An interview of Anna Hyatt-Huntington conducted circa 1964, by Dorothy Seckler, for the Archives of American Art.
Hyatt-Huntington speaks of having no formal art training; studying animals and their anatomy; first piece with her sister; Balchalx Circus; New York at age 24 sculpting and selling pieces; her stays in France and Naples; use of old Daubigny studio; sources of animals for models; New York studio; methods of work; process of enlarging pieces; period of illness; her marriage to Archer Huntington; sculptures, "Joan of Arc," "Don Quixote," "Touch of Arrow," "Lion"; realism in her work; travels in Spain, North Africa; and Thomas W. Lawson, Archer Huntington, and Brookgreen Gardens.
Biographical / Historical:
Animal sculptor, Bethel, Conn., b. 1876; d. 1973
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 available on the Archives of American Art website.
The papers of sculptor Bessie Potter Vonnoh measure 0.8 linear feet and date from circa 1860 to 1991, with the bulk of material dating from 1890 to 1955. The scattered papers document the personal life and career of Bessie Potter Vonnoh, and, to a lesser degree, her husband, painter Robert William Vonnoh. Found within the papers are Vonnoh family correspondence, including letters between Bessie and Robert, and professional and personal correspondence, primarily Bessie's. The collection also contains scattered biographical materials, photographs of the Vonnohs, a photograph album, photographs of artwork, clippings, exhibition catalogs, and other printed material.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of sculptor Bessie Potter Vonnoh measure 0.8 linear feet and date from circa 1860 to 1991, with the bulk of material dating from 1890 to 1955. The scattered papers document the personal life and career of Bessie Potter Vonnoh, and, to a lesser degree, her husband, painter Robert William Vonnoh. Found within the papers are Vonnoh family correspondence, including letters between Bessie and Robert, and primarily Bessie's professional and personal correspondence. There is one folder of correspondence of Robert William Vonnoh. Bessie's correspondents include Daniel Chester French, Hamlin Garland, Rupert Hughes, Archer Huntington, Larkin G. Mead, Jean Francois Raffaelli, Cornelia Otis Skinner, and others. Robert's correspondents include Charles M. Carter, Daniel Chester French, William M. R. French, and Charles Vezin. The collection also contains scattered biographical materials, photographs of Bessie Potter Vonnoh and Robert William Vonnoh, a photograph album, photographs of artwork, clippings, exhibition catalogs, and other printed material.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into 4 series:
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1922-1955 (Box 1; 5 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, circa 1863-1985 (Box 1; 11 folders)
Series 3: Photographs, circa 1860-1950 (Box 1-2; 0.4 linear feet)
Series 4: Printed Material, 1901-1991 (Box 2; 9 folders)
Biographical Note:
Bessie Potter Vonnoh (1872-1955) was born in St. Louis, Missouri to Alexander and Mary McKenney Potter. In 1874, after the death of her father, her family moved to Chicago. Also at this time, she suffered from a series of illnesses that she did not recover from until she was ten. In school she enjoyed clay-modeling class and decided at an early age that she wanted to be a sculptor. Beginning in 1890 she studied with Lorado Taft at the Art Institute of Chicago and later became one of his assistants (known as the "White Rabbits") for the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. She was also given her own commission for the Illinois building at the fair. After this success, Vonnoh opened her own studio in Chicago and made plaster figurines of society women, friends, and their children. She visited New York and took her first trip to Paris in 1895, visiting the studios of many eminent sculptors such as Auguste Rodin. Her work was influenced by the American Impressionist movement, depicted in one of her most famous works, Young Mother. This piece was exhibited in the National Sculpture Society exhibition of 1898 and led to several public sculpture commissions.
In 1899 Bessie Potter Vonnoh moved to New York City and married Impressionist painter, Robert William Vonnoh (1858-1933). They lived in New York and maintained a summer home in Lyme, Connecticut. During her career she received many awards for her works at international exhibitions, including two bronze medals at the Paris Exposition in 1900. Other landmark events included a solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in 1913 and membership into the National Academy of Design in 1921 - the first female sculptor accepted as a permanent member. Vonnoh's work was very well received by the public, and in the 1920s she began working on a larger scale, creating large fountains, such as the Frances Hodgson Burnett Memorial Fountain in Central Park, New York, and other decorative garden figures. Robert Vonnoh died in 1933 and, in 1948, she married Dr. Edward Keyes. Bessie Potter Vonnoh died in New York City in 1955 at the age of 82.
Provenance:
The collection was donated in 1995 by Lulette Jenness Thompson, a cousin of Bessie Potter Vonnoh.
Restrictions:
The collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website.
Rights:
The Bessie Potter Vonnoh papers are owned by the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Literary rights as possessed by the donor have been dedicated to public use for research, study, and scholarship. The collection is subject to all copyright laws.
REEL D359: Correspondence, 1946-1958, with galleries, art associations and clubs including the Century Association, the National Academy of Design; also, one letter from Archer M. Huntington and 2 from Elihu Root; photographs of Nichols and his work; clippings; and exhibition announcements and catalogs.
REEL 64: Photographs, including 42 photographs of paintings by Nichols, 1 photograph of him, and 1 of the 1948 exhibition "Painting in the United States" held at the Carnegie Institute.
Biographical / Historical:
Landscape painter and illustrator; Bronxville, New York. Born in Washington, D.C. Studied at the Academie Julian. President of the National Academy of Design, 1939-1949, President Emeritus, from 1949; Vice-President and Director, Tiffany Foundation, New York; Assistant to Director of Fine Arts, United States Commission, Paris Exposition 1900.
Provenance:
Material donated by Leonora Nichols, Hobart Nichols' daughter, 1968.
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:
Arts administrators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Landscape painters -- New York (State) Search this
Letters, business records, diary, and photographs.
REEL 380-413: Primarily correspondence, mostly Gardner's own, but including family correspondence and Gardner Museum correspondence. Also included are misc. items and printed material. Correspondents include: Edwin Austin Abbey, Lyman Abbott, Brooks Adams, Alexander Agassiz, Elizabeth C. Agassiz, Louis Agassiz, Luigi Agostini, Hamilton Aide, Thomas B. Aldrich, Abram P. Andrew, Boris Anisfeld, George Arliss, Anne L. Balch, George G. Barnard, Grace Edith Barnes, Cecilia Beaux, Martin Birnbaum, William Sturgis Bigelow, William Phipps Blake, Edwin Howland Blashfield, Wilhelm von Bode, Martin Brimmer, J. Appleton Brown, Dennis Miller Bunker, Bryson Burroughs, Theodore Byard, Morris Carter, Paul Chalfin, Conrad Chapman, John Jay Chapman, Alfred Q. Collins,
Frederick Shepard Converse, Walter William Spencer Cook, Archibald Cary Coolidge, Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, Charles Townsend Copeland, Kenyon Cox, Ralph Adams Cram, Francis Marion Crawford, Raymond Crosby, Sally Cross, Ralph W. Curtis, Howard G. Cushing, Charlotte Cushman, Walter Damrosch, Richard Harding Davis, Elsie De Wolfe, Mary Dexter, Nathan H. Dole, John Donoghue, Ruth Draper, Duveen Brothers, J. S. Dwight, Theodore F. Dwight, Louis Dyer, Charles W. Eliot, Barry Faulkner, Gabriel Faure, Minnie Maddern Fiske, Daniel Chester French, Helen C. Frick, Roger E. Fry, Ossip Gabrilowitsch, John Lowell Gardner, William Amory Gardner, I. M. Gaugengigl, Richard Watson Gilder, Rene Gimpel, Edwin L. Godkin, Leon Gordon, Lady Augusta Gregory, Louise I. Guiney, Edward E. Hale,
Mary (Mrs. Richard Walden) Hale, Philip Leslie Hale, Mrs. Philip Hale, Richard Hammond, Walter Hampden, George C. Hazelton, Paul Helleu, Henry Lee Higginson, Thomas W. Higginson, Robert Hinckley, Malvina Hoffman, Edward W. Hooper, Harriet Hosmer, Julia W. Howe, Archer M. Huntington, Vincent d'Indy, Henry Irving, August F. Jaccaci, Clarence King, William Kittredge, Louis Kronberg, Petr A. Kropotkin, Anna C. Ladd, John La Farge, Charles Rollinson Lamb, Charles Lanman, Charles G. Loring, James R. Lowell, Dodge Macknight, Mary L. Macomber, Richard Mansfield, Paul Manship, Frank J. Mather, Francis John McComas, Nellie Melba, Francis Davis Millet, S. Weir Mitchell, Helena Modjeska, Pierre Monteux, John S. Mosby, Gilbert Murray,
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Andrews Norton, Lily Norton, Richard Norton, William O'Connell, Kazuzo Okakura, Jean N. Oliver, William O. Partridge, Walter Pater, Anna Pavlova, Waldo Peirce, Joseph Pennell, Harper Pennington, Lilla Cabot Perry, Edward C. Pickering, Sophia L. Pitman, Matthew Stewart Prichard, John Quinn, Robert Reid, Amelie Rives, Elizabeth W. Roberts, Auguste Rodin, Denman Ross, Will Rothenstein, Lillian Russell, Paul J. Sachs, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Ruth St. Denis, Franklin B. Sanborn, Charles Sprague Sargent, John Singer Sargent, J.M. Sears, C. Arnold Slade, Irene Slade, Henry Davis Sleeper, F. Hopkinson Smith, George Warren Smith, Joseph L. Smith, Albert Spaulding, Maurice Sterne, William James Stillman, Julian Story, Thomas W. Story, Henry Swift,
John Addington Symonds, Ellen Terry, Celia Thaxter, Abbott H. Thayer, William R. Thayer, Mary A. Tiffany, Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer, Adelaide E. Wadsworth, Francis Amasa Walker, Mrs. Humphry Ward, Mrs. Fiske Warren, Edmund March Wheelwright, James McNeill Whistler, Margaret White, Sara de Prix Wyman Whitman, Wildenstein Galleries, Owen Wister, Charles H. Woodbury, Rufus F. Zogbaum, Anders Zorn, Mrs. Anders Zorn, and others.
REELS 631-632: Personal papers of Gardner and some records of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum including dealers' files containing invoices, notes, cancelled checks, and letters; a record book, "Prices Paid for Paintings," 1917; a record book, "Prices Paid for Works of Art"; 118 installation photographs of the museum as arranged by Gardner, 1924; a diary kept in Egypt, 1874, with sketches; a diary kept in Shanghai and India, 1883-1884; "Directions for my funeral," 1912; and "Suggestions for Running a Museum," 1913.
REELS 696-698: Letters from Bernard Berenson to Gardner, 1887-1924. Letters contain references to literary topics, Berenson's impressions of Europe, various paintings and artists, advice to Gardner on the purchase of paintings and information on their sale.
REEL 846: Checklist of Gardner's letters to Bernard and Mary Berenson, 1894-1924; typescripts of personal and official correspondence (originals found on AAA microfilm reels 696-698), 1887-1924.
Biographical / Historical:
Art patron, collector, and museum founder; Boston, Mass. Immediately after graduation from Harvard, Bernard Berenson was hired by Gardner to travel throughout Italy collecting Italian Renaissance art for her recreated Venetian palazzo in Boston. She established her palazzo as a museum of fine European art with stipulations that after her death none of the exhibited works was to be moved or rearranged, but left as she had designed during her lifetime.
Provenance:
Microfilm lent by Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum for duplicating, 1972-1975.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Occupation:
Art patrons -- Massachusetts -- Boston Search this
Topic:
Art -- Collectors and collecting -- Massachusetts -- Boston Search this
Art, Renaissance -- Massachusetts -- Boston Search this
Brookgreen Gardens (Murrells Inlet, South Carolina)
United States of America -- South Carolina -- Georgetown County -- Murrells Inlet
Scope and Contents:
The folders include worksheets, brochures incorporating a garden map, photocopies of correspondence, a fact sheet about the gardens, and other information.
General:
Founded by Archer M. and Anna Hyatt Huntington in 1931, Brookgreen Gardens is both a sculpture and landscape garden and a botanical preserve focusing on plants and animals of the Southeast. Located on the site of former indigo and rice plantations, Brookgreen encompasses over 9,000 acres and includes eight distinct habitat areas: beach and dunes, salt marshes, maritime forest, loblolly pine swamps, long-leaf pine ridges, river terrace, freshwater cypress-gum swamps, and abandoned rice fields. There are over 500 works of sculpture, making it the largest permanent outdoor exhibition of American sculpture in the world. Likewise, the botanical collection includes over 2,000 species and subspecies of plants native and adapted to the Southeast. Ponds and other bodies of water complement the more formal plantings which include several arboreta, a palmetto garden, a dogwood garden, and a magnolia allée. The gardens are open to the public.
Persons associated with the garden include: Archer M. and Anna Hyatt Huntington (former owners, 1930-1973).
Related Materials:
Brookgreen Gardens related holdings consist of 2 folders (34 35 mm. slides (photographs))
See others in:
Garden Club of America Collection, ca. 1920-[ongoing].
Collection Restrictions:
Access to original images by appointment only. Researcher must submit request for appointment in writing. Certain items may be restricted and not available to researchers. Please direct reference inquiries to the Archives of American Gardens: aag@si.edu.
Collection Rights:
Archives of American Gardens encourages the use of its archival materials for non-commercial, educational and personal use under the fair use provision of U.S. copyright law. Use or copyright restrictions may exist. It is incumbent upon the researcher to ascertain copyright status and assume responsibility for usage. All requests for duplication and use must be submitted in writing and approved by Archives of American Gardens.
Topic:
Gardens -- South Carolina -- Murrells Inlet Search this
Brookgreen Gardens (Murrells Inlet, South Carolina)
United States of America -- South Carolina -- Georgetown County -- Murrells Inlet
Scope and Contents:
The folders include worksheets, brochures incorporating a garden map, photocopies of correspondence, a fact sheet about the gardens, and other information.
General:
Founded by Archer M. and Anna Hyatt Huntington in 1931, Brookgreen Gardens is both a sculpture and landscape garden and a botanical preserve focusing on plants and animals of the Southeast. Located on the site of former indigo and rice plantations, Brookgreen encompasses over 9,000 acres and includes eight distinct habitat areas: beach and dunes, salt marshes, maritime forest, loblolly pine swamps, long-leaf pine ridges, river terrace, freshwater cypress-gum swamps, and abandoned rice fields. There are over 500 works of sculpture, making it the largest permanent outdoor exhibition of American sculpture in the world. Likewise, the botanical collection includes over 2,000 species and subspecies of plants native and adapted to the Southeast. Ponds and other bodies of water complement the more formal plantings which include several arboreta, a palmetto garden, a dogwood garden, and a magnolia allée. The gardens are open to the public.
Persons associated with the garden include: Archer M. and Anna Hyatt Huntington (former owners, 1930-1973).
Related Materials:
Brookgreen Gardens related holdings consist of 2 folders (34 35 mm. slides (photographs))
See others in:
Maida Babson Adams American Garden Collection, ca. 1960-1994.
Collection Restrictions:
Access to original images by appointment only. Researcher must submit request for appointment in writing. Certain items may be restricted and not available to researchers. Please direct reference inquiries to the Archives of American Gardens: aag@si.edu.
Collection Rights:
Archives of American Gardens encourages the use of its archival materials for non-commercial, educational and personal use under the fair use provision of U.S. copyright law. Use or copyright restrictions may exist. It is incumbent upon the researcher to ascertain copyright status and assume responsibility for usage. All requests for duplication and use must be submitted in writing and approved by Archives of American Gardens.
Topic:
Gardens -- South Carolina -- Murrells Inlet Search this
