The papers of painter George Tooker measure 5.1 linear feet and date from circa 1851 to 2010. The papers document Tooker's personal and professional life through biographical material, correspondence, project files, gallery files, exhibition files, printed material, artwork and one sketchbook, and numerous photographs, including some taken by noted photographer George Platt Lynes.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of painter George Tooker measure 5.1 linear feet and date from circa 1851 to 2010. The papers document Tooker's personal and professional life through biographical material, correspondence, project files, gallery files, exhibition files, printed material, artwork and one sketchbook, and numerous photographs, including some taken by noted photographer George Platt Lynes.
Biographical material consists of membership and travel documents, writings on and by Tooker on his circle, an address book, resume, and papers regarding Tooker's education. Also included are biographical material related to Tooker's partner William Christopher who passed in 1973. A 1978 interview with Vermont Public radio on two sound reels is also featured.
Correspondence is with friends, colleagues, and organizations. Correspondents include Isabel Bishop, Paul Cadmus, Walter Bachinski, William Christopher, Otto Dix, Jared and Margaret French, Ralph Ginzburg, Xavier Gonzalez, Robert Isaacson, Edward Laning, Lincoln Kirstein, Lee Nordness, Bernard Perlin, Joan Peterson, Theodore Stamos, Bridget Tichenor, and others. Also included are family correspondence and correspondence regarding the Estate of William Christopher.
Project files document Tooker's commissions including the set and costume design for Gian-Carlo Menotti's opera The Saint of Bleecker Street and Tooker's participation in the selection of candidates for the Vestris Prize for Choreography. Files contain correspondence, business documents, printed ephemera, sketches, photographs, three volumes of vocal scores, and textile samples.
Gallery records include business correspondence and consignments with various key galleries in Tooker's career spanning the 1960s to the end of his career including D.C. Moore Gallery, Marisa Del Re Gallery, and Durlacher Bros..
Exhibition records include documents regarding the organization of several select exhibitions in Tooker's career incuding an early retrospective at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (1974) and a later traveling retrospective from 2008-2009.
Printed material consists of invitations, press releases, news clippings and exhibition catalogs documenting the careers of both George Tooker and William Christopher.
Artwork includes numerous sketchbooks, loose drawings, and sketches from Tooker's studies at the Art Students' League in the mid 1940s, in addition to an early ex-libris print created by Tooker in his youth. Also included is a sketchbook by William Christopher, as well as a study for the work The Subway, in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Photographic materials depict Tooker's family life as well as his early artistic collaborations depicted in a number of black and white photographs taken by George Platt Lynes and PaJaMa in the mid to late 1940s. A majority of the photographs depict artists and friends, among them: George Tooker and his companion William Christopher, Paul Cadmus, Jared and Margaret French, Lincoln and Fidelma Kirstein, Glenway Wescott, Monroe Wheeler, and Bridget Tichenor. Other photographs are of Tooker building his home, gardening, and working in his studio in Hartland, Vermont. Also included are installation views from the exhibition Painting in the United States (1949) at the Carnegie Institute in Pennsylvania. There are also a fair amount of photographs, transparencies, slides and negatives documenting artwork from both the studios of George Tooker and his late partner William Christopher.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 8 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1920-2005 (0.7 linear feet; Boxes 1, 5)
Series 2: Correspondence, circa 1932-2010 (1.2 linear feet; Boxes 1-2, Oversize 7)
Series 3: Project Files, circa 1935-1968 (0.3 linear feet; Boxes 2-3, 6)
Series 4: Gallery Records, circa 1960-2009 (0.3 linear feet; Box 3)
Series 5: Exhibition Files, circa 1967-2009 (0.3 linear feet; Boxes 1, 3)
Series 6: Printed Material, circa 1851-2010 (0.5 linear feet; Boxes 3, 5)
Series 7: Artwork and Sketchbook, circa 1932-2009 (0.7 linear feet; Boxes 3, 5, 8)
Series 8: Photographs, circa 1900-2010 (1.1 linear feet; Boxes 4-5, 8)
Biographical / Historical:
George Tooker (1920-2011) was a painter based in Hartland, Vermont and New York, New York. Tooker was born in Brooklyn, New York on August 5, 1920 to George Clair Tooker and Angela Montejo Roura. He graduated from preparatory school at Phillips Academy, Andover in 1938 and received a Bachelor of Arts in English from Harvard University in 1942. Tooker studied drawing and painting under Reginald Marsh, Kenneth Hayes Miller, and Harry Sternberg at the Art Students' League from circa 1944 to 1945.
Tooker became acquainted with American painter Paul Cadmus while studying at the Art Students' League. Cadmus introduced Tooker to a circle of artists and writers living and working in New York and Europe in the mid to late 1940s that included George Platt Lynes, Jared and Margaret French, Monroe Wheeler, Glenway Westcott, and Lincoln and Fidelma Kirstein. He lived and worked with his partner and fellow artist William Christopher in New York City and later Hartland, VT.
In 1953, Tooker was commissioned by writer and philanthropist Lincoln Kirstein to design the sets and costumes for The Saint of Bleecker Street, an opera by Gian-Carlo Menotti. In 1966, the Wasemquia Charitable Trust sponsored the Vestris Prize for Choreography in cooperation with the Boston Ballet Company and Tooker was invited by trustee Henry H. Crapo to participate on the Committee of Judges for the Vestris Prize. In 1968, NASA commissioned Tooker to produce drawings and one painting documenting the development of spacecraft at the Goddard Space Flight Center located in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Tooker's paintings are found in numerous art museums and galleries including the Whitney Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, DC Moore Gallery, Robert Isaacson Gallery, and the Venice Biennale. In 1968, Tooker's paintings were featured in the art magazine, Avant-Garde.
Related Materials:
Available in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with George Tooker conducted in 1966 by Grace G. Alexander for radio station WNYC, New York City.
Materials related to the George Tooker papers can be found the William Christopher papers at the Archives of American Art.
Provenance:
George Tooker donated his papers to the Archives of American Art in 1973. A subsequent addition was donated in 2018 by Aaron Watkins, the executor to George Tooker's estate.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
5.1 Linear feet ((partially microfilmed on 6 reels))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
1905-1969
Scope and Contents:
Photographs, correspondence, appointment books, etchings, a scrapbook, printed materials, writings, and posters.
REEL D113: Primarily letters received from artists, 1940s-50s; background material for Ft.Lee and Amsterdam (N.Y.) murals; and miscellaneous printed material and photographs.
Correspondents include John Angel, Artists Equity, Peggy Bacon, Gifford Beal, Henry Billings, Isabel Bishop, Peter Blume, Louis Bouche, Van Wyck Brooks, Audrey Buller, Paul Cadmus, Alexander Calder, William Congdon, Horace T. Day, Olin Dows, Marcel Duchamp, Emlen P. Etting, Philip Evergood, Barry Faulkner, Ernest Fiene, Leon Hartl, Whitney F. Hoyt, William M. Ivins, Jr., Lincoln E. Kirstein, Leon Kroll, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Edward Laning, Joseph L. Lasker, Clare Leighton, Charles W. Locke, Sanford B.D. Low, Luigi Lucioni, Reginald Marsh, Kenneth H. Miller, Nat'l Institute of Arts and Letters, Betty Parsons, Hugo Robus, Homer Saint-Gaudens, Katherine Schmidt, Ben Shahn, Charles Sheeler, Eugene Speicher, Theodoros Stamos, Franklin C. Watkins, Forbes and Nan Watson, and Leonard Weisgard.
REEL 847: Photographs, including 67 of Schnakenberg and friends, 1 of a portrait of him by Lloyd Goff, 95 of his oil paintings, 33 of his watercolors, 25 of his works in unidentified media, 29 of works by other artists, and 46 of pre-Columbian art from Central and South America. Among artists whose works are included are Antoine Louis Barye, Albert Bierstadt, Frederick Catherwood, Constantin Guys, Thomas Hardy, William Harnett, Winslow Homer, George Inness, Eastman Johnson, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Reginald Marsh, Rockland Savery, Theodoros Stamos, and Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait.
REELS 850-853: Biographical information; personal and business correspondence; 17 diaries, mainly about Schnakenberg's travels, 1905-1960; appointment calendars, 1963-1969; 70 etchings by Schnakenberg; a scrapbook containing clippings, catalogs, and other printed material; a book published by G. Alan Chidsey on Schnakenberg; clippings, catalogs, and announcements; papers relating to gifts and acquisitions of works of art; receipts for Schnakenberg paintings from C.W. Kraushaar Galleries; a 650-page typescript for a book "The Background of Painting" by Schnakenberg; and drafts of speeches.
UNMICROFILMED: Six World War I posters designed by Schnakenberg; Christmas cards from artists and other friends; printed material; and a photograph of Lloyd Goff, inscribed to Schnakenberg, in front of one of his paintings, 1939.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter, etcher; Newton, Conn.
Provenance:
Material donated 1963-1971 by Schnakenberg and, after his death, by his estate.
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.
The papers of realist painter, Honoré Sharrer, measure 9.45 linear feet and 1.12 GB and date from circa 1920-2007. The collection documents Sharrer's career through biographical material, personal and professional correspondence, writings and notes, research and source files, printed and digital material, artwork, sketchbooks, and photographs of Sharrer, her family, friends, colleagues, and artwork.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of realist painter, Honoré Sharrer, measure 9.45 linear feet and 1.12 GB and date from circa 1920-2007. The collection documents Sharrer's career through biographical material, personal and professional correspondence, writings and notes, research and source files, printed and digital material, artwork, sketchbooks, and photographs of Sharrer, her family, friends, colleagues, and artwork.
Biographical material includes biographical notes and resumés, awards, paintbrushes used by Sharrer, and sales records, as well as comprehensive documentation, compiled 2004-2007 by her husband, Perez Zagorin, and her son, Adam Zagorin, of Sharrer's artwork in their possession. Included are digital images of Sharrer's artwork.
Correspondence is with family members including Sharrer's mother, Madeleine Sharrer, and her second husband, Reginald Poland; husband Perez Zagorin; son Adam Zagorin; and daughter-in-law, Mary Carpenter Also found is correspondence with artists including Peter Blume, Lester Burbank Bridaham, Gitta Caiserman-Roth, Kathy Calderwood, Mary Crutchfield, Betty Goodwin, Lincoln Kirstein, Mayumi Oda, and George Tooker. Other professional correspondents include galleries, museums, and other art institutions such as American Academy of Arts and Letters, Terry Dintenfass, Forum Gallery, Handmacher-Vogel, Inc., M. Knoedler & Co., Dorothy Miller relating to the 1946 Fourteen Americans exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, and the Women's Caucus for Art.
Writings and notes comprise drafts of several essays on art by Sharrer, preliminary notes for Tribute to the American Working People, and a mock-up for an unpublished book, "One White Christmas," written by Sharrer's grandmother, Honoré Sachs, and illustrated by Sharrer.
Research and source files consist of source material used throughout the course of Sharrer's career, including printed and photographic material used in the creation of Tribute to the American Working People, and later work dating up to, and including, the last decade of her life.
Printed material comprises announcements and catalogs for exhibitions and events featuring Sharrer, including a catalog for Fourteen Americans, as well as clippings about her and others, such as the Life Magazine cover story "Nineteen Young Americans."
Artwork and sketchbooks include studies for paintings and illustrations, and other preliminary sketches, as well as 14 sketchbooks of pencil and ink sketches dating from circa 1960s t0 2003.
Photographic material consists of photos of Sharrer, her family, friends, colleagues, exhibition installations, and houses. Also found are photos, negatives, and transparencies of Sharrer's artwork, as well as photos of artwork by Madeleine Sharrer and Lester Burbank Bridaham.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 8 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1941-2007 (0.44 linear feet; Boxes 1, 10, 1.12 GB; ER01-ER10)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1938-2006 (1.84 linear feet; Boxes 1-3, 10)
Series 3: Writings and Notes, circa 1940s-circa 1990s (5 folders; Boxes 3, 10)
Series 4: Research and Source Files, circa 1920s-2005 (3.43 linear feet; Boxes 3-6, 10-11)
Series 5: Printed Material, circa 1930s-2005 (0.85 linear feet; Boxes 6-7, 11, OV 13, OV 17)
Series 6: Artwork, 1941-circa 1990s (0.8 linear feet; Boxes 7, 11-12, OV 13
Series 7: Sketchbooks, 1960s-2003 (0.55 linear feet; Boxes 7, 12)
Series 8: Photographic Material, circa 1930s-circa 2000 (1.83 linear feet; Boxes 8-9, 12, OVs 13-16)
Biographical / Historical:
Realist painter Honoré Sharrer (1920-2009) lived and worked in New York, Massachusetts, London, Montreal and Charlottesville, Virginia. She was best known for her five-panel painting, Tribute to the American Working People, completed in 1951 and first shown at M. Knoedler & Co. in New York to wide critical acclaim.
Sharrer was born in 1920 in West Point, New York, where her father was an Army officer, and grew up in the United States, the Philippines, Paris, and La Jolla, California. She studied at the Yale University School of Art and the San Francisco Art Institute, and worked as a welder in shipyards in California and New Jersey during World War II. She moved to New York in the 1940s and lived subsequently in Amherst, Massachusetts, London, and Montreal.
Sharrer's Workers and Paintings (1943) was included in the landmark Museum of Modern Art exhibition, Fourteen Americans, in 1946, and her painting, Man at Fountain, was featured in the 1950 Life Magazine cover story, "Nineteen Young American Artists." Tribute to the American Working People, which depicted a factory worker surrounded by smaller scenes of ordinary life, was considered her masterwork, but in the years that followed it's unveiling at M. Knoedler & Co., Sharrer was noticeably absent from the art scene; between 1951 and 1969 she did not have a single solo exhibition. While many of her contemporaries immersed themselves in Abstract Expressionism, Sharrer continued to paint, in meticulous detail, the daily experiences of ordinary working people, and her later work often dealt with female perspectives and was imbued with humor and elements of magical realism.
In 2007 the Smithsonian American Art Museum held an exhibition titled Anatomy of a Painting: Honoré Sharrer's 'Tribute to the American Working People,' which was devoted exclusively to her most famous work, now in the Smithsonian's permanent collection, and the source material she used when painting it. Sharrer's works can also be found in the Metroplitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
Sharrer settled in Charlottesville, Virginia, in the early 1990s. She was married to her second husband, historian Perez Zagorin, for 61 years, before her death in 2009. Her mother, Madeleine Sharrer, was also a painter who married Reginald Poland, Director of the Fine Arts Gallery, San Diego, following the death of Sharrer's father, Robert Allen Sharrer.
Related Materials:
Also found in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Perez Zagorin, 2007, January 17-18, and the Madeleine Sharrer papers, 1954-1988.
Provenance:
The Honoré Sharrer papers were donated in 2006 and 2007 by Perez Zagorin, Sharrer's husband. A small addition was donated by Adam Zagorin, Sharrer's son, in 2018.
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.
Research material on William Rimmer compiled by Lincoln Kirstein, 1944-1955, and added to from 1958 on by Richard Sherman Nutt. Included are correspondence, notes and writings, scrapbooks, photographs, and printed materials.
Included are Rimmer family documents and genealogy; Kirstein's (1944-1955) and Nutt's (1958-1971) correspondence regarding Rimmer, mainly responses to Kirstein's requests for information from libraries, museums, relatives, and owners of Rimmer's work; subject files containing correspondence, photographs, writings, notes and printed material on people, places and topics relating to Rimmer, among them the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Whitney Museum, Margaret French Cresson, Henry W. Kent, Cooper Union, Marion MacLean, and others;
writings and notes by Kirstein on Rimmer, including a typescript of his catalog essay for the 1946 exhibition at the Whitney and notes on other artists; a typescript of a poem by Rimmer "The Love Chant"; Rimmer's annotated diagram of a wheel in motion, 1860; a book by Rimmer's daughter, ANIMAL DRAWING: A SERIES OF THIRTEEN PLATES WITH DESCRIPTIVE TEXT DESIGNED FOR THE USE OF STUDENTS BY CAROLINE HUNT RIMMER (Houghton, Mifflin, 1895), and ART ANATOMY (Houghton, Mifflin, 1884, c1887?) by William Rimmer, containing eighty one plates from the original drawings; a scrapbook compiled by Kirstein containing reproductions of catalogs, clippings, printed material, and photographs; photographs of Rimmer's family, including 2 on glass and a tintype; cartes de visites of French royalty; and printed material, 1864-1945, including material kept by Rimmer, articles and booklets about him, 2 clippings, 1898 and 1900 on Rimmer's daughter Caroline, a booklet "Rapport sur une Mission dans l'Amerique du Nord by M. Armand Dumaresq" reporting
on American drawing instruction and including a section on Rimmer and his work at the Cooper Institute and inscribed by Rimmer to his daughter Caroline, 1972; and other printed material compiled by Kirstein.
Biographical / Historical:
Lincoln Kirstein: writer, art historian; Richard S. Nutt: art historian. Dr. William Rimmer: noted 19th century painter, sculptor, and anatomy instructor.
Provenance:
Donated 1985 by Richard Nutt. The materials were mainly compiled by Lincoln Kirstein, who had hoped to write a book on Rimmer. In 1946 he wrote the catalog essay to the exhibit "William Rimmer, 1816-1979" at the Whitney, and in 1955 turned the materials over to Nutt for a catalog raisonne (never published). Both Kirstein and Nutt believe Mrs. Rimmer discarded her husband's papers.
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 architectural historian, author, critic, teacher, and museum director, Henry-Russell Hitchcock, date from 1919-1987 and measure 24.8 linear feet. Almost all of the collection is comprised of Hitchcock's correspondence files relating to academic research, teaching, curatorial interests, and professional associations. Letters are from prominent architectural historians, architects, artists, preservationists, museum directors and curators, and family and friends. Also found are two feet of writings by Hitchcock and others, scattered biographical information, printed material, and photographs of Hitchcock and architecture.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of architectural historian, author, critic, teacher, and museum director, Henry-Russell Hitchcock, date from 1919-1987 and measure 24.8 linear feet. Almost all of the collection is comprised of Hitchcock's correspondence files relating to academic research, teaching, curatorial interests, and professional associations. Letters are from prominent architectural historians, architects, artists, preservationists, museum directors and curators, and family and friends. Also found are two feet of writings by Hitchcock and others, scattered biographical information, miscellaneous records, printed material, and photographs of Hitchcock and architecture.
Among the biographical documents are Hitchcock's birth certificate, passport, and wills. Awards, citations, honorary degrees and commendations are from the University of Pennsylvania, Wesleyan University, the Friends of Cast Iron Architecture, National Institute of Arts and Letters, and the Victorian Society in America.
Chronological name and subject files consist mostly of correspondence and printed material along with a small number of photographs. They include personal and professional correspondence and subject files relating to academic research, teaching, curatorial interests, and professional associations. The correspondence includes large numbers of letters from prominent architectural historians, architects, artists, preservationists, museum directors and curators. Also included are students, friends, relatives, publishers, and representatives of organizations and institutions. Among those of note are: Jere Abbott, Everett A. (Chick) Austin, Alfred H. Barr, Bernard Berenson, Eugene Berman, Leonid Berman, Lyonel Feininger, Henry (Harry) Sayles Francis, Brendan Gill, Robert Goldwater, George Howe, Philip C. Johnson, Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., Lincoln Kirstein, Thomas J. McCormick, Lewis Mumford, J.J.P. Oud, Erwin Panofsky, Nikolaus Pevsner, Kingsley Porter, Paul J. Sachs, R. M. Schindler, Vincent Scully, Jr., Theodore Sizer, E. Baldwin Smith, Peter van der Meulen Smith, James Soby, Victor Spark, Harold Sterner, John Summerson, Virgil Thomson, Paul Vanderbilt, Theo Van Doesburg, Helmut von Erffa, Gordon Washburn, Rudolf Wittkower, and Frank Lloyd Wright.
Writings by Hitchcock consist of manuscripts and drafts of numerous published and unpublished articles, book chapters, and his masters thesis. Other writings by Hitchcock include lecture notes and texts, book reviews, notes, outlines, photo lists, and a bibliography. Among the other authors represented in this series are John Coolidge and Sir Wilfred Green.
Miscellaneous records consist of the alien registration card of Hitchcock's friend Peter van der Meulen Smith, architectural drawings by Hitchcock, book contracts, and a small number of receipts and invoices.
Printed material consists of articles about, by, or mentioning Henry-Russell Hitchcock, along with advertisements for his books, and postcards of architectural subjects.
Photographs are of architecture, art work, events, people, places, and miscellaneous subjects; also included are color slides, negatives, and transparencies. Architectural subjects include the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and Gaudi, as well as interior and exterior views of buildings identified only by location. Photographs of people include Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Chick Austin and Ernestine Carter, Alexander Dorner, Tammy Grimes, Lincoln Kirstein, the Steinway family, and Edgar Tafel. Events recorded include the Society of Architectural Historians at the Newport Casino, Hitchcock receiving honorary degrees at the University of Glasgow and Wesleyan University, and a high tea sponsored by the Victorian Society in America. Family houses and views of Greece are among the photographs of places. Miscellaneous subjects include exhibition installations and family heirlooms.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 6 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Information, 1922-1984 (Box 1; 0.1 linear ft.)
Series 2: Chronological Name and Subject Files, 1919-1987 (Boxes 1-22; 21.9 linear ft.)
Series 3: Writings, 1922-circa 1978 (Boxes 23-24; 2.0 linear ft.)
Series 4: Miscellaneous Records, 1928-1977 (Box 25; 0.1 linear ft.)
Series 5: Printed Material, 1922-1984 (Boxes 25-26; 0.4 linear ft.)
Series 6: Photographs, circa 1926-1979 (Box 26; 0.3 linear ft.)
Biographical Note:
Henry-Russell Hitchcock, considered the "father" of modern architectural historiography, played a major role in bringing modern architecture to the United States. As an eminent professor for more than forty years, Hitchcock trained and influenced several generations of scholars and critics. He combined a love of architecture with criticism and scholarship to produce a large number of distinguished monographs and articles on a broad range of styles and periods.
Born in Boston in 1903, Henry-Russell Hitchcock was the son of Mayflower descendants. At Harvard University, he studied medieval history with A. Kingsly Porter as his mentor and completed the undergraduate curriculum in three years. Hitchcock spent his senior year studying architecture, graduated in 1924, and stayed to study for a master's degree, which was awarded in 1927. During his years at Harvard, he wrote for Hound and Horn and knew Alfred Barr, T. S. Eliot, Philip Johnson, Lincoln Kirstein, Virgil Thomson, and others who became leaders in the modernist movement.
Henry-Russell Hitchcock's teaching career began when he was appointed an assistant professor at Vassar College for the academic year 1927-28. In 1929, he joined the faculty of Wesleyan University, where he remained for two decades before moving to Smith College in 1949. During his tenures at Wesleyan and Smith, his services as a visiting lecturer were employed on many occasions by Cambridge University, Connecticut College, Harvard University, the Institute of Fine Arts, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Yale University. Upon retiring from Smith College in 1968, Hitchcock moved to New York City and taught briefly at Columbia University, the Institute of Fine Arts, and the University of Massachusetts, at Amherst.
Best known as a proponent of modernism, Hitchcock wrote more than two dozen books about a wide range of styles and periods, and most are considered standard works on their subjects. His first, Modern Architecture: Romanticism and Reintegration, appeared in 1929 and was the first book on the subject to be published in English; his final book, German Renaissance Architecture, was published in 1981.
Henry-Russell Hitchcock served as director of the Smith College Museum between 1949 and 1955. In addition, he was curator of several exhibitions, the first and most important of which was Modern Architecture: International Exhibition, organized in collaboration with Philip C. Johnson and held at the Museum of Modern Art. Their book, The International Style: Architecture Since 1922, was published in 1932 in conjunction with the exhibition.
During World War II, Hitchcock's civilian service included working as director of the U. S. Navy's Photographic Library and writing Pratt and Whitney aircraft engine manuals.
Henry-Russell Hitchcock was an active member of many professional associations. He served as president of the Society of Architectural Historians from 1952 to 1954. In addition, he was a founding member of The Victorian Society in Great Britain, and between 1969 and 1974 was president of its sister organization, The Victorian Society in America.
During his long and illustrious career, Henry-Russell Hitchcock won many awards and honors. Awards for Early Victorian Architecture in Britain and Architecture: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries were conferred by the Society of Architectural Historians (1955) and College Art Association (1960), respectively. Hitchcock received the Royal Society of Arts Medal for Best Lecture (1956) and its Benjamin Franklin Medal (1970), in addition to the American Institute of Architects' Architectural Critics' Medal (1970). Other awards include: National Institute of Arts and Letters Award (1956), American Council of Learned Societies Prize for Distinguished Accomplishment in Humanistic Scholarship (1961), Friends of Cast-Iron Architecture Certificate of Commendation (1978), the American Institute of Architects Award of Merit (1978), and Municipal Art Society Certificate of Merit (1978).
He received honorary degrees from Glasgow University and the University of Pennsylvania in 1973, and in 1979 from Wesleyan University. In Search of Modern Architecture: A Tribute to Henry-Russell Hitchcock, edited by Helen Searing, was published by The Architectural History Foundation in 1982.
Due to declining health, Henry-Russell Hitchcock lectured rarely and wrote little in the three years preceding his death from cancer. He died in New York City, February 19, 1987.
Related Material:
The Archives of American Art also holds Henry-Russell Hitchcock letters to Dorothy Stroud and John N. Summerson, 1946-1949. Additional Henry-Russell Hitchcock papers (circa 8 linear feet) are in the Special Collections division of Wesleyan University Library.
Provenance:
Mosette Broderick, assistant to Hitchcock and his literary executor, donated the papers to the Archives of American Art in 1988.
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:
Architectural historians -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Topic:
Museum directors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Genre/Form:
Writings
Photographs
Citation:
Henry-Russell Hitchcock papers, 1919-1987. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art
Interview with Walker Evans conducted 1971 Oct. 13-Dec. 23, by Paul Cummings, for the Archives of American Art. Evans discusses his early life and education; his early desire to become a writer; living for two years in Paris; teaching himself photography; taking pictures for the Farm Security Administration; his later work with FORTUNE and TIME magazines; photographing celebrities; his "Subway" series; teaching at Yale; influences on his work. He recalls Lincoln Kirstein, Roy Stryker and Ben Shahn.
Biographical / Historical:
Walker Evans (1903-1975) was a photographer.
General:
Originally recorded as 2 audio reels. Duration is 2 hr., 33 min.
Provenance:
These interviews are part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and others.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
The letters of Paul Cadmus to Webster Aitken measure 0.02 linear feet and date from 1945-1979. Found within the collection are letters, notes, and postcards from Cadmus to Aitken regarding music, composers, musicians, mutual friends, Cadmus's sister and brother-in-law Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln Kirstein, travels, and Cadmus's work, art processes, and personal reflections on life events.
Scope and Contents:
The letters of Paul Cadmus to Webster Aitken measure 0.02 linear feet and date from 1945-1979. Found within the collection are 49 letters, notes, and postcards from Cadmus to Aitken regarding classical music, composers, musicians, mutual friends, Cadmus's sister and brother-in-law Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln Kirstein, travels, and Cadmus's work, art processes, and personal reflections on life events.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 1 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Paul Cadmus Letters to Webster Aitken, 1945-1979 (0.2 linear feet; Box 1)
Biographical / Historical:
Painter Paul Cadmus (1904-1999) lived and worked in New York, N.Y. and Weston, Connecticut and was known for realist works of New York public life and the social lives of men. Cadmus was born in New York City to lithographer and watercolorist Egbert Cadmus and his wife, Maria Latasa, a fellow artist and book illustrator. With the support of his family, Cadmus entered the National Academy of Design at the age of 15 where he excelled in life drawing and printmaking classes. After graduating from the Academy in 1926, he continued his studies at the Art Students League where he met fellow artists Jared French and George Tooker. Throughout the 1920s, Cadmus found work as a commercial illustrator and layout artist for various agencies, including the New York Herald-Tribune.
In 1933, after two years of travel through France and Spain with Jared French, Cadmus returned to New York and was one of the first artists to be accepted into the federal Public Works of Art Project. Throughout the 1930s, his depictions of sailors and New Yorkers in public life were seen as controversial, beginning with the 1934 ejection of his painting The Fleet's In! from the Corcoran Gallery and continuing into 1940 with objections to the showing of Sailors and Floozies at the San Francisco Golden Gate International Exposition. Cadmus met his partner Jon Anderson in 1964 and featured him as a model for many of his subsequent works. Cadmus was a member of the National Academy of Design and the American Academy of Arts and Letters and died in his home in 1999.
Pianist and educator Webster Aitken (1908-1981) lived and worked in Santa Fe, New Mexico. A student of Emil Sauer and Artur Schnabel, Aitken studied at the Curtis Institute and had his recital debut in Vienna in 1929 and his American debut in New York's Town Hall in 1935. He is known for his 1938 London and New York performances of Schubert's sonatas, and a series of programs on the late works of Beethoven performed at American universities. Aitken taught at the Carnegie Institute, the University of Illinois, and the University of Texas. He died in his home in 1981.
Related Materials:
Also found in the Archives of American Art are the Paul Cadmus letters to Edgar Munhall and an oral history interview with Paul Cadmus conducted by Judd Tully, March 22, 1988. The University of Texas at Austin holds the Webster Aitken Collection, 1899-1985.
Provenance:
The letters were donated in 1981 by Cadmus' long-time friend and Aitken's wife, Lilian Gilbert Aitken.
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.
An interview of Winslow Ames conducted 1987 April 29-June 2, by Robert F. Brown, for the Archives of American Art.
Ames speaks of his childhood in New York, his family's early New England and New York antecedents, his education at Columbia College, and studying fine arts at Harvard under Paul Sachs and Edward Waldo Forbes. He reminisces about his friendship with Edward M.M. Warburg and Lincoln Kirstein and their involvement in his purchase of Gaston Lachaise's "Standing Woman"; his work as the first director of the Lyman Allyn Museum, New London, Connecticut; service as a conscientious objector with the Civilian Public Service Corps during World War II; and assisting in the resettlement of European refugees with the American Friends Service Committee. He discusses directing a museum in Springfield, Missouri, researching and writing his, "Prince Albert and Public Taste," and teaching connoisseurship and museum practices at the University of Rhode Island and Brown University.
Biographical / Historical:
Winslow Ames (1907-1990) was a museum director, art historian, collector, conoisseur of drawings, and authority on Victorian art.
General:
Originally recorded on 3 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 6 digital wav files. Duration is 4 hr., 18 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.
Occupation:
Art teachers -- Rhode Island -- Interviews Search this
Art teachers -- Rhode Island -- Interviews Search this
Topic:
Museum directors -- Connecticut -- Interviews Search this
Museum directors -- Missouri -- Interviews Search this
Function:
Art museums -- Connecticut -- New London
Art museums -- Missouri -- Springfield
Genre/Form:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Sponsor:
Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service.
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
Eight letters, 1973, concerning the sculpture of Gaston Lachaise, written in connection with Merillat's book, Modern Sculpture, the New Old Masters (1974). Included are carbons of letters from Merrillat to John Thacher, Gerald Nordland and Lincoln Kirstein, two from Kirstein to Merillat, and one from Nordland to Merillat. Merillat was interested in their opinions of whether Lachaise was aware of prehistoric fertility, figures, and what Mrs. Lachaise was like, in figure and personality.
Biographical / Historical:
Writer, Washington, D.C.
Provenance:
Donated by H.C.L. Merillat, 1992.
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.
Correspondence, business files, academic papers, photographs, clippings, sketchbook, sketches, and miscellaneous notes.
REEL 581: Selected items from 2 family scrapbooks, 1933-1943 and 1946-1956; including clippings, photographs, correspondence, invitations and awards. Most material pertains to Plaut's work as director of the ICA and advisor to the government of Israel. Also included are correspondence from Georges Rouault, Carl Milles, and Oskar Kokoschka; and 6 drawings by Waldo Peirce.
REEL 5139: Two family scrapbooks, 1956-1959 and 1960-1980, containing clippings, invitations, photographs and miscellaneous material from Plaut's work World's Fairs at Brussels, 1958, New York, 1964 and Japan, 1970. Also found are family snapshots of the Plaut's travels, their children and grandchildren and include 7 earlier photographs of Plaut and his parents, ca. 1906-1932, and one photograph of Eleanor Roosevelt, 1959.
UNMICROFILMED: Travel sketchbook of Rome; term papers, honors thesis, and sketches for an architectural history course; files relating to Plaut's positions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the ICA, the World Crafts Council, and other professional and personal concerns; correspondence, including letters from Eugene Berman, Carl Milles, Lincoln Kirstein, Paul Sachs and others; personal and work related photographs; lecture notes; slides from the World's Craft Fair Council, 1974; 2 untranscribed sound tape reels of an interview made by Plaut for Alfred Auerbach concerning the Brussels World's Fair 1958 and typed list of questions for the interview; and miscellaneous papers.
ADDITION: Resumes and obituaries; correspondence; the book, Waldo Peirce, by Margit Varga, 1941, with insertions of a caricature by Peirce, illustrated postcards, and a letter; photographs of Walter Gropius House, Lincoln, Mass. and 7 photographs of Plaut with Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Konrad Adenauer, Indira Gandhi, Leonard Bernstein, and Dwight David Eisenhower; scrapbook and slides pertaining to Plaut's work for the World's Fair, Brussels, 1958; writings and publications; publications of the ICA and the WCC; the book, The Overcoat, by Nikoli Gogel, presented to Plaut upon retirement from the WCC; publications by others on art and design; and a file on James and Mary Plaut's personal art collection, ca. 1935-1990s.
Biographical / Historical:
Art administrator and museum director; Boston, Mass. Plaut was born to a wealthy family in Cincinnati, Ohio, graduated from HarvardCollege, and received an M.A. from Harvard University. His uncle was Paul Sachs, a connoisseur and influential museology professor at Harvard andsor. Plaut held curatorial positions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and became Director of Boston's Institute of Modern Art in 1939 (later the Institute of Contemporary Art or ICA) where he staged early exhibitions of contemporary design and European avant-garde paintings and sculpture until his resignation in 1956. Plaut was also involved in many international exhibitions and expositions, serving as Deputy U.S. Commissioner to the World's Fair in Brussels, 1958, and was Secretary General of the World Crafts Council, 1967-1976 and a consultant on industrial design in Israel.
Provenance:
Scrapbooks on reel 581 lent for microfilming by Plaut, 1973; his estate, via the executor Edward M. Condit, Jr., lent those on reel 5139 in 1996. Plaut donated the unmicrofilmed material in 1985 and 1992, and additional papers were received as a bequest in 1996 via the executor of his estate.
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 -- Massachusetts -- Boston Search this
Museum directors -- Massachusetts -- Boston Search this
An interview of Paul Cadmus conducted 1988 March 22-May 5, by Judd Tully, for the Archives of American Art. Cadmus speaks of his childhood and family background; his early interest in art; studying at the National Academy of Design; his early career; traveling to Europe in the 1930s; getting on the WPA Federal Art Project; controversies involving some of his paintings; changes in technique; his inspirations; his affiliation with Midtown Galleries. He recalls Jared French, Lincoln Kirstein, George Tooker, E.M. Forster, and W.H. Auden.
Biographical / Historical:
Paul Cadmus (1904-1999) was a painter from Weston, Connecticut.
General:
Originally recorded on 5 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 9 digital wav files. Duration is 5 hr., 59 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.
Memorial to a marriage : an album on the Saint-Gaudens Memorial in Rock Creek Cemetery commissioned by Henry Adams in honor of his wife, Marian Hooper Adams / essay by Lincoln Kirstein ; photograph album by Jerry L. Thompson ; additional photographs by Marian Hooper Adams
Lay this laurel; an album on the Saint-Gaudens memorial on Boston Common, honoring Black and white men together, who served the Union cause with Robert Gould Shaw and died with him July 18, 1863. With photos. by Richard Benson and an essay by Lincoln Kirstein
