The papers of realist painter, muralist, and educator Leon Kroll date from circa 1900 to 1988 and measure 8.7 linear feet. The collection documents Kroll's painting career, teaching, and active participation in numerous art organizations. Over one-half of the collection is correspondence with artists, schools, galleries, museums, patrons, arts organizations, and others. Also found are scattered biographical material, writings and notes, legal and financial records, exhibition catalogs, clippings, other printed material, photographs of Kroll and colleagues, loose drawings and nine sketchbooks.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of realist painter, muralist, and art instructor Leon Kroll date from circa 1900 to 1988 and measure 8.7 linear feet. The collection documents Kroll's painting career, teaching, and active participation in numerous art organizations. Over one-half of the collection is correspondence with artists, schools, galleries, museums, patrons, arts organizations, family members, and others. Also found are scattered biographical material, writings and notes, legal and financial records, exhibition catalogs, clippings, other printed material, photographs of Kroll and colleagues, loose drawings, and nine sketchbooks.
Biographical material contains chronologies, biographical essays, awards, price lists, interview transcripts, and a file about the Committee on Government and Art. More than one-half of the collection consists of Kroll's personal and professional correspondence with artists such as Gifford Beal, George Biddle, Isabel Bishop, Barry Faulkner, William Glackens, Robert Henri, Paul Manship, Hobart Nichols, Eugene Speicher, Maurice Stern, Esther Williams, and many others. Additional correspondence is with art critics, curators, dealers, students, patrons, schools, museums, and numerous arts organizations. There is also extensive correspondence with arts administrators regarding government art projects, especially his friend and fellow artist Edward Bruce, Director of the U. S. Treasury Department's Section for Fine Arts.
Writings and notes by Leon Kroll including autobiographical essays, drafts of lectures and speeches, lists, and other scattered notes. Also found is a small amount of writings by others, including an essay by Julia Langsam describing her experience as an artist's model for Kroll. Legal and financial records include contracts, loan agreements, art sales receipts, and several ledgers recording consignments and monthly receipts and expenditures. One ledger specifically documents financial transactions for Kroll's mural commissions for the Justice Department and the Worcester War Memorial.
Printed material contains numerous news clippings about Kroll and his work and includes several articles written by Kroll. Also found are exhibition announcements and catalogs for Kroll's solo exhibitions, material about the Worcester War memorial, and miscellaneous printed items.
Photographs include one of Kroll with his family, Kroll in his studio and working on murals, and several of him with other artists as jurors for art exhibitions. Artists pictured include Isabel Bishop, Reginal Marsh, John Sloan, Raphael Soyer, Eugene Speicher, and others. Also found are photographs of Edward Bruce, as well as photographs of exhibitions, artwork by Leon Kroll, and artwork by others. All of the original artwork in this collection is by Leon Kroll and includes loose drawings and ten sketchbooks containing drawings of landscapes, figures, portraits, and animals.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into 7 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1906-1977 (Boxes 1, 7; 0.4 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1905-1988 (Boxes 1-4, 7; 3.8 linear feet)
Series 3: Writings and Notes, circa 1920s-1972 (Box 4-5, 7; 0.7 linear feet)
Series 4: Legal and Financial Records, circa 1914-1985 (Boxes 5, 7; 1.0 linear feet)
Series 5: Printed Material, circa 1920s-1987 (Boxes 5-6, 8-9; 0.7 linear feet)
Series 6: Photographs, circa 1900-1979 (Boxes 6, 8-10; 1.7 linear feet)
Series 7: Artwork, circa 1910-1950s (Boxes 6, 8; 0.4 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Leon Kroll (1884-1974) was a leading realist painter during the 1920s and 1930s.
Born in New York City, Kroll attended classes at the Art Students League as a teenager, and studied painting with John Henry Twachtman. In the early 1900s he began taking classes at the National Academy of Design, where he won student prizes, and had his first major exhibition in 1906. In 1908 he won a scholarship to study art in Paris and attended the Académie Julian, studying at the atelier of Jean-Paul Laurens. Through he practiced realism, Kroll was also influenced by French impressionist painters, specifically Paul Cézanne. While in Paris he also met Genevieve (Viette) Domec. They married later in 1923 and had one daughter, Marie-Claude.
Upon his return to New York in 1910, Kroll had a one man show of his Paris work at the National Academy where he received critical acclaim. The next year he began teaching at the National Academy of Design. During his career, he also taught at the Maryland Institute, Art Institute of Chicago, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and was a guest instructor and lecturer at several other schools.
Kroll was part of a circle of New York artists that included several members of "The Eight", and he was especially close with Robert Henri, William Glackens, George Bellows, and Eugene Speicher. During his time in Europe he also became friends with Marc Chagall and Robert and Sonia Delaunay. He exhibited at the Armory Show in 1913 and during the next few decades won numerous major national and international prizes in painting, including first prize at the 1936 Carnegie International Exhibition. He had his first retrospective exhibition at the Worcester Art Museum in 1937. Kroll was especially known for his paintings of female nudes, but also painted New York City street scenes, New England landscapes, and portraits. Beginning in the late 1930s he was commissioned to paint murals at public buildings including, among others, the U. S. Department of Justice Building, the war memorial in Worcester, Massachusetts, and the auditorium at Johns Hopkins University.
Throughout his career Kroll was a very active member of professional arts organizations. He was an Associate and later a Academician at the National Academy of Design, and his memberships included the New Society of Artists; American Society of Painters, Sculptors, and Gravers; Artists Equity Association; Four Arts Aid Association; and the National Institute of Arts and Letters among others. He also served as a board officer for many of these organizations. Kroll was active in the federal arts programs from the 1930s to the 1950s and close friends with Edward Bruce, director of the U.S. Treasury Department's Section for Fine Arts.
Kroll maintained a studio in New York City and spent summers at his home and studio at Folly Cove, Gloucester, Massachusetts. Leon Kroll died in 1974 at the age of 89.
Provenance:
Leon Kroll donated a portion of his papers in 1968. His widow, Genevieve Kroll, donated the rest of the papers in 1976. Two additions were donated in 2019, via Cory Churches and the Estate of Grace Pugh, both descendants of Kroll.
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.
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:
Educators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Muralists -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Genre/Form:
Sketchbooks
Interviews
Drawings
Citation:
Leon Kroll papers, circa 1900-1988. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
The papers of abstract expressionist painters Jackson Pollock and wife Lee Krasner measure 16.1 linear feet and date from circa 1914 to 1984, with the bulk of the material dating from 1942 to 1984. The collection documents their personal and professional lives, as well as the legacy of Jackson Pollock's work after his death. Found are biographical material, correspondence, writings by Krasner and others, research material, business and financial records, printed material, scrapbooks, artwork by others, photographs, interview transcripts, audio and video recordings, and motion picture film.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of abstract expressionist painters Jackson Pollock and wife Lee Krasner measure 16.1 linear feet and date from circa 1914 to 1984, with the bulk of the material dating from 1942 to 1984. The collection documents their personal and professional lives, as well as the legacy of Jackson Pollock's work after his death. Found are biographical material, correspondence, writings by Krasner and others, research material, business and financial records, printed material, scrapbooks, artwork by others, photographs, interview transcripts, audio and video recordings, and motion picture film.
The collection is divided into two series, the first of which focuses on Pollock and includes his scattered papers dating from circa 1914 to his death in 1956, as well as Krasner's papers dating from his death to 1984 about managing Pollock's legacy. This series includes biographical materials, including transcripts and audio recordings of an interview with William Wright in 1949; Pollock's and Krasner's correspondence with Thomas Hart Benton, Betty Parsons Gallery, Bill Davis, B. H. Friedman, Reginald Isaacs, Sidney Janis, Violet De Lazlo, Martha Jackson Gallery, Alfonso Ossorio, Tony Smith, and Clyfford Still, and with one another; Krasner's correspondence concerning Pollock's estate and artwork after his death; numerous writings about Pollock, including an original draft of Bryan Robertson's biography and an essay by Clement Greenberg.
James Valliere extensive research files on Pollock for a never-published biography were given to Krasner and filed in Series 1. These include scattered correspondence with Lee Krasner, and Pollock's family and friends, including Charles Pollock, Thomas Hart Benton, and Robert Motherwell. There are also transcripts of interviews Valliere conducted with Pollock's friends and colleagues, including James Brooks, Dorothy Dehner, Clement Greenberg, Reuben Kadish, Lee Krasner, Charles Maddox, Mrs. Sanford McCoy, Daniel T. Miller, Robert Miller, and Tony Smith. The original audio reels and duplicates exist for many and are filed here. Additional interviews were conducted with Willem de Kooning, Alfonso Ossorio, and Burton Rouche, but not transcribed - these are filed in Series 1.10, Audio Recordings and Motion Picture Film.
Also found in Series 1 are scattered business records documenting Krasner's handling of Pollock's estate and legacy; printed materials relating to Pollock, including published biographies, exhibition catalogs, and clippings; two scrapbooks; and a sketchbook by an unidentified artist. Numerous photographs of Pollock include childhood and family photographs, photographs of Pollock in his studio by Hans Namuth, Rudy Burckhardt, and Herbert Matter, photographs of Pollock with Lee Krasner, and exhibition photographs. Audio recordings and motion film in Series 1 include a 1964 16mm film about Pollock (VHS copies are available) and reel-to-reel recordings of untranscribed interviews of Pollock's friends and colleagues by James Valliere, including interviews with Willem de Kooning and Alfonso Ossorio. Additional transcribed interviews are filed in subseries 1.4.
Lee Krasner's papers documenting her own career are arranged in Series 2 and date from 1927-1984. Biographical materials include resumes and awards, school documents, family documentation, and exhibition lists. Her correspondence with artist friends and art colleagues is extensive and includes many letters from artists such as Philip Johnson, Ray Eames, Cleve Gray, and Hans Namuth. She also maintained correspondence with many art historians and critics, curators, gallery owners, collectors, arts-related and social organizations, admirers, and family members.
There are thirteen transcripts of interviews with Krasner by Bruce Glaser, Barbara Cavaliere, Andrew Forge, Emily Wasserman, Barbara Rose, and others. The original audio recordings for these transcripts are filed in series 2.10, along with other audio recordings for which there are no transcripts, including interviews by John Gruen, Delores Holmes, Mercedes Matter, the Martha Dean Radio Show, NBC Today Show, and WQXR radio. There are also audio recordings of Krasner's lectures in series 2.10.
Krasner's papers also include writings and reminiscences by Krasner; writings about Krasner; printed materials such as exhibition catalogs and clippings; and one scrapbook containing clippings and photographs. Numerous photographs are of Krasner, including portrait photographs taken by Hans Namuth; of Krasner with Jackson Pollock and family and friends, and of her exhibitions and artwork.
Users should note that Pollock's and Krasner's papers contain similar types of material that often overlap in subject matter, especially among the correspondence and photographs.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into 2 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Jackson Pollock papers and Lee Krasner papers about Jackson Pollock, circa 1914-1984 (Box 1-7, 16, OV 18, FC 19-22; 7.4 linear feet)
Series 2: Lee Krasner papers, circa 1927-1984 (Box 7-15, 17; 8.6 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Jackson Pollock was born in 1912, in Cody, Wyoming, the youngest of five sons. His family moved several times during his childhood, finally settling in Los Angeles. In 1930 he joined his older brother, Charles, in New York City, and studied with Regionalist painter Thomas Hart Benton at the Art Students League of New York. Pollock worked during the 1930s for the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project. During 1936 he worked in artist David Alfaro Siqueiros's Experimental Workshop. In 1938 he began psychiatric treatment for alcoholism, and his artwork was greatly influenced by Jungian analysis and the exploration of unconscious symbolism.
In 1943 Pollock had his first one-man exhibition at Peggy Guggenheim's New York gallery, Art of this Century, and continued to exhibit there over the next several years. A major turning point in Pollock's life and art was in 1945 when he married fellow artist Lee Krasner and moved to East Hampton, Long Island. There he developed his mature painting style, and became famous for his abstract pouring technique on large canvases. The height of his creativity spanned from 1947 to 1952, and his work was promoted by art critic Clement Greenberg. Along with other abstract expressionists including Hans Hofmann, Alfonso Ossorio, and Barnett Newman, he joined the Betty Parsons Gallery in 1947. He had his most successful one-man show in 1950 which was widely publicized and praised. This exhibition, combined with a 1949 feature article in LIFE magazine, made Pollock an American celebrity.
In 1952 Pollock moved his work to Sidney Janis Gallery and returned to earlier motifs in a search for new breakthroughs. The last few years of his life he suffered from mental and physical health problems, and in August, 1956 he died in a car accident. His wife, Lee Krasner, oversaw his estate and worked with many museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, on Pollock retrospective exhibitions.
Lee Krasner was born Lenore Krassner in 1908 in Brooklyn, New York to Russian immigrant parents. In 1926 she was admitted to the Women's Art School of The Cooper Union, and in 1928 she attended the Art Students League. After graduating from The Cooper Union in 1929, she attended the National Academy of Design until 1932. After briefly attending City College and Greenwich House, she worked for the Public Works of Art Project and the Temporary Emergency Relief Administration, and finally became an assistant in 1935 on the WPA Federal Art Project, Mural Division. From 1937 to 1940 she studied at the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts and began exhibiting with the American Abstract Artists group.
In 1942 Krasner met Pollock as they were both preparing to exhibit work in the same show. Although they married and she became immersed in his career, she continued to exhibit her own work with other abstract artists and from 1946 to 1949 worked on the Little Image painting series. In 1953 she began working on collages, a medium she would come back to again later in her career. After Pollock's death her work was greatly influence by her sadness and anger, creating a visible evolution of her style.
For the rest of her career, Krasner consistently exhibited her work in both group and solo exhibitions. She had her first retrospective at Whitechapel Gallery, London, in 1965, and in 1966, she joined Marlborough Gallery, New York which represented Pollock's work as well. In the 1970s and early 1980s Krasner won many awards for her achievement in the visual arts, including the Augustus St. Gaudens Medal and the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. She returned to the medium of collage, and in 1976 joined the Pace Gallery, New York. In 1981 she joined the Robert Miller Gallery, New York. Lee Krasner continued creating art until her death in 1984.
Related Material:
Found in the Archives of American Art are the Charles Pollock Papers, 1902-1990, which includes correspondence, photographs, and other files relating to his brother, Jackson Pollock. Other resources in the Archives are oral history interviews with Lee Krasner, including a series of interviews conducted by Dorothy Seckler between 1964 and 1968, and interviews conducted by Barbara Rose in 1966 and Doloris Holmes in 1972.
Provenance:
The papers of Jackson Pollock were donated in 1983 by Lee Krasner through Eugene V. Thaw shortly before her death. Additional material about Pollock and the papers of Lee Krasner were donated in 1985 by Eugene V. Thaw, executor of Lee Krasner's estate.
Restrictions:
The collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website.
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 papers of New York City sculptor and teacher Chaim Gross measure 21.1 linear feet and date from 1920-2004. The collection provides comprehensive documentation of Gross's career through biographical material, personal and professional correspondence with family, artists, writers, galleries, museums, educational institutions, and religious and philanthropic organizations, writings, personal business records, extensive printed and published material including motion picture film and video recordings of four documentaries, one hundred and fifteen sketchbooks spanning the bulk of Gross's career, and photographs of Gross, his family, many friends and colleagues from the art world, his studio, personal art collection, and works of art. An unprocessed addition of three sketchbooks was donated in 2020.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of New York City sculptor and teacher Chaim Gross measure 21.1 linear feet and date from 1920-2004. The collection provides comprehensive documentation of Gross's career through biographical material, personal and professional correspondence with family, artists, writers, galleries, museums, educational institutions, and religious and philanthropic organizations, writings, personal business records, extensive printed and published material including motion picture film and video recordings of four documentaries, one hundred and fifteen sketchbooks spanning the bulk of Gross's career, and photographs of Gross, his family, many friends and colleagues from the art world, his studio, personal art collection, and works of art.
Biographical material includes records collated to document awards and honors given to Gross documenting the recognition he received for his lifelong achievements in the last two decades of his career, including from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the National Academy of Design. The series also includes Gross's birth certificate printed in 1920, some biographical notes and resumes prior to the 1970s, documentation of Gross's business and personal contacts through addresses and business cards, and a motion picture film of a documentary about Gross, Art and the Model, made in 1976 by Thea Bay and edited by Bob Worth.
Personal and professional correspondence constitutes the largest series in the collection and documents all aspects of Gross's prolific career including: personal letters from friends and family such as daughter Mimi Gross and Red Grooms; professional correspondence with galleries, museums, and other art institutions including the Jewish Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and the Whitney Museum of American Art; correspondence documenting commissions, loans, and sales of Gross's artwork through galleries including Forum Gallery; and correspondence with synagogues including International Synagogue, Temple Sharaay Tefila, and Temple Sinai, Pittsburgh, and multiple other Jewish organizations such as Hadassah and State of Israel Bonds. Correspondence also documents publications by and about Gross including letters from Abe Lerner, the Jewish Publication Society of America, Chaim Potok, and Harry N. Abrams, Inc.; Gross's work as a teacher including at the Educational Alliance and the New School for Social Research; and the significance of Gross's personal collection of African art through correspondence with Warren M. Robbins, the Smithsonian Museum of African Art, and others. Gross's work for the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project and Treasury Relief Project, as well as for the 1939 World's Fair, is also documented in this series and includes contracts and correspondence with Ed Rowan.
Correspondence includes many letters from artist friends and colleagues including Isabel Bishop, Peter Blume, Eliot Elisofon, Eugenie Gershoy, Milton Hebald, Lewis Jacobs, Karl Knaths, Arnold Newman, Elias Newman, Saul Rosen, Moses Soyer, Raphael Soyer, Nicholas Sperakis, William and Marguerite Zorach, and many others. Writers and scholars who corresponded with Gross include Samuel French Morse, Jack C. Rich, Shea Tenenbaum, Roberta Tarbell, and others.
Writings primarily consist of a partial draft of Gross's book The Technique of Wood Sculpture but also include a copy of his first published article in 1938 in the American Federation of Arts Magazine of Art, and a few short writings by Gross on other artists. Writings by others include a memoir of Gross's boyhood written by his brother, poet Naftoli Gross.
Gross's personal business records are scattered, as many transactional records are included with his correspondence. They do include lists of Gross's artwork and his personal art collection, two agreements for rights to use his work, appraisals of twelve of his works of art, and receipts of consignments, sales, loans, and gifts of artwork.
Printed material is a comprehensive and substantial record of Gross's exhibitions, and his prolific engagement in the arts and his community throughout his long career. This series includes announcements and catalogs for many of his exhibitions, brochures and programs for art organizations for which he exhibited, taught, donated to, or was otherwise represented in, notably the Educational Alliance, the New School for Social Research, the Sculptors Guild, Inc., and numerous other private and public museums, galleries, and institutions. Also found is circa one linear foot of clippings about Gross that span his career from newspapers, magazines, and journals, including some Hebrew and Yiddish publications. The series also houses video recordings of the documentaries Tree Trunk to Head and A Sculptor Speaks, and an NBC broadcast of an interview with Gross entitled The Two Chaims, as the motion picture film, A Sculptor Speaks.
Sketchbooks provide a unique visual record of Gross's development and the shifting focus of his subject matter from 1933 to right before his death in 1991. They record his early subjects of acrobatic models, family bonds, and landscapes, and the emergence of darker "fantasy" drawings in the wake of the Holocaust and World War II which brought the news of the murder of his brother and sister and her family by the Nazis. The sketchbooks document Gross's travels abroad during the 1960s, and his incorporation of Jewish iconography and Old Testament themes in the 1960s and 1970s. They also illustrate how the constant theme of the celebration of the human form persisted in his work to the end of his life.
Photographs of people and events, although only measuring 0.7 linear feet, provide a rich visual record of Gross's life and his professional and personal relationships from the time he arrived in the United States in 1920 to the late 1980s. The earliest photographs picture Gross with his brothers and with new friends at the Educational Alliance including Moses and Raphael Soyer, Peter Blume, and Elias Newman. There are many photographs of Gross working in his studios, and at the Bedi-Makky Art Foundry in Brooklyn, photographs taken at parties, exhibition openings, receptions, and other events, and photographs of Gross's art collection and exhibition installations. Photographs picture artists such as Hyman Brown, Jose de Creeft, Joseph Hirsch, Moses Soyer, and Raphael Soyer; and gallery owners and collectors including Bella Fishko, Joseph Hirshhorn, Sidney Janis, and Warren M. Robbins. The series also houses photographs of works of art, primarily sculpture, executed by Gross between 1922 and 1987.
An unprocessed addition of three sketchbooks was donated in 2020.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as eight series.
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1920-circa 1991 (0.35 linear feet; Box 1, FC23)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1926-1997 (8.75 linear feet; Boxes 1-9, 22)
Series 3: Writings and Notes, 1938-circa 1980s (0.25 linear feet; Boxes 9-10)
Series 4: Personal Business Records, circa 1936-1982 (0.25 linear feet; Box 10)
Series 5: Printed Material, 1925-2004 (3.7 linear feet; Boxes 10-14, 22, FC 24)
Series 6: Sketchbooks, 1933-1991 (6.1 linear feet; Boxes 14-19, 22)
Series 7: Photographs, circa 1921-circa 1990s (1.5 linear feet; Boxes 20-22)
Series 8: Unprocessed Addition, 1949-1951 (0.2 linear feet; Box 25)
Biographical / Historical:
New York City sculptor and teacher Chaim Gross (1904-1991) is considered one of America's foremost sculptors, known for his semi-abstract bronzes celebrating the human form, and his pioneering work in direct wood carving. Gross taught for over fifty years at the Educational Alliance Art School and for forty years at the New School for Social Research.
Born in 1904 in Wolowa, Galicia, in what is now the Ukraine, Gross studied at the National Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest in 1919 and at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna in 1920 before immigrating to New York in 1921. He attended the Lower East Side Educational Art School in New York City from 1921-1927 where he began lifelong friendships with artists Moses Soyer, Raphael Soyer, Peter Blume and other important twentieth century artists. Gross also studied with Elie Nadelman at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design and Robert Laurent at the Art Students League. He began teaching at the Educational Alliance in 1927 where his students included Louise Nevelson.
Gross married Renee Nechin in 1932 and they had two children, Yehuda and Miriam (Mimi). Mimi Gross is a New York-based artist who was married to artist Red Grooms from 1963-1976.
Gross's first solo exhibition was held at Gallery 144 in New York City in 1932, and he began to develop a reputation as a major contemporary sculptor when he joined the Federal Art Project in 1934 and won a commission from the Treasury Department competition for art works for public buildings in 1936. His projects included relief panels for the Federal Trade Commission building in Washington, D. C., and a large-scale family group for the France Overseas and Finnish Buildings at the 1939 New York World's Fair. In 1938 Gross founded the Sculptors Guild with William Zorach and served as the guild's first president. His work began to be acquired by major American museums, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art which in 1939 awarded Gross a $3000 purchase prize for his wood sculpture of circus performer Lillian Leitzel.
In 1938 filmmaker Lewis Jacobs produced a thirty minute film, Tree Trunk to Head, of Gross carving a wood sculpture of Renee Gross in his studio. Lewis subsequently produced a seventeen minute film, The Sculptor Speaks, of Gross working in his studio in 1957. That same year Gross published an influential how-to book The Technique of Wood Sculpture, featuring photographs by Eliot Elisofon.
Much of Gross's early work focused on performers such as acrobats and dancers, family groups, and the mother and child bond. The bulk of his work was in wood, particularly hardwoods with a dark or pronounced grain. In the 1940s, after hearing that his brother Pincus and sister Sarah and her family had been murdered by the Nazis, Gross devoted time daily to sketching in his notebooks, producing a visual diary of the emotional trauma involved in processing their horrific fate and navigating his own grief. A collection of the drawings was published in Chaim Gross: Fantasy Drawings (Beechurst Press) in 1956. Gross carved My Sister Sarah – in Memoriam (no. 36) in 1947 and made the first of seven trips to Israel in 1949.
By the late 1950s Gross was working less in direct carving and was focusing primarily on modeling in plaster on an armature for casting in bronze. In 1957 and 1959 he traveled to Rome, Italy, and worked with the Nicci Foundry. Bella Fishko began representing Gross's work after establishing Forum Gallery in New York City in 1961. After 1947 Gross had begun to incorporate more Jewish iconography and Old Testament themes into his work, designing and casting large scale menorahs for synagogues such as Temple Sinai in Pittsburgh and the Menorah Home for the Aged in Brooklyn during the 1960s. He executed six bronze panels, entitled Six Days of Creation, for Temple Sharaay Tefila in New York City in 1964, and Ten Commandments for the International Synagogue at Kennedy Airport in 1970-1971. In 1973 Gross illustrated The Book of Isaiah, published by the Jewish Publication Society of America.
Gross was active in many art-related and philanthropic organizations throughout his life and was the recipient of numerous awards, honors, and honorary degrees. He was elected to membership of the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1964, became an Academician at the National Academy of Design in 1983, and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1984. A solo exhibition Chaim Gross: Sculpture and Drawings, was held at the Smithsonian's National Collection of Fine Arts in 1974. In 1977 Gross had three retrospective exhibitions at the Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami, the Montclair Art Museum, and the Jewish Museum in New York City. Scholar Roberta Tarbell wrote a key essay on Gross for the Jewish Museum exhibition.
In addition to being a professor of sculpture and printmaking at the Educational Alliance Art School and the New School for Social Research, Gross taught at the Brooklyn Museum Art School, the art school of the Museum of Modern Art, and the Art Students League.
Gross had begun collecting African sculpture in the 1930s and was later introduced by art critic Frank Getlein to Warren M. Robbins, who established the Museum of African Art in 1964. Gross gave Robbins several pieces for the museum and connected him with other individuals whose private collections of African art Robbins learned would be key to the success of the museum. A selection from Gross's renowned collection was exhibited at the Worcester Art Museum in The Sculptor's Eye: The African Art Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Chaim Gross in 1976.
The Renee & Chaim Gross Foundation was created in 1974 at 526 LaGuardia Place, the historic Greenwich Village townhouse which Chaim and Renee Gross purchased in 1962 and renovated to include studio and gallery space with living quarters above. Three years after Gross's death in 1991, the Renee and Chaim Gross foundation opened to the public with a memorial exhibition of the sculptor's work. 526 LaGuardia Place continues to house an extensive collection of Gross's artwork, a photographic archive, and Gross's personal art collection. Gross's work is represented in major museums throughout the United States and abroad, with the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden housing the largest collection of his sculpture in a public museum.
Related Materials:
Additional Chaim Gross papers are held by Syracuse University.
The Archives of American Art also holds an oral history interview of Chaim Gross conducted 1964 September 1 by Dorothy Seckler and an oral history interview of Chaim Gross conducted 1981 May 26-27 by Milton Wolf Brown.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art holds the microfilm (Reels D115a, 924, and 925) of ten record books, 1926-1975, containing rough drawings of artworks, dimensions, titles, dates, materials, production locations, and information regarding owners. The record books were returned to the donor after microfilming and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
The Chaim Gross papers were given to the Archives of American Art in a series of accessions by Chaim Gross from 1963-1983. Thirteen postcards were given by Mrs. Irving Marantz in 1975. Mimi Gross donated eight letters and two envelopes in 2005. Additional papers were donated by the Renee and Chaim Gross Foundation in 2016 via Susan Fisher, executive Director, and in 2017 and 2020 by the Foundation via Sasha Davis, Interim Director and Curator of Collections.
Restrictions:
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 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:
Sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Art teachers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The Leo Castelli Gallery records measure 215.9 linear feet and 0.001 GB and date from circa 1880-2000, with the bulk of the materials dating from the gallery's founding in 1957 through Leo Castelli's death in 1999. The major influence of dealer Leo Castelli and his gallery on the development of mid-to-late twentieth century modern art in America is well-documented through business and scattered personal correspondence, administrative files, exhibition files, extensive artists' files and printed materials, posters, awards and recognitions, photographs, and sound and video recordings. Also included are records for the subsidiary firms of Castelli Graphics and Castelli/Sonnabend Tapes and Films.
Scope and Content Note:
The Leo Castelli Gallery records measure 215.9 linear feet and 0.001 GB and date from circa 1880-2000, with the bulk of the materials dating from the gallery's founding in 1957 through Leo Castelli's death in 1999. The major influence of dealer Leo Castelli and his gallery on the development of mid-to-late twentieth century modern art in America is well-documented through business and scattered personal correspondence, administrative files, exhibition files, extensive artists' files and printed materials, posters, awards and recognitions, photographs, and audio and video recordings. Also included are records for the subsidiary firms of Castelli Graphics and Castelli/Sonnabend Tapes and Films.
The records document the gallery's daily business operations, exhibitions, spaces/buildings, collaborations and joint ventures with other galleries and museums, and its relationship with many artists, dealers, and clients. Artists particularly well-represented throughout the collection include Hanne Darboven, Dan Flavin, Jasper Johns, Donald Judd, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Richard Serra, Frank Stella, Andy Warhol, and Lawrence Weiner.
Records pre-dating the gallery's establishment in 1957 are primarily newspaper and magazine clippings related to artists, personal photographs and photographs of works of art, and scattered personal business records of Leo Castelli.
General Correspondence is extensive at circa 25 linear feet and consists primarily of the gallery's and Leo Castelli's named and subject correspondence files concerning the gallery's daily operations, exhibitions, artwork installation and fabrication, appraisals, inquiries, loans, sales, consignments, personal and business relationships with artists, and other topics. The general correspondence is arranged either by name of correspondent or topic, and is with museums and galleries, collectors, business associates, artists, employees, and friends. Notes, scattered photographs and slides, and printed materials are often found as enclosures. Leo Castelli's personal correspondence is also found here and consists primarily of solicitations, requests for advice, notes of thanks, congratulations, and invitations.
Letters written by artists in the gallery's stable are somewhat limited. There are scattered letters from artists Christo, Chryssa, Nassos Daphnis, Hanne Darboven, Marisol, Dan Flavin, Jasper Johns, Frederick Kiesler, Robert Morris, Hans Namuth, Bruce Nauman, Nam June Paik, Ray Parker, James Rosenquist, Edward Ruscha, Salvatore Scarpitta, Frank Stella, Cy Twombly, and Jack Tworkov. There are also letters about artists in this series filed under the artists' name.
Collectors and dealers represented within the correspondence include the De Menil family, Mrs. Henry Epstein, Ben Heller, Giuseppe Panza, Alan Power, John and Kimiko Powers, Robert and Carolyn Rowan, Robert and Ethel Scull, and Burton and Emily Tremaine. Museums and galleries for which there is considerable correspondence includes the Dwan Gallery, Ferus Gallery, the Jewish Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Sidney Janis Gallery, Stedelijk Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Ileana Sonnabend Galerie.
The materials arranged in General Correspondence were originally marked by the gallery as "correspondence" files upon accessioning, and, are thus arranged into their own series. However, in some cases, there appears to be little difference between the General Correspondence and the Administrative Files. Thus, researchers are encouraged to reference both series.
Administrative Files document a wide variety of the gallery's activities and business. Essentially, these are files that were arranged by the gallery according to subject or topic and cover almost all activities except specific exhibitions. These files include records and correspondence about buildings and space, advertising, appraisals, auctions, consignments, loans, miscellaneous business correspondence, index cards, business arrangements with artists, information about artists, interviews with artists (transcripts), history of the gallery, mailings, photograph requests, shipping, and other topics. Few items are in digital format. There are staff notebooks and files and Leo Castelli's notebooks and notes from the late 1950s through the early 1990s. Extensive outgoing chronological correspondence filed in this series dates from 1964-1977. Also found are transcripts of interviews with Leo Castelli, biographical material, some of it in digital format, and scattered photographs.
Researchers should note that the Administrative Files often overlap and complement the General Correspondence. However, they focus slightly more distinctly on gallery business activities and are arranged mostly by subject or topic, except for the chronological business correspondence. Researchers are encouraged to reference both series. For example, correspondence with and about Jasper Johns may be found in both series, but the administrative files most likely focus on a specific loan, consignment, or business activity or transaction.
Exhibition files provide a thorough history of the gallery's exhibitions, as well as the fabrication and installation of artwork for exhibitions. These files include correspondence, exhibition catalogs, guest books, lists of exhibitions by artist and by year, press releases, sketches and notes, and scattered financial records. Photographs document over 650 exhibitions at Leo Castelli Gallery, including The Ninth Street Show organized by Castelli in 1951, and over 200 exhibitions at other galleries.
Extensive artists' files comprise approximately 40% of the records and are a rich resource of printed and compiled information about the careers of over 120 artists and their relationship with Leo Castelli and the gallery. There are exhibition announcements and catalogs, flyers, invitations, magazine articles and clippings, newspaper clippings, posters, press releases, photographs, and a handful of books. Nearly half of the series is comprised of black and white photographs of artwork, presumably handled by the Leo Castelli Gallery.
Additional printed materials include exhibition announcements, flyers, invitations, magazine articles and clippings, newspaper clippings, press releases, and exhibition posters. Exhibition catalogs are filed with the exhibitions files. The general archives files provide a chronological history of the gallery and its exhibitions. There are also files concerning Leo Castelli and numerous art-related topics. Exhibition posters are found here as well.
Artwork is limited and includes a few works of art and signed posters. Artists represented here include photographer Gianfranco Gorgoni, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Richard Serra and Andy Warhol, as well as others.
The records of the subsidiary Castelli Graphics New York consist of correspondence and administrative files relating to general operations and the sale and loan of prints. Also found are exhibition files, sales records, and scattered financial records. The series provides a wealth of information about Castelli Graphics collaborations with Multiples Inc. in the 1970s.
Also found in the collection are records of Castelli/Sonnabend Tapes and Films, a joint business venture between Leo Castelli Gallery and Sonnabend Gallery from 1974-1985. Records include correspondence, administrative files, exhibition files, artists' files, printed materials, sales and rental records, photographs, and financial records.
The importance and stature of Leo Castelli and the Leo Castelli Gallery to the arts community in New York City and beyond is documented by numerous awards and recognitions, such as framed and unframed certificates, plaques, statues, medals, and scattered photographs.
Nearly seven linear feet of photographs include professional black and white original prints, scattered color photographs, color transparencies, slides and negatives, and disassembled photo albums. The photographs primarily depict social and art events and functions; family and friends of Leo Castelli; and portraits of Leo Castelli and artists and of Leo Castelli with artists, including Richard Artschwager, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Bruce Nauman, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Salvatore Scarpitta, Richard Serra, Frank Stella, and Andy Warhol. Photographs of exhibitions and exhibition installations are filed with the exhibition files.
Sound and video recordings include sound and video art, performances, interviews with artists and Leo Castelli, recordings from and of exhibitions, and television publicity recorded on sound cassettes, phonograph records (vinyl and lacquer), videocassettes (U-matic, VHS, Betamax), and videocartridges. Artists represented include Vito Acconci, Robert Barry, Barbara Bloom, Hannah Collins, Hanne Darboven, Dan Flavin, Laura Grisi, Jasper Johns, Jeff Koons, Roy Lichtenstein, Bruce Nauman, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Ed Ruscha, Salvatore Scarpitta, Doug and Mike Starn, and Lawrence Weiner, among others.
See Index for list of Exhibitions at the Leo Castelli Gallery and Castelli Graphics
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 11 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Correspondence, 1948-1999, bulk 1957-1997 (24.4 linear feet; Boxes 1-23, 191, OVs 233-236)
Series 2: Administrative Files, 1941-1999, bulk 1970s-1990s (17.3 linear feet; Boxes 24-39, 192-193, OVs 237-238, 0.001 GB; ER01-ER02)
Series 3: Exhibition Files, 1951-1999, bulk 1957-1998 (18.7 linear feet; Boxes 40-56, 192, 194-196, 308-309, OVs 239-241, 280)
Series 4: Artists Files, 1913-1999, bulk 1960s-1990s (80.8 linear feet; Boxes 57-133, 197-208, OVs 242-243)
Series 5: Printed Materials, 1949-1998 (23.5 linear feet; Boxes 134-153, 209-211, OVs 244-274, 276, 300, RDs 301-306)
Series 6: Artwork, circa 1960s-1990s (1.8 linear feet; Boxes 153, 212-213, OVs 275, 277-278, RD 307)
Series 7: Castelli Graphics, circa 1950-1999, bulk mid 1970s-early 1990s (16 linear feet; Boxes 154-169)
Series 8: Castelli/Sonnabend Tapes + Films, 1969-1998 (5.6 linear feet; Boxes 170-174, 214, OVs 279-281)
Series 9: Awards and Recognition, 1962-1998 (6.9 linear feet; Boxes 175-176, 215-228, OVs 282)
Series 10: Photographs, circa 1880-1997, bulk 1960s-1990s (6.6 linear feet; Boxes 177-180, 229-231, OVs 283-299)
Series 11: Sound and Video Recordings, 1959-2000 (9.7 linear feet; Boxes 181-190, 232)
Historical Note:
Leo Castelli (1907-1999) was one of America's most noted contemporary art dealers and opened the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City in 1957. The gallery showcased cutting edge American contemporary art, including Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, Neo-Dada, Pop Art, Op Art, Color Field painting, Hard-edge painting, Lyrical Abstraction, Minimal Art, Conceptual Art, and Neo-expressionism, among other movements.
Leo Castelli was born as Leo Krauss on September 4, 1907 in Trieste, of Italian and Austro-Hungarian Jewish origin. He married art dealer Ileana Sonnabend in 1932 and the couple lived in Paris up until World War II. They had a daughter, Nina Castelli Sundell. In Paris, Castelli opened his first gallery in 1939. At that time, he was interested in the European Surrealists.
For years after Castelli moved to New York, he worked in his father-in-law's garment business. However, he organized his first American exhibition in 1951, the famous Ninth Street Show of 1951, a seminal event of Abstract Expressionism.
In 1957, he opened the Leo Castelli Gallery in his townhome on E. 77th Street between Madison and Fifth Avenues in New York City. Castelli initially featured European Surrealism, but also curated exhibitions of American Abstract painters, including Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Cy Twombly, Friedel Dzubas, and Norman Bluhm.
In 1958, Castelli discovered Pop artists Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns and forged a life-long nurturing relationship with both artists. The gallery then began focusing more on Pop Art, Minimalism and Conceptual Art. Beginning in the early 1960s, Castelli's stable included Richard Artschwager, Lee Bontecou, Chryssa, John Chamberlain, Ronald Davis, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Ellsworth Kelly, Joseph Kosuth, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Larry Poons, James Rosenquist, Ed Ruscha, Salvatore Scarpitta, Richard Serra, Frank Stella, Andy Warhol, and Lawrence Weiner.
Leo and Ileana divorced in 1959, and Ileana returned to Europe. She later moved back to New York and opened a gallery close to Castelli's. The two remained close and together they established the joint venture of Castelli-Sonnabend Films and Tapes to accommodate artists interested in new media.
In the 1970s Leo Castelli opened a downtown SoHo branch of the Leo Castelli Gallery at 420 West Broadway. In the 1980s he opened a second larger downtown exhibition space on Greene Street also in SoHo.
Leo Castelli's second wife was Antoinette Castelli, with whom he also opened Castelli Graphics, an art gallery devoted to prints and photographs, mostly those by Castelli artists. The couple also had a son together, Jean-Christophe Castelli. In 1995 Leo Castelli married Italian art historian Barbara Bertozzi Castelli. She directs the Leo Castelli Gallery today, showing many of the same artists of the gallery's past.
Leo Castelli's unparalleled eye for quality, combined with his extraordinary skill for nurturing and promoting new art and artists, secured his position as one of the most respected and influential advocates of contemporary art for nearly five decades.
List of Exhibitions:
Below is a chronological listing of over 850 exhibitions and events held at the Leo Castelli Gallery from 1957 to 1999; included are exhibitions at 4 E 77 St (1957-1989), 65 Thompson (1989-1994), 108th St Warehouse (1968-1970), 142 Greene St (1980-1988), 420 W Broadway (1971-1999), and 578 Broadway (1988-1997). Castelli Graphics exhibitions from 1969-1996 and Castelli/Sonnabend Tapes and Films exhibitions from 1974-1984 are also included and are noted when known.
Note that this list is not comprehensive. In particular, Castelli Graphics exhibitions from the 1980s and early 1990s are incomplete. Sources used to compile this index include exhibition schedules and lists, installation photographs, announcements, clippings, and other printed materials from the Leo Castelli Gallery records, and the Leo Castelli Gallery website (www.castelligallery.com).
Exhibitions are listed in chronological order by title, if known, and gallery address.
1957 SeasonFeb. -- First Exhibition: de Kooning, Delaunay, Dubuffet, Giacometti, Hartley, Leger, Mondrian, Picabia, Pollock, David Smith, van Doesburg; 4 E 77 St
Mar. 4-23, 1957 -- Jon Schueler; 4 E 77 St
Mar. 25 - Apr. 13, 1957 -- Viseux; 4 E 77 St
Apr. 15 - May 4, 1957 -- Paul Brach; 4 E 77 St
May 6-25, 1957 -- New Work: Bluhm, Budd, Dzubas, Johns, Leslie, Louis, Marisol, Ortman, Rauschenberg, Savelli; 4 E 77 St
1957-1958 SeasonOct. 1-26, 1957 -- Norman Bluhm; 4 E 77 St
Oct. 28 - Nov. 16, 1957 -- Horia Damian; 4 E 77 St
Nov. 18 - Dec. 14, 1957 -- Marisol; 4 E 77 St
Dec. 17, 1957 - Jan. 18, 1958 -- Collector's Annual; 4 E 77 St
Jan. 20 - Feb. 8, 1958 -- Jasper Johns; 4 E 77 St
Feb. 10 - Mar. 1, 1958 -- Friedel Dzubas; 4 E 77 St
Mar. 4-29, 1958 -- Robert Rauschenberg; 4 E 77 St
Apr. 1-26, 1958 -- Giuseppe Capogrossi; 4 E 77 St
Apr. 29 - May 31, 1958 -- Pioneers 1910-1950: de Kooning, Delaunay, Domela, Dubuffet, Giacometti, Hartley, Kandinsky, Leger, Miro, Picabia, Pollock, Schwitters, Smith, van Doejburg; 4 E 77 St
1958-1959 SeasonSept. 30 - Oct. 25, 1958 -- Angelo Savelli; 4 E 77 St
Oct. 28 - Nov. 22, 1958 -- Group Exhibition: Bluhm, Brach, Dzubas, Johns, Marisol, Rauschenberg, Schueler; 4 E 77 St
Nov. 25 - Dec. 20, 1958 -- Esteban Vicente, Drawings; 4 E 77 St
Jan. 6-24, 1959 -- Nassos Daphnis; 4 E 77 St
Jan. 27 - Feb. 14, 1959 -- Salvatore Scarpitta, Extramurals; 4 E 77 St
Feb. 17 - Mar. 7, 1959 -- Al Newbill; 4 E 77 St
Mar. 10-28, 1959 -- Gabriel Kohn; 4 E 77 St
Mar. 31 - Apr. 18, 1959 -- Norman Bluhm, Jean Dubuffet, and Robert Rauschenberg; 4 E 77 St
Apr. 21 - May 9, 1959 -- Jon Schueler; 4 E 77 St
May 12-30, 1959 -- Group Exhibition: Brach, Dzubas, Johns, Sander, Twombly; 4 E 77 St
1959-1960 SeasonOct. 6-17, 1959 -- Opening Exhibition of the New Gallery: Bluhm, Brach, Daphnis, Johns, Kohn, Rauschenberg, Sander, Scarpitta, Stella, Twombly; 4 E 77 St
Oct. 20 - Nov. 7, 1959 -- Work in Three Dimensions: Chamberlain, Follet, Giles, Johns, Klein, Kohn, Marisol, Nevelson, Ortman, Rauschenberg, Scarpitta; 4 E 77 St
Nov. 10-28, 1959 -- Ludwig Sander; 4 E 77 St
Dec. 1-26, 1959 -- Paul Brach; 4 E 77 St
Jan. 5-23, 1960 -- William Giles; 4 E 77 St
Jan. 26 - Feb. 13, 1960 -- Norman Bluhm; 4 E 77 St
Feb. 15 - Mar. 5, 1960 -- Jasper Johns; 4 E 77 St
Mar. 8-26, 1960 -- Nassos Daphnis; 4 E 77 St
Mar. 29 - Apr. 16, 1960 -- Robert Rauschenberg; 4 E 77 St
Apr. 19 - May 7, 1960 -- Salvatore Scarpitta; 4 E 77 St
May 10-28, 1960 -- Edward Higgins; 4 E 77 St
May 31 - June 25, 1960 -- Summary 1959-1960: Bluhm, Bontecou, Daphnis, Higgins, Johns, Kohn, Langlais, Rauschenberg, Sander, Scarpitta, Stella, Twombly, Tworkov; 4 E 77 St
1960-1961 SeasonSept. 27 - Oct. 15, 1960 -- Frank Stella; 4 E 77 St
Oct. 18 - Nov. 5, 1960 -- Cy Twombly; 4 E 77 St
Nov. 9 - Dec. 3, 1960 -- Lee Bontecou; 4 E 77 St
Dec. 6, 1960 - Jan. 7, 1961 -- Robert Rauschenberg, 34 Illustrations for Dante's Inferno; 4 E 77 St
Jan. 10-28, 1961 -- Frederick Kiesler; 4 E 77 St
Jan. 31 - Feb. 25, 1961 -- Jasper Johns, Drawings and Sculpture; 4 E 77 St
Feb. 28 - Mar. 18, 1961 -- Jack Tworkov; 4 E 77 St
Mar. 21 - Apr. 8, 1961 -- Bernard Langlais; 4 E 77 St
Apr. 11-29, 1961 -- Yves Klein, Le Monochrome; 4 E 77 St
May 2-20, 1961 -- Ludwig Sander; 4 E 77 St
May 23 - June [10], 1961 -- Sculpture and Relief: Bontecou, Chamberlain, Higgins, Scarpitta; 4 E 77 St
1961-1962 SeasonSept. 22 - Oct. 14, 1961 -- An Exhibition in Progress: Bontecou, Chamberlain, Daphnis, Higgins, Johns, Langlais, Moskowitz, Rauschenberg, Scarpitta, Stella, Twombly, Tworkov; 4 E 77 St
Oct. 17 - Nov. 4, 1961 -- Nassos Daphnis; 4 E 77 St
Nov. 7 - Dec. 5, 1961 -- Robert Rauschenberg; 4 E 77 St
Dec. 8, 1961 - Jan. 10, 1962 -- Group Exhibition: Bontecou, Johns, Langlais, [Lichtenstein], Scarpitta, Tworkov; 4 E 77 St
Jan. 13 - Feb. 6, 1962 -- John Chamberlain; 4 E 77 St
Feb. 10 - Mar. 3, 1962 -- Roy Lichtenstein; 4 E 77 St
Mar. 10 - Apr. 5, 1962 -- Robert Moskowitz; 4 E 77 St
Apr. 7-21, 1962 -- Group Exhibition: Bontecou, Chamberlain, Daphnis, Higgins, Rauschenberg, Scarpitta, Stella; 4 E 77 St
Apr. 28 - May 19, 1962 -- Frank Stella; 4 E 77 St
May 26 - June 30, 1962 -- Drawings: Bontecou, Johns, Lichtenstein, Moskowitz, Rauschenberg, Stella, Tworkov; 4 E 77 St
1962-1963 SeasonSept. 22 - Oct. 13, 1962 -- Group Exhibition: Chamberlain, Higgins, Johns, Klapheck, Rauschenberg, Scarpitta, Stella, Tinguely, Tworkov; 4 E 77 St
Oct. 16 - Nov. 7, 1962 -- John Chamberlain and Frank Stella; 4 E 77 St
Nov. 10 - Dec. 6, 1962 -- Lee Bontecou; 4 E 77 St
Dec. 8, 1962 - Jan. 9, 1963 -- Gerald van de Wiele; 4 E 77 St
Jan. 12 - Feb. 7, 1963 -- Jasper Johns; 4 E 77 St
Feb. 9 - Mar. 7, 1963 -- Jack Tworkov; 4 E 77 St
Mar. 9-30, 1963 -- Nassos Daphnis; 4 E 77 St
Apr. 2-25, 1963 -- Group Exhibition: Chamberlain, Higgins, Kiesler, Lichtenstein, Moskowitz, Rauschenberg, Stella, Twombly; 4 E 77 St
Apr. 27 - May 16, 1963 -- Salvatore Scarpitta; 4 E 77 St
May 20 - June 30, 1963 -- Group Drawing Exhibition: Bontecou, Daphnis, Johns, Lichtenstein, Moskowitz, Rauschenberg, Stella, Tworkov, van de Wiele; 4 E 77 St
1963-1964 SeasonSept. 28 - Oct. 24, 1963 -- Roy Lichtenstein; 4 E 77 St
Oct. 26 - Nov. 21, 1963 -- Robert Rauschenberg; 4 E 77 St
Nov. 23, 1963 - Jan. 2, 1964 -- Edward Higgins; 4 E 77 St
Jan. 4 - Feb. 6, 1964 -- Frank Stella; 4 E 77 St
Feb. 8 - Mar. 12, 1964 -- Group Exhibition: Chamberlain, Johns, Lichtenstein, Rauschenberg, Stella; 4 E 77 St
Mar. 14 - Apr. 9, 1964 -- Cy Twombly; 4 E 77 St
Apr. 11-30, 1964 -- John Chamberlain; 4 E 77 St
May 2 - June 3, 1964 -- Introducing Artschwager, Christo, Hay, Watts; 4 E 77 St
June 6-30, 1964 -- Group Exhibition: Chamberlain, Lichtenstein, Rauschenberg, Scarpitta, Stella, Twombly, Tworkov; 4 E 77 St
1964-1965 SeasonSept. 26 - Oct. 22, 1964 -- Group Exhibition: Artschwager, Lichtenstein, Rosenquist, Stella, Warhol; 4 E 77 St
Oct. 24 - Nov. 19, 1964 -- Roy Lichtenstein, Landscapes; 4 E 77 St
Nov. 21 - Dec. 28, 1964 -- Andy Warhol, Flower Paintings; 4 E 77 St
Jan. 9-27, 1965 -- John Chamberlain, Paintings; 4 E 77 St
Jan. 30 - Feb. 24, 1965 -- Richard Artschwager; 4 E 77 St
Feb. 27 - Mar. 24, 1965 -- Nassos Daphnis; 4 E 77 St
Mar. 27 - Apr. 14, 1965 -- Salvatore Scarpitta, Racing Cars; 4 E 77 St
Apr. 17 - May 13, 1965 -- James Rosenquist, F-111; 4 E 77 St
May 15 - June 9, 1965 -- Robert Rauschenberg, Oracle; 4 E 77 St
1965-1966 SeasonOct. 2-21, 1965 -- Group Exhibition: [Chamberlain], Johns, Lichtenstein, Poons, Rauschenberg, Stella, [Warhol]; 4 E 77 St
Oct. 23 - Nov. 17, 1965 -- Robert Bart; 4 E 77 St
Nov. 20 - Dec. 11, 1965 -- Roy Lichtenstein, Brushstrokes and Ceramics; 4 E 77 St
Dec. 14, 1965 - Jan. 5, 1966 -- Benefit Drawing Exhibition for the Foundation for the Contemporary Performance Arts; 4 E 77 St
Dec. 14, 1965 - Jan. 5, 1966 -- Group Exhibition; 4 E 77 St
Jan. 8 - Feb. 2, 1966 -- Jasper Johns; 4 E 77 St
Feb. 5 - Mar. 2, 1966 -- Donald Judd; 4 E 77 St
Feb. 12 - Mar. 2, 1966 -- Cy Twombly, Drawings; 4 E 77 St
Mar. 5 - Apr. 2, 1966 -- Frank Stella; 4 E 77 St
Apr. 6-27, 1966 -- Andy Warhol, Wallpaper and Clouds; 4 E 77 St
Apr. 30 - May 25, 1966 -- James Rosenquist; 4 E 77 St
May 28 - June 13, 1966 -- Christo, Storefront; 4 E 77 St
June 14-30, 1966 -- Group Exhibition: Bontecou, Johns, Judd, Lichtenstein, Poons, Rauschenberg, Rosenquist, Stella, Warhol; 4 E 77 St
1966-1967 SeasonOct. 8 - Nov. 8, 1966 -- Lee Bontecou; 4 E 77 St
Nov. 12 - Dec. 3, 1966 -- Edward Higgins; 4 E 77 St
Dec. 6-10, 1966 -- Benefit Group Exhibition for Experiments in Art and Technology, Inc.; 4 E 77 St
Dec. 7, 1966 - Jan. 5, 1967 -- Stanley Landsman; 4 E 77 St
Dec. 14, 1966 - Jan. 5, 1967 -- Group Exhibition: Artschwager, Lichtenstein, Rosenquist, Warhol; 4 E 77 St
Apr. 1967 -- New Work: Chamberlain, Lichtenstein, Stella; 4 E 77 St
May 1967 -- Robert Rauschenberg, Revolvers; 4 E 77 St
1967-1968 SeasonOct. 7-26, 1967 -- Cy Twombly; 4 E 77 St
Oct. 28 - Nov. 18, 1967 -- Roy Lichtenstein; 4 E 77 St
Nov. 25 - Dec. 23, 1967 -- Frank Stella; 4 E 77 St
Dec. 30, 1967 - Jan. 23, 1968 -- Richard Artschwager, Sculptures and Reliefs; 4 E 77 St
Jan. 27 - Feb. 17, 1968 -- Bruce Nauman; 4 E 77 St
Feb. 24 - Mar. 16, 1968 -- Jasper Johns; 4 E 77 St
Mar. 23 - Apr. 11, 1968 -- Ron Davis; 4 E 77 St
Apr. 20 - May 11, 1968 -- Robert Morris; 4 E 77 St
May 18 - June 8, 1968 -- Jack Krueger; 4 E 77 St
1968-1969 SeasonSept. 14-28, 1968 -- Nassos Daphnis; 4 E 77 St
Oct. 12-26, 1968 -- Robert Rauschenberg, White Paintings; 4 E 77 St
Nov. 2-23, 1968 -- Larry Poons; 4 E 77 St
Nov. 30 - Dec. 21, 1968 -- Cy Twombly; 4 E 77 St
Dec. 4-28, 1968 -- 9 at Leo Castelli: Anselmo, Bollinger, Hesse, Kaltenbach, Nauman, Saret, Serra, Sonnier, Zorio; 108th St Warehouse
Jan. 4-25, 1969 -- Donald Judd; 4 E 77 St
Feb. 1-22, 1969 -- John Chamberlain; 108th St Warehouse
Feb. 3-22, 1969 -- David Diao, Richard Pettibone, and Peter Young; 4 E 77 St
Mar. 1-22, 1969 -- Robert Morris; 4 E 77 St
Mar. 1-22, 1969 -- Robert Morris, A Continuous Project Altered Daily; 108th St Warehouse
Mar. 29 - Apr. 19, 1969 -- James Rosenquist, Horseblinders; 4 E 77 St
Mar. 29 - Apr. 19, 1969 -- Salvatore Scarpitta, Racing Cars; 108th St Warehouse
Apr. 26 - May 17, 1969 -- Robert Rauschenberg, Carnal Clocks; 4 E 77 St
Apr. 26 - May 17, 1969 -- Jack Krueger; 108th St Warehouse
May 24 - June 14, 1969 -- Bruce Nauman; 4 E 77 St
May 24 - June 21, 1969 -- 4 Painters for Spring: Bower, Cibula, Kalina, Roth, Yrisarry; 108th St Warehouse
June 21 - July 31, 1969 -- Group Exhibition: Chamberlain, Judd, Lichtenstein, Rauschenberg, Serra, Sonnier, Stella, Young; 4 E 77 St
1969-1970 SeasonSept. 20 - Oct. 11, 1969 -- Group Exhibition: Lichtenstein, Serra, Stella, Warhol; 4 E 77 St
Oct. 18 - Nov. 8, 1969 -- Ron Davis; 4 E 77 St
Oct. 18 - Nov. 8, 1969 -- Ron Davis; 108th St Warehouse
Nov. - Dec., 1969 -- Joseph Kosuth; 4 E 77 St
Nov. 13, 1969 -- Robert Rauschenberg, Moonshot Series (Castelli Graphics); 4 E 77 St
Nov. 18 - Dec. 6, 1969 -- Frank Stella; 4 E 77 St
Dec. 11-13, 1969 -- Benefit Exhibition, Art for the Moratorium; 4 E 77 St
Dec. 16, 1969 - Jan. 10, 1970 -- Richard Serra; 108th St Warehouse
Jan. 10-31, 1970 -- Jasper Johns, Drawings; 4 E 77 St
Jan. 17-24, 1970 -- Rafael Ferrer; 108th St Warehouse
Feb. 7-28, 1970 -- Dan Flavin, Tatlin Monuments; 4 E 77 St
Feb. 7-28, 1970 -- Robert Morris, Earthwork Projects (Castelli Graphics); 4 E 77 St
Mar. 7-28, 1970 -- Keith Sonnier; 4 E 77 St
Mar. 7-28, 1970 -- Keith Sonnier; 108th St Warehouse
Apr. 11 - May 9, 1970 -- Donald Judd; 4 E 77 St
Apr. 11 - May 9, 1970 -- Donald Judd; 108th St Warehouse
May 16-30, 1970 -- James Rosenquist; 4 E 77 St
June 11-27, 1970 -- Benefit Exhibition for the New York Studio School; 4 E 77 St
June 30 - Aug. 28, 1970 -- Group Exhibition: Chamberlain, Johns, Judd, Lichtenstein, Morris, Rauschenberg, Rosenquist, Stella, Twombly, Warhol; 4 E 77 St
1970-1971 SeasonSept. 19-26, 1970 -- Benefit Exhibition for Referendum '70: Daphnis, Flavin, Johns, Judd, Lichtenstein, Morris, Rauschenberg, Rosenquist, Stella, Twombly, Warhol; 4 E 77 St
Sept. 26 - Oct. 24, 1970 -- Roy Lichtenstein, New Editions: Lithographs, Sculpture, Reliefs (Castelli Graphics); 4 E 77 St
Oct. 3-18, 1970 -- Group Exhibition: Flavin, Judd, Lichtenstein, Rauschenberg, Stella, Twombly; 4 E 77 St
Oct. 24 - Nov. 14, 1970 -- James Rosenquist; 4 E 77 St
Nov. 21 - Dec. 12, 1970 -- Dan Flavin, Untitled (to Barnett Newman); 4 E 77 St
Sept. 29 - Nov. 16, 1973 -- Stockholm Show (Castelli Graphics); 4 E 77 St
Oct. 18 - Nov. 10, 1973 -- Benefit Exhibition for the Committee to Save Venice: Cornell, Dine, Frankenthaler, Johns, Kelly, Lichtenstein, Louis, Noland, Oldenburg, Olitski, Rauschenberg, Stella; 4 E 77 St
Nov. 1-3, 1973 -- Group Film Exhibition: Chamberlain, Jonas, Ruscha, Weiner; 420 W Broadway
Nov. 1-14, 1973 -- Group Show: Artschwager, Lichtenstein, Rosenquist, Warhol; 420 W Broadway
Nov. 10 - Dec. 1, 1973 -- Douglas Huebler; 420 W Broadway
Nov. 15 - Dec. 1, 1973 -- Hans Namuth, Photographs; 420 W Broadway
Nov. 17 - Dec. 7, 1973 -- Lewis Baltz, Photographs (Castelli Graphics); 4 E 77 St
Nov. 17 - Dec. 15, 1973 -- Richard Artschwager; 4 E 77 St
Dec. 8, 1973 - Jan. 12, 1974 -- Group Show of New Prints: Balog, Petersen, Rauschenberg, Sonnier (Castelli Graphics); 4 E 77 St
Dec. 8, 1973 - Jan. 12, 1974 -- John Chamberlain; 420 W Broadway
Dec. 15, 1973 - Jan. 19, 1974 -- Edward Ruscha, Retrospective Show, Graphics from the Collection of Donald Marron (Castelli Graphics); 4 E 77 St (upstairs)
Jan. 12-26, 1974 -- [García] Uriburu (Castelli Graphics); 4 E 77 St
Jan. 19 - Feb. 9, 1974 -- Robert Barry; 420 W Broadway
Feb. 2-16, 1974 -- James Rosenquist (Castelli Graphics); 4 E 77 St
Nov. 21, 1974 -- Philip Glass, Concert; 420 W Broadway
Dec. 7-21, 1975 -- Robert Rauschenberg, Hoarfrost Series; 420 W Broadway
Dec. 7, 1974 - [Jan. 4], 1974 -- Michelangelo Pistoletto, New Multiples (Castelli Graphics); 4 E 77 St
Dec. 7, 1974 - Jan. 4, 1975 -- Robert Rauschenberg, Hoarfrost Editions (Castelli Graphics); 4 E 77 St
Dec. 14, 1974 - Jan. 11, 1975 -- Andy Warhol, Hand Colored Flowers (Castelli Graphics); 420 W Broadway
Jan. 4-18, 1975 -- Bruce Nauman, Cones/Cojones; 420 W Broadway
Jan. 11-25, 1975 -- Edward Ruscha, Domestic Tranquility, Four New Lithographs (Castelli Graphics); 4 E 77 St
Jan. 11 - Feb. 2, 1975 -- Salvatore Scarpitta, Sleds; 4 E 77 St
Jan. 15-18, 1975 -- Peter Campus and Paul Kos, Videotapes (Castelli/Sonnabend Tapes + Films); 420 W Broadway
Jan. 25 - Feb. 8, 1975 -- Joseph Kosuth, The Tenth Investigation, Proposition Four; 420 W Broadway
Feb. 1-15, 1975 -- Group Show: Huebler, Morris, Nauman, Sonnier (Castelli Graphics); 4 E 77 St
Feb. 8-22, 1975 -- Keith Sonnier, Air to Air; 4 E 77 St
Feb. 15 - Mar. 8, 1975 -- Nassos Daphnis, A Continuous Painting; 420 W Broadway
Feb. 26 - Mar. 1, 1975 -- Benefit Exhibition for the Merce Cunningham Portfolio: Cage, Johns, Morris, Nauman, Rauschenberg, Stella, Warhol; 4 E 77 St
Feb. 26 - Mar. 1, 1975 -- Joan Jonas and Charlemagne Palestine, Videotapes (Castelli/Sonnabend Tapes + Films); 420 W Broadway
Mar. 5-8, 1975 -- Frank Gillette and William Wegman, Videotapes (Castelli/Sonnabend Tapes + Films); 420 W Broadway
Mar. 8 - Apr. 5, 1975 -- Ellsworth Kelly, Sculptures; 4 E 77 St
Mar. 15-29, 1975 -- Richard Artschwager, Drawings; 420 W Broadway
Mar. 15-29, 1975 -- Larry Stark, Silkscreens on Canvas; 420 W Broadway
Mar. 15 - [Apr. 5], 1975 -- Richard Landry, "1, 2, 3, 4" from Videotapes (Castelli Graphics); 4 E 77 St
Apr. 2-5, 1975 -- Benefit Exhibition for the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College; 420 W Broadway
Apr. 12-26, 1975 -- Ellsworth Kelly, New Prints (Castelli Graphics); 4 E 77 St
Apr. 12-26, 1975 -- Dan Flavin, Flourescent Light; 420 W Broadway
Apr. 12 - May 3, 1975 -- Ellsworth Kelly, Gray Series Paintings; 4 E 77 St
Apr. 19 - May 3, 1975 -- James Klosty, Around and About Merce Cunningham, Photographs 1968-1972; 420 W Broadway
May 3-17, 1975 -- Richmond Jones, Photographs (Castelli Graphics); 4 E 77 St
May 3-31, 1975 -- Frank Stella, Metal Reliefs; 420 W Broadway
May 10-31, 1975 -- Ron Davis, Paintings; 4 E 77 St
May 10-31, 1975 -- Laura Grisi, Stripes; 420 W Broadway
May 24 - June 7, 1975 -- Laura Grisi, New Graphics (Castelli Graphics); 4 E 77 St
June 7 - Sept. 5, 1975 -- Summer Group Exhibition: Artschwager, Chamberlain, Darboven, Grisi, Huebler, Judd, Kelly, Kosuth, Lichtenstein, Morris, Nauman, Owen, Rauschenberg, Rosenquist, Warhol; 420 W Broadway
June 7 - Sept. 20, 1975 -- Summer Group Exhibition, Black and White: Kelly, Rauschenberg, Ad Reinhardt, Serra, Stella; 4 E 77 St
June 14-28, 1975 -- Bruce Nauman, New Graphics (Castelli Graphics); 4 E 77 St
July 7-25, 1975 -- Group Exhibition (Castelli Graphics); 4 E 77 St
1975-1976 SeasonSept. 13-27, 1975 -- Autumn Group Exhibition: Artschwager, Chamberlain, Davis, Lichtenstein, Nauman, Oldenburg, Rauschenberg, Rosenquist, Scarpitta; 420 W Broadway
Sept. 27 - Oct. 18, 1975 -- James Rosenquist, Drawings; 4 E 77 St
Oct. 4-18, 1975 -- Robert Rauschenberg, Bones and Unions (Castelli Graphics); 4 E 77 St
Oct. 4-25, 1975 -- Jan Dibbets; 420 W Broadway
Oct. 11-25, 1975 -- Frank Owen; 420 W Broadway
Oct. 25 - Nov. 15, 1975 -- Hans Namuth, Photographs (Castelli Graphics); 4 E 77 St
Nov. 1-15, 1975 -- Robert Rauschenberg, Bones and Unions (Castelli Graphics); 420 W Broadway
Nov. 1-22, 1975 -- Roy Lichtenstein, Recent Paintings; 420 W Broadway
Nov. 22 - Dec. 13, 1975 -- Group Exhibition: Flavin, Judd, Kelly, Morris, Stella; 4 E 77 St
Nov. 29 - Dec. 20, 1975 -- Lewis Baltz, The New Industrial Parks Near Irving, CA, 1974 (a portfolio of 51 photographs) (Castelli Graphics); 420 W Broadway
Nov. 29 - Dec. 20, 1975 -- Paul Waldman, Recent Paintings; 420 W Broadway
Jan. 3-17, 1976 -- Ralph Gibson, Photographs (Castelli Graphics); 4 E 77 St
Jan. 10-24, 1976 -- Robert Barry, Recent Drawings; 420 W Broadway
Jan. 10-24, 1976 -- Alan Charlton; 420 W Broadway
Jan. 24 - Feb. 14, 1976 -- Jasper Johns; 4 E 77 St
Jan. 31 - Feb. 14, 1976 -- Peter Campus; 420 W Broadway
Jan. 31 - Feb. 14, 1976 -- Peter Campus and Frank Gillette, Videotapes (Castelli/Sonnabend Tapes + Films); 420 W Broadway
Feb. 10, 1976 -- Lawrence Weiner, Film screening, "A Second Quarter"; 420 W Broadway
Feb. 21 - Mar. 13, 1976 -- Robert Rauschenberg, Jammers; 420 W Broadway
Feb. 21 - Mar. 13, 1976 -- Keith Sonnier, Abaca Code; 420 W Broadway
Feb. 28 - Mar. 20, 1976 -- Joseph Cornell; 4 E 77 St
Mar. 20 - Apr. 10, 1976 -- Dan Flavin, Colored Fluorescent Light; 420 W Broadway
Mar. 20 - Apr. 10, 1976 -- Donald Judd; 420 W Broadway
Mar. 27 - Apr. 17, 1976 -- John Chamberlain; 4 E 77 St
Apr. 17 - May 8, 1976 -- Robert Morris; 420 W Broadway
Apr. 22-24, 1976 -- Benefit Drawing Exhibition for the New York Studio School; 4 E 77 St
Apr. 24 - May 15, 1976 -- Laura Grisi; 420 W Broadway
May 1-22, 1976 -- Hanne Darboven, For Jean-Paul Sartre; 4 E 77 St
May 15 - June 5, 1976 -- Douglas Huebler; 420 W Broadway
May 22 - June 12, 1976 -- Gianfranco Gorgoni, Photographs; 420 W Broadway
May 29 - June 12, 1976 -- Robert Adams, Photographs (Castelli Graphics); 4 E 77 St
June 19 - Sept. 10, 1976 -- Summer Group Exhibition: Artschwager, Chamberlain, Daphnis, Dibbets, Flavin, Judd, Kelly, Lichtenstein, Morris, Nauman, Noland, Oldenburg, Owen, Rauschenberg, Serra, Stella, Weiner; 420 W Broadway
June 26 - Sept. 10, 1976 -- Summer Group Drawing Exhibition: Artschwager, Barry, Bontecou, Darboven, Flavin, Morris, Ruscha; 4 E 77 St
Jan. 17 - Feb. 21, 1981 -- James Rosenquist, Star Thief; 142 Greene St
Feb. 14-28, 1981 -- Lawrence Weiner; 420 W Broadway (front room)
Feb. 14-28, 1981 -- Edward Ruscha, Drawings; 420 W Broadway (middle room)
Feb. 28 - Apr. 4, 1981 -- Richard Serra, Slice; 142 Greene St
Mar. 7-28, 1981 -- Paul Waldman; 420 W Broadway
Mar. 7-28, 1981 -- Laura Grisi; 420 W Broadway (middle room)
Mar. 12 - Apr. 4, 1981 -- Richard Serra, Film screenings, "Railroad Turnbridge" and "Steelmill/Stahlwerk" (Castelli/Sonnabend Tapes + Films); 142 Greene St
Apr. 4 - May 2, 1981 -- Julian Schnabel; 420 W Broadway
Apr. 4 - May 2, 1981 -- Douglas Huebler, Crocodile Tears; 420 W Broadway (middle room)
Apr. 11 - May 9, 1981 -- Ellsworth Kelly; 142 Greene St
Apr. 18 - May 9, 1981 -- Michael Harvey, Film screenings, "Sub Rosa" and "Dead Letter" (Castelli/Sonnabend Tapes + Films); 142 Greene St
May 13, 1981 -- Joan Jonas, Upsidedown and Backwards (Castelli/Sonnabend Tapes + Films); 142 Greene St
May 16-30, 1981 -- Artists' Benefit For the Trisha Brown Dance Company; 142 Greene St
May 16 - Sept. 4, 1981 -- Dan Flavin, Barred Corridors; 420 W Broadway
1981-1982 SeasonSept. 15 - Oct. 31, 1981 -- Donald Judd; 142 Greene St (lower gallery)
Sept. 19 - Oct. 10, 1981 -- Richard Serra (Castelli Graphics); 4 E 77 St
Sept. 19 - Oct. 10, 1981 -- Robert Barry and Carole Gallagher, Collaboration; 420 W Broadway
Oct. 17 - Nov. 7, 1981 -- Charles Gaines, Landscape: Assorted Trees with Regressions; 420 W Broadway
Oct. 17 - Nov. 7, 1981 -- Roy Lichtenstein; 420 W Broadway
Nov. 14 - Dec. 19, 1981 -- Richard Artschwager; 420 W Broadway
Nov. 17-21, 1981 -- Barbaralee Diamonstein, Visions and Images - American Photographers on Photography (Castelli/Sonnabend Tapes + Films); 420 W Broadway (middle room)
Sept. 26 - Nov. 7, 1992 -- Group Architecture Exhibition, Angels and Franciscans: Innovative Architecture from Los Angeles and San Francisco; 65 Thompson
Feb. 10 - Mar. 9, 1996 -- Group Exhibition, New Works by Gallery Artists: Johns, Lichtenstein, Morris, Nauman, Rauschenberg, Rosenquist, Ruscha, Sonnier, Stella, Therrien; 420 W Broadway
Apr. 20 - May 18, 1996 -- James Rosenquist, Horizon Home Sweet Home; 420 W Broadway
Apr. 20 - May 24, 1996 -- Roy Lichtenstein, Eight New Prints; 578 Broadway
May 28 - July 26, 1996 -- Ralph Gibson, Infanta; 420 W Broadway
May 28 - July 26, 1996 -- Group Drawing Exhibition, Works on Paper: Chryssa, Daphnis, Darboven, Johns, Lichtenstein, Morris, Nauman, Rauschenberg, Ruscha, Serra, Stella, Sonnier, Therrien, Weiner; 420 W Broadway
June 1 - July 26, 1996 -- Summer Group Show: Johns, Kosuth, Lichtenstein, Ruscha, Stella, Therrien; 578 Broadway
1996-1997 SeasonSept. 14 - Oct. 12, 1996 -- Gianfranco Gorgoni, 25 Years of Artists Portraits; 578 Broadway
Feb. 15 - Mar. 15, 1997 -- Lawrence Weiner, Then Now + Then; 420 W Broadway
Mar. 1-22, 1997 -- Dan Flavin; 578 Broadway
Mar. 22 - Apr. 26, 1997 -- Keith Sonnier, Alternating Currents; 420 W Broadway
Mar. 29 - Apr. 5, 1997 -- The Printmaking Workshop Benefit Exhibition and Auction; 420 W Broadway
Apr. 17 - May 17, 1997 -- Columbia University MFA Exhibition; 420 W Broadway
May 3 - June 7, 1997 -- Edward Ruscha, Cityscapes and "O" Books; 420 W Broadway
July - Sept., 1997 -- Summer Group Show: Kosuth, Morris, Serra; 420 W Broadway
1997-1998 SeasonSept. 27 - Oct. 18, 1997 -- Joseph Kosuth; 420 W Broadway
Oct. 25 - Nov. 15, 1997 -- 40 Years of Exploration and Innovation Part 1: Bontecou, Chryssa, Cornell, Johns, Lichtenstein, Oldenburg, Rauschenberg, Rosenquist, Ruscha, Twombly, Warhol; 420 W Broadway
Nov. 22 - Dec. 13, 1997 -- 40 Years of Exploration and Innovation Part 2: Daphnis, Flavin, Judd, Kelly, Morris, Serra, Stella, Therrien, Waldman; 420 W Broadway
Jan. 10-31, 1998 -- 40 Years of Exploration and Innovation Part 3: Barry, Darboven, Dibbets, Grisi, Huebler, Kosuth, Nauman, Scarpitta, Sonnier, Starn Twins, Weiner; 420 W Broadway
Feb. 7 - Mar. 14, 1998 -- Dan Flavin, Some Drawings and Installations of Fluorescent Light; 420 W Broadway
Mar. 28 - Apr. 25, 1998 -- Hannah Collins, True Stories; 420 W Broadway
May 2 - June 6, 1998 -- Mike and Doug Starn, Black Hole Sun Burned; 420 W Broadway
June 24 - Aug. 29, 1998 -- Summer Show; 420 W Broadway
1998-1999 SeasonSept. 26 - Oct. 31, 1998 -- Robert Morris, The Rationed Years; 420 W Broadway
Nov. - Dec., 1998 -- Joseph Kosuth, Richard Serra, Keith Sonnier; 420 W Broadway
Jan. - Feb. 1999 -- Robert Rauschenberg, Arcadian Survey; 420 W Broadway
Related Material:
Available in the Archives of America Art are three oral history interviews with Leo Castelli. Paul Cummings interviewed Castelli between May 14, 1969 and June 8, 1973; Barbara Rose in July, 1969; and Andrew Decker on May 22, 1997.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds items lent for microfilming (reel N68) including printed material. Lent material was returned to the lender and is not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
Leo Castelli loaned printed material for microfilming in 1968. Leo Castelli's wife, Barbara Bortuzzo Castelli, and his children, Nina Castelli Sundell and Jean-Christophe Castelli, donated the Leo Castelli Gallery records to the Archives of American Art in 2007.
Restrictions:
Use of original records 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:
Art, Modern -- 20th century -- History -- New York (State)New York Search this
Painting, Modern -- 20th century -- History -- New York (State)New York Search this
Function:
Art galleries, Commercial -- New York (State)
Genre/Form:
Interviews
Video recordings
Sketches
Transcripts
Sound recordings
Notes
Visitors' books
Photographs
Notebooks
Awards
Citation:
Leo Castelli Gallery records, circa 1880-2000, bulk 1957-1999. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the partial digitization of this collection was provided by the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation.
The papers of curator Nan Rosenthal measure 26.6 linear feet and 17.1 gigabytes and date from circa 1940-2013. There is a small amount of biographical material; correspondence, mostly letters from her first husband Otto Piene; project and research files encompassing her work as a curator and historian; as well as teaching files; and thousands of slides organized by subject. Among Rosenthal's research and project files are sound recordings and transcripts from dozens of interviews Rosenthal conducted with artists including Howard Hodgkin, Anselm Kiefer, friends and family of Yves Klein, Robert Rauschenberg and friends, George Rickey, Claus Oldenburg, and Sangbin Im. In addition to paper records, the collection also includes a large number of sound recordings, video recordings, and born digital material.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of curator Nan Rosenthal measure 26.6 linear feet and 17.1 gigabytes and date from circa 1940-2013. There is a small amount of biographical material; correspondence, mostly letters from her first husband Otto Piene; project and research files encompassing her work as a curator and historian; as well as teaching files; and thousands of slides organized by subject. Among Rosenthal's research and project files are sound recordings and transcripts from dozens of interviews Rosenthal conducted with artists including Howard Hodgkin, Anselm Kiefer, friends and family of Yves Klein, Robert Rauschenberg and friends, George Rickey, Claus Oldenburg, and Sangbin Im. In addition to paper records, the collection also includes a large number of sound recordings, video recordings, and born digital material.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as five series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1950-2010 (0.2 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1965-2012 (0.7 linear feet)
Series 3: Project and Research Files, circa 1940-2013 (20 linear feet; Box 1-21; 17.1 gigabytes; ER01-ER14)
Series 4: Teaching Files, 1973-2002 (2.2 linear feet; Box 21-24)
Series 5: Slides, 1970s-1990s (3.3 linear feet; Box 24-27)
Biographical / Historical:
Nan Rosenthal (1927-2014) was a curator and art historian in New York City and Washington, D.C. who specialized in twentieth-century modern and contemporary art. Born in New York, Rosenthal attended Smith College before earning her bachelor's degree from Sarah Lawrence College in 1959. After college, she worked as a journalist for a number of publications including Art in America and the New York Post.
Rosenthal received her PhD from Harvard University in 1976, completing her dissertation titled, "The Blue World of Yves Klein." After her graduate studies, Rosenthal taught at Princeton University, New York University, and University of California, Santa Cruz.
In 1985, Rosenthal became a curator of twentieth-century art at the National Gallery of Art. She organized several important exhibitions including The Drawings of Jasper Johns (1990), acquired works by Alberto Giacometti and Barnett Newman, and began the lecture series "Conversations with Artists."
Rosenthal then joined the staff of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1993 as senior consultant of modern and contemporary art, where she organized a number of other important exhibitions including Anselm Kiefer: Works on Paper 1969-1993 (1998), Robert Rauschenberg: Combines (2005), Jasper Johns: Gray (2008), and others featuring Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollack, and Judith Rothschild. She retired from the Metropolitan Museum in 2008.
In addition to her curatorial activities, Rosenthal authored several books and catalogs including George Rickey (1977), Robert Rauschenberg (1990), and Terry Winters: Printed Works (2001).
Rosenthal was married to the German artist Otto Piene from 1965-1973 and went by Nan R. Piene or Nan Rosenthal Piene. She remarried in 1990 to her second husband, Henry Benning Cortesi.
Related Materials:
Also found in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Nan Rosenthal conducted by Judith Olch Richards in 2010.
Provenance:
The collections was donated to the Archives of American Art in 2016 by the Nan Rosenthal and Henry B. Cortesi Estate via executor Katherine C. Armstrong.
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 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 historians -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Topic:
Curators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The papers of Elaine L. Johnson measure 1.0 linear foot and date from 1957 to 1977. The papers document her career as an art curator and historian through correspondence regarding her work and professional material such as a resume, clippings, speeches and interviews, and manuscripts and notes for a book on Jose Clemente Orozco. Also included are 7 untranscribed cassette tapes of Johnson interviewing Jose Clemente Orozco's son, Clemente, and Miguel Ocampo, Alejandro Obregon, Emilio Sanchez and other Latin American artists, 1968-1970.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Elaine L. Johnson measure 1.0 linear foot and date from 1957 to 1977. The papers document her career as an art curator and historian through correspondence regarding her work and professional material such as a resume, clippings, speeches and interviews, and manuscripts and notes for a book on Jose Clemente Orozco. Also included are 7 untranscribed cassette tapes of Johnson interviewing Jose Clemente Orozco's son, Clemente, and Miguel Ocampo, Alejandro Obregon, Emilio Sanchez and other Latin American artists, 1968-1970.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into two series.
Series 1: Correspondence, 1970-1977 (0.5 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 2: Professional Activity Files, 1957-1975 (0.5 linear feet; Box 1)
Biographical / Historical:
Elaine L. Johnson (1928-1979) was a museum curator and art historian in New York City. Johnson was an associate curator of paintings and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, New York who wrote, "Contemporary Painters and Sculptors as Printmakers," 1966.
Related Materials:
Elaine Johnson Papers are located at the The Museum of Modern Art Archives.
Provenance:
Donated in 1980 by Alan W. Johnson, Elaine Johnson's brother.
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.
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
Art museum curators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
An interview conducted by Stan and Irene Poon Andersen on July 3-4, 1996, New York City, with Dong Kingman. Accompanying the interview are a few newspaper and magazine articles, and a photograph of Kingman, taken by Irene Poon Andersen, 1996. The material was compiled following the 1995 exhibition "With New Eyes: Toward An Asian American Art History in the West," for which Poon Andersen was a curator and exhibitor.
Kingman discusses his early years and education in Oakland, Calif. and Hong Kong; teaching at Mills College, Oakland, University of Wyoming, Laramie and the San Diego Museum; working on the WPA art project; military service with the US Army OSS art department; leaving the Bay Area when he was drafted, moving first to Washington, D.C. and later to New York City where has remained; and work on movies including "Flower Drum Song," "55 Days to Peking," and "Virgin Soldier."
Biographical / Historical:
Dong Kingman (1911-2000) was a Chinese American painter and illustrator based in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City. Kingman taught at Columbia University and Hunter College. He worked for the Works Progress Administration.
Provenance:
Donated 1997 by Stan Andersen and Irene Poon Andersen.
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:
Artists -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Artists -- California -- San Francisco Bay Area Search this
Kaslov, Steve, ca. 1888-1949 (King of the Red Bandanna Romany Gypsies ) Search this
Extent:
0.25 Cubic feet (4 boxes)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Photographs
Oral history
Interviews
Audio cassettes
Place:
Virgin Islands -- 1930-1940
New York (N.Y.) -- 1930-1940
Bowery (New York, N.Y.) -- 1930-1940
Chinatown (New York, N.Y.) -- 1930-1940
St. Thomas (Virgin Islands) -- 1930-1940
Date:
1985 - 1986
1930 - 1943
Scope and Contents:
This collection contains 273 silver gelatin photoprints (Series 1), most of which apparently were made during the 1930s and early 1940s, contemporaneously with the original negatives. All are 8" x 10" or slightly smaller, unmounted except for flush mounted linen on the backs of some prints. The photographs were made primarily in two locations, New York City and the Virgin Islands. The Virgin Islands pictures were made as part of a special documentary project in 1939, as described above, whereas the New York photographs stem from Mr. Alland's largely self assigned documentation of various ethnic and religious groups in New York from approximately 1932 to 1943. The projects include photographs of the "Red Bandanna" Romany Gypsy group in the Bowery, a black Jewish congregation, Mohawk Indians in Brooklyn, and other groups, which required extensive exploration, research, and photographing over periods of many days or weeks. A variety of miscellaneous ethnic and religious groups are covered in the general "Other Religions" and "Nationalities" folders. The contents of the "Judaism" folder include primarily New York sites and people, but there are also additional views of a synagogue from the Virgin Islands project.
Series 2 of the collection contains four cassette tape recordings of two interviews with Mr. Alland, three made by Richard Ahlborn (with Eugene Ostroff and Matt Salo) in 1985, and one by David Haberstich and Richard Ahlborn, June 2-3, 1986 (at which time the photographs were donated). The tapes include readings from his autobiography, personal reminiscences on his experiences as an immigrant and a photographer, and commentary on the photographs.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into two series.
Series 1: Photoprints, 1930-1943
Series 2: Audiotape Cassettes, 1985-1986
The photographs are arranged topically and by nationality.
Biographical / Historical:
Alexander Alland, Sr., was born in Sevastopol, Crimea (formerly in the Soviet Union) on 6 August 1902. His last name originally was Landschaft, but he legally changed it to Alland following the birth of his son. Alland's interest in photography began at the age of twelve, when he helped a local photographer with darkroom work. He constructed his own camera from cardboard with a simple meniscus lens and exposed glass plate negatives with the device.
Toward the end of the Civil War in Russia in 1920, Alland relocated in Constantinople, Turkey, where he was hired as an apprentice by a graduate of the Vienna Academy of Photography. When the Union Nationale des Combatants Francais went on a pilgrimage to Gallipoli, a former battle zone on the Dardanelles, he was asked to accompany them in order to document events. After having his request for a pay increase refused, he left his employer two years later and opened his own portrait studio, "Photo d'Art Russe." When civil unrest threatened Constantinople in 1923, he decided to emigrate to the United States.
During his first years in the United States he worked in photo finishing businesses while engaged in home portraiture independently. He married in 1929 and a son, Alexander, Jr., was born. In the 1930s he became one of the best known photographers portraying the life of immigrants and various ethnic groups in New York. (1) In 1936 he was appointed supervisor of the Photo Mural section of the W.P.A. Federal Art Project, and worked as a free lance photographer for magazines and periodicals featuring the activities of various ethnic groups living in New York City. He specialized in making photomurals with montage techniques. (2)
In 1937 Alland became photography instructor at the American Artists' School and joined the American Artists Congress. In 1939, his first book, Portrait of New York, was published and he became president of the "Exploration Photo Syndicate" and went to the U.S. Virgin Islands as part of a project to produce a pictorial record of the West Indian Islands. His photographs appeared in publications and were exhibited at the New School for Social Research and at the Schomberg Collection. In 1942 he joined the staff of Common Ground magazine as photography editor and was appointed by the National Youth Administration to supervise their photography workshop. His book American Counterpoint appeared in 1943 and was selected as "One of the Fifty Best Books of the Year." The original prints from that book were exhibited at the Museum of the City of New York, which also exhibited a portfolio of his work on American Gypsies. In 1944 he became director of an agency, "Pictures for Democracy," and in 1945 his book The Springfield Plan was proclaimed another "One of the Fifty Best Books of the Year."
During World War II Alland did technical photography for the War Department, receiving a commendation for this work. After another book My Dog Rinty was published, he left New York City to establish a school of photography, combined with a school of dance directed by his wife, Alexandra, a professional dancer and choreographer. (3) He then began to exhibit his own photographs and to collect glass plate negatives and vintage prints by significant photographers. He is perhaps best known for locating a collection of Jacob Riis negatives and making them available. In 1974 Aperture published his biography, Jacob A. Riis: Photographer and Citizen4. Because of his efforts in providing the Riis negatives to the Museum of the City of New York, that institution awarded a special commemorative medal to him in 1973. The Riis book was followed by two more studies of photographers, Jessie Tarbox Beals, First Woman News Photographer (5) and Heinrich Tonnies, Cartes de Visite Photographer Extraordinaire. (6)
Retrospective exhibitions of Alland's work were held in two major Danish museums in summer 1979 and he was honored for contributions to the cultural history of Denmark. In 1991 studies for his photomural work were included in an historical survey exhibition of American photomontage at the University of Maryland at College Park. (7).
Sources
1. My text is based upon the biographical information recorded on my taped interviews with Mr. Alland in this collection, but see also Bonnie Yochelson, The Committed Eye: Alexander Alland's Photography. New York: The Museum of the City of New York, Inc., 1991.
2. Merry A. Foresta, "Art and Document: Photography of the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project," in Official Images: New Deal Photography (essays by Foresta, Pete Daniel, Maren Stange, and Sally Stein), Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1987, p. 153, based on an interview with Alland, January 1987.
3. Photographic historian Anne Peterson, contractor for three Archives Center photographic collection projects between 1986 and 1982, reports that she studied ballet as a child with Mrs. Alland.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid
7. See catalog by Cynthia Wayne, Dreams, Lies, and Exaggeration: Photomontage in America. The Art Gallery, University of Maryland at College Park, 1991 (exhibition at the gallery Oct. 21 Dec. 20, 1991).
Related Materials:
Materials in the Archives Center
Carlos de Wendler Funaro Gypsy Research Collection (AC0161)
Contains additional Alland photographs. De Wendler Funaro also photographed Steve Kaslov, his family, and his Bowery coppersmith workshop.
Provenance:
Collection donated by Alexander Alland, June 3, 1986.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Copyrighted material: photographs may not be reproduced without written permission from the Estate of Alexander Alland, Sr.
Topic:
Synagogues -- Photographs -- 1930-1940 -- New York, N.Y. Search this
Newspapers -- Photographs -- 1930-1940 -- New York N.Y. Search this
Muslims -- Photographs -- 1930-1940 -- New York N.Y. Search this
Minorities -- Housing -- 1930-1940 -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Minorities -- Housing -- 1930-1940 -- Virgin Islands Search this
The papers of African American art historian, curator and arts administrator, Lowery Stokes Sims, measure 34.0 linear feet and date from 1967 to 2019. The collection documents Sims's career, and her work towards the inclusion of women artists and artists of color into the mainstream art world. The collection comprises biographical materials, datebooks, correspondence, writings, notebooks, exhibition files, professional files that include Sims's files from the Studio Museum in Harlem, Metropolitan Museum of Art records, research files, files on Robert Colescott, printed materials, photographic materials, and unidentified audiovisual and born-digital materials.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of African American art historian, curator and art administrator, Lowery Stokes Sims, measure 34.0 linear feet and date from 1967 to 2019. The collection documents Sims's career, and her work towards the inclusion of women artists and artists of color into the mainstream art world. The collection comprises biographical materials, datebooks, correspondence, writings, notebooks, exhibition files, professional files that include Sims's files from the Studio Museum in Harlem, Metropolitan Museum of Art records, research files, files on Robert Colescott, printed materials, photographic materials, and unidentified audiovisual and born-digital materials.
Biographical materials contain address books, awards, interviews with Sims, and resumes. Fifty datebooks highlight Sims's daily activities for over four decades. Personal and professional correspondence is with Audrey Flack, Za, Betye Saar, Hale Woodruff, Susan Schwalb, Margo Machida, William McKnight, and others.
Writings include drafts and typescripts on Alma Thomas, Elizabeth Catlett, Romare Bearden, Wifredo Lam, African American and women artists; a transcript of a conversation between Sims and Maren Hassinger; and born digital material of presentations. Also in the collection are 60 notebooks containing personal and professional notes and journal entries.
Exhibition files consist of correspondence, budget records, writings about the exhibition and for the catalog, clippings, exhibition announcements, loan forms, artist biographies, and artwork lists for Living Space: An Exhibition on Low Income Housing (1977), Art as a Verb (1988), Next Generation: Southern Black Aesthetic (1990), and Richard Pousette-Dart, 1916-1992 (1997).
Professional files document Sims's memberships, conferences, projects, and teaching activities, as well as her work at the Studio Museum of Harlem. The Metropolitan Museum of Art records consist of research on the museum's collection of works by African American artists, program and staff files, and snapshots of Sims with colleagues on a trip to Patagonia.
Research files contain printed materials, notes, 32 audiovisual recordings and nine born digital discs, and biographical material on artists Frederick Brown, Elizabeth Catlett, Stuart Davis, Maren Hassinger, Edgar Heap of Birds, Al Loving, Faith Ringgold, Jaune Quick-To-See Smith, Kara Walker, and others. The files on Robert Colescott include a book proposal, artwork lists, exhibition files, four sound recordings of an interview between Colescott and Sims, and research material on related topics.
Printed materials consist of clippings featuring Sims, posters, event programs, a few newsletters and magazines, exhibition catalogs that include essays written by Sims, and three documentary recordings. Photographic materials include prints, negatives, transparencies, photograph albums, and slides of Sims, colleagues and friends, exhibitions and professional events, Russ Thompson and Benny Andrews, Beverly Buchanan, Rick Powel, Vaclav Havel, Jeff Donaldson, Samella Lewis, and others.
The final series consists of nine sound recordings and one born digital disc (CD) that could not be placed into a series as the material is either unlabeled or the labels are illegible.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 13 series.
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1980-circa 2005 (0.5 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 2: Datebooks, 1975-2017 (4.0 linear feet; Boxes 1-5)
Series 3: Correspondence, 1971-2018 (1.0 linear feet; Boxes 5-6)
Series 4: Writings, circa 1970s-2018 (2.6 linear feet; Boxes 6-8, OV 33)
Series 5: Notebooks, 1975-2016 (2.6 linear feet; Boxes 39-42)
Series 6: Exhibition Files, 1967-2017 (1.6 linear feet; Boxes 9-10, OV 36)
Series 7: Professional Files, 1969-2018 (6.3 linear feet; Boxes 10-16, OV 34)
Series 8: Metropolitan Museum of Art Records, 1972-2008 (6.0 linear feet; Boxes 16-22, OV 38)
Series 9: Research Files, circa 1970-2017 (6.0 linear feet; Boxes 22-28, OV 35)
Series 10: Files on Robert Colescott, 1971-2019 (1.6 linear feet; Boxes 28-30)
Series 11: Printed Materials, 1970s-2017 (1.8 linear feet; Box 30, OV 37)
Series 12: Photographic Materials, 1970s-2018 (0.8 linear feet; Boxes 31-32)
Series 13: Unidentified Audio and Born Digital Material, circa 1985-2009 (1 folder; Box 32)
Biographical / Historical:
Lowery Stokes Sims (1949-) is an African American art historian, curator, and arts administrator. Sims began her career at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1972 where she became the museum's first African American curator. She left the Met in 1999 for the Studio Museum in Harlem where she served as Executive Director, President, and then Adjunct Curator of the Permanent Collection from 2000 to 2007. From 2007 to 2015, she was curator for the Museum of Art and Design.
Sims was born in Washington D.C. but moved to New York when she was 2 years old. She graduated from Bishop Reilly High School in Queens, N.Y. in 1966. She went on to receive a bachelor of arts degree in art history from Queens College in 1970 and a master of arts degree in art history from Johns Hopkins University in 1972. In 1995, Sims completed her dissertation, published as Wifredo Lam and the International Avant-Garde, 1923-1982 in 2002, to receive her doctoral degree from The Graduate Center, City University of New York.
Sims is a member of the College Art Association, the International Committee of Art Critics, Art Matters Foundation, and has served on the boards of Just Above Midtown (JAM) Gallery, Caribbean Cultural Center, National State Council on the Arts, and the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, among others. She was awarded the Frank Jewett Mather Award for Distinction in Art Criticism in 1991, a Leadership by Example Award from the New York coalition of 100 Black women in 1997, and a Lifetime Achievement in the Arts Award from the Queens Museum of Art in 1998. Sims has also lectured at Queens College, the Institute of Fine Art at New York University, the Studio Museum in Harlem, Rutgers University, and Bard College.
Related Materials:
Also found in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview of Lowery Stokes Sims conducted on July 15 and 22, 2010 by Judith Olch Richards, for the Archives of American Art's Elizabeth Murray Oral History of Women in the Visual Arts project, at Sims' home, in New York, N.Y.
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:
Notebooks in Series 5 are access restricted; written permission is required. Contact Reference Services for more information. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Researchers interested in accessing born-digital records or audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies.
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 Barbara Rose papers date from 1962 to circa 1969 and measure 1.4 linear feet. Papers include letters, writings, printed material, interviews with artists, panel discussions, and lectures relating to Barbara Rose's research as an art historian.
Scope and Contents:
The Barbara Rose papers date from 1962 to circa 1969 and measure 1.4 linear feet. Papers include letters, interviews with artists, panel discussions, lectures, writings, and printed material relating to Barbara Rose's work as an art historian and critic.
Letters consist of responses to queries and questionnaires Rose and Irving Sandler sent to contemporary artists as research for writing projects. Questionnaires were sesnt in preparation for an article in Art in America on artists' sensibility of the 1960s, with responses from Robert Motherwell, Robert Craig Kauffman, Len Lye, Robert Morris, George Segal, David Hare, and others. A separate query asked sculptors for their assessment of contemporary sculptor's needs and the potential for patronage, and responses are found from Carl Andre, Charles Frazier, Robert Murray, Anthony Padovano, Ron Bladen, Roy Lichtenstein, Len Lye, Sol LeWitt, Heinz Mack, Otto Peine, Dan Flavin, and Donald Judd.
Interviews conducted by Rose between 1965 and circa 1969 are found with Richard Bellamy, Leo Castelli, James E. Davis, Henry Geldzahler, Ivan Karp, Lee Krasner, John Lefebre, John Myers, Donald Judd with Frank Stella, and Tom Wesselmann. All interviews include original sound recordings, and the Judd and Stella, Krasner, and Myers interviews include transcripts. Panel discussions and lectures include sound recordings and transcripts of seven events on a variety of contemporary art and architecture subjects held between 1962 and 1968. Sound recordings are present for five of the events on 10 sound tape reels, and transcripts are present for all events. Participants in the panel discussions and lectures include Barbara Rose, Ronald Davis, Dan Flavin, Robert Kauffman, John Harvey McCracken, Friedel Dzubas, Ansel Adams, Arthur Bierman, Kenneth Rexroth, Edward Taylor, Ernst Karl Mundt, John Bowles, Roy Dean De Forest, Seymour Locks, Walter Hopps, Mark Di Suvero, Donald Judd, Robert Morris, Kynaston McShine, Walter Darby Bannard, Donald Judd, Larry Poons, Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Meier, Paul Rudolph, Claes Oldenburg, and Robert Murray.
Writings include photocopied typescripts of "Myth, Symbol, or Me," by Emily Wasserman and "Excerpts from a Work Journal on Flying Sculpture," by Charles Frazier. Printed material consists of two copies of the premiere issue of the 57th Street Review, from Nov. 15, 1966.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged as 4 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Letters (0.2 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 2: Interviews (0.6 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 3: Panel Discussions and Lectures (0.5 linear feet; Boxes 1-2)
Series 4: Writings and Printed Material (0.1 linear feet; Box 2)
Biographical / Historical:
Barbara Rose is an American art historian and critic who has published widely in the field of modern American art. Born in 1938 in Washington, DC, Rose studied at the Sorbonne, Smith College, Barnard, and finally, Columbia University under Meyer Shapiro. Rose became immersed in the New York-based circle of modernist artists and curators in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and made her substantial contribution to the discourse on contemporary art with the insider's perspective this afforded her. In 1961, she married the painter Frank Stella and they had two children before their divorce in 1969.
Rose taught at Yale University, Sarah Lawrence, University of California at Irvine and San Diego, and the American University Art in Italy program, and was senior curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, from 1981-1985. A prolific writer, Rose is the author of American Art Since 1900 (1967), The Golden Age of Dutch Painting (1969), American Painting: The 20th Century (Skira, 1969), and monographs on the artists Magdalena Abankawicz, Helen Frankenthaler, Robert Rauschenberg, Alexander Liberman, Larry Rivers, and others, as well as dozens of exhibition catalog essays. She held editorial positions at Art in America, Vogue, Artforum, Partisan Review, and Journal of Art, and her writing has also appeared in Art International, Studio International, Arts Magazine, and ARTnews, among many others.
Related Materials:
Barbara Rose papers, 1940-1993 (bulk 1960-1985) are located at The Getty Research Institute Special Collections.
Separated Materials:
Additional papers of Barbara Rose are held by The Getty Research Institute.
Provenance:
Donated 1971-1977 by Barbara Rose.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Occupation:
Art historians -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Art critics -- New York (State) -- New York 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.
Missing Title
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 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:
Missing Title
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
Topic:
Art museum curators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The papers of painter Howard Kanovitz measure 8.0 linear feet and 1 GB and date from 1953-2017. The collection documents Kanovitz's work as a professional artist through biographical material; personal and professional correspondence; writings; interviews; personal business records; gallery, exhibition and project files; photographic and printed material; sound and video recordings; and preliminary drawings and studies for artworks.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of painter Howard Kanovitz measure 8.00 linear feet and 1 GB and date from 1953-2017. The collection documents Kanovitz's work as a professional artist through biographical material; personal and professional correspondence; writings; interviews; personal business records; gallery, exhibition and project files; photographic and printed material; sound and video recordings; and preliminary drawings and studies for artworks.
Biographical material includes Kanovitz's address and appointment books, artist statements, CVs, genealogical research, a Guggenheim fellowship application, and United States passports. Correspondence files reflect relationships with friends and colleagues, including Frank O'Hara, Larry Rivers, Gregory Corso, B.H. Friedman, and others, as well as curators, museums, and galleries in the United States and Europe. Writings include Kanovitz's notes and notebooks; essays, poetry, and prose by Kanovitz; lists of artworks; poems by others; manuscripts; graduate student papers; and lectures given by Kanovitz. Exhibition and gallery files include checklists, mailing lists, inventories, correspondence, contracts, commission files, invoices, sales records, and proposals related to installations that included Kanovitz's work. Project files include correspondence, artist bios, contracts, invoices, press releases, interview transcripts, notes, source material, and photographs related to film, theater, and other projects. Personal business records include bills of sale, consignment memos, invoices, price lists, and leases for art studios and apartments. Printed material includes publications; clippings; exhibition announcements and catalogs; event programs; source material; posters; and a scrapbook of digital prints. Artwork includes preliminary sketches and source material for Kanovitz's photo-based paintings and set design materials for a circa 1977 play entitled, "The Party." Photographic material includes color and black and white prints, slides, negatives, transparencies, digital prints, and contact sheets that document exhibition installations, friends, artworks, commissions, and various studies and source material. Sound and video recordings include interviews, films, BBC broadcasts, documentaries, and performances that document Kanovitz's set design.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 11 series.
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1971-2007 (0.35 linear feet; Box 4-5, 8)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1953-2007 (0.50 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 3: Writings, circa 1954-2007 (0.60 linear feet; Box 1-2)
Series 4: Exhibition Files, 1965-2008 (0.40 linear feet; Box 2)
Series 5: Gallery Files, 1969-2007 (0.70 linear feet; Box 2, 3)
Series 6: Project Files, 1974-2008 (0.40 linear feet, Box 3)
Series 7: Personal Business Records, 1936-2000 (0.30 linear feet; Box 3)
Series 8: Printed Material, 1960-2017 (1.95 linear feet; Box 4-5, 8; OV 14)
Series 9: Artwork, circa 1960s-circa1990s (0.70 linear feet; Box 5, 8, 10; OV 11-13; OV 15-18)
Series 10: Photographic Material, 1954-2008 (1.40 linear feet; Box 6-7)
Series 11: Sound Recordings and Video Recordings, 1967-2008 (0.70 linear feet; Box 7, 9)
Biographical / Historical:
Howard Kanovitz (1929-2009) was a painter based in New York City and Southampton, NY. After an early career as a jazz trombonist, Kanovitz began painting in 1949 and studied at The Rhode Island School of Design and The Art Students League in Woodstock with Yasuo Kuniyoshi. He moved to New York City and apprenticed with Franz Kline. Although he began his painting career as an abstract expressionist, Kanovitz became one of the early practitioners of photorealism in the 1960s. He also taught at the Salzburger Summer Art School and the School of Visual Arts and took on set design projects in both America and Germany. Kanovitz had more than fifty one-person gallery shows, with his last in 2008, one year before he died.
Provenance:
Donated in 2021 by Carolyn Oldenbusch, Kanovitz's widow and Director of the Howard Kanovitz 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 born-digital records or audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References 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:
Painters -- New York (State) -- Southampton Search this
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The papers of Austrian born curator, lecturer, and museum director, René d'Harnoncourt (1901-1968), document d'Harnoncourt's activities, primarily in the 1930s and 1940s, particularly as they relate to Mexican and Native American art. D'Harnoncourt's career, including his arrival in Mexico in 1925, his curation of the exhibitions, Mexican Art (1930-1932), and Indian Art of the United States (1941), and his work for the Department of the Interior's Indian Arts and Crafts Board from 1937-1944, are documented in small amounts of biographical material and correspondence, published writings, printed material, scrapbooks, photographs of d'Harnoncourt and colleagues, and photographs of works of art. The collection also contains a drawing of d'Harnoncourt, and photocopies of caricatures of d'Harnoncourt and others.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Austrian-American curator, lecturer, and museum director, René d'Harnoncourt (1901-1968), document d'Harnoncourt's activities, primarily in the 1930s and 1940s, particularly as they relate to Mexican and Native American art. D'Harnoncourt's career, including his arrival in Mexico in 1925, his curation of the exhibitions, Mexican Art (1930-1932), and Indian Art of the United States (1941), and his work for the Department of the Interior's Indian Arts and Crafts Board from 1937-1944, are documented in small amounts of biographical material and correspondence, published writings, printed material, scrapbooks, photographs of d'Harnoncourt and colleagues, and photographs of works of art. The collection also contains a drawing of d'Harnoncourt, and photocopies of caricatures of d'Harnoncourt and others.
Biographical material consists of d'Harnoncourt's official Austrian departure documents for his travel to Mexico in 1925; pages of an appointment book from 1932; and notes on d'Harnoncourt's career that index publications in which he is mentioned amongst other things, prepared by Sarah d'Harnoncourt.
Correspondence and memoranda relate primarily to the Mexican Arts exhibition, (1930-1932) sponsored by the American Federation of Arts; the "Art in America" radio program, organized by the American Federation of Arts with the cooperation of the Museum of Modern Art; d'Harnoncourt's part time teaching position at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville; and his appointment as General Manager of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board. Later correspondence references research on d'Harnoncourt's work for the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, and includes information on d'Harnoncourt, provided in response to inquiries about him.
Writings by d'Harnoncourt include published articles on Mexican and Indian arts and crafts, a 1969 reprint of d'Harnoncourt's and Frederic H. Douglas's expanded version of the catalog for Indian Art of the United States, a foreword, and two seminar/symposium papers. Unpublished writings comprise two typescripts. The series also includes several writings by others.
Printed material includes announcements and exhibition catalogs, documentation of the "Art in America Program," published books belonging to and/or referencing d'Harnoncourt, Department of Interior publications, including some issued by the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, Museum of Modern art press releases, news clippings relating to d'Harnoncourt and his activities, and miscellaneous printed material.
Additional clippings from a dismantled scrapbook(s) document the Mexican Arts exhibition.
Artwork and artifacts include one original sketch in colored pencil of d'Harnoncourt by Austrian artist, Silverbauer, photocopies of caricatures and doodles by d'Harnoncourt, Miguel Covarrubias, and Caroline Durieux, and two Indian Arts and Crafts Board weaving samples.
Photographs are of d'Harnoncourt, Sarah d'Harnoncourt, and friends and colleagues. They include a photograph of d'Harnoncourt by Manuel Alvarez-Bravo; snapshots of others including Fred Davis; Sarah d'Harnoncourt and folk art specialist, Victor Fosado; fellow Indian Arts and Crafts Board members, architect Henry Klumb, Alice Marriot, and anthropologist, author, and tribal council member, Gladys Tantaquidgeon. Also found are three photographs of Mexican Art exhibition installations; fourteen photographs of Native Americans; three photographs showing covers and/or fronts pieces of d'Harnoncourts books Beast, Bird and Fish, Mexicana, The Hole in the Wall, and The Painted Pig; and photographs of artwork included in the Mexican Art exhibition and an exhibition of Australian Aboriginal Cave Paintings (1947).
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as seven series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1925-circa 1978 (5 folders; Box 1)
Series 2: Correspondence and Memoranda, 1929-1981 (5 folders; Box 1)
Series 3: Writings, 1928-circa 1970s (0.4 linear feet; Box 1, OV 4)
Series 4: Printed Material, 1921-1979 (1.1 linear feet; Boxes 1-2, OV 4)
Series 5: Scrapbooks, 1930-1933 (0.3 linear feet; Box 2)
Series 6: Artwork and Artifacts, circa 1926-circa 1950s (3 folders; Box 3)
Series 7: Photographs, 1930-1983 (0.25 linear feet; Box 3, OV 4)
Biographical / Historical:
Austrian born curator, lecturer, and museum director, René d'Harnoncourt (1901-1968), was an authority on Native American art and Mexican arts and crafts. He curated and toured with a traveling exhibition, Mexican Art, from 1930-1932, guest curated the exhibition, Indian Art of the United States, for the Museum of Modern Art in 1941, served on the Department of the Interior's Indian Arts and Crafts Board from 1937-1944, and was Director of the Museum of Modern Art from 1949-1968.
D'Harnoncourt was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1901. He left Austria for Mexico in 1925, and began working for American, Frederick Davis, who owned a shop that sold Mexican antiquities and folk art in Mexico City. At this time, d'Harnoncourt made many important connections, including meeting American Ambassador to Mexico, Dwight Morrow, and his wife, Elizabeth Morrow. D'Harnoncourt illustrated several books in the early 1930s, including The Painted Pig (1930) and Beast, Bird and Fish (1933), both written by Elizabeth Morrow, and The Hole in the Wall (1931) and Mexicana: A Book of Pictures (1931). According to Sarah d'Harnoncourt, her husband considered himself an amateur in the field of book illustration, which he enjoyed as a means of self-amusement.
In 1929, d'Harnoncourt was asked to curate an extensive exhibition of Mexican art to travel to major cities in the United States, sponsored by the American Federation of Arts. D'Harnoncourt toured with this exhibition, Mexican Art, for two years, beginning at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in October, 1930.
D'Harnoncourt visited Austria briefly in 1932, then returned to the United States in 1933 and married Sarah Carr the same year. He became a naturalized United States citizen in 1939.
Between 1933 and 1944, d'Harnoncourt directed the radio program "Art in America," organized by the American Federation of Arts in cooperation with the Museum of Modern Art. He also taught art history at Sarah Lawrence College from 1934-1937. In 1936 he began working for the Indian Arts and Crafts Board of the Department of the Interior, becoming General Manager in 1937, and the Board's Chairman in 1944. As General Manager he curated an exhibition on Indian art for the San Francisco Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939, and installed an expanded version of the exhibition, Indian Art of the United States, as guest curator for the Museum of Modern Art in 1940-1941.
In 1944, d'Harnoncourt joined the Museum of Modern Art as Vice President in charge of Foreign Activities, focusing his work on Latin America, and as Director of the Department of Manual Industries, responsible for the preservation of Native American art and culture. In 1949 he was appointed Director of the Museum of Modern Art, and served in this capacity until his death in an automobile accident in 1968.
Related Materials:
An oral history of René d'Harnoncourt, interviewed by Isabel Grossner in 1968, can be found at Columbia University, Oral History Research Office, 801 Butler Library, 535 West 114 Street, New York, NY 10027.
Separated Materials:
The bulk of René d'Harnoncourt's papers are in the Museum Archives of the Museum of Modern Art. The Museum's 59.25 linear feet document, in particular, d'Harnoncourt's years with the Museum from 1944-1968. That collection also includes papers donated by Sarah d'Harnoncourt which relate to d'Harnoncourt's time in Mexico, from 1925-1932, and his work in the United States from 1933-1944. While these holdings may overlap occasionally with the papers in the Archives of American Art (some items at the Archives of American Art, for instance, may be photocopies of originals at the Museum), the bulk of the Archives' d'Harnoncourt papers appear to be distinct from those at the Museum.
The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming (reels 2919-2931) including papers generated by d'Harnoncourt during his professional affiliation with the Museum of Modern Art, such as, personal files, three appointment notebooks, professional files including Latin American correspondence, exhibition files, files documenting outside affiliations, and departmental and special event files. Loaned materials were returned to the lender and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
D'Harnoncourt's widow, Sarah d'Harnoncourt, donated the René d'Harnoncourt papers to the Archives of American Art in 1975, 1981, and 1984. An additional eleven linear feet of material was lent by the Museum of Modern Art's for microfilming in 1983.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Rights:
Reels 2919-2931: Authorization to publish requires written permission from Museum of Modern Art, New York, N.Y. MoMA requires full citation to include microfilm reel and frame numbers, and reference to MoMA as the owner of the Rene d'Harnoncourt papers. 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.
Topic:
Art museum directors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The papers of Abstract Expressionist painters James Brooks and Charlotte Park measure 18.7 linear feet and are dated 1909-2010, bulk 1930-2010. Correspondence, subject files, personal business records, printed material, and a sound recording document his painting career, interests, professional and personal activities. Also found are biographical materials, interviews, writings, and art work. The collection also includes papers of his wife, Abstract Expressionist painter Charlotte Park, regarding her painting career, personal life, activities as executor of James Brooks' estate, and some material concerning the James Brooks and Charlotte Park Brooks Foundation. There is a 1.4 linear foot addition to this collection donated in 2017 that includes 58 "week-at-a-glance" appointment books, three journals and one address/ telephone book of Charlotte Park; a hand written chronology with significant dates and notes; postcards and exhibition announcements sent to Charlotte and James; doodles; and a sketch, possibly by Don Kingman.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Abstract Expressionist painters James Brooks and Charlotte Park measure 18.7 linear feet and are dated 1909-2010, bulk 1930-2010. Correspondence, subject files, personal business records, printed material, and a sound recording document his painting career, interests, professional and personal activities. Also found are biographical materials, interviews, writings, and art work. The collection also includes papers of his wife, Abstract Expressionist painter Charlotte Park, regarding her painting career, personal life, activities as executor of James Brooks' estate, and some material concerning the James Brooks and Charlotte Park Brooks Foundation. There is a 1.4 linear foot addition to this collection donated in 2017 that includes 58 "week-at-a-glance" appointment books, three journals and one address/ telephone book of Charlotte Park; a hand written chronology with significant dates and notes; postcards and exhibition announcements sent to Charlotte and James; doodles; and a sketch, possibly by Don Kingman.
Biographical materials include biographical notes and documents such as copies of birth and death certificates, curricula vitae, family history. Educational records are from Southern Methodist University and documentation of flight training courses at New York University. Brooks' military service in World War II is well documented by United States Army records with related correspondence. Also found is extensive documentation of his death and funeral.
Professional and personal correspondence is addressed to Brooks, the couple, and to Charlotte Park during the later years of Brooks' life when she managed his affairs. A significant amount of correspondence is categorized as art, autograph requests, personal, and teaching; also include is general correspondence that overlaps all categories. Art correspondence with museums, galleries, collectors, artists, and friends concerns exhibitions, Brooks' work, and invitations to exhibit, speak, or serve as a juror. Of note is the correspondence with Samuel M. Kootz Gallery. The personal correspondence is mainly social, and teaching correspondence consists largely of requests that he teach in summer programs, serve as a visiting artist/critic.
Six interviews with James Brooks are in the form of published and unpublished transcripts; a seventh is a sound recording with no known transcript. Charlotte Park participates in one interview.
Writings by Brooks are statements about his work and a tribute to Ilya Bolotowsky. Among the writings by others about Brooks are a catalog essay, academic papers, and lecture; also found are a few short pieces on miscellaneous topics. Three diaries include brief entries regarding his work, exhibitions, and activities.
Subject files maintained by Brooks concerning organizations, exhibitions, mural projects, a commission and teaching document his professional activities, relationships and interests.
Personal business records concern appraisals, conservation, gifts, insurance, loans, sales, shipping, and storage of artwork. Gallery records include agreements, consignments, lists, and receipts. Also, there are accounts for lettering work and personal income tax returns.
Printed material is mostly exhibition announcements, invitations, catalogs, and checklists, as well as articles and reviews. The majority are about/mention Brooks or include reproductions of his work; some concern artist friends, former students, and others.
Artwork by Brooks consists of pencil and ink drawings, two sketchbooks, and "telephone doodles." Other artists include Adolph Gottlieb (ink drawing of sculpture), Philip Guston (three pencil drawings of Brooks), and William King (two silhouettes of Brooks).
Photographic materials (photographs, digital prints, negatives, slides, and color transparencies) provide extensive documentation of Brooks' artwork and, to a lesser extent, exhibitions.There are pictures of Brooks as a very young boy, though the most views of him date from the 1930s through 1980s, and with friends. Places include Brooks' homes and studios in Montauk, New York and the Springs, East Hampton, New York; travel to Maine, Oregon and California. Views of the Middle East from World War II show Brooks with colleagues, local people engaged in daily activities, and scenery. Also of note are a copy print of "The Irascibles" by Nina Leen, and attendees at the dedication of Flight dining in view of Brook's LaGuardia Ariport mural.
Charlotte Park papers document the professional career and personal life of the Abstract Expressionist painter, art teacher, and wife of James Brooks through correspondence, personal business records, exhibition records, printed material, and photographs. In addition, this series documents artwork in the estate of James Brooks and posthumous exhibitions. Twelve years younger than her husband, Park began handling business matters for him as he aged and developed Alzheimer's disease. She also served as his executor. In the 1990s, a curator assumed management of the artwork and loans for exhibitions. After the James Brooks and Charlotte Park Brooks Foundation was established in 2000, its director handled most business activities. Some copies of Foundation minutes and correspondence are found among Park's papers.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged in 11 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1924-1995 (Box 1, OV 19; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1928-1995 (Boxes 1-3; 1.7 linear feet)
Series 3: Interviews, 1965-1990 (Box 3; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 4: Writings, 1952-1999 (Box 3; 0.4 linear feet)
Series 5: Diaries, 1975-1984 (Box 3; 0.1 linear feet)
Series 6: Subject Files, 1926-2001 (Boxes 3-5, OV 20; 2.0 linear feet)
Series 7: Personal Business Records, 1932-1992 (Boxes 5-6; 1.0 linear feet)
Series 8: Printed Material, 1928-1992 (Boxes 6-11, OV 21-OV 22; 4.8 linear feet)
Series 9: Artwork, 1930s-1992 (Box 11; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 10: Photographic Materials, 1909-2000s (Boxes 11-15; 4.1 linear feet)
Series 11: Charlotte Park papers, 1930s-2010 (Boxes 15-18, OV 23; 3.6 linear feet)
Series 12: Unprocessed Additition, circa 1930-2010 (Boxes 25-26; 1.4 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
James Brooks (1906-1992) and Charlotte Park (1919-2010) were Abstract Expressionist painters in East Hampton, N.Y. A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Brooks spent his childhood in Colorado, Oklahoma, Illinois, and Texas. He begn drawing as a young boy, finding inspiration in magazine illustrations and comic strips. Before moving to New York City in 1926, he studied at Southern Methodist University (1923-1924) and at the Dallas Art Institute.
In New York, Brooks studied illustration at the Grand Central Art School. After exposure to museums led him to differentiate between illustration and fine art, Brooks enrolled at Art Students League. During this period he supported himself by doing lettering for magazine advertisements. From 1936-1942 he participated in the WPA Federal Art Project, executing murals at Woodside Library, Queens, New York (destroyed); the Post Office, Little Falls, New Jersey; and his famous Flight at LaGuardia Airport's Marine Air Terminal (painted over in the 1950s and restored in 1980).
During World War II Brooks served in the United States Army as an art correspondent in Cairo. When at the Office of Special Services, Washington, DC, he met Charlotte Park who worked there as a graphic artist and later became his wife. The couple moved to New York City in 1945 and married in 1947. Brooks resumed friendships with artists he knew from the WPA including Philip Guston, Bradley Walker Tomlin, and Jackson Pollock. Brooks and Park were especially close with Pollock and Lee Krasner; after they moved to Long Island, Brooks and Park, soon followed, first to Montauk and later to the Springs, East Hampton, New York.
By the late 1940s, Brooks had turned away from figural painting in the social realist style and moved toward abstraction. In the early 1950s, he was experimenting with enamel, gouache, and diluted oil paints, staining various grounds in ways that produced interesting shapes, adding spontaneous splashes of color over which he painted more deliberately. In the 1960s he switched to acrylics, leading to wider use of color and broader strokes.
Peridot Gallery presented Brooks' first solo exhibition in 1949. He helped organize and participated in the famous Ninth Street Show of 1951, earning critical acclaim. This assured him a place in two of the Museum of Modern Art's most important exhibitions of the period, Twelve Americans (1956) and New American Painting (1958). He showed at the Stable Gallery, Kootz Gallery, Martha Jackson Gallery and others. During his lifetime Brooks enjoyed five traveling retrospective exhibitions.
Prizes and awards included Carnegie Institute's Pittsburgh International Exhibition 5th prize for painting (1952), The Art Institue of Chicago's 62nd American Exhibition Logan Medal and Prize for Painting (1957) and 64th American Exhibition Harris Prize (1961), The National Arts Club Medal (1985), and a citation of appreciation for Flight from The North Beach Club Marine Air Terminal, LaGuardia Airport (1986).
Brooks taught for nearly three decades: drawing at Columbia University (1947-1948) and lettering at Pratt Institute (1948-1955); was a visiting critic, Yale University (1955-1960), University of Pennsylvania (1971-1972), and Cooper Union (1975); and served on the Queens College faculty (1966-1969). In addition, he was an artist-in-residence at The American Academy in Rome (1963), the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (1969), and a National Endowment for the Humanities Grant (1973).
Brooks developed Alzheimer's disease around 1985 and died in East Hampton, New York in 1992.
Charlotte Park graduated from the Yale School of Fine Art (1939) and during World War II, when working in Washington, D.C., she met James Brooks. They moved to New York City in 1945, where she studied with Australian artist Wallace Harrison. Park taught children's art classes at several private schools in the early 1950s and at the Museum of Modern Art, 1955-1967.
Park's approach to Abstract Expressionism featured curved or linear shapes with vibrant colors and dynamic brushstrokes. Tanager Gallery presented her first solo show in 1957 and her work was included in numerous group exhibitions from the 1950s through 2000s, mainly in New York City and Long Island. After Park's second solo exhibition, held in 1973 at Elaine Benson Gallery, Bridgehampton, New York, interest in her work revived; other one-person shows followed at Guild Hall (1979), Ingber Gallery (1980), and paired with James Brooks at Louise Himelfarb Gallery. The National Institute of Arts and Letters honored Park with its Art Award in 1974. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Parrish Art Museum, Guild Hall Museum, Telfair Museum of Art, and in many private collections.
Charlotte Park died in 2010.
Related Materials:
Also among the Archives of American Art's holdings are letters from James Brooks and Sean Scully, 1980-1989 addressed to Theodora ["Teddy"] S. Greenbaum, and an oral history interview with James Brooks conducted by Dorothy Seckler, 1965 June 10 and June 12.
Separated Materials:
Correspondence, interview transcripts, photographs, and printed material were loaned by James Brooks for microfilming in 1969 (reel N69-132). With the exception of an address book, a scrapbook, and a few photographs, Brooks donated almost all of the loan in 1979.
Provenance:
The majority of the collection was donated in 2013 by the James Brooks and Charlotte Brooks Foundation and an additional 1.4 linear feet donated 2017 by the Foundation. In 1979 James Brooks donated most of the material lent for microfilming in 1969.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Researchers interested in accessing audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more information.
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
The papers of New York-based, Argentinian born conceptual and performance artist Jaime Davidovich, measure 2.3 linear feet and date from 1949 to 2014. The collection document's Davidovich's transition from Argentina to the United States, his early artistic career in both countries, specific projects and exhibitions, and the way in which Davidovich's work intersected with audiovisual media and the New York avant-garde in the 1960s and 1970s. Papers include biographical materials, correspondence, writings including memoirs, exhibition and project files, scrapbooks, and printed materials.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of New York-based, Argentinian born conceptual and performance artist Jaime Davidovich, measure 2.3 linear feet and date from 1949 to 2014. The collection document's Davidovich's transition from Argentina to the United States, his early artistic career in both countries, specific projects and exhibitions, and the way in which Davidovich's work intersected with audiovisual media and the New York avant-garde in the 1960s and 1970s. Papers include biographical materials, correspondence, writings including memoirs, exhibition and project files, scrapbooks, and printed materials.
Biographical materials include Davidovich's contacts in address books, a certificate, curriculum vitae, a membership card, and a report card. A photograph album documents his New York apartment and studio after first coming to New York in the 1960s. Also found are records of the Wooster Street Corporation where Davidovich later lived and had his studio. A small amount of correspondence is with museums, galleries, artists, and curators, notably Julieta Hanono, Ilene Segalove, and Julia Herzberg, and includes early correspondence from Argentina during Davidovich's time as a student and a teacher in Buenos Aires.
Writings include artist statements, lecture note cards, a letter of recommendation, memoir drafts, and a manuscript about Davidovich by Carolyn Kinder Carr. Memoirs provide detailed information about Davidovich's childhood, education, and early career. Files for exhibitions consist of correspondence, notes, gallery floor plans, photographic material, lists of artwork, and exhibition announcements. Project files contain bound project books, proposals, correspondence, notes, sketches, photographic and source material for the Artists' Television Network, Wooster Enterprises, and other projects.
Three scrapbooks record Davidovich's career in fine arts and design. Printed material includes art reproductions, books, brochures and booklets, clippings, exhibition announcements and catalogs, flyers, periodicals, posters, and press releases.
Much of the later correspondence found in the collection is in the form of printed email; later photographic material is in the form of digitially printed photograhs.
The bulk of material related to Davidovich's artworks, especially later ones, and the artworks themselves are located at NYU Fales Library.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as seven series.
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1949-2007 (Box 1, OVs 3, 5; 0.4 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1958-2012 (Box 1; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 3: Writings, circa 1973, 2001-2009 (Box 1; 0.1 linear feet)
Series 4: Exhibition Files, 2003-2011 (Box 1, OV 3; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 5: Project Files, circa 1960-2014 (Box 1-2, OVs 4-5; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 6: Scrapbooks, 1960s-circa 1971 (Box 2, OVs 3-4; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 7: Printed Materials, circa 1950s-2009 (Box 2, OVs 3, 5; 0.5 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
Jaime Davidovich (1936-2016) was a conceptual and performance artist in New York, N.Y.
Davidovich was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. As a child, he became ill with rheumatic fever and his parents gave him art materials with which to entertain himself during his months of illness. Davidovich studied at National College in Buenos Aires and graduated from the University of Uruguay in 1961. After graduation, he began teaching in Bahía Blanca, Argentina, and subsequently became the art superintendent at the visual arts school. In 1963 he was given the opportunity to travel to New York by the DiTella Foundation in Buenos Aires, after a grant to study in France fell through at the last minute. In New York he attended the School of Visual Arts and eventually began working as a graphic designer for Random House publishers.
In 1965, Davidovich and his wife, artist Judith Henry, moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where he worked as a graphic designer and began working with video. His first video installation was exhibited at the Akron Art Institute in 1972. Davidovich's fascination with video and television continued when he moved back to New York City and created the nonprofit organization, Artists Television Network (ATN). The network produced television shows for Manhattan's public access channel using the name SoHo Television. Davidovich's avant-garde variety show, The Live! Show, was the organization's most well-known production. Davidovich hosted the show as the character Dr. Videovich, and invited guests including Laurie Anderson, Eric Bogosian, and other creatives.
In 1976, Davidovich and Henry established Wooster Enterprises, a design studio and retail outlet that created conceptual stationary in affiliation with the Fluxus movement. The company closed in 1979, but it's most popular stationary continued to be produced and sold at the Museum of Modern Art.
Related Materials:
The bulk of the records related to Davidovich's artworks, especially later ones, and artworks themselves, are located in the Jaime Davidovich Collection, 1952-2000, at New York University's Fales Library.
Provenance:
The papers were donated by Jaime Davidovich in 2016.
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.
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:
Conceptual artists -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Performance artists -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Jaime Davidovich papers, 1949-2014. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
The processing and digitization of this collection received Federal support from the Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Latino Center. Additional funding for the digitization of the papers was provided by the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation.
The papers of art critic and painter Peter Plagens measure 4.9 linear feet and date from 1941-1985. Included are personal and professional correspondence; diaries; an interview of Plagens conducted by Mike Lloyd, 1977 (80 p.); photographs of Plagens, his family, studio, and art work; files on lectures, grants, fellowships, exhibitions, and a petition against the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; drafts of writings; files on Plagen's book, Sunshine Muse: Contemporary Art on the West Coast (1974); and 20 ink drawings and several drawings by Plagen's young son, Paul.
Biographical / Historical:
Peter Plagens (1941-) is an art critic, painter, and writer living in New York City. Plagens studied studied painting at the University of Southern California and did graduate work at Syracuse University. In 1965, he returned to Southern California, where he worked as a curator and became a regular contributor to Artforum. His paintings were exhibited in such landmark exhibitions as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's "24 Young Los Angeles Arts," in 1971, and the following year, the Whitney Biennial. He is best known for his first book, "Sunshine Muse: Modern Art on the West Coast, 1945-1970," published in 1974. In the mid 1970s, Plagens served as chair of the board of the fledgling Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art. In the late 1980s, Plagens moved to New York, where he continued to paint and where he contributed art criticism to Newsweek. He has taught at numerous universities, including California State University, Northridge, University of Southern California, and University of North Carolina.
Provenance:
The collection was donated in 1985 by Peter Plagens.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center.
The Betty Parsons Gallery records and personal papers measure 61.1 linear feet and date from 1916 to 1991, with the bulk of the material dating from 1946-1983. Records provide extensive documentation of the gallery's operations from its inception in 1946 to its closing in 1983 and of the activities of Betty Parsons as one the leading art dealers of contemporary American Art in the latter half of the twentieth century, particularly the work of the Abstract Expressionists. Over one third of the of the collection is comprised of artists files containing correspondence, price lists, and printed materials. Additional correspondence is with galleries, dealers, art institutions, private collectors, and the media. Also found are exhibition files, exhibition catalogs and announcements, sales records, stock inventories, personal financial records, and photographs. Betty Parsons's personal papers consist of early curatorial files, pocket diaries, personal correspondence, and evidence of her own artwork, including sketchbooks, and files documenting her personal art collection.
Scope and Content Note:
The Betty Parsons Gallery records and personal papers measure 61.1 linear feet and date from 1916 to 1991, with the bulk of the material dating from 1946-1983. Records provide extensive documentation of the gallery's operations from its inception in 1946 to its closing in 1983 and of the activities of Betty Parsons as one the leading art dealers of contemporary American Art in the latter half of the twentieth century, particularly the work of the Abstract Expressionists. Over one third of the of the collection is comprised of artists files containing correspondence, price lists, and printed materials. Additional correspondence is with galleries, dealers, art institutions, private collectors, and the media. Also found are exhibition files, exhibition catalogs and announcements, sales records, stock inventories, personal financial records, and photographs. Betty Parsons's personal papers consist of early curatorial files, pocket diaries, personal correspondence, and evidence of her own artwork, including sketchbooks, and files documenting her personal art collection. Personal papers also include personal photographs.
Artists files, the largest and most extensive series, consist of a wide variety of documents, including biographical materials, correspondence with or related to the artist, exhibition catalogs and announcements, sales and expense invoices, clippings, price lists, and photographs of the artist, exhibitions, and artwork. The files reflect Parsons's close personal relationships with certain artists, particularly Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, and Barnett Newman. Extensive documentation is also found for Forrest Bess, William Congdon, Paul Feeley, Thomas George, Alexander Liberman, Seymour Lipton, Richard Pousette-Dart, Jesse Reichek, and Jack Youngerman. Historians and researchers will find these files to be an invaluable resource both in tracing Betty Parsons's role in promoting Abstract Expressionism and researching individual artists.
Exhibition files primarily document the gallery's infrequent group or themed exhibitions. Of particular note are the files on The Ideographic Picture, which was organized by Barnett Newman and included his work, as well as that of Pietro Lazzari, Boris Margo, Ad Reinhardt, Mark Rothko, Theodoros Stamos, and Clyfford Still. Price lists, artist biographies and exhibition schedules are housed in the general exhibition files. Loan exhibition files provide documentation of artwork borrowed by other galleries or institutions for exhibitions, as well as shows outside of the gallery that were organized by Betty Parsons. Also found are gallery exhibition guest books, and announcements and catalogs.
Gallery correspondence is primarily with galleries and dealers, museums, arts organizations, and collectors. Scattered letters from artists are also found, although the bulk of the artists' correspondence is filed in the Artists Files. Also found here are memoranda and letters between Betty Parsons and her staff that contain detailed information concerning Parsons's schedule and gallery activities. Similar correspondence is found amongst the correspondence files within the series Betty Parsons papers.
Appraisal and conservation files include correspondence, appraisal invoices, forms, and appraisal requests and other information from the Art Dealers Association of America, and conservation invoices and reports. The majority of the appraisal records contain information about the specific works of art, including artist, title, date, current owner and the estimated value at the time of the request. Conservation records document conservation treatments undertaken by outside conservators to gallery stock.
Sales, purchases, stock and inventory are well documented in the sales and inventory records. The records provide detailed information about individual sales, prices of individual pieces of artwork, consignments, and loans. Most sales records also include detailed information about the buyer and are a valuable resource for provenance research. Files documenting the general administration, routine business operations, and financial transactions (not individual sales) of the gallery are housed in the general business and financial records. These records include ledgers, receipts, tax records, and banking records. There is some limited information about works of art scattered amongst the receipts and in the "in/out slips" files. Legal records house general legal documents and those concerning specific lawsuits. Of particular note is the file detailing the lawsuit between Betty Parsons and Sidney Janis over the fifth floor of 24 West 57th Street.
The remainder of the collection consists of Betty Parsons's personal papers which document her career prior to opening her own gallery, her work as an artist, and her personal art collection.
Some information about Parsons's work prior to opening her own gallery is found in the early curatorial files she retained from her curatorial and administrative work at the Wakefield Gallery and the Mortimer Brandt Gallery. Clippings, correspondence, announcements, exhibition lists and exhibition files are found. For both positions, she kept only the exhibition files for a small group of exhibitions organized around a specific theme, the most notable being the exhibition of Pre-Columbian Sculpture at the Wakefield Gallery.
Biographical materials include copies of her biography, family genealogies, photographs of Parsons, interviews with Colette Roberts and WYNC radio, memberships, photographs, and ephemera, including a collection of programs and invitations from events that she attended. Throughout her life Parsons gave generously of her time to various cultural and charitable institutions and was awarded for her contributions. There are also a number of files that document her speaking engagements, her participation as a juror in numerous juried exhibitions, charitable work, and awards that she received.
Parsons's personal correspondence files reflect how deeply Parsons's life was intertwined with the gallery. There are letters from museum directors, dealers, artists seeking representation, and personal letters from artists with whom she had close personal relationships, most notably Larry Bigelow, Alexander Calder, William Condon, and Ad Reinhardt. There are also letters from the English artist Adge Baker, with whom Parsons was romantically involved. Correspondence also includes several files of postcards and Christmas cards.
Pocket diaries and engagement calendars, spanning from 1933-1981, record social engagements, meetings, vacations, and telephone numbers. Also found are circa two linear feet of notebooks and sketchbooks, many of which are annotated with addresses, poetry, journal entries, and other observations of people, places, and travels. Writings by others include writings about Betty Parsons or the Betty Parsons Gallery, such as Lawrence Alloway's unpublished typescript titled "An American Gallery" and other topics.
Printed material consists of exhibition announcements and catalogs, art magazines, and newspaper and magazine clippings about Betty Parsons, her family and acquaintances, artists, and other art related topics, coupled with a miscellaneous selection of clippings, and a video recording, on topics that presumably captured Parsons's attention.
Personal art work records document Betty Parsons's career as an artist through inventories, group and solo exhibitions files, price lists, appraisals, sales and consignment invoices. Photographs are primarily reproductions of her works of art, although there are scattered photographs of exhibition installations.
Betty Parsons's private art collection files document her extensive personal collection of art that included works by Jackson Pollock, Agnes Martin, Romare Bearden, Barnett Newman, and Mark Rothko, in addition to Amlash sculpture from ancient Persia and primitive sculpture from New Hebrides. These files include inventories, lists, exhibition records, sales and purchase invoices, and photographs. There are also files for donations and loans from Parsons's personal collection to museums and fund raising auctions for several non-profit institutions.
Finally, the personal financial records provide information about the Parsons's family finances and her personal financial success as an art dealer. In addition to her own investments, Parsons inherited shares in family investments through the estates of her parents, J. Fred Pierson, Jr. and Suzanne Miles Pierson, and younger sister, Emily Rayner. Real estate files include correspondence, utility bills, receipts, area maps, and land plots for houses in Sheepscot, Maine and St. Maartens, Netherlands Antilles. Tax returns, ledger worksheets, receipts, banking statements, deposit slips, and cancelled checks are among the other financial records.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as seven series. Many of the series are further divided into subseries.
Missing Title
Series 1: Artists Files, 1935-1983 (19.4 linear feet; Boxes 1-18, 51, 55-56, OVs 53, 65)
Series 2: Exhibition Files, 1941-1983 (2.9 linear feet; Boxes 18-21, 51, 55, OVs 54, 66)
Series 3: Correspondence Files, 1941-1983 (3.9 linear feet; Boxes 21-24, 52, 56)
Series 4: Appraisal Files, 1954-1983 (0.7 linear feet; Box 24)
Series 5: Sales and Inventory Records, 1946-1983 (3.9 linear feet; Boxes 25-28, 51)
Series 6: General Business and Financial Records, 1946-1983 (9.3 linear feet; Boxes 28-38, 51, 56)
Series 7: Betty Parsons Personal Papers, 1916-1991 (21 linear feet; Boxes 38-51, 55-64, OVs 65-67)
Historical Note:
Betty Parsons (1900-1982) was one of the leading art dealers in New York City specializing in modern art, particularly the work of the Abstract Expressionists, and an abstract painter and sculptor in her own right. She opened Betty Parsons Gallery in 1946 at 15 E. 57th St., later moving to 24 W. 57th St.
The history of the Betty Parsons Gallery is inextricably bound to the life and experiences of its founder. Betty Parsons was born Betty Bierne Pierson on January 31, 1900 in New York City. She enjoyed a privileged childhood, which included vacation homes in Newport and Palm Beach. Her only formal education was a five-year stint at the prestigious Chapin School from 1910-1915, where she met many of the women who would become life-long friends and supporters. In the spring of 1920, she married Schuyler Livingston Parsons from one of New York's oldest families. The marriage ended after only three years and the couple traveled to Paris where they could obtain a divorce on the grounds of incompatibility. She retained her married surname and purchased a house on the rue Boulard in Paris, where she remained for ten years, pursuing studies in painting and sculpture.
Financial constraints forced Parsons to return to the United States in 1933. She first traveled west to California, but it was her return to New York in 1935 that marked the start of her career as an art dealer. Her first opportunity to connect with the New York art world came after a successful exhibition of her watercolors at the Midtown Galleries where the owner, Alan Gruskin, noted Parson's faithful and wealthy group of supporters and offered her work installing exhibitions and selling paintings on commission. Her work for the Midtown Galleries led to a second position in the Park Avenue gallery of Mary Sullivan, one of the founders of the Museum of Modern Art. Here, Parsons learned the business of running a gallery. By 1940 Parsons was ready to take on more independent responsibility and agreed to manage a gallery within the Wakefield Bookshop. In this job, she exercised full curatorial control by selecting artists and organizing exhibitions. She championed then unknown contemporary American artists and the gallery's roster soon included Saul Steinberg, Hedda Sterne, Alfonso Ossorio, Joseph Cornell, Walter Murch, and Theodore Stamos. Although the majority of the exhibitions were solo shows, there were a few group shows and themed exhibitions, such as Love in Art (1941) and Ballet in Art (1942). Under Parson's direction, the gallery hosted an important exhibition of Pre-Columbian sculpture, curated by Barnett Newman.
When the owners of the Wakefield Bookshop decided to close the gallery late in 1944, Mortimer Brandt, a dealer who specialized in Old Master paintings and drawings, offered her a position as head of the newly created contemporary section of his gallery. Many of the artists who had shown with Parsons at the Wakefield Gallery followed her to her new gallery, where they were joined by Ad Reinhardt, Boris Mango, and Hans Hofmann. While the exhibitions garnered attention from the press and the interest of contemporary artists, the contemporary section was not a financial success and Brandt opted to close his gallery in 1946.
Using $1000 of her own money and an additional borrowed $4000, Parsons sublet the space that previously housed Mortimer Brandt's contemporary section, on the fifth floor of 15 East 57th Street, and opened the Betty Parsons Gallery.
In many respects the early years of the Betty Parsons Gallery were the most vital, as it was during the period of 1947-1951 that the gallery became linked with the Abstract Expressionists and the history of post-WWII American Art. In an unpublished history of the gallery, noted art critic Lawrence Alloway stated that the significance of the gallery's early exhibitions ranks with Durand-Ruel's Impressionists exhibitions or Kahnweiler's shows of the Cubists. Betty Parsons Gallery quickly became one of the most prestigious galleries in New York City associated with new American Art of all styles. Her close friend Barnett Newman organized the gallery's inaugural exhibition of Northwest Coast Indian Art and he soon began to exhibit his own work at the gallery. When Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century Gallery closed, Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still, and Mark Rothko joined Parsons' growing stable of artists. Although Parsons continued to promote and exhibit many of the artists whom she had previously discovered, these four artists dominated this period. Newman, Pollock, Still, and Rothko worked closely together, holding themselves apart from the other artists somewhat. They were actively involved in the curatorial process and often hung their own shows. For these artists, the exhibition itself was an artistic act of creation.
Parsons provided a supportive environment and allowed her artists enormous freedom in planning and designing their exhibitions. She was not, however, an aggressive salesperson. During this early period the gallery ledgers document sales to an impressive array of museums including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as important collectors such as Edward Root and Duncan Phillips. Nevertheless, the art that the gallery promoted was not yet widely accepted. Sales were few, prices were low and the business would not turn a profit for several years. Meanwhile, there was mounting pressure from Pollock, Newman, Still, and Rothko to drop some of the other artists from Parsons' stable and focus all resources on them. They wanted to be promoted to a larger audience and have their work sold at higher prices, but Parsons enjoyed discovering new artists and did not want to be restricted in this endeavor. The year 1951 marks the last time that Pollock's drip paintings or the monumental works of Newman, Rothko or Still were shown at the Betty Parsons Gallery.
In the following years the Betty Parsons Gallery continued to attract a diverse group of talented artists. Ellsworth Kelly, Richard Tuttle, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jack Youngerman had their first New York exhibitions at the Betty Parsons Gallery. Parsons opened Section Eleven in 1958, a short-lived annex to the main gallery, so that she could promote younger, less well-known artists. It closed in 1960 due to the administrative difficulties in running two essentially separate galleries.
In 1962, Sidney Janis, another prominent art dealer, started proceedings to evict Parsons from the floor that they shared on 15 East 57th Street. The Betty Parsons Gallery moved to 24 West 57th Street in 1963, where it remained until it closed in 1983, following Parsons' death the preceding year. Throughout the gallery's history, Parsons continued to promote faithful artists such as Hedda Sterne and Saul Steinberg, who had been with her from the beginning and to seek out new talent, both for her main gallery and for other venues, such as the short-lived Parsons-Truman Gallery, which she opened in 1974 with former Parsons Gallery director Jock Truman to show works on paper by emerging artists.
In addition to being an art dealer, Betty Parsons was a respected artist and collector. With her connoisseur's eye and connections, Parsons amassed an impressive private collection of art. She bought her first piece while an art student in Paris in the 1920s, a small gouache by Zadkine, but did not begin acquiring works in earnest until she was established as an art dealer. Partial inventories of her personal collection show that the majority of her collection contained works by artists associated with the gallery. Mark Rothko, Hans Hofmann, Ad Reinhardt, Agnes Martin, and Kenzo Okada were among the artists represented. Many were gifts from the artists, such as an ink drawing by Jackson Pollock, inscribed "For Betty." Selections from her collection appeared in small museums across the United States, including a traveling exhibition organized by Fitch College, New York, in 1968. In her role as a promoter of contemporary American art, Parsons lent generously from her collection, particularly to the federal Art in the Embassies Program. Throughout her life she also donated works to a variety of museums, most notably, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark.
Parsons frequently claimed that her desire to pursue a career as an artist stemmed from a visit to the Armory Show when she was thirteen. In her late teens, after pressuring her father for art lessons, she studied with the sculptor Gutzon Burglum of Mount Rushmore fame. In Paris, she continued her studies first with Antoine Bourdelle, whose sculptures she had admired at the Armory Show, and later with Ossip Zadkine. The first exhibition of her work, figurative watercolors and sculptures, took place in Paris in 1927. As she matured as an artist, her art became more abstract. Her late works were painted wood sculptures that she pieced together from wood that she found near her studio in Long Island. Parsons's work was exhibited in more than thirty solo exhibitions, including, Betty Parsons; Paintings, Gouaches and Sculpture, 1955-1968, at the Whitechapel Gallery in London. During her lifetime, she would not allow her works to be shown in her own gallery. Shortly after she died of a stroke in 1982, In Memoriam, Betty Parsons: Late Sculptures, opened at the Betty Parsons Gallery.
Related Material:
Also found in the Archives of American Art are oral history interviews with Betty Parsons, June 4-9, 1969, by Paul Cummings, and June 11, 1981 by Gerald Silk.
Separated Material:
Some of the material originally loaned for microfilming in 1968 and 1969 was not included in later donations and can be viewed on microfilm reels N68/62-N68/74 and N69/105-N69/106. Loaned materials are not described in the container listing in this finding aid.
Provenance:
The gallery donated some records in 1974, many of which had been loaned earlier for microfilming. The bulk of the collection was donated in 1984 and 1986 by William Rayner and Christopher Schwabacher, executors of the Estate of Betty Parsons. Additional material was donated by William Rayner in 1998 and Christopher Schwabacher in 2017. Additional material was donated in 2018 by the Lee Hall estate via Carolyn Crozier and Deborah Jacobson, co-executors. Hall was Parsons's biographer and had the material in her possession at the time of Parsons's death. An additional photograph of Parons and Marie Carr Taylor by Henri Cartier-Bresson was donated in 2021 by Mary Carpenter, who inherited the photograph from her mother, Nan Thorton Jones, who received it as a gift from Taylor.
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.
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:
Gallery owners -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Art dealers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Prendergast, Maurice Brazil, 1858-1924 Search this
Sachs, Paul J. (Paul Joseph), 1878-1965 Search this
Extent:
26 Linear feet
0.225 Gigabytes
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Gigabytes
Travel diaries
Articles
Interviews
Essays
Drafts (documents)
Transcripts
Photographs
Notebooks
Lectures
Scripts (documents)
Date:
1908-1998
Summary:
The papers of art historian and educator Milton Wolf Brown date from 1908 to 1998 and measure 26.0 linear feet and 0.225 GB. The collection documents Brown's career through scattered biographical material, correspondence with friends, publishers, colleagues, artists, museums, and art organizations, travel journals, files for the Prendergast Catalogue Raisonne Project, exhibition, research, teaching, and organization files, printed and digital material, and scattered photographs. A large portion of this collection consists of writings by Brown including notebooks, draft writings for books and other publications, lectures, and his writings as a student.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of art historian and educator Milton Wolf Brown date from 1908 to 1998 and measure 25.8 linear feet and 0.225 GB. The collection documents Brown's career through scattered biographical material, correspondence with friends, publishers, colleagues, artists, museums, and art organizations, travel journals, files for the Prendergast Catalogue Raisonne Project, exhibition, research, teaching, and organization files, printed and digital material, and scattered photographs. A large portion of this collection consists of writings by Brown including notebooks, draft writings for books and other publications, lectures, and his writings as a student.
Biographical material includes academic records, travel documents, financial documents, Brown's military records, and a transcript of a 1997 interview. Correspondence is with students, museums, universities, publishers, art organizations, and others. The bulk of these letters document Brown's professional activities, but also found are scattered letters from friends, artists, and colleagues such as Russell Lynes, Stanley Meltzoff, Louis Lozowick, Erwin Panofsky, and Paul Sachs.
This collection also contains 33 detailed travel journals written primarily by Milton Brown's wife, Blanche, documenting their travels in Europe, the United States, and other parts of the world. Within the writings series are notebooks from the period that Brown was a student and while traveling in Europe in 1959 and 1960; book project files, which include draft writings as well as related correspondence, research material, notes, photographs and other material. Files are found for American Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Decorative Arts, Photography (1979), American Painting, From the Armory Show to the Depression (1955), The Story of the Armory Show (1963, 1988 2nd ed.), and other books. Among the writings are files for lectures written by Brown; essays, articles, and scripts written for various publications; general research notes and student writings; and writings by others sent to Brown for review and feedback.
Brown maintained a set of files documenting his work on the Prendergast Catalogue Raisonne Project, which consist of correspondence, drafts, reports, and research materials, including notes on twenty meetings with Mrs. Prendergast. Exhibition files document Brown's work as curator on several major exhibitions, including a Jacob Lawrence exhibition at the Whitney Museum, and his contributions to others. Also found here are three interviews of Milton Brown and Marcel Duchamp concerning the 50th Anniversary of the Armory Show and anniversary exhibition. Research files include notes, research material, and printed material on various art-related subjects that were maintained by Milton and Blanche Brown for regular use for lectures, teaching, and writing projects. Brown's teaching files contain scattered lecture notes, syllabi, correspondence, faculty records, and other materials from his time at CUNY, Brooklyn College, and other visiting professorships. Organization Files contain correspondence, reports, planning documents, and event materials. These records document his membership or advisory role in various organizations such as the Archives of American Art and Century Association.
This collection also contains printed material, such as exhibition announcements, newsletters, brochures, journals, event programs, and magazine and newspapers clippings compiled by Brown. Scattered photographs include nine photographs of Milton Brown, a few photographs of friends, and photographs of artwork.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 11 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1932-1998 (Box 1; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1908, 1934-1998 (Boxes 1-3; 1.8 linear feet)
Series 3: Travel Journals, 1941-1996 (Boxes 3-4; 1.6 linear feet)
Series 4: Writings, circa 1929-1990s (Boxes 4-13, 25; 8.7 linear feet)
Series 5: Prendergast Catalogue Raisonne Project, circa 1952-1990 (Boxes 13-14, 25; 1.8 linear feet)
Series 6: Exhibition Files, 1962-circa 1997 (Boxes 14-16, 28; 2.0 linear feet, ER01; 0.225 GB)
Series 7: Research Files, circa 1930s-1986 (Boxes 16-19; 3.0 linear feet)
Series 8: Teaching Files, circa 1946-1993 (Boxes 19-21; 2.0 linear feet)
Series 9: Organization Files, 1959-1995 (Boxes 21-22; 1.3 linear feet)
Series 10: Printed Material, 1925-1990s (Boxes 22-24, 26, 27; 3.2 linear feet)
Series 11: Photographs, circa 1956-1990s (Boxes 25, 27; 0.2 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Milton Wolf Brown (1911-1998) was an art historian and educator in New York City.
Known to his friends as "Mainey," Brown was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1911. At a young age he intended to be a painter and studied with Louis Lozowick. However, instead of attending art school, he entered New York University to study education and eventually received his master's and doctorate in art history from the Institute of Fine Arts. While there he took courses with Walter Friedlander, Erwin Panofsky, and Mayer Schapiro. He also received fellowships to the Courtauld Institute of Art in 1934 and Brussels in 1937, and studied from 1938-1939 at the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University. In 1938 he married fellow student Blanche Levine. After serving in World War II, he began teaching in the art department at Brooklyn College in 1946. There he developed a specialization in American art history and his doctoral dissertation, American Painting from the Armory Show to the Depression, was published in 1955. In 1963 he participated in the fiftieth anniversary exhibition of the 1913 Armory Show. The publication of his book Story of the Armory Show coincided with this event.
In 1971 Brown established the graduate program in Art History at the City University of New York, which became preeminent in the areas of modern art and American art history. During the 1980s he remained a resident professor at CUNY, though he retired in 1979, and he held visiting professorships at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art. From 1983 to 1987 he had a senior fellowship at Williams College for the Prendergast Catalogue Raisonne Project.
Over the course of his career Brown curated exhibitions, including an exhibition on the works of Jacob Lawrence and The Modern Spirit: American Painting and Photography, 1908-1935, and wrote for numerous publications. He also served as an active member of several professional societies. Brown was close friends with art scholars and artists, such as Jack Levine, Moses and Raphael Soyer, Ad Reinhardt, and Paul Strand. In 1991 he returned to painting landscape watercolors, and had the opportunity to exhibit his work before his death in 1998.
Related Material:
Also at the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Milton Wolf Brown, conducted in 1976 by Paul Cummings.
Provenance:
The Milton Wolf Brown papers were donated in 2000 and 2001 by Blanche R. Brown, Brown's widow. Three reel-to reel sound recordings were lent for duplication to cassette and transcript in 1986 by Milton Brown. A cassette copy of the Martha Deane interview was donated in 2006 by Milton Brown's estate, via Naomi Rosenblum. Additional material was donated in 2002 and 2004 by Naomi Rosenblum, executor for the estate of Blanche R. Brown, who died in 2002.
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 museum curators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Educators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Art historians -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
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:
Missing Title
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.
