Search Results

Creator:

Asch, Moses  Search this

Distler, Marian, 1919-1964  Search this

Folkways Records  Search this

Names:

Courlander, Harold, 1908-1996  Search this

Guthrie, Woody, 1912-1967  Search this

Jenkins, Ella  Search this

Leadbelly, 1885-1949  Search this

Ramsey, Frederic, 1915-1995  Search this

Seeger, Pete, 1919-2014  Search this

Extent:

841 Cubic feet

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Business records

Correspondence

Phonograph records

Photographic prints

Audiotapes

Date:

1926-1986

bulk 1948-1986

Summary:

This collection, which dates from 1926-1986, documents the output of Moses Asch through the various record labels he founded and co-founded, and includes some of his personal papers. The Asch collection includes published recordings, master tapes, outtakes, business records, correspondence, photographs, and film.

Scope and Contents:

The Moses and Frances Asch Collection measures 841 cubic feet and dates from 1926-1987, with some contemporary, relevant correspondence, clippings, and ephemera added after 1987.

Most of the collection consists of audio recordings (commercial 78 rpm and long-playing records, open reel tapes, acetate discs, and test pressings), correspondence with recording artists and producers, artwork, photographs, ephemera, clippings, record production materials, writings, and business papers relating to Folkways Records. Materials relating to Folkways Records can be found primarily in the Correspondence, Folkways Production, Business Records, Photographs, Artwork, Sound Recordings, and Film series.

The collection also contains some biographical materials and personal correspondence, including materials related to Asch's first business, Radio Laboratories, located in the Biographical Materials series. Correspondence, ephemera, photographs, record production materials, business papers, and recordings relating to Asch's record labels before Folkways Records (Asch Recordings, Disc Company of America, Cub Records) are located in the Early Label Materials series as well as the Audio Recordings and Photographs series.

Arrangement note:

The collection is arranged in 10 series:

Series 1: Correspondence, 1942-1987

Series 2: Folkways Production, 1946-1987

Series 3: Business Records, 1940-1987

Series 4: Woody Guthrie papers, 1927-1985

Series 5: Early Label Materials, 1940-1949

Series 6: Biographical Materials, 1926-1987

Series 7: Photographs

Series 8: Artwork

Series 9: Audio Recordings

Series 10: Film

At this time, the collection is partially processed. Please contact rinzlerarchives@si.edu for more information.

Biographical/Historical note:

The son of Yiddish writer Sholem Asch, Moses Asch was born in Poland in 1905. His childhood was spent in Poland, France, Germany, and New York. While young, Asch developed an interest in radio electronics, which ultimately lead him to his life's work, recording the music and sounds of the world. He established several record labels in succession, sometimes partnering with other record companies. Two of his fist record companies, Asch Recordings and DISC Co. of America, went bankrupt. They were followed by his best-known label, Folkways Records, which was founded in 1948 with Marian Distler (1919-1964). He was still working on Folkways recordings when he died in 1986.

Folkways Records sought to document the entire world of sound. The 2,168 titles Asch released on Folkways include traditional and contemporary music from around the world, spoken word in many languages, and documentary recordings of individuals, communities, and current events. Asch's business practices revolved around the commitment to keep every recording issued by Folkways in print, despite low sales. Asch stayed afloat by cutting costs where he could (such as color printing) and offering a high-quality product, meticulously recorded and accompanied by extensive liner notes. In doing this, he could charge a slightly higher price than other commercial outfits. Despite a tenuous relationship with financial solvency, Folkways grew to be not only one of the most important independent record companies in the United States in the 20th century, but also one of the largest and most influential record companies in the world.

Moses Asch's record labels featured famous and lesser known American writers, poets, documentarians, ethnographers, and grass roots musicians on commercial recordings. American folk icon Woody Guthrie recorded on the Asch, Disc, and Folkways labels, and the Asch Collection includes some of his correspondence, lyrics, drawings, and writings. The collection also includes correspondence with other notable musicians and artists such as John Cage, Langston Hughes, Margaret Walker, Huddie "Lead Belly" Ledbetter, Pete Seeger, Peggy Seeger, Ewan MacColl, Alan Lomax, Henry Cowell, and Kenneth Patchen. Also in the collection are ethnographic field notes and photographs by as well as correspondence with Béla Barók, Sidney Robertson Cowell, Harold Courlander, Helen Creighton, Laura Boulton, and Samuel Charters. Asch hired various prominent artists and graphic designers including David Stone Martin, Ben Shahn, John Carlis, and Ronald Clyne to create album cover art for his recordings. Much of the original art and designs for these covers can be found in the Asch Collection.

Asch's output of recordings on various labels, including published recordings, open reel master tapes, outtakes, and acetate disks, in addition to his business papers, correspondence, photographs, and other files were acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1987. The collection came to the Smithsonian with the understanding that all 2168 titles under the Folkways label would be kept available in perpetuity.

Shared Stewardship of Collections:

The Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage acknowledges and respects the right of artists, performers, Folklife Festival participants, community-based scholars, and knowledge-keepers to collaboratively steward representations of themselves and their intangible cultural heritage in media produced, curated, and distributed by the Center. Making this collection accessible to the public is an ongoing process grounded in the Center's commitment to connecting living people and cultures to the materials this collection represents. To view the Center's full shared stewardship policy, which defines our protocols for addressing collections-related inquiries and concerns, please visit https://folklife.si.edu/archives#shared-stewardship.

Provenance:

Ralph Rinzler arranged the Smithsonian's acquisition of the Moses and Frances Asch Collection in 1987, beginning with Asch before his death in 1986 and continuing with extensive discussions between Rinzler and the Asch family. Since its acquisition, archivist Jeff Place and others have added contemporary, relevant correspondence with Folkways artists and related individuals.

Restrictions:

Access to the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections is by appointment only. Visit our website for more information on scheduling a visit or making a digitization request. Researchers interested in accessing born-digital records or audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies.

Rights:

Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections. Please visit our website to learn more about submitting a request. The Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections make no guarantees concerning copyright or other intellectual property restrictions. Other usage conditions may apply; please see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for more information.

Topic:

Folk music  Search this

Folk dance music  Search this

Electronic music  Search this

Oral interpretation of poetry  Search this

Oral interpretation of fiction  Search this

Music -- 20th century  Search this

Music -- 19th century  Search this

Music -- 18th century  Search this

Jazz  Search this

Folk music -- United States  Search this

World music  Search this

Sounds  Search this

Vocal music  Search this

Popular music -- 20th century -- United States  Search this

Genre/Form:

Business records

Correspondence

Phonograph records

Photographic prints

Audiotapes

Citation:

Moses and Frances Asch Collection, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

Identifier:

CFCH.ASCH

See more items in:

Moses and Frances Asch Collection

Archival Repository:

Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/bk533b8a927-559a-44ac-98d2-f32d871058b4

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-cfch-asch

Creator:

Semmel, Joan, 1923-  Search this

Names:

Bernstein, Judith, 1942-  Search this

Edelson, Mary Beth  Search this

Golden, Eunice  Search this

Grossman, Nancy  Search this

Hammond, Harmony  Search this

Hardy, John  Search this

Markson, David  Search this

Nieto, José Antonio  Search this

Schapiro, Miriam, 1923-2015  Search this

Sleigh, Sylvia  Search this

Stevens, May  Search this

Extent:

5.9 Linear feet

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Interviews

Video recordings

Illustrations

Photographs

Date:

1949-2013

bulk 1960-2013

Summary:

The papers of painter Joan Semmel measure 5.9 linear feet and span the dates of 1949-2013 with the bulk of the material dated circa 1960s-2013. The papers reflect her career and activities as a painter, writer, feminist, and educator through biographical materials, correspondence, interviews, writings, project files, teaching files, printed material, and photographic materials.

Scope and Contents:

The papers of painter Joan Semmel measure 5.9 linear feet and span the dates of 1949-2013 with the bulk of the material dated circa 1960s-2013. The papers reflect her career and activities as a painter, writer, feminist and educator through biographical materials, correspondence, interviews, writings, project files, teaching files, printed material, and photographic materials.

Among the biographical materials are awards, educational records,and audiovisual recordings about Joan Semmel and her work.

Professional correspondence concerns exhibitions, publication permissions, panel discussions, symposia, and visiting artist and summer school appointments. Also included are letters of recommendation for colleagues and students. A scattering of personal letters are from novelist David Markson and José Antonio, both of whom had personal relationships with Semmel. There are also a few letters from friends of a purely social nature and a few letters concerning routine personal affairs.

There are two interviews with Joan Semmel on video recordings, one was conducted for a television broadcast and the other is unidentified.

Writings by Semmel include the manuscript, illustrations, research material, and letters relating to her unpublished book about women's erotic art. Also found are articles, artist's statements, and notes for talks about her work. The writings about Semmel consist of several student papers.

Project files relate to two exhibitions curated by Semmel, Contemporary Women: Consciousness and Content (1977) at The Brooklyn Museum of Art School and Private Worlds (2000). One file is related to a project in which Semmel was involved to document the role and status of women in the arts.

Scattered teaching files concern a course about contemporary women artists developed and taught by Semmel for the women's studies program at Rutgers University, circa 1978. Also documented are summer programs at Skowhegan and Sommerakademie in Austria where Semmel served as an instructor.

Binders (now unbound) of printed materials were compiled by Semmel consisting of exhibition catalogs and announcements for solo and group shows, reviews, posters, and miscellaneous printed matter.

Photographs of people include Joan Semmel, friends and colleagues. Among the individuals pictured are: writer David Markson, painter John Hardy, José Antonio Nieto; and feminist artists: Judy Bernstein, Mary Beth Edelson, Eunice Golden, Nancy Grossman, Harmony Hammond, Miriam Schapiro, Sylvia Sleigh, and May Stevens. There are slides, photographs, color photocopies and digital images of Semmel's paintings. Of particular interest are photographs, photocopies of photographs, and digital images that served as source material for paintings, including portrait commissions.

Arrangement:

The collection is arranged in 8 seres:

Missing Title

Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1949-2013 (Box 1; 0.6 linear feet)

Series 2: Correspondence, 1973-2013 (Boxes 1-2; 1.2 linear feet)

Series 3: Interviews, circa 1970s-1986 (Box 2; 0.2 linear feet)

Series 4: Writings, 1970s-2009 (Box 3; 0.7 linear feet)

Series 5: Project Files, 1972-2000 (Box 3; 3 folders)

Series 6: Teaching Files, 1970s-2000 (Box 3; 0.4 linear feet)

Series 7: Printed Material, circa 1960s-2013 (Boxes 4-6, OV 8; 2.2 linear feet)

Series 8: Photographic Materials, circa 1965-2013 (Boxes 6-7; 0.6 linear feet)

Biographical / Historical:

Joan Semmel (1932- ) is an abstract painter working in New York City and Easthampton, N. Y. Semmel's work explores erotic themes and the female body. She taught painting at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University from 1978-2000.

Born in New York City in 1932, Joan Semmel studied at the Cooper Union, the Art Students League of New York, and received her BFA in 1963 and MFA in 1972 from Pratt Institute. Semmel moved to Spain in 1963 and exhibited her abstract expressionist work in galleries and museums there before returning to New York in 1970.

Upon Semmel's return to New York, she became involved in the feminist art movement. One of the original Guerrilla Girls, Semmel was involved with several feminist activist art groups devoted to gender equality in the art world. Semmel spent years researching a book about women's erotic art. At the same time, her painting style shifted to incorporate more figurative imagery and she began working on series that explored the themes of the female body, desire, and aging. Each series consisted of 10-30 paintings, produced over several years, among them First and Second Erotic Series, Self Images, Portraits, Figure in Landscape, Gymnasium, Locker Room, Overlays, and Mannequins.

In addition to her teaching career at Rutgers University as a tenured Professor of Painting, Semmel taught briefly at the Brooklyn Museum Art School, Skowhegan, and the Summer Academy of Fine Arts in Salzburg, Germany. Over the years she served as a visiting artist, critic, and lecturer at many colleges, and participated in numerous symposia, panel discussions and conferences. She has received several grants and awards including Macdowell Colony and Yaddo residencies.

Semmel has exhibited widely and prolifically in the United States, Spain, the Netherlands, and South America, in addition to curating two exhibitions, Contemporary Women: Consciousness and Content (1977) at The Brooklyn Museum of Art School and Private Worlds - Art in General (2000). Her work is represented in the permanent collections of many museums including the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Chrysler Museum, Guild Hall, Museum of Women in the Arts, Parrish Art Museum, and Vassar College Museum.

Joan Semmel continues to live and work in New York City and Easthampton, NY.

Provenance:

Donated by Joan Semmel in 2014.

Restrictions:

Use of original material requires an appointment. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.

Rights:

The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.

Occupation:

Authors -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this

Educators -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this

Painters -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this

Topic:

Women and erotica  Search this

Women artists  Search this

Painting, Abstract  Search this

Feminism and art  Search this

Erotica  Search this

Art -- Political aspects  Search this

Genre/Form:

Interviews

Video recordings

Illustrations

Photographs

Citation:

Joan Semmel papers, 1949-2013, bulk circa 1960s-2013. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Identifier:

AAA.semmjoan

See more items in:

Joan Semmel papers

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw99aac2ce9-32e8-4fc5-b7d4-e95f090b5aa7

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-aaa-semmjoan

Interviewee:

Adrian, Dennis, 1937-  Search this

Interviewer:

Silverman, Lanny  Search this

Names:

Akron Art Museum  Search this

Art Institute of Chicago  Search this

Chicago Art and Artists: Oral History Project  Search this

Chicago's Art-Related Archival Materials: A Terra Foundation Resource  Search this

Madison Art Center  Search this

Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago, Ill.)  Search this

New York University  Search this

Portland Art Museum (Or.)  Search this

University of Chicago -- Students  Search this

Acconci, Vito, 1940-  Search this

Achilles, Rolf  Search this

Alloway, Lawrence, 1926-1990  Search this

Anderson, Jeremy, 1921-1982  Search this

Artner, Alan G.  Search this

Barnes, Robert, 1934-  Search this

Baum, Don, 1922-  Search this

Botticelli, Sandro, 1444 or 1445-1510  Search this

Brown, Roger, 1941-1997  Search this

Carlson, Victor I.  Search this

Castelli, Leo  Search this

Conner, Bruce, 1933-2008  Search this

Coplans, John  Search this

Cornell, Joseph  Search this

Dubuffet  Search this

Florsheim, Lillian H.  Search this

Frumkin, Allan  Search this

Garver, Thomas H.  Search this

Golub, Leon, 1922-2004  Search this

Guston, Philip, 1913-1980  Search this

Hanson, Philip, 1943-  Search this

Hoffman, Rhona, 1934-  Search this

Ito, Miyoko, 1918-1983  Search this

Kind, Phyllis, 1933-2018  Search this

Leaf, June, 1929-  Search this

Lee, Sherman E.  Search this

Maxon, John, 1916-  Search this

Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig, 1886-1969  Search this

Newman, Muriel Kallis Steinberg  Search this

Nicholson, Natasha, 1945-  Search this

Parker, Dorothy, 1893-1967  Search this

Pearlstein, Philip, 1924-  Search this

Petlin, Irving, 1934-2018  Search this

Ramberg, Christina  Search this

Rossi, Barbara, 1940-  Search this

Schulze, Franz, 1927-2019  Search this

Sleigh, Sylvia  Search this

Spero, Nancy, 1926-2009  Search this

Swinton, Tilda  Search this

Voulkos, Peter, 1924-2002  Search this

Warhol, Andy, 1928-1987  Search this

Westermann, H. C. (Horace Clifford), 1922-  Search this

Wilde, Oscar, 1854-1900  Search this

Wiles, Bertha Harris, 1896-  Search this

Extent:

4 Items (Sound recording: 4 sound files (4 hr., 18 min.), digital, wav)

173 Pages (Transcript)

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Pages

Interviews

Sound recordings

Date:

2015 October 8-9

Scope and Contents:

An interview with Dennis Adrian conducted 2015 October 8-9, by Lanny Silverman, for the Archives of American Art's Chicago Art and Artists: Oral History Project, at Adrian's home in Seaside, Oregon.

Adrian speaks of growing up in Astoria; traveling to Chicago and New York; Cannon Beach; aging and getting older; his origins; curators and curating; visual sensibilities; the Portland Public Library; opera; his parents, grandparents, and family; Finnish sensibility and humor; Portland Art Museum and classes for children; curator as voyeur; credit and accomplishments; hands on experiences; Artforum; art history; attending University of Chicago; homosexuality and coming out; looted European masterworks; Botticelli; exposure to real art; connoisseurship; collectors and collecting; a Robert Louis Stevenson letter; violin making; growing into yourself; Chicago; war; New York University; Frumkin Gallery; New York; the art world; Madison Art Center; Akron Art Museum; friendship and role models; Art Institute of Chicago; meeting Mies van der Rohe; meeting idols; education; Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Monster Roster; traveling; Chicago art politics; writing and critics; Eurocentric curators; Chicago as an undervalued city; Dog Day Afternoon; discovering art; New York sightings; and experiences running into artists. Adrian also recalls Roger Brown, Ruth Horwich, Gilda Buchbinder, Don Baum, Sherman Lee, Victor Carlson, Peter Voulkos, Lawrence Alloway, Rhona Hoffman, Allan Frumkin, June Leaf, Leon Golub, Jeremy Anderson, Robert Barnes, Tom Garver, Bruce Conner, Natasha Nicholson, H. C. Westermann, Franz Schulze, Bertha Harris Wiles, Muriel Newman, Aaron James Spire, Lillian Florsheim, John Maxon, Greg Knight, P.B. Maryan, Philip Pearlstein, Sylvia Sleigh, Nancy Spero, Irving Petlin, John Coplans, Alan Artner, Alice Shaddle, Phyllis Kind, Andy Warhol, Joseph Cornell, Tilda Swinton, Leo Castelli, Philip Guston, Dubuffet, Pussy Pepke, Bumpy Rogers, Barbara Rossi, Christina Ramberg, Philip Hanson, Miyoko Ito, Mark Jackson, Rolf Achilles, and Vito Acconci.

Biographical / Historical:

Dennis Adrian (1937- ) is an art critic, educator, and curator in Chicago, Illinois. Lanny Silverman (1947- ) is a curator at the Chicago Cultural Center in Chicago, Illinois.

Provenance:

This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.

Occupation:

Art critics -- Illinois -- Chicago -- Interviews  Search this

Topic:

Art, American -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this

Art -- Collectors and collecting  Search this

Art -- History  Search this

Art -- Study and teaching  Search this

Art thefts -- Europe  Search this

Curators -- Illinois -- Chicago -- Interviews  Search this

Educators -- Illinois -- Chicago -- Interviews  Search this

Genre/Form:

Interviews

Sound recordings

Sponsor:

Funding for this interview was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.

Identifier:

AAA.adrian15

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9a4b4e01e-5985-41e2-9eac-996bf9e8d51e

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-aaa-adrian15

Creator:

Gordon, Elizabeth, 1906-2000  Search this

Names:

Claiborne, Craig  Search this

Gordon, Elizabeth, 1906-2000  Search this

Leach, Bernard, 1887-1979  Search this

Extent:

3 Linear feet

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Periodicals

Photographs

Correspondence

Personal papers

Place:

Japan

Date:

1958-1987

Summary:

Papers, 1959-1987, of Elizabeth Gordon, editor of the periodical, House Beautiful from 1941-1964, mostly related to her research for the August and September 1960 issues of House Beautiful regarding the Japanese aesthetic concept of "shibui", and the subsequent travelling "shibui exhibition" from 1961-1964. Included are correspondence, some photocopies, 1959-1963; notes; drafts for articles and lectures; printed material including magazine and newspaper clippings, 1959-1987; 2 books, and exhibition announcements; drawings of paper and foil art; a photo album containing photos of exhibition installations; and photographs, slides, color transparencies, and lantern slides depicting people, sites, and objects reflecting the "shibui" aesthetic.

Scope and Contents:

The Elizabeth Gordon Papers measure 4.5 linear feet and span the years 1959-1987. The collection mainly documents Ms. Gordon's research for the August and September 1960 issues of House Beautiful regarding the Japanese aesthetic concept of "shibui", and the subsequent travelling "shibui exhibition" from 1961-1964. Included are correspondence, some photocopies, 1959-1963; research notes and materials; articles; lectures; printed material including magazine and newspaper clippings, 1959-1987; 2 books, and exhibition announcements; article materials; a photo album containing photos of exhibition installations; and photographs, slides, color transparencies, and lantern slides depicting people, sites, and objects reflecting the "shibui" aesthetic.

Arrangement note:

This collection is organized into eight series. 1. Biographical data, 2. Shibui research, 3. Shibui issues of, House Beautiful, 4. Correspondence, 5. Shibui promotion, 6. Exhibition files, 7. Printed materials, and 8. Photographs.

Biographical Information:

Born in Logansport, Indiana in 1906, Elizabeth Gordon served as editor of House Beautiful magazine 1941 to 1964. Ms. Gordon first became interested in Japanese aesthetics during the mid-1950s. As a result she began to read and study Japanese art, history and culture. In 1959, Gordon travelled to Japan with three staff people from, House Beautiful. In Kyoto she met Eiko Yuasa, a young woman then employed by the City of Kyoto to handle foreign V.I.P.s, who was assigned to assist Gordon during her stay there. It was Ms. Yuasa who, in the course of discussions of Japanese aesthetics, introduced the term "shibui." Around that term and its related concepts ("iki", "jimi", "hade") the theme for the issue began to crystallize. In August and September, 1960, House Beautiful, under the editorial control of Ms. Gordon, published two extremely popular issues devoted to the subject of "shibui". Due to the popularity of the issues, museum exhibits devoted to the concept of "shibui" travelled around the United States. Ms. Gordon died in Adamstown, Maryland in 2000.

Biographical Overview

1906 -- Born in Logansport, Indiana

1920s -- Attended the University of Chicago

1930s -- Moved to New York to work as a promotional copywriter for several newspapers

1930s -- Syndicated columnist on home maintenance for The New York Herald Tribune

1930s -- Editor at Good Housekeeping (here for 8 years)

1937 -- More House for your Money by Elizabeth Gordon and Dorothy Ducas published by W. Morrow and Company: New York.

1937 -- Married Carl Hafey Norcross

1939 -- Appointed editor of House Beautiful

1964 -- Left the magazine world

1972 -- Published a special issue on Scandinavian design and awarded the insignia of a knight, first class, in the Finnish Order of the Lion

1987 -- American Institute of Architects made her an honorary member

1988 -- Carl Hafey Norcross died

September 3, 2000 -- Died in Adamstown, MD

(The following biography of Elizabeth Gordon comes courtesy of curator Louise Cort. Written in consultation with Elizabeth Gordon, October 23, 1987)

The research papers, memoranda, magazines, books, photographs and color transparencies and other materials in this archives are related to the publication by Elizabeth Gordon (Mrs. Carl Norcross), editor of House Beautiful from 1941 to 1964 and creator of the August, 1960 issue of the magazine on the special theme of the Japanese aesthetic concept of "shibui". The "shibui issue" was followed by the September, 1960, issue of the same publication on the theme, "How to be shibui with American things." As a by-product of the issues, a "Shibui Exhibition" travelled to eleven museums in the United States during 1961-1964. Each exhibition was opened with a slide lecture by Elizabeth Gordon.

Miss Gordon first became curious about Japanese aesthetics in the mid-1950s when she began to see Japanese objects being displayed and used in the homes of Americans who had spent time in Japan during the Occupation and Japanese influence began to appear in wholesale showrooms of home furnishings manufacturers. It was clear that the time had come: she HAD to go to Japan!

She read for five years before going to Japan - history, social mores, art history. (Many of the books on Japan that she collected during this time have been presented to the library at the University of Maryland, College Park.)

An important bit of advice came from Alice Spaulding Bowen, owner of Pacifica, the highest quality shop of Asian antiquities in Honolulu, who told her, "Be sure to read, The Tale of Genji - then you'll understand everything."

She made her first trip to Japan in April, 1959, accompanied by three staff people from, House Beautiful. In Kyoto she met Eiko Yuasa, a young woman then employed by the City of Kyoto to handle foreign V.I.P.s, who was assigned to assist Miss Gordon during her stay there. It was Ms. Yuasa who, in the course of discussions of Japanese aesthetics, introduced the term "shibui." Around that term and its related concepts ("iki", "jimi", "hade") the theme for the issue began to crystallize.

Miss Gordon came home, planning to spend the summer researching "shibui" with the aid of the Japan Society. But she found virtually nothing written in English on the concept. So she returned to Japan in December, 1959 together with staff member Marion Gough, to dig deeper and to work out details and get better educated with Eiko Yuasa. One of their devices was to walk through department stores and discuss with sales personnel whether objects for sale were "shibui", or were "jimi" or "hade", and why. Between themselves, they did the same for the costumes of women they saw on the streets.

Lacking printed sources for information on "shibui", Miss Gordon sought out and interviewed experts, including Douglas Overton, head of the Japan Society in New York. In Japan in December, 1959, she met Yanagi Soetsu, founder of Japan's Folk Craft Movement and head of the Craft Museum in Tokyo (with an introduction from Tonomura Kichinosuke, head of the Craft Museum in Kurashiki). She met the chef Tsuji Kaichi, who was commissioned to write an article on "kaiseki" (that could not be used because of an inadequate English translation) and Frances Blakemore. She met several times with Bernard Leach and attended his lecture at Bonnier's while he was in New York in March, 1960. (He would later write a "fan letter" for the issue)

As the concept of "the shibui issue" began to take shape, a third trip in the spring of 1960 focused on photography - to produce the shooting script decided on the preceding December. This was executed by the noted photographer Ezra Stoller of Rye, New York, and John DeKoven Hill, House Beautiful's Editorial Director. (Mr. Hill worked with Frank Lloyd Wright except for the ten years that he was a member of the House Beautiful editorial staff)

Miss Gordon was back in Japan in Mid-August 1960 as the "shibui issue" was causing a sensation. Altogether she spent sixteen months in Japan.

As one of the experiences that influenced her strong interest in Japanese costumes and textiles, Miss Gordon remembers a spectacularly thorough exhibition at the Tokyo National Museum in Ueno on, 1200 Years of Japanese Costume. She saw it on the last day of its exhibition (possibly 1964).

The August 1960 issue sold out quickly. Copies of the magazine, which sold for fifty cents, were sold on the "black market" for ten dollars.

The publication of the August 1960 issue was followed by an unprecedented avalanche of "fan mail". Many department heads in colleges and universities, including the Harvard-Yenching Institute and the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (where Miss Gordon had worked as an undergraduate) wrote to comment on the issue. Many people in other fields of endeavor wrote: heads of firms concerned with interior design, landscape architecture, and related areas expressed their interest in the concept of "shibui" Other writers include Bernard Leach, Gertrude Natzler, Laura Gilpin, Mainbocher, the architect Yoshimura Junzo, the textile artist Marianne Strengell, Walter Kerr, Craig Claiborne, and Oliver Statler.

The "shibui issue" was followed immediately by the September issue dealing with the use of non-Japanese objects to express the concept of "shibui." (Miss Gordon convinced her advertisers, who had been skeptical about the potential success of the August issue, by promising the September issue dealing with American products.) Four American firms were involved in the production of an integrated line of paints, wallpaper, furniture and carpets expressive of the concept. Products were designed by the firms' designers following the clues offered by objects and fabrics purchased by Miss Gordon in Japan in December 1959 and spring 1960. Miss Gordon has expressed her dissatisfaction with the September issue, although public opinion was positive. She feels that some of the firms failed in the "shibui" project, though some "caught" the message: namely the paint company and the fabric/wallpaper company.

In response to strong public interest, the House Beautiful staff prepared a travelling exhibition to introduce the concept of "shibui" through a series of vignettes, mixing fabrics and objects, colors and textures. The museum installation was designed by John Hill of House Beautiful. Japan Air Lines underwrote shipping costs.

The exhibition began in Philadelphia in late 1961. Ezra Stoller was sent to photograph the installation in considerable detail at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts in January, 1962, so that his photographs cold serve as guidelines for installations at the other museums, which included the San Francisco Museum of Art (April 1962), the Newark Pubic Library, and the Honolulu Academy of Art. Miss Gordon presented a lecture on "shibui" at each of the museum installations.

In appreciation of her work to introduce Americans to the concept of "shibui", the city of Kyoto presented a bolt of especially "shibui" kimono fabric executed by a Living National Treasure textile artist. Miss Gordon eventually tailored the fabric into a dress and jacket. She received the 1961 Trail Blazer Award from the New York Chapter of the National Home Fashions League, Inc. In June, 1987, Miss Gordon was named an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects, with her introduction of the concept of "shibui" and her promotion of an understanding of other culture cited as her major contributions to American architecture.

Provenance:

Elizabeth Gordon donated her papers to the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives in 1988.

Elizabeth Gordon donated her papers to the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives in 1988.

Restrictions:

Collection is open for research.

Rights:

No restrictions on use.

Topic:

Interior decoration -- Periodicals  Search this

Landscape gardening  Search this

Art, Japanese  Search this

Aesthetics, Japanese  Search this

House funishings  Search this

Interior decoration  Search this

Museum exhibits  Search this

Interior decorators  Search this

Gardens -- Japan  Search this

Genre/Form:

Periodicals -- 1940-1970

Photographs

Correspondence

Personal papers -- 1950-2000

Citation:

The Elizabeth Gordon Papers. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of Elizabeth Gordon, 1988

Identifier:

FSA.A1988.03

See more items in:

Elizabeth Gordon Papers

Archival Repository:

Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/dc3bd5683e5-f956-4a04-9d0c-4565a6b761b7

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-fsa-a1988-03

Creator:

Harris, Robert King, 1912-1980  Search this

Extent:

26.5 Linear feet

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Place:

North America

Date:

circa 1909-circa 1981

Scope and Contents:

The material of the collection relates to a large collection of archeological specimens which Harris began in 1924 and developed into a 100,000-piece amassment. The collection, ranging in time from the paleo-American to the historic, in part represents Harris's own field work but also incorporates material of other workers. It includes material from Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Colorado, and Montana. It also includes pieces from Bolivia, Central America, Mexico, and Korea. The material is now among the holdings of the Department of Anthropology of Natural History and is managed by the department's processing lab. ; Correspondents include Robert Eugene Bell, Jay C. Blaine, Katy Caver, Claire C. Davison, Robert O. Fay, Dan L. Flores, Jon L. Gibson, Vance Haynes, Lawrence H. Head, Robert Fleming Heizer, Thomas R. Hester, Marsha F. Jackson, Jerome Jacobson, Dan Jank, William K. Jones, Morton B. King, Alex Dony Krieger, Truett Latimer, Robert K. Liu, John Ludwickson, William S. Marmaduke, Roger McVay, K. R. Morgan, Dan F. Morse, Hermes Nye, Dorris L. Olds, Gregory Perino, Stephen Schmidt, Dan Scurlock, S. Alan Skinner, Len Slesick, Robert Lloyd Stephenson, Byron Sudbury, Helen Hornbeck Tanner, Lonn W. Taylor, Ted Thygesen, Marvin E. Tong, Jr., Clarence H. Webb, Mildred Mott Wedel, Frank A. Weir, Fred Wendorf, James H. Word, and Don G. Wyckoff. The collection includes some material about the family of Inus Marie Harris and their early days in Texas.

Please note that the collection contains images of human remains.

Please note that the contents of the collection and the language and terminology used reflect the context and culture of the time of its creation. As an historical document, its contents may be at odds with contemporary views and terminology and considered offensive today. The information within this collection does not reflect the views of the Smithsonian Institution or National Anthropological Archives, but is available in its original form to facilitate research.

Arrangement:

Collection is arranged into 13 series: (1) Biographical material, papers about the Harris collection, and personal material; (2) correspondence, ca. 1964 1979; (3) alphabetical subject file; (4) manuscripts (by Harris and other authors); (5) Texas archeological survey sheets in notebooks; (6) loose survey sheets; (7) miscellaneous notes; (8) sound recordings; (9) printed and processed material; (10) Clem family papers (concerning its early days in Texas); (11) railroad material; (12) cartographic material (archeological, historical, modern maps of Texas, maps of Texas counties (many annotated to show archeological sites), Texas geological maps, miscellaneous maps outside Texas, United States Geological Survey maps, United States Geological Survey and United States Army Corps of Engineer maps annotated to show archeological sites, maps of dams and reservoirs, aerial photographs of a section of Red River; (13) photographs and illustrations.

Biographical Note:

By vocation, Robert (R.) King Harris was a locomotive engineer who worked for the Texas Pacific Railroad Company. By avocation, he was an archeologist, an amateur, in the finest sense of the word, with a long-time scientific interest in the work. Harris first developed an interest in archeology as a young boy scout in his native Dallas, Texas. During the 1930s, he became a member of the Texas Archaeological and Paleontological Society and also began to meet informally with other amateur archeologists in Dallas. In 1940, he was one of the founders of the Dallas Archaeological Society and served that organization for many years as the editor of its publication The Record. In 1939-1941, he was a curator at the Hall of State Museum of the Dallas Historical Society; and in 1966, after his retirement, he assumed duties as the curator of collections of the Department of Anthropology at Southern Methodist University. For many years, he was also an active participant with the series of Caddoan Conferences. In these activities and his archeological work, Harris worked closely with his wife, Inus Marie Harris. ; As an archeologist, Harris carried out many archeological surveys in Texas and nearby Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana. In 1941, under the sponsorship of the Dallas Archaeological Society, he was field foreman of an excavation of burial sites below White Rock Spillway in Dallas County and an excavation of another burial site at the Ragland site on the East Fork of the Trinity River. Again, in 1946, he was field foreman for the excavation of a house site at Bulter Hole site in Collin County, Texas. In 1948-1949, he assisted with the Smithsonian Institution River Basin Survey's work in Whitney, Lavon, and Garza-Little Elm reservoirs. In 1954, he joined Wilson W. Crook in test excavations at the Louis Obschner site near Seagoville and, in 1956, at the well-known Lewisville site in Denton County. He also participated in 1959 in excavations at the Branch site in Lavon Reservoir and, in 1960, directed excavations of a shelter at the Kyle site and the Pearson site in the Iron Bridge Reservoir. In 1962, he worked at the Gilbert site in Rains County, and in 1963, led a survey of Forney Reservoir. In 1965, he was involved in excavations at Glenn Hill site in the same reservoir. In the 1960s and 1970s, Harris also carried out studies of artifacts relating to French trade with Caddoan Indians. Harris was also interested in the travels of early explorers in northeastern Texas including Francisco de Soto and Benard de la Harpe.

Related Materials:

The National Anthropological Archives holds MS 1998-28 Catalog of artifact photographs and descriptions from the R.K. Harris collections.

The Human Studies Film Archives holds the Robert King Harris films (HSFA.1992.07).

Provenance:

Received from Mrs. Inus Marie Harris in 1983.

Restrictions:

Access to the Robert King Harris papers requires an appointment.

Rights:

Contact the repository for terms of use.

Topic:

Archaeology  Search this

Citation:

Robert King Harris papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution

Identifier:

NAA.1983-27

Archival Repository:

National Anthropological Archives

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/nw3c7966d1e-f391-43b0-9ff7-6a942692f0eb

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-naa-1983-27

Creator:

Bishop, Carl Whiting, 1881-1942  Search this

Names:

Bishop, Carl Whiting, 1881-1942  Search this

Tung, Kuang-zung.  Search this

Warner, Langdon (1881-1955)  Search this

Wenley, A. G. (Archibald Gibson), 1898-1962  Search this

Extent:

20 Linear feet

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Negatives

Photographic prints

Manuscript

Place:

China

Date:

1923-1934

Summary:

An associate curator and associate in archaeology at the Freer Gallery of Art from 1922 to 1942, the collection of Carl Whiting Bishop (1881-1942) document his Gallery-sponsored travels to China from 1923 to 1934 and include an unpublished manuscript describing his archaeological research in China; line drawings; rubbings; maps; note cards; and nearly 4,000 glass and film negatives with corresponding original silver prints. These document his expeditions in northern and central China, illustrating archaeological sites in Henan, Shanxi, and Hebei provinces. Specific digs include the large neolithic site at Wanquan, Shanxi, and sixth century C.E. tombs near Fenyin. Additional images show Chinese cityscapes, daily life and customs, topography, temples, pagodas, caves, and sculpture.

Scope and Contents:

The professional papers and official records of Carl Whiting Bishop include his unpublished two-volume manuscript, [not before 1940]; and photographs, nearly 4,000 images, 1915-1934; and undated. These materials document over a twenty-five year period in the course of Bishop's research and archaeological activities. They were retained at the Freer Gallery of Art after Bishop's death in 1942, and were supplemented with an addition received in 1956 from his widow Daisy Furscott Bishop.

The manuscript was prepared in a typescript format, over 421 pages of text, with photographic illustrations, and completed by Bishop sometime after 1939. Properly titled Archaeological Research in China 1923-1934, this unpublished manuscript constituted a field report that chronicled Bishop's Gallery-sponsored expeditions in northern and central China during the period 1923 to 1934. The reader is provided with a record of the day-to-day operations completed, of obstacles and opposition encountered, and the results obtained from their work. Key diplomatic and scientific representatives from the West and China are recorded who aided and contributed to the investigations. Moreover, there are descriptions of the academic, social and political climate in China during a period of civil war and economic strife. Against this background, Bishop also discussed their efforts in view of the history of China, with commentary on the country's geography, topography, climate, flora and fauna, mineral products, and ancient customs and legends.

The earliest still photographic prints in the Bishop Papers date from his employ at the University of Pennsylvania Museum, where he conducted archaeological reconnaissance from 1915 to 1918 in China, Korea, and Japan. All subsequent images were created or collected by Bishop and his assistant Kuang-zung Tung during the Freer Gallery-sponsored expeditions of 1923-1934. Further descriptions of these materials may be found under Series 2 and Series 3 in this finding aid.

In the transliteration into English of the names of Chinese characters, Bishop followed the Wade-Giles system, with a few exceptions to those rules for certain well known and commonly used place-names, especially those of cities, towns, territorial divisions, and bodies of water. We have retained Bishop's romanization except in certain areas where clarification was needed. The Chinese personal and place-names have been kept as they appeared in his captions.

Arrangement:

Series 1: Manuscript/Writings 1915-1934 and undated

Series 2: Photography Prints

Series 3: Negatives

Series 4: Drawings, Rubbings, and Maps

Biographical / Historical:

Carl Whiting Bishop (1881-1942) was an archaeologist, anthropologist, and specialist in the field of East Asian studies. Born in Tokyo, Japan, on July 12, 1881, he was the son of a Methodist missionary, the Reverend Charles Bishop. Except for a twelve-month residence in the United States during 1889-90, Bishop spent the first sixteen years of his life in Japan, before returning to this country in 1898 for college preparatory work at Northwestern Academy, Evanston, Illinois. He studied at Hampden-Sydney College and in 1912 received an A.B. degree from DePauw University. In 1913 he was awarded the degree of Master of Arts by the Department of Anthropology, Columbia University, where he studied with the noted German anthropologist, Franz Boas (1858-1942). That same year he received his first scientific appointment as a member of the Peabody Museum Expedition to Central America.

From 1914-18 Bishop served as Assistant Curator in Oriental Art at the University of Pennsylvania Museum, where on an expedition for that museum he made his first trip to China. Under the auspices of the university, he conducted archaeological reconnaissance during 1915 and 1916 in China, Korea, and Japan, and again conducted archaeological surveys in 1917 and 1918, although no systematic excavations were carried out at that time. When the United States entered World War I on the side of the Allied Powers, Bishop enlisted in the United States Navy and was made assistant naval attaché, serving in China in the years 1918-20, with the rank of lieutenant, junior grade. He returned to Columbia University in 1921 to assume the position of Assistant in Anthropology, a post he held until the end of the academic season in 1922.

Effective 10 April 1922, Bishop was appointed as Associate Curator of the Freer Gallery of Art by then director John Ellerton Lodge (1878-1942). Asked to undertake important archaeological work, Bishop headed the gallery's first expedition to China, sponsored jointly by the FGA and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, lasting from 20 February 1923 to 6 August 1927. From 16 November 1929 to 11 April 1934, he headed another expedition, sent out this time by the Freer Gallery alone. When conditions in China made further efforts impractical, Bishop returned to Washington in 1934, where he remained at the gallery as Associate in Archaeology until the time of his death on 16 June 1942.

Carl Whiting Bishop was a member of a number of learned societies: the American Oriental Society, the American Archaeological Society, the Anthropological Society, the American Society for the Advancement of Science, the American Geographical Society, and he served on the advisory board of the American Council of Learned Societies until his death.

1881, July 12 -- Born in Tokyo, Japan

1898 -- Attends Northwestern Academy in Evanston, Illinois for college preparatory work Attends Hampden-Sydney College

1912 -- Receives A.B. degree from DePauw University

1913 -- Receives Master of Arts from Department of Anthropology from Columbia University, where he studied with Franz Boas

1914 -- Begins serving as Assistant Curator in Oriental Art at the University of Pennsylvania Museum

1915-1918 -- Makes several archaeological survey trips to China, Korea and Japan

1918-1920 -- Enlists in the U.S. Navy, serving as assistant naval attaché in China

1921 -- Serves as Assistant Professor in Anthropology at Columbia University

1922, April 10 -- Becomes Associate Curator of the Freer Gallery of Art

1923-1927 -- Heads the Freer Gallery's first expedition to China, co-sponsored by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts

1929-1934 -- Heads the second Freer-sponsored expedition to China

1934 -- Returns to US and serves as Associate in Archaeology at the Freer Gallery of Art

1942, June 16 -- Dies.

Related Materials:

Additional Bishop material may be found in the following collections also found in the the Archives of the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery:

Li Chi Reports, 1926-1929, regarding Li's reconnaissance work at Shi-yin Ts'un, Shansi Province, and the excavation at Anyang.

Archibald Gibson Wenley Papers, 1924-1926, including field diaries, notes, and photographs documenting his participation in the FGA expedition work in China.

Charles Lang Freer Papers, including 1915 correspondence between Freer and Bishop; newspaper clippings related to Bishop, and documents dated 1912-1913, relating to Freer's support for a proposed American School of Archeology in China.

A number of objects from the FGA expeditions, including bronzes, ceramics, and stone sculpture, have been accessioned into the permanent art collection of the Freer Gallery of Art. Additionally, remnants of antiquities, potteries, and metalwork accumulated during the field work, have been placed in the Freer Gallery Study Collection. Records for these items are retained with the Galleries' Registrar's Office.

Additional Bishop material may be found in the Smithsonian Institutional Archives:

Expedition Records, including correspondence of Carl Whiting Bishop, 1914; 1923-1942, nearly 3,000 letters arranged alphabetically by correspondent name; a manuscript catalogue of expedition acquisitions, Peking, 1923-1925; financial records, 1923-1934, including expedition fund ledgers, account statements, and receipts; and newspaper clippings, 1924-1932, documenting the gallery's field work and general archaeological work being conducted around the world at that time.

Smithsonian Institutional Archives, Central Files, Bishop folders, 1923-1942, including expedition letters, field reports, and photographs sent to John E. Lodge.

Personnel and Special Events Photograph Collection, containing portrait photographs of Bishop.

Additional Bishop matieral may be found in the University of Pennsylvania Museum Archives, Philadelphia:

Documentation of University of Pennsylvania Museum-sponsored field work in East Asia may be found there that includes records of C.W. Bishop, dated 1914-1927 (measuring about .5 linear foot), much of it created during his tenure as the Museum's Assistant Curator of Oriental Art from 1914-1918. Included are Bishop's journals consisting of daily entries for two trips to China for the University of Pennsylvania Museum; letters to and from G.B. Gordon, C.W. Harrison, and Jane McHugh, written during Bishop's travel in China and subsequent to his return; and detailed financial accounts of expenditures during the China travels. Additionally, the repository houses a group of Bishop's negatives taken in China to visually record the expedition work.

Provenance:

Gift of Carl Whiting Bishop.

Restrictions:

Collection is open for research.

Rights:

Permission to reproduce and publish an item from the Archives is coordinated through the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery's Rights and Reproductions department. Please contact the Archives in order to initiate this process.

Topic:

Archaeology  Search this

Archaeological expeditions  Search this

Archaeology -- China  Search this

Photography -- China  Search this

Genre/Form:

Negatives

Photographic prints

Manuscript

Citation:

The Carl Whiting Bishop Collection. FSA.A.02. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives.

Identifier:

FSA.A.02

See more items in:

Carl Whiting Bishop Collection

Archival Repository:

Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/dc31125ea37-fbdf-4cd0-b413-1b022a34356b

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-fsa-a-02

Creator:

Waintrob-Budd (Firm : New York, N.Y.)  Search this

Names:

American Academy of Arts and Letters  Search this

Budd (Firm : New York, N.Y.)  Search this

Adrian, Barbara, 1931- -- Photographs  Search this

Archipenko, Alexander, 1887-1964 -- Photographs  Search this

Avery, Milton, 1885-1965 -- Photographs  Search this

Barnet, Will, 1911- -- Photographs  Search this

Benton, Thomas Hart, 1889-1975 -- Photographs  Search this

Biddle, George, 1885-1973 -- Photographs  Search this

Bosa, Louis, 1905- -- Photographs  Search this

Botkin, Henry, 1896-1983 -- Photographs  Search this

Browne, Byron, 1907-1961 -- Photographs  Search this

Carroll, John, 1892-1959 -- Photographs  Search this

Constant, George, 1892-1978 -- Photographs  Search this

De Creeft, José, 1884-1982 -- Photographs  Search this

De Diego, Julio, 1900- -- Photographs  Search this

Delaunay, Sonia -- Photographs  Search this

Dickinson, Edwin Walter, 1891-1978 -- Photographs  Search this

Duchamp, Marcel, 1887-1968 -- Photographs  Search this

Evans, Walker, 1903-1975 -- Photographs  Search this

Floch, Joseph, 1895-1977 -- Photographs  Search this

Gablik, Suzi -- Photographs  Search this

Goodrich, Lloyd, 1897-1987 -- Photographs  Search this

Gottlieb, Adolph, 1903-1974 -- Photographs  Search this

Goulet, Lorrie, 1925- -- Photographs  Search this

Grosz, George, 1893-1959 -- Photographs  Search this

Hare, David, 1917- -- Photographs  Search this

Harkavy, Minna, b. 1895 -- Photographs  Search this

Hayter, Stanley William, 1901- -- Photographs  Search this

Hofmann, Hans, 1880-1966 -- Photographs  Search this

Hopper, Edward, 1882-1967 -- Photographs  Search this

Hopper, Jo N. (Josephine Nivison), 1883-1968 -- Photographs  Search this

Jenkins, Paul, 1923-2012 -- Photographs  Search this

Kantor, Morris, 1896-1974 -- Photographs  Search this

Krasner, Lee, 1908-1984 -- Photographs  Search this

Kroll, Leon, 1884-1974 -- Photographs  Search this

Lawrence, Jacob, 1917-2000 -- Photographs  Search this

Levi, Julian E. (Julian Edwin), 1900-1982 -- Photographs  Search this

Levine, Jack, 1915-2010 -- Photographs  Search this

Levy, Ellen K -- Photographs  Search this

Lijn, Liliane, 1939- -- Photographs  Search this

Lipchitz, Jacques, 1891-1973  Search this

Lowry, W. McNeil (Wilson McNeil), 1913-1993 -- Photographs  Search this

Marsh, Reginald, 1898-1954 -- Photographs  Search this

Mayor, A. Hyatt (Alpheus Hyatt), 1901-1980 -- Photographs  Search this

Menkes, Sigmund, 1896-1986 -- Photographs  Search this

Motherwell, Robert -- Photographs  Search this

Root, Edwin -- Photographs  Search this

Rorimer, James J. (James Joseph), 1905-1966 -- Photographs  Search this

Shahn, Ben, 1898-1969  Search this

Sheerin, Jerry -- Photographs  Search this

Soyer, Moses, 1899-1974 -- Photographs  Search this

Soyer, Raphael, 1899-1987 -- Photographs  Search this

Speicher, Eugene E. (Eugene Edward), 1883-1962 -- Photographs  Search this

Speyer, Darthea -- Photographs  Search this

Steinberg, Saul -- Photographs  Search this

Sweeney, James Johnson, 1900- -- Photographs  Search this

Waintrob, A. L., 1908-  Search this

Waintrob, Sidney J., 1903-  Search this

Walker, Hudson D. (Hudson Dean), 1907-1976 -- Photographs  Search this

Walkowitz, Abraham, 1880-1965 -- Photographs  Search this

Zorach, William, 1887-1966 -- Photographs  Search this

Extent:

68 Items ((partially microfilmed on 2 reels))

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Date:

1953-1980

Scope and Contents:

REEL 1817: Photographs of: Will Barnet, Jose de Creeft (2), Sonia Delaunay, Walker Evans, Joseph Floch, Suzi Gablik (2), Adolph Gottlieb (also filmed on reel 1886, fr. 33-34), Lorrie Goulet, Minna Harkavy, William Hayter (2), Paul Jenkins, Lee Krasner (2), Lilliane Lijn, Jerry Sheerin (2), and Darthea Speyer (2). Also included is a group photo of Jose de Creeft, Jacques Lipchitz, George Biddle, Thomas Benton, and Ben Shahn at the American Academy of Arts & Letters Ceremonial, May 20, 1964.

REEL 1886: Photographs of: Barbara Adrian, Alexander Archipenko, Milton Avery, Will Barnet, Isabel Bishop, Louis Bosa, Henry C. Botkin, Byron Browne, John Carroll, George Constant, Julio de Diego, Edwin Dickinson, Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Floch, Lloyd Goodrich, Adolph Gottlieb, Lorrie Goulet, George Grosz, David Hare, Minna Harkavy, Hans Hofmann, Edward Hopper, Josephine Hopper, Morris Kantor, Leon Kroll, Jacob Lawrence, Julian Levi, Jack Levine, Reginald Marsh, A. Hyatt Mayor, Sigmund Menkes, Robert Motherwell, Edwin Root, James Rorimer (a cropped version erroneously microfilmed as Sidney Waintrob appears on reel 1817, fr. 1193), Moses Soyer, Raphael Soyer, Eugene Speicher, Saul Steinberg, James Johnson Sweeney, Hudson Walker, Abraham Walker, and William Zorach.

UNMICROFILMED Two photographs: Ellen K. Levy and McNeil Lowry.

Arrangement:

REEL 1817: Microfilmed with AAA's Photographs of Artists Collection II, and appear on microfilm in alphabetical order under artist with other unrelated photographs.

Biographical / Historical:

Photographic studio; New York, N.Y. Sidney J. and his brother A. L. (Bud) Waintrob specialized in photographing artists, curators and other art world personalities. They worked under the name Budd [Studio] before using Waintrob-Budd.

Provenance:

Photographs on reel 1817 and unmicrofilmed photos donated 1974-1987 by Sidney J. Waintrob; photographs on reel 1886 donated 1979-1980 by Samuel I. Hoffberg, whose relationship to Waintrob-Budd is unclear.

Restrictions:

Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm. Contact Reference Services for more information.

Rights:

Authorization to publish quote, or reproduce requires written permission from David Stekert. 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:

Artists -- United States -- Photographs  Search this

Identifier:

AAA.wainbudd

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw997984475-f0b5-41ac-b438-8b48c89a9145

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-aaa-wainbudd

Creator:

Kuh, Katharine  Search this

Names:

Albright-Knox Art Gallery  Search this

Art Institute of Chicago -- Faculty  Search this

Biennale di Venezia  Search this

Katharine Kuh Gallery (Chicago, Ill.)  Search this

Adams, Ansel, 1902-1984  Search this

Albers, Josef  Search this

Albright, Ivan, 1897-1983  Search this

Archipenko, Alexander, 1887-1964  Search this

Arensberg, Louise S. (Louise Stevenson), 1879-1953  Search this

Arensberg, Walter, 1878-1954  Search this

Arp, Jean, 1887-1966  Search this

Barnet, Will, 1911-  Search this

Barr, Alfred H., Jr., 1902-1981  Search this

Biddle, George, 1885-1973  Search this

Breuer, Marcel, 1902-  Search this

Calder, Alexander, 1898-1976  Search this

Campoli, Cosmo  Search this

Chagall, Marc, 1887-1985  Search this

Chavez Morado, José, 1909-2002  Search this

Chermayeff, Serge, 1900-  Search this

Cornell, Joseph  Search this

Cox, Richard  Search this

Davis, Stuart, 1892-1964  Search this

Day, Worden, 1916-1986  Search this

De Kooning, Willem, 1904-1997  Search this

Dickinson, Edwin Walter, 1891-1978  Search this

Dubuffet, Jean, 1901-  Search this

Duchamp, Marcel, 1887-1968  Search this

Elizabeth, Queen of Great Britain, II, 1926-  Search this

Ernst, Jimmy, 1920-1984  Search this

Falkenstein, Claire, 1908-1997  Search this

Feitelson, Lorser, 1898-1978  Search this

Friendly, Fred W.  Search this

Giacometti, Alberto, 1901-1966  Search this

Golub, Leon, 1922-2004  Search this

Goto, Joseph, 1920-  Search this

Grabe, Klaus  Search this

Graves, Robert, 1895-1985  Search this

Guggenheim, Peggy, 1898-1979  Search this

Guston, Philip, 1913-1980  Search this

Hare, David, 1917-  Search this

Hare, Denise Browne  Search this

Hayter, Stanley William, 1901-1988  Search this

Hirshhorn, Joseph  Search this

Hofmann, Hans, 1880-1966  Search this

Hélion, Jean, 1904-1987  Search this

Inverarity, Robert Bruce, 1909-1999  Search this

Johns, Jasper, 1930-  Search this

Johnson, Philip, 1906-2005  Search this

Johnson, Ray, 1927-  Search this

Kandinsky, Wassily, 1866-1944  Search this

Kepes, Gyorgy, 1906-2001  Search this

Kepes, Juliet  Search this

Klee, Paul, 1879-1940  Search this

Kline, Franz, 1910-1962  Search this

Knox, Seymour H., 1898-1990  Search this

Le Corbusier, 1887-1965  Search this

Lundeberg, Helen, 1908-1999  Search this

Lye, Len, 1901-1980  Search this

Léger, Fernand, 1881-1955  Search this

Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig, 1886-1969  Search this

Millier, Arthur, 1893-  Search this

Moholy-Nagy, László, 1895-1946  Search this

Motherwell, Robert  Search this

Mérida, Carlos, 1891-1984  Search this

Nutting, Muriel Leone Tyler, b. 1892  Search this

Nutting, Myron Chester, 1890-1972  Search this

O'Higgins, Pablo, 1904-  Search this

Orozco, José Clemente, 1883-1949  Search this

Ozbekhan, Hasan, 1921-2007  Search this

Perkins, Frances  Search this

Picasso, Pablo, 1881-1973  Search this

Putnam, Wallace, 1899-1989  Search this

Ray, Man, 1890-1976  Search this

Rich, Daniel Catton, 1904-1976  Search this

Rothko, Mark, 1903-1970  Search this

Sandberg, Carl  Search this

Seligmann, Kurt, 1900-1962  Search this

Shackelford, Shelby  Search this

Shahn, Ben, 1898-1969  Search this

Spaeth, Otto, d. 1966  Search this

Sterne, Hedda, 1916-  Search this

Stevenson, Adlai E. (Adlai Ewing), 1900-1965  Search this

Still, Clyfford, 1904-  Search this

Tanning, Dorothea, 1910-2012  Search this

Tobey, Mark  Search this

Winston, Harry Lewis  Search this

Woolf, Olga  Search this

Young, Victor  Search this

Photographer:

Pollack, Peter, 1909-1978  Search this

Extent:

12 Linear feet

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Illustrated letters

Resumes

Travel diaries

Minutes

Calendars

Visitors' books

Photographs

Paintings

Awards

Drawings

Sound recordings

Collages

Scrapbooks

Lithographs

Prints

Wills

Watercolors

Poetry

Lecture notes

Lectures

Sales records

Date:

1875-1994

bulk 1930-1994

Summary:

The papers of art historian, dealer, critic, and curator Katharine Kuh measure 12 linear feet and date from 1875-1994, with the bulk of the material dating from 1930-1994. The collection documents Kuh's career as a pioneer modernist art historian and as the first woman curator of European Art and Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago. Found within the papers are biographical material; correspondence with family, friends and colleagues; personal business records; artwork by various artists; a travel journal; writings by Kuh and others; scrapbooks; printed material; photographs of Kuh and others; and audio recordings of Kuh's lectures and of Daniel Catton Rich reading poetry.

Scope and Content Note:

The papers of art historian, dealer, critic, and curator Katharine Kuh measure 12 linear feet and date from 1875-1994, with the bulk of the material dating from 1930-1994. Found within the papers are biographical material; correspondence with family, friends and colleagues; personal business records; artwork by various artists; a travel journal; writings by Kuh and others; scrapbooks; printed material; photographs of Kuh and others; and audio recordings of Kuh's lectures and of Daniel Catton Rich reading poetry.

Biographical material consists of copies of Kuh's birth certificate, resumés, passports, award certificates, honorary diplomas, and address books listing information about several prominent artists and colleagues.

Four linear feet of correspondence offers excellent documentation of Kuh's interest in art history, her travels, her career at the Art Institute of Chicago, her work as a corporate art advisor, and as an author. There are letters from her mother Olga Woolf, friends, and colleagues. There is extensive correspondence with various staff members of the Art Institute of Chicago, the First National Bank of Chicago, and The Saturday Review. Also of interest are letters from artists and collectors, several of whom became life-long friends including Walter and Louise Arensberg, Cosmo Campoli, Serge Chermayeff, Richard Cox, Worden Day, Claire Falkenstein, Fred Friendly, Leon Golub, Joseph Goto, David Hare, Denise Brown Hare, Jean Hélion, Ray Johnson, Gyorgy and Juliet Kepes, Len Lye, Wallace Putnam, Kurt Seligmann, Shelby Shackelford, Hedda Sterne, and Clyfford Still. Many letters are illustrated with original artwork in various media.

There are also scattered letters from various artists and other prominent individuals including Josef Albers, George Biddle, Marcel Breuer, Joseph Cornell, Stuart Davis, Edwin Dickinson, Joseph Hirshhorn, Daniel Catton Rich, and Dorothea Tanning.

Personal business records include a list of artwork, Olga Woolf's will, inventories of Kuh's personal art collection, miscellaneous contracts and deeds of gift, receipts for the sale of artwork, files concerning business-related travel, and miscellaneous receipts.

Artwork in the collection represents a wide range of artist friends and media, such as drawings, watercolors, paintings, collages, and prints. Included are works by various artists including lithographs by David Hare and a watercolor set, Technics and Creativity, designed and autographed by Jasper Johns for the Museum of Modern Art, 1970.

Notes and writings include annotated engagement calendars, travel journals for Germany, a guest book for the Kuh Memorial gathering, and many writings and notes by Kuh for lectures and articles concerning art history topics. Of interest are minutes/notes from meetings for art festivals, conferences, and the "Conversations with Artists Program (1961). Also found are writings by others about Kuh and other art history topics.

Six scrapbooks contain clippings that document the height of Kuh's career as a gallery director and museum curator. Scrapbook 6 contains clippings about Fernand Léger, the subject of a retrospective exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1953.

Additional printed material includes clippings about Kuh and her interests, a comprehensive collection of clippings of Kuh's articles for The Saturday Review, exhibition announcements and catalogs, calendars of events, programs, brochures, books including Poems by Kuh as a child, and reproductions of artwork. Of particular interest are the early and exhibition catalogs from the Katharine Kuh Gallery, and rare catalogs for artists including Jean Arp, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Stanley William Hayter, Hans Hofmann, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Franz Kline, Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Pablo Picasso.

Photographs provide important documentation of the life and career of Katharine Kuh and are of Kuh, family members, friends, colleagues, events, residences, and artwork. Several of the photographs of Kuh were taken by Will Barnet and Marcel Breuer and there is a notable pair of photo booth portraits of Kuh and a young Ansel Adams. There are also group photographs showing Angelica Archipenko with Kuh; designer Klaus Grabe; painters José Chavez Morado and Pablo O'Higgins in San Miguel, Mexico; Kuh at the Venice Biennale with friends and colleagues including Peggy Guggenheim, Frances Perkins, Daniel Catton Rich, and Harry Winston; and "The Pre-Depressionists" including Lorser Feitelson, Robert Inverarity, Helen Lundeberg, Arthur Millier, Myron Chester Nutting, and Muriel Tyler Nutting.

Photographs of exhibition installations and openings include views of the Katharine Kuh Gallery; Fernand Léger, Man Ray, and László Moholy-Nagy at the Art Institute of Chicago; and Philip Guston, Jimmy Ernst, Seymour H. Knox, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, and Mark Rothko at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York. There are also photographs depicting three men posing as Léger's "Three Musicians" and the visit of Queen Elizabeth II to the Art Institute of Chicago. There is a photograph by Peter Pollack of an elk skull used as a model by Georgia O'Keeffe.

Additional photographs of friends and colleagues include Ivan Albright, Alfred Barr, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Willem De Kooning, Edwin Dickinson, Marcel Duchamp, Claire Falkenstein, Alberto Giacometti, poet Robert Graves with Len Lye, Philip Johnson, Gyorgy and Juliet Kepes, Carlos Mérida, José Orozco, Hasan Ozbekhan, Pablo Picasso, Carl Sandberg, Ben Shahn, Otto Spaeth, Hedda Sterne, Adlai Stevenson, Clyfford Still, Mark Tobey, and composer Victor Young.

Photographs of artwork include totem poles in Alaska; work by various artists including Claire Falkenstein, Paul Klee, and Hedda Sterne; and work donated to the Guggenheim Museum.

Four audio recordings on cassette are of Katharine Kuh's lectures, including one about assembling corporate collections, and of Daniel Catton Rich reading his own poetry. There is also a recording of the Second Annual Dialogue between Broadcasters and Museum Educators.

Arrangement:

The collection is arranged as 9 series. Undated correspondence, artwork, and photographs of individual artists are arranged alphabetically. Otherwise, each series is arranged chronologically.

Missing Title

Series 1: Biographical Material, 1945-1992 (Box 1; 16 folders)

Series 2: Correspondence, 1908-1994 (Boxes 1-5, 13-14, OV 15; 4.0 linear feet)

Series 3: Personal Business Records, 1941-1989 (Box 5; 19 folders)

Series 4: Artwork, 1931-1986 (Boxes 5, 13-14, OVs 15-23; 1.7 linear feet)

Series 5: Notes and Writings, 1914-1994 (Boxes 5-7; 1.7 linear feet)

Series 6: Scrapbooks, 1935-1953 (Box 7; 8 folders)

Series 7: Printed Material, 1916-1992 (Boxes 7-10, 13, OV 22; 3.0 linear feet)

Series 8: Photographs, 1875-1993 (Boxes 10-13; 1.2 linear feet)

Series 9: Audio Recordings, 1977 (Box 12; 1 folder)

Biographical Note:

Katharine Kuh (1904-1994) worked primarily in the Chicago area as an modern art historian, dealer, critic, curator, writer, and consultant. She operated the Katharine Kuh Gallery from 1935-1943 and was the first woman curator of European and Art and Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Katharine Kuh (née Woolf) was born on July 15, 1904 in St. Louis, Missouri, the youngest of the three daughters of Olga Weiner and Morris Woolf, a silk importer. In 1909, the family moved to Chicago, Illinois. While traveling with her family in Europe in 1914, Katharine contracted polio, causing her to spend the next decade in a body brace. During this time of restricted movement, she developed an interest in art history through the collecting of old master prints.

After her recovery, Katharine Woolf attended Vassar College where one of her professors, Alfred Barr, encouraged her to study modern art. She graduated from Vassar in 1925 and received a master's degree in art history from the University of Chicago in 1929. Later that year, she moved to New York to pursue a Ph.D. in Renaissance and medieval art at New York University.

In 1930, Katharine Woolf returned to Chicago and married businessman George Kuh and began to teach art history courses in the suburbs of Chicago. After divorcing George Kuh in 1935, she opened the Katharine Kuh Gallery, the first gallery devoted to avant-garde art in Chicago. It was also the first gallery to exhibit photography and typographical design as art forms, and featured the work of Ansel Adams, Josef Albers, Alexander Calder, Wassily Kandinsky, Fernand Léger, and Man Ray, among others. From 1938 to1940, Kuh was the Visiting Professor of Art at the University School of Fine Arts, San Miguel, Mexico.

After the Katharine Kuh Gallery closed in 1943, Kuh was hired by museum director Daniel Catton Rich to fill a position in public relations at the Art Institute of Chicago. During the following years, Kuh edited the museum's Quarterly publication, took charge of the museum's Gallery of Interpretive Art, and began a long term relationship with Rich. In 1946, Kuh was sent on a special mission for the U. S. Office of Indian Affairs to make a detailed study of Native American totemic carvings in Alaska.

In 1949, Kuh persuaded Mr. and Mrs. Walter Arensberg of Los Angeles to exhibit their collection of modern art, creating the first post-war exhibition of modern art in Chicago. She published her first book Art Has Many Faces in 1951, and in the following year, she began writing art criticism for The Saturday Review. In 1954, Kuh was appointed the first woman curator of European Art and Sculpture at the Art Institute. She assembled the American contribution for the Venice Biennale in 1956 and during these years, Kuh helped acquire many of the works of modern art currently in the museum's collection.

A year following Daniel Catton Rich's 1958 resignation from the Art Institute of Chicago, Kuh also resigned and pursued a career in New York as an art collection advisor, most notably for the First National Bank of Chicago. In 1959, Kuh was made art critic for The Saturday Review, and she continued to publish books, including The Artist's Voice in 1962, Break-Up: The Core of Modern Art in 1965, and The Open Eye: In Pursuit of Art in 1971.

Katharine Kuh died on January 10, 1994 in New York City.

Provenance:

The Katharine Kuh papers were donated in several installments from 1971 to 1989 by Katharine Kuh and in 1994 by her estate. Artwork was donated in 1995 by Kuh's former employer, the Art Institute of Chicago.

Restrictions:

Authorization to quote, publish or reproduce requires written permission until 2019. Contact the Archives of American Art Reference Services department for additional 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:

Authors -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this

Art historians -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this

Art dealers -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this

Art critics -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this

Curators -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this

Art consultants -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this

Topic:

Art, Abstract -- United States  Search this

Art, American  Search this

Art, Modern -- 20th century -- United States  Search this

Women art dealers  Search this

Women art historians  Search this

Women museum curators  Search this

Women authors  Search this

Women art critics  Search this

Function:

Art festivals

Genre/Form:

Illustrated letters

Resumes

Travel diaries

Minutes

Calendars

Visitors' books

Photographs

Paintings

Awards

Drawings

Sound recordings

Collages

Scrapbooks

Lithographs

Prints

Wills

Watercolors

Poetry

Lecture notes

Lectures

Sales records

Citation:

Katharine Kuh papers, 1875-1994, bulk 1930-1994. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Sponsor:

Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art

Identifier:

AAA.kuhkath

See more items in:

Katharine Kuh papers

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw987a0763e-de6c-4f9e-b143-4875b3a2244a

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-aaa-kuhkath

Creator:

Brooklyn Museum  Search this

Names:

Listening to pictures (1968-1973: Brooklyn Museum)  Search this

Anderson, Lennart, 1928-2015  Search this

Antonakos, Stephen, 1926-2013  Search this

Arisman, Marshall  Search this

Barker, Walter  Search this

Baskin, Leonard, 1922-2000  Search this

Bauermeister, Mary, 1934-  Search this

Benton, Thomas Hart, 1889-1975  Search this

Bishop, Isabel, 1902-1988  Search this

Brackman, Robert, 1898-  Search this

Butchkes, Sydney, 1922-  Search this

Casarella, Edmond, 1920-1996  Search this

Constant, George  Search this

Dash, Robert  Search this

De Creeft, José, 1884-1982  Search this

Dombek, Blanche, 1914-  Search this

Doyle, Tom, 1928-  Search this

Ernst, Jimmy, 1920-1984  Search this

Estern, Neil, 1926-  Search this

Evergood, Philip, 1901-1973  Search this

Frankenthaler, Helen, 1928-2011  Search this

Freilicher, Jane, 1924-2014  Search this

Goldin, Leon, 1923-  Search this

Goodman, Sidney  Search this

Graziani, Sante, 1920-  Search this

Greene, Balcomb, 1904-1990  Search this

Grillo, John, 1917-  Search this

Gropper, William, 1897-1977  Search this

Gross, Chaim, 1904-1991  Search this

Gussow, Roy, 1918-2011  Search this

Gwathmey, Robert, 1903-1988  Search this

Hartigan, Grace  Search this

Hopper, Edward, 1882-1967  Search this

Jaffe, Nora  Search this

Jenkins, Paul, 1923-2012  Search this

Kawabata, Minoru, 1911-  Search this

Kienbusch, William, 1914-1980  Search this

Knaths, Karl, 1891-1971  Search this

Koch, John, 1909-1978  Search this

Kosama, Yayoi  Search this

Lam, Jennett, 1911-  Search this

Lang, Steven, 1944-1971  Search this

Laurent, Robert, 1890-1970  Search this

Lawrence, Jacob, 1917-2000  Search this

Levine, Jack, 1915-2010  Search this

Lipchitz, Jacques, 1891-1973  Search this

Lipton, Seymour, 1903-1986  Search this

Margo, Boris, 1902-1995  Search this

Meyer, Ursula, 1915-  Search this

Moller, Hans, 1905-  Search this

Murch, Walter  Search this

Nevelson, Louise, 1899-1988  Search this

Odate, Toshio  Search this

Offner, Elliot  Search this

Ohlson, Douglas Dean, 1936-  Search this

Okada, Kenzo, 1902-1982  Search this

Palmer, Amanda, 1931-  Search this

Pereira, I. Rice (Irene Rice), 1902-1971  Search this

Peterdi, Gabor  Search this

Reinhardt, Ad, 1913-1967  Search this

Richards, Bill, 1936-  Search this

Rivers, Larry, 1925-2002  Search this

Sanchez, Emilio, 1921-1999  Search this

Schrag, Karl  Search this

Shahn, Ben, 1898-1969  Search this

Sheeler, Charles, 1883-1965  Search this

Sopher, Aaron, 1905-1972  Search this

Soyer, Moses, 1899-1974  Search this

Soyer, Raphael, 1899-1987  Search this

Thon, William, 1906-2000  Search this

Weinberg, Albert  Search this

Zorach, Marguerite, 1887-1968  Search this

Zorach, William, 1887-1966  Search this

Interviewer:

Jacobowitz, Arlene  Search this

Extent:

7 Linear feet

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Transcripts

Interviews

Date:

1965-1968

Summary:

Interviews of 72 artists, and transcripts for all but five, conducted by Arlene Jacobowitz, the Associate Curator for the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Brooklyn Museum, between 1965 and 1968. The artists discuss their work in the museum collection. Also included are 38 edited excerpts of the interviews, approximately 2-3 min. in length, used as "audio-labels" in the 1968 "Listening to Pictures" installation at the museum.

Scope and Content Note:

Interviews of 72 artists, and transcripts for all but five, conducted by Arlene Jacobowitz, the Associate Curator for the Department of Painting and Sculpture, between 1965 and 1968. The artists discuss their work in the museum collection. Also included are 38 edited excerpts of the interviews, approximately 2-3 min. in length, used as "audio-labels" in the 1968 "Listening to Pictures" installation.

The artists interviewed are: Lennart Anderson, Stephen B. Antonakos, Marshall Arisman, Walter Barker, Leonard Baskin, Mary Bauermeister, Thomas Hart Benton, Isabel Bishop, Robert Brackman, Sydney Butchkes, Edmund Casarella, George Constant, Robert Warren Dash, Jose DeCreeft, Blanche Dombek, Tom Doyle, Jimmy Ernst, Neil Estern, Philip Evergood, Helen Frankenthaler, Jane Freilicher, Leon Goldin, Sidney Goodman, Sante Graziani, Balcomb Greene, John Grillo, William Gropper, Chaim Gross, Roy Gussow, Robert Gwathmey, Grace Hartigan, Edward Hopper, Nora Jaffe, Paul Jenkins, Minoru Kawabata, William Kienbusch, Karl Knaths, John Koch, Yayoi Kosama, Jennett Lam, Steven Lang, Robert Laurent, Jacob Lawrence, Jack Levine, Jacques Lipchitz, Seymour Lipton, Boris Margo, Ursula Meyer, Hans Moller, Walter Murch, Louise Nevelson, Toshio Odate, Elliot Offner, Douglas Ohlson, Kenzo Okada, Amanda Palmer, Irene Rice Pereira, Gabor Peterdi, Ad Reinhardt, Bill Richards, Larry Rivers, Emilio Sanchez, Karl Schrag, Ben Shahn, Charles Sheeler, Aaron Sopher, Moses Soyer, Raphael Soyer, William Thon, Albert Weinberg, and William and Marguerite Zorach.

Arrangement:

The collection is arranged as a single series:

Missing Title

Series 1: Interviews, 1965-1968 (Box 1-7; 7 lin. ft.)

Historical Note:

The interview program at the Brooklyn Museum was begun by Arlene Jacobowitz in the spring of 1965 with artists whose works were on exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum. In 1968, excerpts from the interviews were incorporated into an exhibition entitled "Listening to Pictures," in which visitors could access the sound recordings using headphones while standing before the painting being discussed. The exhibition opened April 28, 1968, and was gradually disassembled, 1971-1973.

Related Material:

The Brooklyn Museum Archives houses the records of the Departments of European Painting and Sculpture, American Painting and Sculpture, Contemporary Art (1897-2005), which contain records relating to the work of Arlene Jacobowitz.

Provenance:

This collection was donated to the Archives of American Art by Dierdre Lawrence of the Brooklyn Museum in 1989.

Restrictions:

Use of original papers requires an appointment. Researchers may view the original reels for the archival notations on them, but original reels are not available for playback due to fragility.

Rights:

Authorization to quote or reproduce for purposes of publication requires written permission from the interviewee. Citations must read:"Interview between [artist's name] and [interviewer's name] from the "Listening to Pictures" program of the Brooklyn Museum. Archives of American Art. Gift of the Brooklyn Museum." 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:

Artists -- United States -- Interviews  Search this

Art, American -- Exhibitions  Search this

Genre/Form:

Transcripts

Interviews

Citation:

Interview between [artist's name] and [interviewer's name] from the "Listening to Pictures" program of the Brooklyn Museum. Gift of the Brooklyn Museum. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Identifier:

AAA.broomuse

See more items in:

Brooklyn Museum interviews of artists

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9bdcd26e1-568c-4c81-8ba1-e07f5afbdfad

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-aaa-broomuse

Creator:

Lawrence, Jacob, 1917-2000  Search this

Extent:

4 Microfilm reels

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Microfilm reels

Date:

1937-1992

Scope and Contents:

This microfilm collection documents the artistic and teaching career of African American painter Jacob Lawrence.

Included are biographical materials and awards; correspondence; writings and speeches by Lawrence, 1947-1962, and writings about Lawrence; photographs; scattered financial material, 1941-1957; and printed materials.

Correspondence dates from 1937-1971. Among the correspondents are: Ralph Abernathy, Charles Alston, Benny Andrews, Romare Bearden, Claude Clark, Hy Cohen, Mildred Cummings, Terry Dintenfass, Inc., David Driskell, Fritz Eichenberg, Philip Evergood, Creighton Gilbert, Edith Gregor Halpert (Downtown Gallery), Langston Hughes, Raymond Patterson, Pratt Institute, Margaret Rigg, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Moses and Raphael Soyer, and the United States Committee for the First World Festival of Negro Arts, Inc. Photographs include personal photographs, 1939-1966, and photographs of art work, 1941-1949. Printed material consists of reproductions of work, brochures and course catalogs, programs and calendars, exhibition announcements and catalogs, posters, articles, and clippings.

Biographical / Historical:

Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) was an African American painter and educator in New York, New York and Seattle, Washington. Lawrence worked for the WPA's Federal Art Project and taught at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, Pratt Institute (1956-1971), Brandeis University (1965), The New School (1966), the Art Students League (1967), the University of Washington, and others. One of his most well-known works of art is the The Migration of the Negro (now known as The Migration Series), a 60-panel epic Lawrence created when he received a Rosenwald Fellowship in 1940.

Provenance:

Lent for microfilming by Syracuse University Library, Special Collections, 1992. Among the three reels are papers that Lawrence lent to the Archives of American Art for microfilming in 1966 which he subsequently donated to Syracuse.

Restrictions:

The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.

Rights:

Authorization to publish, quote or reproduce requires written permission from Curator, Syracuse University Library, Special Collections. Contact Reference Services for more information.

The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.

Occupation:

Painters -- Washington (State) -- Seattle  Search this

Painters -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this

Educators -- Washington (State) -- Seattle  Search this

Topic:

Painting, Modern -- 20th century -- United States  Search this

African American artists  Search this

African American educators  Search this

African American painters  Search this

Identifier:

AAA.lawrjaco2

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw990a2887b-999f-4460-b515-217f7377ae2c

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-aaa-lawrjaco2

Creator:

Brown, Milton Wolf (Milton Wolf), 1911-1998  Search this

Names:

Archives of American Art  Search this

Armory Show 50th anniversary exhibition (1963 : New York, N.Y.)  Search this

Brooklyn College -- Faculty  Search this

Century Association (New York, N.Y.)  Search this

City University of New York -- Faculty  Search this

Whitney Museum of American Art  Search this

Brown, Blanche  Search this

Lawrence, Jacob, 1917-2000  Search this

Lozowick, Louis, 1892-1973  Search this

Lynes, Russell, 1910-1991  Search this

Meltzoff, Stanley  Search this

Panofsky, Erwin, 1892-1968  Search this

Prendergast, Charles, 1863-1948  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

Topic:

Art, American History Sources  Search this

Genre/Form:

Travel diaries

Articles

Interviews

Essays

Drafts (documents)

Transcripts

Photographs

Notebooks

Lectures

Scripts (documents)

Citation:

Milton Wolf Brown papers, 1908-1998. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Sponsor:

Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.

Identifier:

AAA.browmilt

See more items in:

Milton Wolf Brown papers

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9c2f1a099-bc53-4b03-a5fd-61e0feca9db8

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-aaa-browmilt

Creator:

Ellington, Duke, 1899-1974  Search this

Names:

Duke Ellington Orchestra  Search this

Washingtonians, The.  Search this

Ellington, Mercer Kennedy, 1919-1996 (musician)  Search this

Strayhorn, Billy (William Thomas), 1915-1967  Search this

Collector:

National Museum of American History (U.S.). Division of Musical History  Search this

Extent:

400 Cubic feet

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Phonograph records

Papers

Photographic prints

Posters

Sound recordings

Scrapbooks

Music

Clippings

Awards

Audiotapes

Place:

New York (N.Y.) -- 20th century

Harlem (New York, N.Y.) -- 20th century

Washington (D.C.) -- 20th century

Date:

1903 - 1989

Summary:

The collection documents Duke Ellington's career primarily through orchestrations (scores and parts), music manuscripts, lead sheets, transcriptions, and sheet music. It also includes concert posters, concert programs, television, radio, motion picture and musical theater scripts, business records, correspondence, awards, as well as audiotapes, audiodiscs, photographs, tour itineraries, newspaper clippings, magazines, caricatures, paintings, and scrapbooks.

Scope and Contents:

Dating approximately from the time Duke Ellington permanently moved to New York City in 1923 to the time the material was transferred to the Smithsonian Institution in 1988, the bulk of the material in the Duke Ellington Collection is dated from 1934-1974 and comprises sound recordings, original music manuscripts and published sheet music, hand-written notes, correspondence, business records, photographs, scrapbooks, news clippings, concert programs, posters, pamphlets, books and other ephemera. These materials document Ellington's contributions as composer, musician, orchestra leader, and an ambassador of American music and culture abroad. In addition, the materials paint a picture of the life of a big band maintained for fifty years and open a unique window through which to view an evolving American society.

The approximate four hundred cubic feet of archival materials have been processed and organized into sixteen series arranged by type of material. Several of the series have been divided into subseries allowing additional organization to describe the content of the material. For example, Series 6, Sound Recordings, is divided into four subseries: Radio and Television Interviews, Concert Performances, Studio Dates and Non-Ellington Recordings. Each series has its own scope and content note describing the material and arrangement (for example; Series 10, Magazines and Newspaper Articles, is organized into two groups, foreign and domestic, and arranged chronologically within each group). A container list provides folder titles and box numbers.

The bulk of the material is located in Series 1, Music Manuscripts, and consists of compositions and arrangements by Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn and other composers. Series 6, Sound Recordings also provides a record of the performance of many of these compositions. The materials in Series 2, Performances and Programs, Series 3, Business Records, Series 8, Scrapbooks, Series 9, Newspaper Clippings, Series 11, Publicity and Series 12, Posters provide documentation of specific performances by Duke Ellington and His Orchestra. Ellington was a spontaneous and prolific composer as evidenced by music, lyrical thoughts, and themes for extended works and plays captured on letterhead stationery in Series 3, Business Records, in the margin notes of individual books and pamphlets in Series 14, Religious Materials and Series 15, Books, and in the hand-written notes in Series 5, Personal Correspondence and Notes.

During its fifty-year lifespan, Duke Ellington and His Orchestra were billed under various names including The Washingtonians, The Harlem Footwarmers and The Jungle Band. The soloists were informally called "the band", and Series 3 includes salary statements, IOU's, receipts and ephemera relating to individual band members. Series 1, Music Manuscripts contains the soloists' parts and includes "band books" of several soloists (for example; Harry Carney and Johnny Hodges) and numerous music manuscripts of Billy Strayhorn. The changing role of Strayhorn from arranger hired in 1938 to Ellington's main collaborator and composer of many well-known titles for Duke Ellington and His Orchestra including "Take The A' Train" and "Satin Doll" can be traced in these music manuscripts. Series 7, Photographs and Series 2, Performances and Programs contain many images of the band members and Strayhorn. This Collection also documents the business history of Duke Ellington and His Orchestra. Series 3, Business Records contains correspondence on letterhead stationery and Series 11, Publicity contains promotional material from the various booking agencies, professional companies, and public relations firms that managed the Orchestra.

The materials in the Duke Ellington Collection provide insight into public and institutional attitudes towards African Americans in mid-twentieth-century America. The business records in Series 3 beginning in 1938 and published sheet music in Series 1 depict Duke Ellington's progression from an African-American musician who needed "legitimization" by a white publisher, Irving Mills, to a businessmen who established his own companies including Tempo Music and Duke Ellington, Incorporated to control his copyright and financial affairs. Programs from the segregated Cotton Club in Series 2, Performances And Programs and contracts with no-segregation clauses in Series 3: Business Records further illustrate racial policies and practices in this time period. The public shift in perception of Duke Ellington from a leader of an exotic "Jungle Band" in the 1930s to a recipient of the Congressional Medal Of Freedom in 1970 is evidenced in Series 2, Performances And Programs, Series 12, Posters, Series 7, Photographs and Series 13, Awards. Reviews and articles reflecting Ellington's evolving status are also documented in Series 8, Newspaper Clippings, Series 9, Scrapbooks, Series 10, Newspaper and Magazine Articles.

The materials in the Duke Ellington Collection reflect rapid technological changes in American society from 1923-1982. Sound recordings in Series 6 range from 78 phonograph records of three minutes duration manufactured for play on Victrolas in monaural sound to long-playing (LP) phonograph records produced for stereo record players. Television scripts in Series 4, programs in Series 2 and music manuscripts (for example, Drum Is A Woman) in Series 1 demonstrate how the development of television as a means of mass communication spread the Orchestra's sound to a wider audience. The availability of commercial air travel enabled the Ellington Orchestra to extend their international performances from Europe to other continents including tours to Asia, Africa, South America and Australia and archival material from these tours is included in every series.

Series 4, Scripts and Transcripts and Series 6, Audio Recordings contain scripts and radio performances promoting the sale of United States War bonds during World War II, and Series 7, Photographs includes many images of Duke Ellington and His Orchestra's performances for military personnel revealing the impact of historic events on Duke Ellington and His Orchestra. Series 2: Programs and Performances, Series 9, Newspaper clippings and Series 8, Scrapbooks document the 1963 Far East tour aborted as a result of President John F. Kennedy's assassination.

The Duke Ellington Collection contains works by numerous twentieth-century music, literature, and art luminaries. Series 1, Music Manuscripts contains original music manuscripts of William Grant Still, Eubie Blake, Mary Lou Williams, and others. Series 4, Scripts and Transcripts contains a play by Langston Hughes, and Series 12, Posters contains many original artworks.

Arrangement:

Series 1: Music Manuscripts, circa 1930-1981, undated

Series 2: Performances and Programs, 1933-1973, undated

Series 3: Business Records, 1938-1988

Series 4: Scripts and Transcripts, 1937-1970

Series 5: Personal Correspondence and Notes, 1941-1974, undated

Series 6: Sound Recordings, 1927-1974

Series 7: Photographs, 1924-1972, undated

Series 8: Scrapbooks, 1931-1973

Series 9: Newspaper Clippings, 1939-1973, undated

Series 10: Magazine Articles and Newspaper Clippings, 1940-1974

Series 11: Publicity, 1935-1988

Series 12: Posters and Oversize Graphics, 1933-1989, undated

Series 13: Awards, 1939-1982

Series 14: Religious Material, 1928-1974

Series 15: Books, 1903-1980

Series 16: Miscellaneous, 1940-1974

Biographical / Historical:

A native of Washington, DC, Edward Kennedy Ellington was born on April 29, 1899. Edward was raised in a middle-class home in the Northwest section of Washington described by his sister Ruth--younger by sixteen years--as a "house full of love." Ellington himself wrote that his father J.E. (James Edward) raised his family "as though he were a millionaire" but Edward was especially devoted to his mother, Daisy Kennedy Ellington. In 1969, thirty-four years after his mother's death, Ellington accepted the Presidential Medal of Freedom with these words, "There is nowhere else I would rather be tonight but in my mother's arms." Both his parents played the piano and Ellington began piano lessons at the age of seven, but like many boys he was easily distracted by baseball.

In his early teens, Ellington sneaked into Washington clubs and performance halls where he was exposed to ragtime musicians, including James P. Johnson, and where he met people from all walks of life. He returned in earnest to his piano studies, and at age fourteen wrote his first composition, "Soda Fountain Rag" also known as "Poodle Dog Rag." Ellington was earning income from playing music at seventeen years of age, and around this time he earned the sobriquet "Duke" for his sartorial splendor and regal air. On July 2, 1918, he married a high school sweetheart, Edna Thompson; their only child, Mercer Kennedy Ellington, was born on March 11, 1919. Duke Ellington spent the first twenty-four years of his life in Washington's culturally thriving Negro community. In this vibrant atmosphere he was inspired to be a composer and learned to take pride in his African-American heritage.

Ellington moved to New York City in 1923 to join and eventually lead a small group of transplanted Washington musicians called "The Washingtonians," which included future Ellington band members, Sonny Greer, Otto Hardwicke and "Bubber" Miley. Between 1923 and 1927, the group played at the Club Kentucky on Broadway and the ensemble increased from a quintet to a ten-piece orchestra. With stride pianist Willie "The Lion" Smith as his unofficial guide, Ellington soon became part of New York's music scene; Smith proved to be a long-lasting influence on Duke's composing and arranging direction. At the Club Kentucky, Ellington came under the tutelage of another legendary stride pianist, "Fats" Waller. Waller, a protege of Johnson and Smith, played solos during the band's breaks and also tutored Ellington who began to show progress in his compositions. In November 1924, Duke made his publishing and recording debut with "Choo Choo (I Got To Hurry Home)" released on the Blu-Disc label. In 1925, he contributed two songs to Chocolate Kiddies, an all-black revue which introduced European audiences to black American styles and performers. By this time Ellington's family, Edna and Mercer, had joined him in New York City. The couple separated in the late 1920's, but they never divorced or reconciled.

Ellington's achievements as a composer and bandleader began to attract national attention while he worked at the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York City, from 1927 to 1932. The orchestra developed a distinctive sound that displayed the non-traditional voicings of Ellington's arrangements and featured the unique talents of the individual soloists. Ellington integrated his soloists' exotic-sounding trombone growls and wah-wahs, their high-squealed trumpets, their sultry saxophone blues licks and Harlem's street rhythms into his arrangements. In the promotional material of the Cotton Club, the band was often billed as "Duke Ellington and His Jungle Band." With the success of compositions like "Mood Indigo," and an increasing number of recordings and national radio broadcasts from the Cotton Club, the band's reputation soared.

The ten years from 1932 to 1942 are considered by some major critics to represent the "golden age" for the Ellington Orchestra, but it represents just one of their creative peaks. These years did bring an influx of extraordinary new talent to the band including Jimmy Blanton on double bass, Ben Webster on tenor saxophone, and Ray Nance on trumpet, violin and vocals. During this ten year span Ellington composed several of his best known short works, including "Concerto For Cootie," "Ko-Ko," "Cotton Tail," "In A Sentimental Mood," and Jump For Joy, his first full-length musical stage revue.

Most notably, 1938 marked the arrival of Billy Strayhorn. While a teenager in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Strayhorn had already written "Lush Life," "Something To Live For" and a musical, Fantastic Rhythm. Ellington was initially impressed with Strayhorn's lyrics but realized long before Billy's composition "Take the A' Train" became the band's theme song in 1942 that Strayhorn's talents were not limited to penning clever lyrics. By 1942, "Swee' Pea" had become arranger, composer, second pianist, collaborator, and as Duke described him, "my right arm, my left arm, all the eyes in the back of my head, my brain waves in his head, and his in mine." Many Ellington/Strayhorn songs have entered the jazz canon, and their extended works are still being discovered and studied today. Strayhorn remained with the Ellington Organization until his death on May 30, 1967.

Ellington had often hinted of a work in progress depicting the struggle of blacks in America. The original script, Boola, debuted in Carnegie Hall in November of 1943, retitled Black, Brown and Beige. The performance met with mixed reviews, and although Ellington often returned to Carnegie Hall the piece was never recorded in a studio, and after 1944 was never performed in entirety again by the Ellington Orchestra. Nonetheless, it is now considered a milestone in jazz composition.

After World War II the mood and musical tastes of the country shifted and hard times befell big bands, but Ellington kept his band together. The band was not always financially self-sufficient and during the lean times Ellington used his songwriting royalties to meet the soloists' salaries. One could assign to Ellington the altruistic motive of loyalty to his sidemen, but another motivation may have been his compositional style which was rooted in hearing his music in the formative stage come alive in rehearsal. "The band was his instrument," Billy Strayhorn said, and no Ellington composition was complete until he heard the orchestra play it. Then he could fine tune his compositions, omit and augment passages, or weave a soloist's contribution into the structure of the tune.

In 1956, the American public rediscovered Duke and the band at the Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island. The searing performances of tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves on "Diminuendo and Crescendo In Blue," his premiere soloist, alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges on "Jeep's Blues", and the crowd's ecstatic reaction have become jazz legend. Later that year Duke landed on the cover of Time magazine. Although Ellington had previously written music for film and television (including the short film, Black and Tan Fantasy in 1929) it wasn't until 1959 that Otto Preminger asked him to score music for his mainstream film, Anatomy of a Murder, starring Jimmy Stewart. Paris Blues in 1961, featuring box-office stars Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier in roles as American jazz musicians in Paris, followed.

Ellington's first performance overseas was in England in 1933, but the 1960s brought extensive overseas tours including diplomatic tours sponsored by the State Department. Ellington and Strayhorn composed exquisite extended works reflecting the sights and sounds of their travels, including the Far East Suite, 1966. They wrote homages to their classical influences; in 1963, they adapted Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite and celebrated Shakespeare's works with the suite Such Sweet Thunder in 1957. With Ella Fitzgerald, they continued the Norman Granz Songbook Series. Ellington also began to flex his considerable pianist skills and recorded albums with John Coltrane (1963), Coleman Hawkins (1963), Frank Sinatra, and Money Jungle (1963) with Charles Mingus and Max Roach. The First Sacred Concert debuted in San Francisco's Grace Cathedral in 1965. In his final years, Ellington's thoughts turned to spiritual themes and he added a Second (1968) and Third (1973) Concert of Sacred Music to his compositions.

In his lifetime, Duke received numerous awards and honors including the highest honor bestowed on an American civilian, the Congressional Medal Of Freedom. In 1965, Ellington was recommended for a Pulitzer Prize to honor his forty years of contribution to music but the recommendation was rejected by the board. Most likely he was disappointed, but his response at the age of sixty-six was, "Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn't want me to be famous too young."

Ellington never rested on his laurels or stopped composing. Whenever he was asked to name his favorite compositions his characteristic reply was "the next five coming up," but to please his loyal fans Ellington always featured some of his standards in every performance. Even on his deathbed, he was composing the opera buffo called Queenie Pie.

Duke Ellington died on May 24, 1974 at seventy-five years of age. His funeral was held in New York's Cathedral of St. John The Divine; he was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery. His long-time companion Beatrice "Evie" Ellis was buried beside him after her death in 1976. He was survived by his only child, Mercer Kennedy Ellington, who not only took up the baton to lead the Duke Ellington Orchestra but assumed the task of caring for his father's papers and his legacy to the nation. Mercer Ellington died in Copenhagan, Denmark on February 8, 1996, at the age of seventy-six. Ruth Ellington Boatwright died in New York on March 6, 2004, at the age of eighty-eight. Both Mercer and Ruth were responsible for shepherding the documents and artifacts that celebrate Duke Ellington's genius and creative life to their current home in the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History.

Related Materials:

Materials in the Archives Center

William H. Quealy Collection of Duke Ellington Recordings (AC0296)

Rutgers University Collection of Radio Interviews about Duke Ellington (AC0328)

Duke Ellington Oral History Project (AC0368)

Duke Ellington Collection of Ephemera and realated Audiovisual Materials (AC0386)

Annual International Conference of the Duke Ellington Study Group Proceedings (AC0385)

Robert Udkoff Collection of Duke Ellington Ephemera (AC0388)

Frank Driggs Collection of Duke Ellington Photographic Prints (AC0389)

New York Chapter of the Duke Ellington Society Collection (AC390)

Earl Okin Collection of Duke Ellington Ephemera (AC0391)

William Russo Transcription and Arrangement of Duke Ellington's First Concert of Sacred Music (AC0406)

Ruth Ellington Collection of Duke Ellington Materials (AC0415)

Music manuscripts in the Ruth Ellington Collection complement the music manuscripts found in the Duke Ellington Collection.

Carter Harman Collection of Interviews with Duke Ellington (AC0422)

Betty McGettigan Collection of Duke Ellington Memorabilia (AC0494)

Dr. Theodore Shell Collection of Duke Ellington Ephemera (AC0502)

Edward and Gaye Ellington Collection of Duke Ellington Materials (AC0704)

Andrew Homzy Collection of Duke Ellington Stock Music Arrangements (AC0740)

John Gensel Collection of Duke Ellington Materials (AC0763)

Al Celley Collection of Duke Ellington Materials (AC1240)

Materials at Other Organizations

Institute of Jazz Studies

Separated Materials:

Artifacts related to this collection are in the Division of Culture and the Arts (now Division of Cultural and Community Life) and include trophies, plaques, and medals. See accessions: 1989.0369; 1991.0808; 1993.0032; and 1999.0148.

"

Provenance:

The collection was purchased through an appropriation of Congress in 1988.

Restrictions:

Collection is open for research but the original and master audiovisual materials are stored off-site and special arrangements must be made to work with it. Contact the Archives Center for information at archivescenter@si.edu or 202-633-3270.

Rights:

Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.

Copyright restrictions. Consult the Archives Center at archivescenter@si.edu or 202-633-3270.

Paul Ellington, executor, is represented by:

Richard J.J. Scarola, Scarola Ellis LLP, 888 Seventh Avenue, 45th Floor, New York, New York 10106. Telephone (212) 757-0007 x 235; Fax (212) 757-0469; email: rjjs@selaw.com; www.selaw.com; www.ourlawfirm.com.

Occupation:

Composers -- 20th century  Search this

Topic:

Big bands  Search this

Pianists  Search this

Bandsmen -- 20th century  Search this

Jazz -- 20th century -- United States  Search this

Musicians -- 20th century  Search this

Music -- Performance  Search this

African American entertainers -- 20th century  Search this

African Americans -- History  Search this

Popular music -- 20th century -- United States  Search this

Music -- 20th century -- United States  Search this

African American musicians  Search this

Genre/Form:

Phonograph records

Papers

Photographic prints

Posters

Sound recordings

Scrapbooks -- 20th century

Music -- Manuscripts

Clippings

Awards

Audiotapes

Citation:

Duke Ellington Collection, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

Sponsor:

Processing and encoding partially funded by a grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources.

Identifier:

NMAH.AC.0301

See more items in:

Duke Ellington Collection

Archival Repository:

Archives Center, National Museum of American History

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ep850a376a1-6b6d-48bc-9076-cffef76fea2c

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-nmah-ac-0301

Curator:

Als, Hilton  Search this

Butler, Cornelia H  Search this

Author:

Didion, Joan  Search this

Writer of foreword:

Philbin, Ann  Search this

Issuing body:

Hammer Museum  Search this

Physical description:

127 pages illustrations (some color), facsimiles, maps (some color), portraits 33 cm

Type:

Exhibitions

Interviews

Biography

Entretiens

Autobiographies

Biographies

Exhibition catalogs

Place:

United States

Date:

2022

20th century

21st century

20e siècle

Topic:

Biography as a literary form  Search this

Women authors, American  Search this

Screenwriters  Search this

Romanciers américains  Search this

BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY--Literary  Search this

LITERARY COLLECTIONS--American--General  Search this

LITERARY CRITICISM--American--General  Search this

Novelists, American  Search this

Call number:

N40.1.D557 H36 2022

Data Source:

Smithsonian Libraries

EDAN-URL:

edanmdm:siris_sil_1158939

Collector:

Dr. Charles B. Wilson  Search this

Prep Count:

2

Preparation:

Alcohol (Ethanol)

Slide

Place:

Twin Lakes, Indiana, United States

Collection Date:

5 Jul 1909

Published Name:

Ergasilus caeruleus Wilson, 1911

USNM Number:

39554

See more items in:

Invertebrate Zoology

Arthropoda

Data Source:

NMNH - Invertebrate Zoology Dept.

GUID:

http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/34921e04f-38d7-4b38-8d04-3f23b5bca59f

EDAN-URL:

edanmdm:nmnhinvertebratezoology_255439

Collector:

Dr. Charles B. Wilson  Search this

Prep Count:

2

Preparation:

Alcohol (Ethanol)

Slide

Sex:

female

Place:

Cumberland River, Lock 21, Georgia, United States

Collection Date:

16 Jul 1911

Published Name:

Ergasilus lanceolatus Wilson, 1916

USNM Number:

43555

See more items in:

Invertebrate Zoology

Arthropoda

Data Source:

NMNH - Invertebrate Zoology Dept.

GUID:

http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/3e71e5431-1d65-4945-a877-4a7095c18a1b

EDAN-URL:

edanmdm:nmnhinvertebratezoology_257322

Collector:

H. W. Clark  Search this

Prep Count:

1

Preparation:

Alcohol (Ethanol)

Slide

Sex:

female

Place:

Fairport, Iowa, United States

Collection Date:

20 Jul 1914

Published Name:

Ergasilus nigritus Wilson, 1916

USNM Number:

43562

See more items in:

Invertebrate Zoology

Arthropoda

Data Source:

NMNH - Invertebrate Zoology Dept.

GUID:

http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/37e960053-7149-4a42-90c6-e9a39795e63d

EDAN-URL:

edanmdm:nmnhinvertebratezoology_257329

Collector:

M. C. Marsh  Search this

Ocean/Sea/Gulf:

North Pacific Ocean, Bering Sea  Search this

Prep Count:

1

Preparation:

Alcohol (Ethanol)

Slide

Remarks:

SELGEM: 1 Slide

Place:

Pribilof Islands, St. Paul Island Village, Landing, Alaska, United States, North Pacific Ocean

Collection Date:

23 Nov 1911

Published Name:

Chironesimus multiarticulatus Pearse

USNM Number:

45711

See more items in:

Invertebrate Zoology

Arthropoda

Data Source:

NMNH - Invertebrate Zoology Dept.

GUID:

http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/32ee94a2c-dc37-402a-a3fe-6989defd6246

EDAN-URL:

edanmdm:nmnhinvertebratezoology_258711

Collector:

Dr. Charles B. Wilson  Search this

Prep Count:

1

Preparation:

Alcohol (Ethanol)

Slide

Sex:

female

Place:

Fairport, Patterson Lake, Iowa, United States

Collection Date:

6 Aug 1914

Published Name:

Ergasilus elegans Wilson, 1916

USNM Number:

47769

See more items in:

Invertebrate Zoology

Arthropoda

Data Source:

NMNH - Invertebrate Zoology Dept.

GUID:

http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/3df839d64-3d32-428c-9297-ca36d31657fb

EDAN-URL:

edanmdm:nmnhinvertebratezoology_259338

Collector:

H. K. Harring  Search this

Prep Count:

4

Preparation:

Slide

Place:

Black Pond, Virginia, United States

Published Name:

Diaptomus virginiensis Marsh, 1926

Onychodiaptomus virginiensis (Marsh, 1915)

USNM Number:

47893

See more items in:

Invertebrate Zoology

Arthropoda

Data Source:

NMNH - Invertebrate Zoology Dept.

GUID:

http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/3c9771a76-7e44-47a3-8c0b-4979fa845992

EDAN-URL:

edanmdm:nmnhinvertebratezoology_259414

Collector:

Frank J. Myers  Search this

Prep Count:

1

Preparation:

Slide

Sex:

male

Place:

From Ponds, Polk County, Florida, United States

Published Name:

Diaptomus floridanus Marsh, 1926

Arctodiaptomus floridanus (Marsh, 1926)

USNM Number:

52397

See more items in:

Invertebrate Zoology

Arthropoda

Data Source:

NMNH - Invertebrate Zoology Dept.

GUID:

http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/30d5b4a46-2326-451d-8f8b-96aac1ee1e21

EDAN-URL:

edanmdm:nmnhinvertebratezoology_261063