The papers of Mildred Constantine measure 5.3 linear feet and are dated 1945-2009. Subject files, writings, photographs, and a scrapbook provide an overview of her curatorial work in the Architecture and Design department of the Museum of Modern Art, and subsequent activities as an independent curator, and art consultant. Especially well documented is Whole Cloth, a book written with Laurel Reuter that presents an historical overview of how artists have used cloth in their work.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of Mildred Constantine measure 5.3 linear feet and are dated 1945-2008. Subject files, writings, photographs, and a scrapbook provide an overview of her curatorial work in the Architecture and Design department of the Museum of Modern Art, and subsequent activities as an independent curator, and art consultant. Especially well documented is the book Whole Cloth that she wrote with Laurel Reuter.
Correspondence, though mostly business related, often touches on personal matters since many of the artists and art world figures with whom she corresponded were also friends. Correspondents include Miguel Angel Corzo, Arthur C. Danto, Dorothy Dehner, Allen Hart (who sent more than 40 illustrated letters), Elizabeth Wilder and Donald L. Weisman. She also corresponded with many art institutions and organizations, among them the Cleveland Museum of Art, Independent International Design Conference, El Museo del Barrio, Museum of New Mexico, Ohio State University, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Estate of David Smith.
Subject files reflect Constantine's activities and interests. A large portion of this series concerns Whole Cloth, a book written with Laurel Reuter that presents an historical look at how artists have used cloth in their work. Correspondence between the two authors, with artists, institutions, and others concerns researching and writing the volume. Also documented are the successes and failures of Constantine's decade long pursuit to publish the book. Other substantive files relate to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Getty Conservation Institute, Sheila Hicks, Jack Lenor Larsen, Rhode Island School of Design, and Soviet Film Posters. Files concerning the University of the Arts' 2003 Commencement include a videocassette.
Writings by Constantine are lecture material and notes. Also found are transcripts of interviews with Constantine and writings by others. Printed material includes newspaper and magazine articles about Constantine and her career. A scrapbook of printed material and photographs documents an exhibition of Latin American posters at the Library of Congress organized by Constantine.
Photographs of people include Mildred Constantine with family, friends, artists and others at public and private events around the world. Notable photographs include: Magdalena Abakanowicz, Anni Albers, Alfred Barr, Luis Barragan, Lou Block, Louise Bourgeois, Jagoda Buic, Elaine Lustig Cohen, Charles Coiner, James Marston Fitch, Mathias Goeritz, Ingeborg Ten Haeff, Ann d'Harnoncourt, Sheila Hicks, Richard Koch, Nancy Koenigsberg, Jack Lenor Larsen, Leo Lionni, Roberto Burle Marx, Ruth Reeves, Laurel Reuter, Eleanor Roosevelt, Ben Shahn, Massimo Vignelli, Ulfert Wilke, and Claire Zeisler. Also, there are photographs of artwork by a wide range of artists.
Arrangement:
The Mildred Constantine papers are organized into 8 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1947-1997 (Boxes 1, 6; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1964-2008 (Boxes 1, 6; 1.0 linear feet)
Series 3: Subject Files, 1964-2008 (Boxes 2-5; 3.3 linear feet)
Series 4: Writings, 1991-2008 (Box 5; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 5: Printed Material, 1961-2006 (Box 5; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 6: Photographs, 1993 (Box 5; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 7: Artwork, 1945 (Box 5; 1 folder)
Series 8: Scrapbook, circa 1940s (Box 6; 0.1 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Curator and writer Mildred Constantine (1913-2008) was associated with the Museum of Modern Art's Department of Architecture and Design from 1943 to 1971. She then became an art consultant and independent curator, and wrote on fiber and textiles, decorative arts, photography, caricature and cartoons.
Mildred Constantine (known as "Connie") began her career at College Art Association. Hired as a stenographer in 1930, she soon was promoted to editorial assistant for Parnassus, the forerunner of Art Journal.
Constantine left the College Art Association in 1937 to study at New York University and earned BA and MA degrees. She then continued her education at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. In 1940, Constantine worked in the Office of Inter-American Affairs at the Library of Congress; it was there that she met René d'Harnoncourt.
Influenced by her 1936 travels in Mexico, Constantine's first curatorial effort was an exhibition of Latin American posters. Drawn from the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, the exhibition was held at the Library of Congress.
At the urging of René d'Harnoncourt, The Museum of Modern Art's Architecture and Design Department hired Constantine in 1943. The majority of her 28 year tenure at the museum was spent working with the department's founder, architect Philip Johnson. As a curator during the 1950s and 1960s, Constantine's innovative exhibitions brought lesser known portions of the museum's collection to public attention. Among her exhibtions were: "Words and Images," that focused on graphic design and posters; "Polio Posters," the first Museum of Modern Art show dedicated to social issues; "Olivetti: Design in Industry;" "Signs in the Street;" and "Lettering by Hand." She also published books on Art Nouveau, contemporary package design, and other subjects.
In 1971, Constantine left the Museum of Modern Art to become an independent curator and art consultant. Exhibitions included "Frontiers in Fiber: The Americans," and "Small Works in Fiber" with Jack Lenor Larsen. Tina Modotti: A Fragile Life, Constantine's book on the photographer, actress, model, and political activist, appeared in 1974. That same year, she and Alan Fern produced Revolutionary Soviet Film Posters that focused on works from the 1920s. Her last published work, Whole Cloth, was written with Laurel Reuter and published in 1997. Constantine continued to research and write, and at the time of her death was working on a large, international survey of the study of thread.
Mildred Constantine and Ralph W. Bettelheim (1909-1993) were married for 50 years. They had two daughters, Judith and Vicki.
Mildred Constantine died from heart failure on December 10, 2008, at home in Nyack, New York.
Related Material:
Oral history interviews with Mildred Constantine were conducted for the Archives of American Art by Harlan Phillips, 1965 October 15, and by Paul Cummings, 1976 May 3-1976 August 26.
Provenance:
The papers were donated to the Archives in 2009 by Mildred Constantine's daughters, Judith Bettelheim and Vicki McDaniel.
Restrictions:
Use of origininal 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:
Curators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Art consultants -- New York -- New York Search this
Authors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Art historians -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
An interview of Anne Rorimer conducted 2010 November 15-16, by Judith Olch Richards, for the Archives of American Art's Elizabeth Murray Oral History of Women in the Visual Arts project, at Rorimer's home, in Chicago, Illinois.
Rorimer speaks of her family background; her early life and education in New York City; her father, James Rorimer, and his influence as director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; college life at Bryn Mawr; how she became interested in modern art; her internship at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London after college; her master's degree thesis on Tony Smith; her job as a curator at the Albright-Knox Gallery and then at the Art Institute of Chicago; memorable exhibitions at the AIC throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, including the annual "American Exhibition," "Europe in the Seventies: Aspects of Recent Art," (1977), and "Idea and Image in Recent Art" (1974); her close relationship with Anne D'Harnoncourt; how she left the AIC in 1984 to write, "New Art in the '60s and 70s: Redefining Reality," (2001); her role in acquisitions of contemporary art at the AIC; her thoughts on art education; her work with collectors; the process of getting her book published and reactions to it; her curatorial projects in the 1980s and early 1990s that focused on conceptual art; her relationship with artists like Michael Asher and Daniel Buren; her extensive book collection; her thoughts on being a freelance curator and writer. She recalls Whitney Stoddard, Robert Beverly Hale, Theodoros Stamos, Leo Castelli, Henry Geldzahler, Anne D'Harnoncourt, Renee Marcuse, Bates Lowry, Tony Smith, Marcia Tucker, A. James Speyer, Bruce Nauman, Lawrence Weiner, Vito Acconci, William Wegman, Robert Morris, Lucy R. Lippard, Katharine Kuh, Sol Lewitt, John Maxon, Eva Hesse, Muriel Newman, Judith Kirschner, Dan Graham, Benjamin Buchloh, and Marcel Broodthaers.
Biographical / Historical:
Anne Rorimer (1944-) is a curator and art historian in Chicago, Illinois. Judith Olch Richards (1947-) is a former executive director of iCI in New York, New York.
General:
Originally recorded on 4 memory cards. Reformatted in 2010 as 6 digital wav files. Duration is 5 hr., 36 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Occupation:
Art historians -- Illinois -- Chicago -- Interviews Search this
Audiovisual materials relating to the documentary Beatrice Wood: Mama of Dada measure 11 linear feet and date from 1990 to 1993. Records include sound recordings, motion picture film outtakes, transcripts, production notes, lab records of the film production, and video recordings of the completed documentary.
Scope and Contents:
Audiovisual materials relating to the documentary Beatrice Wood: Mama of Dada measure 11 linear feet and date from 1990 to 1993. Records include sound recordings, motion picture film outtakes, transcripts, production notes, lab records, and video recordings of the completed documentary.
Original sound recordings and transcripts include two recorded public appearances by Wood, as well as multiple interviews with Beatrice Wood and with others about Wood; interviewed are Francis Nauman, John Perrault, Garth Clark, Mark Del Vecchio, Anne D'Harnoncourt, Steve Watson, Rupert Pole, R.P. Singh, Henry Huglin, and Lee Waisler. Partial transcripts are found for most recordings. Records created by the sound recordist, referred to in this finding aid as sound roll logs, are found with several of the sound reels and document general content and the camera roll numbers of corresponding film footage.
Production notes and lab records include script notes, shot lists, editing notes, detailed editing logs, camera reports, and lab records including work orders for dailies, effects such as titles and superimpositions, and documentation of the final print. Many of the sound recordings were shot synchronously with the motion picture film found in the collection, and while the documentation does not always make the link between picture and soundtrack explicit, the link can be investigated via sound roll logs, camera reports, negative logs, and shot lists.
Moving images include three video copies of the finished documentary and 153 rolls of 16mm motion picture film negative, which are outtakes from 166 original camera negative rolls. The content of outtakes consists of three general types: film shot during several of the interviews and one of Wood's public appearances found in Series 1; silent footage of locations and Wood working in her studio; and footage of historical photographs and artworks. All of the film found in the collection consists of outtakes; footage that was used in the documentary was not donated, although complete sound recordings exist in series 1.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as three series:
Series 1: Original Sound Recordings and Transcripts, 1990-1991 (1.6 linear feet; Boxes 1-2)
Series 2: Production Notes and Lab Reports, 1990-1992 (0.3 linear feet; Box 2)
Series 3: Moving Images, 1990-1993 (12.1 linear feet; Box 2, FC 3-122)
Biographical / Historical:
Beatrice Wood: Mama of Dada was written and directed by Tom Neff and released by Wild Wolf Productions in 1993 to correspond with Wood's 100th birthday. Tom Neff is a filmmaker, producer, and television executive who was born in 1953 in Chicago, Illinois and received his MFA from the University of Southern California in 1981. Neff founded the production company Wild Wolf Productions with Diandra Douglas in the early 1990s, and Mama of Dada was the company's first production and was written and directed by Neff, and produced by Neff, Diandra Douglas, and Amie Knox.
Neff has produced, written, and directed over a dozen documentaries on historical and cultural subjects since the mid-1980s. In addition to his work on Wood, Neff's filmography includes several documentaries about American artists, including Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Frederic Remington, and Red Grooms. His short documentary Red Grooms: Sunflower in a Hot House earned him an Oscar with Madeline Bell in 1987. He currently teaches at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
Related Materials:
The Archives of American Art holds multiple oral histories and collections of archival material related to Beatrice Wood, including the Beatrice Wood papers, the Beatrice Wood letters to Elizabeth Stein, and the Belle M. Deitch papers concerning Beatrice Wood.
Oral histories include two interviews with Wood conducted by Paul Karlstrom, one on August 26, 1976, and another on March 2, 1992.
The Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona holds a collection of material collected and created by Tom Neff for his 1999 documentary "Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Painting with Light."
Provenance:
Donated 1992 by Wild Wolf Productions via writer, director, and producer Tom Neff.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Use of archival audiovisual recordings records with no duplicate copies requires advance notice.
Rights:
Outtakes, reels and transcripts: Authorization to quote or reproduce for purposes of publication requires written permission from WILD WOLF PRODUCTIONS via Tom Neff, producer. 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.
Marcel Duchamp; a retrospective exhibition organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and The Museum of Modern Art, New York, made possible in part by a grant from the Natural Endowment for the Arts. Exhibition prepared by Anne d'Harnoncourt and Kynaston McShine
Futurism and the international avant-garde : essays / by Anne d'Harnoncourt and Germano Celant ; October 26, 1980 to January 4, 1981, Philadelphia Museum of Art
