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Creator:

Cornell, Joseph  Search this

Names:

Benton, Elizabeth Cornell  Search this

Cornell, Robert  Search this

Extent:

24.9 Linear feet

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Photographs

Date:

1804-1986

bulk 1939-1972

Summary:

The papers of Joseph Cornell (1903-1972) measure approximately 24.9 linear feet and date from 1804 to 1986 with the bulk of the material dating from 1939-1972. The collection documents the life, work, interests, and creative activities of the self-taught artist, who was best known for his shadow box constructions, assemblages, and collages. Papers include correspondence, diaries, source material, notes, writings, photographs, printed material, two- and three-dimensional ephemera, art works, and books, as well as a limited amount of legal and financial records, and some miscellaneous personal and family papers. The collection also includes the papers of his sister, Betty Cornell Benton, relating to the handling of Cornell's estate and the personal papers of his brother, Robert Cornell.

Scope and Content Note:

The Joseph Cornell papers measure approximately 24.9 linear feet and date from 1804 to 1986, with the bulk of the material dating from 1939-1972. The collection documents the life, work, interests, and creative activities of the self-taught artist, who was best known for his shadow box constructions, assemblages, and collages. Papers include correspondence, diaries, source material, notes, writings, photographs, printed material, two- and three-dimensional ephemera, art works, and books, as well as a limited amount of legal and financial records, and some miscellaneous personal and family papers (which comprise a series of biographical material). The collection also includes the papers of his sister, Betty Cornell Benton, relating to the handling of Cornell's estate and the personal papers of his brother, Robert Cornell.

Cornell's correspondence is typically with family, friends, artists, dealers, collectors, galleries, museums, admirers, individuals whom he admired, "helpers," and various charitable institutions. Correspondence generally concerns the creation, exhibition, sale, and reception of Cornell's art work; his "explorations" and other research and collecting activities; his preoccupations with certain individuals and motifs; his usual practices of giving gifts of art work to those he liked or admired and making donations to charities in aid of those less fortunate; and his relationships and shared interests with family, friends, and colleagues. Also found is correspondence between and amongst various other members of the Cornell family, including, most notably, Robert Cornell's letters to his sisters, Elizabeth (typically addressed as Nell) and Helen.

Dating from 1941 to 1972, Cornell's diaries span almost the entirety of his career as an artist, which began in earnest when he left his job at the Traphagen textile studio in 1940 to pursue art full-time and ended with his death in 1972. The diaries record his day-to-day experiences (usually comprising his thoughts, feelings, impressions, and ideas); and reflect on his various art projects (boxes, films, and collages) and creative activities ("explorations," and various other research, collecting, and publishing ventures). They also explore many of the themes and underlying concerns of his art work; and document his intense preoccupations with certain individuals, his wide-ranging interests, and the interconnectedness of his ideas and activities. Cornell's style of writing in the diaries tends to be stream-of-conscious with entries being composed of phrases, rather than complete sentences and with the progression of passages being more poetic and associative than either logical or narrative. He tended to compose by hand, occasionally typing up his notes into more formal entries, and also to use abbreviations for oft-repeated words and initials for individuals. At times, his handwriting can be difficult to read, and his references can be difficult to decipher. It was also common practice for him to review or revisit previous entries at various points in time, often making revisions or comments on them with dated annotations in the margins or on the reverse side of a page.

Cornell's source material is largely comprised of files of newspaper and magazine clippings, cutouts, notes, writings, book excerpts, photostats (or stats), prints, postcards, art reproductions, and other printed material. Some files are devoted to people (ballerinas, actresses, singers, artists, and writers) and topics (astronomy, romantic and modern ballet, birds, films, literature, music, plants, and science, among others). Other files relate to specific art works, "explorations," publishing projects, and exhibitions. Source material documents Cornell's preoccupation with certain individuals (past and present), events, subjects, and motifs; the development of some of his major "explorations" and their influence on his various artistic and commercial projects; and his work on certain box constructions and collages, publishing ventures, and exhibition catalogues. Source material also sheds light on Cornell's efforts to gain access to the past; his interest in the symbolism of images and objects; the linkages he found between seemingly unrelated things; and the connections between his many creative endeavors.

Ephemera and artifacts include various objects, mementos, and items of memorabilia, some of which were accumulated by Cornell (in much the same way that he collected his source material) and some of which are of uncertain origin. For Cornell, items such as these were not merely inanimate objects, but were instead evocative of past worlds and capable of bringing the past into the present (an idea which he often expressed in his diaries as the "metaphysique d'ephemera"). He seems to have used some of these items in a layout he designed for Good Housekeeping. Other items may have been used as source material for some of his box constructions.

The collection also houses photographs of Cornell, his family, art work, other artists, and friends, as well as photographs taken by various individuals and publicity photographs from the New York City Ballet. Also found are scattered works of art, including collage fragments and Rorschachs (or ink blot drawings) by Cornell, collages by Cornell's sister, Betty Cornell Benton, on which he collaborated, and a box by Christine Kaufman, which was a gift to Cornell. The books in the collection most likely comprise the remainder of Cornell's library, which was transferred to the Joseph Cornell Study Center, and include some that seem to have belonged to his sister, Betty. Printed material includes various publications and clippings collected by Cornell apart from that which he collected as source material. Writings about Cornell include an article by the poet, Mina Loy, and copies of various theses, presentations, and articles by graduate students in art history received by Benton (who assisted them in their research).

The Joseph Cornell Estate Papers consist of correspondence relating to Betty Cornell Benton's administration of the part of Cornell's estate for which she was responsible and legal documents relating to her various legal disputes with the executors of the estate, as well as a limited amount of printed material, some of which was originally accumulated by Cornell and subsequently shared with Benton, and miscellaneous papers belonging to Benton and their mother, Helen S. Cornell. Estate Papers provide insight on the exhibition and sale of Cornell art works after his death; the disposition of his belongings (including art work, papers, books, records, and source material); and Benton's efforts to foster and safeguard the memory and legacy of Cornell. The Robert Cornell Papers include correspondence, writings, art works, photographs, printed material, and scattered financial and personal records, documenting the full and creative life Robert led despite being confined to a wheelchair. Their inclusion in the collection suggests the family's effort to foster Robert's memory.

Arrangement:

The collection is arranged into eleven series:

Missing Title

Series 1: Biographical Material, 1918-1972, 1975 (Box 1; 0.8 linear feet)

Series 2: Correspondence, 1909-1982 (Boxes 1-5, OV 31; 4.3 linear feet)

Series 3: Diaries, 1941-1973 (Boxes 6-10; 5 linear feet)

Series 4: Source Material, 1804-1972 (Boxes 11-18, 25-28, OV 29; 8.5 linear feet)

Series 5: Ephemera and Artifacts, 1858-1946 (Boxes 18, 23; 0.8 linear feet)

Series 6: Photographs, circa 1905-1972 (Boxes 18, 28, OV 30; 0.3 linear feet)

Series 7: Art Works, circa 1966-1971 (Boxes 19, 23; 0.2 linear feet)

Series 8: Books and Printed Material, 1806-1968 (Boxes 19, 23; 0.5 linear feet)

Series 9: Writings about Cornell, 1950, circa 1975-1980 (Box 19; 0.3 linear feet)

Series 10: Joseph Cornell Estate Papers, circa 1911, 1944-1986 (Boxes 19-22; 3.5 linear feet)

Series 11: Robert Cornell Papers, 1924-1965 (Boxes 24, 28; 0.4 linear feet)

Biographical Note:

Joseph Cornell, assemblagist, collagist, and filmmaker, was born on December 24, 1903 in Nyack, New York. He was the oldest son of Joseph I. Cornell, a textile salesman and designer, and Helen Storms Cornell, and had two younger sisters, Elizabeth (b. 1905), nicknamed Nell and later Betty, and Helen (b. 1906), and a younger brother, Robert (b. 1910), who suffered from cerebral palsy. Cornell shared close relationships with his siblings, and was especially attached to his brother whom he took care of as an adult. His fondest childhood memories included family Christmas celebrations, outings to Manhattan where he saw vaudeville shows and strolled around Times Square, and trips to Coney Island where he encountered penny arcade machines. These childhood memories, among others, inspired some of the themes later explored in his art work.

After his father's death in 1917, Cornell was sent to study at the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. He remained there for four years, but left without receiving a diploma. During this time, the family moved from Nyack to Bayside, Queens, where they lived in a series of rented houses. Cornell rejoined his family in 1921, at which time he went to work as a salesman in the Manhattan office of a textile wholesaler, the William Whitman Company. He joined the Christian Science church in the mid-1920s, and in 1929, the family bought a house at 37-08 Utopia Parkway in Flushing, where he resided for the rest of his life, living there with his mother and brother after both his sisters married and moved away.

During the 1920s, Cornell developed his passion for walking the city streets and taking in their sights, sounds, and impressions; browsing in the secondhand bookshops along Fourth Avenue; and collecting material such as books, prints, postcards, and printed and three-dimensional ephemera. He cultivated his growing interest in culture and the arts by attending opera and ballet performances, seeing plays (the 1922 play Rain, which starred Jeanne Eagels, was among his favorites), visiting galleries and museums, reading, and going to the movies.

In 1931, Cornell began to frequent the Julien Levy Gallery, where he encountered Surrealist art for perhaps the first time. Around this time, he created his first works of art - a series of black-and-white collages composed from cutouts of nineteenth-century engravings - inspired by Max Ernst's collages, in particular his collage-novel, La Femme 100 tetes (1929). Cornell went on to create three-dimensional works of art such as pill boxes and a glass bell series (consisting of objects arranged under a bell jar). His work, including several collages and a glass bell, was first exhibited as part of the groundbreaking "Surrealisme" show at the Levy Gallery in January 1932. He also designed the cover of the show announcement. His first one-man show at the gallery, "The Objects of Joseph Cornell," followed in the fall of 1932. (It was seven years before his next solo show.) By this time, Cornell had been laid off from his job at Whitman's. He was out of work for several years before getting a job as a textile designer at the Traphagen Commercial Textile Studio in 1934. During the next several years, he continued to work on his art at night.

Around this time, Cornell began collecting movies and movie stills, and embarked upon various film-related projects. In 1933, he wrote a scenario for a silent movie, Monsieur Phot. A few years later, he made his first film, Rose Hobart (1936), comprised of re-edited footage from the B-movie, East of Borneo (1931), which starred the actress, Rose Hobart. And he began work on a trilogy of collage-films - The Children's Party, Cotillion, and The Midnight Party (circa 1937). He then took a break from making films until the mid-1950s, but continued to collect film-related material, which he began to incorporate into his other art work.

In 1936, Cornell constructed his first glass-fronted shadow box, Untitled (Soap Bubble Set), which was included that same year in the "Fantastic Art, Dada and Surrealism" exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, along with a cabinet box and several glass bells. In creating some of his other early boxes, he began the practice of using photo reproductions of images which he located in books and magazines, or in the Picture Collection at the New York Public Library, among other places. In his tribute boxes to actresses (1930s), he made use of publicity shots, and in the box, Dressing Room for Gilles (1939), he employed a photostat (or stat) of a reproduction of Jean-Antoine Watteau's painting, Gilles (1718).

Over the years, Cornell came into contact with various figures of the art, dance, and literary worlds. In the 1930s and 1940s, he met the artists, Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp, and Salvador Dali, and befriended the artists, Lee Miller and Dorothea Tanning. His formative friendships during 1940s were with the artist, Pavel Tchelitchew, the writers, Charles Henri Ford (founder of the avant-garde periodical, View), Parker Tyler, and Donald Windham, and the balletomane, Lincoln Kirstein (founder of Dance Index). His other friends included the artists, Roberto Matta Echaurren and Robert Motherwell, the dancer and actress, Tilly Losch, and the poets, Mina Loy and Marianne Moore. In the 1950s, he associated with artists from the Abstract Expressionist movement, including Willem de Kooning, Jack Tworkov, and Mark Rothko. Beginning in the mid-1950s, he befriended many young artists, including Lee Bontecou and Carolee Schneeman, and young actresses, including Lois Smith, Gwen Van Dam, and Suzanne Miller, whom he sought to appear in his films. And in the early 1960s, he met the Pop artists, Robert Indiana, James Rosenquist, and Andy Warhol.

Beginning in 1940, Cornell developed a keen interest in dance, particularly ballet. Ballerinas from the Romantic era, such as Marie Taglioni and Fanny Cerrito, especially captured his imagination, inspiring such works as the box, Taglioni's Jewel Casket (1940), and the Portrait of Ondine "exploration," which comprised a portfolio of material relating to Cerrito and her famous role in the ballet, Ondine. Cornell was also fascinated with the modern counterparts of the Romantic ballerinas. In 1940, he befriended the Russian ballet dancer, Tamara Toumanova, and over the years produced many works in homage to her, including swan boxes (inspired by her role in Swan Lake), boxes made with scraps from her costumes, and scrapbooks of clippings, stats, and memorabilia. In 1949, he became enamored of the French dancer, Renee "Zizi" Jeanmarie, after seeing her perform in Carmen and meeting her backstage, and he created several dance-related boxes in her honor. In 1957, he met the ballerina, Allegra Kent. After meeting again in 1964, they became friends, and she served as the subject of several works based on images reproduced from a Parmigianino painting.

In December 1940, Cornell left his job at the Traphagen textile studio to pursue art full-time. He set up a workshop in the basement of the house on Utopia Parkway, which served as a combination studio and storage space. While he spent most days at home, he continued to make regular trips into Manhattan to wander around the city, visit with friends, and hunt for material. Around this time, he began to keep a diary, recording his day-to-day experiences (usually comprising his thoughts, feelings, impressions, ideas) on scraps of paper (including used envelopes, paper bags, napkins, and ticket stubs, among other fragments). He would then type up some of these notes into more formal diary entries, but most of them remained, in his word, "scribblings." Diary keeping eventually became one of his primary activities, along with box construction, collage, research, and collecting.

By this time, his art work was beginning to sell, yet he was not able to live from these sales alone. During the 1940s, he primarily supported himself by doing freelance work for magazines such as Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and Good Housekeeping, supplying illustrations from his picture collection and designing covers and layouts. He also regularly contributed pieces to View and Dance Index. His notable contributions to View included "Enchanted Wanderer: Excerpt from a Journey Album for Hedy Lamarr" (December 1941), "Story Without a Name - for Max Ernst" (April 1942), and "The Crystal Cage [portrait of Berenice]" (January 1943). His projects for Dance Index included various collage-covers, essays, and thematic issues, such as the Summer 1944 issue, which comprised a 22-page tribute to the Romantic ballerinas, Taglioni, Carlotta Grisi, Cerrito, and Fanny Elssler. To supplement his income, Cornell also held brief positions at an electronics plant, the Allied Control Company, Inc. (in 1943), and at a nursery, the Garden Centre (in 1944).

In 1942, Cornell created one of his more memorable works, Medici Slot Machine, embarking upon a large series of Medici boxes in which he utilized reproductions of portraits by Italian Renaissance artists, such as Sofonisba Anguissola and Pinturicchio. His other boxes from this time period explored themes ranging from ballet, as in A Pantry Ballet (for Jacques Offenbach) (1942), to doomed love, as in Paolo and Francesca (1943-48), to nature, as in the Sand Boxes (1940s) and Sand Fountains (1950s). Cornell often created boxes in series, producing variations on a theme with variants that differed significantly or only slightly. Over the years, series included: Pink Palaces, Pharmacies, Habitats, Aviaries, Dovecotes, Hotels, Observatories, and Night Skies, among others.

In late 1945, Cornell joined the Hugo Gallery, which was run by Alexander Iolas, and a year later mounted the show, "Romantic Museum at the Hugo Gallery: Portraits of Women by Joseph Cornell" (December 1946). He designed the exhibition catalog for this show, which consisted of portraits - box constructions, objects, and "dossiers" - of the opera singers, Giuditta Pasta and Maria Malibran, the ballerinas, Taglioni and Cerrito, and the actresses, Eleanora Duse, Jeanne Eagels, Greta Garbo, and Jennifer Jones, and which also featured one of his most famous boxes, Untitled (Penny Arcade Portrait of Lauren Bacall) (1945-46).

In 1949, Cornell joined the Egan Gallery, which was run by Charles Egan. Around this time, he began creating his series of Aviary boxes, which explored the symbolism of birds and birdcages. He showed twenty-six of these box constructions in his first exhibition at the Egan Gallery, "Aviary by Joseph Cornell" (December 1949-January 1950). He created other series of whitewashed boxes, including the Dovecote series and a small group relating to the poet, Emily Dickinson. He then went on to explore the themes of astronomy and celestial navigation in the Observatory, Night Skies, and Hotel series. Works from these series were featured in his two remaining shows at the Egan Gallery, "Night Songs and Other Work" (December 1950-January 1951) and "Night Voyage" (February-March 1953). In the fall of 1953, sparked by seeing the painting, Figure Seated in a Cafe (1914), Cornell embarked upon a major series of bird constructions dedicated to the Cubist artist, Juan Gris. Notably, these were the only boxes he explicitly dedicated to another artist.

Over the next couple of years, Cornell's work was exhibited across the country. In 1955, he joined the Stable Gallery, which was run by Eleanor Ward. His first one-man show there, in the winter of 1955-56, was "Winter Night Skies," which featured various box constructions based on constellations. During the mid-1950s, he embarked upon a series of Sand Fountains (vertical standing boxes featuring a broken glass and sand that flowed through it when turned upside down), elaborating upon his earlier Sand Boxes (1940s). These boxes along with some of his other latest works, including the Bleriot boxes and the Space Object boxes (which comprised his final box series), were exhibited in his second and last show at the Stable Gallery, "Selected Works" (December 1957).

After leaving the Stable Gallery, Cornell had several dealers handle his work rather than allowing any one to assume too much control. Dealers included Richard Feigen (in Chicago and then in New York) and Irving Blum (in California), among others. Throughout his career, Cornell never liked selling his boxes. He was always reluctant to let his work go and became increasingly uneasy about the growing status of his work as a commodity. He preferred instead to make gifts of his art work to friends and individuals he admired (especially female ones).

In the mid-1950s, Cornell returned to making films. Rather than just splicing together found images as he had in his films of the 1930s, he began to collaborate with others to shoot original footage. He worked with the experimental filmmaker, Stan Brakhage, on two films, one about the Third Ave El which was about to be torn down ( Wonder Ring or Gnir Rednow) and the other about an old house in Cornell's neighborhood that was slated for demolition ( Centuries of June). Cornell then went on to make nine films with the filmmaker, Rudy Burckhardt, including Aviary, A Legend for Fountains, and Nymphlight, among others. In the late 1960s, he enlisted the help of Larry Jordan, who was also a filmmaker, in completing the trilogy of collage-films that he had begun in the 1930s.

Along with creating works of art and making films, Cornell was involved in a host of other creative endeavors throughout his career as an artist. These included: keeping a diary, which was for him another medium for exploring and expressing the themes, ideas, and concerns recurrent in his art work; carrying out "explorations," which typically involved conducting research, collecting material, and compiling files on persons or topics of interest to him; and other projects, such as publishing pamphlets (or brochures) dedicated to the nineteenth-century opera singers, Malibran and Giulia Grisi. Cornell's "explorations" clearly informed his artwork, but they were also works of art in and of themselves. He continually sought to share this work with an audience and twice had the opportunity to do so, when he exhibited versions of his Portrait of Ondine "exploration" at the Museum of Modern Art in 1945 and at the Wittenborn Bookstore in 1956.

Around the mid-1950s, Cornell returned to making collages as independent works of art. Unlike his earlier ones, which were composed from cutouts of black-and-white engravings, his latest collages were made with color images cut out of contemporary magazines and books. In these collages, he explored many of the same themes and preoccupations of his box constructions, including birds, as in Couleur de Peche (1967) and Untitled (Vierge Vivace) (1970), children's games, as in the Penny Arcade series (1960s), and actresses, as in The Sister Shades (1956). Towards the end of his career, collage became his principal medium.

By this time, Cornell was taking fewer trips into Manhattan. Instead, he spent more time at home or traveled only so far as downtown Flushing, where he frequented the public library, hunted for material in stores, such as Woolworth's, and passed time in the coffee-shops on Main Street. From this time on, he kept his diary with increasing regularity, taking down notations with more frequency and creating entries of greater length.

In 1961, fourteen of Cornell's boxes, including Medici Slot Machine, were exhibited as part of the "The Art of Assemblage" show at the Museum of Modern Art. As his biographer notes, Cornell came to view this show "as a turning point in his creative life," marking the "[fall] off in his work" that took place in the sixties (Solomon 271-2). He continued to work on boxes that he had begun long before, but, after this time, rarely if ever constructed new ones. Instead, he focused on making collages and became increasingly concerned with other projects, such as organizing his basement workshop, for which he hired various "helpers" or assistants (mostly young women) over the years. He also became more and more prone to obsessions (or preoccupations, as he called them) with various young women that he encountered both in fantasy (actresses on stage or in films) and in real life (working girls in the city, "teeners" on Main Street, or his female visitors and "helpers" at home). These preoccupations infused his diary writings, and inspired the keeping of "dossiers" on particular individuals and the creation of various collages dedicated to others, including most notably the Penny Arcade series dedicated to Joyce Hunter (or "Tina," as he referred to her in his writings).

After Robert's death in February 1965, Cornell created a series of collages in his memory, many of which incorporated his brother's drawings of animal characters. In January 1966, he exhibited some of these collages, alongside a selection of Robert's drawings, in a show at the Robert Schoelkopf Gallery, "Robert Cornell: Memorial Exhibition." In 1967, there were two retrospective exhibitions of Cornell's work, "An Exhibition of Works by Joseph Cornell" at the Pasadena Art Museum and "Joseph Cornell" at the Guggenheim Museum. By now, Cornell was receiving considerable public recognition for his work. He had received his first profile (by Howard Griffin) in the December 1957 issue of Art News and, ten years later, was treated to a 12-page spread (by David Bourdon) in the December 1967 issue of Life magazine. He was also the recipient of various prizes for his art work, including the M.V Kohnstamm Prize at the Art Institute of Chicago's "62nd American Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture" in 1957 and the winning prize in India's first Triennale of Contemporary World Art in 1968.

In the last years of his life (especially from the time of his mother's death in the fall of 1966), Cornell suffered from severe depression and loneliness, and withdrew even further from the outside world. However, he still maintained relationships with various young friends and artists, who frequently visited Utopia Parkway and/or served as one of his assistants. He became more and more interested in sharing his work with a younger audience and his last two exhibitions in 1972 were expressly for children, "A Joseph Cornell Exhibition for Children" at the Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture and "Joseph Cornell - Collages and Boxes" at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York.

Cornell continued to work until the end of his life, "refurbishing" earlier boxes and creating memorial collages. Following prostate surgery in June 1972, he spent several months recuperating with family in Westhampton before returning to Utopia Parkway in November. He died of heart failure at home on December 29, 1972.

The biographical note draws heavily from Deborah Solomon's biography, Utopia Parkway: The Life and Work of Joseph Cornell (New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 1997), and Diane Waldman's book, Joseph Cornell: Master of Dreams (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2002).

Related Material:

The Archives holds several collections of different provenance that relate to Joseph Cornell, including the small collections of Allison Delarue (comprised of two letters from Cornell, available on reel 2803), Muriel Streeter Schwartz (comprised of two letters from Cornell, available on reel 4283), Wayne Andrews (comprised of letters from Cornell and printed material), and Marion Netter (comprised of items received from Cornell). In addition, photographs of Cornell can be found amongst the Hans Namuth photographs and papers. Also found within the Archives is a transcribed interview of Cornell's sister, Elizabeth Cornell Benton, conducted on April 21, 1976 as part of the oral history program.

Separated Material:

The bulk of Cornell's source material resides in the Joseph Cornell Study Center, Smithsonian American Art Museum, along with his library and record collection. Cornell's sister, Betty Cornell Benton, donated a portion of this material directly to SAAM (then known as the National Museum of American Art), occasioning the creation of the Study Center circa 1978. The bulk of the source material and library that she donated to AAA, including approximately 66 linear feet of three-dimensional and non-textual source material and 50 linear feet of books, was transferred to the Study Center in 1994 and 1995.

Originals of loaned material returned to the donor after microfilming include: some unidentified and miscellaneous correspondence; significant correspondence between Joseph Cornell and Helen S. Cornell; significant correspondence between Helen S. Cornell, family members and others; and some of Joseph Cornell's family correspondence and general correspondence from the Robert Cornell papers. The loaned material is available on microfilm reels 1055-1058 but is not described further in the Series Descriptions/Container Listing of this finding aid.

Provenance:

The Joseph Cornell papers were donated and microfilmed in several installments from 1974 to 1989 by Joseph Cornell's sister, Betty Cornell Benton. Most, but not all, of the correspondence, which was loaned for microfilming in 1974, was subsequently donated in 1989. Additional material was donated in 2004 by the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation.

Restrictions:

Use of the original papers requires an appointment.

Rights:

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

Topic:

Celebrities  Search this

Assemblage (Art)  Search this

Found objects (Art)  Search this

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

Assemblage artists -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this

Works of art  Search this

Genre/Form:

Photographs

Citation:

Joseph Cornell papers, 1804-1986, bulk 1939-1972. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Sponsor:

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

Identifier:

AAA.cornjose

See more items in:

Joseph Cornell papers

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9ff67e8a6-6a88-40f0-9df4-537c9826eed7

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-aaa-cornjose

Creator:

Kraushaar Galleries  Search this

Subject:

Wilson, Ralph L.  Search this

Fausett, Dean  Search this

Lasker, Joe  Search this

Murdock, Roland P.  Search this

Phillips, Duncan  Search this

Kuhn, Walt  Search this

Smith, Vernon  Search this

Robinson, Boardman  Search this

Lechay, James  Search this

Laurent, Robert  Search this

Hartell, John  Search this

Cantene, David  Search this

Schnakenberg, H. E. (Henry Ernest)  Search this

Kraushaar, Antoinette M.  Search this

Harrison, Preston  Search this

Heliker, John  Search this

Williams, Esther  Search this

Luks, George Benjamin  Search this

Glackens, Edith  Search this

Navas, Elizabeth S.  Search this

DeLonga, Leonard  Search this

Evett, Kenneth Warnock  Search this

Halberstadt, Ernst  Search this

Prendergast, Maurice Brazil  Search this

Morris, Carl  Search this

Ruellan, Andrée  Search this

Smalley, David  Search this

Flannery, Vaughn  Search this

Cowles, Russell  Search this

Penney, James  Search this

Beal, Gifford  Search this

Bacon, Peggy  Search this

Beal, Reynolds  Search this

Hardy, Thomas  Search this

Glackens, William J.  Search this

Prendergast, Charles  Search this

Demuth, Charles  Search this

Albrizio, Humbert  Search this

Lachaise, Gaston  Search this

Bignou, Etienne  Search this

Kirsch, Frederick D. (Frederick Dwight)  Search this

Sloan, John  Search this

Allard, J.  Search this

Bouché, Louis  Search this

Juley, Peter A.  Search this

Stanley, Alix W.  Search this

Arnest, Bernard  Search this

Brueming, Karen  Search this

Miller, Harriette  Search this

Kraushaar, John F.  Search this

Guillaume, Paul  Search this

Art Institute of Chicago  Search this

Toledo Museum of Art  Search this

Cleveland Museum of Art  Search this

Wichita Art Museum  Search this

Whitney Museum of American Art  Search this

New Britain Institute. Art Museum  Search this

Ernest Brown and Co.  Search this

Carnegie Institute  Search this

University of Nebraska--Lincoln. Department of Art  Search this

Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.)  Search this

Type:

Photographs

Sketches

Drawings

Exhibition catalogs

Financial records

Notes

Sketchbooks

Citation:

Kraushaar Galleries records, 1877-2006. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Topic:

Works of art  Search this

Art, American  Search this

Artists -- United States  Search this

Depressions -- 1929  Search this

Theme:

Art Gallery Records  Search this

Art Market  Search this

Record number:

(DSI-AAA_CollID)7781

(DSI-AAA_SIRISBib)209946

AAA_collcode_kraugall

Theme:

Art Gallery Records

Art Market

Data Source:

Archives of American Art

EDAN-URL:

edanmdm:AAADCD_coll_209946

Creator:

Dove, Arthur Garfield, 1880-1946  Search this

Names:

Phillips, Duncan, 1886-1966  Search this

Stieglitz, Alfred, 1864-1946  Search this

Torr, Helen, 1886-1967  Search this

Extent:

3 Linear feet

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Audiotapes

Photographs

Diaries

Sketches

Date:

1905-1975

Summary:

The papers of artists Arthur and Helen Torr Dove measure 3 linear feet and date from 1905 to 1975, with the bulk of material dating from 1920 to 1946. Arthur Dove's life as an artist, and his life with the artist Helen Torr, are documented in biographical narratives, personal documents, an audio recording, correspondence, diaries, essays, poetry, notes, exhibition catalogs, clippings, magazine illustrations, pamphlets, receipts, an accounting ledger, tax records, sketches, and photographs.

Scope and Content Note:

The papers of Arthur and Helen Torr Dove measure 3 linear feet and date from 1905 to 1975, with the bulk of material dating from 1920 to 1946. Arthur Dove's life as an artist, and his life with the artist Helen Torr, are documented in biographical narratives, personal documents, an audio recording, correspondence, diaries, essays, poetry, notes, exhibition catalogs, clippings, magazine illustrations, pamphlets, receipts, an accounting ledger, tax records, sketches, and photographs.

Biographical Materials include a last will and testament, biographical narratives, and other official documents, as well as an audio recording of an interview with William Dove made around 1961 by George Wolfer. Correspondence includes letters from friends, clients, other artists, and Dove's patron Duncan Phillips. There is also correspondence with family members Helen Torr and Paul Dove. Drafts of outgoing letters from Dove to various correspondents including Phillips and Alfred Stieglitz are found.

Writings are extensive and include diaries, autobiographical essays, essays about art, artists, and other subjects, and poetry by Arthur Dove; as well as essays, reminiscences, and notes of Helen Torr. Printed Materials include exhibition catalogs for Dove's shows and the shows of other artists in the Stieglitz Circle, examples of Dove's early magazine illustration work, newspaper reviews of Dove's exhibitions, and various pamphlets related to modern art. Personal Business Records include an accounting ledger of the Doves' expenses, sales receipts, tax records, and an undated art inventory. Artwork consists of ten items, mostly sketches in pencil, watercolor, ink, and colored pencil. Photographs are undated and unidentified, but depict mostly family, homes, and coastal scenes.

Arrangement:

The collection is arranged into 7 series:

Missing Title

Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1928-1937, circa 1961 (Box 1; 2 folders)

Series 2: Correspondence, circa 1920-1974 (Box 1; 0.8 linear feet)

Series 3: Writings, circa 1924-1945 (Boxes 1-3; 1.5 linear feet)

Series 4: Printed Materials, circa 1905-1975 (Box 3; 0.3 linear feet)

Series 5: Personal Business Records, circa 1921-1965 (Box 3; 0.3 linear feet)

Series 6: Artwork, undated (Box 3; 1 folder)

Series 7: Photographs, 1909, undated (Box 3; 4 folders)

Biographical Note:

Arthur Garfield Dove was an early twentieth-century painter, collagist, and illustrator who was one of the first American artists to embrace abstraction in art. He was a part of Alfred Stieglitz's Circle of modern American artists introduced at Stieglitz's 291 Gallery along with John Marin and Georgia O'Keeffe. Dove spent his career developing his own idiosyncratic style of formal abstraction in painting based on his ideas about nature, feeling, and pure form, and characterized by experimentation with color, composition, and materials.

Born in Canandiagua, NY in 1880, Dove grew up in the small, rural town of Geneva, NY. He was first exposed to art by a local farmer and painter named Newton Weatherly, who gave him canvas and paint, and who Dove himself cited as an early influence. Dove went to Cornell University to study law, but soon shifted to art and illustration. He graduated in 1903 and quickly became a success as a magazine illustrator, working for Collier's, McClure's, St. Nicholas, and The Illustrated Sporting News, among other publications. In 1904, he married Florence Dorsey, a Geneva woman, and they lived in New York City. Their son, William Dove, was born in 1910.

In 1908 the couple traveled to Paris to enable Dove to pursue his interest in painting. In Paris, he met Alfred Maurer, Jo Davidson, and other American artists living abroad. The influence of his European and expatriate contemporaries would prove to be a lasting one, exposing him to ideas about abstraction and experimentation that he would develop in his work for the rest of his life.

Soon after Dove's return to the United States, he met Alfred Stieglitz and began a lifelong friendship. Stieglitz ran the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession, which came to be known as 291, in New York. His daring, avant-garde exhibitions of both European and American modern art at 291 provided a venue and gathering-place for progressive American artists that was unique for its time. Dove's first solo exhibition at 291 was held in 1912, and consisted of ten pastel drawings that have come to be known as the "Ten Commandments." The attention it received established Dove as a prominent abstract painter.

Around 1920, Dove met another Westport artist named Helen S. Torr, also known as Reds. A Philadelphia-born painter who had studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Reds was married at the time to the cartoonist Clive Weed. Torr and Dove eventually left their unhappy marriages and began a life together, moving to a houseboat docked in Manhattan. In 1922, they moved to Halesite, Long Island, New York, where Dove's artwork once again flourished. By the mid-1920s, he was exhibiting regularly, paralleled by the rise of Stieglitz's new Intimate Gallery in 1925. His work continued to explore abstraction and organic forms, and, in addition to paintings, he produced assemblages made of found materials.

Although a building teardown brought the Intimate Gallery to a sudden end in 1929, the financial support of friends enabled Alfred Stieglitz to open An American Place soon thereafter. There Stieglitz would focus on the work of a few American artists, including Dove, John Marin, and Georgia O'Keeffe. Helen Torr was also exhibited at An American Place, in a group show with Arthur in 1933. It was also at this gallery that the art collector Duncan Phillips was introduced to Dove's artwork. Phillips' interest in Dove grew into an ongoing patronage of Dove that would see them through the Depression and periods of serious illness in the 1930s and 1940s. Their arrangement, whereby Phillips had first refusal on all of Dove's new artwork, enabled him to gradually assemble the largest collection of Dove's work held anywhere.

In 1938, while on a trip to New York to attend his exhibition, Dove became suddenly ill. Although he recovered somewhat that year, his health never entirely returned to normal, and he spent long periods during what remained of his life housebound and in a wheelchair. He and Reds bought a home in Centreport, on Long Island, where they would stay the rest of his life. In 1939 he was so ill that neither his family nor Stieglitz thought he would ever paint again. Despite his physical limitations, he continued to work, turning to the less physically strenuous media of drawing and watercolor, and produced new work for five solo exhibitions in the 1940s. His work of this period embraces pure abstraction more fully than ever, and is regarded by some to be a culmination or crystallization of his singular style and approach to abstract painting.

Arthur Dove suffered a stroke in 1946 and died that November, just four months after his lifelong friend and mentor Alfred Stieglitz died of a heart attack. Reds lived until 1967 in their Centreport home. Dove's importance to American art has since been recognized with more than a dozen retrospective exhibitions at major museums and galleries.

This biography relied heavily on the monograph Arthur Dove: Life and Work, with a Catalogue Raisonné (1984) by Ann Lee Morgan.

Separated Material:

The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming. Reel 725 contains Arthur Dove's letters from Alfred Stieglitz (1918-1946) and Georgia O'Keeffe (1921-1948), and two letters from William Einstein (1937). The original letters were later donated to the Beinecke Library at Yale University, which holds the Stieglitz/O'Keeffe Archives. Reel 2803 contains photocopies of Arthur Dove's card catalog of paintings that were discarded after microfilming. This material is not described in the collection container inventory.

Provenance:

The papers of Arthur and Helen Torr Dove were loaned to the Archives of American Art by Arthur Dove's son, William Dove, for microfilming in several increments between 1970 and 1975. The papers were later donated to the Archives by William Dove via the Terry Distenfass Gallery of New York City in multiple accessions between 1982 and 1989, with two major exceptions: 177 letters from Alfred Stieglitz, sixteen letters from Georgia O'Keeffe, and two letters from William Einstein; and Arthur Dove's card catalog of paintings, a photocopy of which had been loaned for microfilming. The papers were digitized in 2006.

Restrictions:

The collection is open for research. Microfilmed and digitized portions must be consulted on microfilm or the Archives website. Use of unmicrofilmed, undigitized portion 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:

Painters -- New York (State)  Search this

Collagists -- New York (State)  Search this

Topic:

Works of art  Search this

Women artists  Search this

Women painters  Search this

Genre/Form:

Audiotapes

Photographs

Diaries

Sketches

Citation:

Arthur and Helen Torr Dove papers, 1905-1975. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Sponsor:

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

Identifier:

AAA.dovearth

See more items in:

Arthur and Helen Torr Dove papers

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw903513152-b2fa-4bc4-b0fb-de7d7f0728be

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-aaa-dovearth

Creator:

Kraushaar Galleries  Search this

Names:

Art Institute of Chicago  Search this

Carnegie Institute  Search this

Cleveland Museum of Art  Search this

Ernest Brown and Co.  Search this

Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.)  Search this

New Britain Institute. Art Museum  Search this

Toledo Museum of Art  Search this

University of Nebraska--Lincoln. Department of Art  Search this

Whitney Museum of American Art  Search this

Wichita Art Museum  Search this

Albrizio, Humbert, 1901-1970  Search this

Allard, J.  Search this

Arnest, Bernard, 1917-  Search this

Bacon, Peggy, 1895-1987  Search this

Beal, Gifford, 1879-1956  Search this

Beal, Reynolds, 1866-1951  Search this

Bignou, Etienne  Search this

Bouché, Louis, 1896-1969  Search this

Brueming, Karen  Search this

Cantene, David  Search this

Cowles, Russell, 1887-1979  Search this

DeLonga, Leonard  Search this

Demuth, Charles, 1883-1935  Search this

Evett, Kenneth Warnock, 1913-  Search this

Fausett, Dean, 1913-  Search this

Flannery, Vaughn  Search this

Glackens, Edith  Search this

Glackens, William J., 1870-1938  Search this

Guillaume, Paul, 1891-1934  Search this

Halberstadt, Ernst, 1910-1987  Search this

Hardy, Thomas, 1921-  Search this

Harrison, Preston  Search this

Hartell, John  Search this

Heliker, John, 1909-2000  Search this

Juley, Peter A., 1862-1937  Search this

Kirsch, Frederick D. (Frederick Dwight), b. 1899  Search this

Kraushaar, Antoinette M., 1902-1992  Search this

Kraushaar, John F., 1871-1946  Search this

Kuhn, Walt, 1877-1949  Search this

Lachaise, Gaston, 1882-1935  Search this

Lasker, Joe  Search this

Laurent, Robert, 1890-1970  Search this

Lechay, James  Search this

Luks, George Benjamin, 1867-1933  Search this

Miller, Harriette  Search this

Morris, Carl, 1911-1993  Search this

Murdock, Roland P. -- Art collections  Search this

Navas, Elizabeth S., 1885-1979  Search this

Penney, James, 1910-1982  Search this

Phillips, Duncan, 1886-1966  Search this

Prendergast, Charles, 1863-1948  Search this

Prendergast, Maurice Brazil, 1858-1924  Search this

Robinson, Boardman, 1876-1952  Search this

Ruellan, Andrée, 1905-2006  Search this

Schnakenberg, H. E. (Henry Ernest), 1892-1970  Search this

Sloan, John, 1871-1951  Search this

Smalley, David, 1940-  Search this

Smith, Vernon, 1894-1969  Search this

Stanley, Alix W.  Search this

Williams, Esther, 1907-1969  Search this

Wilson, Ralph L.  Search this

Extent:

106.3 Linear feet

0.181 Gigabytes

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Gigabytes

Photographs

Sketches

Drawings

Exhibition catalogs

Financial records

Notes

Sketchbooks

Date:

1877-2006

Summary:

The records of New York City Kraushaar Galleries measure 106.3 linear feet and 0.181 GB and date from 1877 to 2006. Three-fourths of the collection documents the gallery's handling of contemporary American paintings, drawings, and sculpture through correspondence with artists, private collectors, museums, galleries, and other art institutions, interspersed with scattered exhibition catalogs and other materials. Also included are John F. Kraushaar's estate records; artists' files; financial ledgers documenting sales and gallery transactions; consignment and loan records; photographs of artwork; sketchbooks and drawings by James Penney, Louis Bouché, and others; and two scrapbooks.

Scope and Content Note:

The records of New York City Kraushaar Galleries measure 106.3 linear feet and 0.181 GB and date from 1877 to 2006. Three-fourths of the collection documents the gallery's handling of contemporary American paintings, drawings, and sculpture through correspondence with artists, private collectors, museums, galleries, and other art institutions, interspersed with scattered exhibition catalogs and other materials. Also included are John F. Kraushaar's estate records; artists' files; financial ledgers documenting sales and gallery transactions; consignment and loan records; photographs of artwork; sketchbooks and drawings by James Penney, Louis Bouché, and others; and two scrapbooks.

The collection reflects all activities conducted in the day-to-day administration of the business and relates to the acquisition, consignment, loan, sale, and exhibition of art by twentieth-century American artists and European artists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The records document specific arrangements for loans and exhibitions, artist-dealer relations, relationships with public and private collectors, interaction with the art dealer community, and routine requests for information.

Much of the artist correspondence relates to practical arrangements for exhibitions of artwork, but in many cases also documents the development of individual artists and the effect of their relationship with the galleries on their ability to produce marketable work. Many of the artists represented in the collection also wrote lengthy letters, particularly to Antoinette Kraushaar, describing their attitudes to their work and providing insight into how that work was shaped by events in their personal lives.

The bulk of the correspondence with museums and institutions concerns practical arrangements for loans of artwork and provides detailed information about market prices and insurance values. It offers insight into the general climate of opinion toward particular artists and styles at any given time. Correspondence with other galleries and dealers also concerns loans and sales of artwork but, due to the typically cordial and cooperative nature of relations between the Kraushaars and their contemporaries, may also provide a more extensive and personal view of relationships and trends in the art dealer community. Similarly, while a portion of the correspondence with private collectors concerns routine requests for information and loans of art on approval, there is also substantive correspondence documenting the development of the artistic vision of collectors such as Preston Harrison, Elizabeth S. Navas, and Duncan Phillips.

From 1917 to the mid-1930s correspondence was handled mainly by John Kraushaar, and the bulk of that relating to European galleries and European art can be found during these years. Although there are only a handful of materials before 1926, records from the 1920s and 1930s document Kraushaar Galleries' growing commitment to American artists and the climate of the market for their work. The financial hardships of the Depression are vividly depicted in the numerous letters written during the 1930s seeking payment on accounts receivable and requesting extensions on accounts payable.

From the mid-1930s to 1968 correspondence was conducted primarily by Antoinette Kraushaar and, to some degree, by her assistants in later years. As the galleries' focus on American art increased, so did the volume of correspondence with artists, and the collection is particularly rich during the 1940s and early 1960s. In later years to 2006, most of the correspondence was conducted by Carol Pesner and gallery assistants.

The exhibition catalogs included in the collection do not represent a complete set. Those found are working copies used by the galleries in preparation for exhibitions and are often annotated with prices or insurance values. Additional exhibition catalogs can be found on the microfilm described in the Administrative Information section of this finding aid.

The majority of Kraushaar Galleries' insurance records can be found in files relating to the company Wm. E. Goodridge & Son, later known as Wm. E. Goodridge, Inc. Shipping and transportation records are generally filed under the names of the companies used for such transactions and can primarily be found under Davies, Turner & Co., Hudson Forwarding & Shipping Co., Railway Express Agency, Inc., and W. S. Budworth & Son, and to a lesser degree under American Railway Express Company, Arthur Lenars & Cie., C. B. Richard & Co., De La Rancheraye & Co., Hayes Storage, Packing & Removal Service, Inc., and Willis, Faber & Co. Ltd.

The 2008-2022 additions include correspondence similar in content and with correspondents as described above, as well as some artists' Christmas cards. However, the bulk of the additional correspondence dates from 1965-1999, with a handful of miscellaneous correspondence from 1877 to the mid-twentieth century. Also found are financial and business records including records from the closing of the John F. Kraushaar estate; over 40 ledgers providing nearly complete documentation of the gallery's sales and transactions from its establishment to 1946; incoming consignment records, including account statements and correspondence with artists, from the 1940s to 2006; and outgoing consignment and loan records from 1899-2006. The gallery's representation of its stable of artists is documented through artists' files containing printed and digital materials, exhibition catalogs and announcements, price lists, and biographical information, as well as containers of photographs and negatives of artwork. Also found is a 1933 sketchbook by James Penney, drawings and sketchbooks by Louis Bouché, and two scrapbooks.

See Appendix for a list of Kraushaar Galleries exhibitions

Arrangement:

Kraushaar Galleries generally filed all types of records together with correspondence in a combination of alphabetical and chronological files. Thus financial records, insurance records, receipts, photographs, and exhibition catalogs can be found interfiled with general correspondence in Series 1-3. A group of photographs of artwork maintained separately by Kraushaar Galleries constitutes Series 4. Series 6 was minimally processed separately from Series 1-5, and the arrangement reflects the original order of the addition for the most part.

Records in Series 1-3 were originally filed alphabetically by name of correspondent and then by month, by a span of several months, or by year. The alphabetical arrangement has been retained, but to facilitate access the collection was rearranged so that correspondence was collated by year. From 1901 to 1944 outgoing letters and incoming letters are filed separately; in 1945 some outgoing letters are filed separately, with the bulk of the material filed together as correspondence; from 1946 to 1968 incoming and outgoing letters are filed together as correspondence.

For Series 1-3 organizations or individuals represented by at least 15 letters are filed in separate file folders. All other correspondents are arranged in general files by letters of the alphabet, with selected correspondents and subjects noted in parentheses after the folder title.

Series 2 and several boxes in Series 3 contain a variety of notes and receipts received and created by Kraushaar Galleries that were originally unfoldered. The notes can be found in folders adjacent to the receipts and include handwritten notes of customer names and addresses, financial notes and calculations, catalogs of exhibitions, invitations and announcements to exhibitions frequently used as note paper, and other miscellany. Although most of the miscellaneous notes are undated, they are filed, with the receipts, at the end of the year to which they appear to relate. For the years 1929 and 1930 Kraushaar Galleries created separate alphabetical files for some of the billing statements received from other businesses. These have been filed adjacent to "Miscellaneous Notes" and "Receipts" in the appropriate years.

Kraushaar Galleries tended to file correspondence with businesses alphabetically according to the letter of the last name: for example, Wm. E. Goodridge & Son would be filed under G rather than W.

Missing Title

Series 1: Outgoing Letters, 1920-1945 (boxes 1-9; 9 linear ft.)

Series 2: Incoming Letters (boxes 10-26; 16.25 linear ft.)

Series 3: Correspondence, 1945-1968 (boxes 26-53; 27.75 linear ft.)

Series 4: Photographs, undated (box 54; 0.5 linear ft.)

Series 5: Artwork, [1926, 1938] (box 53; 2 items)

Series 6: Addition to the Kraushaar Galleries Records, 1877-2006 (boxes 55-99, 101-117, BV100; 52.3 linear feet, ER01-ER02; 0.181 GB)

Historical Note:

Charles W. Kraushaar established Kraushaar Galleries in 1885 as a small store on Broadway near Thirty-first Street in New York City. Initially the store sold artist materials, photogravures, and reproductions. Drawing on his previous experience working with William Schause, a leading dealer in European paintings, Kraushaar soon progressed to selling original watercolors, paintings, and engravings by European artists, primarily landscapes of the Barbizon School.

In 1901 Kraushaar moved the business to 260 Fifth Avenue and with the assistance of his brother, John F. Kraushaar, began adding more modern French and American painters to the inventory. Of particular interest to John Kraushaar was the group of American realists known as "The Eight," who had held a self-selected, self-organized exhibition at the Macbeth Gallery in 1908. The Eight were Arthur B. Davies, William Glackens, Robert Henri, Ernest Lawson, George Luks, Maurice Prendergast, Everett Shinn, and John Sloan. Luks, whom John Kraushaar met around 1902, was probably the first major American artist represented at Kraushaar Galleries. In 1917 John Sloan was invited to hold his first one-person show at the galleries despite accusations that his exhibition at the Whitney Studio the previous year had represented a brutal depiction of life that lacked subtlety and sensitivity.

When Charles Kraushaar died suddenly in 1917, John assumed control of the galleries and soon enlisted the assistance of his daughter, Antoinette Kraushaar. Antoinette had suffered a bout of pneumonia during the influenza epidemic of 1918 that cut short her education; grooming her for a career in the galleries was a logical step. Following the end of the First World War, Kraushaar resumed his buying trips to Europe, often accompanied by Antoinette, and exhibited works by European artists such as André Derain, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Vincent Van Gogh. However, it was the increasing commitment to contemporary American artists for which the galleries would become best known. In addition to The Eight, the Kraushaars developed their inventory of American paintings and etchings with exhibitions of work by artists such as Gifford Beal, Charles Demuth, Guy Pène Du Bois, Gaston Lachaise, Jerome Myers, Charles Prendergast, and Henry Schnakenberg.

Returning from a buying trip to Europe in 1929, John Kraushaar wrote to California collector Preston Harrision on July 26 that "the prices over there, especially for modern pictures are astounding." Nevertheless, Kraushaar believed that investing in modern art would yield benefits within the next five years, and he refused to be influenced by museums and critics outside of New York who were reluctant to agree. He exhibited a healthy disrespect for museum directors in general, whom he referred to in his letters to Harrision as "dead heads" who ought to be sent to different art centers of the world in order to "get in touch with what is going on there" (March 11, 1929).

Like most of its contemporaries, Kraushaar Galleries suffered considerably during the Depression of the 1930s and struggled to collect and, in turn, pay accounts due. On October 5, 1931, John Kraushaar confessed to H. S. Southam, "Business is very bad with us, and I know that you will treat it confidentially when I tell you that I have had to sacrifice a good part of my personal holdings to provide cash for my own business." By 1934 the rent on the galleries' current location at 680 Fifth Avenue, where Kraushaar had moved in 1919, was out of all proportion to the amount of business that was being generated. In 1936, a timely move to 730 Fifth Avenue allowed the family to effect substantial economies without a disproportionate loss of business.

During the 1930s, John Kraushaar's health began to fail, and he was frequently absent from the galleries. Consequently, Antoinette Kraushaar took on greater responsibility for the operation of the business with the assistance of her brother Charles. Although Antoinette was one of few women to hold such a prominent position in the art business at that time, there is no evidence in the records to suggest that artists or customers who had been accustomed to dealing with John Kraushaar had any difficulty accepting the transition in management from father to daughter.

Nevertheless, collecting accounts remained difficult, and although business had improved by 1938 it was now stymied by the threat of war in Europe. The warmth of relations between the Kraushaars and the artists they handled, and their colleagues, was crucial to Antoinette during these years. She repeatedly expressed her gratitude for their understanding and assistance in her letters as she struggled to meet financial obligations and operate the business in her father's absence, experimenting with different strategies as she evolved an approach that would sustain the business. In a letter to Gifford Beal dated August 6, 1941, she spoke of "hellish times" and stressed, "I have learned a great many things during the past few years and hope that we are groping our way towards a working solution of our own affairs at least."

While there is no question that Antoinette Kraushaar shared her father's genuine interest in contemporary American artists, the growing commitment to these artists that was forged during these years was driven in large part by necessity. By increasing her stock of American art and adding "younger painters of promise," she was able to sell work in a much broader price range. Consequently she could reach a wider audience and increase the likelihood that the business would remain solvent. This method of business also suited her personality far more than having a very specialized inventory of highly priced work, an approach that she confessed to J. Lionberger Davis on December 3, 1940, "requires a particular kind of temperament, and frankly I neither like it nor believe in it."

Throughout her career Antoinette imbued the business with her personal style. She understood that elitism alienated art buyers of moderate income, who constituted her bread and butter, and believed strongly that the gallery environment should not be intimidating to potential customers. She corresponded at length with old and new clients alike, patiently offering advice when asked and maintaining liberal policies for those who wished to borrow artwork on approval. She also participated in events that promoted efforts to make art available to a wider audience, such as a 1951 exhibition and seminar at the Florida Gulf Coast Art Center that addressed problems of buying and selling art. She was a two-time board member of the Art Dealers Association of America and considered the organization to be an important source of support for the gallery community.

In her dealings with other commercial galleries and art institutions, Antoinette Kraushaar exhibited a strong spirit of cooperation and enthusiasm, consistently lending art to small, locally owned businesses and community organizations as well as to more established galleries and world-class museums. She also developed long and mutually beneficial associations with the art departments of many educational institutions across the country, which proved to be fertile ground for young and upcoming artists.

Antoinette Kraushaar exhibited the same honesty and fairness in dealing with artists as her father had, expressing her opinions of their work in a forthright manner and maintaining a policy of always looking at the work of any artist who came to her. She understood the inherent difficulties of dealing with living artists but relished the excitement of encouraging their work and watching them develop. On November 14, 1947, in reply to a letter from the artist Bernard Arnest, in which Arnest apologized for burdening her with his worries, she reminded him, "One of the functions of a dealer is to act as a safety valve. Didn't you know?"

Although she would not retain artists indefinitely if she felt their work had deteriorated in quality, Antoinette often stressed that she was prepared to accept little or no initial financial return on the work of artists who showed promise or whose work held a particular appeal for her. In a letter of December 30, 1940, she reassured Walt Dehner that the lack of sales from his recent exhibition would not lead her to withdraw his work from the galleries. In typically unassuming style she advised Dehner to "go on painting whatever interests you. We have found that there is no recipe for success, either artistic or material."

In the early 1940s Antoinette Kraushaar implemented two changes to her inventory. Sensing that interest in sculpture was growing, she rearranged the space to give that medium more room and attention. The market for etchings had been declining since the late 1930s, and as she reduced this part of her inventory she also acted on her personal passion for drawings by opening a small gallery devoted to contemporary American drawings that were priced well within the range of most customers.

By the time Kraushaar Galleries moved to 32 East Fifty-seventh Street, late in 1944, American art had become the main focus of the business. While the long-standing interest in The Eight and other artists of that period continued, the galleries also handled contemporaries such as Louis Bouché, Samuel Brecher, John Heliker, Andrée Ruellan, and Karl Schrag. When John Kraushaar died in December 1946, Antoinette and Charles legally assumed control of the business. This partnership continued until 1950, when Antoinette assumed sole ownership of the gallery.

In 1955 the galleries moved uptown to smaller quarters at 1055 Madison Avenue, and Antoinette Kraushaar gave up the greater part of her print business. She was inundated with requests from artists to be allowed a chance to show her their work, and the galleries' exhibition schedule was always full. Contemporary artists she now represented included Bernard Arnest, Peggy Bacon, Russell Cowles, Kenneth Evett, William Dean Fausett, William Kienbusch, Joe Lasker, and George Rickey, and she continued to exhibit artwork by Charles Demuth, William Glackens, George Luks, Maurice Prendergast, Boardman Robinson, and John Sloan.

By the late 1950s the artists of the generation that her father had promoted in the early part of the century had died, but Antoinette Kraushaar had the pleasure of seeing his faith in them come to fruition. In a letter to Ralph Wilson dated October 20, 1958, she stated with satisfaction, "The Boston Museum is taking (at long last) a deep interest in (Maurice) Prendergast, and they will probably do an important show within the next year." Her correspondence with William Glackens's son Ira in the 1960s reveals the extent to which Glackens's popularity had grown since his death in 1938, and the market for John Sloan's work had been increasing steadily since the late 1920s. In 1962 James Penney summed up Kraushaar Galleries' success in the foreword of a catalog for an exhibition of paintings and sculpture the galleries had organized with the Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute at Hamilton College:

Missing Title

1854 -- Charles W. Kraushaar born

1871 -- John F. Kraushaar born

1885 -- Kraushaar Galleries established on Broadway near Thirty-first Street

1901 -- Galleries moved to 260 Fifth Avenue

1902 -- Antoinette Kraushaar born

1917 -- Charles W. Kraushaar died; John Kraushaar assumed control of the business, increasing inventory of modern American and European artists; first John Sloan exhibition

1919 -- Galleries moved to 680 Fifth Avenue

[1920] -- Antoinette Kraushaar began assisting with the business

1924 -- Maurice Prendergast died

1936 -- Galleries moved to the Heckscher Building at 730 Fifth Avenue

1938 -- William J. Glackens died

1944 -- Galleries moved to the Rolls Royce Building at 32 East Fifty-seventh Street; American art now the main focus of the business

1946 -- John Kraushaar died; Antoinette and Charles Kraushaar assumed control of the business

1948 -- Charles Prendergast died

1950 -- Antoinette Kraushaar assumed sole ownership of Kraushaar Galleries

1951 -- John Sloan died

1955 -- Galleries moved to 1055 Madison Avenue

1959 -- Carole Pesner joined Kraushaar Galleries

1964 -- Galleries extended into adjacent building

1981 -- Galleries moved to 724 Fifth Avenue

1986 -- Katherine Kaplan joined Kraushaar Galleries

1988 -- Antoinette Kraushaar retired from day-to-day management of the business

1992 -- Antoinette Kraushaar died

Appendix: List of Kraushaar Galleries Exhibitions:

The Archives of American Art does not hold a complete collection of catalogs from exhibitions held at Kraushaar Galleries; therefore the dates and titles of exhibitions provided in this appendix are inferred from a variety of sources including correspondence, notes, artists' files, and requests for advertising. Italics indicate that the exact title of an exhibition is known.

Missing Title

Jan., 1912 -- Paintings by Gustave Courbet and Henri Fantin-Latour

Apr., 1912 -- Paintings by Frank Brangwyn and Henri Le Sidaner

Jan., 1913 -- Paintings by Ignacio Zuloaga

May, 1913 -- Etchings by Seymour Haden

June, 1913 -- Paintings and Lithographs by Henri Fantin-Latour

Oct., 1913 -- Etchings by Frank Brangwyn

Jan., 1914 -- Ignacio Zuloaga

Mar., 1914 -- Paintings by Alphonse Legros

Apr., 1914 -- George Luks

May, 1914 -- Seven Modern Masterpieces including Gustave Courbet, Henri Fantin-Latour, Alphonse Legros, Matthew Maris, and James McNeill Whistler

undated, 1915 -- Paintings by John Lavery

Jan.-Feb., 1917 -- James McNeill Whistler's White Girl

Feb.-Mar., 1917 -- Paintings by Augustus Vincent Tack

Mar.-Apr., 1917 -- Paintings and Etchings by John Sloan

Summer, 1917 -- Works by French artists including A. L. Bouche, Josef Israels, Gaston La Touche, and Alphonse Legros

Oct., 1917 -- Monoprints by Salvatore Antonio Guarino

Nov., 1917 -- Etchings and Mezzotints by Albany E. Howarth

Jan., 1918 -- Recent Paintings by John Lavery

Jan.-Feb., 1918 -- Paintings and Watercolors by George Luks

Feb.-Mar., 1918 -- Paintings by Augustus Vincent Tack

Mar., 1918 -- Paintings by John Sloan

Apr.-May, 1918 -- Paintings by A. L. Bouche

May, 1918 -- War Paintings by J. Mortimer Block, Charles S. Chapman, Guy Pène Du Bois, H. B. Fuller, George Luks, W. Ritschell, John Sloan, and Augustus Vincent Tack

Oct., 1918 -- Oil Paintings by William Scott Pyle

Nov., 1918 -- Paintings by Gustave Courbet, Henri Fantin-Latour, Alphonse Legros, Edouard Manet, Antoine Vollon, James McNeill Whistler, and Ignacio Zuloaga, and bronzes by Antoine Louis Bayre, Emile Antoine Bourdelle, and Mahonri Young

Apr., 1919 -- Paintings and Monoprints by Salvatore Anthonio Guarino

Jan.-Feb., 1919 -- Decorative Panels and Other Paintings by Augustus Vincent Tack

Mar., 1919 -- Paintings and Drawings by John Sloan

May, 1919 -- Paintings by George Luks, Monticelli, and A. P. Ryder

Sept., 1919 -- Work by Jean Louis Forain

Oct., 1919 -- Etchings and Lithographs by Alphonse Legros

Jan., 1920 -- Recent Paintings by George Luks

Feb., 1920 -- Recent Paintings by John Sloan

Feb., 1920 -- Paintings by William Scott Pyle

Mar., 1920 -- Recent Paintings by Gifford Beal

Apr., 1920 -- Recent Paintings by Augustus Vincent Tack

Apr., 1920 -- Paintings by Henri Le Sidaner

Apr., 1920 -- Paintings and Drawings by Jean Louis Forain

Apr.-May, 1920 -- Paintings and Drawings by Jerome Myers

May, 1920 -- Paintings by Henrietta M. Shore

Jan., 1921 -- Paintings by French and American Artists

Jan.-Feb., 1921 -- Paintings by George Luks

Feb., 1921 -- New Paintings by Augustus Vincent Tack

Apr., 1921 -- John Sloan Retrospective

Summer, 1921 -- French and American Artists

Oct., 1921 -- Paintings of Mountford Coolidge

Oct., 1921 -- Works by Henri Fantin-Latour and Henri Le Sidaner

Nov., 1921 -- Frank Van Vleet Tompkins

Dec., 1921 -- Paintings and Bronzes by Modern Masters of American and European Art

Jan., 1922 -- Exhibition of Recent Paintings and Watercolors by George Luks

Feb., 1922 -- Paintings by Augustus Vincent Tack

Mar., 1922 -- Paintings and Watercolors by Gifford Beal

Apr., 1922 -- Exhibition of Paintings by Guy Pène Du Bois

Summer, 1922 -- Paintings by Modern Masters of American and European Art

Oct., 1922 -- Recent Paintings of the Maine Coast by George Luks

Jan., 1923 -- Exhibition of Paintings by George Luks

Feb., 1923 -- Paintings and Decorative Panels by Augustus Vincent Tack

Mar., 1923 -- Landscapes by Will Shuster

Mar., 1923 -- Paintings by Samuel Halpert

Apr., 1923 -- Marine Figures and Landscapes by Gifford Beal

Apr.-May, 1923 -- Paintings by John Sloan

May, 1923 -- Paintings by Frank Van Vleet Tompkins

June, 1923 -- Etchings by Marius A. J. Bauer

Oct., 1923 -- American Watercolors by Gifford Beal, Reynolds Beal, George Luks, Maurice Prendergast, and William Zorach

Dec., 1923 -- Etchings and Lithographs by Alphonse Legros

Dec., 1923 -- Paintings, Drawings, and Pastels by Charles Adolphe Bischoff

Jan., 1924 -- Paintings by Celebrated American Artists

Mar., 1924 -- Paintings and Drawings by Guy Pène Du Bois

Apr., 1924 -- New Paintings by George Luks

May, 1924 -- Paintings by Marjorie Phillips

Summer, 1924 -- French and American Modern Artists

Oct., 1924 -- Painting, Watercolors, and Sculpture by William Zorach

Nov., 1924 -- Watercolors by Seven Americans

Dec., 1924 -- French Paintings

Jan., 1925 -- Paintings by John Sloan

Jan.-Feb., 1925 -- Maurice Prendergast Memorial Exhibition

Mar., 1925 -- Plans and Photographs of Work in Landscape Architecture by Charles Downing Lay

Apr., 1925 -- Paintings by William J. Glackens

Dec., 1925 -- Watercolors by Gifford Beal, Reynolds Beal, Carl Broemel, Richard Lahey Jerome Myers, Maurice Prendergast, Henry E. Schnakenberg, Abraham Walkowitz, and William Zorach

undated, 1926 -- Lower Broadway by W. Walcot

Feb., 1926 -- Paintings by Paul Burlin

Feb., 1926 -- Portraits of Duncan Phillips, Esq. Charles B. Rogers, Esq. & The Hon. Elihu Root Painted by Augustus Vincent Tack

Mar., 1926 -- Paintings, Watercolors, and Drawings by Gifford Beal

Apr., 1926 -- John Sloan

Sept.-Oct., 1926 -- Exhibition of Etchings by C. R. W. Nevinson

Oct., 1926 -- Drawings, Etchings, and Lithographs by Nineteenth-Century French Artists

Oct., 1926 -- Paintings and Drawings by Mathieu Verdilhan

Dec., 1926 -- Exhibition of Watercolors by Gifford Beal, Reynolds Beal, Carl Broemel, Guy Pène Du Bois, Ernest Fiene, Samuel Halpert, Henry Keller, Louis Kronberg, Richard Lahey, Charles Lay, Jerome Myers, Maurice Prendergast, Henry

Dec., 1926 -- Schnakenberg, A. Walkowitz, Martha Walters, William Zorach

Jan., 1927 -- French Drawings and Prints

Feb., 1927 -- Paintings, Drawings, Etchings, and Lithographs by John Sloan

Mar., 1927 -- Gifford Beal

Mar.-Apr., 1927 -- Decorative Panels and Watercolors by Margarett Sargent

Mar.-Apr., 1927 -- Exhibition of Drawings and Lithographs of New York by Adriaan Lubbers

Apr., 1927 -- Paintings and Etchings by Walter Pach

Apr.-May, 1927 -- Paintings and Watercolors by Leopold Survage

Apr.-May, 1927 -- Etchings and Woodcuts by D. Galanis

May, 1927 -- Paintings by Guy Pène Du Bois

Summer, 1927 -- Paintings by American Artists

Summer, 1927 -- Paintings, Watercolors, and Drawings by Georges Braque, Honoré Daumier, Edgar Degas, André Derain, Henri Fantin-Latour, Jean Louis Forain, Constantin Guys, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Edouard Manet, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, Claude Monet, Morissot, Pablo Picasso, Camille Pissarro, Odilon Redon, Segonzac, and Georges Seurat

Oct.-Nov., 1927 -- Exhibition of Etchings in Color by Bernard Boutet de Monvel

Nov., 1927 -- Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings, Lithographs, and Watercolors by Ernest Fiene

Dec., 1927 -- Watercolors by American Artists including Gifford Beal, Reynolds Beal, Carl Broemel, Charles Demuth, Guy Pène Du Bois, Ernest Fiene, Henry G. Keller, Richard Lahey, Charles Downing Lay, Howard Ashman Patterson, [Maurice] Prendergast, Henry E. Schnakenberg, Abraham Walkowitz, Frank Nelson Wilcox, and [William] Zorach

Dec., 1927 -- Paintings by Guy Pène Du Bois

Dec., 1927 -- Paintings, Sculpture, and Decorative Media by George Biddle

Jan.-Feb., 1928 -- Paintings by S. J. Peploe

Feb., 1928 -- Drawings by Henri Fantin-Latour

Feb., 1928 -- Pastels and Drawings by Margarett Sargent

Feb., 1928 -- Drawings for Balzac's Les Contes Drolatiques by Ralph Barton

Feb.-Mar., 1928 -- Sculpture by William Zorach

Mar., 1928 -- Recent Paintings by Marjorie Phillips

Mar.-Apr., 1928 -- Exhibition of Paintings by William Glackens

Apr., 1928 -- Paintings, Drawings and Lithographs by R. H. Sauter of London, England

Oct., 1928 -- Modern French Paintings, Watercolors and Drawings

Oct.-Nov., 1928 -- Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings, Etchings, and Lithographs by Richard Lahey

Nov., 1928 -- Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture by J. D. Fergusson

Nov.-Dec., 1928 -- Paintings, Drawings and Etchings by Walter Pach

Dec., 1928 -- Paintings and Watercolors by Abraham Walkowitz

Jan., 1929 -- Exhibition of Paintings by Margarett Sargent

Jan., 1929 -- Watercolors by Rodin

Jan.-Feb., 1929 -- Exhibition of Sculpture by Arnold Geissbuhler

Feb., 1929 -- Paintings and Watercolors by Guy Pène Du Bois

Feb.-Mar., 1929 -- Paintings by Gifford Beal

Mar., 1929 -- Exhibition of Paintings by Adriaan Lubbers

Mar.-Apr., 1929 -- Exhibition of Etchings by Gifford Beal, Frank W. Benson, Childe Hassam, Kenneth Hayes Miller, and John Sloan

Apr., 1929 -- Exhibition of Paintings by Arnold Friedman

Apr., 1929 -- Sculpture by Harriette G. Miller

May, 1929 -- Paintings by Howard Ashman Patterson

May, 1929 -- Paintings by William Meyerowitz

Oct., 1929 -- Exhibition of Modern French Paintings, Watercolors and Drawings

Nov., 1929 -- Modern French and American Paintings, Watercolors, Prints, and Sculpture (at Gage Galleries in Cleveland)

Jan., 1930 -- Paintings by Paul Bartlett

Feb., 1930 -- Watercolors by Auguste Rodin

Feb.-Mar., 1930 -- Paintings by Guy Pène Du Bois

Summer, 1930 -- Paintings by American Artists

Oct., 1930 -- Paintings and Watercolors by Maurice Prendergast

Nov., 1930 -- Paintings by Ruth Jonas

Nov., 1930 -- Sculpture by Harriette G. Miller

Jan., 1931 -- Paintings and Watercolors by Richard Lahey

Jan.-Feb., 1931 -- Paintings by Erle Loran Johnson

Feb.-Mar., 1931 -- Paintings, Watercolors and Etchings by Gifford Beal

Mar., 1931 -- Paintings and Watercolors by Walter Pach

Mar.-Apr., 1931 -- Paintings, Drawings, and Etchings by Rudolf H. Sauter

May, 1931 -- Exhibition of Watercolors by John La Farge, Gifford Beal, H. E. Schnakenberg, Maurice Prendergast, Guy Pène Du Bois, Richard Lahey

Fall, 1931 -- Modern French Paintings, Watercolors, and Drawings

Dec., 1931 -- Exhibition of Drawings and Watercolors by D. Y. Cameron, Joseph Gray, Henry Rushbury, Muirhead Bone, Edmund Blampied, Gwen John

Dec., 1931 -- Lithographs and Posters by H. de Toulouse-Lautrec

Jan., 1932 -- Watercolors by Pierre Brissaud

Feb., 1932 -- Paintings and Drawings by A. S. Baylinson

Mar., 1932 -- Watercolors and Pastels by French and American Artists

Apr., 1932 -- Paintings by Nan Watson

May, 1932 -- Sculpture by Behn, Bourdelle, Geissbuhler, Lachaise, Maillol, Miller, Nadelman, Renoir, Young, Zorach; Decorative Panels by Max Kuehne, and Charles Prendergast

June-Aug., 1932 -- Paintings and Watercolors by American Artists

Oct.-Nov., 1932 -- Paintings, Watercolors, and Drawings by Various Artists

Jan., 1933 -- Paintings by Paul Bartlett

Jan.-Feb., 1933 -- Lithographs by Henri Fantin-Latour

Feb., 1933 -- Etchings of Dogs by Bert Cobb

Feb.-Mar., 1933 -- Paintings by American Artists

Feb.-Apr., 1933 -- Paintings by Contemporary Americans

Apr., 1933 -- Paintings by Maurice Prendergast

Oct., 1933 -- Exhibition of French Paintings, Watercolors, and Drawings

Oct.-Nov., 1933 -- Drawings by Emily W. Miles

Oct.-Nov., 1933 -- Exhibition of Etchings and Lithographs

Nov., 1933 -- Paintings and Watercolors by Henry E. Schnakenberg

Dec., 1933 -- Watercolors by Gifford Beal

Jan., 1934 -- Exhibition of Drawings by Denys Wortman for "Metropolitan Movies"

Summer, 1934 -- Paintings by Gifford Beal, Reynolds Beal, Isabel Bishop, Ann Brockman, Preston Dickinson, Guy Pène Du Bois, William J. Glackens, Richard Lahey, Ernest Lawson, George Luks, Harriette Miller, Maurice Prendergast, Henry E. Schnakenberg, and John Sloan

Oct.-Nov., 1934 -- Exhibition of Etchings and Lithographs

Nov.-Dec., 1934 -- Paintings by Gifford Beal

Mar., 1935 -- Complete Collection of Etchings by Mahonri Young

July-Aug., 1935 -- Paintings by American Artists including Gifford Beal, Reynolds Beal, Ann Brockman, Guy Pène Du Bois, William J. Glackens, Max Kuehne, Richard Lahey, Ernest Lawson, George Luks, Harriette G. Miller, Maurice Prendergast, Henry E. Schnakenberg, John Sloan, and Abraham Walkowitz

Oct.-Nov., 1935 -- Decorative Panels by Charles Prendergast

Nov., 1935 -- Exhibition of Paintings by H. E. Schnakenberg

Mar., 1936 -- Paintings by Louis Bouché

Apr., 1936 -- Paintings by Gifford Beal

Oct.-Nov., 1936 -- Loan Collection of French Paintings

Dec., 1936 -- Monotypes in Color by Maurice Prendergast

Jan., 1937 -- Recent Watercolors by H. E. Schnakenberg

Jan., 1937 -- Paintings of Flowers by William J. Glackens

Feb., 1937 -- Etchings by John Sloan

Feb., 1937 -- A Group of American Paintings

Sept., 1937 -- A Group of Paintings by Gifford Beal, Louis Bouché, Guy Pène Du Bois, William J. Glackens, Ernest Lawson, George Luks, Maurice Prendergast, Theodore Robinson, John Sloan, J. Alden Weir

Oct.-Nov., 1937 -- Decorative Panels by Charles Prendergast

Dec., 1937 -- American Watercolors

Jan.-Feb., 1938 -- Paintings by Gifford Beal

Feb.-Mar., 1938 -- Drawings by William Glackens, Guy Pène Du Bois, John Sloan, Denys Wortman

Apr., 1938 -- Paintings by Louis Bouché

May, 1938 -- Paintings and Pastels by Randall Davey

Oct., 1938 -- Selected Paintings by Modern French and American Artists

Nov., 1938 -- Paintings by Guy Pène Du Bois from 1908 to 1938

Nov., 1938 -- Paintings and Sculpture by Harriette G. Miller

Dec., 1938 -- Watercolors by Prendergast, Keller, Demuth, Wilcox and Others

Jan., 1939 -- Paintings by H. H. Newton

Oct., 1939 -- French and American Paintings

Oct.-Nov., 1939 -- Drawings by William Glackens of Spanish-American War Scenes

Nov., 1939 -- Paintings and Watercolors by Russell Cowles

Jan.-Feb., 1940 -- Recent Paintings by Louis Bouché

Feb.-Mar., 1940 -- Paintings by Henry Schnakenberg

Mar.-Apr., 1940 -- Paintings by Maurice Prendergast

Apr.-May, 1940 -- Watercolors by Charles Kaeselau

May-June, 1940 -- A Group of Recent Paintings by Gifford Beal, Russell Cowles, John Koch, Henry Schnakenberg, Esther Williams, Louis Bouché, Guy Pène Du Bois, Harriette G. Miller, John Sloan, Edmund Yaghjian

Oct., 1940 -- Drawings by American Artists

Nov., 1940 -- Walt Dehner

Mar., 1941 -- John Koch

May-June, 1941 -- Watercolors and Small Paintings by Gifford Beal

Oct.-Nov., 1941 -- Recent Paintings by Russell Cowles

Nov.-Dec., 1941 -- Paintings and Watercolors by Henry E. Schnakenberg

Dec., 1941 -- Charles Prendergast

Jan., 1942 -- Paintings by Samuel Brecher

Jan.-Feb., 1942 -- Recent Paintings by Guy Pène Du Bois

Mar.-Apr., 1942 -- Recent Paintings by Louis Bouché

Mar.-Apr., 1942 -- Illustrations by Boardman Robinson Commissioned by the Limited Editions Club for Edgar Lee Masters' "Spoon River Anthology"

Dec., 1942 -- Paintings from the Period of the Last War

Feb., 1943 -- Paintings and Watercolors by William Dean Fausett

Mar., 1943 -- Paintings by John Hartell

May-July, 1943 -- Watercolors by Contemporary American Artists

Feb.-Mar., 1944 -- Samuel Brecher

Feb.-Mar., 1944 -- Paintings, Gouaches, and Drawings by Andrée Ruellan

Mar., 1944 -- Vaughn Flannery

Mar.-Apr., 1944 -- Recent Paintings by Russell Cowles

Apr.-May, 1944 -- Recent Paintings by Louis Bouché

May-June, 1944 -- Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings and Watercolors by Henry G. Keller

Oct., 1944 -- Esther Williams

Nov.-Dec., 1944 -- Paintings and Watercolors of France by Maurice Prendergast

Dec., 1944 -- William J. Glackens Sixth Memorial Exhibition

Dec., 1944 -- Kraushaar Galleries Sixtieth Anniversary Exhibition of Paintings by William J. Glackens, Ernest Lawson, George Luks, Maurice Prendergast, and John Sloan

Jan.-Feb., 1945 -- Paintings by Gifford Beal

Feb.-Mar., 1945 -- Paintings by Andrée Ruellan

Apr.-May, 1945 -- Charles Locke

May-June, 1945 -- William Dean Fausett

Oct., 1945 -- Paintings by John Hartell

Nov.-Dec., 1945 -- Recent Watercolors by Marion Monks Chase

Nov.-Dec., 1945 -- Gouaches by Cecil Bell

Dec., 1945 -- Memorial Exhibition of Paintings and Watercolors by Ann Brockman

undated, 1946 -- Russell Cowles

Jan.-Feb., 1946 -- Richard Lahey

Feb., 1946 -- John Koch

Feb.-Mar., 1946 -- Paintings by Ernst Halberstadt

Mar., 1946 -- Paintings of Mexico and Guatemala by Henry E. Schnakenberg

Mar., 1946 -- Iver Rose

Apr., 1946 -- Louis Bouché

Apr.-May, 1946 -- Russell Cowles

May-June, 1946 -- Paintings by Bernard Arnest, Charles Harsanyi, Irving Katzenstein, Anna Licht, James Penney, Etienne Ret, and Vernon Smith

Sept., 1946 -- Retrospective Exhibition of the Work of Boardman Robinson

Nov., 1946 -- Guy Pène Du Bois

Nov.-Dec., 1946 -- William J. Glackens Eighth Memorial Exhibition

Jan., 1947 -- Karl Schrag

Feb.-Mar., 1947 -- Sculpture by Robert Laurent

Feb.-Mar., 1947 -- Paintings by Iver Rose

Feb.-Mar., 1947 -- Recent Paintings by Vernon Smith

Apr., 1947 -- Charles Prendergast

Apr., 1947 -- Louis Bouché

Apr.-May, 1947 -- Esther Williams

Oct.-Nov., 1947 -- Anna Licht

Nov., 1947 -- William J. Glackens Ninth Memorial Exhibition, with Works by Lenna Glackens

Mar., 1948 -- Russell Cowles

Apr.-May, 1948 -- Bernard Arnest

Aug.-Sept., 1948 -- New York Paintings and Watercolors

Oct.-Nov., 1948 -- Kenneth Evett

Nov.-Dec., 1948 -- Watercolors and Pastels by Harriette G. Miller

Jan.-Feb., 1949 -- John Hartell

Sept.-Oct., 1949 -- Contemporary American Watercolors and Gouaches

Oct., 1949 -- Contemporary Paintings

Jan., 1950 -- Maurice Prendergast Retrospective of Oils and Watercolors

Jan.-Feb., 1950 -- James Penney

Feb.-Mar., 1950 -- Paintings by Karl Schrag

Mar.-Apr., 1950 -- Russell Cowles

Jan.-Feb., 1951 -- William Sommer

Feb., 1951 -- Prints and Drawings by Various Artists

Feb., 1951 -- Paintings by Louis Bouché

Mar., 1951 -- Kenneth Evett

Apr.-May, 1951 -- Paintings by Gallery Artists

May-July, 1951 -- Contemporary American Watercolors

July-Aug., 1951 -- Paintings on the Summer Theme

Sept.-Oct., 1951 -- Vaughn Flannery

Oct.-Nov., 1951 -- Recent Paintings by Gallery Artists

Nov., 1951 -- Paintings by John Koch

Nov.-Dec., 1951 -- Joe Lasker

Dec., 1951 -- Small Prints and Drawings

Jan., 1952 -- Recent Gouaches by William Kienbusch

Jan., 1952 -- John Sloan: Recent Etchings from 1944-1951, and Etchings and Drawings Selected from All Periods of His Career

Feb.-Mar., 1952 -- Andrée Ruellan

Mar.-Apr., 1952 -- Bernard Arnest

Apr.-May, 1952 -- Recent Sculpture by Robert Laurent

May, 1952 -- Recent Paintings by Contemporary American Artists

May-June, 1952 -- Watercolors by Joseph Barber, Edward Christiana, Walt Dehner, Sidney Eaton, Wray Manning, and Woldemar Neufeld

July-Aug., 1952 -- Color Prints (Woodcuts, Etchings, and Lithographs) by Eleanor Coen, Caroline Durieux, Max Kahn, Tom Lias, Woldemar Neufeld, James Penney, George Remaily, Ann Ryan, and Karl Schrag

Nov., 1952 -- Karl Schrag

Dec., 1952-Jan. 1953 -- Eight Oregon Artists

Jan., 1953 -- Charles Prendergast Memorial Exhibition

Jan.-Feb., 1953 -- John Hartell

May, 1953 -- John Heliker

June, 1953 -- Humbert Alberizio, Vaughn Flannery, William Kienbusch, George Rickey, Andrée Ruellan, and Karl Schrag

Sept., 1953 -- Works by Gifford Beal, Kenneth Evett, Tom Hardy, John Koch, and James Lechay

Sept.-Oct., 1953 -- Paintings by Glackens, Lawson, Prendergast, Sloan

Oct.-Nov., 1953 -- Paintings by E. Powis Jones

Oct.-Nov., 1953 -- Recent Works by John Koch

Nov., 1953 -- Kenneth Evett: Drawings from Greek Mythology

Nov.-Dec., 1953 -- Recent Metal Sculptures by Tom Hardy

Nov.-Dec., 1953 -- Pastels, Drawings and Prints by Peggy Bacon

Nov.-Dec., 1953 -- Recent Paintings by Ralph Dubin

Feb.-Mar., 1954 -- Russell Cowles

Mar.-Apr., 1954 -- James Penney

Nov.-Dec., 1954 -- Tom Hardy: Metal Sculptures

Jan., 1955 -- Mobiles, Machines, and Kinetic Sculpture by George Rickey

Jan.-Feb., 1955 -- James Lechay

Feb., 1955 -- Mobiles by George Rickey

Feb.-Mar., 1955 -- Drawings, Etchings, and Lithographs by John Sloan (with a selection of prints by artists whose work influenced him in his early years: Rembrandt, Hogarth, Goya, Rops, Daumier, Rowlandson and others, to mark the publication of John Sloan: A Painter's Life by Van Wyck Brooks)

Mar.-Apr., 1955 -- Jane Wasey

Apr., 1955 -- Recent Work by Joe Lasker

May-June, 1955 -- Sculpture and Drawings by Contemporary American Artists

Jan., 1956 -- Carl Morris

Jan.-Feb., 1956 -- John Laurent

Feb.-Mar., 1956 -- William Kienbusch

Mar., 1956 -- Andrée Ruellan

Mar.-Apr., 1956 -- Karl Schrag

Apr.-May, 1956 -- John Heliker

May, 1956 -- Monotypes by Maurice Prendergast

Oct., 1956 -- The Eight

Jan.-Feb., 1957 -- Paintings by John Hartell

Apr., 1957 -- James Penney

Apr.-May, 1957 -- John Heliker

May-June, 1957 -- Fourteen Painter-Printmakers (American Federation of Arts exhibition)

June-July, 1957 -- 20th Century American Artists

Nov., 1957 -- William Glackens and His Friends (based on the book by Ira Glackens)

Nov., 1957 -- Marguerite Zorach

Jan., 1958 -- Gouches, Drawings and Small Glyphs by Ulfert Wilke

Jan.-Feb., 1958 -- Tom Hardy

Feb.-Mar., 1958 -- John Koch

Feb.-Mar., 1958 -- Still Life Exhibition with Works by William J. Glackens and Maurice Prendergast

Feb.-Mar., 1958 -- Cecil Bell

Mar., 1958 -- Karl Schrag

Mar., 1958 -- Carl Morris

Mar.-Apr., 1958 -- Louis Bouché

Apr., 1958 -- Paintings and Drawings by Joe Lasker

Apr.-May, 1958 -- Paintings and Drawings by Walter Feldman

Apr.-May, 1958 -- Sculpture by Henry Mitchell

May-June, 1958 -- Works in Casein and Gouache by Bernard Arnest, William Kienbusch, Carl Morris, and Karl Schrag

July, 1958 -- Still Life Paintings and Watercolors by American Artists

Oct.-Nov., 1958 -- Kenneth Evett

Nov., 1958 -- Elsie Manville

Nov.-Dec., 1958 -- John Laurent

Jan., 1959 -- Kinetic Sculpture by George Rickey

Jan.-Feb., 1959 -- Bernard Arnest

Mar., 1959 -- Karl Schrag

Mar.-Apr., 1959 -- Paintings by Joe Lasker

Apr.-May, 1959 -- Henry Mitchell

Sept.-Oct., 1959 -- Robert Searle

Oct.-Nov., 1959 -- Russell Cowles

Nov., 1959 -- Caseins and Paintings by William Kienbusch

Dec., 1959 -- Paintings by Vaughn Flannery

Feb., 1960 -- James Lechay

Apr., 1960 -- Landscapes by John Sloan

Apr.-May, 1960 -- John Guerin

May-June, 1960 -- Drawings and Small Sculpture by Gallery Artists

Oct., 1960 -- Ainslie Burke

Oct.-Nov., 1960 -- Leon Goldin

Nov.-Dec., 1960 -- Ulfert Wilke

Jan., 1961 -- Leonard DeLonga

Jan., 1961 -- Kenneth Evett

Jan.-Feb., 1961 -- Walter Feldman

Feb.-Mar., 1961 -- Watercolors and Pastels by Early Twentieth-Century American Artists

Mar., 1961 -- Paintings by Ralph Dubin

Mar.-Apr., 1961 -- James Penney

Apr.-May, 1961 -- John Koch

June, 1961 -- Works by Humbert Albrizio, Bernard Arnest, Cecil Bell, Louis Bouché, Ralph Dubin, Kenneth Evett, Walter Feldman, John Hartell, John Heliker, William Kienbusch, John Koch, Robert Laurent, James Lechay, Elsie Manville, Henry Mitchell, James Penney, George Rickey, Andrée Ruellan, Henry E. Schnakenberg, Karl Schrag, Jane Wasey, and Marguerite Zorach

Sept., 1961 -- Works by Contemporary Americans

Oct., 1961 -- George Rickey: Kinetic Sculpture

Oct.-Nov., 1961 -- Carl Morris

Nov.-Dec., 1961 -- Peggy Bacon

Dec., 1961 -- Selected Works by Twentieth-Century Americans

Jan., 1962 -- Polymer Resin and Sumi Ink Paintings by Kenneth Evett

Jan.-Feb., 1962 -- Louis Bouché

Feb.-Mar., 1962 -- Karl Schrag

Mar., 1962 -- Marguerite Zorach

Apr., 1962 -- John Laurent

Apr.-May, 1962 -- Sculpture by Tom Hardy

May-June, 1962 -- Drawings by Contemporary American Artists

July-Aug., 1962 -- Group Exhibitions - Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture by 20th Century American Artists

Oct., 1962 -- Bernard Arnest

Feb., 1963 -- William Kienbusch

Feb.-Mar., 1963 -- John Guerin

Mar., 1963 -- John Hartell

Sept.-Oct., 1963 -- Andrée Ruellan

Oct.-Nov., 1963 -- Ainslie Burke

Nov., 1963 -- Walter Feldman

Dec., 1963 -- Drawings by John Koch

Dec., 1963 -- Paintings by Contemporary Americans

Jan., 1964 -- Leonard DeLonga

Jan.-Feb., 1964 -- Joe Lasker

Feb.-Mar., 1964 -- Leon Goldin

Mar., 1964 -- Paintings by Ralph Dubin

Apr., 1964 -- Carl Morris

Apr.-May, 1964 -- Paintings and Drawings by John Heliker

Oct.-Nov., 1964 -- Louis Bouché

Nov.-Dec., 1964 -- Karl Schrag

Dec., 1964 -- Kenneth Evett

Feb., 1965 -- Russell Cowles

Feb.-Mar., 1965 -- James Lechay

Mar.-Apr., 1965 -- James Penney

Apr.-May, 1965 -- Gifford Beal

Feb., 1966 -- Dennis Leon

Feb.-Mar., 1966 -- Henry Schnakenberg

Mar.-Apr., 1966 -- John Hartell

Apr., 1966 -- Elsie Manville

Oct., 1966 -- Contrasts - Early and Late Works by Selected Contemporaries

Oct.-Nov., 1966 -- Tom Hardy

Nov.-Dec., 1966 -- Francis Chapin

Dec., 1966-Jan., 1967 -- Karl Schrag: Etchings and Lithographs

Jan.-Feb., 1967 -- Leonard DeLonga

Feb.-Mar., 1967 -- Carl Morris

Mar.-Apr., 1967 -- Ainslie Burke

Apr.-May, 1967 -- John Heliker: Paintings, Drawings, and Watercolors

May-June, 1967 -- William Glackens

Oct., 1967 -- Kenneth Callahan

Oct.-Nov., 1967 -- John Laurent

Jan.-Feb., 1968 -- Dennis Leon

Feb.-Mar., 1968 -- Robert La Hotan

Apr., 1968 -- John Guerin

Apr.-May, 1968 -- Leon Goldin

Sept.-Oct., 1968 -- Contemporary Sculpture and Drawings

Oct.-Nov., 1968 -- Karl Schrag

Nov.-Dec., 1968 -- James Lechay: Portraits and Landscapes

Dec., 1968-Jan., 1969 -- Group Exhibition

Jan., 1969 -- Elsie Manville

Mar., 1969 -- Kenneth Evett

Apr.-May, 1969 -- James Penney

Sept.-Oct., 1969 -- New Works by Contemporary Artists

Oct.-Nov., 1969 -- John Hartell: Exhibition

Nov., 1969 -- Peggy Bacon

Dec., 1969 -- Selected Examples by American Artists 1900-1930

Jan., 1970 -- Leonard DeLonga

Feb., 1970 -- Joe Lasker

Mar., 1970 -- Group Exhibition

Mar.-Apr., 1970 -- Dennis Leon

Apr.-May, 1970 -- Jerome Myers

Oct.-Nov., 1970 -- Tom Hardy

Jan.-Feb., 1971 -- Jane Wasey

Mar.-Apr., 1971 -- Kenneth Callahan

Oct., 1971 -- Ainslie Burke

Nov.-Dec., 1971 -- Karl Schrag

Feb.-Mar., 1972 -- John Koch

Mar.-Apr., 1972 -- Robert La Hotan

Apr.-May, 1972 -- Leon Goldin

May-June, 1972 -- Selected Works by 20th Century Americans

Sept.-Oct., 1972 -- Gallery Collection: American Watercolors and Drawings

Oct.-Nov., 1972 -- John Hartell

Nov.-Dec., 1972 -- Peggy Bacon

Dec., 1972 -- 20th Century Americans

Jan., 1973 -- Leonard DeLonga

Feb., 1973 -- Carl Morris

Mar., 1973 -- James Lechay

Mar.-Apr., 1973 -- Russell Cowles: Landscape Paintings

Apr.-May, 1973 -- Jerome Witkin

May-June, 1973 -- Kenneth Evett: Watercolors

Oct.-Nov., 1973 -- Kenneth Callahan

Jan., 1974 -- Joe Lasker

Jan.-Feb., 1974 -- Bernard Arnest

Feb.-Mar., 1974 -- Concetta Scaravaglione

Oct., 1974 -- Ainslie Burke

Oct.-Nov., 1974 -- James Penney

Jan., 1975 -- Tom Hardy

Jan.-Feb., 1975 -- Karl Schrag

Feb.-Mar., 1975 -- Robert La Hotan

Mar.-Apr., 1975 -- William Kienbusch

Apr., 1975 -- Elsie Manville

Apr.-May, 1975 -- Gifford Beal

Oct.-Nov., 1975 -- John Hartell

Nov., 1975 -- Daniel O'Sullivan

Mar., 1976 -- Jerome Witkin

May, 1976 -- Linda Sokolowski

Sept.-Oct., 1976 -- Joe Lasker, Illustrations from Merry Ever After

Oct., 1976 -- Leonard DeLonga

Nov.-Dec., 1976 -- Kenneth Callahan

Jan., 1977 -- James Lechay

Mar., 1977 -- Karl Schrag

Mar.-Apr., 1977 -- David Cantine

Oct.-Nov., 1977 -- John Hartell

Nov.-Dec., 1977 -- Ainslie Burke

Feb., 1978 -- Robert La Hotan

Apr., 1978 -- Elsie Manville

Oct., 1978 -- Tom Hardy

Oct.-Nov., 1978 -- Jerome Witkin

Jan.-Feb., 1979 -- Joe Lasker

Feb., 1979 -- Kenneth Evett

Feb.-Mar., 1979 -- Karl Schrag

Mar.-Apr., 1979 -- Carl Morris

Apr.-May, 1979 -- Linda Sokolowski

Oct.-Nov., 1979 -- Daniel O'Sullivan

Feb.-Mar., 1980 -- Kenneth Callahan

Mar., 1980 -- Ainslie Burke

Oct., 1980 -- John Hartell

Jan., 1981 -- Leonard DeLonga

Feb., 1981 -- James Lechay

Feb.-Mar., 1981 -- Robert La Hotan

Mar.-Apr., 1981 -- Jerry Atkins

Apr.-May, 1981 -- Ben Frank Moss

Jan.-Feb., 1982 -- Jerome Witkin

Feb.-Mar., 1982 -- Elsie Manville

Mar.-Apr., 1982 -- Karl Schrag

Apr.-May, 1982 -- Linda Sokolowski

May-June, 1982 -- David Cantine

Sept.-Oct., 1982 -- Kenneth Callahan

Oct.-Nov., 1982 -- Joe Lasker

Nov.-Dec., 1982 -- Daniel O'Sullivan

Jan.-Feb., 1983 -- William Kienbusch: Memorial Exhibition

Feb.-Mar., 1983 -- Jerry Atkins

Mar.-Apr., 1983 -- John Hartell

Apr.-May, 1983 -- John Heliker

May-June, 1983 -- Kenneth Evett

Oct., 1983 -- Concetta Scaravaglione

Oct.-Nov., 1983 -- Ben Frank Moss

Nov.-Dec., 1983 -- Russell Cowles

Dec., 1983-Jan., 1984 -- 20th Century Americans

Jan.-Feb., 1984 -- Marguerite Zorach: Paintings at Home and Abroad

Feb.-Mar., 1984 -- Robert La Hotan

Mar., 1984 -- David Smalley

Apr., 1984 -- Carl Morris

May, 1984 -- Karl Schrag

July, 1984 -- Drawings by 20th Century Americans

July-Aug., 1984 -- Collages and Drawings by Joseph Heil

Aug.-Sept., 1984 -- Drawings and Prints by Tom Hardy

Sept.-Oct., 1984 -- James Penney: Memorial Exhibition

Oct.-Nov., 1984 -- Paintings and Drawings by Leon Goldin

Nov.-Dec., 1984 -- Isabelle Siegel

Dec., 1984-Jan., 1985 -- Group Exhibition: Contemporary American Paintings and Sculpture

Jan.-Feb., 1985 -- James Lechay

Feb.-Mar., 1985 -- Ainslie Burke

Mar., 1985 -- Karen Breunig

Apr., 1985 -- Kenneth Callahan

Oct., 1985 -- Elsie Manville

Oct.-Nov., 1985 -- William Glackens

Jan.-Feb., 1986 -- Linda Sokolowski

Feb.-Mar., 1986 -- Jerry Atkins

Apr.-May, 1986 -- Jane Wasey

Oct.-Nov., 1986 -- John Hartell

Nov.-Dec., 1986 -- Karl Schrag

Feb.-Mar., 1987 -- Kenneth Evett

Apr.-May, 1987 -- Ben Frank Moss

May-June, 1987 -- David Smalley

Oct.-Nov., 1987 -- Isabelle Siegel

Feb.-Mar., 1988 -- Karen Breunig

Mar.-Apr., 1988 -- Leon Goldin

Sept.-Oct., 1988 -- Elsie Manville

Oct.-Nov., 1988 -- James Lechay

Jan.-Feb., 1989 -- Karl Schrag

Feb.-Mar., 1989 -- Linda Sokolowski

Jan.-Feb., 1990 -- Kenneth Callahan: Works of the Fifties

Jan.-Feb., 1990 -- Gifford Beal: Watercolors

Mar., 1990 -- Robert La Hotan: Recent Paintings

Mar.-Apr., 1990 -- Sonia Gechtoff: New Paintings

May-June, 1990 -- David Smalley: Recent Sculpture

May-June, 1990 -- Andrée Ruellan: Sixty Years of Drawing...

Oct., 1990 -- Isabelle Siegel

Nov., 1990 -- Leon Goldin

Jan.-Feb., 1991 -- Karl Schrag

Feb.-Mar., 1991 -- Joe Lasker

Apr., 1991 -- Ainslie Burke

Nov.-Dec., 1991 -- Linda Sokolowski: Oils, Collages, Monotypes

Dec., 1991-Jan., 1992 -- Elsie Manville: Small Works on Paper

Mar., 1992 -- Tabitha Vevers

May-June, 1992 -- Sonia Gechtoff

Oct.-Nov., 1992 -- James Lechay

Nov.-Dec., 1992 -- Karl Schrag

Mar., 1993 -- Leon Goldin: Works on Paper

Apr.-May, 1993 -- Robert La Hotan

Oct., 1993 -- David Smalley: Sculpture Inside and Out

Oct., 1993 -- Andrée Ruellan: Works on Paper 1920-1980

Mar.-Apr., 1994 -- Kenneth Evett: Travels: Themes and Variations (Watercolors of Italy, Greece, Arizona, Maine and California)

Mar.-Apr., 1994 -- Tabitha Vevers

Oct.-Nov., 1994 -- Linda Sokolowski

Nov.-Dec., 1994 -- Karl Schrag

Jan.-Feb., 1995 -- Langdon Quin

Mar.-Apr., 1995 -- Robert La Hotan

Sept.-Oct., 1995 -- Sonia Gechtoff

Jan.-Feb., 1996 -- Elsie Manville: Paintings and Works on Paper

Oct.-Nov., 1996 -- Karl Schrag: A Self Portrait Retrospective, 1940-1995

Jan.-Feb., 1997 -- Joe Lasker: Paintings and Watercolors

Mar.-Apr., 1997 -- Tabitha Vevers

Oct.-Nov., 1997 -- James Lechay

Feb.-Mar., 1998 -- Linda Sokolowski: Canyon Suite: Works from the Southwest

Mar.-Apr., 1998 -- Leon Goldin: Paintings on Paper

Sept.-Oct., 1998 -- Sonia Gechtoff: Mysteries in the Sphere

Oct.-Nov., 1998 -- Langdon Quin: Recent Paintings

Nov.-Dec., 1998 -- John Gill

Jan.-Feb., 1999 -- Robert La Hotan

Feb.-Mar., 1999 -- Ann Sperry: Where Is Your Heart

Nov.-Dec., 1999 -- Kathryn Wall

Jan.-Feb., 2000 -- Elsie Manville

Sept.-Oct., 2000 -- Joe Lasker

Oct.-Nov., 2000 -- James Lechay

Oct.-Nov., 2000 -- Tabitha Vevers

May-June, 2001 -- Kenneth Callahan: Drawings

Dec., 2001-Jan., 2002 -- Sur La Table: A Selection of Paintings and Works on Paper

Jan.-Feb., 2002 -- Karl Schrag: Theme and Variations II: The Meadow

undated, 2003 -- Ann Sperry

Jan.-Feb., 2003 -- Andrée Ruellan: Works on Paper from the 1920s and 1930s

Oct.-Nov., 2003 -- Joe Lasker: Muses and Amusements

Nov.-Dec., 2003 -- Tabitha Vevers

Mar.-Apr., 2004 -- Leon Goldin: Five Decades of Works on Paper

May-July, 2004 -- Anne Frank: A Private Photo Album

Jan.-Feb., 2005 -- John Gill: Ceramics

Sept.-Oct., 2005 -- Karl Schrag: The Painter of Bright Nights

Related Material:

An untranscribed oral history interview with Antoinette Kraushaar was conducted for the Archives of American Art by Avis Berman in 1982, and is available on five audio cassettes at the Archives' Washington D.C. research facility.

Separated Material:

In addition to the records described in this finding aid, the following materials were lent to the Archives for filming in 1956 and are available on microfilm reels NKR1-NKR3 and for interlibrary loan: a book of clippings from 1907 to 1930, primarily of exhibition reviews; loose clippings and catalogs of exhibitions from 1930 to 1946; and a group of photographs and clippings relating to George Luks and other artists. These materials were returned to Kraushaar Galleries after microfilming.

Provenance:

53.5 linear feet of records were donated to the Archives of American Art by Kraushaar Galleries in three separate accessions in 1959, 1994, and 1996. Katherine Kaplan of Kraushaar Galleries donated an additional 38.4 linear feet in 2008-2009 and an additional 8.4 linear feet in 2012-2017 and 6.0 linear feet in 2022.

Restrictions:

This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. A fragile original scrapbook is restricted. Contact Reference Services for more information.

Rights:

Authorization to publish, quote or reproduce requires written permission from Katherine Kaplan Degn, Kraushaar Galleries. 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:

Works of art  Search this

Art, American  Search this

Artists -- United States  Search this

Depressions -- 1929  Search this

Function:

Art galleries, Commercial -- New York (State)

Genre/Form:

Photographs

Sketches

Drawings

Exhibition catalogs

Financial records

Notes

Sketchbooks

Citation:

Kraushaar Galleries records, 1877-2006. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Sponsor:

Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Getty Foundation and the Smithsonian Institution Collections Care Fund.

Identifier:

AAA.kraugall

See more items in:

Kraushaar Galleries records

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9507d7d92-d503-4ed4-9ed6-12975adb8473

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-aaa-kraugall

Interviewee:

Agostini, Peter  Search this

Interviewer:

Roberts, Colette, 1910-  Search this

Names:

Columbia University -- Faculty  Search this

United States. Works Progress Administration  Search this

Bontecou, Lee, 1931-  Search this

Chamberlain, John, 1927-2011  Search this

Chryssa, 1933-2013  Search this

Cornell, Joseph  Search this

Cézanne, Paul, 1839-1906  Search this

De Chirico, Giorgio, 1888-  Search this

De Kooning, Willem, 1904-1997  Search this

Demuth, Charles, 1883-1935  Search this

Di Suvero, Mark, 1933-  Search this

Dove, Arthur Garfield, 1880-1946  Search this

Dubuffet, Jean, 1901-1985  Search this

Duchamp, Marcel, 1887-1968  Search this

Ferber, Herbert, 1906-1991  Search this

Flannagan, John Bernard, 1895?-1942  Search this

Giacometti, Alberto, 1901-1966  Search this

Greenberg, Clement, 1909-1994  Search this

Hague, Raoul, 1905-1993  Search this

Hare, David, 1917-1992  Search this

Hartley, Marsden, 1877-1943  Search this

Hopper, Edward, 1882-1967  Search this

Judd, Donald, 1928-1994  Search this

Kaprow, Allan  Search this

Kienholz, Edward, 1927-  Search this

Kline, Franz, 1910-1962  Search this

Kohn, Gabriel, 1910-1975  Search this

Kolbe, Georg, 1877-1947  Search this

La Tour, Onya, 1896-1976  Search this

Lachaise, Gaston, 1882-1935  Search this

Lassaw, Ibram, 1913-2003  Search this

Lippold, Richard, 1915-2002  Search this

Lipton, Seymour, 1903-1986  Search this

Macdonald-Wright, Stanton, 1890-1973  Search this

Maillol, Aristide, 1861-1944  Search this

Manship, Paul, 1885-1966  Search this

Marca-Relli, Conrad, 1913-2000  Search this

Marin, John, 1870-1953  Search this

Marisol, 1930-2016  Search this

Matisse, Henri, 1869-1954  Search this

Melville, Herman, 1819-1891  Search this

Mondrian, Piet, 1872-1944  Search this

Morris, Robert, 1931-2018  Search this

Nakian, Reuben, 1897-1986  Search this

Noguchi, Isamu, 1904-1988  Search this

O'Keeffe, Georgia, 1887-1986  Search this

Oldenburg, Claes, 1929-  Search this

Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849  Search this

Pollock, Jackson, 1912-1956  Search this

Pompon, François, 1855-1933  Search this

Reinhardt, Ad, 1913-1967  Search this

Rivera, Diego, 1886-1957  Search this

Roszak, Theodore, 1907-1981  Search this

Rothko, Mark, 1903-1970  Search this

Samaras, Lucas, 1936-  Search this

Scarpitta, Salvatore, 1919-2007  Search this

Segal, George, 1924-2000  Search this

Sheeler, Charles, 1883-1965  Search this

Smith, David, 1906-1965  Search this

Smith, Tony, 1912-1980  Search this

Spaventa, George, 1918-  Search this

Stankiewicz, Richard, 1922-1983  Search this

Sugarman, George, 1912-1999  Search this

Tobey, Mark  Search this

Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892  Search this

Zorach, William, 1887-1966  Search this

Extent:

99 Pages (Transcript)

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Pages

Interviews

Sound recordings

Date:

1968

Scope and Contents:

An interview of Peter Agostini conducted in 1968, by Colette Roberts, for the Archives of American Art at 151 Avenue B, New York, New York.

Mr. Agostini speaks of his childhood spent living throughout the five boroughs of New York; his interactions with clients of his father's acting employment agency; his early education in Catholic school and the creative freedom allotted by the nuns; his first feelings of isolation as an artist at the age of seven; the development of a sense of communication as the result of the loss of his mother at the age of three and time spent at a school for orphans; his early realization and vision of artistic destiny; his religious interests which lead to mysticism in his earlier work; his time spent working freely in the DaVinci Studio with Spaventa; the discovery by Hess of his works in Gallerie Grimaud; his attainment of the Longview Grant; his working experience throughout the Depression as part of the WPA casting plaster mannequins while working indirectly with Pollack as well as Marca Relli; his subsequent move to designing department store windows (use of Mondrian-like forms and lines); his feelings of his position as an observer; the importance of communication through art (communication without words); his rejection of the Abstract Expressionist group and choice of independence; the influence of the sculpture of Kolbe and Bache in the thirties; Clement Greenberg's distaste for his work; his feelings about the relative failure to sell his work due its unusual edginess and mystery; his role in the introduction of the work of contemporary European artists (Chausserian, Gauthier, Modrian) to the American group; his description of his own work as "traditionless"; his feelings of self-importance as one of the most original sculptors in the art world; his influence on the younger generation, particularly Marisol; the enslavement to originality that the younger generation faces; his attitudes towards American Art forms and their lack of rebellious spirit; the virtues of the American writers, such as Poe, Whitman, and Melville as American "knapsack" writers; his personal technique which places an emphasis on the "skin" or volume of something; his attempt to create quiet art, or art that merely indicates features; his frustration with teaching and the problems of regurgitated knowledge; the role of Meyer Shapiro in his teaching career at Columbia; the formation of the Club and its similarity to the Cubist's café scene; his opinions on the relationship of sex and sensuality in American art; his personal struggles, including the loss of his second wife and two of his brothers, in addition to the estrangement of his only daughter by his first wife; his feelings on the role of psycho analysis and personal history in a work of art; his present works which feature the "swell." For the majority of the second half of the interview Ms. Roberts asks Mr. Agostini to express his opinions on the work of: Kline; DeKooning; Duchamp; Oldenburg; La Tour; DeChirico; Maillol; Pompon; Rothko; Chardin; Cezanne; Giacometti; Reinhardt; Chryssa; Tony Smith; Segal; Lachaise; Zorach; Manship; Flannagan; Kelly; Lassaw; David Smith; Hare; Lipton; Ferber; Lippold; Roszak; Nakian; Noguchi; Hague; Kohn; di Suvero; Chamberlain; Kaprow; Sugarman; Stankiewicz; Bontecou; Scarpitta; Cornell; Keinholz; Rivera; Judd; Robert Morris; O'Keeffe; Samaras; Mark Tobey; Marin; Pollock; Hartley; Dove; Macdonald-Wright; Demuth; Sheeler; Hopper; Mirot; Matisse; DuBuffet.

Biographical / Historical:

Peter Agostini (1913-1993) was a sculptor from New York, New York.

General:

Originally recorded on 3 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 28 digital wav files. Duration is 10 hrs., 37 min.

Transferred from 4 3" reels.

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.

Topic:

Sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews  Search this

Abstract expressionism  Search this

Sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews  Search this

Genre/Form:

Interviews

Sound recordings

Sponsor:

Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service.

Identifier:

AAA.agosti68

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw94f33a1ab-e475-4a6f-8b0b-f9822b288239

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-aaa-agosti68

Creator:

Kent, Rockwell, 1882-1971  Search this

Names:

American Artists' Congress  Search this

Artists League of America  Search this

Artists' Union (New York, N.Y.)  Search this

Citizens' Committee for Government Arts Projects  Search this

Farmers Union of the New York Milk Shed  Search this

Federal Art Project  Search this

Federal Writers' Project  Search this

International Workers Order  Search this

Macbeth Gallery  Search this

National Farmers' Union (U.S.)  Search this

National Maritime Union of America  Search this

United American Artists  Search this

United Office and Professional Workers of America  Search this

United Scenic Artists  Search this

Boyesen, Bayard  Search this

Chamberlain, J. E.  Search this

Chase, William Merritt, 1849-1916  Search this

Cleland, T. M. (Thomas Maitland), 1880-1964  Search this

Daniel, Charles, 1878-1971  Search this

Davies, Arthur B. (Arthur Bowen), 1862-1928  Search this

DuBois, W.E.B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963  Search this

Fitzgerald, James, 1899-1971  Search this

Freuchen, Peter, 1886-1957  Search this

Gellert, Hugo, 1892-1985  Search this

Gottlieb, Harry, 1895-  Search this

Hartley, Marsden, 1877-1943  Search this

Hays, Lee, 1914-1981  Search this

Henri, Robert, 1865-1929  Search this

Jones, Dan Burne  Search this

Keller, Charles, 1914-2006  Search this

Miller, Kenneth Hayes, 1876-1952  Search this

Nearing, Helen  Search this

Nearing, Scott, 1883-1983  Search this

Pach, Walter, 1883-1958  Search this

Phillips, Duncan, 1886-1966  Search this

Rasmussen, Knud, 1879-1933  Search this

Reeves, Ruth, 1892-1966  Search this

Robeson, Paul, 1898-1976  Search this

Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945  Search this

Ruggles, Carl, 1876-1971  Search this

Seeger, Pete, 1919-2014  Search this

Stefansson, Vilhjalmur, 1879-1962  Search this

Untermeyer, Louis, 1885-1977  Search this

Wildenstein, Felix, 1883-1952  Search this

Zigrosser, Carl, 1891-  Search this

Extent:

88 Linear feet

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Poems

Sketches

Business records

Photographs

Drawings

Date:

circa 1840-1993

bulk 1935-1961

Summary:

The Rockwell Kent papers measure 88.0 linear feet and date from circa 1840 to 1993 with the bulk of the collection dating from 1935 to 1961. The collection provides comprehensive coverage of Kent's career as a painter, illustrator, designer, writer, lecturer, traveler, political activist, and dairy farmer.

Scope and Content Note:

The Rockwell Kent papers measure 88 linear feet and date from circa 1840 to 1993 with the bulk of the collection dating from 1935 to 1961. The collection provides comprehensive coverage of Kent's career as a painter, illustrator, designer, writer, lecturer, traveler, political activist, and dairy farmer.

Circumstances surrounding the acquisition of the papers are highlighted in an article by Garnett McCoy ("The Rockwell Kent Papers," in the Archives of American Art Journal, 12, no. 1 [January 1972]: 1-9), recommended reading for researchers interested in the collection. The collection is remarkably complete, for in the mid 1920s Kent began keeping carbon copies of all outgoing letters, eventually employing a secretary (who became his third wife and continued her office duties for the remainder of Kent's life).

Series 1: Alphabetical Files contain Kent's personal and professional correspondence, along with business records of the dairy farm and associated enterprises; also included are printed matter on a wide variety of topics and promotional literature relating to organizations and causes of interest to him. Voluminous correspondence with his three wives, five children, and other relatives, as well as with literally hundreds of friends, both lifelong and of brief duration, illuminates Kent's private life and contributes to understanding of his complex character. Among the many correspondents of note are: his art teachers William Merritt Chase, Robert Henri, and Kenneth Hayes Miller; fellow artists Tom Cleland, Arthur B. Davies, James Fitzgerald, Hugo Gellert, Harry Gottleib, Marsden Hartley, Charles Keller, and Ruth Reeves; collectors Duncan Phillips and Dan Burne Jones; critics J. E. Chamberlain and Walter Pach; and dealers Charles Daniel, Felix Wildenstein, and Macbeth Galleries. Kent corresponded with such diverse people as Arctic explorers Peter Freuchen, Knud Rasmussen, and Vilhjalmar Steffanson; composer Carl Ruggles and songwriters Lee Hays and Pete Seeger; civil rights pioneers Paul Robeson and Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois; writers Bayard Boyesen, Scott and Helen Nearing, and Louis Untermeyer; and art historian and print curator Carl Zigrosser.

Kent's interest and involvement in the labor movement are reflected in correspondence with officials and members of a wide variety and large number of unions and related organizations, among them: the Farmers' Educational and Cooperative Union of America, Farmers' Union of the New York Milk Shed, International Workers Order, National Maritime Union, and United Office and Professional Workers of America. Of special interest is his participation, often in leadership roles, in various attempts to organize artists. Files on the American Artists' Congress, Artists League of America, The Artists Union, United American Artists, and United Scenic Artists contain particularly valuable material on the movement.

A supporter of New Deal efforts to aid artists, Kent was actively interested in the various programs and often was critical of their limitations; he advocated continuing federal aid to artists after the Depression abated. The Kent papers include correspondence with the Federal Arts Project, Federal Fine Arts Project, Federal Writers Project, and the War Department, as well as correspondence with the Citizens' Committee for Government Art Projects and President Franklin D. Roosevelt on the subject.

Kent's professional correspondence documents exhibitions, sales, consignments, and reproduction of prints and paintings. He kept meticulous records of his advertising commissions and illustration work. Detailed correspondence with publishers and printers indicates Kent's involvement in the technical aspects of production and provides a good overview of the publishing industry during the mid-twentieth century.

Business records of Asgaard Farm include records of the dairy and transfer of ownership to its employees, tax and employee information, and documents concerning several related business ventures such as distributor ships for grain, feed, and farm implements.

Series 2: Writings consists of notes, drafts, and completed manuscripts by Rockwell Kent, mainly articles, statements, speeches, poems, introductions, and reviews. The Kent Collection given to Friendship House, Moscow, in 1960, was augmented later by a set of his publications and the illustrated manuscripts of many of his monographs. Also included are a small number of manuscripts by other authors.

Series 3: Artwork consists mainly of drawings and sketches by Kent; also included are works on paper by other artists, many of whom are unidentified, and by children.

Series 4: Printed Matter consists of clippings, exhibition catalogs and announcements, brochures, broadsides, programs, and newsletters. These include items by and about Kent and his family, as well as articles written and/or illustrated by him, and reviews of his books. There is also material on a variety of subjects and causes of interest to him. Additional printed matter is included among the alphabetical files, mainly as attachments to correspondence.

Series 5: Miscellaneous includes biographical material, legal documents, and memorabilia. Artifacts received with papers include textile samples, a silk scarf, dinnerware, ice bucket, and rubber stamp, all featuring designs by Rockwell Kent. Also with this series are a variety of documents including a phrenological analysis of an ancestor, lists of supplies for expeditions, a hand-drawn map of an unidentified place, and technical notes regarding art materials and techniques.

Series 6: Photographs includes photographs of Kent, his family and friends, travel, and art number that over one thousand. Also included here are several albums of family and travel photographs.

Arrangement:

The collection is arranged into six series. Series 1 is arranged alphabetically. The arrangement of the remaining series is explained in each series description. Note that sealed materials that became available in 2000 were microfilmed separately on reels 5740-5741, but have integrated into this finding aid.

Missing Title

Series 1: Alphabetical Files, circa 1900-1971, undated (Reels 5153-5249, 5256, 5740-5741)

Series 2: Writings, 1906-1978, undated (Reels 5249-5252, 5741)

Series 3: Art Work, 1910-1972, undated (Reels 5252, 5741)

Series 4: Printed Matter, 1905-1993, undated (Reels 5252-5254)

Series 5: Miscellaneous, 1859-1969, undated (Reels 5254, 5741)

Series 6: Photographs, circa 1840-1970, undated (Reels 5254-5255, 5741)

Biographical Note:

Rockwell Kent (1882-1971), an energetic and multitalented man, pursued many interests and careers during his very long and active life. At various times he was an architect, draftsman, carpenter, unskilled laborer, painter, illustrator, printmaker, commercial artist, designer, traveler/explorer, writer, professional lecturer, dairy farmer, and political activist.

While studying architecture at Columbia University, Kent enrolled in William Merritt Chase's summer school at Shinnecock Hills, Long Island. He then redirected his career ambitions toward painting and continued to study with Chase in New York. Kent spent a summer working and living with Abbott H. Thayer in Dublin, New Hampshire, and attended the New York School of Art, where Robert Henri and Kenneth Hayes Miller were his teachers.

Critically and financially, Kent was a successful artist. He was very well known for his illustration work--particularly limited editions of the classics, bookplates, and Christmas cards. He was a prolific printmaker, and his prints and paintings were acquired by many major museums and private collectors. During the post-World War II era, Kent's political sympathies resulted in the loss of commissions, and his adherence to artistic conservatism and outspoken opposition to modern art led to disfavor within art circles. After many years of declining reputation in this country and unsuccessful attempts to find a home for the Kent Collection, Kent gave his unsold paintings--the majority of his oeuvre--to the Soviet Union, where he continued to be immensely popular.

An avid traveler, Kent was especially fascinated by remote, Arctic lands and often stayed for extended periods of time to paint, write, and become acquainted with the local inhabitants. Between 1918 and 1935, he wrote and illustrated several popular books about his experiences in Alaska, Tierra del Fuego, and Greenland. In the 1930s and 1940s, Kent was much in demand as a lecturer, making several nationwide tours under the management of a professional lecture bureau; he spoke mainly about his travels, but among his standard lectures were some on "art for the people."

In 1927, Kent purchased Asgaard Farm at AuSable Forks, New York, in the Adirondacks, where he lived for the remainder of his life, operating a modern dairy farm on a modest scale for many years.

As a young man, Kent met Rufus Weeks, became committed to social justice, and joined the Socialist Party. Throughout his life, he supported left-wing causes and was a member or officer of many organizations promoting world peace and harmonious relations with the Soviet Union, civil rights, civil liberties, antifascism, and organized labor. Kent was frequently featured as a celebrity sponsor or speaker at fund-raising events for these causes. In 1948, he ran unsuccessfully as the American Labor Party's candidate for Congress. Kent's unpopular political views eventually led to the dissolution of his dairy business, resulted in a summons to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and prompted the U.S. State Department to deny him a passport, an action that subsequently was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Kent wrote two autobiographies, This Is My Own (1940) and It's Me, O Lord (1955). In 1969, he was the subject of an oral history interview conducted by Paul Cummings for the Archives of American Art.

Provenance:

In 1969, Rockwell Kent donated his papers to the Archives of American Art; textile samples were received in 1979, and his widow gave additional papers in 1971 and 1996. Letters to Rockwell Kent from wives Frances and Sally, sealed during Sally Kent Gorton's lifetime, became available for research after her death in 2000, and further material was donated to the Archives of American Art in 2001 by the Estate of Sally Kent [Shirley Johnstone] Gorton.

Restrictions:

The microfilm of this collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website. Use of material not microfilmed or digitized requires an appointment.

Rights:

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

Occupation:

Painters -- New York (State)  Search this

Topic:

Designers -- New York (State)  Search this

Mural painting and decoration  Search this

Politics and culture  Search this

Authors -- New York  Search this

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

Dairy farms  Search this

Federal aid to the arts  Search this

Illustrators -- New York (State)  Search this

Illustration of books  Search this

Works of art  Search this

Art and war  Search this

Commercial art  Search this

World War, 1939-1945 -- Art and the war  Search this

Function:

Labor unions

Genre/Form:

Poems

Sketches

Business records

Photographs

Drawings

Citation:

Rockwell Kent papers, circa 1840-1993, bulk 1935-1961. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Identifier:

AAA.kentrock

See more items in:

Rockwell Kent papers

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw97edd9940-eb61-4562-9583-def2da778b6a

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-aaa-kentrock

Creator:

Shahn, Ben, 1898-1969  Search this

Names:

Baskin, Leonard, 1922-2000  Search this

Delano, Jack  Search this

Evans, Walker, 1903-1975  Search this

Osborn, Robert Chesley, 1904-1994  Search this

Rivera, Diego, 1886-1957  Search this

Robbins, Jerome  Search this

Soyer, Raphael, 1899-1987  Search this

Extent:

25.1 Linear feet

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Motion pictures (visual works)

Sketchbooks

Video recordings

Drawings

Sound recordings

Interviews

Date:

1879-1990

bulk 1933-1970

Summary:

The papers of social realist painter, photographer, printmaker, and teacher Ben Shahn (1898-1969) measure 25.1 linear feet and date from 1879-1990, with the bulk of the material dating from 1933-1970. The bulk of the collection consists of over 14 linear feet of incoming letters from artists, writers, colleagues, publishers, art organizations, galleries, and universities and colleges. Also found are biographical materials, project and source files, printed material, artwork by Shahn and others, photographs taken of and by Shahn, interview transcripts, sound recordings of interviews and a motion picture film.

Scope and Contents note:

The papers of social realist painter, photographer, illustrator, printmaker, and teacher Ben Shahn (1898-1969) measure 25.1 linear feet and date from 1879-1990, with the bulk of the material dating from 1933-1970. The bulk of the collection consists of over 14 linear feet of incoming letters from artists, writers, colleagues, publishers, art organizations, galleries, and universities and colleges. Also found are biographical materials, project and source files, printed material, artwork by Shahn and others, photographs taken of and by Shahn, interview transcripts, sound recordings of interviews and a motion picture film.

Biographical material and family records include a 1924 passport for Shahn and his first wife, Tillie, biographical sketches of Shahn, and award certificates received by him.

Letters are primarily written to Shahn from family members, artists, writers, colleagues, publishers, art organizations, galleries, and universities and colleges. Notable correspondents include Leonard Baskin, Alexander Calder, Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Joseph Hirsch, Leo Lionni, John Bartlow Martin, George and Marian Nakashima, Clifford Odets, Charles Olson, Robert Osborn, Diego Rivera, Jerome Robbins, Selden Rodman, James Thrall Soby, Raphael Soyer, and William Carlos Williams. A small number of scattered letters from Shahn can also be found throughout the series.

Project files document approximately twenty-one of Shahn's commissions, including murals for the community center at Jersey Homesteads, the Bronx Central Annex Post Office, the Social Security Building in Washington D.C. , and the William E. Grady Vocational High School. The files also document his involvement in the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Roosevelt, in addition to projects for schools, temples and private homes.

Financial and legal records include consignment records, loan agreements, royalty statements and receipts for artwork sold.

Notes and writings are by Shahn and others including Alan Dugan, W. H. Ferry, Theodore Gusten, and John Bartlow Martin. They include lists of artwork, many of which are annotated.

Artwork includes a sketchbook and several unbound sketches and lettering by Shahn, in addition to drawings and prints by others including Shahn's children, Mario Casetta and Stefan Martin.

Source files contain printed material and photographs relating to topics depicted by Shahn in his artwork such as children, dams, farming, houses, industry, mines and miners, slums, war and workers. These files also contain scattered photographic prints by FSA and OWI photographers including Shahn, Jack Delano, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Carl Mydans, Marion Post Wolcott, Arthur Rothstein, and John Vachon.

Printed material includes news clippings covering Shahn and his career as well as subjects of interest to Shahn. Also found are exhibition catalogs and announcements for exhibitions for Shahn and others, and reproductions of Shahn's artwork including publications illustrated by him.

Photographs are of Shahn, his family and friends and colleagues including Alexander Calder, Jerome Robbins, Charles Sheeler, David Smith and William Zorach. Also included are photographs taken by Shahn of New York City and for the FSA in the 1930s, as well as photographs of artwork by Shahn. Photographs by others include one photo each by Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee and Arthur Rothstein.

The collection also contains transcripts of eight radio, television and motion picture interviews of Shahn and a reel of 16mm motion picture film from the BBC-TV program "Monitor," in addition to sound recordings of interviews of Shahn by Tony Schwartz and Arlene Francis. Artifacts include a Christmas greeting in the form of a sock.

Arrangement note:

The collection is arranged as 12 series:

Missing Title

Series 1: Biographical and Family Records, 1879-1984 (Box 1, OV 36; 0.2 linear ft.)

Series 2: Letters, 1929-1990 (Boxes 1-25, 35, 43, OVs 36-38; 14.5 linear ft.)

Series 3: Project Files, 1933-1975 (Boxes 25-26; OVs 36-37; 1.03 linear ft.)

Series 4: Financial and Legal Records, 1934-1988 (Boxes 26-27, 35; 0.81 linear ft.)

Series 5: Notes and Writings, circa 1933-1988 (Boxes 27-28, 43; 1.72 linear ft.)

Series 6: Artwork, circa 1930s-1965 (Boxes 28, 35; 11 folders)

Series 7: Source Files, circa 1900s-1960s (Boxes 28-30, 35; 1.81 linear ft.)

Series 8: Printed Material, 1912-1988 (Boxes 30-33, 35, OV 39; 3.22 linear ft.)

Series 9: Photographs, circa 1900-1969 (Boxes 33-35; 0.86 linear ft.)

Series 10: Interview Transcripts, 1943-1968 (Box 34; 0.25 linear ft.)

Series 11: Audio and Video Recordings, 1959-1968 (Box 34; 0.25 linear ft.)

Series 12: Artifacts, circa 1930s-circa 1960s (Box 34; 2 items)

Biographical/Historical note:

Ben Shahn (1898-1969) was a social realist painter, muralist, printmaker, photographer, illustrator, and educator who worked primarily in Brooklyn, New York and New Jersey. He was most active in the 1930s through the 1950s and worked on several federally funded arts projects, including the Farm Security Administration's photographic documentation project of rural America during the Depression.

Ben Shahn was born in Kovno, Lithuania and immigrated with his family to the United States in 1906 where he settled in Brooklyn, and later Roosevelt, New Jersey, after becoming a naturalized citizen in 1918.

Following an apprenticeship as a lithographer from 1913-1917, Shahn studied at New York University, the City College of New York, and the National Academy of Design from 1919-1922. He married Tillie Goldstein in 1922 and they had two children, Judith and Ezra.

Two years after Shahn's first solo exhibition at the Downtown Gallery in 1930, his Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti, a series of 23 gouaches about the Sacco and Vanzetti trial of the 1920s, was exhibited at the Downtown Gallery to critical and public acclaim. The exhibition marked the beginning of Shahn's reputation as one of the most important social realist painters in America. Shahn's commitment to social and political justice found a natural outlet in mural painting when, in 1933, he was hired to assist Diego Rivera on the labor and industry mural Man at the Crossroads, for New York City's Rockefeller Center. The mural was destroyed amid controversy in 1933 before it was completed, but Shahn had learned much about the art of fresco painting during the project and was inspired by the potential of the mural as a unique art form for presenting life's struggles and stories to a large public audience. Between 1933 and 1937 Shahn worked on various murals for other buildings, including New York's Central Park Casino (circa 1934) and Riker's Island Prison (1934), none of which saw completion. In 1937, however, the Farm Security Administration (FSA) commissioned Shahn to execute a mural for the Community Center in the town of Jersey Homesteads, later Roosevelt, New Jersey, which Shahn completed in 1938. Shahn settled in Jersey Homesteads the following year and remained there for the rest of his life. Other important mural commissions followed for the Bronx Central Post office (1939) and the Social Security Building in Washington DC (1942).

One of Shahn's assistants on the Jersey Homesteads mural was Bernarda Bryson, whom he had met in 1933 when she came to New York to interview Rivera about the Rockefeller Center mural controversy for an Ohio newspaper. Shahn and Bryson became lifetime companions and had three children, Susanna, Jonathan and Abigail, although they did not marry until shortly before Shahn's death in 1969. Shahn and Tillie Goldstein were divorced in 1944.

Shahn had enrolled with the federal Public Works of Art Project in 1934, and between 1935 and 1938 he and Bryson travelled across country as Shahn photographed poverty-stricken areas and documented rural life for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) and the Resettlement Agency. Shahn's interest in photography developed in the early 1930s when, encouraged by his friendship with Walker Evans, he began photographing street scenes and people in New York City. He later used the images as the basis for many of his prints and paintings.

In 1942 Shahn began working for the Office of War Information (OWI) and was instructed to produce posters and pamphlets explaining to citizens the necessities of wartime, such as the need for secrecy and food rationing. Ultimately, only two of Shahn's posters were ever used; the rest were rejected as being too harsh for their intended audience. Shahn later worked for the Congress of Industrial Organization Political Action Committee (CIO-PAC), producing posters for the 1944 campaign to re-elect Roosevelt, who he believed in deeply. He was promoted to director of the CIO's Graphic Arts Division for the 1946 congressional campaign following Roosevelt's death, but that job ended when the election went poorly for the Democratic party.

Shahn returned increasingly to painting and a retrospective of his work was held at the Museum of Modern Art in 1947. He also became more active in academia as an accomplished writer, teacher and lecturer. He received honorary doctorates from Princeton University and Harvard University, and become the Charles Eliot Norton professor at Harvard in 1956. Shahn's Norton lectures were collected and published as the influential The Shape of Content in 1957. He also began to work as a commercial artist for a variety of companies and publications including CBS, Time, Harper's, and the Container Corporation of America. Shahn believed, however, that the artist's ideas and integrity must always be reflected in his commercial art. He refused to compromise on this point and was very selective in his choice of commercial commissions. Shahn illustrated many books and articles, designed sets for stage productions such as New York Export: Opus Jazz, choreographed by Jerome Robbins, and designed mural mosaics for synagogues, universities and private homes.

Since the 1930s Shahn had been represented by Edith Halpert at the Downtown Gallery, but his relationship with her was always contentious on the subject of payments Shahn received for commercial work, and became increasingly so as his income from such sources increased. Finally, in 1968, Shahn wrote to Halpert telling her that after ten years of "an accumulation of ill-feeling, discomfort and recrimination between us" he felt compelled to end their dealer-artist relationship.

By the time of Shahn's break with Halpert his health had begun to fail. He died of a heart attack following surgery in a New York City hospital on March 14, 1969.

Related Archival Materials note:

The Archives of American Art holds four oral history interviews with Ben Shahn: 1964 Apr. 14 interview conducted by Richard K. Doud for the Archives of American Art New Deal and the Arts Project in which Shahn speaks of his travels and work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) and the American image as portrayed by FSA; 1965 Jan. 17 interview; 1965 Oct. 3. interview conducted by Harlan Phillips for the Archives of American Art New Deal and the Arts Project; and 1968 Sept. 27 interview conducted by Forrest Selvig. Most of these interviews have transcripts available online.

The Archives also holds the Bernarda Bryson Shahn papers, circa 1947-2005, and two oral history interviews with Bernarda Bryson Shahn: 1983 Apr. 29 and 1995 July 3.

Separated Materials note:

The Archives of American Art also holds material lent for microfilming (reel N70-6) including addresses and essays by Shahn, seven royalty statements, and three letters from publishers. Many of the writings found on this reel were included in subsequent donations. All other lent material was returned to the lender and is not described in the collection container inventory.

Provenance:

The Ben Shahn papers were donated to the Archives of American Art in several installments between 1967-1991 by Shahn's widow, Bernarda Bryson Shahn who also lent materials for microfilming in 1969. Jean Shahn, Ben Shahn's daughter-in-law and estate representative, donated additional material in 2018 and 2021.

Restrictions:

This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.

Researchers interested in accessing audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more information.

Rights:

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

Occupation:

Painters -- New Jersey -- Roosevelt  Search this

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

Photographers -- New York (State) -- Brooklyn  Search this

Photographers -- New Jersey -- Roosevelt  Search this

Printmakers -- New Jersey -- Roosevelt  Search this

Printmakers -- New York (State) -- Brooklyn  Search this

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

Educators -- New Jersey -- Roosevelt  Search this

Muralists -- New York (State) -- Brooklyn  Search this

Muralists -- New Jersey -- Roosevelt  Search this

Topic:

Social realism  Search this

Genre/Form:

Motion pictures (visual works)

Sketchbooks

Video recordings

Drawings

Sound recordings

Interviews

Citation:

Ben Shahn papers, 1879-1990, bulk 1933-1970. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Sponsor:

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

Identifier:

AAA.shahben

See more items in:

Ben Shahn papers

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw983b06d9b-dd51-45bc-9b11-09b06a88f6c6

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-aaa-shahben

Manufacturer:

Travel Air Company  Search this

Materials:

Fuselage - steel tube, fabric-covered

Wings - spruce spars, spruce and plywood ribs, fabric covered

Landing gear - all-metal

Dimensions:

Wingspan: 9.3 m (30 ft 5 in)

Length: 7.3 m (24 ft 1 in)

Height: 2.4 m (8 ft 11 in)

Weight, empty: 891 kg (1,968 lb)

Weight, gross: 1,200 kg (2,650 lb)

Top speed: 209 km/h (130 mph)

Engine: Wright J-6-7 (R-760-ET), 240 hp

Type:

CRAFT-Aircraft

Date:

1929-2000

Credit Line:

Gift of the Pepsi-Cola Company

Inventory Number:

A20010091000

Restrictions & Rights:

CC0

See more items in:

National Air and Space Museum Collection

Location:

Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA

Exhibit Station:

Aerobatic Flight

Data Source:

National Air and Space Museum

GUID:

http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/nv9ecadc4e9-0b3c-4a7d-9a49-90f28c2c9cd1

EDAN-URL:

edanmdm:nasm_A20010091000

Manufacturer:

Keuffel & Esser Company  Search this

Owner:

William J. Powell  Search this

Materials:

Plastics, wood, ink, copper alloy, metal alloy

Dimensions:

3-D: 32 × 5 × 1.2cm, 0.1kg (12 5/8 × 1 15/16 × 1/2 in., 3/16lb.)

Type:

EQUIPMENT-Scientific Devices

Credit Line:

Gift of William J. Powell, III.

Inventory Number:

A20100221000

Restrictions & Rights:

CC0

See more items in:

National Air and Space Museum Collection

Data Source:

National Air and Space Museum

GUID:

http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/nv9a4095ba5-0a05-48ea-98c0-dc6ebb599fcd

EDAN-URL:

edanmdm:nasm_A20100221000

Creator:

Curtiss-Wright Corporation  Search this

Names:

Curtiss-Wright Airports Corporation  Search this

Keystone Aircraft Corp  Search this

Extent:

212.29 Cubic feet (598 boxes)

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Motion pictures (visual works)

Reports

Drawings

Financial records

Date:

1868-1972

bulk 1925-1949

Summary:

This collection consists of the corporate records of the Curtiss-Wright Corporation. Included in the collection are technical and engineering reports of Curtiss-Wright Airplane Division's operations in St. Louis (Robertson), MO (1935-1945) and Buffalo, NY, (1932-1945), as well as AAS Material Division and AAF Air Technical Services Command memorandum reports collected by Curtiss-Wright's St. Louis and Buffalo technical reference libraries. The collection also contains the files of Curtiss-Wright's Patent Department, which hold records of patents filed by Curtiss-Wright and patent-infringement cases involving Curtiss-Wright. Also included in the collection are specifications issued by and photos commissioned by the Keystone Aircraft Corporation (Huff-Daland Airplanes, Inc. until March 1927), which had been acquired by Wright in 1928 along with Loening Aeronautical Engineering Corp., and formed the Keystone Division of Curtiss-Wright until 1932 when Keystone's Bristol, PA factory closed its doors. The collection also contains financial records of the Curtiss-Wright Airports Corporation, which was liquidated in 1936, as well as an extensive negative collection featuring Curtiss-Wright aircraft from the 1930s and 1940s, concentrated especially on the war years.

Scope and Contents:

The Curtiss-Wright Corporation Records collection contains approximately 212 cubic feet of material. The collection contains the following material:

Army Air Service Material Division & Army Air Force Technical Services Command Memo

Reports & Technical Reports which include testing of various Curtiss-Wright models of aircraft and/or various parts of aircraft

Technical & Engineering Reports from the St. Louis, MO plant [Robertson] & Buffalo, NY plant

Patents, Patent Dockets, Patent Serial numbers, Suits, License Agreements, Patents filed by Curtiss-Wright & Patent Infringement Cases [1800s to 1940s]

Miscellaneous Research Files

Corporate & Financial Records [1923 to 1972]

Correspondence

Blueprint Drawings

Advertisements from Newspapers & Magazines in Scrapbooks

Engine Decals

Photographs

Negatives & Glass Plates

Arrangement:

This collection was arranged into Series and Subseries:

Series I: Curtiss-Wright Corporation Records

Subseries I: Corporation Reports\Records Subseries II: Patents Subseries III: Patent Serial Numbers Subseries IV: Patent Application/Dockets Subseries V: Patent Litigation Subseries VI: Aircraft & Engine Designations arranged by Designation Subseries VII: Photographs Subseries VIII: Keystone Aircraft Corporation Subseries IX: Oversize Scrapbooks of Advertising Material, Newspaper Clippings

Series II: Technical Reports

Subseries I: Air Corps Materiel Division, Reports [ACMR] Subseries II: Buffalo Reports Subseries III: St. Louis

Series III: Glass Format Photography

Series IV: 1969 Accretion - Listing of Archival Material

Series V: Master Print Books [this part of the collection has not been processed]

Historical note:

An historic event in aviation occurred on June 26, 1929 when two major aircraft companies: the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company merged with the Wright Aeronautical Corporation to form the Curtiss-Wright Corporation. After this merger, the former Wright organization took over all of the engine and propeller manufacture while Curtiss concentrated on airplanes. This merger was completed by organizing two major divisions under their original names, but under the direction of a corporate headquarters located in New York City. However, there was a recognized separation of spirit as well as specialized facilities that was never completely resolved in succeeding years. The election of former Wright personnel to key corporate positions soon led to Wright becoming the dominant division. At the height of the Lindbergh Boom during the 1920s and 1930s, the Curtiss-Wright Corporation was made up of the following identified organizations: The Curtiss Aeroplane & Motor Company; The Curtiss-Caproni Corporation; The Curtiss-Robertson Airplane Manufacturing Company; The Keystone Aircraft Corporation; The Moth Aircraft Corporation; The Travel Air Manufacturing Company; The Wright Aeronautical Corporation; Curtiss-Wright Flying Service; The Curtiss-Wright Sales Corporation; The Curtiss-Wright Export Corporation. Curtiss-Wright was quickly becoming the 'General Motors of the Air' until the great depression in October 1929. Sales dropped and Curtiss-Wright was forced to close certain satellite plants and transfer some of their product lines to the St. Louis facility. It looked like even the Buffalo plants would also have to close when Curtiss-Wright received an order from Colombia, South America for Hawks and Falcons. This was the largest military order to Curtiss since the war. The Colombia sale saved the Curtiss-Wright organization at this low point in its history. This order kept the production lines going until new military and civil markets began to open up as the depression waned and the build-up for World War II began. During the U.S. military build-up prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, all existing Curtiss-Wright plants were expanded and new aircraft factories were built at Columbus, Ohio and Louisville, Kentucky. The dropping of the two atomic bombs on Japan resulted in an unexpected early end to World War II. All of the major U.S. airplane builders including Curtiss-Wright were hit by massive contract cancellations because of the Japanese surrender. In 1946 Curtiss-Wright had only two experimental military models at hand for postwar delivery and no assurance of production orders. Curtiss-Wright was forced to shut down all airplane plants and transfer all units of the Aeroplane Division to their Columbus Plant. The eventual sale of the Airplane Division to North American included design rights to the former Curtiss-Wright airplanes. The Curtiss-Wright Airplane Division, which manufactured airframes, finally closed down in 1951.

Provenance:

Curtiss-Wright Corporation, gift, XXXX, 1969

Restrictions:

No restrictions on access.

Rights:

Material is subject to Smithsonian Terms of Use. Should you wish to use NASM material in any medium, please submit an Application for Permission to Reproduce NASM Material, available at Permissions Requests.

Topic:

Aeronautics  Search this

Curtiss, General, Aircraft  Search this

Aeronautics, Commercial -- United States  Search this

Curtiss-Wright aircraft  Search this

Aeronautics, Military  Search this

Genre/Form:

Motion pictures (visual works)

Reports

Drawings

Financial records

Citation:

Curtiss-Wright Corporation Records, Acc. XXXX-0067, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.

Identifier:

NASM.XXXX.0067

See more items in:

Curtiss-Wright Corporation Records

Archival Repository:

National Air and Space Museum Archives

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/pg21b19fbef-7db3-4c81-be86-3bb02ecbfee0

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-nasm-xxxx-0067

Manufacturer:

Aeronautical Corporation of America  Search this

Materials:

Fuselage: steel tube, fabric cover

Wings: wood with fabric cover

Dimensions:

Wingspan: 10.9 m (36 ft)

Length: 6.1 m (20 ft)

Height: 2.1 m (7 ft 6 in)

Weight, empty: 184 kg (406 kg)

Weight, gross: 318 kg (700 lb)

Top Speed: 180 km/h (80 mph)

Engine: Aeronca E-107A, 26 hp

Manufacturer: Aeronautical Corporation of America, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1929

Type:

CRAFT-Aircraft

Country of Origin:

United States of America

Date:

1929-1932

Credit Line:

Gift of Aeronca, Inc.

Inventory Number:

A19490051000

Restrictions & Rights:

CC0

See more items in:

National Air and Space Museum Collection

Location:

Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA

Exhibit Station:

Sport Aviation

Data Source:

National Air and Space Museum

GUID:

http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/nv91e2c26ee-0861-4c6d-9e5f-3b5572de46b0

EDAN-URL:

edanmdm:nasm_A19490051000

Author:

Falola, Toyin  Search this

Brownell, Emily  Search this

Hopkins, A. G (Antony G.)  Search this

Physical description:

xxiv, 657 pages illustrations 26 cm

Type:

Books

History

Place:

Africa

Great Britain

Afrique

Grande-Bretagne

Date:

2011

Topic:

World politics  Search this

Globalization  Search this

Politique mondiale  Search this

Mondialisation  Search this

globalism  Search this

British colonies  Search this

Economic history  Search this

Economic conditions  Search this

History  Search this

Colonies  Search this

Conditions économiques  Search this

Histoire  Search this

Data Source:

Smithsonian Libraries

EDAN-URL:

edanmdm:siris_sil_1147803

Artist:

Cornell, Joseph  Search this

Names:

Benton, Elizabeth Cornell  Search this

Cornell, Robert  Search this

Extent:

196.8 Linear feet

186 Nitrate negatives

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Nitrate negatives

Photographic photoprints

Photographs

Place:

New York, New York

Date:

1750-1980, bulk 1930-1972

Summary:

The Joseph Cornell Study Center collection measures 196.8 linear feet and dates from 1750 to 1980, with the bulk of the material dating from 1930 to 1972. Documenting the artistic career and personal life of assemblage artist Joseph Cornell (1903-1972), the collection is primarily made up of two- and three-dimensional source material, the contents of the artists' studio, his record album collection, and his book collection and personal library. The collection also includes diaries and notes, financial and estate papers, exhibition materials, collected artifacts and ephemera, photographs, correspondence, and the papers of Robert Cornell (1910-1965) and Helen Storms Cornell (1882-1966), the artist's brother and mother.

Scope and Contents:

The Joseph Cornell Study Center collection measures 196.8 linear feet and dates from 1750 to 1980, with the bulk of the material dating from 1930 to 1972. Documenting the artistic career and personal life of assemblage artist Joseph Cornell (1903-1972), the collection is primarily made up of two- and three-dimensional source material, the contents of the artists' studio, his record album collection, and his book collection and personal library. The collection also includes diaries and notes, financial and estate papers, exhibition materials, collected artifacts and ephemera, photographs, correspondence, and the papers of Robert Cornell (1910-1965) and Helen Storms Cornell (1882-1966), the artist's brother and mother.

Correspondence is with collectors, museums, galleries, artists, friends, family, charity organizations, admirers and those admired by Cornell, and World War II European pen pals. Discussions about the appreciation, donation, sale, purchase, and exhibition of Cornell's works are frequent, with the inclusion of shipping and loan documentation or notices of payment installments. Galleries and museums frequently request that Cornell agree to an exhibition, which he often declines, and fans request free works be mailed or affordable works be sold to them. With friends, artists, and those he admired, Cornell discussed topics that fascinate him, included bits of poetry or philosophical musings, sent clippings or a collaged letter, and occasionally discussed a project or work in process. After World War II, when so many were displaced by the war in Europe, Cornell answered ads for pen pals in the "Christian Science Monitor," often responding to requests for clothing or other goods, and sometimes exchanging many letters over several years. Family correspondence is with his mother, sisters, brother, and others, and often notes activities of the day, foods eaten, and general musings, as well as occasionally mentioning a project or artwork. Correspondents of note include Stan Brakhage, Betty Freeman, Charles Henri Ford, Allegra Kent, Yayoi Kusama, Roberto Matta, Marianne Moore, Octavio Paz, Sonia Sekula, Pavel Tchelitchew, Parker Tyler, Dorothea Tanning, and Betsy von Furstenberg, among others.

Cornell was often preoccupied with his thoughts, feelings, memories, a project or thematic "exploration," and jotted notes on seemingly any surface available. Notes and musings are on napkins, the backs of envelopes, newspaper clippings, and paper bags from record and magazine stores. Frequently, an observation would trigger a lengthy nostalgic moment, or a "feé," fairy-like child or girl, would capture his imagination and lead him to thoughts of 18th-century ballerinas and silent film stars. Cornell wrote longer diary notes, sometimes expanding on an earlier notation or emotion, and often wrote when he experienced trouble sleeping or woke early. Drafted letters to imaginary muses or admired individuals are interspersed among diaries, often revealing Cornell's yearnings to find emotional intimacy and human connection. Over time, Cornell revisited his notes and occasionally made further notations about renewed thoughts on a topic, dating the note with "revisited" or "reviewed." Notes are often written in a stream-of-consciousness style, for example, jumping from the mention of a record album or composer, to a ballerina of the same period, a note about a French poet, the memory of childhood, or an observation made earlier in the day, all in the space of a few lines. Notes about artistic processes or meanings behind works or images do occasionally emerge from the tangled, poetic notations. Notes also often provide insights into Cornell's internal emotional state and give clues about his intentions behind an artwork or a particular thematic fixation.

Financial materials document Cornell's professional and personal business activities, including the sale of artworks, annual expenses for supplies and household incidentals, payments and schedules for personal assistants, receipts for donations to charities and nonprofits, and tax documents. There is also information about who worked as assistants, or "helpers," in his later years and where Cornell purchased art supplies. Additionally, specific details are documented through receipts and invoices, such as what kind of paint he purchased. Estate records include preparations made for Cornell's artworks after his death, and clippings about other deceased artist's estates show that he thought often about such arrangements in his later years.

Exhibition files highlight several select solo exhibitions for Cornell, as well as preparations and planning for the "Robert Cornell: Memorial Exhibition" in honor of his brother in 1966. Also included are several early exhibition catalogs and announcements, including "Surréalisme" (January 9-29, 1932) and "Exhibition of Objects (Bibloquet) by Joseph Cornell" (December 6-31, 1939) at the Julien Levy Gallery, and "Romantic Museum: Portraits of Women, Constructions and Arrangements by Joseph Cornell" (December 1946) at the Hugo Gallery.

Film projects and collected film materials consist of files related to Cornell's various experimental film projects: "Aviary," "Cappuccino," "Centuries of June," "Fable for Fountains," "Nymphlight," "Serafina's Garden," and unrealized film scenario "Monsieur Phot." Files include film-making notes, correspondence, and photographs. Cornell's interest in film also led him to collect film-related materials, such as film stills, film posters, and screening programs. Scattered correspondence documents the interest other institutions and individuals had in purchasing and viewing his collection. Though most of his collected film stills and movie posters were donated to the Anthology Film Archives, film stills from "Escape Me Never" (1935) and "The Passion of Joan of Arc" (1928) are still within the collection, as well as film-screening programs for Cornell's collection of films.

Writing and design projects document Cornell's work authoring articles and designing issues of specialty dance magazine "Dance Index," and his layouts for popular magazines like "Good Housekeeping," "House and Garden," and "Mademoiselle." Other writing projects include brochures dedicated to opera singers Maria Malibran and Giulia Grisi, "Maria" and "Bel Canto Pet." Materials used for these brochures, such as copper photo engraving plates, are also found. Design work includes a series of Christmas cards created with The Museum of Modern Art as well as traced patterns ("textile tracings") and design clippings from Cornell's time working as a "textile designer" for Traphagen Commercial Textile Studio.

Cornell acquired troves of source material from bookstalls, antique stores, sporting good and department stores, hardware stores, and magazine and record shops. He kept boxes and files of material on admired individuals, such as actresses, artists, dancers, and singers, as well as on art projects or thematic "explorations." Files are on general topics such as American history, scientific phenomena, animals, plants, and humankind, as well as on series of artworks, such as "Castles," "Homage to the Romantic Ballet," and "Medici Slot Machines." Focused "exploration" projects include "Celestial Theatre," "Colombier," "GC 44," and "Switzerland," among others. Materials include photographs, photostats, maps, book fragments, autographed letters, notes, collage clippings and cutouts, collected prints and engravings, box and collage fragments, and scattered artifacts.

Collected ephemera includes large amounts of blank postcards and greeting cards, stamps, collected bus and train tickets, food labels and packaging, decals, and other materials. Artifacts are three-dimensional collected objects and source objects, which include found objects from the streets, dried flowers, and pieces of nature gathered from walks around his neighborhood. Cornell may have gathered materials because they inspired a memory or nostalgic feeling, or because they fit with a bin of other similar objects to select from for an artwork in progress.

Photographs found within the collection are of Cornell at work and as a child with family. Also found are assorted personal and family photographs, photographs of Cornell's attic and garage storage, and photographs of his Utopia Parkway house. Photographs of artwork include few installation photographs, in addition to photographs of Cornell's boxes and collages. Collected photographic materials include vintage photographs, such as tintypes, a cyanotype, stereoscopic glass slides, albumen prints, cabinet cards, and cartes-de-visite. Cornell also collected cased photographs, such as daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and one opalotype. Negatives and photostats were often produced from various prints and even other photographs and used in Cornell's boxes and collages. Images are of men and women, actors, authors, dancers, performers, well-known men and women, royalty, places, and artwork. Photographs of note include those by Hans Namuth of Willem and Lisa de Kooning and of Edward Hopper's bedroom; photographs by Henri Cartier-Bresson; a photograph by Julia Margaret Cameron; photographs by Brassai; and a photogravure by Alfred Stieglitz from "Camerawork."

Also found in the collection are works of art by others, including a sketch by Pavel Tchelitchew, as well as artwork by Cornell, such as unfinished collages, Rorschach drawings or ink blots, and childhood artwork. Printed material includes assorted bulletins, flyers, exhibition materials for other artists, journals, and sent printed membership and charity materials. Magazines, including "View," are also included, and often have annotations by Cornell or a note to "cut" or "review" with page numbers. A large amount of magazine and newspaper clippings are in the collection, sometimes collected with a group of like material by Cornell, and at other times simply gathered in heaps. Occasional annotations are also found on the clippings.

Cornell's personal library and book collection includes over 2500 titles, ranging from fiction, poetry, and cinema, to history, science, and travel. Notable among the titles are "Baedeker's" travel guides that Cornell often sourced for his "Hotel" box series, as well as an influential publication by Max Ernst, "La Femme 100 têtes," which includes a typed letter and exhibition flyer tucked within. Books often have annotations, some fairly extensive, by Cornell, and assorted collected items, notes, and correspondence tucked between pages. Pages were often cut by Cornell, either to make photostats and use in a box, or to file with other thematic "explorations." A wide range of authors and topics provide insight into Cornell's interests and to ideas behind artwork and diary notes. Cornell's collection of record albums includes over 145 records. These contain inserted notes and clippings and are often referenced in diary notes Cornell made, noting a recent album or song listened to while at work in his studio.

The papers of Cornell's mother, Helen Storms Cornell, and his brother, Robert Cornell, are also included in the collection. Both lived with Cornell his whole life, spending the most time with him at their home at 3708 Utopia Parkway. Financial materials document shared responsibilities for billing, utilities, household fixes and chores, and expenditures, and Helen kept detailed financial records in a series of ledgers. Robert notes when he borrowed money from Cornell, or when he means to pay Cornell back for the purchase of a typewriter. Activities documented in diaries also occasionally cross paths with Cornell, noting his visitors or an exchange of letters continued after introductions through Cornell. Personal activities, such as Robert's interest in his train collection and his drawing projects and cartoon series, are also documented.

Arrangement:

The Joseph Cornell Study Center Collection is arranged into 15 series:

Series 1: Biographical Material, 1917-1972 (Boxes 1, 98, OV118; 0.9 linear feet)

Series 2: Correspondence, 1813, 1934-circa 1973 (Boxes 1-8, 86; 6.5 linear feet)

Series 3: Diaries and Notes, 1940-1976 (Boxes 8-10, 98-99, 135, OV108, OV119; 3.5 linear feet)

Series 4: Personal Business and Estate Records, 1950-1978 (Boxes 10-14; 4.1 linear feet)

Series 5: Exhibition Files, 1932-1973 (Box 14; 0.3 linear feet)

Series 6: Film Projects and Collected Film Materials, circa 1924-1972 (Boxes 14-16, 100, 133; 1.6 linear feet)

Series 7: Writing and Design Projects, circa 1910s, 1936-1962 (Boxes 16-18, 86, 100, 131-132, OV109-OV111, OV120-OV122; 3.6 linear feet)

Series 8: Source Material, 1750-circa 1911, 1926-1972 (Boxes 19-49, 86-92, 96, 100-105, 126-130, 132-137, OV112-OV115, OV125; 42.2 linear feet)

Series 9: Artifacts and Ephemera, 1768, circa 1839-1972 (Boxes 49-52; 3.2 linear feet)

Series 10: Photographic Material, circa 1800s-1972 (Boxes 52-56, 80-86, 93, 106, 128, 133, OV116, OV123-OV124; 7.5 linear feet)

Series 11: Artwork, circa 1810-1972 (Boxes 56-57, 107, OV117; 1.2 linear feet)

Series 12: Printed Material, 1855-1972 (Boxes 57-76, 94-96, 107; 16 linear feet)

Series 13: Book Collection and Personal Library, 1722-1980 (99.8 linear feet)

Series 14: Record Album Collection, circa 1925-1974 (3.2 linear feet)

Series 15: Cornell Family Papers, 1910-1980 (Boxes 77-79, 97, 107; 3.2 linear feet)

Biographical / Historical:

Joseph Cornell (1903-1972) was a self-taught assemblage and collage artist, and filmmaker, active in New York City. He was born in Nyack, New York on December 24, 1903, and died of heart failure at his home in Queens, New York on December 29, 1972. The oldest of four children, he was born Joseph I. Cornell to his mother, Helen Storms Cornell (1882-1966), and his father, Joseph I. Cornell (1875-1917). Cornell had two younger sisters, Elizabeth ("Betty") Cornell Benton (1905-2000) and Helen ("Sissy") Cornell Jagger (1906-2001), as well as one brother, Robert Cornell (1910-1965), who had cerebral palsy.

Cornell attended the Phillips Academy, a preparatory boarding school in Andover, Massachusetts, beginning shortly after his father's death in 1917. He attended for four years but did not receive a diploma, and soon began work as a textile salesman for the William Whitman Company in Manhattan. His work took him, by foot, through the city, visiting secondhand bookshops on Fourth Avenue, browsing music stores and magazine shops, and catching early shows at the Metropolitan Opera House. He would occasionally wait outside the stage doors for favorite singers and dancers to emerge, requesting signatures on photographs or bits of costumes.

Around 1926, Cornell joined the Christian Science Church, joined by his brother Robert shortly thereafter, and both continued to be lifelong members. Cornell kept a number of books in his personal library on Christian Science teachings and regularly subscribed to "The Christian Science Monitor."

After living in several rental houses in Bayside, New York, Cornell's mother purchased a house for the family in 1929 in Flushing, Queens. Cornell, along with his mother and brother, would live at 3708 Utopia Parkway, for the rest of their lives. His two sisters soon married and moved away, eventually settling in Westhampton, Long Island and in the poultry-farming business.

With no formal art training to speak of, Cornell's first work was a Max Ernst-inspired collage, "Untitled (Schooner)," created in 1931. He was especially inspired by Ernst's collage novel, "La Femme 100 têtes," published in 1929. French artist Odilon Redon was also among the few artists Cornell named as an influence on his art. His first sculptural works were small, cardboard pill boxes with bits of ephemera, costume adornments, and nature hidden inside. Cornell also created a series of glass bell jar works, placing small trinkets and Victorian-era-like compositions within. It was these early collages and bell jar works that were included in Cornell's debut exhibition, "Surréalisme" (January 9-29, 1932), a group show at the Julien Levy Gallery. Cornell designed the announcement for the show and exhibited alongside Max Ernst, Man Ray, Pierre Roy, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Eugène Atget, George Platt Lynes, Jean Cocteau, and Salvador Dalí. Months later, Cornell was invited to have his first solo show, "Objects by Joseph Cornell: Minutiae, Glass Bells, Shadow Boxes, Coups d'Oeil, Jouets Surréalistes" (November 26-December 30, 1932), also at the Julien Levy Gallery.

In 1932, after eleven years of work, Cornell was laid off from the William Whitman Company due to the Great Depression. Soon after, he took on more responsibility in the church, working part-time as an attendant in the Christian Science Reading Room in Great Neck, New York. Beginning in 1933, he taught Sunday school classes for three years and in 1935, became the Sunday school librarian. However, his religious activities and artistic ventures continued to remain separate.

In the early 1930s, Cornell progressed from movie lover to filmmaker. When Julien Levy began his New York Film Society in 1933, holding screenings of various experimental films in the gallery, Cornell began buying and collecting films and film stills in earnest. He set up a 16-millimeter projector in his home to screen favorites, such as those by Georges Méliès, D.W. Griffith, and Louis Feuillade. His collection quickly grew to over 2,500 film stills and several hundred films, and included silent era films, such as nature documentaries, goofy newsreels, travelogues, early cartoons, and slapstick comedies, as well as several feature films. In 1933, Cornell wrote a screenplay, or "scenario," entitled "Monsieur Phot." Between 1935 and 1937, Cornell also occasionally created publicity photomontages for Universal and Columbia studios. Of the nearly thirty films Cornell created, periods of activity can generally be separated into two areas: collage films of the late 1930s, consisting of combined elements from films in his own collection, and films he directed in the 1950s, which were collaborations with other filmmakers set in New York City. "Rose Hobart," Cornell's most celebrated collage film, was created and shown in the Julien Levy Gallery in 1936 and includes clipped footage from "East of Borneo." Later films were directed and filmed with cinematographers Stan Brakhage, Rudy Burckhardt, and Larry Jordan.

In 1934, Cornell began a job at the Traphagen Commercial Textile Studio as a "textile designer," a job he held for six years. Continuing to work at his kitchen table in the evenings, Cornell completed his first assemblage box construction, "Untitled (Soap Bubble Set)," in 1936. It was first exhibited at The Museum of Modern Art's show, "Fantastic Art, Dada and Surrealism" (December 9, 1936-January 17, 1937). This work was also the first to be acquired by a museum, purchased for $60.00 by the Wadsworth Atheneum in Massachusetts in 1938. Cornell's European debut was also in 1938, as one of three Americans represented in the "Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme" (January 17-Febuary 24, 1938) at the Galerie Beaux-Arts in Paris, alongside Man Ray and Anne Clark.

At the end of 1939, Cornell began corresponding with poet Charles Henri Ford, founder of avant-garde magazine "View," Pavel Tchelitchew, and Parker Tyler. After his "Soap Bubble Sets," this period saw the development of Cornell's homages to singers and actresses, including "Untitled (Fortune-Telling Parrot for Carmen Miranda)," the destroyed "Garbo (Greta Garbo in the Legendary Film 'The Crystal Mask,' c. 1845)," and "Dressing Room for Gilles." He also began using photostats of art reproduction prints, as with the print of Jean Antoine-Watteau's painting, "Pierrot" (circa 1719), used in his "Gilles" box.

In the 1940s, the Romantic ballet emerged as Cornell's new topic of interest. Through his friend Pavel Tchelitchew, Cornell was introduced to the School of American Ballet and New York City Ballet founders, Lincoln Kirstein and George Balanchine. Cornell collected dance memorabilia and had a great love of the Romantic ballet. His favorite dancers were primarily ballerinas of the nineteenth century, including Fanny Cerrito, Marie Taglioni, Fanny Elssler, Lucille Grahn, and Carlotta Grisi. Cornell's "Homage to the Romantic Ballet" works largely took the shape of jewel-box style wooden boxes with glass overlays and included bits of velvet, tulle, sequins, crystals, and chiffon, occasionally collected from dancers themselves. His most well-known work of this series is "Taglioni's Jewel Casket" (1940). Cornell also admired several living ballet dancers, including Tamara Toumanova, Zizi Jeanmaire, and Allegra Kent, who would all make their way into Cornell's box works and/or collages. Collecting for the "exploration," "Portrait of Ondine," Cornell's cased portfolio dedication to Fanny Cerrito and her role in the ballet "Ondine," began in the 1940s, though not completed until around 1960.

In late 1940, Cornell quit his job at Traphagen to concentrate on freelance commercial magazine design and editorial work during the day and his artwork at night. That same year, Charles Henri Ford started "View" magazine to promote Surrealists and Neo-Romantics in New York City and often asked Cornell to contribute. Published in the December 1941-January 1942 issue, one of his early contributions was a collage dedication to stage actress Hedy Lamarr: "Enchanted Wanderer: Excerpt from a Journey Album for Hedy Lamarr" (1941). Along with writing the accompanying text, he created a photomontage of Lamarr with her face overlaying the painted portrait of a Renaissance boy by Italian painter Giorgione. Peggy Guggenheim, at the advice of Marcel Duchamp, purchased multiple Cornell works prior to opening her new gallery, Art of This Century. Cornell also befriended Roberto Matta Echaurren, another Surrealist living in exile, who introduced him to Robert Motherwell.

After deciding to fully dedicate his time to his art in early 1940, he set up a studio in his basement. Complete with floor-to-ceiling wooden shelving, he kept his large collection of boxed source material stacked with handwritten labels in cardboard boxes. Themed folders of materials such as "Stamps" or "Maps" were kept in stacks and works in progress and finished works were stored in the basement, garage, and attic. Entering a renewed period of productivity, Cornell embarked on many new and important box projects in 1942. One of the first boxes created in his new basement studio, and the first of the "Penny Arcade" or "Medici Slot Machine" series, was "Medici Slot Machine" (1942), which includes a photostat of "Portrait of Marquess Massimiliano Stampa" (1557) by Sofonisba Anguissola. Another work from this time is the first of his "Castle" or "Palace" series, "Setting for a Fairy Tale" (1942), which uses a photostat of a French building from Jacques Androuet du Cerceau's book, "Les Plus excellents bastiments de France" (1576). "Untitled (Pharmacy)" (circa 1942) was the first of his "Pharmacy" series and included twenty-two apothecary jars. Cornell tended to work in series and created thirteen "Palace" boxes between 1942 and 1951, and ultimately created six "Pharmacy" works.

In 1943, Cornell began working at an electronics company, the Allied Control Company, Inc., to do his part to contribute to the defense effort during the war. He also sent correspondence and care packages to displaced Europeans, who listed their needs in "The Christian Science Monitor." Influenced by World War II, one of his strongest works to emerge in 1943 was "Habitat Group for a Shooting Gallery." Another notable work to come out of this period, "The Crystal Cage (Portrait of Berenice)," was an excerpt from one of his album "explorations" that was published in the January 1943 issue of "View."

Cornell left his job at Allied Control in 1944, but soon began working at the Garden Centre in Flushing, owned by a fellow Christian Scientist. Cornell was often nostalgic for this time in his life, devoting an entire "exploration" of material fondly remembered as "GC 44." He rode a bicycle to work and enjoyed collecting trips gathering dried grasses, driftwood, shells, and other relics of nature on the same bicycle as he rode through the streets of Queens. During this time, he continued to tend to his projects for "Dance Index," a magazine founded in 1942 by Lincoln Kirstein, but taken over by Donald Windham in 1944. Cornell designed several covers for the magazine and was given control of the entire summer 1944 issue, which he devoted to the Romantic ballet. He also devoted a special 1945 issue to Hans Christian Andersen, making great use of the New York Public Library Picture Collection.

Throughout the 1940s, Cornell continued to support himself with commercial design work for magazines like "Vogue," "Good Housekeeping," "Harper's Bazaar," "Town & Country," and "Mademoiselle." In 1946, after thirteen years at the Julien Levy Gallery, he joined the Hugo Gallery. In December 1946, Cornell's solo exhibition, "Romantic Museum at the Hugo Gallery: Portraits of Women by Joseph Cornell," celebrated his favorite movie stars, singers, and ballet dancers, and included his work created for the show, "Untitled (Penny Arcade Portrait of Lauren Bacall)." Cornell's "Greta Garbo" box, as well as "Souvenir for Singleton," an homage to Jennifer Jones and her role in the film "Love Letters," were also included in the show. In late 1948, his West Coast debut was in the exhibition, "Objects by Joseph Cornell," held at the Copley Gallery. The end of the 1940s saw the final issue of "View" magazine in 1947, the closure of the Julien Levy Gallery in April 1949, and Cornell's departure from the Hugo Gallery after his last show in November 1949.

In late 1949, Cornell joined the Charles Egan Gallery, known primarily for showing Abstract Expressionists. At this time, Cornell was working on a new series of boxes known as his "Aviary" works, most of which include a white-painted box with cutouts of birds mounted on wood. Though he had worked on bird-related boxes before, including an "Owl" series in the mid-1940s, his "Fortune Telling Parrot" (1939), and "Object 1941" (1941), these newer works were stripped of French elements and left "clean and abstract" by design. His first show at the Egan Gallery, "Aviary by Joseph Cornell" (December 7, 1949-January 7, 1950), included twenty-six "Aviary" works, nearly all created in 1949. Donald Windham agreed to write the foreword for the exhibition catalog, a single folded sheet, and Cornell gave him one of the boxes in the show, "Cockatoo: Keepsake Parakeet," in appreciation. Through the Egan Gallery, Cornell became friends with a new group of artists, including Franz Kline, Jack Tworkov, and Willem de Kooning. Cornell also held two screenings of a selection of his collected films at Subjects of the Artist, an art school founded by Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko, David Hare, and William Baziotes.

In 1950, Cornell's second show at the Egan Gallery, "Night Songs and Other New Work" (December 1, 1950-January 13, 1951), introduced his new "Observatory" series. These works are largely defined by stark, whitewashed spaces with astronomical charts and constellations replacing colorful birds. The Museum of Modern Art purchased its first Cornell work from this show in early 1951, "Central Park Carrousel, in Memoriam" (1950).

For three months in 1951, Cornell was beset by various ailments and had trouble finding the energy to create new work. He worried more for his aging mother and the health of his brother. After a monthlong vacation with his sisters in Westhampton, he returned with renewed interest in Emily Dickinson's poetry. His whitewashed boxes took on a new form in his newest "Dovecote" series, using grids and circular cutouts. The works then transformed into homages to Dickinson, notably "Toward the Blue Peninsula: For Emily Dickinson" (circa 1953), and then to his "Hotel" series. Cornell's "Hotel" boxes include photostats of vintage European ads for hotels collected from vintage travel guides, especially "Baedeker's," adhered to the back walls of the boxes. Another new series of work, his "Juan Gris" series, was dedicated to Cubist artist Juan Gris. Between 1953 and the mid-1960s, Cornell created at least fifteen "Juan Gris" boxes, which often include a cutout of a white cockatoo in a Cubist-collage habitat. Cornell's third and last show at Egan Gallery, "Night Voyage" (February 10-March 28, 1953), included some of these newest works. After leaving Egan Gallery, his work was introduced to Chicago collectors in a solo show at the Frumkin Gallery, "Joseph Cornell: 10 Years of His Art" (April 10-May 7, 1953), which included nearly thirty pieces. Cornell's first museum retrospective was this same show held at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis (July 12-August 30, 1953).

As New York City continued to change, Cornell grew more nostalgic for the city he had explored since the 1920s. The impending closure of the Third Avenue El train prompted him to dream up a film project to capture its last days, resulting in "Gnir Rednow," a reworking of Stan Brakhage's 1955, "Wonder Ring." During this time, Cornell joined the Stable Gallery, run by Eleanor Ward, interacting often with Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, and Joan Mitchell, remaining there until the end of the 1950s. His astronomy-themed exhibition, "Winter Night Skies" (December 12, 1955-January 13, 1956), included his "Night Skies" series of work with celestial chart fragments, Greek mythological figures, and paint-splattered "windows" representative of star-filled night skies. In 1956, he became aware of ballerina Allegra Kent, and began a series of work devoted to her, the first of which was "Via Parmigianino (Villa Allegra)" (1956), which included a photostat of a painting by Parmigianino, "The Madonna of the Long Neck" (circa 1540). In late 1957, after two years, Cornell had his last show at Stable Gallery, "Joseph Cornell: Selected Works" (December 2-31, 1957), consisting of a series of "Sand Fountain" boxes and "Space Object" or "Celestial Navigation" works. The "Sand Fountain" boxes included different colors of sand meant to flow within, often from the tops into cordial glasses. His "Celestial Navigations" included galaxy-like compositions set within the boxes, with rolling, painted cork balls, metal rings, and constellation charts, sometimes hovering over cordial glasses or clay pipes. This last Stable Gallery show earned him his first published profile, written by Howard Griffin for the December 1957 issue of "Art News." Also in 1957, he won the Kohnstamm Prize for Construction at the Art Institute of Chicago's 62rd Annual Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture.

Towards the end of the 1950s, Cornell spent less time creating new bodies of work, and focused more on revisiting previous series and reviewing piles of collected source material. In 1959, Cornell returned to making collages, frequently sourcing popular magazines. In December 1959, Cornell was awarded $1,500 for his "Orion" collage, entered in the Art Institute of Chicago's "63rd American Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture." Also in December, he was offered a show at Bennington College in Vermont, which he titled, "Bonitas Solstitialis: Selected Works by Joseph Cornell and an exploration of the Colombier" (November 20-December 15, 1959). The show included one of his newest "explorations" of collected material related to "colombier," or pigeon houses.

By 1962, Cornell was working diligently on new collages, using Masonite boards and colorful magazine clippings. He also began creating collages using nude images interspersed with constellation clippings or hazy blue dyes. As in previous decades and art movements, Cornell became acquainted with new artists, spending less time in the city and more time hosting visitors at his Utopia Parkway home. Visitors included artists Walter De Maria, Robert Whitman, Andy Warhol, James Rosenquist, and Robert Indiana. Tony Curtis also became a frequent visitor and friend, introduced by Richard Feigen in 1964. The early 1960s was also the first time Cornell put out an advertisement for assistants in the "Long Island Star-Journal," employing a number of young men and women who helped organize clippings and run errands. Cornell also met Joyce Hunter, a young runaway waitress at a city coffee shop, who would occupy his thoughts and diary notes for the next several years. When she was murdered at the end of 1964, Cornell paid for her funeral. He went on to make several "Penny Arcade" collages in memoriam to her, including, "Penny Arcade (re-autumnal)" (1964).

In 1964, Cornell began friendships with several women including artist Carolee Schneeman, who was his first assistant in the early 1960s. He also met artist Yayoi Kusama through art dealer Gertrude Stein. After becoming friends, she visited him often and they exchanged letters and notes. As he did with other artist friends, Cornell supported her by purchasing several of her early watercolor paintings, and they stayed connected until his death in 1972.

Cornell's life greatly changed in 1965 with the death of his brother, Robert. By this time, his mother lived with his sister in Long Island, and Cornell was alone in the Utopia Parkway house for the first time. He exchanged frequent letters and phone calls with his mother and devoted much time to thinking about Robert and Joyce, often aligning them in his diary notations. Cornell also created a series of collages dedicated to his brother's memory, incorporating photostats of Robert's hundreds of drawings into Cornell's work, as with the later collage, "The Heart on the Sleeve" (1972). Cornell's "Time Transfixed" series of collages were also dedications to Robert's memory, referencing Magritte and Robert's love of trains. He mounted an exhibition, "Robert Cornell: Memorial Exhibition" (January 4-29, 1966), at the Robert Schoelkopf Gallery, where he showed Robert's artwork alongside his newly created collage dedications.

After Robert's death, Cornell relied more heavily on assistants, going through many part-time "helpers." In October 1966, Cornell's mother died, adding her to his constant thoughts and diaries. Though he was still grieving, he was given two major retrospectives in 1967. The first was at the Pasadena Art Museum, put on by James Demetrion and Walter Hopps, "An Exhibiton of Works by Joseph Cornell" (January 9-February 11, 1967). The second retrospective was at the Guggenheim Museum just three months later, "Joseph Cornell" (May 4-June 35, 1967), organized by Diane Waldman. After these shows, he was highlighted in the December 15, 1967 issue of "Life" in the article, "The Enigmatic Bachelor of Utopia Parkway."

In 1968, Cornell was given an "award of merit," which included a medal and $1,000, by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. He was also given a medal and $1,000 by the Brandeis University Creative Arts Awards in the painting category, along with an exhibition. Days later, "The New York Times" announced Cornell the winner, along with Donald Judd, of India's first Triennale of Contemporary World Art. The Brandeis exhibition, "Boxes and Collages by Joseph Cornell" (May 20-June 23, 1968), was organized by William Seitz and concentrated on Cornell's more recent 1960s collages. Cornell was also included in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's hundredth anniversary show, "New York Painting and Sculpture: 1940 to 1970" (October 18, 1969-February 1, 1970), where twenty-two of Cornell's boxes were shown in their own gallery. At the end of 1970, Cornell was given a solo show at the Metropolitan, "Collages by Joseph Cornell" (December 10, 1970-January 24, 1971), which included forty-five of his newest collages.

Now preferring to stay closer to his home in Flushing, Cornell was more interested in sharing his art with young adults and children, than an adult audience. He hosted a group of high school students, sponsored by the Metropolitan Museum of Art's education department, at his home in conjunction with his collage show (1970-1971). He also showed his work in the art department of Queens College of the City University of New York. Cornell still hosted visitors on occasion, having Yoko Ono and John Lennon at his home at least once. Leila Hadley, Betsy von Furstenberg, and Anne Jackson also made frequent visits. With his deteriorating health, Cornell worried about what would happen to his work after his death and hired lawyer Harry Torczyner to help him plan his estate and get his affairs in order.

In 1972, Cornell had a show at the Cooper Union, a college in New York, specifically for children. He displayed his boxes and collages at child-height and had cherry soda and brownies at the opening reception on February 10. He then held a show at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, also for children: "Children's Preview of the Exhibition of Joseph Cornell – Collages and Boxes (April 18-June 17, 1972). In the winter of 1972, at the request of the Phoenix House drug treatment and prevention program, Cornell contributed to a charity project compiling limited-edition lithographic prints for a portfolio, which included artists like David Hockney, James Rosenquist, and Ellsworth Kelly.

On December 29, 1972, a week after turning sixty-nine, Cornell died of heart failure at his home. He was cremated and interred near the graves of his mother, father, and brother, overlooking the Hudson River in Nyack, New York.

Works Cited:

1. Hartigan, Lynda Roscoe. "Joseph Cornell: Navigating the Imagination." New Haven, Connecticut and London: Yale University Press, 2007. Exhibition Catalog.

2. McShine, Kynaston. "Joseph Cornell." New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1980.

3. San Francisco Cinematheque and The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. "Joseph Cornell: Films." 2007. Exhibition Program. (Presented in conjunction with SFMOMA's exhibition of "Joseph Cornell: Navigating the Imagination").

4. Schaffner, Ingrid and Lisa Jacobs. "Julien Levy: Portrait of an Art Gallery." Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: The MIT Press, 1998.

5. Solomon, Deborah. "Utopia Parkway: The Life and Work of Joseph Cornell." New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997.

Separated Materials:

The Smithsonian Archives of American Art houses the Joseph Cornell papers, 1804-1986, bulk 1939-1972.

Provenance:

The Joseph Cornell Study Center collection was donated to the Smithsonian American Art Museum by Joseph Cornell's sister and brother-in-law, Elizabeth Cornell Benton and John A. Benton, in 1978, which prompted the creation of the Joseph Cornell Study Center. Additional materials were donated in installments by the artist's estate, the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, from 1985 to 1997. Elizabeth and John A. Benton originally donated 66 linear feet of three-dimensional and non-textual source material and 50 linear feet of books to the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, which were subsequently transferred to the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Joseph Cornell Study Center in 1994 and 1995.

Restrictions:

Access to the collection requires an advanced appointment. Contact collection staff at least two weeks prior to preferred date, at AmericanArtCornellStudy@si.edu.

Series 9: Artifacts and Ephemera, Series 13: Personal Library and Book Collection, and Series 14: Record Album Collection, are still undergoing processing and preservation and may not be available for research use. Record albums are unavailable for playback. Contact collection staff for full lists of publications and record albums.

Rights:

Unpublished materials are protected by copyright. Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository and the copyright holder.

Occupation:

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

Topic:

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

Assemblage (Art)  Search this

Assemblage artists -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this

Found objects (Art)  Search this

Works of art  Search this

Celebrities  Search this

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

Genre/Form:

Photographic photoprints -- Silver gelatin -- 1900-1950

Photographs -- 1860-1870 -- Black-and-white photoprints -- Silver albumen -- Cartes-de-visite

Photographs -- Daguerreotypes -- 1840-1860

Citation:

Joseph Cornell Study Center collection, 1750-1980, bulk 1930-1972. Joseph Cornell Study Center, Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Sponsor:

Funding for the processing of this collection was generously provided by the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation.

Identifier:

SAAM.JCSC.1

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Joseph Cornell Study Center Collection

Archival Repository:

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Research and Scholars Center

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ih7d97fc249-474d-41bf-953d-5305df1e4c06

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-saam-jcsc-1

Author:

Cavett, Kate  Search this

Hand in Hand Productions (Saint Paul, Minn.)  Search this

Rondo Oral History Project  Search this

Physical description:

xv, 365 pages illustrations, maps 23 cm

Type:

Interviews

Entretiens

Biography

Interview

History

oral histories (literary works)

Oral histories

Biographies

Histoires orales

Place:

Minnesota

Saint Paul

Rondo (Saint Paul, Minn.)

Saint Paul (Minn.)

Rondo

Date:

2005

20th century

20e siècle

Topic:

African Americans  Search this

African Americans--Social life and customs  Search this

African American neighborhoods--History  Search this

Oral history  Search this

Interviews  Search this

Noirs américains  Search this

Noirs américains--Mœurs et coutumes  Search this

Quartiers noirs américains--Histoire  Search this

Histoire orale  Search this

Entretiens  Search this

African American neighborhoods  Search this

Manners and customs  Search this

Social life and customs  Search this

Data Source:

Smithsonian Libraries

EDAN-URL:

edanmdm:siris_sil_1159180

Creator:

Ayer (N W) Incorporated.  Search this

Names:

American Telephone and Telegraph Company -- Advertisements  Search this

Cunningham & Walsh.  Search this

Hixson & Jorgenson  Search this

United Air Lines, Inc. -- Advertisements  Search this

Ayer, Francis Wayland  Search this

De Kooning, Willem, 1904-1997  Search this

O'Keeffe, Georgia, 1887-1986  Search this

Extent:

270 Cubic feet (1463 boxes, 33 map-folders, 7 films)

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Business records

Interviews

Oral history

Print advertising

Proof sheets

Proofs (printed matter)

Scrapbooks

Trade literature

Tear sheets

Advertisements

Date:

1817-1851

1869-2006

Summary:

Collection consists of records documenting one of the oldest advertising agencies created in Philadelphia. The company then moves to New York and expanses to international markets. During its history NW Ayer & Sons acquires a number of other advertising agencies and is eventually purchased. The largest portion of the collection is print advertisements but also includes radio and television. NW Ayer is known for some of the slogans created for major American companies.

Scope and Contents:

The collection consists primarily of proof sheets of advertisements created by NW Ayer & Son, Incorporated for their clients. These materials are in series one through thirteen and consist primarily of print advertisements. There are also billboards, radio and television commercials. The advertisements range from consumer to corporate and industrial products. The majority of the advertisements were created for Ayer's New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and international offices. Printed advertisements created by Cunningham & Walsh, Hixson & Jorgensen and Newell-Emmett are also included among these materials. Researchers who are interested in records created by Ayer in the course of operating an advertising agency will find these materials in Series fourteen-nineteen.

Series fourteen consists of advertisements created by NW Ayer & Son to promote their services to potential clients.

Series fifteen are scrapbooks of some of the earliest advertisements created by the company. Series sixteen are publications. Some of the publications were created by Ayer while others were about Ayer or the advertising industry in general. Provides good background materials and puts the company in perspective. Series eighteen are the legal records. Materials relating to employees including photographs, oral histories etc. are found in series nineteen.

Series twenty is one of the smallest amounts of materials and includes information relating to the history of NW Ayer & Son.

The container lists for series one-thirteen are part of a database and are searchable. The list has been printed for the convenience of the researcher and is included in this finding aid. Series fourteen-twenty container lists are also a part of the finding aid but are not in a searchable format.

Series 1, Scrapbooks of Client Advertisements, circa 1870-1920, is arranged into three boxes by chronological date. There are two bound scrapbooks and one box of folders containing loose scrapbook pages. NW Ayer & Son compiled an assortment of their earliest ads and placed them into scrapbooks. Besides the earliest advertisements, the scrapbooks contain requests to run advertisements, reading notices and listings of papers Ayer advertised in. The early advertisements themselves range from medical remedies to jewelry to machines to clothing to education and more. Most of the advertisements in the bound scrapbooks are dated.

Series 2, Proofsheets, circa 1870-1930, NW Ayer was fond of creating scrapbooks containing proofsheets. The series contains proofsheets created between 1892 and 1930, organized into 526 boxes. For convenience of storage, access and arrangement, the scrapbooks were disassembled and the pages placed in original order in flat archival storage boxes. The proofsheets are arranged by book number rather than client name. Usually the boxes contain a listing of the clients and sometimes the dates of the advertisements to be found within the box.

Series 3, Proofsheets, circa 1920-1975, is organized into 532 oversize boxes, and contain proofsheets and tearsheets created between 1920 and 1972. Within this series, materials are arranged alphabetically by company name (occasionally subdivided by brand or product), and thereunder chronologically by date of production. Many major, national advertisers are represented, including American Telephone & Telegraph, Armour Company, Canada Dry, Cannon Mills, Carrier Corporation, Domino Sugar, Caterpillar tractor company, Ford Motor Company, General Electric, Goodyear, Hills Bros. Coffee, Ladies Home Journal, National Dairy, Plymouth (Chrysler Corporation), Steinway, TV Guide, United Airlines and the United States Army. Also contained in this series are three scrapbooks of client advertisements including Canada Dry, Ford Motor, and Victor Talking Machine.

Series 4, 2001 Addendum, circa 1976-2001, is organized into ninety three oversized boxes,one folder and contains proofsheets for select Ayer clients, created between 1975 and 2001. Within this series, materials are arranged alphabetically by client name and there under chronologically by date of production. Major national advertisers represented include American Telephone & Telegraph, Avon, the United States Army, DeBeers Consolidated Diamond Mines, Dupont, TV Guide, Sealtest, Kraft Foods, Gillette, General Motors, Cannon Mills.

Series 5, Billboards, circa 1952-1956, consists of mounted and un-mounted original art/mock-ups. Twenty-two pieces of original art created as mock-ups for Texaco billboards.

Series 6, Film and Video Commercials, 1967-1970,

Series 7, Radio and Television Materials, 1933-1993, undated, is arranged into eight boxes and includes radio scripts, television scripts, and story boards for commercials.

Subseries 7.1, Scripts and storyboards for Radio and Television Commercials, dates Scripts for radio and television commercials includes title, date, length of commercial, advertising agency, client information

NW Ayer's radio and television materials mainly focus on the American Telegraph and Telephone account. Some of Ayer's materials relate to Bell Telephone Hours.

Storyboards are used in television and film to assist the director in working with crew to tell the story. To show the viewer through the use of figures, visual effects and camera angles. When directors first start thinking about their storyboard they create a story in their mind. They think of all the camera angles, visual effects and how the figures will interact in their mind. They try to create an extraordinary story in their head to attract the viewer (YOU) In order for the storyboard to be entirely effective it can't be a passive document. When done properly, a storyboard serves as a central design, meeting the needs of many team members including graphics artists, video personnel and programmers.

Another function of a storyboard is to help the team communicate during the training development process. This communication is very important in working with a large team as in the movie King, produced in 1996. Figures help the director explain to the crew how they are going to record the film and how to present it to the audience. Sometimes the director wants special effects to be added to the film, but his budget might not be that big so the director will have to change the story to fit their budget.

The Visual Effects are an important part in the storyboards it adds a special touch of creativity to your film. Camera angles are an important expects in your film because the camera angles determine where the viewing audience will look. If you want your audience to look at a certain object you must turn their attention to it by focusing on that object and maybe you might try blocking something out. Then you will have your audience's attention and you may do whatever else you have to, it could be scaring them are just surprising them or whatever you do.

Also included is talent information and log sheets relating to the storage of the commercials.

Bell Telephone Hour Program, 1942-[19??], The Bell Telephone Hour, also known as The Telephone Hour, was a five minute musical program which began April 29, 1940 on National Broadcasting Company Radio and was heard on NBC until June 30, 1958. Sponsored by Bell Telephone showcased the best in classical and Broadway music, reaching eight to nine million listeners each week. It continued on television from 1959 to 1968.

Earlier shows featured James Melton and Francia White as soloists. Producer Wallace Magill restructured the format on April 27, 1942 into the "Great Artists Series" of concert and opera performers, beginning with Jascha Heifetz. Records indicate that the list of talents on the program included Marian Anderson, Helen Traubel, Oscar Levant, Lily Pons, Nelson Eddy, Bing Crosby, Margaret Daum, Benny Goodman, José Iturbi, Gladys Swarthout and .The series returned to radio in 1968-1969 as Bell Telephone Hour Encores, also known as Encores from the Bell Telephone Hour, featuring highlights and interviews from the original series.

National Broadcasting television specials sponsored by the Bell System, 1957-1987includes information relating to Science series, Bell system Theshold Series, Bell telephone hour and commercial and public sponsored programs

Series 8, Chicago Office Print Advertisements, 1954-1989, is arranged alphabetically by the name of the client in ninety boxes and six oversize folders. Clients include Illinois Bell Telephone (1955-1989), Microswitch (1969-1989), Teletype (1975-1984), John Deere (1974-1989) and Caterpillar (1966-1972) are particularly well represented. Other clients of interest include Dr. Scholl's shoes (circa 1968-1972), the Girl Scouts (1976-1980), Sunbeam Personal Products Company (1973-1981), Bell and Howell (1974-1983) and Alberto Culver shampoos (1967-1971), Honeywell, Incorporated, Blue Cross and Blue Shield Associations, Kraft, Incorporated, Sears, Roebuck and Company, and YMCA.

Series 9, Los Angeles Office Materials, 1950s-1987, include printed advertisements created by this office and information relating to the employees.

Subseries 9.1, Print Advertisements, 1977-1987, printed advertisements arranged in one box alphabetically by client. There is a sparse sampling of clients from this particular Ayer branch office. The majority of the advertisements contained within this series are from Pizza Hut (1986-1987). Also included are Computer Automation (1977-1978), State of the Art, Incorporated (1982) and Toshiba (1986).

Subseries 9.2, Personnel Files, 1950s-1970s, includes cards of employees who worked in the Los Angeles office. Information on the cards includes name, address, telephone number, birthday, date hired, departure date and why (retired, terminated, resigned, etc) and position. Not all cards have all information. There is also a photograph of the employees on the cards.

Series 10, Foreign Print Advertisements, 1977-1991, undated, NW Ayer maintained partnerships with international companies such as Sloanas Ayer in Argentina, Connaghan & May Paton Ayer in Australia, Moussault Ayer in Belgium, NW Ayer, LTD. in Canada, GMC Ayer in France, Co-Partner Ayer in Germany, Wong Lam Wang in Hong Kong, MacHarman Ayer in New Zealand, Grupo de Diseno Ayer in Spain, Nedeby Ayer in Sweden, and Ayer Barker in United Kingdom. This group of material is a small sampling of advertisements created from these International offices. It is arranged alphabetically by client. There are quite a few automobile advertisements (i.e. Audi, Fiat, General Motors, Mercedes-Benz, and Volkswagen). In addition there are numerous advertisements for various personal items from MacLean's toothpaste to Quick athletic shoes to Labello lip balm, etc. Most of the advertisements have the creator's name printed on the advertisements.

Series 11, Cunningham & Walsh, Incorporated Materials, 1915-1987, undated contains 98 boxes 11 folders materials from the New York advertising agency acquired by NW Ayer in the 1960s. The company began with Newel-Emmett, an agency of nine men which broke up in 1949. Two of the men Fred Walsh and Jack Cunningham formed this agency in bearing their names in 1950. The agency created "let your fingers for the walking campaign for American Telephone & Telegraph, Mother Nature for Chiffon, and Mrs. Olson for Folgers's coffee and let the good times roll for Kawasaki motorcycle. In 1986, NW Ayer Incorporated purchased Cunningham & Walsh Incorporated.

Subseries 11.1, Print Advertisements, 1915-1987, are contained in ninety eight boxes of primarily print advertisements arranged alphabetically by client name. Clients that are particularly well represented are Graybar (electrical implements, circa1926-1937), Johns-Manulle (circa1915-1971), Smith and Corono typewriters (circa 1934-1960), Sunshine Biscuit Company (circa 1925-1961), Texaco Company (circa 1936-1961), Western Electric (circa 1920- 1971) and Yellow Pages (circa 1936-1971). Cunningham and Walsh also represented several travel and tourism industry clients, including Cook Travel Services (circa 1951-1962), Italian Line (circa 1953-1961), Narragansett and Croft (circa 1956-1960) and Northwest Airlines (circa 1946-1955). There are photographs of Texaco advertisements dating from 1913-1962. There is also a scrapbook of advertisements from the Western Electric Company dating from 1920-1922.

Subseries 11.2, Radio and Television Advertisements, 1963-1967, consist of materials created for Western Electric. Materials are arranged in chronological order.

Subseries 11.3, Company Related Materials, 1962-1986, undated include client lists, information relating to NW Ayer purchase and annual report 1962.

Series 12, Hixson & Jorgensen Materials, 1953-1971, a Los Angeles advertising company, merged with Ayer in 1969. This series is housed in one box. Within the box are four scrapbooks and folders with a hodgepodge of materials relating to advertising. Of most interest are the scrapbooks. Two scrapbooks deal with Hixson and Jorgensen's self promotion ad campaign "the right appeal gets action" (1953-1957). The other two scrapbooks contain news clippings about the company and its activities (1959-1971).

Series 13, Newell-Emmet, 1942-1957, founded in 1919 and governed in the 1940s by a partnership of nine men. The partnership broke up in 1949 when the men went their separate ways. The materials consist of print advertisements for one of client, Permutit Company, a water conditioning company. The materials are arranged in one box in chronological order.

Series 14, House Print Advertisements, 1870-1991, 16 boxes consists of advertisements or self-promotion advertisements to campaign for new clients. The series is arranged chronologically by date into fifteen boxes. Within the series are two scrapbooks containing self promotion ads from 1888-1919 and 1892-1895. Numerous house ads relate to Ayer's "Human Contact" campaign. In addition to the self promotion ads, Ayer ran advertisements expounding about particular concepts or themes for example, one month the concept would "understand" while another month would be "teamwork" and yet another would be on "imagination". Some of the self promotion ads target specific groups like Philadelphia businessmen. Other advertisements incorporate the fine arts.

Series 15, Scrapbooks, 1872-1959, relates to company events, records and news clippings about Ayer's history. The six boxes are arranged by chronological date. Two of the boxes focus solely on the death of founder F.W. Ayer (1923). Another box houses a scrapbook that showcases Ayer's annual Typography Exhibition (1931-1959). One box contains a scrapbook that specifically deals with correspondences relating to Ayer's advertising. Yet another box's contents are folders of loose pages from scrapbooks that have newspaper clippings, order forms, correspondences and other company records. In one box, a bound scrapbook houses a variety of materials relating to Ayer and advertising (i.e. newspaper clippings, competitor's advertisements, NW Ayer's advertisements, correspondences for advertisements, clippings regarding the "theory of advertising."

Series 16, Publications, 1849-2006, are housed in thirty four boxes and are arranged into three main categories.

Subseries 16.1, House Publications, 1876-1994, covers diverse topics; some proscriptive works about the Ayer method in advertising, some commemorating people, anniversaries or events in the life of the agency. Materials consist of scattered issues of the employee newsletter The Next Step 1920-1921. The materials are arranged in chronological order by date of publication. Ayer in the News, The Show Windows of an Advertising Agency, 1915, book form of advertisements published on the cover of Printer's Ink, highlighting Ayer's relations with advertisers. The Story of the States, 1916, Reprint in book form of a series of articles published in Printer's Ink for the purpose of adding some pertinent fact, progressive thought and prophetic vision to the Nationalism of Advertising highlights major businesses, manufacturer, natural resources and other qualities or attractions of each state. The Book of the Golden Celebration, 1919, includes welcome address and closing remarks by founder F. Wayland Ayer, The Next Step, 1920 employee newsletter with photographs, employee profiles, in-house jokes, etc., Advertising Advertising: A Series of Fifty-two Advertisements scheduled one time a week. Twenty-seven, thirty and forty inches, a day of the week optional with publisher, 1924

Subseries 16.2, Publications about NW Ayer, 1949-2006, includes a book first published in 1939. Includes articles, documenting events and is arranged chronologically by date of publication.

Subseries 16.3, General Publications about Advertising, 1922-1974, are arranged chronologically by date of publication and relate primarily to the history of advertising.

Subseries 16.4, Publications about Other Subjects, 1948-1964, include four books about the tobacco industry primarily the history of the American Tobacco Company and Lorillard Company from the Cunningham and Walsh library.

Series 17, Business Records, circa 1885-1990s

Subseries 17.1, Contracts, 1885-1908, undated, are arranged alphabetically and span from 1885-1908. The majority of the contracts are with newspaper and magazine publishers from around the country.

Subseries 17.2, General client information, 1911-1999, undated, including active and cancelled lists with dates, client gains, historical client list, (should move this to series 20) Ayer Plan User Guide Strategic Planning for Human Contact, undated

Subseries 17.3, Individual Client Account Information, 1950s-1990s, undated, contain information used by Ayer to create advertisements for some of its clients. American Telephone &Telegraph Corporate Case History, American Telephone &Telegraph Corporate advertisement memo, commissioned artists for DeBeers advertisements, DeBeers information relating to the creative process and photography credits, a case history for DeBeers Consolidated Mines, Ltd., The Diamond Engagement Ring, Managing Communication at all levels, DuPont publications, JC Penny Marketing Communication Plan Recommendation, Leaf, Incorporated, Saturn presentation, and USAREC oral presentation.

Subseries 17.4, Potential Clients, 1993, includes grouping has a questionnaire sent to Ayer by a potential client. Questionnaire response for Prudential Securities, 1993 Prudential Securities advertising account review, 1993.

Subseries 17.5, Financial Records, 1929-1938, includes balance sheet, 1929 May 1 Balance sheet and adjustments Consolidated statement of assets and liabilities, Expenses 191936-37 Business review and expenses, 1937 and 1938 Business review and expenses comparative statement, 1937 and 1938.

Series 18, Legal Records, circa 1911-1982, Ayer's legal records are arranged by twelve subject groupings within four boxes. The twelve groupings are advertising service agreements (circa 1918-1982), bylaws, copyright claims, correspondences, international correspondences, dissolution of trusts, stock information, agreements between partners, incorporation materials, reduction of capital, property information and miscellaneous materials. The bulk of the materials are the advertising service agreements. These agreements are between Ayer and their clients and state the services Ayer will offer and at what cost. The bylaws are Ayer's company bylaws from 1969 and 1972. The copyright claims are certificates stating Ayer's ownership over certain published materials (i.e. "Policy", Media Equalizer Model, and Don Newman's Washington Square Experiment). The correspondences relate to either the voting trust and receipts for agreement or the New York Corporation. The international correspondences are from either Ayer's Canadian office or London office. The dissolutions of trusts contains materials about the dividend trust of Wilfred F. Fry, the investment trust of Winfred W. Fry, the voting trust, and the New York corporation. The stock information has stock certificates and capital stock information. The agreements between partners (1911-1916) specify the terms between F.W. Ayer and his partners. The incorporation materials (circa 1929-1977) deal with Ayer advertising agency becoming incorporated in the state of Delaware. The reduction of capital grouping is a notification that shares of stock have been retired. The property information grouping contains property deeds and insurance policy (circa 1921-1939), a property appraisal (1934), and a bill of sale (1948). The miscellaneous grouping contains a house memo regarding a set of board meeting minutes and a registry of foreign companies in Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (1929-1954).

Subseries 18.1, Advertising Service Agreements, 1918-1982

Subseries 18.2, Bylaw Materials, 1969-1972

Subseries 18.3, Copyright Claims, 1962-1969

Subseries 18.4, Correspondence, 1928-1933

Subseries 18.5, International Office Correspondence, 1947-1948

Subseries 18.6, Dissolution of Trusts, 1934-1937

Subseries 18.7, Stock Information, 1934-1974

Subseries 18.8, Agreements between Partners, 1911-1916

Subseries 18.9, Incorporation Materials, 1929-1977

Subseries 18.10, Certificates of Reduction of Capital, 1937; 1975

Subseries 18.11, Property Information, 1921-1948

Subseries 18.12, Miscellaneous Materials, 1929-1977

Series 19, Personnel Records, circa 1889-2001, are arranged into eight groupings within eight boxes. The groupings are employee card files, photographs, Ayer alumni, biographies, speeches, recollections, oral histories, and miscellaneous. Typed manuscript of book A Copy Writer Speaks by George Cecil, NW Ayer, Incorporated copy head 1920s-1950s

Subseries 19.1, Employee card files, circa 1892-1915; 1929-1963, consists of index cards with the name, age, job title, date and wage increases, date of hire/fire, as well as remarks about the employee's service and/or reasons for seeking or leaving the job. Materials are arranged alphabetically by the last name of the employee within three boxes.

Subseries 19.2, Photographs, circa 1924-1984, undated, are housed in two boxes. The photographs grouped together by subjects i.e. personnel, company events, Ayer buildings, and miscellaneous. This grouping primarily consists of personnel photographs. Includes a glass plate negative dated 1924 of NW Ayer.

Subseries 19.3, Ayer Alumni, circa 1989-98, include employees who have left Ayer. There is a listing of Ayer "graduates" and their current job. Emeritus, Ayer's alumni newsletter 1989-1996, makes up the majority of materials in this grouping. The newsletter keeps the alumni up to date with the happenings of Ayer and what has become of former Ayer employees. Emeritus is a quarterly newsletter devoted to the activities, thoughts and feelings of Ayer alumni a body of people who consists of retirees and former employees.

Subseries 19.4, Biographical Information, circa 1889-1994, undated, prominent members of Ayer's operations had biographical sketches completed of them. This was true for the bio sketches of Robert Ervin, Louis T. Hagopian, and George A. Rink. There is a substantial file on Dorothy Dignam ("Mis Dig"), a leading woman in the advertising world from the 1930s to the 1950s. Also of interest is a video ("The Siano Man") compiled by Ayer employees to commemorate Jerry Siano's retirement from Ayer in 1994. The series is arranged alphabetically by last name.

Subseries 19.5, Speeches, circa 1919-1931; 1975, contains speeches made by Wilfred W. Fry and Neal W. O'Connor. Wilfred W. Fry had various speaking engagements connected with Ayer. Contained in this group is a sampling of his speeches from 1919 to 1931. Neal O'Connor's speech "Advertising: Who Says It's a Young People's Business" was given at the Central Region Convention for the American Association of Advertising Agencies in Chicago on November 6, 1975. The speeches are arranged alphabetically by the speaker's last name.

Subseries 19.6, Recollections, 1954-1984, undated, are arranged alphabetically by last name. These are recollections from Ayer employees about the company and its advertisements. Some recollections are specifically about certain types of advertisements, like farm equipment while others reflect on F. W. Ayer and the company.

Subseries 19.7, Oral History Interview Transcripts, 1983-1985; 1989-1991, include interviews with key NW Ayer personnel, conducted by Ayer alumnae Howard Davis, Brad Lynch and Don Sholl (Vice President creative) for the Oral History Program. The materials are arranged alphabetically by the last name of the interviewee.

Subseries 19.8, Oral History Interview Audio Tapes, 1985-1990, include interviews on audiotape the materials are arranged alphabetically by the last name of the interviewee.

Subseries 19.9, Internal Communications, 1993-1999, includes information sent to employees relating to retirements, management changes, awards won by the company, promotions, potential new accounts, free items, grand opening of Ayer Café, donation events, sponsorship programs, holiday schedules, discounts for employees from clients, Ayer joins MacManus Group.

Subseries 19.10, General Materials, 1940; 1970, includes agency directory entry including a list of the employees, 1970s, annual banquet program for the Curfew Club May 22, 1940 a group formed by the Philadelphia employee in 1938. It sponsored numerous sports, social and educational activities. Groups were formed in public speaking, music appreciation and a series of talks on Monday evenings title the modern woman. The front page was a series of talks for general interest. A list of officers, 1991, Twenty five year club membership, 1973 December 1, List of NW Ayer graduates, 1970, List of Officers, 1991 May 31, Obituary for Leo Lionni, 1999 October 17, List of photographers of advertisements, 2001

Series 20, Background and History Information, 1817-1999, undated includes a chronology, 1817-1990, quick reference timeline, 1848-1923, loose pages from a scrapbook containing examples of correspondence, envelopes, advertisements dating from 1875-1878; slogans coined by NW Ayer & Sons, Incorporated, 1899-1990, history of management, 1909-1923, articles and photographs about the building and art galleries, 1926-1976, publications about the Philadelphia building, 1929, pamphlet relating to memories of NW Ayer & Sons, Incorporated, 1930s-1950s, television history, 1940-1948, Article about the history of the company, 1950 January, pocket guide, 1982, AdWeek reports about standings for advertising agencies, information relating to Human Contact which is NW Ayer's Information relating to Human Contact, undated which is their philosophy on advertising.

Series 21, Materials Created by other Advertising Agencies, 1945-1978, undated, consists of print advertisements collected by Ayer from other major advertising companies. The companies include Doyle Dane Bernback, Incorporated, Leo Burnett Company, Grey Advertising Agency, D'Arcy Ad Agency, Scali, McCabe, Sloves, Incorporated and Erwin Wasey Company. The materials are arranged in alphabetical order by client and include products from Ralston Purina and Van Camp (Chicken of the Sea), Kellogg, American Export Lines and No Nonsense Fashions.

Series 22, 2010 Addendum of Print Advertisements, circa 1879s-1999, undated, includes material given to the Archives Center in 2010. It is organized into seventy one oversized boxes and contains proofsheets of print advertisements for select Ayer clients. These are arranged alphabetically by client name and include substantial quantities of materials from American Telephone &Telegraph (1945-1996), Bahamas Ministry of Tourism (1967-1987), Carrier (1971-1981), Citibank (1973-1991), DeBeers (1940s-1960s and1990s), Electric Companies Advertising Program [ECAP] (1942-1970s), General Motors (1989-1998), J.C. Penney (1983-1986), Newsweek (1966-1975), and Proctor and Gamble (1980s-1890s). There are also numerous other clients represented by smaller quantities of materials.

Subseries 22.1, Print Advertisements, 1930-1990, undated

Subseries 22.2, Print Advertisements on Glass Plate Negatives, 1879-1881, undated, include Cannon towels, Cheny Brothers silks, Cornish & Company organs and pianos, Enterprise Manufacturing Company, 1879 sad iron, an ad from Harper's Weekly 1881 for ladies clothing, Ostermoor & Company mattresses, Pear's soap, Porter's cough balsam, Steinway pianos.

Series 23, Microfilm of Print Advertisements, circa 1908-1985, consists of three boxes of printed advertisements for the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. Some of the same advertisements might also be found in series two, three and four.

Arrangement:

The collection is arranged into twenty-three series.

Series 1: Scrapbooks of Client Print Advertisements, circa 1870-1920

Series 2: Proofsheets, circa 1870-1930

Series 3: Proofsheets, circa 1920-1975

Series 4: 2001 Addendum, circa 1976-2001

Series 5: Billboards, circa 1952-1956

Series 6: Audiovisual Materials

Series 7: Radio and Television Materials, 1933-1993, undated

Series 8: Chicago Office Print Advertisements, 1954-1989

Series 9: Los Angeles Office Materials, 1950s-1987

Subseries 9.1: Printed Advertisements, 1977-1987

Subseries 9.2: Personnel Files, 1950s-1970s

Series 10: Foreign Print Advertisements, 1977-1991, undated

Series 11: Cunningham & Walsh Incorporated Materials, 1915-1987, undated

Subseries 11.1: Printed Advertisements, 1915-1987

Subseries 11.2: Radio and Television Advertisements, 1963-1967

Subseries 11.3: Company Related Materials, 1962-1986, undated

Series 12: Hixson & Jorgensen Materials, 1953-1971, undated

Series 13: Newell-Emmet, 1942-1957

Series 14: House Print Advertisements, 1870-1991

Series 15: Scrapbooks, 1872-1959

Series 16: Publications, 1849-2006

Subseries 16.1: House Publications, 1876-1994

Subseries 16.2: Publications about NW Ayer, 1949-1995

Subseries 16.3: General Publications about Advertising, 1922-2006

Subseries 16.4: Publications about other Subjects, 1948-1964

Series 17, Business Records, circa 1885-1990s

Subseries 17.1: Contracts, 1885-1908, undated

Subseries 17.2: General Client Information, 1911-1999, undated

Subseries 17.3: Individual Client Account Information, 1950s-1990s, undated

Subseries 17.4: Potential Clients, 1993

Subseries 17.5: Financial Records, 1929-1938

Series 18: Legal Records, circa 1911-1984

Subseries 18.1: Advertising Service Agreements, 1918-1982

Subseries 18.2: Bylaw Materials, 1969-1972

Subseries 18.3, Copyright Claims, 1962-1969

Subseries 18.4: Correspondence, 1928-1933

Subseries 18.5: International Office Correspondence, 1947-1948

Subseries 18.6: Dissolution of Trusts, 1934-1937

Subseries 18.7: Stock Information, 1934-1974

Subseries 18.8: Agreements between Partners, 1911-1916

Subseries 18.9: Incorporation Materials, 1929-1977

Subseries 18.10: Certificates of Reduction of Capital, 1937; 1975

Subseries 18.11: Property Information

Subseries 18.12: Miscellaneous Materials, 1929-1977

Series 19: Employee Materials, circa 1889-2001

Subseries 19.1: Employee Card files, circa 1892-1915; 1929-1963

Subseries 19.2: Photographs, circa 1924-1984, undated

Subseries 19.3: Alumni Publications, circa 1989-1998

Subseries 19.4: Biographical Information, circa 1889-1994

Subseries 19.5: Speeches, circa 1919-1931; 1975

Subseries 19.6: Recollections, 1954-1984, undated

Subseries 19.7: Oral History Interview Transcripts, 1983-1985; 1989-1991

Subseries 19.8: Oral History Audiotapes, 1985-1990

Subseries 19.9: Internal Communications, 1993-1999

Subseries 19.1: General Materials, 1940-2001

Series 20: History and Background Information about the Company, 1817-1999, undated

Series 21: Materials Created by other Advertising Agencies, 1945-1978, undated

Series 22: 2010 Addendum of Print Advertisements, circa 1879s-1990s, undated

Subseries 22.1: Print Advertisements, 1930-1990, undated

Subseries 22.2: Print Advertisements on Glass Plate Negatives, 1879-1881, undated

Series 23: Microfilm of Print Advertisements, circa 1908-1985

Biographical / Historical:

Founded in Philadelphia in 1869, NW Ayer & Son is one of the oldest and largest advertising agencies in America. For most of its history, it was the undisputed leader and innovator in the field of advertising. In 1876, NW Ayer & Son pioneered the "open contract", a revolutionary change in the method of billing for advertising which became the industry standard for the next hundred years. NW Ayer pioneered the use of fine art in advertising and established the industry's first art department. It was the first agency to use a full-time copywriter and the first to institute a copy department. The agency relocated to New York City in 1974. During its long history, the agency's clients included many "blue-chip" clients, including American Telephone & Telegraph, DeBeers Consolidated Diamond Mines, Ford Motor Company, Nabisco, R. J. Reynolds and United Airlines. However, in later years, the Ayer's inherent conservatism left the agency vulnerable to the creative revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, the advertising industry restructuring of the 1980s and the economic recession of the early 1990s. The agency was bought out by a Korean investor in 1993. In 1996, NW Ayer merged with another struggling top twenty United States advertising agency, Darcy, Masius, Benton & Bowles, under the umbrella of the McManus Group. Ayer continues to operate as a separate, full-service agency.

Through a series of buyouts and mergers, Ayer traces its lineage to the first advertising agency founded in the United States, a Philadelphia agency begun by Volney Palmer in 1841. Palmer began his career in advertising as a newspaper agent, acting as middleman between newspaper publishers and advertisers across the country. By 1849, Palmer had founded his own newspaper, V. B. Palmer's Register and Spirit of the Press, and had developed a complete system of advertising which included securing advertising space and placing ads in scores of commercial, political, religious, scientific and agricultural journals across the country. Palmer went one step further than the "space jobbers" of the day when he began offering "advertisements carefully drawn for those who have not the time to prepare an original copy." Always an enthusiastic promoter of advertising as an incentive to trade and American economic growth, Palmer promised advertisers that "every dollar paid for advertising in country newspapers will pay back twenty-fold" and encouraged skeptical consumers that "he who wishes to buy cheap should buy of those who advertise." When Palmer died in 1863, the agency was bought by his bookkeeper, John Joy, who joined with another Philadelphia advertising agency to form Joy, Coe & Sharpe. That agency was bought out again in 1868 and renamed Coe, Wetherill & Company. In 1877, Coe, Wetherill and Company was bought out by the newly formed NW Ayer & Son.

Francis Wayland Ayer was an ambitious young schoolteacher with an entrepreneurial streak. Having worked for a year soliciting advertisements on a commission basis for the publisher of the National Baptist weekly, Francis Ayer saw the potential to turn a profit as an advertising agent. In 1869, Ayer persuaded his father, Nathan Wheeler Ayer, to join him in business, and with an initial investment of only $250.00, NW Ayer & Son was born. Notwithstanding a smallpox epidemic in Philadelphia in 1871 and the general economic depression of the early 1870s, the agency flourished. The senior Ayer died in 1873, leaving his interest in the agency to his wife, but Francis W. Ayer bought her out, consolidating his interest in the company's management. In 1877, with Coe, Wetherill & Company (the successor to Palmer's 1841 agency) on the verge of bankruptcy and heavily indebted to Ayer for advertising it had placed in Ayer publications, Ayer assumed ownership of that agency. Thus did NW Ayer lay claim to being the oldest advertising agency in the country.

Both Nathan Wheeler and Francis Wayland Ayer began their careers as schoolteachers, and one of their legacies was a commitment to the cause of education: correspondence schools and institutions of higher learning were historically well-represented among Ayer clients. Just after World War I, the agency was heralded as "co-founder of more schools than any citizen of this country" for its conspicuous efforts to advertise private schools. Well into the 1960s, an "Education Department" at Ayer prepared advertisements for over three hundred private schools, camps and colleges, representing almost half the regional and national advertising done for such institutions. In fact, to its clients Ayer presented advertising itself as being akin to a system of education. In 1886, Ayer began promoting the virtues of the Ayer way advertising with the slogan, "Keeping Everlastingly at It Brings Success."

The agency's goals were simple: "to make advertising pay the advertiser, to spend the advertiser's money as though it were our own, to develop, magnify and dignify advertising as a business." Initially, Ayer's fortunes were tied to newspapers, and the agency began to make a name for itself as compiler and publisher of a widely used American Newspaper Annual. During the first years, Ayer's singular goal was "to get business, place it [in newspapers] and get money for it"; after several years as an independent space broker, however, Francis Ayer resolved "not to be an order taker any longer." This decision led NW Ayer and Son to a change in its mode of conducting business which would revolutionize the advertising industry: in 1876, Ayer pioneered the "open contract" with Diggee & Conard, Philadelphia raised growers and agricultural suppliers. Prior to the open contract, NW Ayer & Sons and most agencies operated as "space-jobbers," independent wholesalers of advertising space, in which the opportunities for graft and corrupt practices were virtually unlimited. In contrast, the open contract, wherein the advertiser paid a fixed commission based on the volume of advertising placed, aligned the advertising agent firmly on the side of the advertiser and gave advertisers access to the actual rates charged by newspapers and religious journals. The open contract with a fixed commission has been hailed by advertising pioneer Albert Lasker as one of the "three great landmarks in advertising history." (The other two were Lasker's own development of "reason-why" advertising copy and J. Walter Thompson's pioneering of sex appeal in an advertisement for Woodbury's soap.) Although the transition to the open contract did not happen overnight, by 1884, nearly three-quarters of Ayer's advertising billings were on an open contract basis. Since Ayer was, by the 1890s, the largest agency in America, the switch to direct payment by advertisers had a significant impact on the advertising industry, as other agencies were forced to respond to Ayer's higher standard. Just as important, the open contract helped to establish N W Ayer's long-standing reputation for "clean ethics and fair dealing" -- a reputation the agency has guarded jealously for over a century. The open contract also helped to establish Ayer as a full service advertising agency and to regularize the production of advertising in-house. From that point forward, Ayer routinely offered advice and service beyond the mere placement of advertisements. Ayer set another milestone for the industry in 1888, when Jarvis Wood was hired as the industry's first full-time copywriter. Wood was joined by a second full time copywriter four years later, and the Copy Department was formally established in 1900. The industry's first Art Department grew out of the Copy Department when Ayer hired its first commercial artist to assist with copy preparation in 1898; twelve years later Ayer became the first agency to offer the services of a full time art director, whose sole responsibility was the design and illustration of ads.

Ayer's leadership in the use of fine art in advertising has roots in this period, but achieved its highest expression under the guidance of legendary art director Charles Coiner. Coiner joined Ayer in 1924, after graduating from the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. Despite early resistance from some clients, Coiner was adamant that "the use of outstanding palette and original art forms bring a greater return in readership, in impact and prestige for the advertiser." To this end, Coiner marshaled the talents of notable painters, illustrators and photographers, including N.C. Wyeth and Rockwell Kent (Steinway), Georgia O'Keefe (Dole), Leo Lionni (DuPont), Edward Steichen (Steinway, Cannon Mills), Charles Sheeler (Ford), and Irving Penn (DeBeers). Coiner believed that there was a practical side to the use of fine art in advertising, and his success (and Ayer's) lay in the marriage of research and copywriting with fine art, an arrangement Coiner termed "art for business sake." Coiner's efforts won both awards and attention for a series completed in the 1950s for the Container Corporation of America. Titled "Great Ideas of Western Man" the campaign featured abstract and modern paintings and sculpture by leading U.S. and foreign artists, linked with Western philosophical writings in an early example of advertising designed primarily to bolster corporate image. In 1994, Charles Coiner was posthumously named to the American Advertising Federation's Hall of Fame, the first full time art director ever chosen for that honor.

Coiner and fellow art director Paul Darrow also created legendary advertising with the "A Diamond Is Forever" campaign for DeBeers; ads featured the work of Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali and other modernist painters. The "A Diamond is Forever" tagline was written in 1949 by Frances Gerety, a woman copywriter at Ayer from 1943 to 1970. In 1999, Ad Age magazine cited "A Diamond is Forever" as the most memorable advertising slogan of the twentieth century.

Coiner also earned respect for his volunteer government service during World War II; he designed the armbands for civil defense volunteers and logos for the National Recovery Administration and Community Chest. As a founding member of the Advertising Council in 1945, Ayer has had a long-standing commitment to public service advertising. In the mid-1980s, Ayer became a leading force in the Reagan-era "War on Drugs". Lou Hagopian, Ayer's sixth CEO, brokered the establishment of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, a media coalition which generated as much as a million dollars a day in donated advertising space and time to prevent the use and abuse of illegal drugs. Famous names appear among NW Ayer's clientele from the very earliest days of the agency. Retailer John Wanamaker, Jay Cooke and Company, and Montgomery Ward's mail-order business were among the first Ayer clients. The agency has represented at least twenty automobile manufacturers, including Cadillac, Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Plymouth, and Rolls-Royce. Other major, long-term clients through the years have included American Telephone & Telegraph, Canada Dry, Cannon Mills, Hills Bros. Coffee Company, Kellogg's, R. J. Reynolds, Steinway and Sons, United Airlines, and the United States Army. By the time of Ayer's hundredth anniversary in 1969, some of these companies had been Ayer clients for decades if not generations, and the longevity of those relationships was for many years a source of Ayer's strength.

But the advertising industry began to change in the late 1960s and 1970s, due in part to a "creative revolution." Small advertising agencies won attention with provocative copywriting and art direction that more closely resembled art than advertising. Advances in market research allowed clients to more narrowly tailor their advertising messages to distinct groups of consumers, and this led to a rise in targeted marketing which could more readily be doled out to specialized small agencies than to larger, established firms like NW Ayer & Son. The civil rights and anti-war movements also contributed to increasing public skepticism with the values of corporate America, and by extension, with some national advertising campaigns. Older, more conservative firms like Ayer were hard pressed to meet these new challenges.

About 1970, in an effort to meet these challenges and to establish a foothold on the West Coast, Ayer bought out two smaller agencies--Hixson & Jorgenson (Los Angeles) and Frederick E. Baker (Seattle). The agency relocated from Philadelphia to New York City in 1974 in an attempt both to consolidate operations (Ayer had operated a New York office since the 1920s) and to be closer to the historic center of the advertising industry. Riding the wave of mergers that characterized the advertising industry in the late 1980s and 1990s, Ayer continued to grow through the acquisition of Cunningham & Walsh in 1986 and Rink Wells in 19xx.

During this transitional period, Ayer received widespread acclaim for its work for the United States Army, which included the widely recognized slogan "Be All You Can Be". Ayer first acquired the Army recruitment account in 1967 and with help from its direct marketing arm, the agency was widely credited with helping the Army reach its recruitment goals despite an unpopular war and plummeting enlistments after the elimination of the draft in 1973. Ayer held the account for two decades, from the Vietnam War through the Cold War, but lost the account in 1986 amid government charges that an Ayer employee assigned to the account accepted kickbacks from a New York film production house. Despite Ayer's position as the country's 18th largest agency (with billings of $880 million in 1985), the loss of the agency's second largest account hit hard.

NW Ayer made up for the loss of the $100 million dollar a year Army account and made headlines for being on the winning end of the largest account switch in advertising history to date, when fast food giant Burger King moved its $200 million dollar advertising account from arch-rival J. Walter Thompson in 1987. Burger King must have had drive-thru service in mind, however, and Ayer made headlines again when it lost the account just eighteen months later in another record-breaking account switch. Another devastating blow to the agency was the loss of its lead position on the American Telegraph and Telephone account. Ayer pioneered telecommunications advertising in 1908, when the agency was selected to craft advertising for the Bell System's universal telephone service. Despite valiant efforts to keep an account the agency had held for most of the twentieth century, and for which they had written such memorable corporate slogans as American Telephone &Telegraph "The Voice with a Smile" and "Reach Out and Touch Someone", the agency lost the account in 1996.

After a wave of mergers and acquisitions in the late 1980s, the economic recession of the early 1990s hit Madison Avenue hard, and Ayer was particularly vulnerable. Despite the agency's long history and roster of "blue-chip" clients, Ayer was not known for cutting-edge creative work. Moreover, though the agency had offices overseas, Ayer had never built a strong multinational presence, and many of the smaller international offices were sold during the financial turmoil of the 1980s. This left a real void in the new climate of global marketplace consolidation. By about 1990, earnings were declining (although Ayer was still among the top twenty United States agencies in billings), and the agency was suffering from client defections, high management turnover, expensive real estate commitments and deferred executive compensation deals, all fallout of the high-flying 1980s. This was the atmosphere in 1993, when W.Y. Choi, a Korean investor who had already assembled a media and marketing empire in his homeland, began looking for an American partner to form an international advertising network. Jerry Siano, the former creative director who had recently been named Ayer's seventh CEO, was in no position to refuse Choi's offer of $35 million to buy the now floundering agency. The infusion of cash was no magic bullet, however. Choi took a wait-and-see approach, allowing his partner Richard Humphreys to make key decisions about Ayer's future, including the purging of senior executives and the installation of two new CEOs in as many years.

The agency's downward trend continued with the loss of another longtime client, the DeBeers diamond cartel in 1995. Adweek reported that Ayer's billings fell from $892 million in 1990 to less than $850 million in 1995. Several top executives defected abruptly, and the agency failed to attract major new accounts. Ayer was facing the loss not merely of revenue and personnel, but the loss of much of the respect it once commanded. Ayer remained among the twenty largest U.S. agencies, but an aura of uncertainty hung over the agency like a cloud. A new CEO was appointed, and Mary Lou Quinlan became the agency's first woman CEO in 1995. A year later, Ayer and another struggling top twenty agency, D'arcy, Masius, Benton & Bowles, combined as part of the McManus Group of companies. In 1998, the McManus Group had worldwide billings of more than $6.5 billion.

Under the McManus Group, Ayer was able to expand its international operations and begin to rebuild a stronger global presence. Several important new clients were won in 1997 and 1998, including Avon, General Motors, Kitchenaid, several Procter & Gamble brands and, most notably, Continental Airlines worldwide accounts. Born in the nineteenth century, Ayer may be one of a very few advertising agencies to successfully weather the economic and cultural transitions of both the twentieth and twentieth first centuries. Ayer was eventually acquired by the Publicis Groupe based in Paris, France which closed down the N.W. Ayer offices in 2002.

Related Materials:

Materials in the Archives Center

Warshaw Collection of Business Americana (AC0060)

Hills Bros. Coffee Incorporated Records (AC0395)

Provenance:

The collection was donated by N W Ayer ABH International, April 15, 1975 and by Ayer & Partners, October 30, 1996.

Restrictions:

The collection is open for research use.

Physical Access: Researchers must use microfilm copy. Researchers must handle unprotected photographs with gloves. Researchers must use reference copies of audiovisual materials. When no reference copy exists, the Archives Center staff will produce reference copies on an "as needed" basis, as resources allow.

Technical Access: Viewing the film portion of the collection without reference copies requires special appointment, please inquire; listening to audio discs requires special arrangement. Do not use original materials when available on reference video or audio tapes.

Rights:

Publication and production quality duplication is restricted due to complex copyright, publicity rights, and right to privacy issues. Potential users must receive written permission from appropriate rights holders prior to obtaining high quality copies. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.

Topic:

Advertising agencies  Search this

advertising  Search this

Genre/Form:

Business records -- 1840-2000

Interviews -- 1980-2000

Oral history -- 1980-1990

Print advertising

Proof sheets

Proofs (printed matter)

Scrapbooks -- 1840-1990

Trade literature

Tear sheets

Advertisements

Citation:

NW Ayer & Sons, incorporated Advertising Agency Records, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

Identifier:

NMAH.AC.0059

See more items in:

N W Ayer Advertising Agency Records

Archival Repository:

Archives Center, National Museum of American History

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ep8920ed035-d211-4a58-9047-b31fa79464bd

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-nmah-ac-0059

Donor:

Hauber, Joseph R.  Search this

Collector:

Stubblebine, Donald J., 1925-2010  Search this

Extent:

285 Cubic feet (600 boxes)

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Posters

Playbills

Sheet music

Design drawings

Theater programs

Date:

1866-2009, undated

Scope and Contents:

One of the most comprehensive collections of material relating to musical stage and film productions, the collection consists of an assortment of material including sheet music written specifically for or included in stage and screen musicals, television programs, Big Band performances, and radio. Some productions may have been produced under more than one title, especially if the production was presented internationally.

The collection is arranged alphabetically by title of production or personality using proper name. Folders for each entry may include sheet music, ephemeral items related to that specific production or personality such as theater programs, reviews, and posters. There are a number of costume design drawings. Folders will rarely include full printed scores. Published scores were separated from this collection before donation.

Arrangement:

The collection is divided into six series.

Series 1, Stage Musicals and Vaudeville, 1866-2007, undated

Subseries 1.1, United States Stage Musicals, 1866-2007, undated

Subseries 1.2, Ziegfeld Productions, 1911-1958, undated

Subseries 1.3, British Stage Musicals, 1890-1943, undated

Subseries 1.4, Assorted Countries Stage Musicals, 1896-1935, undated

Series 2, Motion Pictures, 1912-2007, undated

Subseries 2.1, United States Motion Pictures, 1919-2007, undated

Subseries 2.2, British Motion Pictures, 1912-1988, undated

Subseries 2.3, Foreign Motion Pictures, Assorted Countries, 1921-1985, undated

Subseries 2.4, Silent Motion Picture Cue Sheets, 1915-1930, undated

Series 3, Television, 1933-2003, undated

Series 4, Big Bands and Radio, 1925-1998,undated

Subseries 4.1, Big Bands, 1929-1998, undated

Subseries 4.2, Radio, 1925-1948, undated

Series 5, Personalities, 1875-2009, undated

Series 6, Ephemera and Single Sheet Music, 1908-2005, undated

Biographical / Historical:

Donald J. Stubblebine was born on February 4, 1925 in Reading, Pennsylvania, to Edgar W. and Emma Stubblebine. He had an older brother Edgar W. Stubblebine, Jr. His father was a sheet metal worker employed by the railroad in Reading. Stubblebine was first exposed to musicals through motion pictures. His mother attended "dish night" with her son twice a week. During the Great Depression, in order to draw an audience, theaters would give out dishes with each admission. He credited this with beginning his love of musicals. By the 1940 United States Census his mother is listed as a widow. Stubblebine attended the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania. After graduation he was employed for forty years as controller by the Chilton Publishing Company. He retired in 1994.

As a lifelong film and theater fan, Stubblebine began collecting sheet music, programs, and ephemera from stage and film musicals in the early 1970s. As his collection grew, so did his expertise in the history of musical theatre and film. He eventually authored four reference books dealing with United States and British stage and film musicals as well as films from Canada and Australia. He became an often sought-after expert in stage and film music. His obsession with collecting eventually filled his Philadelphia apartment with one of the largest collections of material centered on music in the United States. He collected not only the sheet music and scores from musicals but often collected copies of reviews, programs, photographs, and costume sketches.

Stubblebine died on May 1, 2010 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Provenance:

Donated to the Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smitsonian Institution by Joseph Regis Hauber in memory of Donald J. Stubblebine, in 2010.

Restrictions:

The collection is open for research but is stored offsite. Arrangements must be made with the Archives Center staff two weeks prior to a scheduled research visit.

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.

Reproduction restricted due to copyright or trademark.

Topic:

Silent films  Search this

Motion pictures  Search this

Vaudeville  Search this

Music -- United States  Search this

Motion pictures, British  Search this

Musical revue, comedy, etc  Search this

Music -- Performance  Search this

Musicals  Search this

Musical theater  Search this

Music -- 20th century  Search this

Music -- 19th century  Search this

Revues -- 1900-1910  Search this

Theater  Search this

Silent films -- Musical accompaniment  Search this

Genre/Form:

Posters -- 20th century

Playbills

Sheet music

Design drawings

Theater programs

Citation:

Donald J. Stubblebine Collection of Musical Theater and Motion Picture Music and Ephemera, 1866-2009, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.

Identifier:

NMAH.AC.1211

See more items in:

Donald J. Stubblebine Collection of Theater and Motion Picture Music and Ephemera

Archival Repository:

Archives Center, National Museum of American History

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ep8ef54fc89-cd33-4842-ae7f-796642a67098

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-nmah-ac-1211

Creator:

Baum, Mark, 1903-1997  Search this

Extent:

1.5 Linear feet

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Slides

Sketches

Sound recordings

Photographs

Sketchbooks

Date:

1926-1997

Summary:

The papers of painter Mark Baum date from 1926 through 1997 and measure 1.5 linear feet. Found within the collection are biographical and personal files; family and professional correspondence; exhibition announcements and catalogs; lecture notes and cassette tape recordings of lectures; writings, newspaper clippings, photographs and slides, loose sketches, sketchpads, sketchbooks, and stencils.

Scope and Content Note:

The papers of Mark Baum date from 1926 through 1997 and measure 1.5 linear feet. Found within the collection are biographical and personal files; family and professional correspondence; exhibition announcements and catalogs; lecture notes and cassette tape recordings of lectures; writings, newspaper clippings, photographs and slides, loose sketches, sketchpads, sketchbooks, and stencils.

Arrangement:

The collection has been organized on the folder level in a preliminary fashion and arranged into 7 loose series of similar materials. The collection has not been arranged at the item level.

Missing Title

Series 1: Biographical and Personal Files, 1926-circa 1997 (Box 1; 5 folders)

Series 2: Correspondence, 1932-1996 (Box 1; 13 folders)

Series 3: Writings and Notes, 1963-1986 (Box 1; 4 folders)

Series 4: Exhibitions, 1929-1996 (Box 1; 3 folders)

Series 5: Newspaper Clippings, 1929-1963 (Box 1, OV 3; 2 folders)

Series 6: Sketchbooks and Sketchpads, circa 1940s-circa 1990s (Boxes 1-2, OV 3; 12 folders)

Series 7: Photographs and Slides, circa 1920s-circa 1990s (Box 2; 4 folders)

Biographical Note:

Mark Baum was born in 1903 in Sanok, Poland. He emigrated to the United States with his family in 1919 and settled in New York City. Baum studied at the National Academy of Design in 1924-1925 and at the Cape Cod School of Art in Provincetown, Massachusetts with C. W. Hawthorne in the summer of 1926. He was also trained as a furrier and supported himself and his family as an expert cutter of fur coats.

Early success with his figurative painting gave Mark Baum a reason to hope for a lifelong career as an artist. He had a show of watercolors at the Whitney Studio Galleries in 1929 and work was purchased by Juliana force. Baum followed his success with an exhibit of oil paintings at the Marie Harriman Gallery in 1930. Baum paid a visit to Alfred Stieglitz at his American Place gallery and recorded in his notes that Stieglitz bought a painting for his own collection.

During the Depression, Baum worked for the Works Program Administration in the easel division. He married in 1933 and his sons William and Paul were born in 1936 and 1939. Baum's wife Celia was an elementary school teacher who went on to receive a Ph.D. in education and become a professor of education at Brooklyn College.

In 1941, Mark Baum exhibited his paintings at the Perls Gallery. Other exhibitions at the St. Etienne Gallery in 1947 and the Laurel Gallery in 1948 established mark Baum as painter of sturdy figures, and city architectural views and landscapes. Some time in the late 1940s, Baum stopped painting for a while and, when he resumed, broke completely with his previous style. He adopted a staircase motif for a series of abstract and geometric patterns and elements appearing in endless combinations of vast surfaces of painted space.

In the early 1960s, Mark Baum took up residence in costal Maine, where he converted a spacious barn in Cape Neddick into a studio. He lived there until his death in 1997. The work of Mark Baum is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Provenance:

William Baum, son of Mark Baum, donated the papers to the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, in 2001.

Restrictions:

The collection is open for research. Use requires an appointment.

Rights:

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

Occupation:

Painters -- Maine -- Cape Neddick  Search this

Genre/Form:

Slides

Sketches

Sound recordings

Photographs

Sketchbooks

Citation:

Mark Baum papers, 1926-1997. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Identifier:

AAA.baummark

See more items in:

Mark Baum papers

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9d8c3b1dd-97b1-4e52-be42-f1c7243d5826

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-aaa-baummark

Creator:

National Association of Civilian Conservation Corps Alumni  Search this

Ward, C.E.  Search this

Civilian Conservation Corps (U.S.)  Search this

Bidwell, Timothy  Search this

Bires, Andrew, G.  Search this

Extent:

155 Cubic feet (331 boxes, 57 map folders)

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Panoramas

Photographs

Newspapers

Pamphlets

Audiovisual materials

Newsletters

Books

Blueprints

Cartoons (humorous images)

Logs (records)

Manuals

Magazines (periodicals)

Menus

Memoirs

Rosters

Poems

Sheet music

Date:

1853-2009, undated

bulk 1933-1942

Summary:

The Archival collections of the National Association of Civilian Conservation Corps Alumni (NACCCA) donated in 2006. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), created as part of the New Deal legislation initiated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, was a public work relief program for unemployed men designed to reduce high unemployment during the Great Depression. The CCC carried out a broad natural resource conservation program on national, state, and municipal lands from 1933 to 1942. This collection contains papers, photographs, and ephemera collected and created by alumni of the CCC and donated to the NACCCA archives.

Scope and Contents:

This material was acquired by the National Association of Civilian Conservation Corps Alumni (NACCCA)from CCC alumni and originally housed in the NACCCA archives in St. Louis, Missouri. Photographic materials, including loose photos, slides, snapshots, group photos, panoramic photos, and albums and binders of photographs; printed materials, including newspapers published by individual companies, camps and districts, and the national CCC newspaper, Happy Days; materials documenting each camp, including camp histories, personal memoirs, blueprints of camps and projects worked on; the papers of C.E. Ward, Educational Director of the CCC's 3rd Corps, which document the planning and implementation of educational activities in that region; miscellaneous materials, including camp rosters, cartoons, menus, poems, pamphlets, booklets, magazines, manuals, enrollee discharge papers, work logs, and sheet music; and other more recent materials such as research papers, books on the CCC, selected audiotape and video interviews with some of the alumni; and other miscellaneous items. The collection is arranged into nine series.

Arrangement:

The collection is divided into nine series.

Series 1: Scrapbooks, 1853-2003, undated

Series 2: State Material, 1922-2008, undated

Series 3: Publications, 1924-2006, undated

Series 4: C.E. Ward, 3rd Corps, 1933-2001, undated

Series 5: Photographs, 1929-2008, undated

Series 6: General Ephemera, 1915-2006, undated

Series 7: Bidwell Addendum, 1933-1987, undated

Series 8: Bires Addendum, 1934-1985, undated

Series 9: Audiovisual Materials, 1933-2009, undated

Biographical / Historical:

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a New Deal era program, created in 1933 to reduce unemployment, a direct result of the Great Depression. The CCC provided national conservation work across the United States for young, unmarried men. Veterans could be enrolled in the CCC after verification of their service by the Veteran's Administration. Veterans were exempt from the age and marriage restriction. Projects included planting trees, bulding flood barriers, combatting forest fires, maintaining forest roads and trails, and building recreational facilities in the National Park system and a host of other projects. There were separate CCC programs for Native Americans of recognized tribes and African Americans. In 1942, with the waning of the Great Depression and America's entry into World War II in December 1941, resources devoted to the CCC (men and materials) were diverted to the war effort. Congress ceased funding for the CCC and liquidation of the CCC was included in the Labor-Federal Security Appropriation Act (56 Stat. 569) on July 2, 1942, and for the most part completed by June 30, 1943. Appropriations for the liquidation of the CCC continued through April 20, 1948.

Related Materials:

Materials at Other Organizations

National Archives and Records Administration

Record Group 35, Civilian Conservation Corps

Provenance:

Collection donated by National Association of Civilian Conservation Corps Alumni in 2006.

Restrictions:

This collection is open for research use.

Researchers must handle unprotected photographs with cotton gloves. Researchers may use reference copies of audio-visual materials. When no reference copy exists, the Archives Center staff will produce reference copies on an "as needed" basis and as resources allow.

Viewing film portions of the collection requires special appointment, please inquire; listening to LP recordings is only possible by special arrangement.

Gloves must be worn when handling unprotected photographs and negatives. Special arrangements required to view materials in cold storage. Using cold room materials requires a three hour waiting period. Contact the Archives Center at 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.

Topic:

Conservation of natural resources -- 1930-1950  Search this

Depressions -- 1929 -- United States  Search this

National parks and reserves  Search this

New Deal, 1933-1939  Search this

State parks  Search this

Genre/Form:

Panoramas

Photographs -- 20th century

Newspapers

Pamphlets

Audiovisual materials

Newsletters

Books

Blueprints -- 20th century

Cartoons (humorous images)

Logs (records)

Manuals

Magazines (periodicals) -- 20th century

Menus

Memoirs

Rosters

Poems

Sheet music -- 20th century

Citation:

Civilian Conservation Corps Collection, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

Identifier:

NMAH.AC.0930

See more items in:

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Collection

Archival Repository:

Archives Center, National Museum of American History

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ep8f608a47e-d1a4-4b39-8a85-c1a7bf9c84b6

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-nmah-ac-0930

Creator:

Rivers, Charles, 1904-1993  Search this

Names:

Chrysler Building (New York, N.Y.) -- Pictorial works  Search this

Empire State Building -- Construction--1929-1930  Search this

Pathe News  Search this

Bates, Ruby  Search this

Extent:

0.5 Cubic feet (4 boxes )

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Photographs

Scrapbooks

Albums

Place:

New York (N.Y.) -- 1920-1930

Washington (D.C.) -- 1960-1970

Date:

1929-1963

bulk 1929-1930

Scope and Contents:

The collection contains: twenty-nine silver gelatin photoprints mounted on Fome-Core, Masonite, and cardboard, ranging in size from 5-1/2" x 9-1/4" to 10-11/16" x 13-13/16"; three 5" x 7" unmounted silver gelatin photoprints; a scrapbook which originally contained 56 silver gelatin photoprints, ranging in size from 2" x 3" to 7-1/2" x 9-1/2"; and silver gelatin film negatives (presumably acetate) for the prints. The scrapbook includes a New York Daily News clipping about Rivers: "Builds a Bridge to Students" by Anthony Burton (dated May 12, 1970 by Rivers) with a photograph showing him speaking to a crowd, Most of the photographs depict the construction of the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings--iron workers on the job and relaxing during breaks, and pictures of the buildings at various stages of completion. Other subjects are: a demonstration to prevent World War II (1935), a color photoprint of the Civil Rights March and Demonstration in Washington, D.C. (1963), and two magazine clippings from a Soviet publication, New Times, in which Rivers's prize-winning "Self Portrait" (1930) was reproduced.

Most of these prints were made by Charles Rivers many years after the creation of the original negatives, probably ca.1970s 1980s. The collection is in generally good condition, except that many of the print surfaces are scratched.

Biographical / Historical:

Charles Rivers created a certain amount of confusion about his origins, whether accidentally or intentionally. Born Constantinos Kapornaros[1] (or Kostandinos Kapernaros)[2] in the small town of Vahos in Mani, an isolated area in the southern Peloponnesian region of Greece, on May 20, 1904, he emigrated to the United States as a child of five or six with his parents. His school record showed that he was enrolled in 1911 at the age of seven.[3] The family lived in Maine or New Hampshire, then Massachusetts, and later other locations in New York state. It is believed that his new name was derived from the Charles River in Boston.[4] The change may have been occasioned by a need to conceal his deep involvement in left-wing political and union activities.[5] Mr. Rivers settled in New York City in 1950 and resided there until 1993.[6] He sometimes identified his birthplace as Denver, Colorado,[7] but this may have been a fabrication or simplification, based on the fact that Greek church baptismal records were kept in Denver.[8] His sons James and Ronald believe that he never became an official American citizen. Late in life, in order to visit his birthplace, he was issued a passport, based on his school records, which stated that he was born in Denver. Rivers photographed the construction of the Chrysler Building (1929) and the Empire State Building (1930) in New York City. He was inspired to take up photography by seeing the work of the influential documentary photographer Lewis Hine, whose famous images of working children helped win passage of protective child labor laws. Rivers and Hine both photographed the Empire State Building and the men building it, yet Rivers apparently was unaware until years later that his idol had been present. Employed as an iron worker, Rivers traded his pail of tools for a Zeiss Ikon[9] camera during his lunch hour or when photographic opportunities arose. While the workers depicted in some of the photographs clearly are aware of the photographer's presence, Rivers's project presumably was conducted more or less surreptitiously. It is not known for certain if the paths of Rivers and Hine ever crossed, but his son Ron considers it unlikely: Hine photographed only the Empire State Building in connection with his "Men at Work" project,[10] not the earlier Chrysler Building, and Rivers did not work on the Empire State Building for a very long period. His self-portrait on the Empire State Building, "The Bolter-Up," may have been intended as a memento during one of his last days on that job.[11]

Rivers became unemployed in the Depression and consequently became involved in national efforts to create Social Security, unemployment insurance, and housing programs. These experiences apparently encouraged his active participation in politically leftist activities, as coverage about him in Soviet publications attests. A pacifist, in 1935 he was involved in demonstrations aimed at preventing World War II, and in the 1960s he took part in anti-Vietnam demonstrations and encouraged young people to continue such resistance.

In the 1950s Rivers worked in steel fabrication, in a chemistry lab as a technician, and briefly as a legislative aide for a New York state senator.

In 1986 Rivers submitted his 1930 self-portrait, posed on the Chrysler Building, to the International Year of Peace art contest sponsored by the New Times, published in Moscow: it was awarded a prize and diploma.

Mr. Rivers died in 1993, only two weeks after moving to Arlington, Texas to enter a nursing home near his sons' homes.

1. The page on Rivers in New York University=s Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives web site (http://laborarts.org/collections/item.cfm?itemid=82) --noted 5 June 2002), claims Rivers was born in 1905 and changed his name Ato resemble those of the Mohawk Indians working on the high steel of New York City=s skyscrapers and bridges".

2. This spelling is given in an e-mail from James Rivers to Helen Plummer, Aug. 19, 2002.

3. Ibid.

4. Telephone conversation between Ron Rivers and the author, 6 June 2002. Additional information was provided by Ron Rivers in electronic mail messages, 5 June and 12 June 2002.

5. James Rivers, op. cit.

6. Telephone conversation with Ron Rivers, 6 June 2002.

7. In a biographical statement for the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art (copy supplied by Helen Plummer), Charles Rivers called Denver his birthplace. The George Eastman House photographer database also included this apparently erroneous information, probably derived from the Amon Carter statement (telephone conversation with Helen Plummer, 3 June 2002).

8. Ron Rivers, telephone conversation, 6 June 2002.

9. Identified by Charles Rivers as the camera used in the skyscraper photographs: interview by Carol Sewell, "Photographer looked at U.S. from high view," Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Dec. 27, 1986. Rivers also used a Rolleiflex, according to Ron Rivers (see note above), but the folding Zeiss Ikon camera would have been a more convenient addition to a lunchbox than the bulkier Rolleiflex. The collection negatives are not in the Rolleiflex square format, moreover.

10. See Judith Mara Gutman, Lewis W. Hine and the American social conscience. New York: Walker, 1967.

11. Ron Rivers, telephone conversation, 6 June 2002.

Related Materials:

Materials at the Smithsonian Institution

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

Included Rivers's self-portrait, "The Bolter Up," in its summer 2002 exhibition, "Metropolis in the Machine Age," in the form of a new print made from a digital copy of the Archives Center's original negative. The author discussed the new print from the Rivers negative and other photographs in this exhibition in an invited gallery lecture, "The Skyscraper Photographs of Lewis Hine and Charles Rivers," Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, June 6, 2002.

Materials at Other Organizations

Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

See Barbara McCandless and John Rohrbach, Singular moments: photographs from the Amon Carter Museum, with select entries by Helen Plummer. Reproduction of a Rivers photograph, with description and analysis, p. 30. Additional information has been generously supplied by Ms. Plummer, curatorial associate, and Barbara McCandless, curator of photography, Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, Fort Worth Texas.

Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives at New York University

Museum of the City of New York

Some of his photographs were included in the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art exhibition, "Looking at America: Documentary Photographs of the 1930s and 1940s," December 1986.

Provenance:

The collection is a gift from Mr. Charles Rivers, 1989.

Restrictions:

Collection is open for research.

Rights:

Archives Center claims copyright. Rights were conveyed to the Archives Center through a Deed of Gift signed by the donor.

Topic:

Self-portraits, American  Search this

Iron and steel workers -- 1920-1930 -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this

Construction workers -- 1900-1950 -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this

Structural steel workers -- 1920-1930 -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this

Labor unions  Search this

Civil rights demonstrations -- 1960-1970  Search this

Skyscrapers -- 1920-1930 -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this

Civil rights  Search this

Peace movements -- 1960-1970  Search this

Peace movements -- 1930-1940  Search this

Scottsoro boys case  Search this

Fires  Search this

Scottsboro Trial, Scottsboro, Ala., 1931  Search this

Self-portraits  Search this

Genre/Form:

Photographs -- 1900-1950

Scrapbooks -- 20th century

Albums

Photographs -- Black-and-white photoprints -- Silver gelatin -- 1970-1990

Citation:

Charles Rivers Photographs, 1929-1963, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

Identifier:

NMAH.AC.0360

See more items in:

Charles Rivers Photographs

Archival Repository:

Archives Center, National Museum of American History

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ep82c2fc0d6-34f9-422b-b6e3-c1d1072e975f

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-nmah-ac-0360

Names:

Dixey, Henry E., 1859-1943  Search this

Jefferson, Joseph, 1829-1905  Search this

Donor:

Graneto, Phillip  Search this

Extent:

1.1 Cubic feet (3 boxes, 1 folder)

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Theater programs

Date:

1885-1937

Summary:

A collection of late 19th and early 20th century theatre programs and theatre ephemera from Broadway and Off-Broadway Theatres in New York, New York.

Content Description:

A collection of late 19th and early 20th century Broadway and Off-Broadway (New York, New York) theatre programs and related ephemera collected by Phillip A. Graneto and assembled by Graneto for a prospective book project that was not completed. The cover of the programs are predominately in color. The inventory sheets in Series 4 contain Graneto's notes on each theatre represented. The ephemera consists of material on Henry E. Dixey, well-known actor in the late 19th early 20th century, broadsides from the Varieties Theatre in New Orleans, Louisiana, and other non-theatrical programs perhaps most notably from the 1926 Warner Brothers film production of Don Juan starring John Barrymore, the first motion picture to use the Vitaphone sound on disc recording for synchronized music and sound effects, but not spoken dialogue. There is one piece of sheet music from the play, Balieff's Chauve-Souris.

Arrangement:

This collection is arranged into four series.

Series 1: Dixey, Henry E., actor, 1885-1937

Series 2: Varieties Theatre (New Orleans, Louisiana), 1868

Series 3: Oversize Motion Picture and Theater Programs, and Sheet Music, 1924-1929

Series 4: Broadway Theater Programs (New York, New York) 1919-1930, undated

Biographical / Historical:

Phillip A. Graneto is a theatrical designer and illustrator. Originally he collected the bulk of this material with the intention of writing and publishing a book on Broadway and Off Broadway theatres of New York, New York centering on the decade of the 1920s. Graneto began researching and writing, gathering programs from each of the then existing theatres, fleshing out their histories with notes about their productions, changes in names and purpose, and in some cases their ultimate demolition. He collected and assembled the theatre programs into four binders with accompanying notes. Ultimately the proposed book did not come to fruition.

Graneto writes about the 1920s New York theatre scene, "The decade of the 1920s was a period of wild speculation in many areas, and the audience for live theatre in the New York area was enormous. Building theatres seemed like a great way to make lots of money. And then, the bubble burst. When motion pictures learned to talk in 1927 show business moved to Hollywood, and took much of Broadway's glamour with it."

Graneto goes on to write, "The 1920s is a seminal decade in the history of American Entertainment. The names Ziegfeld, Belasco, Cohan, Barrymore, Jolson, Shubert, Brice, and Cantor written in white lights on Broadway's theatre marquees cast a unique spell over 20th century entertainment as it developed from the Stage to Radio, to Film and ultimately to Television. These beautiful little colored booklets are part of that story. These cherished mementos of great performances and special occasions have survived in cedar chests, chifferobes, and bookcases for nearly a hundred years because of the uniqueness of the performers and the plays, but also because the booklets are beautiful."

The programs from the decade of the 1920s, in many ways, represent the colorful, Bohemian, Jazz Age attitude of the United States before the Great Depression of the 1930s and the subsequent entry of the United States into World War II. A time when New York City was the cultural capital of the entire United States.

Sources:

Letter, Keen, Cathy to Graneto, Phillip, undated (Archives Center control file AC1486) E-mail, Graneto, Phillip to Lintelman, Ryan, 2019 July 21 (Archives Center control file AC1486)

Provenance:

Donated by Phillip Graneto in December 2017 to the Division of Culture and the Arts (now the Division of Cultural and Community Life).

Restrictions:

Collection is open for research.

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.

Topic:

Theater -- History -- 19th century  Search this

Theater -- 1910-1970  Search this

Theater -- 1920-1940  Search this

Genre/Form:

Theater programs -- 1880-1910

Theater programs -- 1910-1990

Citation:

Phillip Graneto Broadway Theater Collection, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.

Identifier:

NMAH.AC.1486

See more items in:

Phillip Graneto Broadway Theater Collection

Archival Repository:

Archives Center, National Museum of American History

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ep86670ae41-6d13-40bd-a872-84e05ed86f06

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-nmah-ac-1486