:
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1918-1985 (Boxes 1, 17, OV 21, 30, 31, Sol 42; 2.3 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1931-1984 (Boxes 1-2, 31-35, Sol 42; 6 linear feet)
Series 3: Subject Files, 1955-1988 (Box 3, 35-36; 1.7 linear feet)
Series 4: Business Records, 1946-1981 (Boxes 3-5, 36-38, Sol 42; 3.8 linear feet)
Series 5: Writings, 1936-1980 (Box 5, 38, Sol 42; 0.5 linear feet)
Series 6: Scrapbooks, 1935-1983 (Boxes 5, 18-19, OV 22-27, 38, Sol 42; 1.5 linear feet)
Series 7:Books and Printed Material, 1904-1985 (Boxes 6-13, 19, OV 28, 38-40, Sol 43; 9.5 linear feet)
Series 8: Art Work, 1905-1982 (Boxes 13, 20, 40, Sol 43; 0.5 linear feet)
Series 9: Photographs, circa 1903-1980s (Boxes 14-15, 20, OV 29, 40-41, Sol 43; 3.5 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Louise Nevelson was born in 1899 in Kiev, Russia. Her parents, Isaac and Minna Berliawsky, and their children emigrated to America in 1905 and settled in Rockland, Maine, where the young Louise grew up as a bit of an outsider in local society. She decided upon a career in art at an early age and took some drawing classes in high school, before graduating in 1918. Two years later, she married Charles Nevelson, a wealthy businessman, and moved to New York. She proceeded to study painting, drawing, singing, acting, and eventually dancing. In 1922, Nevelson gave birth to a son, Myron (later called Mike). She eventually separated from her husband in the winter of 1932-1933; and they divorced officially in 1941.
Beginning in 1929, Nevelson began to study art full-time at the Art Students League, where she took classes with Kenneth Hayes Miller and Kimon Nicolaides. In 1931, she went to Europe and studied with Hans Hofmann in Munich before traveling to Italy and France. She returned to New York in 1932 and again studied for a time with Hofmann, who was by now a guest instructor at the Art Students League. In 1933, she met Diego Rivera while he was in New York working on his mural for Rockefeller Center and casually worked as his assistant for a short period. Shortly thereafter, she began to work in sculpture and joined a sculpture class taught by Chaim Gross at the Educational Alliance. She continued to draw and paint, and even took up etching, lithography, and other techniques at different points in her career, but from this time on, she concentrated on sculpture. Her early sculptures were primarily in plaster, clay, and tattistone.
During the thirties, Nevelson exhibited in a number of group shows (both non-juried and competitive ones), garnering some recognition for her work. In 1935, she taught mural painting at the Flatbush Boys Club in Brooklyn, as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), then went on to work in the fine-arts division as an easel painter and sculptor until 1939. In 1941, Nevelson had her first solo exhibition at the Nierendorf Gallery, run by Karl Nierendorf who represented her until his death in 1947. Both this and a one-woman show the following year received favorable reviews. It was around this time that she discovered the decorated shoeshine box of Joe Milone, a local tradesman, and arranged to have it exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, an occasion which received much notice in the press.
In the 1940s, Nevelson produced a great many works in stone, bronze, terra cotta, and wood, most of them being cubist studies of the figure. In 1943, she had a show titled "The Clown as the Center of his World" at the Norlyst Gallery, which featured works on a circus theme constructed from discarded pieces of wood and other material. This new work was not very well received at the time, and it wasn't until the mid-1950s that she began to work with discarded and found objects on a regular basis.
During the early-1950s, Nevelson attempted to exhibit her work as often as possible, eventually receiving various prizes and notices for her work in the press. She continued to struggle financially though and began to teach sculpture classes in the adult education program of the Great Neck, Long Island public schools in order to make ends meet. In 1955, she joined he Grand Central Moderns Gallery, which was run by Colette Roberts, and had several one-woman shows there. These included: "Ancient Games and Ancient Places" in 1955, featuring Bride of the Black Moon, "The Forest" in 1957, featuring First Personage, and "Moon Garden + One" in 1958, featuring her first wall, Sky Cathedral. During this period, she was painting her wood black and putting together entirely black exhibits; she went on to create works in white and gold in the early-1960s. Around this time, she also began to enclose her small sculptures within wooden boxes.
Nevelson joined the Martha Jackson Gallery in 1958, where she received a guaranteed income and finally achieved a certain degree of financial security. Her first show at the gallery, "Sky Columns Presence," took place in the fall of 1959. In 1960, she had her first one-woman exhibition in Europe at the Galerie Daniel Cordier in Paris. Later that year, her work, grouped together as "Dawn's Wedding Feast," was included in the group show, "Sixteen Americans," at the Museum of Modern Art, alongside the work of Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenburg, and other younger artists. She made her first museum sale in 1962 when the Whitney Museum of American Art purchased the black wall, Young Shadows. That same year, Nevelson's work was selected for the thirty-first Biennale in Venice.
Over the years, Nevelson took on several assistants, including Teddy Haseltine, Tom Kendall, and Diana Mackown, to help in the studio and with daily affairs. She also participated in various artists' groups, and served as President of the New York Chapter of Artists' Equity from 1957 to 1958, and as President of the national organization from 1962 to 1964. She left the Martha Jackson Gallery in 1962, and after a brief, unhappy stint with the Sidney Janis Gallery, she joined the Pace Gallery, which was run by Arnold Glimcher, in the fall of 1963. She proceeded to have shows of new work there about every two years for the remainder of her career. She had her first museum retrospective at the Whitney Museum in 1967, which featured over a hundred of her works from her drawings from the 1930s to her latest constructions. And in 1968, she was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters. By this time, Nevelson had achieved both critical and commercial success as an artist.
Nevelson always experimented with new materials; she continued to construct her black wood walls, but also went on make constructions from aluminium, plastic, and metal. In the fall of 1969, she was commissioned by Princeton University to do a monumental outdoor sculpture in Cor-ten steel (her first), and went on to do commissioned works for the Philadelphia Federal Courthouse, and Chase Manhattan Bank in New York, among others. In 1973, the Walker Art Center organized a major exhibition of Nevelson work which traveled around the country over the next two years. In 1975, she designed the chapel for St. Peter's Lutheran Church in midtown Manhattan.
Nevelson was widely honored for her work during her lifetime. Over the years, she received honorary degrees from Rutgers University and Harvard University, among other schools, as well as numerous awards, including the Brandeis University Creative Arts Award in Sculpture and the Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture in 1971, the gold medal for sculpture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1983, and the National Medal of the Arts in 1985. By the time of her death on April 17, 1988, Nevelson was considered by and large one of the most important American sculptors of the twentieth century.
Sources consulted for this biographical note include Louise Nevelson: A Passionate Life by Laurie Lisle and Louise Nevelson by Arnold Glimcher.
Related Material:
Other resources relating to Louise Nevelson in the Archives include oral history interviews with Nevelson conducted by Dorothy Seckler, June 1964-January 14, 1964, and Arnold Glimcher, January 30, 1972. Also related are a 4 part untranscribed audio recording of an interview with Nevelson by Barbaralee Diamonstein, an audio recording of an interview with Nevelson conducted by Barbara Braun in 1983, and a video recording of Nevelson's 1958 exhibition installation at Grand Central Moderns gallery.
Provenance:
Donated 1966-1979 by Louise Nevelson and in 2018 by the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine via Michael Komanecky, Chief Curator. The Farnsworth Art Museum received the materials from Louise Nevelson, her son Mike Nevelson, brother Nathan Berliawksy, and others that were close to the artist.
Restrictions:
The bulk of this collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website, with the exception of the 2017 addition. Use of material not digitized requires an appointment.
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.
Topic:
Sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews Search this
Sculpture, Modern -- 20th century -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Women sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Interviews
Sketches
Scrapbooks
Citation:
Louise Nevelson papers, circa 1903-1982. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for a portion of the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art. Additional processing received Federal support from the Smithsonian Collections Care and Preservation Fund, administered by the National Collections Program and the Smithsonian Collections Advisory Committee.
The papers of art historian, curator, and professor Robert Rosenblum measure 38.3 linear feet and 1.17 GB and date from circa 1927 to 2009, with the bulk dating from 1950 to 2006. They include biographical material, extensive personal and professional correspondence; lectures, writings, and writing project files by Rosenblum and others; exhibition files; research reference files; teaching files; personal business records; printed and digital material; photographs; and artwork.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of art historian, curator, and professor Robert Rosenblum measure 38.3 linear feet and 1.17 GB and date from circa 1927 to 2009, with the bulk dating from 1950 to 2006. They include biographical material, extensive personal and professional correspondence; lectures, writings, and writing project files by Rosenblum and others; exhibition files; research reference files; teaching files; personal business records; printed and digital material; photographs; and artwork.
Biographical materials include Rosenblum's bibliography and resume materials, various school related ephemera and diplomas, a transcript of an interview with Amy Newman for Artforum, and a digital video recording of a Josef Levi interview. Extensive personal and professional correspondence is with friends, family, colleagues, publishers, museums, and others. Some of the correspondents include Melvin Becraft, the Guggenheim, Harry Abrams, Inc., Hilton Kramer, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the National Museum of American Art. Also found are numerous postcards.
Lectures, writings, and writing project files document Rosenblum's prolific writing and speaking career, and include notes, copies, and manuscript drafts of lectures, articles, catalog essays, and books, as well as additional materials related to the writings and the publication of books, such as as correspondence, editing feedback, photographs, and lists of photographs. There are manuscript, notes, and other materials related to many of Rosenblum's notable books, including Transformations in Late Eighteenth-Century Art, Paintings in the Musee D'Orsay, 19th-Century Art, The Dog in Art, Ingres, Modern Painting and the Northern Tradition, and others. Also found are Rosenblum's dissertation and other student writings. There is also a series containing writings by or about others, such as students and colleagues.
Rosenblum planned and facilitated numerous exhibitions that are well-documented within the exhibition files, including French Painting, 1774-1830: The Age of Revolution (1974), 1900: Art at the Crossroads (2000), Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the American People (2001), Best in Show: Dogs in Art from the Renaissance to the Present (2006), and Citizens and Kings: Portraits in the Age of Revolution, 1760-1830 (2007), among many others. Contents of each exhibition file vary considerably but often include correspondence, lists of artwork, proposals, notes, catalog drafts and outlines (see also series 3), and printed materials. There are a few sound cassettes, including a recorded interview with James Rosenquist with transcripts. Also included are digital photographs of Norman and Irma Braman Collection exhibition.
Research reference files cover a wide variety of art related topics, but are arranged within a separate series because they are not related to specific named projects as are the files in Series 3. These files contain research notes, bibliographies, and syllabi kept by Rosenblum presumably for a variety of publications, research interests, and teaching references.
Teaching files and class notes document Rosenblum's professorial career at Columbia University, New York University, Princeton University, University of Michigan, Yale College, and Yale University, and include a variety of course materials.
Personal business records consist of various financial and legal documents, expense and income records, publishing and speaking contracts, and royalties received.
The papers also include a variety of printed materials, photographs, student sketches by Rosenblum, and an unidentified collage.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 11 series.
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1927-2006 (0.5 linear feet; Box 1, 1.00 GB; ER02)
Series 2: Correspondence, circa 1927-2006 (4.5 linear feet; Boxes 1-5)
Series 3: Lectures, Writings, and Writing Project Files, 1940-2006 (13.5 linear feet; Boxes 5-16, OV 39-41, 0.063 GB; ER01)
Series 4: Writings by Others, circa 1954-2006 (2.9 linear feet; Boxes 16-19)
Series 5: Exhibition Files, circa 1965-circa 2006 (5.2 linear feet; Boxes 19-24, 0.109 GB; ER03)
Series 6: Research Files, circa 1927-2006 (2.9 linear feet; Boxes 24-27)
Series 7: Teaching Files and Class Notes, 1955-2006 (4.3 linear feet; Boxes 27-31)
Series 8: Personal Business Records, 1951-2009 (4.4 linear feet; Boxes 31-36)
Series 9: Printed Material, 1927-2009 (2.4 linear feet; Boxes 36-38)
Series 10: Photographs, circa 1950s-circa 2000 (0.3 linear feet; Box 38, OV 41)
Series 11: Artwork, circa 1940s-circa 1980s (0.1 linear feet; Box 38)
Biographical / Historical:
Robert Rosenblum (1927-2006) was an art historian, curator, and professor who worked primarily in New York City.
Rosenblum received his B.A. from Queens College, his M.A. from Yale, and his Ph.D. from the Institute of Fine Art at New York University in 1956. He spent a year teaching art at the University of Michigan before becoming an associate professor at Princeton, ultimately accepting a Professor of Fine Arts position at NYU in 1966, where he spent the rest of his professorial career interspersed with visiting professorships at Oxford University and Yale University. Rosenblum was named Henry Ittleson, Jr. Professor of Modern European Art at NYU in 1976, and received the Frank Jewett Mather Award for Distinction in Art Criticism in 1981. After being appointed Stephen and Nan Swid Curator of 20th-Century Art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1996, Rosenblum went on to curate such exhibitions as 1900: Art at the Crossroads (2000) and Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the American People (2001). Prior to this appointment, he was one of the organizers of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's French Painting, 1774-1830: The Age of Revolution (1974). He received a Distinguished Teaching Award from NYU in 2005, and continued to curate, lecture, teach, and write.
Rosenblum was a prolific author, and his seminal works include: Cubism and Twentieth-Century Art (1959), Transformations in Late Eighteenth-Century Art (1967), Modern Painting and the Northern Romantic Tradition: Friedrich to Rothko (1975), and 19th-Century Art (co-authored with H.W. Janson, 1984).
Rosenblum married Jane Kaplowitz in 1978. He died in New York City in 2006.
Provenance:
The papers were donated in multiple accessions by Robert Rosenblum between 1986 and 2003, and by his widow, Jane Kaplowitz between 2010 and 2013.
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 electronic media with no duplicate access copy 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.
Occupation:
Art historians -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
An interview with Marguerite Van Cook, conducted 2016 September 19 and 21, by Alex Fialho, for the Archives of American Art's Visual Arts and the AIDS Epidemic: An Oral History Project, at the Visual AIDS office in New York, New York.
Interview with Marguerite Van Cook, conducted by Alex Fialho for the Archives of American Art, at the Visual AIDS office in New York, New York on September 19 and 21, 2016. Van Cook speaks of her childhood in Portsmouth, England and summers in France; early exposure to the arts; early sexual experiences; moving to Newcastle and forming the punk band The Innocents; moving to New York with the band; curating shows and installations and starting Ground Zero Gallery with her husband James Romberger; the devastation of the AIDS crisis on her East Village social milieu; advocating for HIV-positive homeless people; her body of visual and audiovisual artwork; raising her child during the AIDS crisis; being diagnosed, along with with Romberger, with meningitis and HIV in the mid-1990s; her current work as a doctoral candidate in French literature; her body of work as a writer; her experience of long-term HIV survivorship; and her reflections on living with HIV as a woman. Van Cook also recalls Edward Brennan, Martin Botha, Sarah Hall, Jamie Reid, Russ Meyer, Fiona Barry, Greg Van Cook, Martin Wong, Karen Finley, David Wojnarowicz, Michael Von Ofak, Luis Frangella, Keiko Bonk, Walter Robinson, Grace Borgenicht, Leonard Abrams, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Interviewee Marguerite Van Cook (1954- ) is an artist, writer, and performer in New York, New York. Interviewer Alex Fialho (1989- ) is a curator and arts writer who is the Programs Director for Visual AIDS in New York, New York.
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 Marcia Tucker conducted 1978 August 11-September 8, by Paul Cummings, for the Archives of American Art.
Ms. Tucker speaks of many aspects of her life. She starts with the incredible poverty she has experienced at times as a young girl and a married woman. She recalls her work with women's organizations and tells us she was in at the start of the women's movement in the USA. She talks about the people she has met, her time in France, her work as a curator at the Whitney and starting the New Museum.
Biographical / Historical:
Marcia Tucker (1940-2006) art historian and curator of New York, N.Y.
General:
Sound quality of the first tape is poor.
Originally recorded on 4 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 8 digital wav files. Duration is 8 hr., 20 min.
Provenance:
These interviews are 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 others.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Occupation:
Art historians -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews Search this
The papers of curator and museum director Marcia Tucker measure 2.4 linear feet and date from 1973-1994. The collection documents Tucker's tenure as the Director of the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York through artists' files, correspondence, project files, printed material, and photographs. The papers also reflect Tucker's activities as an advocate for women in the arts.
Scope and Contents note:
The papers of curator and museum director Marcia Tucker measure 2.4 linear feet and date from 1973-1994. The collection documents Tucker's tenure as the Director of the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York through artists' files, correspondence, project files, printed material, and photographs. The papers also reflect Tucker's activities as an advocate for women in the arts.
Artists' files include correspondence, artists' statements, exhibition lists, press releases, printed material, and photographs of artwork. There is extensive correspondence with Richard M. Allen, James W. Johnson, Bruce Melamid, and Earl and Suzanne Staley.
Correspondence consists of a mix of professional and personal letters between Tucker and artists, business colleagues, and friends. Correspondence relating to the founding of the New Museum includes draft versions of the mission statement. Among the notable correspondents are: Louise Bourgeois, Joan Brown, Howardena Pindell, Markus Raetz, Joan Snyder, and Idelle Weber. Project files reflect Marcia Tucker's activities as an educator, writer, and advocate for women's role in the arts.
Photographs include an inscribed photograph to Marcia Tucker from Raymond Lark.
Arrangement note:
The collection is organized into 5 series. The papers are arranged by material type and chronologically thereafter.
Series 1: Artists' Files, 1976-1994 (Boxes 1-2; 1.3 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1976-1994 (Box 2; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 3: Project Files, 1973-1990 (Boxes 2-3; 0.15 linear feet)
Series 4: Printed Material, 1984-1994 (Box 3; 0.15 linear feet)
Series 5: Photographs, 1985-1994 (Box 3: 0.2 linear feet)
Biographical/Historical note:
Curator and museum director Marcia Tucker (1940-2006) lived and worked in New York.
In 1961, Marcia Tucker received her Bachelor of Arts from Connecticut College. She then went on to earn a Masters of Art from New York University's Institute of Fine Arts in 1965. In 1969, Tucker became curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Influenced by the political ferment of the 1960s, Marcia Tucker directed her curatorial efforts to organizing exhibitions that reflected the political and social currents of the day. An early exhibit that she co-curated with James Monte, "Anti-Illusion: Procedures/Materials," was one of the first major exhibitions dedicated to Process Art or Post Minimalism. She curated major surveys for the work of Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell, Bruce Nauman, Richard Tuttle, and Jack Tworkov. Some of Marcia Tucker's curatorial choices were critically received by colleagues and others in the artistic community. In 1977, she left the Whitney Museum to take on the role of founding director at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York. At the time, the New Museum was one of the few experimental centers for contemporary and emerging artists working in graphic arts, video, and film, serving as a venue for artists outside the mainstream, gay artists, and members of radical Hispanic and feminist groups. During her tenure at the New Museum, Tucker directed a number of major exhibitions, such as "Bad Girls," 1994; "A Labor of Love," 1996; "The Times of Our Lives," 1999, among others.
Marcia Tucker's interests extended to writing and teaching. She was the series editor for the New Museum's Documentary Sources in Contemporary Art. Tucker was also a freelance art critic; her criticism appeared in such publications as Art in America, Artforum, and ArtNews. Tucker also taught and lectured at academic institutions and art schools, including the School of Visual Arts, Bard Center for Curatorial Studies, Cornell University, and Colgate University.
In 1999, Marcia Tucker left her post as Director of the New Museum, though she continued to be engaged in the contemporary art scene. In recognition of her innovative practices as a curator, Tucker received a number of awards, including the Skowhegan Governors Award for Lifetime Services to the Arts, 1988; Bard College Award for Curatorial Achievement and the Art Table Award for Distinguished Service to the Visual Arts, 2000. She was also the recipient of three Yaddo fellowships from 2003-2005.
In 2006, Tucker died in Santa Barbara, California. She is survived by her husband, Dean McNeill, an artist and their daughter, Ruby Tucker.
Related Archival Materials note:
Also found in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Marcia Tucker conducted by Paul Cummings, August 11-September 8, 1978.
Provenance:
The collection was donated by Marcia Tucker to the Archives of American Art in 2000.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment.
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.
Topic:
Museum directors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Women museum curators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Educators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Authors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Citation:
Marcia Tucker papers, 1973-1994. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Papers related to Tuchman's co-authoring with Emile de Antonio the book Painters Painting: A History of American Modernism in the Words of Those Who Created It (Abbeville Press, 1984). The book was based on uncut transcripts and the film script from de Antonio's 1972 film Painters Painting, inspired by the Museum of Modern Art's exhibition, New York Painting and Sculpture: 1940-1970, curated by Henry Geldzahler. Included are correspondence; transcripts of interviews conducted by de Antonio of painters, critics, curators, and collectors; notes; drafts of the book; and a subject card file.
Interviewees include: Josef Albers, Leo Castelli, Willem de Kooning, Helen Frankenthaler, Henry Geldzahler, Clement Greenberg, Thomas Hess, Jasper Johns, Philip Johnson, Hilton Kramer, Philip Leider, Robert Motherwell, Louise Nevelson, Barnett Newman, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Philip Pavia, Larry Poons, Robert Rauschenberg, Larry Rivers, William Rubin, Ethel and Robert Scull, Frank Stella, and Andy Warhol.
Biographical / Historical:
Tuchman is an author and editor; Los Angeles, Calif.
Provenance:
Donated 1994 by Mitch Tuchman.
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.
Occupation:
Art critics -- United States -- Interviews Search this
Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America Search this
Names:
Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America Search this
Penland School of Handicrafts -- Students Search this
Extent:
51 Pages (Transcript)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Pages
Sound recordings
Interviews
Date:
2005 September 14
Scope and Contents:
An interview of Robert Trotman conducted 2005 September 14, by Carla Hanzal, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, at the artist's studio, in Casar, N.C.
Trotman discusses how he first became involved and attracted to woodworking while living in northern Virginia in the 1970s; his early involvement with the Penland School of Crafts, Penland, N.C., and its influence on his work; his first visits to galleries in New York, including the Paula Cooper Gallery, the Heller Gallery, and the Holly Solomon Gallery, in the early 1980s; the difference between art and craft, and where his work fits in that continuum; why he stopped making furniture in 1997, and what he hopes to accomplish as a sculptor; his major artistic influences, including Martin Puryear, Judith Shea, and James Surls; his academic background in philosophy, which was his major in college, and his attraction to existentialism, especially the writings of Franz Kafka; his upper-middle class childhood in Winston-Salem, N.C., where his father was a banker and his mother a homemaker, who was interested in early American furniture and antiques; his view of America as puritanical and of the American upper classes as "wooden," lacking feeling and soul; his uncle, Frank Trotman, a gallery/frame shop owner who lived a Bohemian lifestyle in Winston-Salem in the 1940s, and exposed him to the artist's lifestyle; his fascination with his grandmother's collection of wooden figures, which consisted of four- and five-inch-tall European peasant characters; his interest in human psychology, and his attraction to writers such as Slavoj Zizek and Jacques Lacan in particular; the pleasure he gets from working with wood and the strengths of its unique qualities; his commissions and how he feels they fit into his oeuvre overall; his teaching experiences; and the influence and support of his wife, Jane Trotman, on whom he relies for advice and feedback. Trotman also recalls John Brooks, Sam Maloof, Tom Spleth, Stuart Kestenbaum, Ron Mueck, Evan Penny, John Currin, Robert Lazzarini, Julie Heffernan, Stephan Balkenhol, George Adams, Robert Morris, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Robert Trotman (1947- ) is a wood artist from Casar, N.C. Carla Hanzal is a curator from Charlotte, N.C.
General:
Originally recorded on 4 sound discs. Reformatted in 2010 as 4 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hr., 25 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 with Julie Tolentino conducted 2018 April 11 and 12, by Alex Fialho, for the Archives of American Art's Visual Arts and the AIDS Epidemic: An Oral History Project, at a friend's apartment in the East Village, New York.
Tolentino speaks of her childhood in San Francisco; her family dynamics, including caring for her developmentally disabled sister; Harvey Milk's assassination; early exposure to dance and art-making; early exposure to queer nightlife; briefly pursuing dance training in Los Angeles after high school; soon thereafter moving to New York; volunteering for the National Gay and Lesbian Suicide Hotline; her involvement with ACT UP; experiences of AIDS-related grief; her close friendships during this time; continuing her dance education and performance practice in the late '80s and '90s; founding and operating the Clit Club; changes in the landscape of queerness during the '90s; managing the performance companies of David Roussève and Ron Athey; the beginning of her solo practice with Mestiza-Que Ojos Bonitos Tienes; the installation Marks of My Civilization; the beginning of ART+; her role in Madonna's book Sex; her reflections on the visibility of her body; developing the Lesbian AIDS Project's Safer Sex Handbook; her performance works For You, Sky Remains the Same, and Honey; her video work evidence; and her awareness of the past's construction and meaning in the present. Tolentino also recalls Page Hodel, Doug McDowell, Maxine Wolfe, Ann Northrup, David Robinson, Ray Navarro, Aldo Hernandez, Anthony Ledesma, Lola Flash, Catherine Gund, Zoe Leonard, Robert Garcia, Jocelyn Taylor, Martina Yamin, Cookie Mueller, Diamanda Galas, D.M. Machuca, Pigpen, John Lovett, Alessandro Codagnone, John Killacky, Lia Gangitano, Alistair Fate, Steven Meisel, Cythia Madansky, Kim Christensen, Kate Clinton, Lori Seid, Ori Flomin, Abigail Severance, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Julie Tolentino (1964- ) is a visual and performance artist in New York and Josua Tree, California. Alex Fialho (1989- ) is a curator and arts writer who is the Programs Director for Visual AIDS in New York, New York.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics, and administrators.
Restrictions:
The transcript and audio recording are open for research. Contact Reference Services for more information.
The papers of New York City and California painter, printmaker, and teacher Harry Sternberg date from 1927 to 2000 and measure 3.4 linear feet and 0.553 GB. The collection documents Sternberg's career as an artist and art instructor through scattered biographical material, correspondence with friends, artists, collectors, curators, art organizations, universities, and galleries, writings by Sternberg and others, exhibition catalogs and announcements, news clippings, and other printed and digital material. Also found are photographs of Sternberg and his artwork, two sketchbooks and three loose drawings by Sternberg, audio visual recordings, and one scrapbook.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of New York City and California painter, printmaker, and teacher Harry Sternberg date from 1927 to 2000 and measure 3.4 linear feet and 0.553 GB. The collection documents Sternberg's career as an artist and art instructor through scattered biographical material, correspondence with friends, artists, collectors, curators, art organizations, universities, and galleries, writings by Sternberg and others, exhibition catalogs and announcements, news clippings, and other printed and digital material. Also found are photographs of Sternberg and his artwork, two sketchbooks and three loose drawings by Sternberg, audio visual recordings, and one scrapbook.
Biographical material includes an interview of Sternberg conducted by art curator Malcolm Warner, two ledgers documenting business activities, scattered financial and legal documents, and files regarding a few of his projects, including the film "Many Worlds of Art". Sternberg's personal and professional correspondence is with friends, artists, including Harry Wickey, Rockwell Kent, Philip Evergood, and Peter Blume, collectors and curators such as Hudson Walker and Carl Zigrosser, and art organizations, universities, and galleries.
The small number of writings by Sternberg in this collection includes drafts of articles and lectures, a manuscript for a book on etching, and notes. Writings by others consists of draft writings about Sternberg, draft exhibition catalogs, and writings by the artists Arthur Secunda and David Alfaro Siqueiros. Over one-third of this collection is printed material, including exhibition catalogs and announcements, news clippings, books written by Sternberg, school publications, and material regarding art events.
Also found are photographs of Sternberg in his studio, with students, with his wife Mary, and at the Idyllwild School. Other photographs include group photographs of Art Students League faculty as well as photographs of exhibitions, murals, and artwork. The collection also contains original artwork including two sketchbooks and three loose drawings by Sternberg and one scrapbook of news clippings and exhibition materials. Audio and video materials include several interviews of Sternberg and a video copy of his film "Many Worlds of Art".
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into 8 series:
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1927-2000 (Box 1, OV 5; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1928-2000 (Box 1; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 3: Writings, circa 1940s-2000 (Box 1, 4; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 4: Printed Material, 1933-2000 (Box 1-3; 1.2 linear feet)
Series 5: Photographs, circa 1930s-1998 (Box 3, 4; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 6: Artwork, circa 1928-1980s (Box 3, OV 5; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 7: Audio Visual Material, circa 1980s-2000 (Box 3; 0.5 linear feet, ER01; 0.553 GB)
Series 8: Scrapbook, 1929-1958 (Box 4; 0.2 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Harry Sternberg (1904-2001) was a New York painter, muralist, printmaker, etcher, teacher, and political activist who relocated to California in 1957.
Harry Sternberg was born in 1904 in the Lower East Side of New York City and grew up in Brooklyn. As a child he attended his school art club where he met and became lifelong friends with artists Peter Blume and Philip Reisman. He took free Saturday art classes at the Brooklyn Museum of Art for two years and attended the Art Students League part time from 1922 to 1927 where he studied with George Bridgman. In 1926 he shared a studio with Philip Reisman where they received private instruction in etching from Harry Wickey. Sternberg began exhibiting his etchings and intermittently had drawings published in New Masses, a prominent American Marxist publication. In the late 1920s he became friends with Hudson Walker who also became a major collector of his work. In 1933 Sternberg was hired as instructor of etching, lithography, and composition at the Art Students League and continued teaching there for the next 33 years. Also around this time he became politically active in artist rights organizations, serving on the planning committee to create the American Artists' Congress and later serving as an active member of the Artists Equity Association. In 1935 he became the technical advisor of the Graphic Art Division of the Federal Art Project. From 1937 to 1939 he completed three federal mural commissions. His first mural Carrying the Mail was created for the Sellersville, Pennsylvania post office in 1937. His most famous mural Chicago: Epoch of a Great City was painted for the Lakeview post office in Chicago. It depicts the history of the city and its workers, particularly life for the workers in Chicago's stockyards and steel mills.
During the 1940s Sternberg remained very active in arts organizations, as one of the founders of the National Serigraph Society and a member of the Committee on Art and Education in Society. In 1942 he published the first of five books on printing. Sternberg had his first retrospective in 1953 at ACA Galleries, and in 1957 he taught summer painting courses at the Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts in California. He continued teaching in the summers there from 1960 to 1967 and 1981 to 1989. Suffering from lung disease, Sternberg moved with his wife, Mary, to Escondido, California in 1966 in hopes that the climate would improve his health. In 1972 he was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. During the 1970s and 1980s Sternberg traveled extensively throughout the US and Mexico where he found new inspiration for his artwork. He continued teaching, exhibiting, and creating new work until his death in 2001.
Related Material:
Also found in the Archives of American Art are the May Konheim papers concerning Harry Sternberg, 1934-1981, and an oral history interview of Harry Sternberg, conducted March 19, 1999, October 8, 1999, and January 7, 2000, by Sally Yard for the Archives of American Art
Provenance:
The Harry Sternberg papers were donated by Sternberg in several installments from 1967 to 2001.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment.
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 Frank Stella papers measure 12.4 linear feet and date from 1941 to 1993, with the bulk of the records spanning the period 1978 to 1989. The collection documents the professional and personal life of abstract artist, Frank Stella. Among the papers are correspondence, a small cache of records from his years as an undergraduate at Princeton University, writings by and about Stella, interview transcripts, sketchbooks, registers and inventories, financial records, printed matter, and photographs.
Scope and Content Note:
The Frank Stella papers, 12.4 linear feet, document the artist's professional and personal life. Papers date from 1941-1993, with the bulk spanning the period 1978-1989. Among the papers are correspondence, a small cache of records from his years as an undergraduate at Princeton University, writings by and about Stella, interview transcripts, sketchbooks, registers and inventories, financial records, printed matter, and photographs.
Correspondence, 1966-1989 and undated (Series 1), consists mainly of incoming letters, many annotated with brief notes indicating Stella's reply, and carbon copies of a small number of replies. Correspondence is with individuals, dealers, institutions and organizations and concerns professionals and personal business matters including awards and prizes, exhibitions, art loans and sales, fan mail; requests for autographs, interviews, studio tours, donations, jury service, exhibitions, critiques, information, lectures, and for Stella's participation in programs or events; legal matters, and political fund raising activities.
Princeton University records, 1954-1958 (Series 2), contain course materials, papers examinations, notes, and Stella's thesis, "Art in Wester Christendom." Correspondence regards university and personal business, including Stella's Selective Service student deferment. Also included are letters from Stella's parents and friends, pencil drawings and sketches, photographs of student work by Stella, and printed matter.
Writings, 1968-1993 and undated (Series 3), consist of articles, talks and lectures by Stella, his Norton Lectures delivered at Harvard published as Working Space, and miscellaneous notes. Writings about Stella are drafts of exhibition catalogs and manuscripts of articles. Interview Transcripts, 1964-1993 and undated (Series 4), include 13 published and unpublished interviews with Frank Stella conducted for publication as magazine articles or as research for exhibition catalogs, and a transcript of an interview with Philip Leider.
Sketchbooks, 1956-1968 and undated (Series 5), 10 volumes, contain sketches in pencil, ink, and colored markers. One includes notes on new paintings, color, and shape; another contains a list of artists and notes on abstract composition. Registers and Inventories, 1959-1983 and undated (Series 6), were compiled for various purposes and record paintings, works in mixed media, drawings, series, inventories prepared by dealers, and miscellaneous notes and lists compiled or collected by Stella.
Financial Records, 1972-1986 (Series 7), document both personal and professional expenses. They consist of banking records, paid bills, payroll, petty cash slips and receipts, and records of race horse expenses.
Printed Matter, 1957-1993 and undated (Series 8), includes articles by Stella and his book Working Space. Articles about Stella include feature stories and interviews, exhibition reviews, reviews of his book, and other articles that mention him briefly and/or include a reproduction of his work. Also included are catalogs, invitations and announcements for solo and group shows, and exhibitions juried by Stella. Other printed matter consists of announcements of limited edition prints, printed matter from events in which Stella participated, and miscellaneous items.
Photographs, 1941-1989 and undated (Series 9), are of people, exhibitions, works of art, places, and miscellaneous subjects. Photographs of Stella include an image of him as a young child, Stella with his wife Dr. Harriet McGurk, with his infant son, and with others. Exhibition photographs are of the opening of "Frank Stella: Neue Werke" at Galerie Würthle, 1984, and installation views of his 1989 show at Knoedler & Co., "Frank Stella: New Work." Photographs of works of art include prints, 35 mm color slides, and color transparencies of works by Stella. Places pictured are views of the Gemini G.E.L. studio, and miscellaneous subjects are horses and a banner at the Metropolitan Museum of art mimicking a black painting (not created or authorized by Stella).
Arrangement:
The collection is organized into nine series:
Series 1: Correspondence, 1966-1989, undated (Boxes 1-4; 3.25 linear feet)
Series 2: Princeton University, 1954-1958, undated (Box 4; 0.25 linear feet)
Series 3: Writings, 1968-1993, undated (Boxes 4-7; 2.3 linear feet)
Series 4: Interview Transcripts, 1964-1993, undated (Box 7; 0.25 linear feet)
Series 5: Sketchbooks, 1956-1968, undated (Box 8; 0.25 linear feet)
Series 6: Registers and Inventories, 1959-1983, undated (Box 8; 0.25 linear feet)
Series 7: Financial Records, 1972-1986 (Boxes 8-11; 4.0 linear feet)
Series 8: Printed Matter, 1957-1993, undated (Boxes 12-13 and ov fldr 14; 1.5 linear feet)
Series 9: Photographs, 1941-1989, undated (Box 13; 0.25 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Frank Stella (b. 1936) achieved professional recognition at a young age and soon became internationally prominent and influential. Known for his amazing productivity and energy, for more than forty years this abstract artist has made paintings, prints, and sculpture in a variety of styles that have been described as ranging from minimalist to "maximalist."
While a student at Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., Stella enrolled in an art appreciation course with a studio component held at the school's Addison Gallery of American Art. He then immersed himself in a studio program and became friendly with the instructor, abstract painter Patrick Morgan. Frank Stella, Carl Andre, and other students were often invited to Morgan's home where he and his wife Maude, also an artist, showed their collection of contemporary American art and discussed art seen at New York galleries. At Princeton University Stella decided to major in history, and continued to paint on his own. Studio art courses were not yet a part of the curriculum, but he soon learned that art history instructor and abstract painter William Seitz had started a not-for-credit painting studio that met at night in one of the architectural drawing studios. In this informal group Stella met Darby Bannard, a serious painter who was to become a close friend; he also developed a friendship with fellow student Michael Fried during their years at Princeton. Following Seitz's recommendation, Stella began visiting New York galleries. With the 1956 appointment of Stephen Greene as its first artist-in-residence, Princeton began offering studio courses which Stella took full advantage of. His work was influenced by what he had seen at the galleries on his many trips to New York - de Kooning and Frankenthaler, and later Rothko and Gottlieb - and his junior year essay about Hiberno-Saxon illuminated manuscripts, "Art in Western Christendom," made reference to Jackson Pollock.
Stella headed for New York City after his 1958 graduation from Princeton, where his family expect he would study law at Columbia or New York University. Instead, he rented a storefront studio on the Lower East Side and began his "transitional" paintings, earning a living by painting houses a few days a week. Before long he moved to a loft, and by winter had begun the Black series. Once settled in New York, Stella was introduced to critic Clement Greenberg and began meeting artists such as Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. He first exhibited professionally at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery in the spring of 1959 when one of his Black paintings, Club Onyx, was included in a group show. By the end of that summer the artist was represented by the Leo Castelli Gallery which soon sold a Black painting, Clinton Plaza, the first to be acquired by someone outside his immediate circle of friends. Stella's former teacher, William Seitz, recommended that Stella be included in an exhibition of emerging talent at the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College; he also urged Museum of Modern Art curator Dorothy Miller to look at Stella's painting at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery, which resulted in an invitation participate in her exhibition, Sixteen Americans. The Museum of Modern Art purchased The Marriage of Reason and Squalor from the exhibition. Opportunities to show in group and solo exhibitions continued at a steady pace, and in1961 Stella had his first one-man show in Europe. He is one of the very few artists honored by The Museum of Modern Art with two retrospective exhibitions (1970 and 1987).
Frank Stella's work is characterized by changing styles. Abstract expressionist paintings of his student days gave way to minimalist work that soon incorporated shaped canvases and eventually stressed color and curved motifs. By the 1980s his minimalist aesthetic had been replaced by dynamic mixed media pieces. Shaped paintings developed into wall constructions with large, projecting, multiple components and lively brush stroke patterns. By the 1990s, much of Stella's work was fully three-dimensional.
The University of California at Irvine invited Stella to be its artist in residence in 1967; Barbara Rose (Stella's wife from 1961-1969), who was in the process of writing American Art Since 1960, was asked to lecture on contemporary art. With their young daughter and infant son, they moved to California. Upon arrival they were asked to sign a loyalty oath required of all state employees; Barbara signed, but Frank refused. While she lectured and wrote, he played lots of tennis. Soon master printer Ken Tyler persuaded Stella, who had never seriously pursued printmaking, to work with lithography. His first prints were Star of Persia I and Star of Persia II (designs from the Notched V series of 1964-65 not previously executed) and the entire edition sold by the end of the year. He has continued making prints, working in series as he does with his paintings; many of his print series are based on painting series of the same name. Stella's prints often rival paintings in their scale and bold color. Since 1967 Stella has produced prints with Ken Tyler, first in Los Angeles at Gemini G.E.L., and later in Bedford, N.Y. where Tyler Graphics Ltd. was established in 1974. Their close working relationship has resulted a large number of remarkable prints employing practically every graphic technique - sometimes in startling combinations - using a wide range of materials, and prompting innovative solutions to technical challenges. By 1972, Stella was also producing prints with Petersburg Press, Ltd. of London and New York; three years later, Petersburg installed a commercial lithography press on the first floor of Stella's home in New York City.
Throughout his career, Frank Stella has been sought after as a speaker, teacher, visiting critic, and artist in residence. Most noteworthy among these activities was his appointment as the Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard for the academic year 1983-84. Stella, Accompanied by his wife Harriet and their two small boys, Stella spent much of the preceding year at the American Academy in Rome looking at Italian art, particularly Caravaggio, planning and researching the lectures he would deliver at Harvard. His six Norton Lectures, which presented a nontraditional evaluation the work of Caravaggio, Rubens, Carracci, Picasso, Pollock, and others, related abstract painting of the twentieth century to the art of the past. These well-received lectures were published in 1986 as book titled Working Space.
In recent years Stella was commissioned to produce several large works for public spaces including several outdoor sculptures, a large decorative relief frieze and the interior dome of the Princess of Wales Theater in Toronto, and his first completed architectural project, a bandshell for the City of Miami.
1936 -- Born May 12, Malden, Mass.
1950-1954 -- Student at Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass.; studies painting with Patrick Morgan; meets Carl Andre and Hollis Frampton, fellow students.
1954-1958 -- Student at Princeton University; paints in William Seitz's non-credit open studio; Darby Bannard is a fellow student; begins visiting New York galleries to see contemporary art studies with Stephen Greene, 1956, artist-in-residence; meets Michael Fried, also a Princeton undergraduate; writes thesis on Hiberno-Saxon illuminated manuscripts.
1958 -- Moves to New York City, rents a storefront on the Lower East Side to use as a studio during the summer and works part-time as a house painter; in the fall moves to a loft on West Broadway; Darby Bannard introduces him to critic Clement Greenberg.
1959 -- Black series painting included in a group show at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery, Stella's first professional exhibition included in "Sixteen Americans" exhibition, Museum of Modern Art; joins Castelli Gallery; The Marriage of Reason and Squalor purchased by Museum of Modern Art; Carl Andre introduces him to Barbara Rose, a Columbia University graduate student in art history; resumes friendships with Carl Andre and Hollis Frampton.
1960 -- Paints first shaped canvases; first solo exhibition at the Leo Castelli Gallery.
1961 -- Applies for Fulbright Grant to study in Japan; first trip to Europe; first solo exhibition at Galerie Lawrence, Paris; marriage to Barbara Rose.
1962 -- Birth of daughter Rachel.
1963 -- Artist in Residence, Dartmouth College; travels in Iran.
1964 -- Included in U.S. section, XXXII Venice Biennale.
1965 -- Travels to Brazil.
1966 -- Performs in "Open Score," a game of tennis with racquets that transmitted sound and light composed by Robert Rauschenberg; birth of son Michael.
1967 -- Appointment as Artist in Residence, University of California, Irvine but refuses to sign the required loyalty oath and does not teach; makes first prints at Gemini G.E.L.; teaches advanced summer workshop, University of Saskatchewan; designs sets and costumes for "Scramble," Merce Cunningham's performance at Connecticut College Dance Festival.
1969 -- Divorce from Barbara Rose; teaches beginning painting to undergraduates at Brandeis University, spring semester.
1970 -- Retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art.
1973 -- Travels to Brazil, Paris, London.
1974 -- Honorary degree, Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
1975 -- Birth of daughter Laura to Shirley De Lemos Wyse.
1976 -- Car painted with design Stella created for BMW races at Le Mans.
1977 -- Travels to India, London, and Germany; meets race drivers Ronnie Peterson and Peter Gregg.
1978 -- Marries Dr. Harriet McGurk
1979 -- Receives Claude Moore Fuss Award for "distinguished contribution to public service," Phillips Academy; creates design for Peter Gregg's race car.
1980 -- Survives auto crash with Peter Gregg en route to Le Mans.
1981 -- Awarded Honorary Fellowship, Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem; travels in Egypt and Venice; awarded Medal for Painting, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.
1982 -- Mayor's Award of Honor for Arts and Culture; birth of son Peter; Residency in Painting, American Academy in Rome (Nov.-Dec. and Spring 1983), where he begins researching and writing the lectures he will present at Harvard during the coming academic year.
1983-1984 -- Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry, Harvard University; delivers a series of six lectures titled "Working Space" (Oct.-April)
1984 -- Honorary degree, Princeton University; birth of son Patrick.
1985 -- Honorary degree, Dartmouth College; Award of American Art, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
1986 -- Honorary degree, Brandeis University; travels to England; publication of Working Space.
1987 -- Second retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art.
1988 -- First architectural project, a proposal for a footbridge over the Seine River, in collaboration with engineer Peter Rice.
1990 -- The Symphony commissioned by Art In Embassies Program, U. S. State Department.
1991 -- The Leaves, a work created in collaboration with Peter Rice, Alexander, Cott, Earl Childress, and Bob Kahn for the New Groninger Museum, The Netherlands.
1992 -- Designs decorative relief frieze and interior dome, commissioned by David Mirvish, for the Princess of Wales Theatre, Toronto.
Provenance:
The collection was a gift of Frank and Harriet Stella in 1993.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Use requires an appointment.
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.
4 Linear feet ((partially filmed on 5 microfilm reels))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
1948-1984
Scope and Contents:
Resumes and an autobiographical sketch; correspondence with dealers, curators, collectors, artists, students, friends and family; 2 appointment books, a 10-page journal, describing a 1955 visit to Fairfield Porter in Maine, and other notes and writings; transcripts of interviews with Louise Nevelson, Donald Judd, George Rickey, and George Segal for a documentary, "Four Sculptors"; lists of supply costs and of art sales; 2 accounts ledgers; invoices from the Leo Nash Steel Corporation; legal documents, including a draft of a will, 1967, and divorce documents, 1978; materials relating to the Hansa Gallery, and minutes of meetings of the Artist Tenant's Association; exhibition materials, including loan forms, insurance evaluations, and price lists; exhibition announcements and catalogs; clippings; a menu designed by Larry Rivers; art works, including sketches and diagrams of a sculpture workshop and machines, and 7 sketches of sculpture; and photographs of Stankiewicz and his family.
Biographical / Historical:
Sculptor and educator; New York, N.Y. Died 1983 In 1952, Stankiewicz and 11 other artists formed the co-operative Hansa Gallery in New York. Some others in the group were: Jane Wilson, Paul Georges, Wolf Kahn, George Segal, Jan Muller, Allen Kaprow, and Jean Follett. Stankiewicz left Hansa in 1957 and became associated with the Stable Gallery. He exhibited there from 1957-ca.1967. In 1967 he became a professor of art at the State University of New York at Albany, and in 1972 he became associated with the Zabriskie Gallery.
Provenance:
Donated 1974 and 1979 by Richard Stankiewicz, in 1984 by his sons Peter and Anthony and in 1990 by Patricia M. Stankiewicz.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Occupation:
Educators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Topic:
Sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews Search this
The papers of photographer and art historian Nina Howell Starr measure 21.2 linear feet and date from circa 1933 to 1996. The papers contain research files about various art historical topics, museums and galleries, photography, and artists. There are extensive files documenting Starr's relationship as researcher, dealer, and friend of folk painter Minnie Evans. Additionally, the papers include biographical materials, writings, speeches, project files, printed material collected or authored by Starr, and hundreds of artistic and documentary photographs and negatives created by Starr depicting her travels, Minnie Evans' paintings, roadside folk art, and other topics.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of photographer and art historian Nina Howell Starr measure 21.2 linear feet and date from circa 1933 to 1996. The papers contain research files about various art historical topics, museums and galleries, photography, and artists. There are extensive files documenting Starr's relationship as researcher, dealer, and friend of folk painter Minnie Evans. Additionally, the papers include biographical materials, writings, speeches, project files, printed material collected or authored by Starr, and hundreds of artistic and documentary photographs and negatives created by Starr depicting her travels, Minnie Evans' paintings, roadside folk art, and other topics.
Biographical materials are scattered and include grant and publication applications, curriculum vitae, lists of artwork, and miscellany.
Starr's lectures, writings, and project files are arranged into one series. They include Starr's student writings, a notebook about Civil Rights, files documenting her work on a Florida public housing project, the Southern Regional Council, and the League of Women Voters. A few files of general writings and lectures mostly concern folk artist Minnie Evans and the exhibition Women Photograph Men, held at the International Women's Arts Festival in 1976.
Subject files on artists, art history topics, photographers and photography (including Starr's work), and on folk artist and friend Minne Evans comprise the bulk of the collection. The files are a mix of collated materials and primary sources created by Starr and others and many contain correspondence, notes, photographs, and a few sketches and orginal prints. Also included are materials related to professional and organizational groups in which Starr was involved, including the Professional Women's Photographers, Inc., the Photographic Historical Society of New York, and the Museum of American Folk Art; files on several of Starr's exhibitions; and files on artists that contain printed materials, correspondence, and photographs. The file on Ruth Starr Rose contains prints and drawings. There are also photographs taken by Stephanie Cohen. Particularly rich files are found for Stephanie Cohen; Van Deren Coke, Director of the George Eastman Company; Evelyn Daitz, Director of the Witkin Gallery; Henry DiSpirito; Walker Evans; the Fotofolio printing company; curator Henri Ghent; photographer Consuelo Kanaga and husband Wallace Putnam; Margot Starr Kernan; Lucy Lippard; Stanton Mac-Donald Wright; Sharon Arts Center; photographer Paul Strand; curator John Szarwarski; and photographer Jerry Uelsman.
The collection also documents the friendship between painter Minnie Evans and Starr, and Starr's business dealings on Evans' behalf. There is correspondence about and with Evans, several sound recordings of interviews conducted by Starr and others with Evans, many with transcripts, financial documents, publications about Evans including exhibition catalogs, clippings, journal articles and monographs, two posters, a scrapbook, and one sketch by Evans.
Printed material includes published articles, exhibition catalogs and announcements, and clippings about Starr.
Photographic materials are extensive and include photographs and slides taken by Starr of friends, family, artwork by Minnie Evans, events, exhibition openings, world travels, and folk art, especially roadside. Prominent artists and art historians photographed include: photographers Maggie Sherwood, Naomi Savage, Barbara Morgan, Linda Connor, Aaron Siskind, Consuelo Kanaga, Faith Ringgold, and Walker Evans; sculptors Louise Kruger and Helene Brandt; feminist and art historian Pat Mainardi; and curators Henri Ghent and John Szarkowski. Starr's artistic photographic work is also represented, and includes two silver gelatin prints of Minnie Evans, and subject studies on hands, people, and nature, among others.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 6 series.
Series 1: Biographical material, 1954-circa 1990 (8 folders; Box 1)
Series 2: Writings, Speeches and Projects, 1933-1995 (1.1 linear feet; Boxes 1-2)
Series 3: Subject Files, circa 1939-1996 (8.3 linear feet; Boxes 2-10)
Series 4: Minnie Evans, 1962-1996 (3.7 linear feet; Boxes 10-13, 23, OV 24)
Series 5: Printed Material, 1936-1995 (2.7 linear feet; Boxes 13-16, 23)
Series 6: Photographic Material, circa 1939-1993 (5.4 linear feet; Boxes 16-23, OV 24)
Biographical / Historical:
Nina Howell Starr (1903-2000) was a photographer, art dealer, and art historian who worked primarily in New York City. Born in Newark, New Jersey in 1903 as Cornelia Margaret Howell, Starr attended Wellesley College and graduated from Barnard in 1926. Also in 1926, she married Nathan Comfort Starr, an English professor, and, over the years the couple lived in Massachusetts, Maryland, Florida, and New York City.
In 1963, at the age of 60, Starr received the first M.F.A. in photography granted by the University of Florida. Starr exhibited widely in both solo and group exhibitions, including Magic Lantern (Photographer's Gallery, London, 1976), and the Strength of Women (Witken Gallery, 1991), and numerous shows featuring photographs of outsider art. Her "New Yorker" project became an exhibition in 2016. Her work is owned by several prominent museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography.
As art historian, self-proclaimed critic, and civil rights and feminist advocate, Starr lectured widely, wrote articles and letters to editors, and corresponded with many notable art world figures. She became especially interested in outsider and folk art. Starr met outsider artist Minnie Evans in 1962 and became Evans' lifelong friend, advocate, and representative dealer. She wrote about Evans and introduced Evans' works to galleries and other exhibition spaces in New York, including the Whitney Museum, where she guest-curated an exhibition of Evans' work in 1975.
Starr was an active member of professional organizations including the Photographic Historical Society of New York, Professional Women's Photographers, Inc., and the Museum of American Folk Art where she served on the Advisory Committee.
Nina Howell Starr died in 2000 in Connecticut at the age of 97.
Provenance:
The Nina Howell Starr papers were donated by Nina Howell Starr in 1996.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Occupation:
Art historians -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Photographers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Art dealers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The papers of Theodoros Stamos measure 3.1 linear feet and date from circa 1922-2008. Stamos was a painter primarily associated with the first generation of Abstract Expressionists. Biographical materials, correspondence, writings, business and legal records, printed materials, and photographs document Stamos' career as a painter. Also included are materials relating to the Rothko estate controversy compiled by Stamos' sister, Georgianna Savas, as well as her papers concerning arrangements for Stamos' funeral and posthumous exhibition plans.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of Theodoros Stamos measure 3.1 linear feet and date from circa 1922-2008. Stamos was a painter primarily associated with the first generation of Abstract Expressionists. Biographical materials, correspondence, writings, business and legal records, printed materials, and photographs document Stamos' career as a painter. Also included are materials relating to the Rothko estate controversy compiled by Stamos' sister, Georgianna Savas, as well as her papers concerning arrangements for Stamos' funeral and posthumous exhibition plans.
Biographical material includes birth and death certificates and interview transcripts. Personal correspondence is with friends and family; professional correspondence pertains to gallery transactions, including a falling out with gallery owner Louis K. Meisel. Among the printed materials are exhibition announcements and clippings of articles in English and Greek concerning his career and personal life. Photographs include views of family and friends, portraits of Stamos by Hans Namuth, Nina Leen and other photographers, as well as images of artwork by Stamos and other artists.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 9 series:
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1922-2006 (Box 1; 0.5 linear feet)
Series 2: Financial Records, 1979-circa 1990s (Box 1; 2 folders)
Series 3: Correspondence, circa 1940s-1997 (Boxes 1, 5; 0.5 linear feet)
Series 4: Business and Legal, 1974-2008 (Box 1; 2 folders)
Series 5: Writings, circa 1944-2002 (Box 1; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 6: Artwork, circa 1940s-1980 (Box 1, OV 6-7; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 7: Printed Materials, 1945-2007 (Box 2, OV 7; 0.4 linear feet)
Series 8: Photographs, 1943-1999 (Boxes 2-3, 5; 1.0 linear feet)
Series 9: Georgianna Savas Papers on Theodoros Stamos, 1985-2005 (Boxes 3-4; 0.3 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Painter Theodoros Stamos (1922-1997) worked in New York and spent considerable time in Lefkada, Greece. A first generation Abstract Expressionist, Stamos developed as a color field painter, and had a long teaching career. His later years were encumbered by his role in the Mark Rothko Estate controversy.
Stamos' first solo exhibition, presented by Betty Parsons in 1943, brought the 20 year old painter to the attention of museums and private collectors. Throughout the 1940s Stamos painted and traveled extensively. By the end of the decade he had had three solo exhibitions and participated in group shows such as the 1945 Whitney Museum Biennial and "The Ideographic Picture," an important early Abstract Expressionist exhibition curated by Barnett Newman.
Through connections made at the American Artists' School Stamos became a notable artist among the New York avant garde during the early years of Abstract Expressionism. He was the youngest of the "Irascibles," a group of American artists who broke from the School of Paris to create a new approach to abstract painting.
In 1951, Stamos built a house in East Marion, New York on Long Island where he lived and worked. Here, he began to develop his color field technique and, influenced by his Greek heritage, continued to express interest in spiritualism and ancient Greek myths and philosophy. In 1958, Stamos' work was shown in a retrospective exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, and in "The New American Painting," the Museum of Modern Art's traveling exhibition that introduced European audiences to Abstract Expressionism.
Stamos began his career as an educator in 1950 at Black Mountain College. Later, he taught at Columbia University and Brandeis University, and for more than 20 years was on the faculty of the Art Students League.
Following the death of his friend Mark Rothko, Stamos was involved in a highly publicized lawsuit involving his role as an executor of the estate. The trial ended unsuccessfully for Stamos and its adverse consequences impacted the late part of his career. In 1966, the Rothko children obtained permission to disinter their father's remains from the Stamos burial plot in East Marion, New York; with the assistance of Stamos' sister, Georgianna Savas, arrangements were made to bury Rothko at a cemetery in Valhalla, New York.
Traveling between homes in New York and Lefkada, Greece, Stamos continued to paint and teach late into his life. He died in Greece in 1997.
Related Material:
Among the holdings of the Archives of American Art are oral history interveiws conducted by John Jones and Bruce Hooten, February 19, 1965, and by Irving Sandler, April 23, 1968. Also found are Theodoros Stamos letters to Diran Deckmejian, 1977-1995, and Theodoros Stamos letters to James DiMartino, 1977-1988.
Separated Material:
The Archives of American Art also holds materials lent for microfilming (reels N70-66 and N70-67) including correspondence, poems, printed material and membership cards. Lent material was returned to the lender and is not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
Theodoros Stamos loaned the Archives of American Art material for microfilming in 1970. Stamos' sister, Georgianna Savas, donated papers in 2008 and 2011.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy 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.
