The papers of New York sculptor Robert White measure 8.4 linear feet and 0.846 GB and date from 1889-2003, with the bulk of the material from 1915-2003. The collection documents White's varied career as a sculptor, educator, painter, and illustrator through biographical material; extensive correspondence; project files; personal business records; notes and writings; sketchbooks and sketches by Robert White and others; printed and digital material; audiovisual material; artifacts; and photographs.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of New York sculptor Robert White measure 8.4 linear feet and 0.846 GB and date from 1889-2003, with the bulk of the material from 1915-2003. The collection documents White's varied career as a sculptor, educator, painter, and illustrator through biographical material; extensive correspondence; project files; personal business records; notes and writings; sketchbooks and sketches by Robert White and others; printed and digital material; audiovisual material; artifacts; and photographs.
Scattered biographical materials include a curriculum vitae, documentation relating to White's service in the U.S. Coast Guard, a certificate of appreciation, and a memorial card for White's daughter, Natalie Laura White.
Correspondence contains primarily incoming letters from family and friends, and from clients, galleries, museums, arts organizations, students, and university administrators. Spanning over a seventy year period, family and friends correspondence centers on daily activities, events, and work. There is extensive correspondence from Robert White's parents, Lawrence Grant White and Bessie Chanler White and from Claire Nicolas White and her family. Other correspondents include Gil Franklin, Walker Hancock, Jim Harrison, Susan Hobbes, Willard R. Huntington, Ben LaFarge, Ward Lamb, Suzannah Lessard, Peter Matthiessen, Walker O'Cain, Mark and Katja Oxman, Frank C. Platt, Laura Spencer Pope, Paul and Ellen Resika, Paul Russotto, Sidney Simon, and William Styron, among others.
General correspondence mostly concerns White's commissions, teaching appointments, and his activities in professional organizations. Also included are letters from family members, friends, and colleagues. Frequent correspondents include: the American Academy in Rome, Amyas Ames, the Augustus Saint Gaudens Memorial, Century Association, Theodore Cremer, Davis Galleries, Patricia Fleischmann, Hugh Fosburgh, Rebekah Harkness Kean, David Garrard Lowe, National Academy of Design, Parsons School of Design, S. Dillon Ripley, the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Steuben Glass, and the Suffolk Museum and Carriage House.
Project files contain materials on Robert White's exhibitions and his commissioned projects. Materials include letters, lists of artwork, notes, price lists, receipts, exhibition schedules, contracts, and loan agreements. Files document White's exhibits at the Davis Galleries, Elaine Benson Gallery, Graham Gallery, Graham Modern, Heckscher Museum, and the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Included are extensive files on White's commissions for the American Battle Monuments Commission, Peabody Museum, and Steuben Glass.
Personal business records include files on Robert White's association with the Augustus Saint Gaudens Memorial and the National Academy of Design; his teaching appointments at the Parsons School of Design, the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture; and his dealings with foundries. There are scattered files on the Whites' St. James, New York property and residence.
Notes and writings contain Robert White's diaries, artist's statements, notebooks, essays on art, lectures, and scattered notes. Also found are writings by Clare White and others.
Sketchbooks and loose sketches contain preliminary studies by Robert White and scattered sketches by others. Printed material houses newspaper clippings and periodicals; exhibition announcements, catalogs, brochures, and posters; press releases and newsletters; and miscellaneous printed material.
Artifacts include two printing blocks: a portrait sculpture of Stephanie White and a landscape image. Audiovisual material consists of a digital audio recording of a classroom lecture by Robert White at an unidentified venue.
Photographs house images of Robert White; his studio; and snapshots of family and friends, many unidentified. Also included are photographs and slides of artwork.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into ten series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1939-2002 (Box 1; 0.1 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1923-2002 (Boxes 1-4; 3.8 linear feet)
Series 3: Project Files, 1952-2003 (Boxes 4-5, OV 10; 1.2 linear feet)
Series 4: Personal Business Records, 1889, 1946-2003 (Boxes 5-6, OV 10; 1.3 linear feet)
Series 5: Notes and Writings, 1915, circa 1946-2002 (Boxes 6-7; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 6: Sketchbooks and Sketches, circa 1965-1972 (Boxes 7, 9; 0.3 linear feet
Series 7: Printed Material, 1937-2003 (Boxes 7, 9; 0.5 linear feet)
Series 8: Audiovisual Material, 1973 (ER01; 0.846 GB)
Series 9: Artifacts, circa 1965 (Box 7; 0.1 linear feet)
Series 10: Photographs, circa 1940s-2001 (Box 8; 0.5 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Robert Winthrop White (1921-2002) lived and worked in St. James, New York and was primarily known as a sculptor and educator.
He was the son of the architect, Lawrence Grant White (1887-1956) and Bessie Chanler White. Stanford White (1853-1906), Robert's grandfather, was one of the founding partners in the prominent New York City architectural firm, McKim, White, and Mead.
As a youth, Robert White traveled to Munich, Germany to study woodcarving, sculpture, and painting. In 1935, he entered Portsmouth Priory School in Rhode Island. From 1938-1942, he was enrolled in the Rhode Island School of Design, where his mentors were Walter Raemisch in sculpture and John Howard Benson in calligraphy. In World War II, White served as chief boatswain's mate in the United States Coast Guard and later worked in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). At the end of the war, White continued his training in sculpture and painting. In 1947, Robert White married Clare Nicolas, daughter of the painter and stained glass master, Joep Nicolas and the sculptor, Suzanne Nicolas.
Robert White, influenced by the classical techniques of the Renaissance artists, worked in various media, such as bronze, stone, plaster, terra-cotta, and wood. His subjects included portrait, figure, and life studies; animals; and dancers. Robert White also was an illustrator. He illustrated works by Laura Spencer Pope, William Styron, and others. White also illustrated two collections of his own poems, Casques and Dust and Palace: The Story of A Friendship that were privately published before his death in 2002.
Robert White held teaching positions at several universities and schools, including the Suffolk Museum of Art, the Parsons School of Design, and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. From 1967-1987, White was an associate professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
White exhibited his work in museums and galleries in the United States and abroad, including Artists Choice Museum, Artist's Gallery, Benson Gallery, Boston Athenaeum, Gallery North, Hartwick College Museum, Nassau County Museum of Fine Art, Patricia Fleischmann Gallery, Rijksakademie Van Beeldende, State University of New York at Stony Brook, and the Suffolk Museum and Carriage House, among others. Robert White was represented by the Davis Gallery, Graham Gallery, and Graham Modern in New York City.
Robert White's private and public commissions included works for the American Battle Monuments Commission, Amyas Ames, Theodore Cremer, John Marquand, Peabody Museum, State University of New York, William Styron, and Xerox Corporation. His work can be viewed in the collections of the Boston Athenaeum, Brooklyn Museum, Civici Musei 3 Gallerie di Storia e Arte, Heckscher Museum, and the Rhode Island School of Design. Robert White was the recipient of the Laurel Gallery's "New Talent" exhibition prize, 1948; American Academy's Rome Prize, 1952-1954; and the Proctor Memorial Prize at the National Academy of Design, 1962, 1982. He was also awarded grants from the Tiffany Foundation, 1950 and the Fairfield Foundation, 1968. From 1952-1955, White was a fellow of the American Academy in Rome, where he also served as an artist-in-residence from 1969-1970. Robert White was a member of the American Academy in Rome, the Augustus Saint Gaudens Memorial, Century Association, and the National Academy of Design.
Robert White continued to work on the family estate in St. James, New York until his death in 2002.
Provenance:
The Robert W. White Papers were donated in 2003 by Claire Nicolas White, widow of Robert White.
Restrictions:
Use of the original papers requires an appointment. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Topic:
Educators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The papers of artist Ellen Lanyon measure 62.6 linear feet and 84.47 GB and date from circa 1880-2015, bulk 1926-2013. Biographical material; correspondence; interviews; writings; journals; project files; teaching files; exhibition files; personal business records; printed and broadcast material; scrapbooks; photographic material; artwork; sketchbooks; as well as sound and video recordings and digital material, provide a comprehensive view of Lanyon's career and of art circles in Chicago and New York. Correspondence with artists and friends make up a significant portion of the collection. Project and exhibition files reflect her professional and artistic career. Thousands of slides and photographs document her life and artwork over seven decades, and over seventy sketchbooks are filled with student sketches, portraits of friends and family, and preliminary drawings.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of artist Ellen Lanyon measure 62.6 linear feet and 84.47 GB and date from circa 1880-2015, bulk 1926-2013. Biographical material; correspondence; interviews; writings; journals; project files; teaching files; exhibition files; personal business records; printed and broadcast material; scrapbooks; photographic material; artwork; sketchbooks; as well as sound and video recordings and digital material, provide a comprehensive view of Lanyon's career and of art circles in Chicago and New York.
Biographical material documents Lanyon's major life events and includes calendars; addresses and contacts; life documents; awards; diplomas and school records; resumes; horoscope readings and natal chart; residence documents; personal memorabilia; family papers and memorabilia; digital material; and items relating to Lanyon's memorial.
Correspondence, both personal and professional, consists of letters, postcards, holiday and greeting cards exchanged with family, friends, artists, collectors, publishers, print shops, museums, galleries, and cultural and educational institutions. Some material is in digital format. Notable correspondents include Judy Chicago, Leon Golub, Red Grooms, Richard Hunt, Joyce Kozloff, Lucy Lippard, Gladys Nilsson, Irving Petlin, Edward Plunkett, Dorothea Rockburne, Miriam Schapiro, Buzz Spector, May Stevens, and Michelle Stuart.
Fourteen interviews are with Ellen Lanyon conducted by various interviewers on behalf of a number of organizations and consist of transcripts, sound recordings, and video recordings, some in digital format.
Writings include general writings, lectures, presentations, and thirty-seven notebooks by Lanyon. A few writings by others about Lanyon and several sound recordings of lectures by other artists are also found here.
Twenty-five journals intermittently record Lanyon's reflections on her day-to-day life including her work, obligations, and relationships.
Project files include professional activities and files documenting projects and commissions. Files may contain project proposals, correspondence, printed and digital material, applications, contracts, research notes, invoices, receipts, notebooks, sketches, plans, organizational records, and photographic material. Three multi-year projects are extensively documented, including theMiami Metamorphosis mural, Riverwalk Gateway mural, and Hiawatha Rail Line mural.
Teaching files consist of correspondence, memoranda, course descriptions and proposals, rosters, administrative documents, and printed material from a number of institutions, including Cooper Union, where Lanyon taught from the 1970s to her retirement in 1993.
Exhibition files include files for individual exhibitions, exhibitions by women artists, and chronological files. Files may contain correspondence, inventories, consignment records, layout plans, printed and digital material, and photographic material.
Personal business, inventory, and estate records document the financial and administrative history of Lanyon's career and artworks.
Printed material, broadcast material, and published video recordings document Lanyon's career, art movements in Chicago and New York, and the women's movement in art. Files may contain books, booklets, broadsides, radio and television broadcasts, brochures, exhibition announcements and catalogs, lecture announcements, news and magazine clippings, newspapers and newsletters, periodicals, press releases, programs, video recordings, digital material, source material, and posters.
Eight scrapbooks contain predominantly clippings and exhibition material documenting Lanyon's career.
Photographic material consists of thousands of prints, slides, transparencies, digital photographs, and negatives of Lanyon, family, friends, artists, places, and artwork.
A small number of artworks include a self-portrait Lanyon carved in wood, a childhood painting, a photo collage, sketches, and one folder of assignments for an art course. Artworks by others are a hand colored photograph album by Marcia Palazzolo and prints distributed by Landfall Press.
Seventy-one sketchbooks are filled with student sketches, portraits of friends and family, and preliminary drawings done in pencil, watercolor, and colored pencil.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as fifteen series
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1880-2014, bulk 1926-2015 (5.3 linear feet; Box 1-6, 62, 3.94 GB; ER01-ER04)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1936-2013 (14.3 linear feet; Box 6-20, 1.51 GB; ER05-ER11)
Series 3: Interviews, circa 1975-2012 (0.7 linear feet; Box 20-21, 7.07 GB; ER12-ER19)
Series 4: Writings, Lectures, and Notebooks, circa 1947-2015 (3.2 linear feet; Box 21-24, 0.712 GB; ER20-ER24)
Series 5: Journals, 1967-2013 (1 linear foot; Box 24-25)
Series 6: Project Files, 1952-2014 (5.8 linear feet; Box 25-31, 62, OV 66, 13.42 GB; ER25-ER32)
Series 7: Teaching Files, 1953-2010 (0.9 linear feet; Box 31)
Series 8: Exhibition Files, circa 1944-2013 (2.7 linear feet; Box 32-34, 63, 3.87 GB; ER33-ER37)
Series 9: Personal Business, Inventory, and Estate Records, circa 1950-2015 (3 linear feet; Box 34-37, 9.10 GB; ER38-ER46)
Series 10: Printed and Broadcast Material, and Published Video Recordings, 1937-2013 (13.3 linear feet; Box 37-49, 63, OV 67-77, 2.18 GB; ER47-ER49)
Series 11: Scrapbooks, 1946-2013 (0.6 linear feet; Box 49-50)
Series 12: Photographic Material, circa 1920-2015 (7.7 linear feet; Box 50-57, 63, 42.44 GB; ER50-ER71)
Series 13: Artwork, circa 1938-1979 (0.2 linear feet; Box 58, 63)
Series 14: Sketchbooks, circa 1940-2010 (3.4 linear feet; Box 58-60, 64, 65)
Series 15: Unidentified Sound and Video Recordings, and Electronic Records, circa 1974-2013 (0.5 linear feet; Box 60-61)
Biographical / Historical:
Ellen Lanyon (1926-2013) was an American painter and printmaker working in Chicago and New York. She was born in Chicago, Illinois to Howard and Ellen (Nellie) Lanyon. Lanyon received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1948 and married classmate and artist Roland Ginzel that same year. In 1950, she received her MFA from the University of Iowa. As part of her post graduate work, Lanyon studied at the Courtauld Institute, University of London on a Fulbright Fellowship.
In the late 1940s, Lanyon began exhibiting her work and was featured in several Chicago and Vicinity Annual shows as well as the Momentum exhibitions. Influenced by surrealism, magic realism, and the work of the Chicago Imagists and the Hairy Who, Lanyon's subjects range from portraits of friends and family, to objects from her collection of curios, to flora and fauna. She produced paintings, drawings, print editions, artist's books, and some ceramics. In addition to her own artwork, Lanyon took on numerous commissions including the Riverwalk Gateway murals in Chicago, the Hiawatha Transit murals in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and a variety of illustration work.
Lanyon was active in many professional organizations and women's organizations including the College Art Association (CAA) and the Women's Caucus for Art. She organized panels at CAA, contributed writings and editing to journals, including Heresies, and served on a variety of panels and juries. Lanyon was also on the Board of the Ox-Bow Summer School of Painting, which she attended in her youth. Over the course of her career, she taught at many colleges and universities, including Cooper Union, where she was Associate Professor.
Throughout her career, Lanyon participated in exhibitions around the country, including a retrospective of her work at the National Museum for Women in the Arts in 1999. She was also the recipient of many awards and grants including the Logan Price and a National Endowment for the Arts grant.
Lanyon and Ginzel had two children, Andrew and Lisa Ginzel.
Related Materials:
Also found in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Ellen Lanyon conducted by James Crawford in 1975.
Provenance:
A majority of the collection was donated in 2015 by Andrew Ginszel, Ellen Lanyon's son and executor. Lanyon also donated material in 1990. Portions of the collection were lent for microfilming from 1977-1981 by Lanyon and subsequently donated.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Correspondence; notes and writings by Woods and his students; printed material; photographs of Woods and his work; 4 sketches and drawings by his students, undated; 1 certificate from San Francisco Art Institute, undated, various subject files, 1948-1981.
Included are: correspondence with Grace McCann Morley, Jock Reynolds, Richard Hayton, Sean Elwood and others, 1960-1987; notes and writings by Woods and his students; student drawings by Joan Brown and others, and original Christmas cards received; clippings, 1955-1978; files on the San Francisco Art Festival, 1950-1951, San Francisco Art Association, the San Francisco Art Commission, the San Francisco Museum of Art, and other events and topics; gallery announcements, posters and exhibition catalogs;
writings by Woods including commencement addresses, lectures, proposals and one manuscript "New Prospects in Design Education"; proposals for long range development of the visual arts program at the University of California at Santa Cruz (1970-1979); and photographs and slides of Woods and his artwork.
ADDITION: One b&w photograph of Louis Siegriest and his son Lundy; one b&w photograph of Jay DeFeo, ca. 1960; and two exhibition catalogs on the Siegriests, 1980 and 1986; newspaper review of Woods' 1993 exhibit.
Biographical / Historical:
Sculptor and art instructor; San Francisco and Santa Cruz, California.
Provenance:
Material donated 1991 and 1992 by Gurdon Woods.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center.
Occupation:
Art teachers -- California -- Santa Cruz Search this
The papers of abstract painter and art instructor Vaclav Vytlacil date from 1885-1990 and measure 5.2 linear feet. Found within the papers are scattered biographical materials, correspondence primarily discussing art school-related matters and the exhibition and sale of Vytlacil's work, scattered business and financial records, and notes and writings including lecture notes. The papers also contain audio recordings of interviews of Vytlacil and his associates, artwork by Vytlacil and others, four scrapbooks, printed material including clippings and exhibition catalogs, and photographs of Vytlacil, his colleagues, and his artwork.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of abstract painter and art instructor Vaclav Vytlacil date from 1885-1990 and measure 5.2 linear feet. Found within the papers are scattered biographical materials, correspondence, scattered business and financial records, and notes and writings including lecture notes. The papers also contain audio recordings of interviews of Vytlacil and his associates, artwork by Vytlacil and others, four scrapbooks, printed material including clippings and exhibition catalogs, and photographs of Vytlacil, his colleagues, and his artwork.
Scattered biographical materials include documents relating to family history and biographical accounts for Vytlacil. Correspondence consists of letters exchanged between Vytlacil and his wife and colleagues including Josef Albers, Worden Day, Hugo Feigl, John Haley, Alfred Jensen, Irving Manoir, Mercedes Matter, Worth Ryder, Ernest Thurn, and Glenn Wessels.
Scattered business and financial records consist of teaching contracts and scattered financial records. Notes and writings include lecture notes, notebooks concerning teaching, minutes of meetings, essays, and writings by others. Three untranscribed sound recordings on cassette contain an interview of Vytlacil by Susan Larsen and interviews of Vytlacil's students and associates.
Artwork consists of drawings and prints by Vytlacil and others, etchings by Betty Vytlacil, and a color woodcut by Zalmar. Four scrapbooks contain printed materials and artwork by students compiled as a get-well gift to Vytlacil. Additional printed materials include numerous clippings, exhibition catalogs, and art school catalogs. Photographs in the collection are of Vytlacil, family members, his artwork, and his colleagues including Blanche Lazzell and Irving Manoir with Diego Rivera. One small motion picture film reel, 8mm, shows views of Manhattan and a family outing.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 10 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1885, 1933-1981 (Box 1; 3 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1911-1985 (Boxes 1-2, 7; 2.0 linear feet)
Series 3: Business Records, 1912-1982 (Box 3; 11 folders)
Series 4: Notes and Writings, 1928-1978 (Boxes 3, 7; 0.9 linear feet)
Series 6: Artwork, 1921-1952 (Boxes 4, 7; 5 folders)
Series 7: Scrapbooks, 1927-1979 (Boxes 4, 7; 4 folders)
Series 8: Printed Material, 1912-1990 (Boxes 4-5, 7; 1.3 linear feet)
Series 9: Photographs, 1906-1976 (Boxes 6-7; 27 folders)
Series 10: Motion Picture Film, circa 1938-1968 (Box FC 8; 1 film reel)
Biographical Note:
Vaclav Vytlacil (1892-1984) was an abstract painter and art instructor who worked primarily in the New York city area. He was also one of the co-founders of the American Abstract Artists group.
Born in New York City of Czech parentage, Vytlacil moved at an early age with his family to Chicago. Beginning in 1906 he studied at the Art Institute of Chicago under Antonin Sterba for approximately 3 years. In 1912 he graduated as William Vytlacil from Crane Technical and English High School. After receiving a scholarship in 1913, Vytlacil returned to New York to study at the Art Students League with John C. Johansen for three years. From 1917 to 1921 Vytlacil was employed as an instructor at the Minneapolis School of Art.
Beginning in 1921 Vytlacil traveled to Paris, Prague, and Munich, deciding to remain in the latter city indefinitely. He enrolled as a student at the Royal Academy of Art in Munich with fellow American art students Worth Ryder and Ernest Thurn. Vytlacil first studied under Karl Kaspar and, a year later, he and Ernest Thurn enrolled at the Hans Hofmann School in Munich. Vytlacil studied with Hofmann sporadically over the next seven years.
On August 18, 1927, Vytlacil married Elizabeth Foster of St. Paul, Minnesota at the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Italy. In the following year, he accepted an invitation to teach at the Art Students League and became an invited lecturer at the University of California at Berkeley during the summer terms of 1928 to 1929. Vytlacil urged Hans Hofmann, with his assistance, to come to the United States to teach at the Art Students League during the 1931-1932 term. Also during the early 1930s, Vytlacil and his wife spent summers in Positano, Italy, and winters in Paris.
In 1935 the Vytlacils returned permanently from Europe to live at 8 West 13th Street in New York City, where they stayed for three years. Vytlacil resumed teaching at the Art Students League, spending the summer sessions teaching at the California College of Arts and Crafts. In the following year he accepted an invitation to teach at the Florence Cane School at Rockefeller Center and continued teaching during the summer session at the California College of Arts and Crafts. It was also during 1936 that Vytlacil co-founded the American Abstract Artists with thirteen other artists.
While continuing to teach at the Art Students League and at the Florence Cane School, Vytlacil began conducting art classes at the Dalton School, where he taught until 1941. In 1938, he moved from New York City to South Mountain Road in New City. Two years later, Vytlacil established his residence and studio in Sparkill, New York, and in 1941, he acquired property in Martha's Vineyard which provided a place to work during the summers.
In 1942, Vytlacil left the Art Students League to become Chairman of the Art Department of Queens College in Flushing, New York. He held this position until 1945, when he accepted an invitation to teach at Black Mountain College. From 1946 to 1951, he returned as instructor at the Art Students League and began selling his artwork through the Feigl Gallery in New York. He also taught at the Minneapolis School of Art in 1947, and at Columbia University in 1950.
From 1952 to 1954, Vytlacil traveled to Colorado to paint and teach at the summer sessions of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. After a summer spent on Monhegan Island, Maine, Vytlacil and his wife spent 1955 in Europe. Upon his return in 1956, he became a guest instructor at the Art Institute of Chicago and, in the following year, he taught a summer session at Boston College.
During the winter months of 1960 and 1961, Vytlacil lived in Oaxaca, Mexico. In 1964, he was a guest instructor at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia.
Vytlacil was a member of the Art Students League of New York, the American Abstract Artists, the Federation of American Painters and Sculptors, and the Audubon Artists.
Vaclav Vytlacil died at his home in Sparkill, New York on January 5, 1984.
Related Material:
Also found in the Archives of American Art are oral history interviews with Vaclav Vytlacil, March 2, 1966 and January 10, 1974, and 19 items microfilmed on reel 2016 relating to a 1975 Montclair Art Museum exhibition organized by Worden Day.
Separated Material:
The Archives of American Art also holds material lent for microfilming (D295) including correspondence, lecture notes, general notes, clippings, notebooks concerning paintings, photographs of paintings, photographs titled "Vineyard Boats," and two of Mrs. Vytacil's Paris journals. Two dozen of these letters were later donated. All other lent materials remain with the lender and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
Vaclav Vytlacil lent the Archives of American Art materials for microfilming in 1966. Vaclav Vytlacil's daughter, Anne Vytlacil, donated the Vaclav Vytlacil papers in several installments from 1989 to 1993.
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.
Occupation:
Art teachers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The papers of ceramicist Robert Sperry measure 13.6 linear feet and 0.907 GB and date from 1951-2002. The collection documents Sperry's career as an artist, teacher, and filmmaker through biographical information, correspondence, exhibition files, gallery files, material on projects and workshops, writings, a scrapbook, financial files, printed and digital material, photographs, moving image materials, and artwork.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of ceramicist Robert Sperry measure 13.6 linear feet and 0.907 GB and date from 1951-2002. The collection documents Sperry's career as an artist and teacher through biographical information, correspondence, exhibition files, gallery files, material on projects and workshops, writings, a scrapbook, financial files, printed and digital material, photographs, video recordings, films, and artwork.
Biographical files contain items outlining Sperry's career including resumes, teaching evaluations, awards, and interviews. Correspondence includes general correspondence with family, friends, colleagues, schools, galleries, art organizations, and publications as well as named files for those with whom Sperry exchanged a significant amount of correspondence over a long period of time. The Exhibition Files contain materials on group and solo exhibitions Robert Sperry participated in, while Gallery Files hold material, such as correspondence and contracts, related to the galleries which exhibited Sperry's work primarily after 1979. The Project and Workshop Files in Series 5 contain material related to public commissions he completed and workshops he gave during the 1980s and 1990s.
Writings encompass writings by Sperry and others. Sperry's writings vary greatly and include drafts of articles, a family history, poetry, notes and a screenplay, while writings by others are primarily essays on art. Within this series Sperry's event calendars are also found. Sperry compiled a scrapbook which spans 1955 to 1964 and includes correspondence and printed material about exhibitions and newspaper clippings which feature his artwork. He and his wife, Patti Warashina, also compiled Financial Records primarily of their business and living expenses from 1976 to 1984 and earnings as artists and professors at the University of Washington.
The largest series in this collection, Printed Material, provides information largely on Sperry's career through press clippings, exhibition announcements, catalogs, and publications, and also includes other materials on ceramics in general. The Photographs series contains both photos and negatives from Sperry's trip to Japan to film "Village Potters of Onda" as well as photographs of his artwork and his family. Also found in this collection are a few sketches and drawings by Sperry and one drawing by Patti Warashina. Moving image material includes video recordings and motion picture film with a wide range of content, including documentaries about Sperry, studio footage, and experimental and narrative films created by Sperry in a range of styles and genres, including animation such as the animated film "Henry," hand colored film, live action footage, abstract design, and narrative short films by Sperry. There are digital research copies of some of the films.
Arrangement:
The Robert Sperry papers are arranged as thirteen series, according to type of material. Each series is arranged either in rough chronological or alphabetical order.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Files, 1954-circa 2000, undated (Box 1; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence Files, 1951-2000, undated (Boxes 1-2; 0.9 linear feet)
Series 3: Exhibition Files, 1963-1999, undated (Boxes 2-3; 1.2 linear feet)
Series 4: Gallery Files, 1960-2000, undated (Boxes 3-4; 0.8 linear feet)
Series 5: Project and Workshop Files, 1967-1996, undated (Box 4; 0.4 linear feet)
Series 6: Writings, 1966-1990, undated (Box 5; 0.5 linear feet)
Series 7: Scrapbook, 1955-1964 (Box 5; 8 folders)
Series 8: Financial Records, 1961-1995, undated (Boxes 5-6; 1.0 linear feet)
Series 9: Miscellaneous Subject Files, 1975-1998, undated (Box 6; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 10: Printed Material, 1955-2002, undated (Boxes 6-10; 3.4 linear feet)
Series 11: Photographs, 1963, undated (Box 10; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 12: Sketches and Drawings, 1984, undated (Box 10; 2 folders)
Series 13: Moving Image Material, circa 1962-1998, undated (Boxes 10-12, FC 13-18; 3.1 linear feet, ER01; 0.907 GB)
Biographical Note:
Robert Sperry was born in Bushnell, Illinois, in 1927. He grew up on his family's farm in Druid, Saskatchewan, Canada, and in 1945 was drafted into the U.S. Army, where he first developed an interest in art. After serving in the military, he returned home and completed his B.A. at the University of Saskatchewan in 1950 and a B.F.A. at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1953. While working on his B.A. he met and married Edyth MacDonald and they had one child, Van, in 1950. Sperry spent one summer as Artist in Residence at the Archie Bray Foundation, in Helena, Montana, and then moved his family to Seattle so that he could complete his M.F.A. at the University of Washington. After graduating in 1955 he stayed at the University and became a professor, teaching ceramics until retiring in 1982. During this time, Sperry widely exhibited his clay vessels in both group and solo exhibitions and was active in the American Craft Council.
When not teaching, Robert Sperry pursued his interest in photography and filmmaking and, in 1963, traveled to Japan to make "Village Potters of Onda," a project that included a documentary film and a collection of black and white photographs. Sperry continued experimenting with film and, in 1967, created a fictional film entitled, "Profiles Cast Long Shadows," which was shown at film festivals throughout the United States. After abandoning another film project in 1970 while going through a divorce, he returned to ceramics as his focus. During the 1970s Sperry developed his techniques, modifying glazes and moving away from the vessel shape. In 1976 Sperry married Patti Warashina, fellow ceramicist and professor at the University of Washington. He began producing murals, which led to several public commissions such as a mural for the IBM Field Engineering Educational Center in Atlanta, created in 1983. Robert Sperry: A Retrospective, was exhibited in 1985-1986 at the Bellevue Art Museum, however, Sperry would continue producing and exhibiting new work, and giving lectures and workshops for thirteen more years, until his death in 1998.
Related Material:
Also found in the Archives of American Art are the Patti Warashina papers, circa 1900-1991. An online finding aid is available.
Provenance:
The Robert Sperry papers were donated by Sperry's wife Patti Warashina in 2003 and 2004.
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.
The Jack Stewart papers are dated 1926-2010 and measure 9.9 linear feet and 7.31 GB. A significant portion of the collection concerns Stewart's dissertation, "Subway Graffiti: An Aesthetic Study of Graffiti on the Subway" (New York University, 1989), related research, writings, and exhibitions on the subject. Biographical materials, correspondence, writings, printed and digital material, artwork, sketchbooks, and photographic materials document his career as a painter, muralist, designer, educator and administrator.
Scope and Content Note:
The Jack Stewart papers are dated 1926-2010 and measure 9.9 linear feet and 7.31 GB. A significant portion of the collection concerns Stewart's dissertation, "Subway Graffiti: An Aesthetic Study of Graffiti on the Subway" (New York University, 1989), related research, writings, and exhibitions on the subject. Biographical materials, correspondence, writings, printed and digital material, artwork, sketchbooks, and photographic materials document his career as a painter, muralist, designer, educator and administrator.
Biographical materials include a "Video Archive" in digital format, consisting mainly of Jack Stewart being interviewed on several occasions by Nancy Gold for her television show, "What It Takes." In addition to discussions about Stewart's career, the shows include examples of his paintings and murals along with views of him at work.
Correspondence mostly documents Stewart's artistic career and work as an educator and administrator; there is some personal correspondence, as well. Of particular note are letters to Rodman Townsend who commissioned a mural about the human brain; they discuss the details of the project and its evolution, brain research, and subsequent exhibitions of related paintings. Illustrated letters and greeting cards with original artwork are from Violet Baxter, Lorrie Goulet, Wolf Kahn, Clare Romano, Anthony Toney, and Sam Weiner. Herbert Brooks Walker sent several pieces of mail art and, while in Italy, collected graffiti information for Stewart. Letters Stewart wrote to his mother span decades; the best represented periods are the years he served in the U.S. Army and studied at Yale University.
Writings and notes consist of Stewart's dissertation ("Subway Graffiti: An Aesthetic Study of Graffiti on the Subway"), miscellaneous writings and notes, and art and architecture notebooks. Dissertation documentation includes the manuscript, drafts, and related records. Among the miscellaneous writings and notes - published and unpublished - are shorter pieces, articles, student papers, and teaching notes. Of particular interest are notes/instructions for a performance piece titled "Endless Subway," "Memories of Steffan Thomas" and "My Recollection of Charles Egan." Also found are minutes of Cooper Union adjunct faculty meetings (1965-1966), and reports written when provost of the Rhode Island School of Design. Art and architecture notebooks (5 volumes) were compiled while at Yale University.
Research files on graffiti contain many sound recordings and some transcripts of interviews with graffiti writers, voluminous lists of graffiti writers' names/tags, correspondence, notes, photographs, and a wide variety of printed material. Some of the material is in digital format. Stewart began collecting these materials as his interest in graffiti developed. They were used for his dissertation and material continued to be added after the dissertation was completed.
Printed material mentioning Stewart or containing reproductions of his work includes exhibition catalogs, posters, and newsletters.
Artwork by Jack Stewart consists of drawings, paintings, and one etching; also found are designs and plans for tables, murals, and other projects. Drawings include figure studies, heads, and landscapes; most are in pencil and some in ink. The small number of paintings are oil on canvas (removed from stretchers), and gouache on paper and board. Sketchbooks (44 volumes) contain mostly pencil drawings and sketches, and a few studies for paintings and murals. Two volumes include writings about travels and events; of particular interest are "Notes on Kline's funeral May 1962," "Visit to Roman Bronze Art Foundry," and "Notes on My Development."
Photographic materials consist mainly photographs, but also include digital images and 35-mm color slides. Images of Stewart include views of him with paintings and working in his studio. Identified individuals with whom he appears are: Regina Stewart (wife), Brandon Stewart (son), Lil Stewart (mother), Ninalee Craig, Irving Sandler, and students in Urbino, Italy. Photographs of artwork document murals such as Raw Material (composed of shirt labels), and Versailles Hotel in Miami Beach; among the paintings documented are State of the Union, Icons of Western Art and Revelation XVI-16 (both with keys to individuals portrayed). Exhibition openings and installations are shown in photographs, color slides, and video recordings. Also found are photographs of the World Trade Center site taken by Stewart in December 2001.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 9 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1926-circa 2009 (Boxes 1,11; 0.6 linear foot, ER01-ER02, 3.92 GB)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1944-2009 (Boxes 1-2; 0.7 linear foot)
Series 3: Writings and Notes, circa 1947-2003 (Boxes 2-5; 3.1 linear foot)
Series 4: Research Files on Graffiti, 1972-2010 (Boxes 5-7,11; 2.8 linear foot, ER03-ER05, 3.18 GB)
Series 5: Printed Material, circa 1945-2002 (Boxes 8, 11, OV 13; 0.7 linear foot)
Series 6: Scrapbooks, circa 1990-2003 (Box 8; 0.2 linear foot)
Series 7: Artwork, 1946-2000 (Boxes 8, 11, OV 12; 0.3 linear foot)
Series 8: Sketchbooks, 1951-2004 (Boxes 8-9; 1.3 linear foot)
Series 9: Photographic Materials, circa 1950s-2010 (Boxes 10-11; 0.4 linear foot, ER06-ER07, 0.208 GB)
Biographical Note:
Jack Stewart (1926-2005) was a painter, muralist, designer, educator and administrator in New York City. After developing an interest in graffiti in the 1970s, Stewart eventually wrote a dissertation on the subject, "Subway Graffiti: An Aesthetic Study of Graffiti on the Subway" (New York University, 1989) and was recognized as an expert on mass transit art.
Jack Stewart began studying art at the High Museum School in his hometown of Atlanta when he was 10 years old. At age 14, he began a 4 year apprenticeship with painter and sculptor Steffen Thomas. After serving in World War II, he enrolled at Yale University (B.F.A. 1951) as a sculpture student, but soon switched to the painting department where he studied with Josef Albers and Willem de Kooning. After graduation, Stewart began receiving mural commissions and enrolled in classes at Columbia University School of Architecture (1951-1953). His interest in architecture was tied to understanding how to work effectively with architects on mural projects. Later, Stewart developed an interest in graffiti which he pursued through graduate study at New York University (M.A., 1975 and Ph.D., 1989).
Stewart created murals in ceramic tile, mixed media and stained glass. In addition to mosaic murals, he designed tables with mosaic tops. As an outgrowth of his mosaic work, Stewart developed a technique for laminating stained glass onto plate glass that, by eliminating the need for lead, opened new design possibilities. Mural commissions included work for Hamilton Hotel in Chicago, Versailles Hotel in Miami Beach, Public School 28 in New York City, and several ocean liners. The most unusual mural, Raw Material commissioned by Cluett Peabody and Company, was composed of shirt labels embedded in acrylic.
Beginning in 1950 Stewart participated regularly in group shows and enjoyed solo exhibitions mainly in the New York City area. He also showed in Philadelphia, Georgia, Rhode Island, Mexico and Italy, and was included in exhibitions circulated by the American Federation of Arts.
Stewart taught at the college level for nearly thirty years, including: The New School (art and architecture, 1953-1958); Pratt Institute (interior architectural design, 1955-1960); The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (painting, drawing, human anatomy, art history, 1960-1976; Art Department Chairman, 1971-1976); International Center of Mythymna, American Division, Lesbos, Greece (summer school, 1962-1965); Columbia University (M.F.A. program instructor, 1966-1976); and New York University (drawing, 1967-1975). In 1976 he was appointed Vice President and Provost of the Rhode Island School of Design.
Stewart was active in several professional organizations. He served as New York Artists Equity Association Secretary (1986-1987) and President (1987-1989); President of the National Society of Mural Painters (1996-2000); member of the advisory board of the Steffen Thomas Museum and Archives, Buckhead, GA (1997- 2000s); and President of the Fine Arts Federation of New York (2003-2004). The National Academy of Design elected Jack Stewart an Academician in 1995.
Jack Stewart and Margot Schwarzhaupt, an artist, were married in 1947; they had one son, Brandon. Painter and arts administrator, Regina Serniak, became Jack Stewart's wife in 1976.
Jack Stewart died in New York City in 2005.
Related Materials:
Jack Stewart papers, 1926-2015, are located at Emory University Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library.
Provenance:
Donated in 2010 by Regina Stewart, widow of Jack Stewart.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice. This collection is copyright restricted.
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:
Arts administrators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The papers of New York art historian, museum director, curator, writer, and educator, Alan R. Solomon, measure 9.9 linear feet and date from 1907-1970, with the bulk of the material dating from 1944-1970. Through biographical material, correspondence, interview transcripts, writings and notes, teaching and study files, subject files, exhibition files, business records, printed material, and photographs, the collection documents Solomon's education, his early teaching appointments at Cornell University, and his subsequent direction of many diverse curatorial and research projects relating to contemporary American art, particularly the transition from Abstract Expressionism to later modern movements, and the thriving New York City art scene.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of New York art historian, museum director, curator, writer, and educator, Alan R. Solomon, measure 9.9 linear feet and date from 1907-1970, with the bulk of the material dating from 1944-1970. Through biographical material, correspondence, interview transcripts, writings and notes, teaching and study files, subject files, exhibition files, business records, printed material, and photographs, the collection documents Solomon's education, his early teaching appointments at Cornell University, and his subsequent direction of many diverse curatorial and research projects relating to contemporary American art, particularly the transition from Abstract Expressionism to later modern movements, and the thriving New York City art scene.
Biographical material includes résumés, an engagement book, and a monthly planning book from 1965, identification cards, and educational transcripts.
Correspondence documents Solomon's education at Harvard College and Harvard University, and his teaching appointments at Cornell University. Correspondence also provides some documentation of his involvement with museums and arts organizations, including the Jewish Museum, Stedlijk Museum, the San Francisco Art Institute, the University of California, and Centro de Artes Visuales; his submission of writings for publications including Artforum, Art International, and Konstrevy; and his relationships with artists and colleagues including Jim Dine, Joan Kron, Audrey Sabol, and Ileana Sonnabend. Also found is correspondence related to Solomon's work for Mary Sisler, who employed Solomon to sell her collection of artwork by Marcel Duchamp in the late 1960s.
One series comprises transcripts of interviews with many of the artists who were central to the transition from Abstract Expressionism to later modern movements that occurred in the 1950s and 1960s, such as Neo-Dada and Pop art. Artists represented in the interviews include Jim Dine, Helen Frankenthaler, Jasper Johns, Barnett Newman, Kenneth Noland, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella, and Andy Warhol.
Solomon's writings include many of his essays for exhibition catalogs, magazines, and journals, and are in a combination of annotated manuscript and published formats. There are writings on Jim Dine, Barnett Newman, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jasper Johns, and on the new movements in theater and performance art of the 1960s. His writings also document the art history education which informed all of his later work, with the inclusion of papers written as a student and teacher, his honors thesis on Odilon Redon, and his dissertation on Pablo Picasso. This material is supplemented by notes, and teaching and study files, documenting courses taken and taught at Harvard and Cornell universities. Also found is the manuscript of the text for New York: The New Art Scene, accompanied by a partial published copy of the book and photographs by Ugo Mulas.
Solomon's subject files augment several of the other series, comprising material on various art related subjects and individual painters and sculptors, arranged alphabetically. Material found here includes printed matter documenting exhibitions and other events, scattered letters from artists, related writings, and photographs.
One series documents Solomon's involvement with the First New York Theater Rally, which he co-produced with Steve Paxton in 1965. This material includes a drawing each by Jim Dine and Alex Hay, pieces of a combine by Robert Rauschenberg, and photographs of the group including Dine, Hay, and Rauschenberg, as well as Lucinda Childs, Judith Dunn, Deborah Hay, Robert Morris, Claes Oldenburg, the Once Group, Steve Paxton, Yvonne Rainier, Alan Solomon, and Robert Whitman. The series includes multiple contact sheets of photos of First New York Theater Rally events, by Peter Moore, Elizabeth Novick, and Terry Schute.
Exhibition files document Solomon's role as an organizer and curator for some of his most well-known exhibitions, including American Painting Now (1967) for Expo '67 in Montreal; Andy Warhol (1966) at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston; Dine-Oldenburg-Segal (1967) at the Art Gallery of Ontario and Albright-Knox Gallery; the American exhibition at the 1964 Venice Biennale; Young Italians (1968) at the Institute of Contemporary Art; and Painting in New York 1944-1969, a major retrospective installed for the opening of the new Pasadena Art Museum in fall, 1969. Records include correspondence, lists and notes, financial records, printed material, and photographs of artists and installations, including a series by Ugo Mulas taken at the Venice Biennale.
Solomon's business records include lists, notes, contracts, expense forms, vouchers, purchase orders, and receipts. They provide scattered documentation of exhibition-related expenses and purchases of artwork, as well as Solomon's income from teaching appointments, lectures, honorariums, and writings. Amongst Solomon's general business records is an American Federation of Musicians agreement between the Institute of Contemporary Art and "Louis Reed," with booking agent Andy Warhol, for a performance by the Velvet Underground and Nico, performing as The Exploding Plastic Inevitable on October 29, 1966. This seemingly mundane item documents an event that accompanied Solomon's landmark Warhol exhibition of nearly forty iconic works, and the accompanying show by The Exploding Plastic Inevitable was hailed by the Boston Phoenix newspaper as one of the greatest concerts in Boston history.
Printed material includes announcements, catalogs, and posters for exhibitions and art related events, including two Jasper Johns lithographs for a 1960 exhibition at Galerie Rive Droite, and a 1963 exhibition at Leo Castelli Gallery. Also found are news clippings, press releases, and other publications.
Photographs are of Solomon, artists, friends and colleagues, exhibitions and other events, and artwork. They include snapshots of Solomon, and a series of photographs of him at various events and parties, many taken by Ugo Mulas, as well as a photo taken by Robert Rauschenberg of Ugo Mulas, Michele Provinciali, and Solomon. Additional photos by Ugo Mulas include some which were probably taken for New York: The New Art Scene, and a series of photos of Robert Rauschenberg and others at the Venice Biennale. Photos of artists include Lee Bontecou, John Chamberlain, Jim Dine, Marcel Duchamp, Öyvind Fahlström, Laura Grisi, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Morris Louis, Barnett Newman, Kenneth Noland, Claes and Patty Oldenburg, Larry Poons, James Rosenquist, George Segal, Frank Stella, and Andy Warhol and The Factory. Photos of others include Leo Castelli, Clement and Jeanine Greenberg, and Ethel and Robert Scull. Also found are photos of the exhibition Toward a New Abstraction (1963), at The Jewish Museum, photos of Venice, and photos of artwork by many of the above named, and other, artists. In addition to Ugo Mulas, photographers represented in this series include Nat Finkelstein, Robert R. McElroy, and Hans Namuth.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as eleven series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1938-1968 (5 folders; Box 1)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1930-1970 (0.66 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 3: Interviews, 1965-1969 (0.25 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 4: Writings and Notes, 1945-1969 (1.35 linear feet; Boxes 1-3, 11)
Series 5: Teaching and Study Files, 1944-1958 (0.25 linear feet; Box 3)
Series 6: Subject Files, 1907-1969 (2.92 linear feet; Boxes 3-6, 1, OV 12)
Series 7: First New York Theater Rally, 1963-1965 (0.15 linear feet; Boxes 6, 11)
Series 8: Exhibition Files, 1954-1969 (1.42 linear feet; Boxes 6-7, 11, OV 12)
Series 9: Business Records, 1945-1970 (0.3 linear feet; Boxes 7-8)
Series 10: Printed Material, 1914-1970 (0.8 linear feet; Boxes 8-9, OV 12)
Series 11: Photographs, circa 1951-circa 1970 (1.7 linear feet; Boxes 9-11, OV 13)
Biographical / Historical:
New York art historian, museum director, art consultant, educator, writer, and curator, Alan R. Solomon (1920-1970), organized over two hundred exhibitions in the course of his career. He was known for his skill in exhibition design, and for bringing the perception and understanding of an art historian to the field of contemporary art.
Solomon was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, and educated at Harvard College and Harvard Graduate School. In 1953, during his 1952-1962 tenure with the Cornell University department of art history, he established the Andrew Dickson White Museum of art. Solomon served as the museum's first director until 1961, whilst simultaneously pursuing his doctorate, which he received from Harvard University in 1962.
In 1962 Solomon was hired by the Jewish Museum in New York, New York, and immediately began to take the institution in a more contemporary direction, mounting Robert Rauschenberg's first retrospective in 1963, and a major Jasper Johns retrospective in 1964. Also, in 1963, Solomon was appointed the United States Commissioner for the 1964 Venice Biennale. He was determined to show "the major new indigenous tendencies, the peculiarly America spirt of the art" in works by two consecutive generations of artists, including Jasper Johns, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, and Robert Rauschenberg. With this in mind, and given the inadequacy of the existing space to house the installation he envisaged, Solomon secured a verbal agreement from Biennale officials to approve additional space for the American exhibition in an annex at the former American Consulate. The agreement was never formalized, however, and a series of administrative problems and controversies over the eligibility of the American submissions threatened to undermine Solomon's efforts. Nevertheless, Robert Rauschenberg became the first American to take the Grand Prize for foreign artist, and the attention garnered by the American exhibition monopolized press coverage of the Biennale. In response, Solomon stated publicly that "it is acknowledged on every hand that New York has replaced Paris as the world art capital."
Solomon subsequently left the Jewish Museum, having engendered resistance to leading the museum in a more experimental direction, away from the traditional Jewish educational aspects of its mission. In the mid-sixties he worked as a consultant and writer for a National Educational Television series entitled "U. S. A. Artists," which drew on artist interviews, many conducted by Solomon. He also wrote the text for Ugo Mulas's classic photographic study, New York: The New Art Scene (1967: Holt Rinehart and Winston).
In 1966 Solomon was hired by the United States Information Agency to organize the United States contribution to the Canadian World Exhibition in Montreal, known as Expo '67. His stunning American Painting Now installation placed large scale paintings by twenty-three artists, including Jim Dine, Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Barnett Newman, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, and James Rosenquist, inside Buckminster Fuller's twenty-story Biosphere of Montreal.
Other important exhibitions organized by Solomon included Andy Warhol (1966) at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, which was only the second of two exhibitions dedicated to the artist; Dine-Oldenburg-Segal (1967) at the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery; and Young Italians (1968) at the Institute of Contemporary Art.
Solomon was also interested in contemporary theater and organized the First New York Theater Rally with Steve Paxton in 1965, a series of performances which combined new dance and a revival of the Happenings of the early 1960s, in which Claes Oldenburg, Jim Dine and others were involved.
Following a six-week appointment as a senior lecturer at the University of California, Irvine, in spring 1968, Solomon became chairman of the University's art department and director of the art gallery. His last exhibition, Painting in New York, 1944-1969 (1969-1970), was held at the Pasadena Art Museum and closed in January 1970, just a few weeks before Solomon's sudden death at the age of forty-nine.
Provenance:
The Leo Castelli Gallery served as executor of Solomon's estate, and donated his papers to the Archives of American Art in 1974 and 2007.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Occupation:
Art historians -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The papers of New York-based abstract painter and teacher John Opper measure 1.6 linear feet and 0.057 GB and are dated 1908-2013, bulk 1930-1994. The papers contain both professional and personal correspondence. Biographical materials include passports, sketches, certificates, and curriculum vitae, as well as some genealogical documents in digital format. Personal business records relate to the artist's Bowery Street and Amagansett studios, art sales through the Grace Borgenicht Gallery, and a few art inventories. A scrapbook contains newspaper clippings. Additional clippings, exhibition catalogs and announcements, and galley sheets of a children's book illustrated by Opper are included among the printed material. Photographs are of Opper, his family, friends, and paintings. Digital photographs depict the artist and relatives.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of New York-based abstract painter and teacher John Opper measure 1.6 linear feet and 0.057 GB and are dated 1908-2013, bulk 1930-1994. The papers contain both professional and personal correspondence. Biographical materials include passports, sketches, certificates, and curriculum vitae, as well as genealogical documents in digital format. Personal business records relate to the artist's Bowery Street and Amagansett studios, art sales through the Grace Borgenicht Gallery, and a few art inventories. A scrapbook contains newspaper clippings. Additional clippings, exhibition catalogs and announcements, and galley sheets of a children's book illustrated by Opper are included among the printed material. Photographs are of Opper, his family, friends, and paintings. Digital photographs depict the artist and relatives.
Biographical material contains a faculty identification card, family tree, passports, curriculum vitae, sketches, certificates, notes, and other material. Some Opper family genealogical documents are in digital format.
Correspondence includes letters from immediate family, galleries, universities, foundations, and friends and colleagues, such as Lee Hall and George McNeil.
Personal business records consist of financial and legal material as well as art inventories. Opper's Bowery and Amagansett studio files contain maintenance fees as well as records related to a legal settlement. Also included are sales records from Grace Borgenicht Gallery, a painting inventory and a list of slides.
Printed materials include a disbound scrapbook, newspaper and magazine clippings, exhibition catalogs, announcements, and the galley sheets for a children's book illustrated by Opper.
Photographs depict John Opper, Opper with friends and family, and Opper's artwork. Most of the photographic material consists of prints but there are a few slides, transparencies, and digital formats.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 5 series:
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1908-2012 (Box 1; 6 folders, ER01)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1946-1995 (Box 1; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 3: Personal Business Records, 1969-1994 (Box 1; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 4: Printed Materials, 1930-2011 (Box 1-2; 0.9 linear feet)
Series 5: Photographs, 1926-circa 2013 (Box 3; 0.2 linear feet, ER02)
Biographical / Historical:
Chicago born abstract painter and teacher John Opper (1908-1994) moved to New York in the 1930s where he lived and worked for most of his career.
John Opper was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1908. He studied at Cleveland School of Art, Case Western Reserve University, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Opper moved to New York City in 1933 and became a founding member of the American Abstract Artist group in 1936. He married Estelle Rita Hausman in 1934 and they had two children, Jane and Joseph. He studied with Hans Hofmann from 1935-1936 at the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts. Opper received a Master of Arts degree (1942) and a doctorate (1952) from Columbia University.
Opper taught at many different places such as Columbia University and Pratt Institute, but his longest tenure was at New York Univerity where he he was a member of the art department faculty from 1957 until he retired in 1974. He received a Guggenheim fellowship in 1969. He was represented by Grace Borgenicht Gallery. He became known for his abstract style that was influenced by both abstract expressionism and color field painting. He passed away in Amagansett, New York in 1994.
Related Materials:
Also found in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with John Opper, conducted by Irving Sandler, 1968 September 9-1969 January 3.
Provenance:
The John Opper papers were donated to the Archives of American Art by the artist's children, Jane and Joseph Opper, 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.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Occupation:
Art teachers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
1.52 Linear feet ((partially microfilmed on 1 reel))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Drawings
Date:
1920-1969
Scope and Contents:
Correspondence, slides, typescripts of writings, and printed materials.
REEL 2804: A photocopy of an incomplete typescript, "History of the Rhode Island School of Design Museum," by Frazier, ca. 1965, including photocopies of his notes for this study.
UNMICROFILMED: Correspondence, mostly routine and relating to Frazier's exhibitions and sales, including 1 letter from John Singer Sargent concerning an exhibit and the sale of a watercolor by Frazier to Sargent, and several letters from Edwin Dickinson; photographs of Frazier, group photos, and works of art; and speeches and writings relating to his teaching career and presidency of RISD. Also included are copies of slides of works found in Frazier's studio after his death and of an exhibition of his works held in Newport, R.I., 1969.
Biographical / Historical:
Art school director, painter, and lithographer; Providence, R.I. President of Rhode Island School of Design, 1955-1962.
Provenance:
Unmicrofilmed material donated in 1972 by Mrs. John R. Frazier, Fazier's widow. Slides lent 1973 by Gordon Peers, a former colleague of Frazier; typescript on reel 2804 donated 1975 by Peers.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Occupation:
Art school directors -- Rhode Island -- Providence Search this
Topic:
Painting, American -- Rhode Island -- Providence Search this
Art -- Study and teaching -- Rhode Island -- Providence Search this
The papers of American Impressionist painter Edmund Greacen measure 1.2 linear feet and date from 1897-1972, bulk 1905-1949. The collection consists of biographical information and correspondence both personal and professional in nature, pertaining to his career as well as Greacen's various affiliations including the National Academy of Design, the National Arts Club, the Manhattan School of Art, and the Grand Central School of Art. Writings by Greacen, including an essay, "The Origins of Landscape Painting," and an unpublished book titled "Logic in Drawing" elucidate his perspective on art traditions and art education. There are works of art including pencil drawings and drypoint etchings, as well as photographs depicting portraits of the artist, group portraits documenting Greacen's various academic and professional affiliations, and reproductions of works of art. Also included exhibition catalogs, brochures, and other printed material.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of American Impressionist painter Edmund Greacen measure 1.2 linear feet and date from 1897-1972, bulk 1905-1949. The collection consists of biographical information and correspondence both personal and professional in nature, pertaining to his career as well as Greacen's various affiliations including the National Academy of Design, the National Arts Club, the Manhattan School of Art, and the Grand Central School of Art. Writings by Greacen, including an essay, "The Origins of Landscape Painting," and an unpublished book titled "Logic in Drawing" elucidate his perspective on art traditions and art education. There are works of art including pencil drawings and drypoint etchings, as well as photographs depicting portraits of the artist, group portraits documenting Greacen's various academic and professional affiliations, and reproductions of works of art. Also included exhibition catalogs, brochures, and other printed material.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged in five series:
Series 1: Biographical and Professional (Box 1, Box 3)
Series 2: Correspondence (Boxes 1-2)
Series 3: Writings (Box 2)
Series 4: Photographs (Boxes 2-3)
Series 5: Artwork (Box 3, OV 4)
Biographical / Historical:
Edmund William Greacen (1876-1949) was an American Impressionist painter born in New York City. Greacen traveled extensively throughout Europe early in his career, which afforded him the opportunity to exhibit his work in Paris, and participate in the international art scene both abroad and in New York City. He is particularly known for his oil paintings on canvas and board depicting both human subjects and landscapes. In 1922 he was awarded the Samuel T. Shaw Prize from the Salmagundi Club following his solo show at the Macbeth Gallery. During his career, he was an active member of the Salmagundi Club, the National Academy of Design, and the National Arts Club where he served as Arts Committee Chair. He helped found the Manhattan School of Art as well as the Grand Central School of Art in 1923, and he served as director of both. He was also a member of the Old Lyme Art Colony of American Impressionists at Old Lyme, Connecticut.
Provenance:
The Edmund Greacen papers were donated to the Archives of American Art in 1971 by Mrs. Edmund Greacen, Jr., daughter-in-law of Edmund Greacen, and in 2017 by Elizabeth G. Knudsen, granddaughter of Edmund Greacen.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Occupation:
Art teachers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Correspondence, journal, writings, printed material, scrapbook, and two card files on paintings.
REEL D251: Correspondence; a war journal, July 29 through August 26, 1944, recounting the liberation of Paris; a limited edition book, 1932, GRAVEYARD BY THE SEA (LE CIMETIERE MARIN) by Paul Valéry, in French with English translation and original illustrations by Etting; clippings and critical material; exhibition catalogs and announcements; speeches, broadcasts and writings.
REELS 4158-4159: A manuscript "A Studio in Paris" describing Etting's experiences studying with Andre Lhote in Paris, 1928-1931, and a volume of illustrations for the manuscript; ten volumes of scrapbooks containing photographs, clippings, exhibition invitations and checklists; photographs of works of art, models, exhibition installations, and of Etting's school in Philadelphia; and two card files containing data on Etting's paintings, one compiled by an intern, 1985.
REEL 4340: Three exhibition catalogs and two postcards.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter and illustrator; Philadelphia, Pa. Died 1993. During the Second World War, Etting was an official French language announcer in London for the American Broadcast stations in Europe.
Provenance:
Material on reel D251 donated by Etting, 1966. He lent papers on reels 4158-4159 in 1988 as part of AAA's Philadelphia Arts Documentation Project. A few additional items of printed material were donated by Etting (reel 4340), and transferred to NMAA/NPG Library after filming.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Occupation:
Painters -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia Search this
Illustrators -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia Search this
Topic:
Art -- Study and teaching -- France -- Paris Search this
Art, Modern -- 20th century -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia Search this
Painting, Modern -- 20th century -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia Search this
The Cass Technical High School yearbooks consist of volumes created by the art department entitled Temper Mental. Found are volumes one through seven dating from 1929 to 1936 and measuring 0.2 linear feet. Volumes may contain original prints, drawings, photographs, reproductions of works of art, writings, and information about the students' yearly activities and awards, and Departmental events.
Scope and Contents:
The Cass Technical High School yearbooks consist of volumes created by the art department entitled Temper Mental. Found are volumes one through seven dating from 1929 to 1936 and measuring 0.2 linear feet. Volumes may contain original prints, drawings, photographs, reproductions of works of art, writings, and information about the students' yearly activities and awards, and Departmental events.
Arrangement:
Due to the small size of this collection the papers are arranged as one series.
Biographical / Historical:
Cass Technical High School is a public high school in Detroit, Michigan founded in 1907.
The yearbooks were kept by Marion Kenney, a metalworking student at Cass. Her name appears in the 1929 issue as the recipient of the first prize in metalwork for the National High School Art Exhibition in Pittsburgh. Among other Cass Tech High School graduates were Harry Bertoia and John Carroll.
Provenance:
Donated 1978 by Marion Kenney Eagen, who attended Cass Technical High School.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
University of California, Berkeley -- Faculty Search this
University of California, Berkeley -- Students Search this
Extent:
4.4 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Collages
Drawings
Watercolors
Interviews
Date:
1914-1990
Summary:
The papers of San Francisco painter and arts instructor Elmer Bischoff measure 4.4 linear feet and date from 1914 to 1990, with the bulk of the material dating from the late 1950s to the mid-1980s. Found within the papers are biographical materials, scattered correspondence, notes and notebooks, teaching and student files, printed materials, artwork and two sketchbooks, and photographs and negatives of Bischoff, his family, post World War II Europe, and artwork studies.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of San Francisco painter and arts instructor Elmer Bischoff measure 4.4 linear feet and date from 1914 to 1990, with the bulk of the material dating from the late 1950s to the mid-1980s. Found within the papers are biographical materials, scattered correspondence, notes and notebooks, teaching and student files, printed materials, artwork and two sketchbooks, and photographs and negatives of Bischoff, his family, post World War II Europe, and artwork studies.
Biographical materials document jurying on art prize committees, interviews with others, lists of names and addresses, and biographical materials. Scattered correspondence is with Staempfli Gallery, organizations, and artists. Notes and notebooks document people Bischoff kept in touch with, as well as day-to-day occurrences in his life, including health and travel. University files document Bischoff's years as a professor at UC Berkeley, as well as papers written about him and notes from his days as a student at UC Berkeley. The bulk of the collection consists of printed material documenting exhibitions, magazines and newspapers where Bischoff's work was profiled, and materials that document his personal interests. Artwork and two sketchbooks contain drawings, watercolors, and collages by Bischoff. Photographs are of Bischoff, his family, travel, and art resource photographs.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged as 7 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1930-1990 (Box 1, 0.5 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1956-1990 (Box 1, 0.2 linear feet)
Series 3: Notes and Notebooks, 1976-1989 (Box 1, 0.3 linear feet)
Series 4: University Files, 1954-1990 (Box 2, 0.4 linear feet)
Series 5: Printed Material, 1941-1990 (Box 3-6, 1.6 linear feet)
Series 6: Artwork and Sketchbooks, 1958, undated (Box 7-8, 0.6 linear feet)
Series 7: Photographic Materials, 1914-1990 (Box 9, 0.2 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
Elmer Bischoff (1916-1991) was an influential painter and arts instructor in the San Francisco Bay Area figurative art movement that emerged in the early 1950s.
Bischoff grew up in Berkeley, California and attended the University of California (UC) at Berkeley, receiving his Master of Arts in 1939. During the Great Depression, he became involved with the Federal Art Project and taught ceramics at an arts center in Sacramento, California. During World War II, he served in the US Air Force and was stationed in England as an intelligence officer. When he returned to California in 1945, he taught at the California School of Fine Arts (now known as San Francisco Art Institute) with Richard Diebenkorn, David Park, Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, and Ad Reinhardt. He resigned from the school in the early 1950s when he took up figurative painting, but returned in 1956 to head the graduate program. In 1963 he became an associate professor at UC Berkeley, and was promoted to full professor in 1965, where he stayed until he retired in 1985.
Related Materials:
Among other resources relating to the Elmer Bischoff papers are two oral histories with Bischoff; one conducted in 1965 by Mary McChesney and the other conducted in 1977 by Paul J. Karlstrom.
Provenance:
Two items on reel 2787 were donated in 1974 by Elmer Bischoff. His papers were donated in 1991 by his widow, Adelie Bischoff.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Occupation:
Painters -- California -- San Francisco Search this
The papers of printmaker, illustrator, caricaturist, and writer Peggy Bacon measure 3.6 linear feet and date from 1893 to 1973, with the bulk of materials dating from 1900 to 1936. Much of the collection consists of family correspondence, although writings, photographs, artwork, and personal business records from Bacon's late career are also found.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of printmaker, illustrator, caricaturist, and writer Peggy Bacon measure 3.6 linear feet and date from 1893 to 1973, with the bulk of materials dating from 1900 to 1936. Much of the collection consists of family correspondence, although writings, photographs, artwork, and personal business records from Bacon's late career are also found.
Correspondence is found between Peggy Bacon and her parents, Elizabeth and Charles Roswell Bacon. Letters to her mother describe in detail her life as an art student and artist at the Art Students League; summer schools in Port Jefferson, Long Island and Provincetown, Massachusetts; the Woodstock artists' colony; and her early years in New York City. Letters from her husband, Alexander Brook, to her mother are also present. Letters to Bacon include letters from her early teacher Jonas Lie, and from friends and fellow artists Catherine Wiley, Dorothy Varian, Katherine Schmidt, Anne Rector Duffy, and others. Her parents' extensive correspondence includes letters to her father from the artists Jules Adler, Rudolph Bunner, Ira Remsen, and Charles Downing Lay.
The collection also contains Peggy Bacon's school reports and writing assignments, a marriage certificate, scattered poetry manuscripts and notes by Peggy Bacon, and fiction manuscripts by Charles Roswell Bacon. Personal business records date from the 1960s and 1970s and include publisher's royalty statements, gallery sales statements, and scattered business correspondence with Antoinette Kraushaar and other staff at the Kraushaar Galleries. Photographs depict Bacon and her family, friends, homes, and works of art. Artwork includes several original drawings and sketches by Bacon, as well as artwork by Alexander Brook, Charles Roswell Bacon, and others.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into 7 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1893-1913 (Box 1; 2 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1893-1939, 1969-1972 (Boxes 1-3; 3 linear feet)
Series 3: Personal Business Records, 1897-1934, 1963-1972 (Box 4; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 4: Writings, 1905-1920 (Boxes 4-5; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 5: Printed Material, 1905-1935, 1973 (Box 5; 3 folders)
Series 6: Photographs, circa 1900-1963 (Box 5, OV 6; 4 folders)
Series 7: Artwork, undated (Box 5, OVs 6-8; 9 folders)
Biographical Note:
Peggy Bacon was born in 1895 in Ridgefield, Connecticut, and grew up an only child after the death of two younger brothers in infancy. Her parents, Charles Roswell Bacon and Elizabeth Chase Bacon, had met at the Art Students League, where her father had studied with Robert Henri. Her father pursued a career in painting and writing until his suicide in 1913, and her mother painted miniatures.
A child of artists, Bacon began to draw at a very early age, and by age ten she was already earning money for her illustrations, drawings of literary characters made for dinner place cards. She did not attend school until 1909, when her parents sent her to a boarding school in Summit, New Jersey. She began her formal art training shortly after her father's death, enrolling in the School of Applied Arts for Women at the end of 1913. In the summer of 1914, she attended Jonas Lie's landscape class in Port Jefferson, Long Island, and continued private studies with him in New York City. Lie gave Bacon her first solo exhibition in 1915. From 1915 until 1920, she studied at the Art Students League under John Sloan, Kenneth Hayes Miller, George Bellows, Mahroni Young, and others. In the summers, she took classes first in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and then in Woodstock, New York, where she studied with Andrew Dasburg.
Bacon's circle was formed at the Art Students League, and the League's summer school in Woodstock. She met her husband, Alexander Brook, in Woodstock, and they were married in 1920. Both were active in the Woodstock Artists Association. Other artists in their close-knit group included Dorothea Schwarz (Greenbaum), Anne Rector (Duffy), Betty Burroughs (Woodhouse), Katherine Schmidt (Kuniyoshi Shubert), Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Molly Luce, Dorothy Varian, Edmund Duffy, Dick Dyer, David Morrison, and Andrew Dasburg. Many from this group were involved in the short-lived satirical magazine at the League called Bad News, published in 1918 with several of Bacon's earliest satirical drawings. Her first book, The True Philosopher and Other Cat Tales, was published in 1919. Brook and Bacon traveled to England in 1920, where their daughter Belinda was born. A son, Sandy, was born in Woodstock in 1922. In the early 1920s, Brook worked with Juliana Force at the Whitney Studio Club, and they were involved in the cultural life that sprang up around the gallery, which featured up-and-coming artists. For many years, Bacon and her family split their time between New York and Woodstock, and later summered in Cross River, NY. After divorcing Brook in 1940, Bacon spent summers in Ogunquit, Maine.
Though she initially thought of herself as a painter, she built her reputation on her drawings and prints, which often satirized the people around her in their natural habitats - artists in life classes, at dances, and in social situations, or a throng of people in a museum, on a city sidewalk, or a ship's deck. She became sought after for her illustrations and witty, topical verse in magazines such as Dial, Delineator, The New Yorker, New Republic, Fortune, and Vanity Fair. She helped to establish the American Print Makers, an artists' organization based in the Downtown Gallery which sought greater exhibition opportunities for printmakers. Bacon illustrated over sixty books, nineteen of which she also wrote, between 1919 and 1966, including many children's books and a successful mystery novel called The Inward Eye (1952). In 1933 she received a Guggenheim Fellowship and used it to complete a collection of caricatures of art world figures called Off With Their Heads (1934), the success of which prompted a spate of commissions for caricatures. Bacon stopped making caricatures in 1935, but they include some of her best-known work.
Bacon exhibited frequently, in New York and in major museum exhibitions nationally, showing her prints, drawings, pastels, and watercolors. She had over thirty solo exhibitions at such venues as Montross Gallery, Alfred Stieglitz's Intimate Gallery, and the Downtown Gallery, and was represented by Rehn Galleries and later Kraushaar Galleries. Bacon also taught extensively in the 1930s and 1940s, at the Fieldston School, Art Students League, Hunter College, Temple University, the Corcoran Gallery, and other places. In the 1950s, she returned to painting. She made her last prints in 1955. In the early 1970s, Bacon's eyesight failed, and she eventually went to live with her son in Cape Porpoise, Maine. She died in 1987.
Related Material:
Among the other resources relating to Peggy Bacon in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Bacon, May 8, 1973; and letters to Bernice and Harry Lurie from Peggy Bacon, 1969-1977. Additional Peggy Bacon papers are available at Syracuse University.
Provenance:
The collection was donated by Peggy Bacon in 1973 and Kraushaar Galleries in 2008.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Occupation:
Printmakers -- New York (State) -- Woodstock Search this
Illustrators -- New York (State) -- Woodstock Search this
Caricaturists -- New York (State) -- Woodstock Search this
Authors -- New York (State) -- Woodstock Search this
The papers of Massachusetts lithographer and etcher Elizabeth Campbell Fisher Clay measure 1.9 linear feet and 0.057 GB and date from circa 1873 to circa 2015, with the bulk of materials from 1890 to 1930. This collection includes biographical materials, correspondence, writings, fifteen diaries, six travel diaries, teaching files, artwork, printed materials, and photographs.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Massachusetts lithographer and etcher Elizabeth Campbell Fisher Clay measure 1.9 linear feet and 0.057 GB and date from circa 1873 to circa 2015, with the bulk of materials from 1890 to 1930. This collection includes biographical materials, correspondence, writings, fifteen diaries, six travel diaries, teaching files, artwork, printed materials, and photographs.
Biographical materials include ephemera from a Spain trip, and other miscellany.
The bulk of the correspondence consists of letters from artist Robert Henri giving advice and information about travel plans and visits. Other correspondents include family members, the artist William Rothenstein, and a few others.
Writings include annotated appointment calendars, art class notes, notebooks, and a book register. Diaries and travel diaries describe Smith College, feedback from Robert Henri regarding artwork, and travels abroad to England, France, and Holland, as well as to New York and California. There are a few sketches scattered throughout the diaries. There is an audiocassette and digitized photographs and content related to the diaries. There is also an annotated chronological list of the diaries.
Artwork consists of one sketchbook and several folders of loose sketches, drawings, and paintings of people and places.
Printed materials consist of a few news clippings about Smith College, a newspaper image of an art class trip to Spain, 2 reviews of exhibitions, and a clipping about the New York School of Art.
Photographs are of Elizabeth Campbell Fisher Clay, family, friends, artists, travel, and houses. There are three photograph albums: one of the woods around Smith College; another album of travel photographs in France and Holland that includes photographs of Clay and fellow art students painting at various locations; and an album of Paris photographs that depict the studio Clay shared with other students, friends, and a few images of Robert Henri. Some photographs are annotated.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 7 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1906-circa 2015 (0.1 linear feet, 0.001 MB; Box 1, ER01)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1897-1960 (0.1 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 3: Writings and Notebooks, circa 1898-1959 (0.1 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 4: Diaries, 1887-circa 2005 (1 linear feet, 0.016 GB; Boxes 1-2, ER02-ER03)
Series 5: Artwork, circa 1890-circa 1957 (0.3 linear feet, Boxes 2-3, OV 4)
Series 6: Printed Materials, 1894-1957 (0.1 linear feet; Box 3, OV 4)
Series 7: Photographs, circa 1873-1987 (0.2 linear feet; Box 3)
Biographical / Historical:
Elizabeth Campbell Fisher Clay (1871-1959) was a lithographer and etcher who worked in Massachusetts and Halifax, England.
Elizabeth Campbell Fisher Clay was born in West Dedham, Massachusetts in 1871. Her parents were Joseph and Mary Elizabeth Fisher and she had 2 siblings, Hattie and Joseph.
Clay graduated from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1892. She then attended the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the New York School of Art, where she studied under Robert Henri and William Merritt Chase from approximately 1898 to 1909. Around this same time, Clay traveled abroad and studied art in Holland and Spain. She also attended the Art Students League of New York and studied in Paris where she shared a studio with other art students. Robert Henri, whom Clay considered a mentor, regularly visited the Paris studio to review the students' work.
In 1908, Clay had a solo exhibition at Rowland's Gallery in Boston. In 1909, she married Howard Clay in Dedham, Massachusetts. Henry was the alderman of Halifax, England, and the couple moved there sometime after their marriage. They had three children, Howard Fisher Clay, Monica Mary, and Harriet.
Clay continued to exhibit her artwork in England for over 30 years. She exhibited at the British Society of Women Artists, the New English Art Club, the Royal Academy of Arts, the Royal Cambrian Academy of Art, the Royal Society of British Artists, the Women's International Art Club, and the Yorkshire Union of Arts. In Massachusetts, her artwork was in exhibitions at the Boston Art Club, the Copley Society of Art, and other venues.
Elizabeth Campbell Fisher Clay eventually returned to the United States and passed away in Philadelphia in 1959.
Provenance:
This collection was donated to the Archives of American Art in 2015 by Harriet Fisher Bemus, Elizabeth Campbell Fisher Clay's daughter.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washingon, D.C. Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
The Emmet Family papers document the lives and careers of two generations of the Emmet family from New Rochelle, New York and Stockbridge, Massachusetts, whose artistic talents flourished during the later 19th through the mid-20th centuries. The collection dates from 1792 to 1989, with the bulk of the material dating from 1851-1989, and measures 9.1 linear feet. Through biographical material, two diaries, correspondence, writings and notes, exhibition files, business records, printed material, two scrapbooks, artwork, and photographs of family, friends, exhibitions, and artwork, the papers provide both a rich overview and detailed insights into the daily lives, relationships, and careers of many members of the family. The collection focuses in particular on sisters Lydia Field Emmet, Jane Erin Emmet de Glehn, and Rosina Emmet Sherwood, their mother, Julia Colt Pierson Emmet, and their cousin Ellen Gertrude "Bay" Emmet, all noted painters and illustrators.
Scope and Content Note:
The Emmet Family papers document the lives and careers of two generations of the Emmet family from New Rochelle, New York and Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The collection dates from 1792 to 1989, with the bulk of the material dating from 1851-1989, and measures 9.1 linear feet. Through biographical material, two diaries, correspondence, writings and notes, exhibition files, business records, printed material, two scrapbooks, artwork, and photographs of family, friends, exhibitions, and artwork, the papers provide both a rich overview and detailed insights into the daily lives, relationships, and careers of many members of the family. The collection focuses in particular on sisters Lydia Field Emmet, Jane Erin Emmet de Glehn, and Rosina Emmet Sherwood, their mother, Julia Colt Pierson Emmet, and their cousin Ellen Gertrude "Bay" Emmet, all noted painters and illustrators, whose artistic talents flourished during the late nineteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries.
Biographical material consists of family trees and family histories; individual biographical accounts, award certificates, and documentation for Julia Colt Pierson Emmet, Rosina Emmet Sherwood, Lydia Field Emmet, Jane Erin Emmet de Glehn, and Wilfrid de Glehn; a diary titled "Sedgemere Diary" containing drawings and entries primarily by Rosina Emmet Sherwood, and a smaller diary which mentions Rosina's son, future playwright Robert Sherwood; a documentary by Nancy B. Doyle on two VHS videocassettes, entitled The Emmets: Portrait of a Family; and artifacts comprising a rear-view optical device and locks of hair from an early nineteenth century generation of the Emmet family.
Correspondence forms the bulk of the collection and illustrates the interaction between members of this large and influential family and their colleagues and friends, offering a wide-ranging view of life in the late nineteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries, and through two World Wars. The series consists of letters between family members, primarily Julia Colt Pierson Emmet and her daughters, as well as cousins Henry James, Ellen "Bay" Emmet Rand, and Rosamond Sherwood, and friends Cecilia Beaux, Louis Bancel LaFarge, Frederick MacMonnies, Lucien Monod, Roger Quilter, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Emily and John Singer-Sargent, Violet Sargent Ormond, and Stanford White. Topics include experiences of the Emmets while studying art in Paris, Rosina's presentation at Queen Victoria's court, Lydia's work at the Columbia Exposition, Jane's marriage to Wilfrid de Glehn and her friendship with John Singer Sargent, portrait painting activities, the troubles of their friend Susy Metcalfe in her marriage to Pablo Casals, and the activities of Rosina's son, playwright Robert Emmet Sherwood, and friends Alfred Lund and Lynn Fontanne.
Writings and notes consist of scattered manuscripts and poems by family members, two notebooks, one identified as belonging to Jane Erin Emmet de Glehn, and typescripts about Wilfrid de Glehn following his death. Also found is a book, Out of Town, written and illustrated by Rosina Emmet Sherwood, and Edna St Vincent Millay's poem "Autum Daybreak" written in Millay's handwriting.
Exhibition files document an exhibition held at the Berkshire Museum/Danforth Museum in Pittsfield/Farmingham, Massachusetts in 1982 entitled The Emmets: A Family of Women Painters, and include two audio cassettes of recordings from the "Art for Lunch" series at the Berkshire Museum discussing the exhibition.
Business records include account books belonging to Lydia Field Emmet and Rosina Emmet Sherwood, both of which document income from artwork and other sources, and expenses; a contract for the reproduction of Lydia Field Emmet's artwork; and a document concerning ownership of property, possibly of Emmet family ancestors.
Printed Material consists of clippings, exhibition announcements and catalogs, and reproductions of artwork by Emmet family members and others.
Two scrapbooks contain a combination of drawings, primarily by Rosina Emmet Sherwood, reproductions of artwork, and photographs.
Artwork includes drawings and sketchbooks by Julia Colt Pierson Emmet, Rosina Emmet Sherwood, Lydia Field Emmet, Jane Erin Emmet de Glehn Ellen Emmet Rand, and other Emmet relatives, illustrating the early development of their talent.
Photographs are of family members, including Julia Colt Pierson Emmet and William Jenkins Emmet, their daughters Lydia Field Emmet, Jane Erin Emmet de Glehn and husband Wilfrid de Glehn, Rosina Emmet Sherwood and husband Arthur Murray Sherwood, and Robert Emmet Sherwood as a young man. Also found are photos of friends Richard Harding Davis, Frederick MacMonnies, and Augustus Saint-Gaudens; a series of photographs of the installation at Arden Galleries, New York (1936) for the exhibition Paintings, Drawings and Sculptures by Five Generations of the Emmet Family; and photographs of artwork by Emmet family members.
Arrangement:
The Emmet family papers are arranged as nine series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1855-1988 (0.6 linear feet; Boxes 1, 10, OV 12)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1792-1985 (6.2 linear feet; Boxes 1-7)
Series 3: Writings and Notes, circa 1870s-1981 (11 folders; Box 7)
Series 4: Exhibition Files, 1947-1983 (0.3 linear feet; Boxes 7-8)
Series 5: Business Records, circa 1799-1945 (7 folders; Box 8)
Series 6: Printed Material, 1872-1989 (0.35 linear feet; Boxes 8, 10)
Series 7: Scrapbooks, 1870-1890 (0.2 linear feet; Boxes 8, 10)
Series 8: Artwork, circa 1850-circa 1920 (0.35 linear feet; Boxes 8, 10)
Series 9: Photographs, circa 1870s-circa 1950s (1 linear foot; Boxes 8-9, 11)
Biographical Note:
The Emmet family, descended from patriot Thomas Addis Emmet, brother of Irish martyr Robert Emmet, counts many physicians, lawyers, and writers (including cousin Henry James) among its ranks. Although evidence of artistic talent existed in several previous generations, it flourished during the later 19th through the mid-20th centuries in the professional portraiture of sisters Rosina Emmet Sherwood, Lydia Field Emmet, Jane Erin Emmet de Glehn, and their cousin Ellen "Bay" Emmet Rand.
The eldest daughter of Julia Colt Pierson Emmet (1829-1908), herself a talented illustrator who had studied under Daniel Huntington, Rosina "Posie" Emmet (1854-1948) studied under William Merritt Chase at his Tenth Street Studio in New York and under Robert-Fleury at the Academie Julian in Paris. Before her marriage to Arthur Murray Sherwood in 1887, Rosina established a studio in New York and continued to submit illustrations to various publications. During her marriage, she slowed her creative activities, until financial reverses dictated her return to her career around the turn of the 20th century. Her daughter Rosamond Sherwood (1899-1990) was also a portrait painter. Her son, Robert Emmet Sherwood (1896-1955) became a four-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright.
Lydia Field Emmet (1866-1952) studied under Collin, Bouguereau, MacMonnies, and Robert-Fleury at the Academie Julian. Upon her return to New York, Lydia continued her studies under Chase, Kenyon Cox, H. Siddons Mowbray, and Robert Reid at the Art Students League, as well as at Chase's Shinnecock Summer School of Art. She established her portrait studio in New York City and began spending summers at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where she built her home, "Strawberry Hill," in 1905. Best known for her portraits of children, Lydia's subjects were members of the socially prominent families of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia.
The youngest sister, Jane Erin Emmet (1873-1961), also studied with Chase in New York, and in Paris. In 1904, she married British landscape painter Wilfrid Von Glehn, who had visited the United States with his friend John Singer Sargent. (The Von Glehns' surname was changed to De Glehn, in 1919.) Settling in London, Jane continued her painting, befriended many artists and composers, and accompanied her husband and Sargent on several art-related journeys through Europe.
The Emmet sisters' cousin, Ellen Gertrude "Bay" Emmet (1875-1941), studied in New York at the Art Students League and under Frederick MacMonnies in Paris, becoming a National Academician in 1934. She married William Blanchard Rand in 1911 and settled in Salisbury, Connecticut. After the stock market crash of 1929, Bay's portraits of prominent society figures provided most of her family's income.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming (reel 4544) including one scrapbook, compiled by Rosina Emmet Sherwood, consisting of portrait sketches, drawings of her dogs, genre scenes, travel views, and photographs of travels, friends, actors, and the ship "Scythia,". Loaned materials were returned to the lender and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
In 1988-1991, the bulk of the Emmet family papers were donated by Rosamond Sherwood, daughter of Rosina Emmet Sherwood (via Katharine Emmet Bramwell of New York), by Rosamond Sherwood's estate (via F. Douglas Cochrane, executor, from Boston), and by Rosamond's nieces, Virginia Sherwood and Julia Shipway. Additionally, one scrapbook was lent for microfilming in 1990 and subsequently donated by Mrs. Earl Maize. Douglas Cochrane then loaned another scrapbook for microfilming (reel 4344) in 1991 which was returned to Mrs. Earl Maize.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
The papers of Fred Mitchell, 1938-2007, measure 14.3 linear feet. Correspondence, writings, 29 diaries, and subject files, document his personal life and career as a painter and educator in New York City. The papers also include biographical materials, artwork, sketchbooks, printed material, and photographs.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Fred Mitchell, 1938-2007, measure 14.3 liner feet. Correspondence, writings, 29 diaries, and subject files document his personal life and career as a painter and educator in New York City. The papers also include biographical materials, artwork, sketchbooks, printed material, and photographs.
Among the biographical materials are biographical notes, military records, passports, and resumes. Correspondence includes both professional and personal letters. Correspondents include friends, former students, colleagues, and individuals of romantic interest.
Writings by Mitchell include notebooks containing names and addresses, appointments, lists and a variety of notes. Diaries record Mitchell's personal and professional activities, plans, aspirations, and memories; also, many volumes contain loose items such as printed material, drawings, notes and letters. Other authors represented are Harry Hope Reed, Peter Rooney, and Patrick Rucker.
Subject files maintained by Mitchell concern friends, teaching activities, exhibitions; also, interests in art, dance, poetry, and music. Files on the Mitchell family concern four generations and include Elizabeth Pajerski, his artist sister with whom he sometimes exhibited. There are files on Coenties Slip artists and related exhibitions. Other subjects of note are a Franz Kline traveling exhibition curated by Mitchell, and Mississippi Art Colony. Individuals for whom threre are substantial subject files include Justo Gonzales, James M. McQuade, Jim Ochman, Peter Rooney, John W. ("Dicky") Stevens, and Phil Sultz.
Most artwork is by Mitchell and consists mainly of drawings and sketches. Artwork by others includes drawings and watercolors by Peter Rooney, students, and unidentified artists. Mitchell's sketchbooks (16 volumes) contain sketches, drawings, and a few finished watercolors.
Printed material is about or mentions Mitchell. Included are a variety of items such as exhibition catalogs and announcements, brochures, clippings, press releases, and concert programs. Photographs are of Mitchell with family and friends; artwork by Mitchell and other artists; exhibition installations and openings; and places including the Wall-South neighborhood just before the destruction of his studio and travel pictures.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged in 9 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Materials,1942-circa 2005 (Box 1; 0.4 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1947-2004 (Boxes 1-2; 1.9 linear feet)
Series 3: Writings, circa 1940s-2004 (Boxes 2-3; 1.4 linear feet)
Series 4: Diaries, 1949-2002 (Boxes 4-6; 2.5 linear feet)
Series 5: Subject Files, 1943-2002 (Boxes 6-12; 6 linear feet)
Series 6: Artwork, circa 1940s-2002 (Boxes 12-13; 0.5 linear feet)
Series 7: Sketchbooks, 1955-1993 (Boxes 13, 15; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 8: Printed Material, 1938-2004 (Boxes 13-14; 0.5 linear feet)
Series 9: Photographs, 1940s-2002 (Box 14; 0.5 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
Fred Mitchell (1923-2013), a painter and educator who worked in New York City, was among the first artists to open a studio in Coenties Slip on the East River in downtown Manhattan.
A native of Meridian, Mississippi, Madison Fred Mitchell (always called Fred), won a Scholastic Magazine award and his work was shown in its "15th Annual National High School Art Exhibit" held at the museum of the Carnegie Institute in 1942. Mitchell studied at the Carnegie Institute of Technology for a year before entering the U. S. Army. After World War II ended, he resumed his education at Cranbrook Academy of Art (BFA 1946 and MFA 1956). He moved to New York in 1951 and became a member of the "Downtown Group." In 1952 he was among the organizers of Tanager Gallery and in 1954 founded the Coenties Slip School of Art.
Mitchell enjoyed a long career as a highly regarded teacher of drawing, painting, and art history. He taught at Finch College, the Positano Art Workshop in Italy, and Cranbrook Academy in the 1950s. During the 1960s, he was affiliated with Downtown Art Center at Seamens Church Institute in Coenties Slip, New York University, Cornell University, and Ithaca College. In the early 1970s Mitchell taught at Queens College, and from the mid-1980s-early 2000s served on the faculties of Parsons School of Design, Art Students League of New York, and City University of New York's Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn.
He exhibited widely in group shows and solo exhibitions in the New York area and throughout the United States. Among these venues were: Howard Wise Gallery, Meridian Museum, Munson-Williams-Proctor Art Institute, State University of New York Binghamton, University of Oregon, and Whitney Museum of American Art.
After several years of declining health, Fred Mitchell died in New York City in 2013.
Provenance:
Fred Mitchell donated a small amount of printed material and photographs in 1972. The majority of the papers were donated in 2013 by Fred Pajerski, Fred Mitchell's nephew.
Restrictions:
Use of original material requires an appointment. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
The papers of Dominic Di Mare measure 3.2 linear feet and date from 1950 to 2003. The collection provides an overview of Di Mare's career as a fiber artist through biographical information, correspondence, writings, printed material, artwork, and photographs.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of Dominic Di Mare measure 3.2 linear feet and date from 1950 to 2003. The collection provides an overview of Di Mare's career as a fiber artist through biographical information, correspondence, writings, printed material, artwork, and photographs. Of particular interest is the material concerning Di Mare's 1998 retrospective exhibition, including correspondence, a guest book, writings, publications, and photographs.
Biographical material includes award certificates from the American Craft Council and an extensive professional resumé. The correspondence series includes personal and professional correspondence as well as three folders of incoming and outgoing correspondence with the Susan Cummins Gallery, revealing the relationship that Di Mare had with the gallery during the 1990s. Writings include those by Di Mare and others. Of note are numerous artist statements and an illustrated journal from 1971. The printed material provides researchers with press clippings, exhibition catalogs, announcements, and published material on Di Mare, as well as other printed material on topics that Di Mare found of interest, including craft in education and the art of his colleagues. The artwork series includes many drawings, the highlight being a sketchbook of color drawings and diagrams spanning a thirty year period. The extensive collection of photographs include many portraits of Di Mare, photos of exhibitions, and numerous photos and slides of his artwork.
An unprocessed small addition of 0.4 linear feet consists of correspondence with colleagues, arts organizations, galleries, and museums regarding exhibitions and publications; photographs of De Mare at work and of works of art, including two flash drives containing images of works of art; exhibition catalogs and announcements; and one schematic drawing of an unidentified work by De Mare, 1990.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into six series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1987-2003 (box 1; 4 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1970-2002, undated (box 1; 7 folders)
Series 3: Writings, 1971-1977, undated (box 1; 7 folders)
Series 4: Printed Material, 1964-2003, undated (box 1-2; 1.5 linear feet)
Series 5: Artwork, 1950-1999, undated (box 3; 3 folders)
Series 6: Photographs, 1959-2001, undated (box 3-4; 0.7 linear feet)
Series 7: Unprocessed Addition, circa 1950-2003 (box 5; 0.4 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Fiber artist Dominic Di Mare was born in San Francisco, California, in 1932. He grew up working on his father's fishing boat and was artistically influenced by the process of making rope and fishing lines. After finishing high school, Di Mare attended the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland and later received his art teaching certification at San Francisco State University. In 1960, Di Mare married Margaret Nef, bought his first loom, and began teaching at Francisco Junior High School. He and his wife had three children together, Marcello, Lorenzo, and Livia. A highly respected teacher, Di Mare taught at Francisco Junior High until 1976, when he left to work in his studio full-time.
A self taught fiber artist, Di Mare has explored, throughout his career, the imagery of the ocean and the shore. He works with fiber, wood, handmade paper, and small found objects to create unique sculptures. Since his first one person show at The Yarn Depot in 1963, Di Mare has participated in numerous national and international exhibitions and has been represented by the Anneberg Gallery and Braunstein Gallery in San Francisco, Florence Duhl Gallery in New York, and most recently the Susan Cummins Gallery in Mill Valley, California. In 1998 the Palo Alto Art Center curated "Dominic Di Mare: A Retrospective," which traveled throughout the country. In 1999 Di Mare received the American Crafts Council Gold Medal Award.
Related Material:
The Archives also has a transcribed interview of Dominic Di Mare, conducted June 4 and 10, 2002 by Signe Mayfield for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America. The interview was conducted in Di Mare's home in Tiburon, California.
Provenance:
Dominic Di Mare donated his papers in 2003 and 2013 to the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Use requires an appointment and is limited to the Washington, D.C. research facility.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
The papers of Cuban born cartoonist, caricaturist, graphic designer, illustrator, and art director Abril Lamarque papers date from 1883-2001, with the bulk of the material ranging from 1904-1999, and measure 6.8 linear feet. His papers contain biographical material; correspondence; writings; files on the many seminars and workshop he taught; scattered financial records; files concerning his business Abril Lamarque Creations; subject files; clippings; printed illustrations of his comics, designs, illustrations, and other work; seven scrapbooks; two sketchbooks, sketches and drawings by him, and artwork by others, including his sister, his brother, Paul Hoffmaster, Enrique Riverón, and H. Portell Vilá; and photographs and negatives depicting Lamarque, Lamarque at work, Lamarque's magic shows, examples of advertising, and friends and colleagues.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of Cuban born cartoonist, caricaturist, graphic designer, illustrator, and art director Abril Lamarque papers date from 1883-2001, with the bulk of the material ranging from 1904-1999, and measure 6.8 linear feet. His papers contain biographical material; correspondence; writings; files on the many seminars and workshops he taught; scattered financial records; files concerning his business Abril Lamarque Creations; subject files; clippings; printed illustrations of his comics, designs, illustrations, and other work; seven scrapbooks; two sketchbooks, sketches and drawings by him, and others, including his sister, his brother, Paul Hoffmaster, Enrique Riverón, and H. Portell Vilá; and photographs and negatives depicting Lamarque, Lamarque at work, Lamarque's magic shows, examples of advertising, and friends and colleagues.
Biographical materials include of materials related to Abril Lamarque's many professional and personal associations, including the Art Directors Club, the International Brotherhood of Magicians, the National Press Club, the New York University Club, the Society of American Magicians, and the Society of Illustrators. Material types include membership cards, documents, event posters, and yearbooks. Also included are some personal documents, information on Abril Lamarque and his family, Lamarque's collection of humorous business cards, and eulogies written about Lamarque.
Correspondence is generally scattered, but includes letters to and from illustrators and artists including Ernesto Garcia Cabral, Paul Hoffmaster, Conrado Massaguer, and Lamarque's brother, Juan Abril Lamarque. Some letters are illustrated. Also included is business correspondence, subjects and correspondents including the Dell Publishing Company, the New York Times, and correspondence related to workshops and lectures, including his work at Iowa State University and Oklahoma State University.
Writings chiefly document Lamarque's career in graphic and publication design, and consist of articles, an unpublished draft on publication design, manuals, and book reviews. Also included are scripts for magic shows performed by Lamarque. Writings by others are present, and include limericks written about Lamarque by friends and an autobiography of Lamarque's wife, Milagros Abril Lamarque.
The Workshops series consists of advertisements, press releases, handbooks, publication design layout examples, and other materials related to Lamarque's career in teaching publication design workshops and seminars. Also present within the collection are various financial materials. Abril Lamarque Creations materials document Lamarque's design firm, active 1940-1941, which focused on the design and manufacture of modern decorative accessories for the home, such as serving trays, cigarette holders and jewelry. Photographs, drawings, and advertisements in this series document the product design and sales.
The collection includes several subject files concerning the Bacardi Company, the Dell Publishing Company, and Cuban caricaturist and publisher Conrado Massaguer. Files on Massaguer include illustrations, posters, magazines, clippings, and articles. The Subject Files also include materials collected about Mexican caricaturist Ernesto García, self-taught Polish painter Karol Kozlowski, and several other illustrators and political figures of interest to Lamarque.
Printed materials make up the bulk of the collection. Found are numerous examples of his design work for the New York World-Telegram and Evening Mail, the New York Daily News, the New York Times, US News-World Report, Dell Publishing Company, and others; as well as cartoons, caricatures, and illustrations by Lamarque. Clippings of the comic strip Monguito and editions of the Havana newspaper Lunes de Diario de Cuba are present. Printed material also includes posters, including Lamarque's designs for the "Aluminum for Britain" project, which he was asked to discontinue by the U.S. State Department. Also found in this collection are graphic design and illustration clippings collected by Lamarque.
Also found within the collection are seven scrapbooks containing clippings and articles, illustrations, scattered letters, photographs, invitations, artwork, and other materials detailing Lamarque's extensive artistic career and his amateur magic performances.
Original artwork includes drawings, sketches, prints, and design by-products by Abril Lamarque. Artwork by Lamarque includes silkscreens of dictators; drawings and printing plates for Monguito comics; page banners for Film Fun and other publications; and design paste-ups. Artwork created by others found within the series includes caricatures of Lamarque, sketches by Juan Abril Lamarque, and prints by Paul Hoffmaster.
Photographs included in the collection document Abril Lamarque's life and career, and show Lamarque with friends and colleagues, and performing as an amateur magician for both children and adult audiences.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as eleven series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1917-2001 (0.5 linear feet; Box 1, OV 12)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1922-1990 (0.5 linear feet; Box 1, OV 12)
Series 3: Writings, 1925-1981 (0.3 linear feet; Box 2, OV 13)
Series 4: Workshops, circa 1940-circa 1985 (0.4 linear feet; Box 2, OV 13)
Series 5: Financial Records, 1924-1989 (4 folders; Box 2)
Series 6: Abril Lamarque Creations, circa 1940-circa 1945 (6 folders; Box 2, OV 13)
Series 7: Subject Files, 1905-1996 (0.5 linear feet; Box 4, OV 14)
Series 8: Printed Material, 1883-1989 (1.5 linear feet; Box 3, 4, 6, and 11, OV 15-17)
Series 9: Scrapbooks, 1920-1959 (1 linear foot; Boxes 7-9, OV 10)
Series 10: Original Artwork, circa 1914-1988 (0.5 linear feet; Box 4, OV 18)
Series 11: Photographic Material, circa 1920-circa 1985 (0.5 linear feet; Box 5, OV 19)
Biographical Note:
Eduardo Abril Lamarque (1904-1999) was a Cuban born cartoonist, caricaturist, graphic designer, illustrator, and art director who worked primarily in New York City.
Eduardo Abril Lamarque was born in Cuba on August 28, 1904. His parents sent him to the United States in 1916 when he was twelve to study English and business administration. He lived with an American family in Brooklyn. At age 15, Lamarque's first cartoon was published in the Boy Scout section of the New York World-Telegram and Evening Mail. Four years later he created Bla-Bla, a comic strip that appeared regularly in the New York Daily News. He is credited with creating, in the early 1920s, the first Spanish language comic strip that was not translated from English. The title cartoon character, Monguito, was a hapless soul, fully dressed in business suit and hat, who kept getting into sticky situations. Lamarque produced hundreds of these strips which were picked up by the New York based United Feature Syndicate and published daily in Spanish language newspapers throughout Latin America and the United States.
When he was twenty, Lamarque returned to Cuba to work as the artistic director for the Havana newspaper Lunes de Diario de Cuba. He also published a booklet designed to teach the elements of caricature drawing. Lamarque returned to New York and was hired by the New York World Telegram and Evening Mail as a caricaturist. He produced political cartoons and caricatures for the paper, introducing his "radiocatures", which involved providing instructions on the radio for filling in a grid in the newspaper to produce a caricature of well-known figure in the news.
In 1927, at the age of 23, he became the first art director of Dell Publishing Company - a magazine empire that included Film Fun, I Confess, War Stories, Modern Screen, Popular Song, Spotlight, Radio Stars, Theatrical Page, Ballyhoo, and Modern Romances. He continued working there for 14 years.
In 1940-1941, Lamarque established Abril Lamarque Creations, a design firm that specialized in elegant and functional household objects and jewelry in a modernist tradition. His signature piece was the Pallettray, a serving tray modeled after an artist's palette and hand-finished in exotic woods.
Between 1941 and 1946, Lamarque became the first art director for the Sunday edition of the New York Times and redesigned the New York Times Magazine and the New York Times Book Review. Throughout his career, Lamarque designed and redesigned countless magazines and journals, including American Weekly, New York News, Metropolitan Life, Popular Science, This Week, US News-World Report, and others.
In 1948, Lamarque established a successful graphic design studio in New York that provided a full spectrum of design services, including annual reports, posters, product labeling, corporate publications, advertising, logos, package designs, and brochures. His clients included Barcardi Company, Con Edison, Ericcson Telephone, General Cable, Berlitz School, Lipton, Monsanto, and numerous magazines. In 1958, he was given the National Award for Graphic Design in packaging. His design for the annual American Red Cross poster was selected for the 1948 national Red Cross campaign.
His success and high demand as a publication art director, consultant, and designer was attributed to innovative design principles he based on the German Bauhaus School and its philosophy that promoted functional design principles. Lamarque reduced these principles to a set of guidelines suitable for page design and applied them successfully to a wide variety of publication and print layouts.
Lamarque's teaching experience began in the early 1940s with seminars and workshops he conducted for the publishing industry. He joined the faculty of New York University School of Continuing Education in 1958, where he taught until 1963, and later joined the Crowell Collier Institute and taught publication design workshops across the United States and Canada. He also gave workshops and courses at Oklahoma State School of Journalism.
Lamarque was a long-time member of the Society of Illustrators, Society of Art Directors, the Dutch Treat Club, National Press Club, and New York University Club. He was also an amateur magician and member of the Society of American Magicians. He performed magic acts for the annual Christmas party of the Society of Illustrators. Abril Lamarque died in 1999 at the age of 94.
Provenance:
Martha Lamarque Sarno and Lita M. Elvers assembled and donated their father's papers to the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, in 2001.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
The papers of printmaker, etcher, and painter Blanche Lazzell (1878-1956) measure 4.6 linear feet and date from 1893 to 1986, with the bulk of the material dating from 1901 to 1940. Found within the papers are biographical materials; correspondence with family, friends, and colleagues; writings; five diaries; scattered personal business records; printed material; artwork; photographs; and artifacts.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of printmaker, etcher, and painter Blanche Lazzell (1878-1956) measure 4.6 linear feet and date from 1893 to 1986, with the bulk of the material dating from 1901 to 1940. Found within the papers are biographical materials; correspondence with family, friends, and colleagues; writings; five diaries; scattered personal business records; printed material; artwork; photographs; and artifacts.
Biographical material includes school report cards, address books, obituaries, membership certificates, and travel documents from Blanche Lazzell's travels abroad in Europe.
Correspondence is with family, friends, and colleagues. Family correspondence is predominately with Lazzell's sisters, and a lesser amount with her brother Rufus and other relatives. Well over one-half of the correspondence is with friends and colleagues, including Arthur Lee Post and John O' Connor, and one or more letters from Oliver Chaffee, Andrew Dasburg, Robert Henri, and Ralph M. Pearson, among others.
Writings include notebooks, essays, and notes. Notebooks are primarily class notes, including one from Lazzells's studies in France during her second trip to Europe, and another maintained as a record of artwork. Also found are essays,including one about Provincetown; notes; biographical sketches; and lists of exhibitions and artwork. Five diaries document the late 1890s and Lazzell's trips to Europe in 1912-1913 and 1923-1924.
Scattered personal business records consist of 3 expense account ledgers and one sales ledger. Printed Material includes guest books, news clippings, exhibition catalogs, exhibition announcements, magazines, brochures, and newsletters. Artwork includes pencil drawings and sketches, mostly from studies with the artist Albert Gleizes in Paris. Photographic material consists of photographs, slides, and one lantern slide. The photographs are of Blanche Lazzell with artists and friends, her studio and the harbor in Provincetown, artwork, and travels in Italy.
Artifacts include 2 metal signs and 1 paint palette in a metal case.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged as 9 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1894-1970 (0.3 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1897-1965 (1.2 linear feet; Box 1-2)
Series 3: Writings, 1893-1969 (1.2 linear feet; Box 2-3)
Series 4: Diaries, 1896-1924 (0.1 linear feet; Box 3)
Series 5: Personal Business Records, 1894-1916 (0.1 linear feet; Box 3)
Series 6: Printed Material, 1899-1986 (1 linear feet; Box 3-4)
Series 7: Artwork, 1924-circa 1940 (0.1 linear feet; Box 4)
Series 8: Photographic Material, 1897-1956 (0.5 linear feet; Box 5-6)
Series 9: Artifacts, circa 1910-1956 (0.1 linear feet; Box 6)
Biographical / Historical:
Blanche Lazzell (1878-1956) was a printmaker, etcher, painter, and rug designer who worked primarily in Provincetown, Massachusetts and Morgantwon, West Virginia.
Nettie Blanche Lazzell was born in Maidsville, West Virginia, in 1878, the daughter of Mary Prudence Pope and Cornelius Carhart Lazzell. At some point during her childhood, Lazzell became partially deaf. When Lazzell was fifteen, she enrolled in the West Virginia Conference Seminary, now West Virginia Wesleyan College and graduated in 1898.
In 1899, Lazzell continued her studies at the South Carolina Co-educational Institute and graduated that same year. She later matriculated into the West Virginia University (1901-1905) where she took drawing and art history classes with William J. Leonard and earned a degree in fine arts. After graduation, Lazzell periodically studied at the university until 1909. Lazzell moved to New York City in 1907 and enrolled in the Art Students League of New York in 1908 where she studied under William Merritt Chase.
Lazzell travelled to Europe during the summer of 1912. After visiting several cities, Lazzell went to Paris and stayed beyond the tour to attend classes at the Académie Julian and the Académie Moderne where she studied with painter Charles Guérin.
Lazzell returned to the United States in the fall of 1913 and stayed in West Virginia with her sister Bessie. She held a solo exhibition of her sketches and paintings in 1914. Lazzell moved to the thriving art colony at Provincetown, Massachusetts in 1915. There, she studied with Charles Webster Hawthorne, who founded the Cape Cod School of Art, and Oliver Chaffee, who taught her the technique for white-line woodcuts. Lazzell quickly adopted and excelled at making white-line woodblock prints, joined the Provincetown Printers, an art collective, and regularly exhibited with them.
n 1918, Lazzell converted an "old fish house" overlooking the Provincetown harbor into her studio and summer home. She planted a lush garden that became a tourist attraction where she often hosted teas and taught classes on painting and woodblock printing. The studio became her primary summer residence, though she often returned to Morgantown, West Virginia. Lazzell also visited other artist colonies during this time, including one in Woodstock, New York where she studied with Andrew Dasburg.
In 1919 Lazzell was featured in an exhibition at Touchstone Gallery in New York City. Later that year, the Provincetown Printers were featured at the Detroit Institute of Arts exhibition "Wood Block Prints in Color by American Artists". That show included Lazzell's depiction of the Monongahela River in Morgantown.
From 1923 to 1924, Lazzell travelled again to Europe and studied with Fernand Legér, André Lhote, and Albert Gleizes in Paris. Lazzell studied Cubism and took a class with Gleizes and her work became more abstract. When she returned to Provincetown, she had her studio rebuilt so it was more comfortable during the winter.
She continued to teach art at her studio and participate in exhibitions.
In addition to her woodblock prints, Lazzell also worked with batik, rug design, and hand-painted china. She was a member of numerous arts organizations such as the Société Anonyme, New York Society of Women Artists, Provincetown Art Association, the Sail Loft Club (a Provincetown women's art club), and the Society of Independent Artists. In 1934, Lazzell received a Federal Art Project grant through the Works Progress Administration and created a mural titled Justice for the Morgantown courthouse.
Lazzell died in Morgantown, West Virginia in 1956.
Separated Materials:
The papers were originally loaned for microfilming on reels 2988-2991 and most of them, but not all, were included in a later donation. The papers not included in the later donation are only available on microfilm.
Portions of the microfilmed material were retained by the donor.
Provenance:
The Blanche Lazzell papers were anonymously donated to the Archives of American Art in 1987, including most of the materials that had been earlier loaned for microfilming in 1983.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Rights:
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.
