An interview of Buffie Johnson conducted 1977 Nov. 22-1978 Jan. 23, by Paul Cummings, for the Archives of American Art.
Johnson speaks of her childhood in New York City and Ducksbury, Mass.; her early encouragement in art; life in Paris and the European scene before World War II. She discusses gettting established as a painter, selling her early work, the change in her painting toward abstraction, her friendship with gallery owner Howard Putzel, painting a mural for a movie theater, her inspirations for painting and her interest in the women's movement. She recalls Tony Smith, Hans Hofmann, Stanley William Hayter, Mark Rothko, and Jackson Pollock.
Biographical / Historical:
Buffie Johnson (1912-2006) was a painter and muralist from New York, N.Y.
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: Use requires an appointment.
Occupation:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Muralists -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Topic:
Painting, Abstract -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Mural painting and decoration -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Personal and professional records including correspondence, writings, notes, printed material, subject files, photograph album, and diaries relating to Zigrosser's work as an authority on prints and printmaking and his personal relationships with artists.
Included are: correspondence with family and with over 900 printmakers, painters, sculptors, acquaintances, friends, associates, organizations, museums, publishers, and magazines; general correspondence, notes, clippings, and manuscripts pertaining to The Modern School Magazine; files of correspondence from Zigrosser's work at: the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1932-1971; John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation; Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and Museum, 1946-1971, including correspondence with Frank Lloyd Wright concerning the Guggenheim Memorial Museum; Print Council of America, 1954-1971, regarding exhibitions, council meetings and other matters; and the Tamarind Workshop, 1960-1971.
Of particular interest is material relating to the 1913 Armory Show, including Zigrosser's annotated catalog, notes and sketches. Also included are speeches and notes, 1930-1968; manuscripts for lectures and unpublished materials; memorabilia; a photo album of sculpture by John B. Flannagan; art work, including prints and drawings by Karig Nalbandian, prints by Rockwell Kent, and oversized works of art on paper by Mabel Dwight, Wanda Gag and Kent; family photograph album; journals and pamphlets (covers only); and diaries, 1916-1971, discussing personal and professional events such as art openings, conversations and activities with Rockwell Kent, Alfred Stieglitz, and Georgia O'Keeffe, among others.
Among the correspondents are: the American Artists Group, John Taylor Arms, Art in America magazine, Art Institute of Chicago, Alfred Barr, E. Boyd, Charles Burchfield, Alexander Calder, Fitz Roy Carrington, Federico Castellon, Ed Colker, Howard N. Cook, Crown Publishers, Adolf Dehn, Caroline Durieux, John Bernard Flannagan, Andre Girard, Stanley William Hayter, Edward Hopper, Victoria Hutson Huntley, Independent Citizens Committee for the Arts, Sciences and Professions, R. Sturgis Ingersoll, Frederick Keppel, Rockwell Kent, Fiske Kimball, Misch Kohn, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Julius Lankes, Mauricico Lasansky, Merritt Mauzey, Kneeland McNulty, James A. Michener, Marian Mitchell,
Museum of Non-Objective Painting (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum), Karnig Nalbandian, Dorothy Norman, Georgia O'Keeffe, Walter Pach, Harold Paris, Print Club (Philadelphia), Diego Rivera, Ruth Starr Rose, Arnold Ronnebeck, Lessing J. Rosenwald, Andre Ruellan, Carl Oscar Schniewind, Roderick Seidenberg, William Spratling, Benton Spruance, Alfred Stieglitz, Harry Sternberg, Tamarind Lithography Workshop, Kuei Teng, U.S. Office of War Information, Curt Valentin, Heinz Warneke, Edward Weston, Weyhe Gallery, Whitney Museum of American Art, Harry Wickey, and Adja Yunkers.
Biographical / Historical:
Print curator; Philadelphia, Pa.; d. 1975. Graduated Columbia University in literature. Worked with prints in New York City at Keppel and Co. and Weyhe Gallery; print curator at Philadelphia Museum of Art 1940-1963; author of books on prints and art works.
Provenance:
Lent for microfilming, 1991, by the University of Pennsylvania Special Collections Department, Van Pelt Library. Zigrosser donated the papers to the University in 1972. Portions of the papers not microfilmed include research files, manuscript materials for published work, family records, and journals.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Rights:
Authorization to publish, quote or reproduce requires written permission from the Curator of Manuscripts, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania. Contact Reference Services for more information.
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
The records of the New York Artists Equity Association (NYAEA) measure 26.8 linear feet and 2.99 Gb and date from 1920-2012. The records include history and founding documents, presidents' files, board of directors' files that include monthly board meeting minutes, committee files and annual membership meeting minutes, general administrative and correspondence files, financial and legal files, event and program files, artists and subject files, extensive individual membership files, art project and exhibition files, Broome Street Gallery files, NYAEA publications that include issues of The Artists Proof, printed and digital materials, four scrapbooks, sketches created by artists attending a party in honor of Yasuo Kuniyoshi, and photographs of member artists and events.
Scope and Contents:
The records of the New York Artists Equity Association (NYAEA) measure 26.8 linear feet and 2.99 GB and date from 1920-2012. The records include history and founding documents, presidents' files, board of directors' files that include monthly board meeting minutes, committee files and annual membership meeting minutes, general administrative and correspondence files, financial and legal files, event and program files, artists and subject files, extensive individual membership files, art project and exhibition files, Broome Street Gallery files, NYAEA publications that include issues of The Artists Proof, printed and digital materials, four scrapbooks, sketches created by artists attending a party in honor of Yasuo Kuniyoshi, and photographs of member artists and events.
The President's files appear to be complete and include files for presidents Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Louise Nevelson, Harry Waterson, Roy Gussow, Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence, Karl Zerbe, Ernst Fiene, Sidney Laufman, Carolyn deLisser, Burt Hasen, and Bert Diener, among others. Committee files and meeting minutes are found, as well as general administrative and correspondence files which include information pertaining to the national level Association.
Event files include documentation of the Association's Art Thursday series, where they hosted talks and panels by artists. Artists referenced in these files include Jean Cohen, Charles Searles, Leon Golub, Doug Ashford, Bruno Palmer-Poroner, Dom Facci, Susan Teller, Eleanor Lipsky, Ted Berger, Hilton Kramer, Bernice Steinbaum, Laura Stirton, Jean Zaleski, Renee Philips, Denise Bibro, Dan Concholar, Irving Sandler, Angela Babin, Dorothy Gillespe, Donna Marxer, Nan Hall, Ivan Karp, Alan Gussow, Mary Carswell, Bill Smart, Charlotte Kotik, Klaus Kertess, Elaine Marinoff, and Judith Brodski. Additional events covered in this series include the annual awards dinner, masquerade balls, lectures, the Association's 55th Anniversary event, which includes recollections by Helen Frankenthaler, Sidney Simon, and Lorrie Goulet, as well as other events and programs. Videocassette and sound recordings of many of the events are found here.
Artists' and subject files contain mostly printed materials about a few artists and subjects or issues in which the Association was interested.
There are extensive files on individual members that include card files, applications, biographies, and clippings.
Project and exhibition files include material pertaining to the Artists Welfare Fund, the Art Bank artwork donation, and a few scattered exhibitions. Additional exhibition and event files are found in the series containing the Broome Street Gallery files.
Association publications consist of what appears to be a full run of Association newsletters and reports. The NYAEA newsletter changed its name to The Artists Proof in 1986. Additional printed materials include exhibition catalogs and announcements, programs, clippings, posters, and newsletters of other arts organizations. There are four scrapbooks (two unbound) that contain printed materials, and a few items of correspondence. One of the scrapbooks documents the annual "Bal Fantastique".
Artwork consists mostly of sketches and drawings by artists attending a 1948 dinner in honor of Yasuo Kuniyoshi. Photographs are of members and events. Photographers include Arnold Newman, Marvin Bolotsky, and Frances Avery, among others. Numerous notable artists are depicted in the images.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into sixteen series.
Missing Title
Series 1: History and Founding Documents, 1933-2000 (0.3 linear feet; Box 1, 27
Series 2: Presidents' Files, 1927-2007 (2.8 linear feet; Boxes 1-4)
Series 3: Board of Directors' Files, 1947-2003 (1.4 linear feet; Boxes 4-5)
Series 4: Committee and Meeting Files, 1950-2009 (1.5 linear feet; Boxes 5-6)
Series 5: General Administrative and Correspondence Files, circa 1930-2008 (2 linear feet; Boxes 7-8, 0.284 GB; ER01)
Series 6: Financial and Legal Files, 1947-2000 (1 linear foot; Box 9)
Series 7: Events and Programs, 1930-2010 (4.2 linear feet; Boxes 10-14, 27, 0.446 GB; ER02)
Series 8: Artists and Subject Files, 1930-1998 (0.4 linear feet; Box 14)
Series 9: Membership Files, 1920-2009 (4.4 linear feet; Boxes 14-18, 27, 2.26 GB; ER03)
Series 10: Project and Exhibition Files, 1934-2010 (2 linear feet; Boxes 19-20)
Series 11: Broome Street Gallery Files, 1990-2011 (2.7 linear feet; Boxes 21-23, 31)
Series 12: Association Publications, 1947-2012 (1 linear foot; Boxes 23-24)
Series 13: Printed Materials, 1930-2008 (1.6 linear feet; Boxes 24-25, 27, 31, OV 28, OV 29)
Series 14: Scrapbooks, 1947-1969 (0.3 linear feet; Box 25, OV 30)
Series 15: Artwork, 1947-2000 (0.1 linear foot; Box 26, 27)
Series 16: Photographs, 1930s-2004 (0.9 linear feet; Box 26, 27)
Biographical / Historical:
The New York Artists Equity Association (originally the Artists Equity Association) was created in 1947 to promote and support living American artists. Nine prominent New York artists founded the organization and elected Yasuo Kuniyoshi as the organization's first president. The original membership included 160 well-known American artists, but by the end of its first year, membership had grown to over one thousand. By the 1950s, the organization had grown into an influential national organization. Past and present members have included Milton Avery, Will Barnet, Romare Bearden, George Biddle, Isabel Bishop, Robert Blackburn, Paul Cadmus, Charles Burchfield, Stuart Davis, Jose de Creeft, Elaine and Willem de Kooning, Leon Golub, Chaim Gross, Rockwell Kent, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Motherwell, Alice Neel, Isamu Noguchi, Jules Olitski, Philip Pearlstein, Henry Varnum Poor, Charles Scheeler, Ben Shahn, David Smith, Frank Stella, Andrew Wyeth, and many others.
In 1959, the New York Chapter, with more members than all of the other states combined, re-organized into the New York Artists Equity Association. The Association maintained it own gallery, Broome Street Gallery, from 1991-2011. The organization remains active today and is located in SoHo.
Provenance:
The records were donated to the Archives of American Art by the New York Artists Equity Association in several increments between 1980-2016.
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 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.
Included are extensive memoirs of William Henry Fox director of the museum for over 25 years; scattered records of the Brooklyn Institute, 1823-1873; catalogs for Brooklyn Museum exhibits (4 1/2 reels) and for exhibits held in various galleries and museums, primarily in N.Y. (14 reels); brief records of the Dept. of Painting and Sculpture primarily relating to Gilbert Stuart's portrait of George Washington; records of the Dept. of Prints and Drawings, mainly regarding exhibitions, including correspondence, much of it with curator Una Johnson, correspondence with art dealers, files on artists, and statistics on exhibitions, 1936-1939; and records of the Registrar's office, 1933-1936, regarding the museum's involvement in the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration, mainly the Graphic Arts Division.
Dept. of Prints & Drawings artists files relate to: Grace Albee, Josef Albers, Glen Alps, Maxil Ballinger, Leonard Baskin, Wilfred Roloff Beny, Fiske Boyd, Robert Broner, Edmond Casarella, Minna Citron, Robert Conover, Worden Day, Arthur Deshaies, Werner Drewes, Antonio Frasconi, Leon Goldin, William Gropper, Stanley William Hayter, Helen West Heller, Margo Hoff, John Paul Jones, Misch Kohn, David Lang, Ezio Martinelli, Seong Moy, Danny Pierce, Rudolph Pozzatti, Peter Sager, Louis Schanker, Karl Schrag, Susanne Suba, Maltby Sykes, Peter Takal, John Von Wicht, Sylvia Wald, Hyman Warsager, Max Weber, Toshi Yoshida, Richard Zoellner, and others.
Other correspondents of note (reels BR21-22) include John Taylor Arms, Mary Cassatt (1 letter, 1903), George Overbury "Pop" Hart, Mrs. Gaston Lachaise, Joseph Pennell (re Whistler), and a group from art dealers.
Also included are papers of and related to Austrian artist Emil Fuchs, including letters regarding commissions, a list of books and prints, and miscellany.
Biographical / Historical:
The Brooklyn Museum had its roots in the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, founded 1823. The Museum was formed in 1889.
Provenance:
Lent for microfilming 1964-1965 by Brooklyn Museum.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
An interview of Stanley William Hayter conducted 1971 Mar. 11, by Paul Cummings, for the Archives of American Art.
Hayter speaks of his trip to the U.S. in 1940, the Atelier for etching techniques at the New School for Social Research and some of the members in the group, the influence of the WPA on American art, the studios on 8th and 13th Streets and the variety of personalities and working methods among those who inhabited them. He discusses the relationship between teacher and student, the influence of the exhibition of Atelier prints at the Museum of Modern Art, life in America as compared with that in France, printmaking in Europe and America, the Tamarind Institute, the close of the Atelier in 1955, and the limitations of lithography.
Biographical / Historical:
Stanley William Hayter (1901-1988) was a printmaker from Paris, France.
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 others.
Restrictions:
Transcript: Patrons must use microfilm copy.
Topic:
Prints -- New York (State) -- New York -- Technique Search this
Printmakers -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews Search this
Biographical information, correspondence, photographs, writings, works of art, scrapbooks, artists' and organization files, and inventories documenting William Littlefield's career and a painter, writer, and art collector.
Biographical material includes resumes and awards. Correspondence is with family, friends, galleries, and others, including letters from Littlefirld written while studying in Paris and other European cities. Correspondents include Jean Paul Slusser, Vincent Grimaldi, Stanley William Hayter, Monroe Wheeler, Paul Sachs, Mary Rockwell, Lincoln Kirstein, Duncan Phillips, Muriel Draper, A. Hyatt Mayor, Peter Busa, Archibald MacLeish, among others. Photographs are of Littlefield, his work, friends, and works of art by others. Writings include poetry, articles, essays, notes, a draft for "The Son," a ballet by Littlefield, 1934, and a transcript of a speech by Hans Hofmann given at the Riverside Museum, New York City, Feb. 16, 1941. Works of art include sketches by Littlefield and Stanley Hayter.
Scrapbooks and artists' files contain printed material, correspondence and photographs pertaining to Frank and Isabel Moser, and Mary Peixotto, Herman Heilborn and Alexis Arapoff and others. Organization files include the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts, the New School for Social Research, and The Club, of which he was a member. Inventories include works of art by Littlfield and in his estate.
Biographical / Historical:
William Horace Littlefield (1902-1969) was a painter, writer, and art collector in New York, N.Y.
Provenance:
Donated 1971 by Nancy Stiner, an antique dealer who bought the papers, in 1992, by Fred J. Stone who purchased the estate, in 2007 by Peggy Stone, Fred Stone's daughter, and in 2011 by Arthur Hughes, who purchased the additional material from Nancy Stiner.
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.
Occupation:
Authors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Letters, writings and notes, sketches and drawings, printed matter, and photographs regarding artists, mainly from the Pacific Northwest, with whom Wehr was associated.
Resume; letters to Wehr; writings by and about Wehr; exhibition announcements and catalogs; clippings; printed material; and photographs of Wehr. Also included are Wehr's files on American Northwest artists Guy Anderson, Kenneth Callahan, Morris Graves, Pehr Hallsten, Stanley William Hayter, Ray Hill, Helmi Juvonen, Mark Tobey, composer Ernest Bloch, and art administrator Richard E. Fuller, containing biographical materials, correspondence, photographs, printed material, and writings by Wehr.
Files kept by Francine Seders of the Otto Seligman Gallery, Seattle, Washington, on artists Camille Bryen, Frederick Franck, Morris Graves, Daniel Milhaud, Toni Olney, Arthur Hall Smith, Francois Stahly, and George Van Haardt.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter, consultant, writer; Seattle, Wash.
Provenance:
Donated 1972 through 1980 by Wesley C. Wehr.
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 of Seong Moy conducted 1971 Jan. 18-28, by Paul Cummings, for the Archives of American Art.
Moy speaks of his childhood in Canton, China; his immigration to Minnesota; the art scene in Minneapolis and Saint Paul in the 1930s; his education; the influence of his teachers, including Cameron Booth, Hans Hofmann, and Vaclav Vytlacil; the influence of Stanley William Hayter; being introduced to printmaking by the WPA art project in Minnesota; his service as a photographer in World War II; his teaching philosophy; and the art scene in Provincetown in the 1970s.
Biographical / Historical:
Seong Moy (1921-2013) was a Chinese American painter and printmaker based in New York City, New York and Provincetown, Massachusetts. Moy was born in Canton, China. He studied at the St. Paul School of Art, Hans Hofmann School of Art and the Art Students League. He was also the director of the Seong Moy School of Painting and Graphics, Provincetown, Massachusetts in the summer.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 3 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hrs., 19 min.
Provenance:
These interviews are part of the Archives' 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.
Occupation:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Printmakers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
An interview of Philip Pavia conducted 1965 Jan. 19, by Bruce Hooton, for the Archives of American Art.
Pavia speaks of the group of artists who met nightly at the Waldorf cafeteria during and after the World War II years, including Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline and others; refugee artists who joined the group after the war; Dubuffet's influence; the Tenth Street group; the development of The Club; surrealism; the rise of abstract expressionism. He also recalls Robert Motherwell, Reuben Nakian and Stanley William Hayter.
Biographical / Historical:
Philip Pavia (1915-2005) was a sculptor from New York, N.Y. In 1948, Pavia founded the artists' group, the Club (also known as the Eighth St. Club), acted as treasurer, and organized it's Wednesday and Friday night panel discussions and lectures.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound tape reel. Reformatted in 2010 as 1 digital wav file. Duration is 1 hr., 26 min.
An unrelated interview of Donald Judd (2/3/65) conducted by B. Hooten is also on this tape.
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 others.
Restrictions:
Use requires an appointment.
Topic:
Sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews Search this
The papers of art historian, dealer, critic, and curator Katharine Kuh measure 12 linear feet and date from 1875-1994, with the bulk of the material dating from 1930-1994. The collection documents Kuh's career as a pioneer modernist art historian and as the first woman curator of European Art and Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago. Found within the papers are biographical material; correspondence with family, friends and colleagues; personal business records; artwork by various artists; a travel journal; writings by Kuh and others; scrapbooks; printed material; photographs of Kuh and others; and audio recordings of Kuh's lectures and of Daniel Catton Rich reading poetry.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of art historian, dealer, critic, and curator Katharine Kuh measure 12 linear feet and date from 1875-1994, with the bulk of the material dating from 1930-1994. Found within the papers are biographical material; correspondence with family, friends and colleagues; personal business records; artwork by various artists; a travel journal; writings by Kuh and others; scrapbooks; printed material; photographs of Kuh and others; and audio recordings of Kuh's lectures and of Daniel Catton Rich reading poetry.
Biographical material consists of copies of Kuh's birth certificate, resumés, passports, award certificates, honorary diplomas, and address books listing information about several prominent artists and colleagues.
Four linear feet of correspondence offers excellent documentation of Kuh's interest in art history, her travels, her career at the Art Institute of Chicago, her work as a corporate art advisor, and as an author. There are letters from her mother Olga Woolf, friends, and colleagues. There is extensive correspondence with various staff members of the Art Institute of Chicago, the First National Bank of Chicago, and The Saturday Review. Also of interest are letters from artists and collectors, several of whom became life-long friends including Walter and Louise Arensberg, Cosmo Campoli, Serge Chermayeff, Richard Cox, Worden Day, Claire Falkenstein, Fred Friendly, Leon Golub, Joseph Goto, David Hare, Denise Brown Hare, Jean Hélion, Ray Johnson, Gyorgy and Juliet Kepes, Len Lye, Wallace Putnam, Kurt Seligmann, Shelby Shackelford, Hedda Sterne, and Clyfford Still. Many letters are illustrated with original artwork in various media.
There are also scattered letters from various artists and other prominent individuals including Josef Albers, George Biddle, Marcel Breuer, Joseph Cornell, Stuart Davis, Edwin Dickinson, Joseph Hirshhorn, Daniel Catton Rich, and Dorothea Tanning.
Personal business records include a list of artwork, Olga Woolf's will, inventories of Kuh's personal art collection, miscellaneous contracts and deeds of gift, receipts for the sale of artwork, files concerning business-related travel, and miscellaneous receipts.
Artwork in the collection represents a wide range of artist friends and media, such as drawings, watercolors, paintings, collages, and prints. Included are works by various artists including lithographs by David Hare and a watercolor set, Technics and Creativity, designed and autographed by Jasper Johns for the Museum of Modern Art, 1970.
Notes and writings include annotated engagement calendars, travel journals for Germany, a guest book for the Kuh Memorial gathering, and many writings and notes by Kuh for lectures and articles concerning art history topics. Of interest are minutes/notes from meetings for art festivals, conferences, and the "Conversations with Artists Program (1961). Also found are writings by others about Kuh and other art history topics.
Six scrapbooks contain clippings that document the height of Kuh's career as a gallery director and museum curator. Scrapbook 6 contains clippings about Fernand Léger, the subject of a retrospective exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1953.
Additional printed material includes clippings about Kuh and her interests, a comprehensive collection of clippings of Kuh's articles for The Saturday Review, exhibition announcements and catalogs, calendars of events, programs, brochures, books including Poems by Kuh as a child, and reproductions of artwork. Of particular interest are the early and exhibition catalogs from the Katharine Kuh Gallery, and rare catalogs for artists including Jean Arp, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Stanley William Hayter, Hans Hofmann, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Franz Kline, Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Pablo Picasso.
Photographs provide important documentation of the life and career of Katharine Kuh and are of Kuh, family members, friends, colleagues, events, residences, and artwork. Several of the photographs of Kuh were taken by Will Barnet and Marcel Breuer and there is a notable pair of photo booth portraits of Kuh and a young Ansel Adams. There are also group photographs showing Angelica Archipenko with Kuh; designer Klaus Grabe; painters José Chavez Morado and Pablo O'Higgins in San Miguel, Mexico; Kuh at the Venice Biennale with friends and colleagues including Peggy Guggenheim, Frances Perkins, Daniel Catton Rich, and Harry Winston; and "The Pre-Depressionists" including Lorser Feitelson, Robert Inverarity, Helen Lundeberg, Arthur Millier, Myron Chester Nutting, and Muriel Tyler Nutting.
Photographs of exhibition installations and openings include views of the Katharine Kuh Gallery; Fernand Léger, Man Ray, and László Moholy-Nagy at the Art Institute of Chicago; and Philip Guston, Jimmy Ernst, Seymour H. Knox, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, and Mark Rothko at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York. There are also photographs depicting three men posing as Léger's "Three Musicians" and the visit of Queen Elizabeth II to the Art Institute of Chicago. There is a photograph by Peter Pollack of an elk skull used as a model by Georgia O'Keeffe.
Additional photographs of friends and colleagues include Ivan Albright, Alfred Barr, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Willem De Kooning, Edwin Dickinson, Marcel Duchamp, Claire Falkenstein, Alberto Giacometti, poet Robert Graves with Len Lye, Philip Johnson, Gyorgy and Juliet Kepes, Carlos Mérida, José Orozco, Hasan Ozbekhan, Pablo Picasso, Carl Sandberg, Ben Shahn, Otto Spaeth, Hedda Sterne, Adlai Stevenson, Clyfford Still, Mark Tobey, and composer Victor Young.
Photographs of artwork include totem poles in Alaska; work by various artists including Claire Falkenstein, Paul Klee, and Hedda Sterne; and work donated to the Guggenheim Museum.
Four audio recordings on cassette are of Katharine Kuh's lectures, including one about assembling corporate collections, and of Daniel Catton Rich reading his own poetry. There is also a recording of the Second Annual Dialogue between Broadcasters and Museum Educators.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 9 series. Undated correspondence, artwork, and photographs of individual artists are arranged alphabetically. Otherwise, each series is arranged chronologically.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1945-1992 (Box 1; 16 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1908-1994 (Boxes 1-5, 13-14, OV 15; 4.0 linear feet)
Series 3: Personal Business Records, 1941-1989 (Box 5; 19 folders)
Series 4: Artwork, 1931-1986 (Boxes 5, 13-14, OVs 15-23; 1.7 linear feet)
Series 5: Notes and Writings, 1914-1994 (Boxes 5-7; 1.7 linear feet)
Series 6: Scrapbooks, 1935-1953 (Box 7; 8 folders)
Series 7: Printed Material, 1916-1992 (Boxes 7-10, 13, OV 22; 3.0 linear feet)
Series 8: Photographs, 1875-1993 (Boxes 10-13; 1.2 linear feet)
Series 9: Audio Recordings, 1977 (Box 12; 1 folder)
Biographical Note:
Katharine Kuh (1904-1994) worked primarily in the Chicago area as an modern art historian, dealer, critic, curator, writer, and consultant. She operated the Katharine Kuh Gallery from 1935-1943 and was the first woman curator of European and Art and Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Katharine Kuh (née Woolf) was born on July 15, 1904 in St. Louis, Missouri, the youngest of the three daughters of Olga Weiner and Morris Woolf, a silk importer. In 1909, the family moved to Chicago, Illinois. While traveling with her family in Europe in 1914, Katharine contracted polio, causing her to spend the next decade in a body brace. During this time of restricted movement, she developed an interest in art history through the collecting of old master prints.
After her recovery, Katharine Woolf attended Vassar College where one of her professors, Alfred Barr, encouraged her to study modern art. She graduated from Vassar in 1925 and received a master's degree in art history from the University of Chicago in 1929. Later that year, she moved to New York to pursue a Ph.D. in Renaissance and medieval art at New York University.
In 1930, Katharine Woolf returned to Chicago and married businessman George Kuh and began to teach art history courses in the suburbs of Chicago. After divorcing George Kuh in 1935, she opened the Katharine Kuh Gallery, the first gallery devoted to avant-garde art in Chicago. It was also the first gallery to exhibit photography and typographical design as art forms, and featured the work of Ansel Adams, Josef Albers, Alexander Calder, Wassily Kandinsky, Fernand Léger, and Man Ray, among others. From 1938 to1940, Kuh was the Visiting Professor of Art at the University School of Fine Arts, San Miguel, Mexico.
After the Katharine Kuh Gallery closed in 1943, Kuh was hired by museum director Daniel Catton Rich to fill a position in public relations at the Art Institute of Chicago. During the following years, Kuh edited the museum's Quarterly publication, took charge of the museum's Gallery of Interpretive Art, and began a long term relationship with Rich. In 1946, Kuh was sent on a special mission for the U. S. Office of Indian Affairs to make a detailed study of Native American totemic carvings in Alaska.
In 1949, Kuh persuaded Mr. and Mrs. Walter Arensberg of Los Angeles to exhibit their collection of modern art, creating the first post-war exhibition of modern art in Chicago. She published her first book Art Has Many Faces in 1951, and in the following year, she began writing art criticism for The Saturday Review. In 1954, Kuh was appointed the first woman curator of European Art and Sculpture at the Art Institute. She assembled the American contribution for the Venice Biennale in 1956 and during these years, Kuh helped acquire many of the works of modern art currently in the museum's collection.
A year following Daniel Catton Rich's 1958 resignation from the Art Institute of Chicago, Kuh also resigned and pursued a career in New York as an art collection advisor, most notably for the First National Bank of Chicago. In 1959, Kuh was made art critic for The Saturday Review, and she continued to publish books, including The Artist's Voice in 1962, Break-Up: The Core of Modern Art in 1965, and The Open Eye: In Pursuit of Art in 1971.
Katharine Kuh died on January 10, 1994 in New York City.
Provenance:
The Katharine Kuh papers were donated in several installments from 1971 to 1989 by Katharine Kuh and in 1994 by her estate. Artwork was donated in 1995 by Kuh's former employer, the Art Institute of Chicago.
Restrictions:
Authorization to quote, publish or reproduce requires written permission until 2019. Contact the Archives of American Art Reference Services department for additional 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 Hungarian-born artist, art theorist, and educator, Gyorgy Kepes, measure 21.2 linear feet and date from 1909-2003, with the bulk of the material dating from the 1935-1985. The papers document Kepes's career as an artist and educator, and as founder of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), through biographical material, correspondence, writings by Kepes and others, project files, exhibition files, printed material, sketchbooks, artwork, sound recordings and motion picture films, and photographic material.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Hungarian-born artist, art theorist, and educator, Gyorgy Kepes, measure 21.2 linear feet and date from 1909-2003, with the bulk of the material dating from the 1935-1985. The papers document Kepes's career as an artist and educator, and as founder of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), through biographical material, correspondence, writings by Kepes and others, project files, exhibition files, printed material, sketchbooks, artwork, sound recordings and motion picture films, and photographic material.
Correspondence provides a wide range of documentation on all aspects of Kepes's career including his collaborations and friendships with artists, architects, writers, scientists, and fellow educators including Rudolf Arnheim, Alexander Calder, Henry Dreyfuss, Charles and Ray Eames, Clive Entwhistle, R. Buckminster Fuller, Walter Gropius, S. W. Hayter, Jean Hélion, Laszlo and Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, Lev Nussberg, Robert Osborn, George Rickey, Saul Steinberg, Kenzo Tange, Robert Jay Wolff, and Jekabs Zvilna. Correspondence also documents the evolution of Kepes's vision for the Center for Advanced Visual Studies, which he established in 1967, and his subsequent leadership of CAVS at M.I.T. Records document his collaborations with students and fellows including Lowry Burgess, Jack Burnham, Piotry Kowalski, Margaret Mead, Otto Piene, Alan Sonfist, Athena Tacha, Vassilakis Takis, Philip Thiel, Harold Tovish, and Wen-Ying Tsai. Correspondents also include people who contributed to Kepes's Vision + Value series, including Michael Blee, Kazuhiko Egawa, Jean Hélion, and others. Correspondence includes three motion picture films, including what appears to be an early version of Powers of Ten by Charles and Ray Eames.
Writings include notes and manuscripts for articles and essays in which Kepes explored ideas evident in his books The New Landscape and Language of Vision, and submitted to publications such as Daedalus, Design, Domus, and Leonardo. Writings also include manuscripts for lectures, and draft manuscripts documenting Kepes's collaborative work with fellow M.I.T. professor Kevin Lynch on city planning, which culminated in Lynch's research project "The Perceptual Form of the City."
A small group of "Times Square Project" files documents Kepes's proposal for a lightscape in Times Square that was ultimately not realized.
Teaching files include sound recordings of circa five symposia and discussions held at M.I.T., the Illinois Institute of Technology, and elsewhere, some featuring Kepes and including Philip Johnson, Eero Saarinen and others.
Exhibition files include documentation of three exhibitions, including Light as a Creative Medium (1968) and a Kepes exhibition at Saidenberg Gallery (1968). They also record Kepes's involvement in designing the 1968 Triennale di Milano.
Printed material includes a substantial collection of announcements and catalogs for Kepes exhibitions, lectures, and other events, and includes catalogs and announcements for scattered exhibitions of his wife, artist and illustrator, Juliet Kepes. Clippings from newspapers and magazines include articles about Kepes, and contain some copies of published writings and designs by him. The series also includes sound recordings and motion picture films containing original material for a CBS television series "The 21st Century," probably as part of the episode "Art for Tomorrow," which appear to feature M.I.T. fellows Jack Burnham and Vassilakis Takis. Another motion picture film of an Italian documentary "Operazione Cometa" can also be found here.
Two sketchbooks contain pen and ink and painted sketches by Kepes. Artwork by Kepes includes original poster designs, caricatures, and many pencil, and pen and ink sketches and paintings on paper and board, including designs for stained glass. Artwork by others includes ink on mylar sketches by D. Judelson and Konstancija Brazdys, and a sketch by Harold Tovish. Also found are circa seventeen motion picture films and four sound recordings, the majority of which are untitled and by unidentified artists, but include films by M.I.T. fellows Otto Piene, Vassilakis Takis, Philip Thiel, Harold Tovish, Wen-Ying Tsai, and others.
Photographs are of Kepes, Juliet Kepes, and other family members; students, colleagues, and friends, including R. Buckminster Fuller, Serge Chermayeff, Harry Bertoia, Varujan Boghosian, Alexander Calder, Marchall McLuhan, Margaret Mead, Herbert Read, I. A. Richards, Saul Steinberg, and William Wurster; and of Kepes in his studio. There are also photos of exhibition installations in which Kepes's work appeared or which he designed, and photos of his artwork and of images for publications which he wrote or edited. Photos by others include artwork by established artists and work by students, as well as photographs arranged by subjects such as cityscapes, forms found in nature, light patterns, mechanical devices, and photomicrographs. A collection of lantern slides with similar content to the photos of artwork and photos by subject is also found in this series and includes a lantern slide of Picasso creating a design with light.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as eleven series.
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1940-circa 1980 (0.25 linear feet; Boxes 1, 28)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1936-1984 (5.7 linear feet; Boxes 1-7, 28 OV 33, FCs 39-41)
Series 3: Interviews and Transcripts, 1954-1970 (4 folders; Box 7)
Series 4: Writings and Notes, 1948-circa 1980s (1.4 linear feet; Boxes 7-8, 28)
Series 5: Times Square Project Files, 1972-1974 (6 folders; Box 9)
Series 6: Teaching Files Sound Recordings, circa 1953-1972 (0.7 linear feet; Box 9)
Series 7: Exhibition Files, 1958-1973 (0.4 linear feet; Boxes 9-10)
Series 8: Printed Material, circa 1922-1989 (3.6 linear feet; Boxes 10-12, 28-29, OVs 35, 37, FCs 42-49)
Series 9: Sketchbooks, circa 1940s-circa 1970s (2 folders; Box 12)
Series 10: Artwork and Moving Images, circa 1924-2003 (2.5 linear feet; Boxes 12, 13, OVs 33-36, 38, FCs 50-62)
Series 11: Photographs, 1909-1988 (10.4 linear feet; Boxes 13-32)
Biographical / Historical:
Painter, designer, art theorist, and educator, Gyorgy Kepes (1906-2001), was born in Selyp, Hungary, and studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Budapest. He worked with Moholy-Nagy in Berlin and London before joining him at the New Bauhaus (later the Chicago Institute of Design) in 1937.
Kepes taught courses at the New Bauhaus from 1937 to 1945, and published Language of Vision in 1944, summarizing the educational ideas and methods he had developed during his time at the institute. In 1946 he accepted a teaching position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) where he initiated a program in visual design.
In 1956 Kepes published The New Landscape in Art and Science, in which he presented images from nature that were newly accessible due to developments in science and technology, and explored his ideas for a common language between science and the visual arts.
In 1965, these ideas were apparent in Kepes's proposal of an expanded visual arts program at M.I.T., which would "build new as yet undetermined bridges between art and engineering and science," according to the minutes of an M.I.T. Art Committee meeting in March of that year. Kepes's vision dovetailed with M.I.T.'s vested interest in promoting the arts, and faculty and administrators were open to the argument that "The scientific-technical enterprise needs schooling by the artistic sensibilities." In 1967, they appointed Kepes Director of M.I.T.'s Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS).
Kepes retired from the regular faculty at M.I.T. in 1967, to focus on his role as director of CAVS, where he worked to provide artists with opportunities for exploring new artistic forms on a civic scale through a working dialogue with scientists and engineers. Early fellows of the center included Maryanne Amacher, Joan Brigham, Lowry Burgess, Jack Burnham, Piotry Kowalski, Otto Piene, Vassilakis Takis, and Wen-Ying Tsai.
In 1965-1966 Kepes edited a six-volume series entitled Vision + Value, published by George Braziller, Inc. Each volume featured essays that centered around a core theme: The Education of Vision; Structure in Art and Science; The Nature and Art of Motion; Module, Symmetry, Proportion, Rhythm; Sign, Image, Symbol; and Man-Made Object. Contributions came from prominent artists, designers, architects, and scientists of the time including Rudolf Arnheim, Saul Bass, Marcel Breuer, John Cage, R. Buckminster Fuller, Johannes Itten, Marshall McLuhan, and Paul Rand.
Kepes experimented widely with photography, producing abstract images through the application of fluids and objects to photographic paper. He also took commercial work throughout his career, producing designs for all kinds of objects, including books and stained glass windows for churches. He returned to painting in the 1950s, and his development as a painter continued throughout his career at M.I.T., where he remained until his retirement in 1974, and beyond. His paintings, which were abstract and often incorporated organic shapes and hints of landscapes, can be found in museums such as the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Kepes received many awards during his lifetime, including a Guggenheim Fellowship (1958); the Gold Star Award of the Philadelphia College of Art (1958); the National Association of Art Colleges Annual Award (1968); the California College of Art Award (1968); and the Fine Arts Medal from the American Institute of Architects (1968). In 1973 he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an associate member, and became a full academician in 1978. He was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Related Materials:
Additional papers of Gyorgy Kepes can be found at Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Advanced Visual Studies Special Collection.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming (reel 1211) including ninety-eight letters to Kepes from colleagues, 1946-1974. Lent materials were returned to the lender and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
Gyorgy Kepes lent papers for microfilming in 1974 and donated material to the Archives of American Art in a series of gifts between 1974 and 1993.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate copies requires advance notice.
Rights:
Authorization to publish, quote, or reproduce requires written permission from Juliet Kepes Stone or Imre Kepes. Contact Reference Services for more information.
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
An interview of Berthe von Moschzisker conducted 1990 November 26, by Anne Schuster Hunter, for the Archives of American Art Philadelphia Project.
Von Moschzisker speaks about her background and education; cataloging the John S. Phillips print collection at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; her tenure as director of the Print Club of Philadelphia, including editions published for the club by Leonard Baskin and others; print workshops including Prints in Progress run by Stanley William Hayter; the Print Club Permanent Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art; supporters of the club; and the status of prints within the Philadelphia art community.
Biographical / Historical:
Berthe von Moschzisker (1915-2002) was the director of the Print Club of Philadelphia from 1944-1969.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 4 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hr., 41 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives' 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: Patrons must use microfilm copy.
Occupation:
Arts administrators -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia -- Interviews Search this
Topic:
Prints -- Societies, etc. -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia Search this
Interview of Karl Schrag conducted 1970 October 14-20, by Paul Cummings, for the Archives of American Art. Schrag speaks of his childhood in Germany; how his parents were nervous about him becoming an artist; going to various art schools; studying with Bissiere; his first exhibition in Brussels; moving to America because of the political situation in Europe; enrolling in the Art Students League; getting involved with Atelier 17; how the mid-1940s were crucial in his development; American artists he found interesting; his thoughts on the Abstract Expressionists; how he started teaching; joining Tamarind workshop; his first retrospective, the Ford Foundation-A.F.A Show; being on the Fulbright jury; how his pictures relate to each other; his technique; and becoming the Director of Atelier 17. He recalls Andre L'Hote, Roger Bissiere, Harry Sternberg, Anton Refregier, William Kienbusch, Fred Farr, Carroll Cloar, John Sloan, Maurice Becker, Stanley William Hayter, Yves Tanguy, Bohuslav Horak, Robert Broner, Margaret Lowenbraun, and many others.
Biographical / Historical:
Karl Schrag (1912-1995) was a painter and printmaker from New York, N.Y.
General:
Tape 2 is mostly blank.
Originally recorded on 3 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 8 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hr., 25 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 is available on the Archives of American Art's website.
An interview of Alvin S. Romansky conducted 1979 September 17, by Sandra Curtis Levy, for the Archives of American Art.
Romansky speaks of his history as a painter, ceramist, and collector; the art scene in Houston as he knew it; his political and law activities; artists and collectors who were his friends and associates; the Contemporary Arts Association; his European experiences; his personal philosophies; and the future of museums. He recalls the Blaffer family, Alexander Calder, Nina Cullinan, and John and Dominique de Menil; William Hayter and Buck Schiwetz.
Biographical / Historical:
Alvin S. Romansky (1907-1994) was a painter, ceramist, and collector of Houston, Tex.
General:
Originally recorded on 6 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 11 digital wav files. Duration is 6 hr., 43 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.
Microfilmed as part of the Archives of American Art's Texas project.
An interview of Gabor Peterdi conducted 1971 Apr. 29, by Paul Cummings, for the Archives of American Art. Peterdi speaks of his youth in Hungary and his early desire to be a painter, Paris and his first encounter with surrealism, studying printmaking with Stanley William Hayter and the Paris art scene in the 1930s. He comments on coming to the U.S. in 1939, his involvement with the Julien Levy, Norlyst, Laurel and Borgenicht Galleries and his service in the U.S. Army. He discusses Hayter's New York studio, the International Graphic Arts Society, teaching at the Brooklyn Museum Art School and starting its graphics workshop, the interaction of prints and paintings, symbolism, teaching, various print techniques and printmaking as a creative art form. He recalls Jeanne Bucher, Bill Hayter, Howard Putzel and Julien Levy.
Biographical / Historical:
Gabor Peterdi (1915-2001) was a printmaker from New York, N.Y.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 3 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hr., 15 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives' 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.
An interview of George Earl Ortman conducted 1963 Sept. 19-Nov. 5, by Richard Brown Baker, for the Archives of American Art.
Ortman speaks of critics' reviews of his work; his reactions to the early abstract expressionists; his family background and early experiences; his education; the California environment and its influence on him; his U.S. Navy service; the art scene in San Francisco in the 1940s; other artists he was acquainted with; coming to New York; influences on contemporary artists; pop art; establishing a reputation as a printmaker; studying under William Hayter; his time spent in France; development of his style; problems of making a living in art; his work in theatrical design; realism versus abstraction; his teaching career; exhibits he has had. He recalls Eleanor Ward, Howard Wise, Willem de Kooning, Nathan Oliveira, Gandy Brodie, Hans Hofmann, and Joan Mitchell.
Biographical / Historical:
George Earl Ortman (1926- ) is a painter, sculptor, and printmaker from Bloomfield Hills, Mich.
General:
Originally recorded on 4 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 52 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.
276 photographs, ca. 1946-1966, taken by Kalisher of artists teaching at Bennington College, Bennington, Vermont, Black Mountain College, North Carolina, and the MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, New Hampshire.
Artists include: Peter Abate, Kongo Abe, Cora-Beth Abel, Samuel M. Adler, Paul Aschenbach, Josef Albers, Ture Bengtz, Wieslaw Borowski, Ms. Coonhan, Jan Cox, Merce Cunningham, Dorothy Dehner, Elaine de Kooning, Garabed der Hovanesian, Blanche Dombek, Jan Doubrova, Franc Epping, Vernon Fimple, Miles Forst, Helen Frankenthaler, Buckminster Fuller, David Gil, Maurice Glickman, Julio Granda, Philip Grausman, Cleve Gray, Stanley William Hayter, Victoria Kilbourn, Oskar Kokoschka, Alexander Lieberman, Michael Mazur, ? McKenzie, Ivan Mestrovic, George L. K. Morris, Robert Motherwell, Alice Neel, Kenneth Noland, Mine Okubo, Gregorio Prestopino, Norman Rockwell, Jakob Rosenberg, David Smith, John Torres, Wen Ying Tsai, Asapia Voulis, Iain Whitecross, Marguerite Wildenhain, and ? Zhermansky.
Biographical / Historical:
Photographer.
Provenance:
Lent for microfilming 1982 by Clemens Kalischer.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
An interview of Jacob Kainen conducted 1982 Aug. 10-1982 Sept. 22, by Avis Berman, for the Archives of American Art's Mark Rothko and His Times oral history project.
Kainen speaks about his family and educational background; early interest in art; his studies at the Art Students League and Pratt Institute; showing at the ACA Gallery; the community of artists in New York in the late 1930s; writing for ART FRONT; his employment by the graphic arts division of the WPA-FAP in New York; his move to Washington, D.C., in 1942, to work for the Smithsonian Institution; his first marriage to Bertha Friedman and their children; his career in Washinton, D.C. as a curator, painter, printmaker, writer, and teacher; the FBI investigation of his background; and the art scene in Washington, D.C. Kainen also recalls artists he has known including Stuart Davis, Joseph Solman, John Graham, Mark Rothko, Pietro Lazzari, Willem de Kooning, Max Schnitzler, Arshile Gorky, Gene Davis, Alma Thomas, George McNeil, Kenneth Noland, Boris Margo, Stanley Hayter, and Ad Reinhardt. He discusses Mark Rothko's influences, how he "hated the art industry" and was secretive about his art materials. Kainen also recalls encountering Rothko in Provincetown in 1968 and comments on his art and his suicide. Jacob Kainen's wife, Ruth, was also present and contributed her recollections.
Biographical / Historical:
Jacob Kainen (1909-2001) was a painter, printmaker, and curator from Washington, D.C. Studied at the Art Students League and Pratt Institute; died at age 91.
Provenance:
This interview was conducted as part of the Archives of American Art's Mark Rothko and his Times oral history project, with funding provided by the Mark Rothko Foundation.
Others interviewed on the project (by various interviewers) include: Sonia Allen, Sally Avery, Ben-Zion, Bernard Braddon, Ernest Briggs, Rhys Caparn, Elaine de Kooning, Herbert Ferber, Esther Gottlieb, Juliette Hays, Sidney Janis, Buffie Johnson, Louis Kaufman, Jack Kufeld, Katharine Kuh, Stanley Kunitz, Joseph Liss, Dorothy Miller, Betty Parsons, Wallace Putnam, Rebecca Reis, Maurice Roth, Sidney Schectman, Aaron Siskind, Joseph Solman, Hedda Sterne, Jack Tworkov, Esteban Vicente and Ed Weinstein. Each has been cataloged separately.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Occupation:
Painters -- Washington (D.C.) -- Interviews Search this
The papers of printmaker and painter Adolf Dehn measure 6.6 linear feet and date from 1912-1987. The collection contains extensive correspondence, as well as writings, exhibition announcements, catalogs, clippings, invoices, receipts, legal documents, scrapbooks, artwork, and photographs. There is also scattered correspondence of Virginia Dehn, mostly concerning her husband Adolf Dehn.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of printmaker and painter Adolf Dehn measure 6.6 linear feet and date from 1912-1987. The collection contains extensive correspondence, as well as writings, exhibition announcements, catalogs, clippings, invoices, receipts, legal documents, scrapbooks, artwork, and photographs. There is also scattered correspondence of Virginia Dehn, mostly concerning her husband Adolf Dehn.
Found within the biographical materials are several address books, official travel documents, exhibition price lists, and a biographical sketch.
Correspondence, both personal and business, makes up the bulk of this collection. Dehn maintained long friendships with many fellow artists and his correspondence includes letters from Aaron Bohrod, Federico Castellon, Albert Christ-Janer, Wanda Gág, Gustav Goetsch, George Grosz, Reginald Marsh, Elizabeth Olds, Abraham Rattner, Boardman Robinson, Frederick Shane, William Smith, and Benton Spruance. Additional notable correspondents include print dealer and curator Carl Zigrosser; journalists Max Eastman, Joseph Freeman, Frederick Kuh; editor Scofield Thayer, and his former wife, the Russian dancer Mura Dehn (neé Tsiperovitch). Business correspondence includes letters from art schools, associations, museums, and galleries affiliated with Dehn, including the Weyhe Gallery; Associated American Artists, a gallery that promoted American art to the middle classes; and the Kennedy Gallery, which represented the Dehn estate upon the artist's death. There is also correspondence from companies and organizations that commissioned commercial work from Dehn, such as greeting card publisher, American Artists Group . Finally the correspondence of Virginia Dehn includes letters to and from the University of Missouri Press related to the publication of Adolf Dehn Drawings and condolence cards and letters from friends and associates after the Adolf Dehn's death in May 1968.
Writings include manuscripts for Adolf Dehn's manual on painting technique, Watercolor, Gouache, and Casein Painting (Studio Publications, 1955), as well as his entries on technique and watercolor painting for Encyclopedia Britannica. Writings by others includes the catalog Adolf Dehn Drawings, prepared by his wife Virginia Dehn, and published in 1971 by the University of Missouri Press. There is also a journal with handwritten poems attributed to Eileen Hall Lake.
Printed materials consists of exhibition announcements and catalogs from galleries featuring Dehn's work including the Weyhe Gallery and Associated American Artists; art school brochures and newsletters from programs which Dehn attended or taught; and newspaper and magazine clippings including examples of his editorial cartoons, which appeared in The Liberator, The New Yorker, and Vanity Fair, among other publications as well as clippings of news items related to the artist. This series also includes examples of Dehn's commercial work, such as book covers, calendars, and Christmas cards. Additional similar printed materials can be found in the scrapbooks. Artwork consists of only a few sketches attributed to Dehn, others to Eileen Lake Hall, and an etching by S.W. Hayter.
Dehn is well documented through numerous photographs, both alone and with others, including a portrait by the renowned photographer André Kertész. Additional vintage photographs include Dehn with family members, friends, and a series of photographs taken with his wife, Virginia Dehn at Atelier Desjobert, where he had been making lithographs since the 1920s.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into 8 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1920-1968 (Box 1; 10 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1919-1982 (Boxes 1-4; 3.75 linear feet)
Series 3: Writings, circa 1920-1971 (Boxes 4-5; 0.25 linear feet)
Series 4: Financial Records, 1936-1965 (Box 5; 0.5 linear feet)
Series 5: Printed Materials, circa 1915-1987 (Boxes 5-6; 1.2 linear feet)
Series 6: Scrapbooks, 1912-1968(Boxes 6-7; 0.5 linear feet)
Series 7: Artwork, circa 1920-1945 (Box 6; 3 folders)
Series 8: Photographs, circa 1912-1961 (Boxes 6 and 8; 7 folders)
Biographical Note:
Adolf Dehn (1895-1968) was well-known for his drawings, lithographs and watercolors which satirically chronicled the social and political milieu of his times, as well as poetic landscapes, many of which depicted the rolling hills and farmlands of his native Midwest. Although he worked mostly in New York, Dehn also spent substantial time traveling and working in Europe, the Middle East, South America, and the American mid-west.
Dehn was born on a farm in Waterville, Minnesota on November 22, 1895, he began his formal art education in 1914 at the Minneapolis School of Art (currently known as the Minneapolis College of Art and Design). As a student, his drawings were featured in the school's humor journal, The Minne-Ha-Ha and by 1917 he had published his first drawing in one of his favorite political journals, The Masses. Later that year he and fellow Minneapolis School of Art student Wanda Gág were among a select group of art students nationwide who won scholarships to the Art Students League of New York. After only eight months in New York, however, Dehn was drafted into the Army to serve in the final months of World War I, but he proclaimed himself as a conscientious objector and was sent to Camp Wadsworth in South Carolina for several months.
Dehn returned to New York, where his friend and mentor Boardman Robinson introduced him to lithography through the master printer George Miller and brought him to the Weyhe Gallery to meet Carl Zigrosser, an avid supporter of American printmakers. However, he soon left New York for Europe in September 1921 where he spent most of the following eight years. There he traveled with his sketchbooks to the cafes and opera houses of Berlin, Paris, and Vienna, as well as on hiking trips in the Alps. He became friends with the poet E.E. Cummings, Scofield Thayer, editor of The Dial, who published many of his drawings, and met the German artist, George Grosz, whose work he so admired. In addition to The Dial, his satirical drawings of jazz-age entertainments and European cafe life also appeared in , The Liberator, Jugend, Vanity Fair, and Simplicissimus. Finally during his stint in Europe, Dehn met and married the Russian dancer Mura Tsiperovitch. They were married in Vienna in 1926, but divorced sometime in the early 1930s.
Unfortunately Dehn's return to the United States coincided with the Great Depression of 1929 and sales of his work were slim. However in the 1930s, The New Yorker and Vogue began to publish his work. He continued to work in lithography and returned to Paris to work at the Atelier Desjobert, the print studio with whom he worked most closely throughout his life. In the late 1930s, Dehn began working in watercolors, mostly rural landscapes, and had a one man show of works in his new medium at Weyhe Gallery in 1938. In 1939 Dehn traveled through the Southwest and Mexico on his first Guggenheim Fellowship (he was awarded his second in 1951).
By the 1940s Dehn was an active member of both the American Artists Group and Associated American Artists; both organizations sought to popularize contemporary American Art, primarily through reproductions of fine art prints and commercial use of artists' designs on greeting card, calendars, and even wall paper. Appreciation for his lithographs and watercolors grew, and along with it his recognition. He also taught art classes a few summers; in the late 1930s at Stephens College, Columbia, Missouri where his friend Albert Janner-Christ was head of the art department and in the early 1940s at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, where friend and mentor Boardman Robinson was the director. In 1955 he published Watercolor, Gouache, and Casein Painting, a manual on technique. Throughout the rest of his life he continued to travel, not only returning to Europe, but also visiting Afganistan, Cuba, Haiti, and a trip to Venuzuala on assignment from Standard Oil to document the oil industry there. On many of his later trips, he was accompanied by his wife, fellow artist, Virginia Engleman Dehn, whom he had married in November 1947.
Near the end of his long career, Dehn was elected in 1961 to the National Academy of Design as a full academician. He was later elected to the National Academy of Arts and Letters. After his death in 1968, his wife Virginia worked with the University of Missouri Press on the catalog Adolf Dehn Drawings (Columbia: University of Missouri, 1971).
Separated Material:
The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming. Reel 287 contains printed materials, including exhibition announcements, catalogs, magazines, and newspaper and magazine clippings. After filming, these materials were transferred to the Smithsonian American Art Museum/National Portrait Gallery Library. Reels 2938-2939 include 750 letters from Adolf Dehn to various family members. This material was returned to the lender and is not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
The Adolf Dehn papers were donated in several installments from 1966 to 1985 by Adolf Dehn and his wife Virginia. Dehn's sisters, Viola Dehn Tiala and Olivia Dehn Mitchell, separately donated additional materials in 1971 and 1972. Olivia Dehn Mitchell also loaned the Archives letters from Adolf in 1983 for microfilming. Finally in 1989, Lillian Morrison, a friend and editor, donated a published book of Mura Dehn's poetry and a four page draft of a letter signed by Adolf Dehn.
Restrictions:
Use of originals 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 papers of printmaker and educator Fred Becker measure 3.4 linear feet and date from 1913 to 2004, with the bulk from 1940-2000. The collection documents Becker's work as a professional artist and educator through biographical material, personal and professional correspondence, writings, interviews, personal business records, gallery and exhibition files, project files, photographic material, printed material, and artwork.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of printmaker and educator Fred Becker measure 3.4 linear feet and date from 1913 to 2004, with the bulk from 1940 to 2000. The collection documents Becker's work as a professional artist and educator through biographical material, personal and professional correspondence, writings, interviews, personal business records, gallery and exhibition files, project files, photographic material, printed material, and artwork.
Biographical material includes a birth certificate and announcement, résumés and other biographical writings, as well as memorial materials and obituaries. Also included are letters and photographs concerning Becker's WWII appointment with the Office of War Information in China. Correspondence reflects relationships with colleagues and friends including Stanley William Hayter, Gail Singer, and Mona Van Duyn, professional organizations, museums and galleries, as well as family. The Writings series contains essays and artist statements written by Becker, articles and essays written about Becker by others, and writings by poets Ruthven Todd and Mona Van Duyn. Lectures are featured in written form, as well as audio recordings. Interviews include transcripts and audio and video recordings.
Personal business records include various studio artwork inventories and information regarding artwork donation and sale at auction, in addition to documents related to Becker's role as an art instructor. In the gallery and exhibition files are detailed records of gallery and museum exhibitions, as well as correspondence with specific galleries including the Mary Ryan Gallery. Project files include documentation of various residencies and government art programs Becker participated in, a symposium on Atelier 17, as well as significant bodies of work.
Photographic materials document Becker's artwork, including images of works by fellow artists S.W. Hayter and Paul Burlin. Photograph formats include slides, transparencies, negatives, and black and white prints. Printed material includes exhibition catalogs, clippings and invitations. Also found are various artworks including sketchbooks, loose sketches, prints, and a partial letterpress mock-up of Winter of Artifice, printed by author Anaïs Nin, with various etching illustrations by Ian Hugo.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged in 10 series:
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1913-2004 (0.1 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 2: Correspondence, circa 1940s-2001 (0.7 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 3: Writings, circa 1940s-1993 (0.1 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 4: Interviews, circa 1976-2004 (0.2 linear feet; Boxes 1-2)
Series 5: Personal Business Records, circa 1939-1990s (0.1 linear feet; Box 2)
Series 6: Exhibition and Gallery Records, circa 1950-2002 (0.2 linear feet; Box 2)
Series 7: Project Files, circa 1957-1993 (0.1 linear feet; Box 2)
Series 8: Photographic Material, circa 1930s-1999 (0.3 linear feet; Box 2)
Series 9: Printed Material, circa 1930s-2002 (0.8 linear feet; Boxes 2-3)
Series 10: Artwork, circa 1940-1989 (0.6 linear feet; Boxes 3-4)
Biographical / Historical:
Fred Becker (1913-2004) was a printmaker and art educator in Amherst, Massachusetts. Becker was born in 1913 in Oakland, California. He attended New York University beginning in 1933, where he enrolled in architecture coursework before focusing on printmaking and drawing. Becker was employed by the Works Progress Administration from 1935 to 1939. His early work of this period often incorporated nightclub scenes depicting jazz musicians. In 1940, Becker was one of the first students to enroll in classes at the New York iteration of Atelier 17, led by printmaker Stanley William Hayter. There Becker engaged with more abstract forms in his art-making, and arrived at an expressionist style by the 1950s. He served in the China Division of the United States Office of War Information (OWI) from 1945 to 1946.
Becker taught at the Tayler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia, from 1946 to 1948; at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, from 1948 to 1968; and at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst from 1968 until his retirement in 1986. University of Massachusetts, Amherst's Herter Gallery was the site of his retrospective in 1999. Becker and his wife, painter Jean Morrison (1917-1995), had two children Carla and Anton. Fred Becker exhibited widely in print annuals and solo shows, as well as in the context of his participation in the Works Progress Administration and Atelier 17, New York. His prints are represented in a number of museum collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
Provenance:
The Fred Becker papers were donated to the Archives of American Art in 2018 by Becker's daughter Carla Becker.
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.
