New School for Social Research (New York, N.Y.) Search this
Type:
Interviews
Sound recordings
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Michelle Stuart, 2015 November 3-2017 May 23. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Mary Miss, 2016 July 18 and 20. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
The papers of art historian and writer Peter Howard Selz measure 31.5 linear feet and 0.696 GB and date from 1929 to 2018, with the bulk of the materials from 1950 to 2005. The papers document Selz's long career via correspondence, writings, professional files, project files, membership and association records, artists' research files, exhibition files, personal business records, printed and digital materials, and nine scrapbooks.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of art historian and writer Peter Howard Selz measure 31.5 linear feet and 0.696 GB and date from 1929 to 2018, with the bulk of the materials from 1950 to 2005. The papers document Selz's long career via correspondence, writings, professional files, project files, membership and association records, artists' research files, exhibition files, personal business records, printed and digital materials, and scrapbooks.
Correspondence is with colleagues, artists, museums, and galleries concerning a wide variety of topics, including exhibitions and publications. The bulk of the correspondence consists of alphabetical files (two linear feet) that includes correspondence with artists. Notable correspondents include Pol Bury, Alexander Calder, Gordon Onslow Ford, Alberto Giacometti, Morris Graves, Philip Guston, Dimitri Hadzi, Jacques Lipchitz, Georgia O'Keeffe, Ad Reinhardt, Mark Rothko, Jean Tinguely, and others. Eight additional files of chronological correspondence is with curators, arts organizations, and publishers. Additional correspondence is found in the professional files, project files, membership files, artists' research files, and exhibition files.
The bulk of the writings series is comprised of files related to Selz's books and includes typescript drafts and galleys, printed and digital material, correspondence, and publishing contracts. Files are found for Art in Our Times, Art of Engagement, Beyond the Mainstream, and Theories of Modern Art. Other writings consist of drafts of articles, essays, notes, and lectures by Selz. Also included are writings by others, including materials related to Paul Karlstrom's biography of Selz.
Professional files document curatorial and teaching positions at the Chicago Institute of Design, Pomona College, University of California, Berkeley, and the Museum of Modern Art. The series includes contracts, recommendations, syllabi, and correspondence.
Project files document Selz's professional work on specific art projects, panels, and symposiums. There is extensive documentation of Selz's work as project director of Christo's Running Fence, as well as other environmental art work projects by Christo, the Berkeley Art Project, Disney Art Project, "Funk Art" symposium, and the "Art and Politics in the 20th Century" symposium. Project files contain a wide variety of materials, such as correspondence, printed material, financial records, reports, photographs, and other documents. There are 2 tape reels, 1 VHS, and 1 sound cassette.
Membership and association records document Selz's involvement with or membership in various art councils, trustee boards, such as the College Art Association, Art in Chicago Advisory Committee, Bay Area Rapid Transit (B.A.R.T.) Art Council, and the San Francisco Crafts and Folk Art Museum Advisory Board, among others. Materials include meeting minutes, bulletins, correspondence, and memoranda.
Artists' Research Files consist of a wide variety of research materials Selz compiled about artists for lectures, writings, projects, exhibitions, etc. Files vary and may include original and photocopied correspondence, photographic material, resumes, printed and digital material, and writings. There is also 1 sound cassette. Files are found for Bedri Baykam, Max Beckmann, Fletcher Benton, Ciel Bergman, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Bruce Conner, Jean Dubuffet, Lyonel Feininger, Leon Golub, Dimitri Hadzi, Rico Lebrun, Harold Paris, Irving Petlin, among many others.
Exhibition files include catalogs, reviews, clippings, writings, correspondence, and other material documenting exhibitions organized by Selz. Limited materials are found for the MOMA Art Nouveau exhibition. More extensive documentation is found for Seven Decades of Modern Art, 1895-1965, The Joint Show (1967), The American Presidency in Political Cartoons (1976), American Modern Art Between the Two World Wars (1979), German Realism in the Twenties: Artist As Social Critic (1980), Twelve Artists from the German Democratic Republic (1989), a Richard Lindner Retrospective (1996), Spaces of Nature (1999), Color and Fire: Defining Moments in Studio Ceramics, 1950-2000 (2000), and a Nathan Oliviera Retrospective (2002), among others. Some of the materials are in digital format.
Personal business records are related to the Mark Rothko estate and Kate Rothko's legal case against Marlborough Gallery, Inc. Also included in this series are Peter Selz's school transcripts, bequests, royalty statements, house designs, and other material.
Printed materials include clippings, prints of articles written by Peter Selz, exhibition announcements and invitations, and photocopies of artwork images.
There are nine disbound scrapbooks dating from the 1940s up through 2012 containing clippings, exhibition announcements, and photographs of art events, Selz, and artists. This series also includes materials from the 2018 addition that may have previously been compiled in binders.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged as 10 series. When possible the original order of Peter Selz was maintained. However, multiple accessions were merged and integrated.
Missing Title
Series 1: Correspondence, 1942-2013 (2.3 linear feet; Box 1-3, Box 37)
Series 2: Writings, 1942- circa 2014 (8.3 linear feet; Box 3-10, OV 32, Box 37, 0.035 GB; ER01, ER12)
Series 3: Professional Files, 1949-2012 (1 linear feet; Box 11, Box 37)
Series 4: Project Files, 1962-2015 (2.8 linear feet; Box 12-14, OV 33, Box 37)
Series 5: Membership and Association Records, 1958-2014 (1.1 linear feet; Box 14-15, Box 37)
Series 6: Artists' Research Files, 1955-2014 (7.9 linear feet; Box 15-22, OV 34-35, 0.520 GB; ER02-ER08)
Series 7: Exhibition Files, 1959-2014 (5.2 linear feet; Box 23-27, Box 38, 0.093 GB; ER09-ER11)
Series 8: Personal Business Records, 1929-2014 (1.2 linear feet; Box 28-29, OV 36, Box 38)
Series 9: Printed Material, 1957-2014 (0.3 linear feet; Box 29, Box 38)
Series 10: Scrapbooks, 1947-2018 (1.4 linear feet, Box 29-31, Box 38)
Biographical / Historical:
Peter Howard Selz (1919-2019) was a pioneering historian of modern art, professor, and writer who taught at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1965-1988 and founded and directed the Berkeley Art Museum from 1965-1973.
Selz was born in 1919 in Munich, Germany to Eugene Selz and Edith Drey Selz. In 1936, the family fled Nazi Germany and immigrated to the United States. Selz attended Columbia University from 1937 to 1938 and became a naturalized citizen in 1942. During World War II, Selz served in the U.S. Army in the Office of Strategic Services. He married writer Thalia Cheronis in 1948 but they later divorced in 1965; he married several times afterwards.
After the war, Selz attended and taught at the University of Chicago where he received a Ph. D. in German Expressionism. He spent a year in Paris, 1949-1950, at the Sorbonne and École du Louvre on a Fulbright grant. He received a second Fulbright grant in 1953 to study at the Royal Museums of Art and History in Belgium. From 1953-1955, Selz also taught at the Chicago Institute of Design.
In 1955 Peter Selz accepted a position to chair the art history department at Pomona College in Claremont and relocated to California for a few years. He also became director of the college's art gallery.
In 1958 Selz moved to New York City to become curator of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art and was there through the transformative mid-1960s. While at MOMA, he organized several significant exhibitions of modern art, including the 1960 Jean Tinguely "Homage to New York," a sculpture that destroyed itself (and started a fire) in the sculpture garden of the museum; New Images of Man (1959), the Art Nouveau show (1960), and the Art of Assemblage (1961). He also launched important retrospectives, including the first Rodin retrospective in the United States and a comprehensive exhibition of Alberto Giacometti's work in 1965.
In 1965, Peter Selz returned to California to become the founding director of the Berkeley Art Museum at the University of California, Berkeley, a position he held until 1973. He organized exhibitions of Funk, film, and ceramicists like Peter Voulkos and Robert Arneson. Peter Selz later became project director for Christo's "Running Fence", the 24.5-mile long fabric fence over the Marin County hills in 1976. He also served concurrently as a professor of art history at UC until retiring in 1988.
Peter Selz was a member of the College Art Association's board of directors for two terms, 1958-1964 and 1966-1971. Selz is a prolific writer, and the author or co-author of numerous books, exhibition catalogs, and articles. Notable books include German Expressionist Painting (1957), Art in a Turbulent Era (1965), Art in Our Times (1981), and Sam Francis (1975).
In 1988 Peter Selz was named emeritus professor at University of California, Berkeley. In 1993 he was on the acquisitions committee of the Museums of Fine Arts, San Francisco. In 2012, Selz curated The Painted Word exhibition. Selz died in 2019 in Albany, California.
Related Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds oral history interviews of Peter Selz conducted by Paul J. Karlstrom on July 28, 1982, October 12, 1982, and November 3, 1999.
Provenance:
The Peter Howard Selz papers were donated to the Archives of American Art by Peter Selz in multiple installments from 1976 through 2014. Additional papers were donated in 2018 by Gabrielle Selz, Peter Selz's daughter.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Washington, D.C. Research Center. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate copies 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.
Peter Howard Selz papers, 1929-2018, bulk 1950-2005. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the 2014 processing of this collection was provided by the Frederick Hammersley Foundation. Funding for the processing of the 2018 addition was provided by Gerald and Bente Buck.
The papers of African American sculptor, painter, and land artist Beverly Buchanan measure 18 linear feet and 34.2 gigabytes, and date from 1912 to 2017 with the bulk of the material dating from the 1970s to the 1990s. The collection contains biographical material, including audiovisual and born-digital interview recordings; correspondence; writings; and exhibition and project files, including audiovisual documentation from Bernice Steinbaum Gallery/Steinbaum Krauss Gallery. Material related to professional activities; personal business records; printed material, including born-digital and audiovisual records; scrapbooks; photographic material, including photograph albums; and artwork are also found in the collection.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of African American sculptor, painter, and land artist Beverly Buchanan measure 18 linear feet and 34.2 gigabytes, and date from 1912 to 2017 with the bulk of the material dating from the 1970s to the 1990s. The collection contains biographical material, including audiovisual and born-digital interview recordings; correspondence; writings; and exhibition and project files, including audiovisual documentation from Bernice Steinbaum Gallery/Steinbaum Krauss Gallery. Material related to professional activities; personal business records; printed material, including born-digital and audiovisual records; scrapbooks; photographic material, including photograph albums; and artwork are also found in the collection.
The Beverly Buchanan papers contain biographical material including address books, calendars, awards and education certificates, identification documents, family history research material, and audiovisual and born-digital interview recordings; correspondence with friends and colleagues including Lucy Lippard and Lowery Stokes Sims, and with galleries and museums such as Bernice Steinbaum Gallery/Steinbaum Krauss Gallery, the Georgia Museum of Art, and the High Museum of Art. Also included are writings such as artist's statements, journals and notebooks, notes, and writings by others about Beverly Buchanan; exhibition and project files including audiovisual documentation from Bernice Steinbaum Gallery and Steinbaum Krauss Gallery of various exhibitions; material related to professional activities including teaching files and grant and fellowship applications; personal business records such as sales and consignment records; printed material including clippings, exhibition announcements and catalogs, magazines, posters, audiovisual and born-digital recordings, including A World of Art profile, and other published material; and scrapbooks, including one documenting Buchanan's City Walls series, containing primarily photographs and artwork with some printed material. The collection also contains photographic material including photographs, snapshots, negatives, and photograph albums; and artwork including sketchbooks, drawings, folded cardboard artwork, and illustrated cards.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged as ten series.
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1917-2015 (Box 1, Boxes 19-20, Box 24; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1919-1954, 1967-2017 (Boxes 1-2; 0.9 linear feet; ER01, 0.017 GB)
Series 3: Writings, 1960-circa 2009 (Boxes 2-3, Box 24; 0.7 linear feet)
Series 4: Exhibition and Project Files, 1974-2001, 2010-2017 (Boxes 3-4, Box 24, OV 21, FCs 22-23; 1.9 linear feet; ER02, 0.020 GB)
Series 5: Professional Activities, 1962, 1979-2005 (Box 4, Box 19, Box 24; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 6: Personal Business Records, 1966-2010 (Box 4; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 7: Printed Material, 1912, 1923-2014 (Boxes 4-7, Box 19, Box 25, OV 21; 3.9 linear feet)
Series 8: Scrapbooks, 1970-circa 1977 (Box 7, Box 20; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 9: Photographic Material, circa 1920s-2013 (Boxes 7-13, Boxes 16-18, Box 20; 8.8 linear feet; ER03, 1.03 GB)
Series 10: Artwork, 1956-2013, undated (Boxes 13-15, Box 20; 0.7 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
Beverly Buchanan (1940-2015) was an African American sculptor, painter, and land artist in Macon, Georgia. Born in Fuquay, North Carolina and raised in Orangeburg, South Carolina, Buchanan studied medical technology at Bennett College before going on to earn two master's degrees in parasitology and public health from Columbia University in 1968 and 1969. Her artistic career began in 1971 when she enrolled in a class at the Art Students League in New York City taught by Norman Lewis. She moved to Georgia in 1977.
Buchanan is most well known for her "shack" sculptures and paintings, depictions of houses tied to Southern identity and memory.
Buchanan has been included in exhibitions at institutions such as Cinque Gallery, Truman Gallery, the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Macon, GA, the Chrysler Museum, and a traveling retrospective exhibition organized by the Montclair Art Museum. Her work is included in the permanent collections of institutions such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, High Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Beverly Buchanan has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the Anonymous Was a Woman Award, and the Women's Caucus for Art lifetime achievement award, among others. She died in 2015 in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Provenance:
The Beverly Buchanan papers were donated to the Archives of American Art in 2018 by Jane Bridges, and in 2021 by Bridges and Susan Welsh, Buchanan's executors.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Researchers interested in accessing born-digital records or audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact 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.
An interview with Mary Miss conducted 2016 July 18 and 20, by Annette Leddy, for the Archives of American Art, at Miss' home and studio in New York, New York.
Biographical / Historical:
Mary Miss (b. 1944) is an artist in New York known for her largescale environmental installations that draw attention to human interference in the natural world. She collaborates with scientists, historians, civil administrators, and engineers to raise public awareness around issues of sustainability and the environment.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Occupation:
Environmental artists -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
An interview of Michelle Stuart, conducted 2015 November 3 and 13, and 2017 May 23 by Annette Leddy, for the Archives of American Art at Stuart's studio in New York, New York.
Stuart speaks of her Los Angeles childhood with a Swiss mother and Australian father; her paternal and maternal grandparents; her early interest in history, travel, and art; her schooling; her father's enlistment in the U.S. military during World War II and being raised during her teenage years by her mother; her fascination with Captain Cook; art classes at Chouinard Institute of Art; her work with Diego Rivera in Mexico City; her marriage to Spanish painter Joseph Bartoli and their home life in Paris, France; her return to the U.S. in the late 1950s and life in New York City's West Village; courses at the New School; early exhibitions of her work in New York City gallery group shows; her breakthrough Art Park piece; her relationship to the "Land" artists; Lucy Lippard; Eleanor Munro; the influence of Fluxus; Lawrence Alloway's early essay on her scroll pieces; how she was brought into Galerie Schmela; the founding of Heresies; site specific work in the American Southwest; the enduring impact of the Pacific Ocean on her imagination and art; her use of rocks and other natural materials; her transition to photographic collage; commissions in Sweden, Japan, Alaska, and New York City.
Biographical / Historical:
Michelle Stuart (1933- ) is a visual artist in New York, New York. Annette Leddy is a collector for the Archives of American Art.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Restrictions:
This transcript is open for research. Access to the recording is restricted. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Occupation:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Six scrapbooks compiled by Hank Leininger documenting the construction of Valley Curtain and Running Fence by Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Included are engineering calculations, color and b&w photos, and clippings.
Biographical / Historical:
Leininger was the project engineer for two well-known site-specific works by environmental artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Valley Curtain in Rifle, Colorado, and Running Fence in California.
Provenance:
Donated 1999 by Hazel Leininger.
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.
An interview with Diane Burko conducted 2016 November 4 and 14, by Cynthia Veloric, for the Archives of American Art, at Burko's home and studio in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Biographical / Historical:
Diane Burko (b. 1945) is a painter and photographer known for her large format works that address and record the effects of climate change in landscapes around the globe. She is based in Philadelphia.
Cynthia Veloric (1956- ) is an art historian in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Occupation:
Painters -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia Search this
Personal and business correspondence; photographs; writings; biographical materials; and printed materials.
REELS N69/133-N69/136: Personal correspondence, including letters and postcards from friends Wayne Anderson, composer Richard Arnell, E. Leontief, Barnett Newman, Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko and others; business correspondence, including letters from galleries and universities, regarding exhibitions, sculpture contracts and invitations for lecture, his donation of his paper to Syracuse University, and teaching positions; ground plans, estimates, and correspondence regarding Ferber's "environmental sculpture" for Harlow Carpenter and Bundy Gallery and the ensuing case against them;
contract and letters concerning the courtyard sculpture for the John F. Kennedy GSA building in Boston; letters regarding insurance and damage done to works lent for exhibition through the Walker Art Center; writings by Ferber for various journals including art journals and a scientific journal (using an pseudonym, Herbert F. Silver, D.D.S.); drafts of lectures given at art institutions and colleges; a catalog raisonne; transcript of an interview with Ferber; licenses, degrees and diplomas; a book, THREE AMERICAN SCULPTORS: FERBER, HARE, LASSAW, by E.C. Goossen, Robert Goldwater, and Irving Sandler; sketchbooks, 1933-1937; clippings; exhibition catalogs and announcements; scrapbook relating to his career and work at Midtown Galleries, New York.
REEL N/70-39: Photographs of Ferber at work and of his sculptures.
REEL 2804: A typescript, "Sculpture as Environment," by Ferber, January 1960.
ADDITION: Biographical materials; correspondence, 1979-1980; records concerning Williams College exhibition, 1975-1980; writings, 1970-1986; exhibition catalogs and announcements; photographs, including one of Ferber ca. 1935, one of Helen Frankenthaler and Andrew Heiskell, and one of a painting signed on back by Beck Balken. Additional records concerning his career as a dentist include diplomas and certificates, published articles on dental subjects by Dr. Silvers, and letters of appointment to the dental school faculty, Columbia University, 1980-1985.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter and environmental sculptor; New York, N.Y. d. 1991. Ferber was also a dentist, who practiced under the name Herbert Ferber Silvers.
Provenance:
Material on reels N69/133-136 and reel N70/39 lent by Herbert Ferber 1969-1970; the unmicrofilmed material was donated 1991 by Herbert Ferber. The donor of the typescript on reel 2804 is unspecified.
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:
Dentists -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Environmental artists -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Diane Burko, 2016 November 4-14. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Hank Leininger scrapbooks relating to Christo and Jeanne-Claude's Valley Curtain and Running Fence, 1972-1976. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Christo, 1973 August 28-30. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
An interview of Christo conducted 1973 August 28-30, by Paul Cummings, for the Archives of American Art. Christo speaks of his childhood in Bulgaria; his studies at the Fine Arts Academy in Sofia, and the Vienna Fine Arts Academy in Austria; his interest in the theater and films; working as a portrait painter; Leo Castelli's legal assistance; his "Valley Curtain" and wrapped works; his expenses and documentation for projects; French vs. American artists.
Biographical / Historical:
Christo (1935-) is an environmental sculptor and conceptual artist. Full name Christo Java[t]cheff.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound tape reel. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 2 hr., 4 min.
Provenance:
These interviews are part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and others.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
