Correspondence with artists including Cecilia Beaux, Timothy Crouse, Carl Paul Jennewein, Henry Kreis, Paul Manship, Booth Tarkington, William Zorach, and others; project and commission files including the Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial in Georgia among others; committee files; personal business records; writings; sketches; photographs and negatives of Hancock, works of art, and political figures taken in preparation of portrait busts; printed material; and an interview transcript relating to Hancock's career as a sculptor.
Biographical / Historical:
Walker Hancock (1901-1998) was a sculptor from Gloucester, Massachusetts. Hancock was born in 1901 in St. Louis, Missouri. He studied at Washington University for one year before moving on to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where he studied under Charles Grafly. He taught at PAFA from 1929 to 1967. During his career, he produced hundreds of realistic works, ranging from a 39 foot bronze angel in the 30th St. Station in Philadelphia, to a bust of former President Geroge H.W. Bush in the Capitol, to a monumental statue of James Madison in the Library of Congress, to a Christ figure in the central altar in the National Cathedral in Washington. Hancock first visited Gloucester in 1921, built a studio there, and later moved there permanently. He died at home at age 97.
Provenance:
Donated 1974-1996 by Walker Hancock and in 2017 by Deane French Hancock, Hancock's daughter and executor.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center.
Occupation:
Sculptors -- Massachusetts -- Gloucester Search this
Topic:
Sculpture, Modern -- 20th century -- United States Search this
The Chester Beach papers measure 7.32 linear feet and date from 1846 to 1999, with the bulk ot the material dating from circa 1900 to 1999. The work and professional activities of Beaux Arts sculptor Chester Beach (1881-1956) and his family's efforts to exhibit and sell work from the estate are documented by project files, business records, correspondence, scrapbooks, printed material, and photographs. The papers also include many artist-designed Christmas cards sent and received by the Beach family, and artwork by Chester Beach and others.
Scope and Contents:
The Chester Beach papers measure 7.32 linear feet and date from 1846 to 1999, with the bulk ot the material dating from circa 1900 to 1999. The work and professional activities of Beaux Arts sculptor Chester Beach (1881-1956) and his family's efforts to exhibit and sell work from the estate are documented by project files, business records, correspondence, scrapbooks, printed material, and photographs. The papers also include many artist-designed Christmas cards sent and received by the Beach family, and artwork by Chester Beach and others.
Biographical material consists of biographical notes, identification cards, and a membership certificate.
Project files contain correspondence, financial records, notes, drawings and plans, research materials, printed matter, and photographs that document commissions for sculpture, medals and coins, monuments, and Beach's own projects. Among the most thoroughly documented projects are a fountain sculpture for the grounds of the Cleveland Museum of Art (Sun, Earth, Fountain of the Waters, and Zodiac) and the Edward W. Bok Memorial in Mountain Lake, Florida; both commissions were executed in conjunction with the firm of Frederick Law Olmsted.
Business records include Chester Beach's general business correspondence and correspondence concerning consignments. An address book records names, addresses, and occasionally indicates prices of services and supplies used by the sculptor. Other record books detail expenses and income of the studio building Beach owned, with a list of the effects of the former owner, sculptor William Couper; bronzes cast; sales, with titles, prices, and buyers; names and addresses of clients, dealers, and suppliers; and instructions for cleaning and bronzing plaster.
Family correspondence consists mainly of letters, many mentioning Chester Beach, and addressed to Mrs. Chester Beach and daughter Eleanor Beach Fitchen. Estate correspondence and related documents concern efforts to exhibit, sell, and research Beach's remaining work. These records, for the most part, were created by Mrs. Fitchen who acted as sales agent, ran the Chester Beach Memorial Studio, and maintained the Beach archive. Of particular interest is a series of letters from Brenda Kuhn that relate what she learned from handling the estate of her father, Walt Kuhn; in addition, she offered ideas and advice about exhibitions, the Memorial Studio, and the Beach Centennial.
Beach designed his family's annual Christmas cards, most of which incorporate images of their three daughters. A complete set, preserved in an album, includes a few later cards that reproduce artwork by his widow. Many of the cards received - some with original artwork - are from artist friends, among them: Ernest Blumenschein, Edward W. Greacen, Hazel Brill Jackson, Paul Jennewein, Bonnie Leibig, F. Luis Mora, Robert Nisbet, and Ezra Winter. Also of note are a card from Walker Hancock bearing a photograph of his studio; a painting of Beach's Sylvan at Brookgreen Gardens, reproduced on Anna Hyatt Huntington's card; and a card from Beach patron Mary Jester Allen containing a brief note about the Frontier Art Colony she had established near Cody, Wyoming.
Among the drawings and sketches by Chester Beach are student work, designs for some of his Christmas cards, and a sketchbook containing drawings of sculpture. Work by other artists consists of prints, including one by Ezra Winter.
Three scrapbooks, largely comprised of newspaper clippings and other printed material, contain a variety of other items, including: letters from the American Academy in Rome, Architectural League of New York, Ecole des Beaux Arts, Daniel Chester French, Hazel Brill Jackson, Frederick MacMonnies, National Academy of Design, National Sculpture Society, Jessica B. Piexotto, and Salon d'Autome. There are also awards and certificates from the National Academy of Design, Panama-Pacific International Exposition; bookplates and a place card Beach etched for Mr. and Mrs. George Davison; and an unfinished poem by FitzRoy Carrington. Photographs within the scrapbooks are of a night school class Beach attended at the Mark Hopkins Art Institute in San Francisco, Beach at work in his studio, and a portrait of him painted by G. Laurance Nelson.
Printed material includes Panama-Pacific International Exposition guide books, brochures about the Chester Beach Memorial Studio in Brewster, New York, and catalogs for solo and group exhibitions.
Photographs and glass plate negatives of artwork are mainly of Chester Beach's sculpture and include views of work in progress. Also found are photographs of drawings and sculpture from his student years in California and Paris. Pictures of work by other artists are portraits of Chester Beach painted by G. Laurance Nelson and by his daughter, Natalie Beach McLaury. Among the photographs of Chester Beach are several by Gertrude Kasebier, circa 1910. Other pictures show Beach in his studio, Beach with family and friends, and a "Dinner tendered to Edmund W. Greacen by Samuel T. Shaw, Salmagundi Club, March 2, 1922." Places documented are Beach's boyhood home in San Francisco, the interiors of his studios, and Brookgreen Gardens. Miscellaneous subjects are nude models.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 10 series. Glass plate negatives are housed separately and closed to researchers.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1910-1947 (4 folders; Box 1)
Series 2: Project Files, 1846-1999 (1.6 linear feet; Boxes 1-2, 11, OV 12-13)
Series 3: Business Records, circa 1900-1958 (0.4 linear feet; Boxes 2-3)
Series 4: Writings, 1913-1935 (2 folders; Box 3)
Series 5: Correspondence, 1875, 1933-1996 (0.5 linear feet; Box 3)
Series 6: Christmas Cards, 1909-1961 (0.7 linear feet; Boxes 3-4)
Series 7: Artwork, circa 1900-1955 (0.3 linear feet; Boxes 4, 11)
Series 8: Scrapbooks, 1903-1972 (0.3 linear feet; Box 10)
Series 9: Printed Material, 1910-1997 (0.4 linear feet; Box 4)
Series 10: Photographs, circa 1885-circa 1960s (3.1 linear feet; Boxes 4-9, 11, 14)
Biographical / Historical:
Sculptor Chester Beach (1881-1956) was known for portrait busts, allegorical and mythological figures, coins and medallic art in the Beaux-Arts tradition. He lived and worked in New York City and Brewster, New York.
Chester Beach, son of Chilion Beach and Elizabeth Ferris Beach, was born in San Francisco on May 23, 1881. Beach initially studied at the California School of Mechanical Arts in 1899. He remained in San Francisco and between 1900 and 1902 continued his art training at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art while working as a jewelry designer. To further his career and exposure to artistic trends, Beach moved to New York City in 1903. The following year, he went to Paris, enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and also studied with Raoul Verlet at the Académie Julian.
Upon his return to New York in 1907, Beach established a studio on Tenth Street. He won the National Academy of Design's Barnett Prize for sculpture in 1907 and the Academy elected him an Associate Artist the following year. His increased stature resulted in numerous portrait commissions and eventually led to commissions for monuments and architectural sculpture. In 1910, Chester Beach married Eleanor Hollis Murdock, a painter he met when both were art students in Paris. The couple spent the next two years in Rome; for several years after returning, Beach continued to spend time in Italy and maintained a studio in Rome.
Solo exhibitions of Beach's work were presented at Macbeth Gallery (1912), Pratt Institute (1913), Cincinnati Art Museum (1916), John Herron Art Institute (1916), and Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester (1917). In addition to frequent participation in annual exhibitions at the National Academy of Design and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Beach was represented in the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (1915), and in group shows at venues including: Art Institute of Chicago, Boston Art Club, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, and National Arts Club.
The gold medal presented by Académie Julian (1905), Beach's first award, was followed by many other prizes, among them: American Numismatic Society prize for a medal commemorating the Peace of Versailles (1919) and its Saltus Medal for distinguished medallic art (1946); Architectural League of New York gold medal (1924); National Academy of Design Barnett Prize (1907) and Watrous gold medal (1926); National Arts Club medal and prizes (1923, 1926, 1932); and the Panama-Pacific International Exposition silver medal (1915).
Beach was an Academician of the National Academy of Design, a member of the American Numismatic Society, Architectural League of New York, National Arts Club, National Institute of Arts and Letters, and the National Sculpture Society (President, 1927-1928).
For more than 40 years, Beach lived and worked at 207 East 17th Street. The brownstone, purchased in 1913, was large enough for the family's home, his studio, and additional studios that were rented to other artists. Through barter, Beach acquired land in Brewster, New York, and in 1917 hired Italian stonemasons to build a studio. Later, they erected a summer house for the family. Many old stone walls on the site provided material for both buildings and Beach named the property Oldwalls.
After a long illness, Chester Beach died at Oldwalls on August 6, 1956. The funeral service was held at his Brewster, New York, studio and he is buried in Cold Spring Cemetery, Cold Spring, New York.
Separated Materials:
Also in the Archives of American Art is microfilm of papers lent for microfilming (reels N727-N729 and N68-11) including passports, genealogical materials, photograph albums, travel sketches, travel diaries of Mrs. Beach, and business and family correspondence. While the obituary letters on reel N68-11 are referenced in a scrapbook in Series 8, all other loaned materials were returned to the lender and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
Chester Beach's daughter, Eleanor Beach Fitchen, lent materials for microfilming in 1967 and 1967. Subsequent papers were donated in 2009 by the estate of Eleanor Beach Fitchen, through her grandson and executor, John Fitchen.
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. 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.
Topic:
Sculptors, American -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
REEL 1467: Drawings, sketches, renderings, and designs, 1916-1976, for the following commissions: Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Service, Brooklyn Central Library, the Finance Building of Harrisburg, Pa., and the Jefferson Memorial in St. Louis, Missouri.
REELS 3321-3339: Biographical material; writings and notes; correspondence, 1920-1978, (4 ft.), including letters from Daniel Chester French, Walker Hancock, Anna Hyatt Huntington, Henry Kreis, and Carl Milles; project files, 1912-1977 (8 ft.), containing correspondence, financial records, printed material and photographs related to Jennewein's commissioned work; photographs, 1915-1974, of Jennewein (1 by Alice Choates, 1915), his home and studio, his work, work by others, and art-related events; art work, 1913-1978, including sketches, twenty sketchbooks, and etchings; printed material, including clippings, exhibition announcements and catalogs, supply catalogs, newsletters, brochures, and reports, and a book C. PAUL JENNEWEIN (1950).
Biographical / Historical:
Sculptor; Bronx, N.Y.; d. 1978.
Provenance:
Art work on reel 1467 was lent for microfilming in 1978. The remainder was donated 1977-1978 by Mrs. Alica Muzzy from Jennewein's Bronx studio, except for the photographs of sculpture at the Justice Dept. Bldg. in Washington, D.C., which came via curator George Gurney, who received them from the CPJ Estate for the exhibition "Sculpture of the Federal Triangle."
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.
Documentation, photographs, and color transparencies of triptychs made as portable altarpieces for the armed services. Among the artists executing triptychs were John Angel, Dines Carlsen, Allyn Cox, Carl Paul Jennewein, and Violet Oakley.
Provenance:
Hortense A. Staats donated this collection in memory of Mrs. Junius S. Morgan.
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.
The papers of sculptor Janet DeCoux date from 1895-2000 and measure 3.92 linear feet. The collection documents DeCoux's career through scattered biographical material, correspondence, audio cassette tapes of an autobiographical narrative, an interview transcript, miscellaneous notes and writings, sketchbooks and drawings, files for commissioned sculpture projects, printed material, photographs of DeCoux, family members, friends, colleagues, and artwork.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of sculptor Janet deCoux measure 3.92 linear feet and date from 1895 to 2000. Found within the papers are scattered biographical material, including curriculum vitae and a file concerning deCoux's induction as a Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania. Correspondence is primarily between family, friends, and colleagues. It includes letters from Carl Milles, Bruce Moore, C.P. Jennewein, the Guild of Liturgy, Art and Design (GLAD), the Liturgical Arts Society, Inc., sculptor James Earle Fraser, offering advice on various sculpture projects, his wife Laura Gardin Fraser, a letter of congratulations from Paul Manship on the occasion of deCoux's election to the National Academy of Design, and approximately fifty letters, 1944-1952, from Anne Morrow Lindbergh, writer and wife of aviator Charles Lindbergh. There are also one or two letters from Lu Duble, Joseph Bailey Ellis, Mark Tobey, and Albert Wein.
Found within the papers are a transcript of an interview of deCoux by George Gurney, and audio cassettes with transcripts of an autobiographical narrative by deCoux. Miscellaneous notes and writings include autobiographical accounts and poems by deCoux and miscellaneous writings by others. Seven of deCoux's sketchbooks and a folder of drawings by deCoux, as well as a portrait of deCoux by C. Paul Jennewein are found in the Artwork series. Project files contain letters, receipts, clippings, brochures, and photographs for sculpture projects primarily commissioned by religious organizations. Printed material includes clippings, exhibition catalogs, and miscellaneous brochures. Photographs are of deCoux, family members, friends including Anne Morrow Lindbergh and her children, colleagues including James Earle Fraser, Laura Gardin Fraser, Carl Milles, and Bruce Moore, and sculpture.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 8 series. Glass plate negative housed separately and closed to researchers.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1895-1993 (Box 1; 13 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1895-2000 (Boxes 1-2; 1.0 linear feet)
Series 3: Interviews, 1978, 1990 (Box 2; 3 folders)
Series 4: Notes and Writings, 1937-1996 (Box 2; 23 folders)
Series 5: Artwork, 1928-1929 (Boxes 2, 6; 9 folders)
Series 6: Project Files, 1942-1982 (Boxes 2-3, 6; 36 folders)
Series 7: Printed Material, 1906-2000 (Box 3; 20 folders)
Series 8: Photographs, 1926-1996 (Boxes 3-6, MGP 1; 1.3 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Janet deCoux was born on October 5, 1904 in Niles, Michigan, the youngest of the five children of Bertha Wright deCoux and Rev. Charles John deCoux, an Episcopal clergyman. The family moved to Grand Rapids in 1908 and four years later to a farm in Gibsonia, outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
deCoux studied with Joseph Bailey Ellis at the Carnegie Institute of Technology from 1925 to 1927. She then apprenticed in the New York studio of C. Paul Jennewein for fifteen months, followed by a year at the Gorham Bronze Division learning architectural modeling. She also worked with Aristide Cianfarani in Providence, and for Alvin Meyer in Chicago. While serving her apprenticeships, she attended night school at the New York School of Industrial Arts, the Rhode Island School of Design, and the Art Institute of Chicago. deCoux was then employed in James Earle Fraser's studio where she had previously assisted Gozo Kawamura.
In 1932 deCoux met Eliza Miller in the sculpture department of Carnegie Tech, beginning a sixty-year relationship in which they shared a shop and adjoining studios in Gibsonia, Pennsylvania. For several months in 1935, deCoux traveled to Germany, Italy, and Switzerland, where she joined her friend Aly Moore, the wife of sculptor Bruce Moore. She first met longtime friend Father Hughson on a ship returning to the United States from Europe.
A Guggenheim Fellowship awarded to deCoux in 1938 was renewed for a second year. In 1943, she became resident instructor at Cranbrook Academy of Art.
Janet deCoux died in December 1999.
Related Material:
Also found in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Janet deCoux done by George Gurney, May 5, 1978.
Provenance:
The Janet deCoux papers were donated in 1992 by the artist and in two later installments in 2000-2001 by her longtime companion, Eliza Miller.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Use requires an appointment.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Occupation:
Sculptors -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia Search this
