The papers of painter George Tooker measure 5.1 linear feet and date from circa 1851 to 2010. The papers document Tooker's personal and professional life through biographical material, correspondence, project files, gallery files, exhibition files, printed material, artwork and one sketchbook, and numerous photographs, including some taken by noted photographer George Platt Lynes.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of painter George Tooker measure 5.1 linear feet and date from circa 1851 to 2010. The papers document Tooker's personal and professional life through biographical material, correspondence, project files, gallery files, exhibition files, printed material, artwork and one sketchbook, and numerous photographs, including some taken by noted photographer George Platt Lynes.
Biographical material consists of membership and travel documents, writings on and by Tooker on his circle, an address book, resume, and papers regarding Tooker's education. Also included are biographical material related to Tooker's partner William Christopher who passed in 1973. A 1978 interview with Vermont Public radio on two sound reels is also featured.
Correspondence is with friends, colleagues, and organizations. Correspondents include Isabel Bishop, Paul Cadmus, Walter Bachinski, William Christopher, Otto Dix, Jared and Margaret French, Ralph Ginzburg, Xavier Gonzalez, Robert Isaacson, Edward Laning, Lincoln Kirstein, Lee Nordness, Bernard Perlin, Joan Peterson, Theodore Stamos, Bridget Tichenor, and others. Also included are family correspondence and correspondence regarding the Estate of William Christopher.
Project files document Tooker's commissions including the set and costume design for Gian-Carlo Menotti's opera The Saint of Bleecker Street and Tooker's participation in the selection of candidates for the Vestris Prize for Choreography. Files contain correspondence, business documents, printed ephemera, sketches, photographs, three volumes of vocal scores, and textile samples.
Gallery records include business correspondence and consignments with various key galleries in Tooker's career spanning the 1960s to the end of his career including D.C. Moore Gallery, Marisa Del Re Gallery, and Durlacher Bros..
Exhibition records include documents regarding the organization of several select exhibitions in Tooker's career incuding an early retrospective at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (1974) and a later traveling retrospective from 2008-2009.
Printed material consists of invitations, press releases, news clippings and exhibition catalogs documenting the careers of both George Tooker and William Christopher.
Artwork includes numerous sketchbooks, loose drawings, and sketches from Tooker's studies at the Art Students' League in the mid 1940s, in addition to an early ex-libris print created by Tooker in his youth. Also included is a sketchbook by William Christopher, as well as a study for the work The Subway, in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Photographic materials depict Tooker's family life as well as his early artistic collaborations depicted in a number of black and white photographs taken by George Platt Lynes and PaJaMa in the mid to late 1940s. A majority of the photographs depict artists and friends, among them: George Tooker and his companion William Christopher, Paul Cadmus, Jared and Margaret French, Lincoln and Fidelma Kirstein, Glenway Wescott, Monroe Wheeler, and Bridget Tichenor. Other photographs are of Tooker building his home, gardening, and working in his studio in Hartland, Vermont. Also included are installation views from the exhibition Painting in the United States (1949) at the Carnegie Institute in Pennsylvania. There are also a fair amount of photographs, transparencies, slides and negatives documenting artwork from both the studios of George Tooker and his late partner William Christopher.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 8 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1920-2005 (0.7 linear feet; Boxes 1, 5)
Series 2: Correspondence, circa 1932-2010 (1.2 linear feet; Boxes 1-2, Oversize 7)
Series 3: Project Files, circa 1935-1968 (0.3 linear feet; Boxes 2-3, 6)
Series 4: Gallery Records, circa 1960-2009 (0.3 linear feet; Box 3)
Series 5: Exhibition Files, circa 1967-2009 (0.3 linear feet; Boxes 1, 3)
Series 6: Printed Material, circa 1851-2010 (0.5 linear feet; Boxes 3, 5)
Series 7: Artwork and Sketchbook, circa 1932-2009 (0.7 linear feet; Boxes 3, 5, 8)
Series 8: Photographs, circa 1900-2010 (1.1 linear feet; Boxes 4-5, 8)
Biographical / Historical:
George Tooker (1920-2011) was a painter based in Hartland, Vermont and New York, New York. Tooker was born in Brooklyn, New York on August 5, 1920 to George Clair Tooker and Angela Montejo Roura. He graduated from preparatory school at Phillips Academy, Andover in 1938 and received a Bachelor of Arts in English from Harvard University in 1942. Tooker studied drawing and painting under Reginald Marsh, Kenneth Hayes Miller, and Harry Sternberg at the Art Students' League from circa 1944 to 1945.
Tooker became acquainted with American painter Paul Cadmus while studying at the Art Students' League. Cadmus introduced Tooker to a circle of artists and writers living and working in New York and Europe in the mid to late 1940s that included George Platt Lynes, Jared and Margaret French, Monroe Wheeler, Glenway Westcott, and Lincoln and Fidelma Kirstein. He lived and worked with his partner and fellow artist William Christopher in New York City and later Hartland, VT.
In 1953, Tooker was commissioned by writer and philanthropist Lincoln Kirstein to design the sets and costumes for The Saint of Bleecker Street, an opera by Gian-Carlo Menotti. In 1966, the Wasemquia Charitable Trust sponsored the Vestris Prize for Choreography in cooperation with the Boston Ballet Company and Tooker was invited by trustee Henry H. Crapo to participate on the Committee of Judges for the Vestris Prize. In 1968, NASA commissioned Tooker to produce drawings and one painting documenting the development of spacecraft at the Goddard Space Flight Center located in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Tooker's paintings are found in numerous art museums and galleries including the Whitney Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, DC Moore Gallery, Robert Isaacson Gallery, and the Venice Biennale. In 1968, Tooker's paintings were featured in the art magazine, Avant-Garde.
Related Materials:
Available in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with George Tooker conducted in 1966 by Grace G. Alexander for radio station WNYC, New York City.
Materials related to the George Tooker papers can be found the William Christopher papers at the Archives of American Art.
Provenance:
George Tooker donated his papers to the Archives of American Art in 1973. A subsequent addition was donated in 2018 by Aaron Watkins, the executor to George Tooker's estate.
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.
Von Mohrenschildt, Dimitri Sergius, 1902-2002 Search this
Extent:
8.2 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Drawings
Diaries
Motion pictures (visual works)
Sketches
Sketchbooks
Photographs
Date:
circa 1920s-circa 1973
Summary:
The William Christopher papers measure 8.2 linear feet and date from circa 1920s to circa 1973. Materials include biographical materials, correspondence, writings and notes, five diaries, subject/project files, printed materials, photographs, numerous sketches and eleven sketchbooks, and five short film reels containing amateur footage of New York City. The subject/project files include correspondence, printed materials, and two additional diaries about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the 1965 civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
Scope and Contents:
The William Christopher papers measure 8.2 linear feet and date from circa 1920s to circa 1973. Materials include biographical materials, correspondence, writings and notes, five diaries, subject/project files, printed materials, photographs, numerous sketches and eleven sketchbooks, and five reels of motion picture films, consisting of amateur footage of New York City. The subject/project files include correspondence, printed materials, and two additional diaries about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the 1965 civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
Biographical materials include address books, annotated memorabilia, awards and certificates, curriculum vitae and resume materials, and identification materials. Correspondence is with friends and fellow artists, including actress Osceola Archer and Henry Crapo, galleries, and others. Writings and notes include eleven notebooks, miscellaneous undated notes and papers, annotated drafts and writings by William Christopher, and writings by others. There are five diaries written by William Christopher from the 1940s to the 1960s.
Subject files document miscellaneous projects in which Christopher was involved and/or interested, and include several about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. containing correspondence, printed material, and two diaries written by Christopher during his attendance of the Civil Rights march from Selma to Montgomery.
Scattered personal business papers concern artwork sold and loaned and personal finances. Printed materials include clippings, exhibition catalogs and materials, magazines and programs, and posters. Photographs are of William Christopher, Henry Crapo, Margaret French, Charles Howard, Bernard Perlin, George Tooker, male models and figures, furniture, landscapes, buildings, and artwork.
Christopher's papers include over one hundred sketches and watercolors, eleven sketchbooks, an artwork by Dimitri Von Mohrenshildt, and one sketch by George Tooker. Also found among the papers are five film reels made by Christopher for an unfinished project, containing footage of New York City cityscapes and street scenes.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged as 10 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1940s-circa 1973 (0.5 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1947-circa 1973 (1.9 linear feet; Boxes 1-3)
Series 3: Writings and Notes, circa 1947-1970 (0.4 linear feet; Box 3)
Series 4: Diaries, circa 1940s-circa 1960s (0.2 linear feet; Boxes 3-4)
Series 5: Subject Files, 1943-1972 (0.7 linear feet; Boxes 4, 9)
Series 6: Personal Business Records, circa 1950-circa 1972 (0.3 linear feet; Box 4)
Series 7: Printed Material, circa 1950s-circa 1972 (1.4 linear feet; Boxes 4-5, 9, OV12)
Series 8: Photographs, circa 1920s-circa 1970s (0.7 linear feet; Boxes 6, 8, MGP 4)
Series 9: Artwork and Sketchbooks, circa 1940s-circa 1970s (1.6 linear feet; Boxes 6-8, OV10-11, 13-18)
Series 10: Unidentified Project, Motion Picture Films, 1961 (0.5 linear feet; FC 19-23)
Biographical / Historical:
William Christopher was a painter, art instructor, and Civil Rights activist living and working in New York, New Hampshire, and Vermont. He was born in Columbus, Georgia on March 4, 1924, and served in the U. S. Navy from 1941 to 1943.
Aided by grants and scholarships, Christopher studied in France at the Sorbonne, Academie Julian, and the Ecoles d'Art Americaines between 1946-1948. While there, he also studied with Ossip Zadkine. He returned to New York and studied with Amedee Ozenfant and Hans Hofmann between 1948 and 1950.
Christopher's painting was greatly influenced by his time spent in Paris and New York, and his later involvement with the Civil Rights movement, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the march in Selma in 1965. His first U. S. solo exhibition was in 1952 at the Roko Gallery in New York, and he exhibited widely in New York, Boston, Washington, D.C. at the Nexus Gallery, the Boston Arts Festival, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Joan Peterson Gallery, Galeria Juana Mordo, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among others. In 1964, Christopher was invited to present his paintings to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the presentation of Dr. King's papers to Boston University. This is where Christopher met King.
Christopher moved to Hartland, Vermont in 1960, with his partner painter George Tooker. He remained there for the rest of his life. Christopher died in 1973.
Provenance:
William Christopher donated his papers to the Archives of American Art in 1972.
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. Glass plate negatives are housed separately and not served to researchers.
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.
