Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Access of diaries and appointment books required written permission.
Collection 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.
Collection Citation:
André Emmerich Gallery records and André Emmerich papers, circa 1929-2009. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Leon Levy Foundation.
Burt Chernow and Jeanne-Claude. Interview with Jeanne-Claude on Early Marriage and 1960s Artworks, 1987 March 27. Burt Chernow papers, 1930-2002. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
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.
Collection 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.
Collection Citation:
Betty Parsons Gallery records and personal papers, 1916-1991. 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 and The Walton Family Foundation.
The Colin de Land collection measures 15.15 linear feet and 0.901 GB and dates from 1968 to 2008, with the bulk of the collection dating from the early 1980s through 2003. The majority of the collection consists of photographic material, primarily snapshots, documenting daily life in and around de Land's gallery American Fine Arts, Co., as well as de Land's pesonal life and affairs. There are candid photographs of exhibition openings, day-to-day gallery operations, art fairs, vacations, social gatherings, and New York City street scenes. Also included are some personal objects belonging to de Land and his wife Pat Hearn, as well as two scrapbooks containing items once decorating the walls of de Land's office at American Fine Arts. The collection includes video recordings documenting trips to Cape Cod, Hearn's illness, and occasional art world events.
Scope and Contents:
The Colin de Land collection measures 15.15 linear feet and 0.901 GB and dates from 1968 to 2008, with the bulk of the collection dating from the early 1980s through 2003. The majority of the collection consists of photographic material, primarily snapshots, documenting daily life in and around de Land's gallery American Fine Arts, Co., as well as de Land's pesonal life and affairs. There are candid photographs of exhibition openings, day-to-day gallery operations, art fairs, vacations, social gatherings, and New York City street scenes. Also included are some personal objects belonging to de Land and his wife Pat Hearn, as well as two scrapbooks containing items once decorating the walls of de Land's office at American Fine Arts. The collection includes video recordings documenting trips to Cape Cod, Hearn's illness, and occasional art world events.
The bulk of the collection consists of snapshots, along with their negatives and the envelopes provided by commercial photographic printers. The envelopes are sometimes annotated. The photographs, not typically identified by photographer, were taken by de Land, Hearn, and gallery employees, artists, and visitors. Most of the snapshots provide a candid record of life within de Land's circle, and not formal documentation of gallery exhibitions.
The figures in this collection often occupied blurred boundaries between artist, gallery employee, critic, and friend. Many of the photographs include AFA staff, including Daniel McDonald, Patterson Beckwith, and Craig Wadlin. Also of note are photos showing AFA artists, including John Waters, Mark Dion, Andrea Fraser, Moyra Davey, Dennis Balk, Peter Fend, and Jack Pierson.
In addition to life within the gallery, de Land's cameras also documented a larger art world of the era, candidly showing openings at other galleries, art fairs such as Art Basel, Art Cologne, and the Berlin Artforum, as well as festivals including the Venice Biennale and Documenta, many of which included AFA artists. There is some documentation of the Gramercy International Contemporary Art Fair and The Armory Show. The photographs frequently include de Land and Hearn's friends and fellow art dealers Paul Morris, Matthew Marks, and Carol Greene. Some images include artists that showed at Pat Hearn Art Gallery, such as Mary Heilmann. Collectors, celebrity visitors to the gallery, and critics also occasionally appear in the photographs. There is one 1968 photograph of de Land's mother and a small number of 1970s images of both de Land and Hearn.
In addition to the snapshots, there are a variety of other photographic formats, including digital, in the collection. The contents of the slides are of similar nature to the snapshots. The contact sheet binders offer some formal exhibition installation documentation, but are not exhaustive.
The collection also includes film and video footage. Thirty-five reels of Super-8 motion picture film primarily documents frequent vacations to Cape Cod, as well as the final stages of Hearn's illness and subsequent death. The 31 DV-mini cassettes include similar content, and some footage of opening receptions and other art world events.
Most of the official gallery records are missing, most likely lost in the frequent floods in the gallery basement. Two scrapbooks include material that was often photographed on the walls surrounding de Land's desk at AFA. Additional artifacts include one small painting by artist Charles Clough, inscribed to Hearn, a baseball hat frequently worn by de Land and appearing in many of the snapshots, and one page of an autographed calendar.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged in 4 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Photographic Material, 1968-2003, bulk 1980-2003 (14 linear feet; Box 1-14, 0.901 GB; ER01)
Series 2: Scrapbooks, circa 1980s-2003 (0.2 linear feet; Box 19)
Series 3: Video and Film Recordings, circa 1980-2003 (1.1 linear feet; Box 15, 16, 18)
Series 4: Artifacts, 1988-2008 (0.3 linear feet; Box 14, 17, 19)
Biographical / Historical:
Colin de Land (1955-2003) was a gallery owner whose New York City spaces challenged traditional modes of exhibition and art dealing.
Raised in Union City, New Jersey, de Land came to the art world from an academic background, having studied philosophy and linguistics at New York University. In 1984, de Land opened Vox Populi, a largely unrenovated space in the East Village, at 511 East 6th Street. The gallery showed experimental work by emerging artists, including the enigmatic John Dogg, thought to be a collaboration between de Land and artist Richard Prince.
In 1986, De Land opened his longest standing gallery, American Fine Arts, Co. (AFA), in the same space previously occupied by Vox Populi. The gallery moved to SoHo in 1988, first to 40 Wooster Street then to 22 Wooster Street in 1993. During the late 1990s, as most SoHo galleries moved to Chelsea, AFA remained a mainstay of the downtown arts scene. De Land's wife, Pat Hearn, whom he married in 1999 after over a decade together, was also a well known art dealer. Her gallery, Pat Hearn Art Gallery, also moved from the East Village to SoHo, later becoming one of the first to set down roots in Chelsea.
Known for his eccentric fashion and unorthodox business style, de Land cultivated a culture of experimentation within the AFA community. He typically hired young art students or recent graduates, often nurturing their own artistic careers. Along with a group of Cooper Union graduates, many of whom worked at the gallery, he founded the artist collective Art Club 2000. De Land often showed artists working in hybrid media, for example film and photography or music and installation. He was especially interested in ecological and environmental art, as well as work that took as its subject exhibition practice and the act of creating art. He often staged large thematic group shows. Artists who showed at the gallery included Mark Dion, John Waters, Andrea Fraser, Moyra Davey, Dennis Balk, Peter Fend, Tom Burr, James Welling, Mariko Mori, Dan Graham, Jessica Stockholder, Alex Bag, Christian Philipp Muller, and Jack Pierson.
In 1994, de Land and Hearn, along with gallerists Matthew Marks and Paul Morris, established the Gramercy International Contemporary Art Fair. Fashioned after the tradition of inexpensive hotel art fairs, four galleries were invited to exhibit artwork in rooms of the Gramercy Park Hotel, to be sold in a cash and carry model. The fair became an annual event, branching out to other cities, including Miami and Los Angeles, and growing significantly in size in New York. It later became known as The Armory Show.
De Land often carried a point-and-shoot camera and kept several on hand in the gallery. He documented opening receptions, art world social gatherings, concerts, and day-to-day happenings and invited visitors to the gallery and employees to do the same.
After Hearn's death from liver cancer in 2000, de Land became involved with Kembra Pfahler, the performance artist and leader of the rock band The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black. De Land took over Hearn's Chelsea gallery, operating it as a second location of AFA. Following his own struggle with cancer, de Land passed away in 2003. AFA remained open, closing at the end of 2004 with a tribute group exhibition to de Land.
Related Materials:
The archival gallery records of Colin de Land's art gallery American Fine Arts, Co. as well as the gallery records of the Pat Hearn Gallery are available at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College in New York. The gallery records there also include a fair amount of de Land's personal papers. Bard also acquired de Land's and Hearn's personal library.
Provenance:
The Colin de Land papers were donated to the Archives of American Art in 2008 by Dennis Balk, an artist represented by American Fine Arts, Co. and a close friend of de Land.
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 and born-digital records 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.
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Scrapbooks
Motion pictures (visual works)
Video recordings
Citation:
Colin de Land papers, 1968-2008, bulk 1980-2003. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Collection 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.
Collection Citation:
Lucy R. Lippard papers, 1930s-2007, bulk 1960s-1990s. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Collection 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.
Collection Citation:
Lucy R. Lippard papers, 1930s-2007, bulk 1960s-1990s. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art
The papers of painter, collage artist, and printmaker Nancy Spero measure 26.4 linear feet and 19.12 GB and are dated 1940s-2009. Biographical material, correspondence and other files documenting Spero's personal and professional relationships, interviews and writings, records of Spero's many exhibitions and projects, files highlighting the major subjects that galvanized her, business records, printed and photographic material, and digital and video recordings, offer detailed insight into the career of one of the earliest feminist artists.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of painter, collage artist, and printmaker Nancy Spero measure 26.4 linear feet and 19.12 GB and are dated 1940s-2009. Biographical material, correspondence and other files documenting Spero's personal and professional relationships, interviews and writings, records of Spero's many exhibitions and projects, files highlighting the major subjects that galvanized her, business records, printed and photographic material, and digital and video recordings, offer detailed insight into the career of one of the earliest feminist artists.
Biographical material includes biographical notes and curricula vitae, as well as several video recordings of documentaries about Spero by Patsy Scala and Irene Sosa which feature original footage of Spero at work. Correspondence is personal and professional, and includes letters from artists including Judy Chicago and Ana Mendieta, writers and curators such as Deborah Frizzell and Susanne Altmann, regarding Spero exhibition catalogs, monographs, and articles, and personal news from family members such as Spero's sons, and correspondence related to other aspects of Spero's career.
Interviews of Spero include transcripts, published interviews, and video recordings. Writings include many of Spero's statements about her work, as well as notes, published versions of articles written by Spero, and video recordings of talks and panel discussions she participated in.
Exhibition files for over 75 shows document the extent to which Spero's work has been widely exhibited in her lifetime with numerous solo exhibitions, including major retrospectives in London, Paris, Barcelona, and Madrid, and dozens of group exhibitions in which she participated over the course of her career.
Gallery and museum files supplement the exhibition files by further documenting Spero's dealings with numerous galleries and museums, including Galerie Lelong, which represents Spero's estate, Barbara Gross Galerie, the first gallery in Germany to represent Spero, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the National Gallery of Canada, and many others. The series also documents Spero's involvement with A.I.R. Gallery, the first independent women's art venue in the United States.
Professional files document other aspects of Spero's career including, but not limited to, awards she received, organizations she participated in or contributed to, publishing projects related to her work, and individual projects she executed such as an installation at the Harold Washington Library in Chicago and the Artemis, Acrobats, Divas & Dancers mosaic tiles she created for the Metropolitan Transit Authority for the 66th Street/Lincoln Center subway station. Also included here are files related to works of art such as Codex Artaud, and Notes in Time.
Subject files, contents of which were presumably used as source material for Spero, document subjects of interest to her, many of which were incorporated into her work and consists primarily of printed material. Broad subject categories include animal rights and conservation, feminism, war, and women. One set of folders documents "museum and political actions" undertaken by Spero and other activists during the 1960s-1970s to fight for equal representation of women in the arts and challenge the male-dominated hierarchy of the art world. Subject files include multiple news articles on torture, rape, and other atrocities committed particularly against women during wartime and by repressive and autocratic political regimes, and also include source material on the archetypal images of women that were fundamental to her interpretation of the female experience.
Printed material documents Spero's entire career from the late 1950s on. Announcements, exhibition catalogs, invitations, news clippings, and periodicals provide comprehensive coverage of her many exhibitions and other events. Printed material also documents the activities of a few other artists, primarily from the 2000s, and includes periodicals, primarily about art, and video recordings of documentaries about art and various other subjects.
Photographic material includes photographs of Nancy Spero from the 1940s on, photos of Spero with family and friends, and photographs of artwork including the heads of Spero's 2007 Maypole: Take No Prisoners which was the last major work completed before her death, originally realized for the Venice Biennale. Also found are a few installation shots and prints, slides, and digital images of Notes in Time at A.I.R. Gallery in 1979.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 11 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1950-2009 (Box 1, FC 30; 0.85 linear feet, ER01-ER04; 9.58 GB)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1946-2009 (Boxes 1-4, 27; 2.75 linear feet)
Series 3: Interviews, 1973-2007 (Boxes 4-5; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 4: Writings, 1950-2007 (Boxes 5-6; 1 linear foot)
Series 5: Exhibition Files, circa 1976-2009 (Boxes 6-9, 27, OV 28; 3.3 linear feet, ER09-ER10, ER14-ER17; 1.5 GB)
Series 6: Gallery and Museum Files, 1972-2009 (Boxes 9-14; 5.1 linear feet; ER05-ER08, ER12-ER13; 2.962 GB)
Series 7: Professional Files, circa 1967-2008 (Boxes 14-17, RD 29; 3.5 linear feet; ER15; 0.74 GB)
Series 8: Subject Files, 1950s-2009 (Boxes 17-19, 27, OV 28; 2.4 linear feet)
Series 9: Business Records, circa 1976-2008 (Boxes 19-20; 0.7 linear foot)
Series 10: Printed Material, 1949-2009 (Boxes 20-25, 27, OV 28; 5.5 linear feet)
Series 11: Photographic Material, 1940s-2009 (Boxes 25-27; 0.7 linear foot; ER18-ER19; 0.151 GB)
Biographical / Historical:
Nancy Spero (1926-2009) was a figurative painter, printmaker, and collage artist based in New York City whose work was executed primarily on paper from the 1960s on, and often incorporated text. Spero was among the first feminist artists and a political activist whose convictions were expressed relentlessly in her work. Using archetypal representations of women to examine the range of female experience, Spero centered "woman as protagonist" whilst simultaneously examining the suffering women have long been subjected to through structural inequality, the systematic abuses of repressive political regimes, and the atrocities of war.
Born in Cleveland, Nancy Spero lived in Chicago from the time she was a very young child until completing her studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (BFA 1949) where she met her future husband, painter Leon Golub (1922-2004). Spero studied briefly in Paris and lived in New York City, returning to Chicago after her marriage in 1951. The couple and their two sons lived in Italy from 1956 to 1957. In 1959, after a few years in New York, the family moved to Paris where Spero developed an interest in existentialism and produced a series of black paintings. Spero and Golub returned to New York in 1964 with their three sons.
Nancy Spero was strongly affected by the war in Vietnam and the many social changes of the period. She became an activist and feminist, joined various organizations, and participated in a variety of demonstrations. Work such as the War series began to include political and sexual imagery, and Spero's work from here on was primarily executed on paper.
Spero was among the founding members of the women's cooperative A.I.R. Gallery established in 1972. In the 1970s archetypal representations of women in mythology, history, art, and literature became predominant in her work. Included in this vein are major series and installations, among them Torture of Women, Notes in Time on Women, The First Language, and her 66th Street/Lincoln Center subway station mosaic mural Artemis, Acrobats, Divas and Dancers.
Spero exhibited in the 1950 Salon des Independents and her first solo exhibition (in tandem with Leon Golub) was held at Indiana University in 1958. Thereafter, she showed sporadically until nearly 30 years later when her career flourished and she enjoyed international stature. Beginning in 1986, each year brought multiple solo exhibitions at galleries and museums in the United States and internationally. In addition, she continued to participate in group shows such as "Documenta" and the Venice Biennale. Her work is included in the permanent collections of museums throughout the world.
Awards and honors included the Skowhegan Medal for Works on Paper (1995), Hiroshima Art Prize shared with Leon Golub (1996), The Women's Caucus for Art award for Outstanding Achievement in Visual Arts (2003), and The Women's Caucus for Art Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement (2005). Spero was awarded honorary Doctorates of Fine Arts by The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1991) and Williams College (2001), and was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2006).
After several years of declining health, Nancy Spero died from heart failure in New York City, October 18, 2009.
Related Materials:
Also among the holdings of the Archives of American Art are an interview with Nancy Spero conducted 2008 Februay 6-July 24, by Judith Olch Richards, and the papers of Spero's husband, Leon Golub.
Provenance:
Following a gift of materials by Nancy Spero in 1979, the majority of the collection was donated by Spero's sons, Stephen Golub, Philip Golub, and Paul Golub, in 2013.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Researchers interested in accessing born-digital records or audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Occupation:
Printmakers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Collagists -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Nancy Spero papers, 1940s-2009. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by The Walton Family Foundation. Funding for the digitization of the collection was provided by the Smithsonian American Women's History Initiative.
