An interview of Dorothea Lange conducted 1964 May 22, by Richard Doud, for the Archives of American Art.
Lange speaks of her decision of photography as a career; working in commercial photography; the development of her individual style; the organization of the Farm Security Administration and her association with it; camaraderie among the FSA staff; Roy Stryker's influence and guidance and political abilities; the subjects of photographs and their reactions to being photographed; the people she encountered and her feelings about them, including migratory workers and Dust Bowl farmers; opinions of her colleagues; what made the FSA a success; trends in the field of photography and photojournalism and its future.
She recalls Walker Evans, Arthur Rothstein, John Vachon and Paul Vanderbilt.
Biographical / Historical:
Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) was a photographer in California. Lange worked on FSA photograph project during the Depression.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound tape reel. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 1 hr., 51 min.
Provenance:
This interview conducted as part of the Archives of American Art's New Deal and the Arts project, which includes over 400 interviews of artists, administrators, historians, and others involved with the federal government's art programs and the activities of the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s and early 1940s.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
The records of the American Federation of Arts (AFA) provide researchers with a complete set of documentation focusing on the founding and history of the organization from its inception through the 1960s. The collection measures 79.8 linear feet, and dates from 1895 through 1993, although the bulk of the material falls between 1909 and 1969. Valuable for its coverage of twentieth-century American art history, the collection also provides researchers with fairly comprehensive documentation of the many exhibitions and programs supported and implemented by the AFA to promote and study contemporary American art, both nationally and abroad.
Scope and Content Note:
The records of the American Federation of Arts (AFA) provide researchers with a complete set of documentation focusing on the founding and history of the organization from its inception through the 1960s. The collection measures 79.8 linear feet, and dates from 1895 through 1993, although the bulk of the material falls between 1909 and 1969. Valuable for its coverage of twentieth-century American art history, the collection also provides researchers with fairly comprehensive documentation of the many exhibitions and programs supported and implemented by the AFA to promote and study contemporary American art, both nationally and abroad.
The earliest documentation from 1895 to 1909 concerns the organization's history and founding and is located in Series 1: Board of Trustees. Also found in this series are meeting minutes, 1909-1963 and 1968. Interfiled with the board meeting minutes are minutes of the executive committee and other special and ad hoc committees, reports to the board, financial statements and reports, and lists of committee appointments and board membership. This series also contains the scattered correspondence and subject files of various officers. Although not a complete set of officers' files, Presidents' Frederick Allen. Whiting (1931-1936), Lawrence M.C. Smith (1948-1952), Thomas Brown Rudd (1952-1954), Daniel Longwell (1954-1956), James S. Schramm (1956-1958), and Roy R. Neuberger (1958-1961) are represented. Leila Mechlin served on AFA's board as secretary from its founding to 1929, and her files are a particularly rich resource for AFA's activities during its early years. Lawrence M.C. Smith's files documenting his years as board treasurer are also arranged in this series. Additional officers' correspondence is interspersed throughout the Alphabetical Files and other series.
General information about the scope of AFA's programs, affiliations, founding, functions, and proceedings are arranged in Series 2: Administrative Records. The first subseries, Alphabetical Files, houses a wide variety of subject files that contain memoranda, correspondence, printed materials, lists, reports, and other papers. These files document the AFA's general history and founding, organizational affiliations, buildings and moves, grants, federal and state government art programs, auctions and other fund-raising efforts, publicity and public relations, publications, and fiftieth anniversary celebration. The subject headings by which these files are arranged are, for the most part, the ones designated by the AFA. The second subseries, Staff Records, houses the scattered files of AFA's director, assistant director, registrar, and special state representative, Robert Luck.
During its most active period, the AFA sponsored or participated in several special programs and Series 3: Special Programs houses the files that document many of them. The first subseries consists of the files for the Artists in Residence program that was funded by the Ford Foundation. Awarded in 1963, the grant sponsored short-term teaching residencies for artists in museums throughout the United States. The host museums were encouraged to hold exhibitions of the artists' works. This subseries contains both the general files of the program, as well as individual files on the participating artists. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, the AFA and the Ford Foundation also sponsored additional programs for artists, including Grants in Aid, Purchase Awards, and the Retrospective Exhibitions Program. The files documenting these three programs are also arranged in Series 3, under the subseries Ford Foundation Program for Visual Artists. In the late 1950s, the AFA implemented the Museum Donor Program with benefactors and philanthropists Audrey Bruce Currier and Stephen Richard Currier. Through the administration of the AFA, the Curriers donated funds to selected institutions specifically for the purchase of contemporary American art. The Curriers preferred to remain anonymous throughout the program. Files documenting this program include correspondence, applications from the accepted institutions, rejections, a summary report, and clippings about the untimely deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Currier in 1967.
Also found in Series 3 are the files documenting AFAs working relationship with the first state arts council, the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA). In 1961, AFA and NYSCA implemented a traveling exhibition program in New York State. Found here are files for possible itineraries, proposals, publicity, loans, budgets, and the actual exhibition files. Additional AFA special programs documented in Series 3 include the Picture of the Month program of the mid-1950s and the Jean Tennyson Foundation Color Slide Lecture Program.
AFA Annual Convention files constitute Series 4. Beginning with the Third Annual Convention in 1912 and continuing through the 1963 Annual Convention, the files contain official proceedings, speeches, programs, clippings, correspondence, and press releases. Files are missing for 1913, 1915, 1918, 1922, 1923, 1925, 1926, 1931, 1936-1949, 1952, 1956, 1958, 1960, and 1962. There are also audio recordings in the form of reel-to-reel tapes for the 1951 Annual Convention.
Series 5: Exhibition Files forms the bulk of the collection at circa 62 linear feet and is arranged into twenty subseries. The first subseries, Exhibitions, General, houses primarily the records of the Board of Trustees Exhibition Committee and documents the AFA's earliest involvement with traveling exhibitions. These files contain reports, budgets, correspondence, memoranda, scattered exhibition catalogs, and photographs. They are primarily the files of the chair of the Exhibition Committee and include the files of Juliana R. Force, Eloise Spaeth, and Mrs. John Pope. Also found in this series is a subseries of Mrs. John Pope's records documenting circulating exhibitions from 1934 to 1955, arranged by state.
The remaining nineteen subseries of the Exhibition Files reflect either specific exhibition programs, many of which have unique numbers assigned by AFA to individual exhibitions, or other exhibition-related files, such rejected, canceled, and suggested exhibitions and miscellaneous installation photographs. The Annual Exhibitions files constitute the largest of the subseries and are numbered according to the system assigned by AFA, following a typical chronological order. Although the documentation for each exhibition varies widely by both type and amount, most of the files contain contracts and legal agreements, correspondence, memoranda, itinerary information, condition reports, publicity materials, catalogs, announcements, price lists, and other such information arranged into one or more files. The files were labeled "documentation files," "dispersal files," "report form files," "loan agreement files," and "publicity files" according to the filing system devised by AFA. Many of the files also house a significant amount of correspondence with museum officials, lenders, and artists.
Additional subseries document AFA's exhibition venues and partnerships with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the New York State Council on the [UNK] Life magazine, and Addison Gallery. A complete list of all of the subseries, including specific exhibition programs, follows in the Series Outline.
The final three series of the collection are small: Printed Material, Miscellaneous Files, and Oversized Material. The printed material was donated much later to the Archives and dates from 1990 to 1993. Found here are scattered press releases, annual reports, and an exhibition program. Miscellaneous Files contain scattered records, 1926-1962, of the Architectural League of New York relating to national award programs. It is not clear why this small group of Architectural League records was found mixed with the AFA records but perhaps the collaboration between the two organizations on several special projects provides an explanation. Also found in Miscellaneous Files is a group of black and white lantern slides from a lecture series, "New Horizons in America." Oversized Material includes a portfolio, a work of art, and posters.
See Appendix for a list of artists exhibiting with the American Federation of Arts
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into eight primary series based primarily on administrative units or program areas. Several of the series are further subdivided into subseries. While processing, it became clear that the two filing systems were redundant and overlapped in both subject area and type of material. Most of these files were subsequently merged into the now broader Alphabetical Files or into separate series. Oversized material may be found at the end of the collection arranged in a separate series.
In most cases, files related to one another by subseries or subject areas (in the case of the Alphabetical Files) or by individual name (in the case of officers and staff files) are arranged in chronological order. The entire subseries of Alphabetical Files in Series 2 is arranged by subject heading, as assigned by the AFA, or individual name. The Alphabetical Files originally formed two broad filing systems as established by the AFA: one for general correspondence arranged by subject; and one for director's and other staff correspondence, also arranged by subject.
Series 1: Board of Trustees, circa 1895-1968 (Boxes 1-3)
Series 2: Administrative Records, 1910-1966 (Boxes 4-8)
Series 3: Special Programs, 1950-1967 (Boxes 9-13)
Series 4: Annual Conventions, 1912-1963 (Boxes 14-16)
Series 5: Exhibition Files, 1934-1969 (Boxes 17-78)
Series 6: Printed Material, 1990-1993 (Box 78)
Series 7: Miscellaneous Files, 1926-1962, undated (Box 79)
Series 8: Oversized Materials, 1890, undated (Boxes 80-85)
Historical Note:
Founded in 1909 by Elihu Root, the American Federation of Arts (AFA) exists today as a national nonprofit museum service organization striving to unite American art institutions, collectors, artists, and museums. Elihu Root, then secretary of state in the administration of Theodore Roosevelt, spoke of his idea at the first meeting of the AFA held in New York at the National Academy of Arts. He envisioned an organization that would promote American art most often seen only by the elite in the major cities of the East and upper Midwest by sending "exhibitions of original works of art on tour through the hinterlands across the United States."
The American Academy in Rome, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, and Metropolitan Museum of Art were influential organizing member institutions. Individual members included such notables as William Merritt Chase, Charles L. Freer, Daniel C. French, Charles L. Hutchinson, Henry Cabot Lodge, J.P. Morgan, and Henry Walters. The founding of the AFA provided the American art world with a forum for communication and participation among artists, cultural institutions, patrons of the arts, and the public.
To accomplish its mission, the AFA established volunteer committees for membership, exhibitions, and publications. During its first year, the AFA began publishing Art and Progress (later changed to Magazine of Art) and the American Art Annual (now the American Art Directory). In 1909, the AFA also organized its first traveling exhibition, Paintings by Prominent American Artists, which was shown at museums in Fort Worth, New Orleans, Minneapolis, and New Ulm, Minnesota.
By the end of the first year, the headquarters of the organization moved to Washington, D.C., to facilitate lobbying the federal government for favorable art legislation. In 1913, the AFA lobbied successfully for the removal of the tariff on foreign art entering the United States. In 1916, the Federation met with the Interstate Commerce Commission to protest prohibitively high interstate taxes on traveling art exhibitions.
Throughout the next fifteen years, the AFA continued to grow in membership and influence. By 1919, membership included 438 institutions and 2,900 individuals. The AFA's annual conventions were held in major national art centers and were attended by members, chapter delegates, and the public. At the conventions, scholars, patrons, and curators lectured on and discussed subjects of national interest, thereby fostering an exchange of ideas. The AFA also sponsored periodic regional conferences to promote institutional cooperation and to discuss mutual problems and needs. To facilitate exhibition venues west of the Mississippi River, in 1921 the AFA opened regional offices at the University of Nebraska and at Stanford University. The AFA produced and circulated slide programs and lecture series to museums and educational institutions that fostered art education. By 1929, the Federation had developed forty-six slide-lecture programs that covered American mural painting, European and American contemporary art, and textiles.
During the 1930s, the Federation expanded its services by providing schools with teaching guides, student workbooks, slides, and films about art. In 1935, the AFA began publishing Who's Who in American Art, later publishing The Official Directory of Illustrators and Advertising Artists and Films on Art reference guides. To reach an even larger audience, the AFA began collaborating with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to organize national circulating exhibitions to "bring the museum to the people."
One of AFA's priorities was to make American art more visible abroad. The Federation focused on encouraging the representation of American artists in foreign exhibitions, and in 1924 it lobbied successfully for additional American participation in the Venice Biennale. The AFA's focus on exhibiting American art abroad continued to expand, particularly following World War II. In 1950, recognizing that the AFA could assist in promoting American culture, the State Department awarded the AFA a grant for a German "re-orientation program" consisting of educational exhibitions shown in German museums. Additional government funding further enabled the AFA to organize American participation in exhibitions in India, Japan, Paris, Switzerland, and Rotterdam between 1950 and 1970. Later, the AFA collaborated with the United States Information Agency (USIA) to create the Overseas Museum Donor Program which permitted donations of American art to foreign institutions on a restriction-free, tax-deductible basis. During the 1950s, the AFA was a very active member of the Committee on Government and Art, a national committee with members from across the art and museum world concerned with government sponsorship of and legislation affecting art sales, commissions, and trade.
In 1952, the headquarters of the AFA returned to New York, sparking a period of innovation and expanded of programs. Throughout the 1950s, the AFA distributed films about art and co-sponsored the Films on Art Festival in Woodstock, New York. The AFA also introduced its Picture of the Month Program in 1954, renting original works of art to small American art and educational institutions. In 1956, the AFA organized the Art Collectors Club of America to provide fellowship for art collectors through meetings and activities. The club disbanded in the 1970s.
The Federation's exhibition programs continued to flourish during the 1950s and 1960s. Private and public financial support allowed the AFA to achieve many of its goals. In 1958, the Ford Foundation awarded an important grant to organize a series of traveling one-person shows and a series of monographs devoted to contemporary American artists. Milton Avery, Andrew Dasburg, José DeCreeft, Lee Gatch, Walter Quirt, Abraham Rattner, and others were among the artists who participated. Private foundation support for the AFA's Museum Donor Program provided an annual allowance that was distributed to regional museums for the pourchase of contemporary American art. Cooperative programs and joint venues also became popular during this period. For example, public support from the New York State Council on the Arts allowed the AFA to circulate exhibitions to small New York State communities, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts provided the AFA with five exhibitions for national tours.
Throughout its history, the American Federation of Arts has concentrated on its founding principle of broadening the audience for contemporary American art. Through its numerous exhibition and film programs, the AFA has succeeded in "breaking down barriers of distance and language to broaden the knowledge and appreciation of art." Annual exhibitions such as New Talent in the USA and Art Schools USA, organized by the AFA, brought before the public the most contemporary American artists and craftspeople, genres, and artistic forms of experimentation, exposing viewers to new ways of thinking and expression. In 1965, AFA produced The Curriculum in Visual Education, a series of films created to heighten the aesthetic awareness of children.
A vital part of American art history, the AFA was one of the first organizations to develop successfully the concept of traveling art exhibitions on a national and international level. The AFA was instrumental in assisting museums with circulating important juried exhibitions of contemporary art, such as the Whitney Annual and Corcoran Biennial. The AFA also recognized the importance of the exchange of cultural ideas, and it brought exhibitions of the European masters to the American public as well as exhibitions focusing on foreign contempoorary art, photography, and architecture. Many organizations and museums have followed the AFA's precedent, and traveling national and international venues are now commonplace.
Since 1909, women have served as officers and members of the Board of Trustees. Leila Mechlin was a founding participant and served as secretary from 1909 to 1933. Juliana R. Force and Eloise Spaeth both chaired the Exhibition Committee in the late 1940s. Women and artists of diverse backgrounds and nationalities were widely represented in the AFA's exhibition programs, most notably during the 1960s. In 1960, the AFA organized, with financial support from the Ford Foundation, a major Jacob Lawrence retrospective. Additional culturally diverse exhibitions included Contemporary Jewish Ceremonial Art (1961), The Heart of India (1962), 1,000 Years of American Indian Art (1963), and Ten Negro Artists from the United States (1966).
The AFA also had an impact on patronage in the arts. AFA exhibitions of contemporary art provided collectors with knowledge of new artists and avant-garde art forms, creating a broader demand and market for this type of work. Museums and collectors began purchasing work by new or obscure American artists whom they learned about through AFA exhibitions and programs.
The historical records of the American Federation of Arts offer the researcher a unique opportunity to study the development of American art and artists in the twentieth century as well as providing insight into trends in American culture.
Missing Title
1909 -- Founded in New York City. Began publishing Art and Progress (later retitled Magazine of Art) and the American Art Annual.
1910 -- Moved headquarters to Washington, D.C.
1913 -- Lobbied successfully for the removal of the tariff on art entering the United States.
1915-1916 -- Lobbied successfully against the Cummins Amendment and the Interstate Commerce Commission's prohibitively high interstate tax on traveling art.
1920 -- Organized a lobbying campaign for the development of a national gallery of art at its national convention.
1921 -- Opened two new offices at the University of Nebraska and at Stanford University.
1924 -- Arranged American participation in the Venice Biennale exhibition.
1927 -- Closed office at Stanford University.
1929 -- Organized American participation in exhibitions in France and Germany.
1933 -- Closed office at the University of Nebraska.
1935 -- Began publishing Who's Who in American Art.
1948 -- Published The Official Directory of Illustrators and Advertising Artists.
1949 -- Collaborated with the Metropolitan Museum of Art to circulate exhibitions from its collections.
1950 -- Participated in the U.S. government's German re-orientation program.
1951 -- Joined forces with the United States Information Agency (USIA) to create the Overseas Museum Donor Program. Published the reference guide Films on Art. Co-sponsored the Films on Art Festival in Woodstock, New York, through 1957.
1952 -- Moved headquarters to New York City.
1953 -- Magazine of Art liquidated.
1954 -- Introduced the Picture of the Month Program.
1956 -- Founded the Art Collectors Club of America.
1958 -- Received a Ford Foundation grant to finance a series of one-person shows of contemporary American artists.
1960 -- Created the Museum Donor Program.
1961 -- Received a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts to circulate exhibitions to small New York state communities.
1963 -- Received a grant from the Ford Foundation for the Artists in Residence program.
1964 -- Introduced the List Art Poster Program.
1965 -- Produced The Curriculum in Visual Education, a series of films that attempted to heighten the aesthetic awareness of children.
Appendix: List of Artists Exhibiting with American Federation of Arts:
The following is an alphabetical list of artists who exhibited with the American Federation of Arts; many are obscure. The alpha-numeric codes and numbers appearing with the artist's name represent specific AFA exhibition programs and, most often, AFA's exhibition numbering system. In cases where the AFA did not assign an exhibition number, Archives' staff have done so.
The primary reference source for the names and name variants is the American Federation of Arts Records. The names are documented in handwritten notes and lists, typed lists, and exhibition catalogs and announcements. The Archives of American Art name authority file was also consulted in questionable cases. The majority of names, however, were not found in either the AAA name authority file or standard bibliographic resources, and only in the AFA records.
Examples:
55-1: AFA annual exhibitions program
AD-1: Addison Gallery exhibitions
L-1: Life Magazine Exhibitions
ME-1: Misceallaneous exhibitions (numbers assigned by AAA staff)
NMA-1: Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibitions
NE-96: Contemporary Color Lithography
NY-1: New York State Council on the Arts exhibitions
VA-1: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts exhibitions
Missing Title
A. Quincy Jones, Frederick E. Emmons & Assoc: 62-34
The records of the American Federation of Arts (AFA) were donated to the Archives of American Art (AAA) over a thirteen-year period, with the bulk of the material arriving between 1964 and 1966. In 1979, Preston Bolton donated his letters and those from John de Menil, Ann Drevet, Lee Malone, and others regarding planning for the 1957 AFA annual convention held in Houston, Texas; convention committee minutes from 1956; and AFA newsletters. This material, as well as a 1979 gift from Louise Ferrari of transcripts from a panel discussion from the 1957 AFA convention in Houston, was microfilmed on AAA Reel 1780. All material previously microfilmed on Reel 1780 has been fully integrated into the collection and arranged within proper series and subseries. The provenance of the 1990-1993 printed material is unknown.
Restrictions:
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.
Scattered textual records selected from the Farm Security Administration, Historical Section records at the Library of Congress and the Farmers Home Administration records at the National Archives primarily revolving around activities of Roy Stryker. Included are personnel and travel records, typescripts of photograph captions, correspondence, memoranda, files on public relations and exhibits, and printed material.
218 copy prints of photographs of America taken for the FSA, including landscapes, people, homes and other architecture, rural scenes, urban scenes, workers, products of farm and industry, transportation, entertainment, and the Quarter Circle U Ranch, Birney, Montana. Photographers include: Arthur Rothstein, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, John Collier, Marion Post Wolcott, Jack Delano, Russell Lee, John Vachon, Ben Shahn, Carl Mydans, and Edwin Rosskam.
Biographical / Historical:
Established 1935 in the Resettlement Administration Historical Section's photographic project to document poverty stricken rural America under the direction of Roy E. Stryker. In 1937, Roosevelt established the FSA, and the Resettlement Administration and its programs fell under its auspices. The Historical Section of the Resettlement Administration remained intact under the FSA, and continued its photographic survey and historical documentation under Stryker's direction.
After 1942, the photographs project was transplanted to the Office War Information, and the emphasis of the project shifted from rural and urban conditions throughout Depression-era U.S. to the domestic impact of the war. In 1946, Congress created the Farmers Home Administration (FHA) which absorbed the FSA and its programs.
Related Materials:
Additional FSA-OWI records located at: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division (microfilm available at LC)
Additional Stryker papers located at: Photographic Archives University of Louisville, Louisville, Ky. 40208
Provenance:
Microfilm and copy prints donated by the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, 1965.
Reel FSA/WDC2: Record Group 96, textual records of the Farmers Home Administration include the records of the FSA, predecessor to the FHA.
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.
Topic:
Photography -- United States -- Landscape -- Photographs Search this
Photography -- United States -- Portraits -- Photographs Search this
Architectural photography -- United States -- Photographs Search this
Federal aid to the public welfare -- Photographs Search this
Papers documenting Stryker's career as the head of the Farm Security Administration's photographic section, including correspondence with John Collier, Jack Delano, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Edwin Locke, Arthur Rothstein, John Vachon, Marion Post Wolcott and others; reports; articles on Stryker and the FSA; publications; speeches; photographs and miscellaneous materials.
Biographical / Historical:
Director of the Farm Security Administration Historical Section; Washington, D.C. Under Stryker the Photographic project of the FSA documented the drought, poverty and despair of rural and urban America during the Depression.
Provenance:
Papers lent for microfilming 1963-1966 by Roy Stryker.
An interview of Ben Shahn conducted 1964 April 14, by Richard K. Doud, for the Archives of American Art New Deal and the Arts Project.
Shahn speaks of his travels and work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA); the American image as portrayed by FSA photographs; techniques and materials; exhibitions and publications of his work; and the effectiveness of the FSA project overall. He recalls Roy Stryker, Walker Evans, Arthur Rothstein, Edwin Rosskam and Dorothea Lange.
Biographical / Historical:
Ben Shahn (1898-1969) was a painter and photographer from Roosevelt, N.J.
General:
Originally recorded 1 sound tape reel. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 1 hr., 23 min.
Provenance:
This interview conducted as part of the Archives of American Art's New Deal and the Arts project, which includes over 400 interviews of artists, administrators, historians, and others involved with the federal government's art programs and the activities of the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s and early 1940s.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
An interview of Roy Emerson Stryker conducted 1963-1965, by Richard Doud, for the Archives of American Art, at the artist's home, in Montrose, Colorado.
Stryker speaks of his youth; early career in ranching and social work; the origin of the photography project in the Farm Security Administration; bureaucratic problems; photography and journalism; photographers on the project; subjects' reaction to being photographed; public perception of the FSA project; Paul Vanderbilt's work with the project's photographs; ethics of the photographers and staff; interaction between the photographers and subjects; the influence of earlier documentary photographers, such as Matthew Brady and Lewis Hine; political and media problems with the project; use of the photographs as a force in social change; and other issues surrounding the FSA photography project. He recalls Jack Delano, John Vachon, Edwin Rosskam, Arthur Rothstein, Rexford Tugwell, John Collier, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Carl Mydans, Ben Shahn, and Marion Post Wolcott.
Biographical / Historical:
Roy Emerson Stryker (1893-1975) was the director of the Farm Security Administration Historical Section of Washington, D.C. Under Stryker the Photographic project of the FSA documented the drought, poverty and despair of rural and urban America during the Depression.
General:
Originally recorded on 5 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 9 digital wav files. Duration is 8 hr.
Provenance:
This interview conducted as part of the Archives of American Art's New Deal and the Arts project, which includes over 400 interviews of artists, administrators, historians, and others involved with the federal government's art programs and the activities of the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s and early 1940s.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
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.
The papers of librarian, curator, and photographer Paul Vanderbilt (1905-1992) measure 25.2 linear feet and date from 1854 to 1992 with the bulk of the material dating from 1945 to 1992. The papers are comprised of biographical materials, personal and business correspondence, interviews, writings and notes, fourteen diaries and two diary fragments, reference and project files, photographic materials, sound recordings, and professional files.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of librarian, curator, and photographer Paul Vanderbilt (1905-1992) measure 25.2 linear feet and date from 1854 to 1992 with the bulk of the material dating from 1945 to 1992. The papers are comprised of biographical materials, personal and business correspondence, interviews, writings and notes, fourteen diaries and two diary fragments, reference and project files, photographic materials, sound recordings, and professional files.
Biographical materials include seven appointment books, family letters and documents, and an honorary degree from the University of Wisconsin.
Vanderbilt's correspondence is with colleagues, and organizations including Dorothea Lange, Beaumont Newhall, Roy Stryker, and Julia Vanderbilt.
Sound recordings of interviews of Vanderbilt conducted by Mary North Allen, Barbara Crane, Carl Haywood, Jack Holzhueter, and Jane Plunkett. Other recordings are of Vanderbilt discussing his personal and professional life.
Writings by Paul Vanderbilt include drafts of Between the Landscape and its Other, poems, lectures, student papers, and notes on a variety of subjects. Writings by others are found for William Blake, Gregory Conniff, Woody Guthrie, Michael Lesy, Arnold R. Pilling, Jesse H. Shera, and Roy Stryker.
Fourteen of Vanderbilt's personal diaries and two diary fragments date from 1926 to 1990.
Reference files consist of printed materials on art, art historians, book reviews, library and information studies, photography and microphotography techniques, and other themes of interest to Vanderbilt. Project files include material from Vanderbilt's various projects, including a guide to the iconography of Iran, the reclassification of FSA photographs, and the Union Library Catalog of Philadelphia.
Included in professional files are administrative records, correspondence, exhibition files, project files, printed material, and research files created during Vanderbilt's career at the Library of Congress, Graphic History Society, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Farm Security Administration. Also found are materials for Vanderbilt's work as a consultant for several organizations, lecture documents, and art-related workshops.
Photographs are by and of Paul Vanderbilt, the staff of the Library of Congress, and George Talbot. Negatives include images for the Farm Security Administration. Bibliography cards and photographs of artwork from the Library of Congress can be found on microfilm reels within the collection.
Also found are fourteen unidentified sound recordings.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 10 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1894-1992 (0.5 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1933-1992 (1.5 linear feet; Box 1-2)
Series 3: Interviews, 1967-1992 (1.5 linear feet; Box 2-4)
Series 4: Writings and Notes, 1887-1992 (4.0 linear feet; Box 4-8)
Series 5: Diaries, 1926-1990 (0.5 linear feet; Box 8)
Series 6: Reference Files, 1877-1992 (2.5 linear feet; Box 8-10, 26)
Series 7: Project Files, 1935-1990 (3.0 linear feet; Box 10-13)
Series 8: Professional Files, 1854-1991 (11.7 linear feet; Box 13-24)
Series 9: Photographic Materials, 1912-1980s (0.5 linear feet; Box 24)
Series 10: Sound Recordings, circa 1980s (0.5 linear feet; Box 24-25)
Biographical / Historical:
Paul Vanderbilt (1905-1992) was a librarian, curator, and photographer active in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C. and Madison, Wisconsin.
Paul Vanderbilt was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts and educated in Germany, Switzerland, and Massachusetts. He attended Amherst College from 1923 to 1925 before transferring to Harvard where he graduated with a BA in art history in 1927. After graduation, Vanderbilt traveled to Europe where he studied at the American School of Librarianship in Paris and the Institut de Psychologie Bibliogique in Lausanne. In 1929, he returned to the United States and became a librarian at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and director of the Union Library Catalog project for the Philadelphia area.
In 1941 Vanderbilt began working under Roy Stryker cataloging the extensive photographic survey collection of the Farm Security Administration and U.S. Office of War Information. The collection is a rich resource of images of American life between 1935 and 1944. In 1943, the FSA photograph collection was transferred to the Library of Congress and Vanderbilt went with it as the curator of the newly formed Prints and Photographs Division, eventually becoming the Division chief of fine arts.
During the early 1950s, Vanderbilt also served as the director of the Graphic History Society of America. There he published a quarterly bulletin Eye to Eye and developed a guide to iconography in Iran. In 1954, he became the Curator of Iconographic Collections at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin and worked there until he retired in 1972.
Vanderbilt remained active after retirement. He became an artist-in-residence at the Apeiron Workshops, worked as a photographer for the Seagram courthouse project and the George Eastman House, and was a presenter at multiple conferences. Vanderbilt devoted much of his later life to working on his book titled Between the Landscape and its Other which was published posthumously after Vanderbilt's death in 1992.
Related Materials:
Also found at the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Paul Vanderbilt conducted by Richard Doud on November 10, 1964.
Provenance:
The collection was donated in 1981 by Paul Vanderbilt and in 1993 by his estate through John W. Winn, executor.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Washington, D.C. Research Center. Use of archival 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.
Inventory cards track artwork entering and leaving the gallery. Each card lists a work's artist, title, date, media, and measurements. Most cards include a photograph of the artwork, and most cards further list the ultimate action taken regarding the work (sold, returned to artist or gallery, consigned, etc.), the list price or paid price, exhibition and catalog history, and the history of price quotes given for the work. The gallery used a number of abbreviations for the transactions on the inventory cards:
NFS - Not For Sale
RTA - Returned to Artist
o/c - On Consignment (from)
o/a - On Approval
OOG - Out of Gallery
O/L - On Loan (from)
TGF - Top Gallant Farm
There are no inventory cards tracking pre-Columbian art and artifacts in the collection. The cards represent works from both the New York gallery and Zurich gallery.
The cards are arranged into ten overlapping groups established by the gallery representing transactions, such as sales and consignments, loans, returns, and other general art movement. Within each category, most of the cards are alphabetized by artist and thereafter by title, but occasionally an artist's work is divided into categories (for example by media) before being arranged alphabetically by title:
Returned to Artist
Sold (pre-1993)
Sold
Sold and/or Returned to Artist
Returned to Artist
Sold
Old Top Gallant Farm Sculptures
Emmerich Private Sold
Last Active Inventory and Sales
Additional Cards
See Appendix for a list of artists' names represented by the Artist Inventory Cards in Series 8.1.
Appendix: Artists' Names Represented in Artist Inventory Cards in Series 8.1.:
Aakre, Richard
Abbott, Berenice
Abercrombie, Douglas
Adams, Ansel
Adams, Robert
Africano, Nicholas
Albers, Josef
Alechinsky, Pierre
Altoon, John
Amerine, Wayne
Andre, Carl
Annesley, David
Appel, Karel
Arakawa
Arbus, Diane
Arman
Arp, Jean (Hans)
Ashbaugh, Dennis
Atget, Eugene
Atkins, Anna
Audubon, J.J.
Avery, Milton
Bacon, Francis
Bailey, William
Baldus, Edouard
Ball, Lillian
Balthus
Bannard, Walter Darby
Barlett, Jennifer
Barth, Frances
Barth, Wolf
Bartolini, Luciano
Basquiat, Jean-Michel
Baziotes, William
Beasley, Barth
Bireline, George
Bleckner, Ross
Blossfeldt, Karl
Bocklin, Arnold
Boisseu
Boisson, L.
Bolotowsky, Ilya
Bolus, Michael
Bonnard, Pierre
Bonnet, Phi
Bradley, Peter
Beasley, Bruce
Becher, Bernd and Hillar
Bellocq, E.J.
Benazzi, Raffael
Benton, Fletcher
Best, Mary Ellen
Beuys, Joseph
Bill, Max
Boepple, Willard
Bogart, Bram
Borofsky, John
Boxer, Stanley
Botero, Fernardo
Boudin, Eugene
Bourke-White, Margaret
Brach, Paul
Brancusi, Constantin
Braque, George
Brassaï
Breed, Charles
Brui
Brush, Daniel
Buchwald, Howard
Buckley, Stephen
Bucklow, Christopher
Bush, Jack
Butterfield, Deborah
Calder, Alexander
Callahan, Harry
Cascella, Andrea
Caracciolo, Roberto
Caro, Anthony
Cezanne, Paul
Chadwick, Lynn
Chagall, Marc
Chamberlain, John
Chase, Louisa
Chillida, Eduardo
Christensen, Dan
Christo
Clifford, Charles
Close, Chuck
Cohen, Elaine Lustig
Conlon, William
Contino, Leonard
Crile, Susan
cummings, e.e.
Dahl-Wolfe, Louise
David, Michael
Davis, Gerald
Davis, Lynn
Davis, Ronald
de Amaral, Olga
de Chirico, Giorgio
de Clercq, Louis
de Kooning, Willem
Degas, Edgar
Dehner, Edgar
Delaunay, Robert
Delaunay, Sonia
Dembiczak, J.G.
de Valdivia, Marco
di Suvero, Mark
Diebenkorn, Richard
Dill, Guy
Dill, Lesley
Diller, Burgoyne
Dine, Jim
Disderi
Dorazio, Piero
Downes, Rackstraw
Drapell, Joseph
Drentwett
Dubuffet, Jean
Duchamp, Marcel
Duck-Hyun, Cho
Dufy, Raoul
Du Maine, H.
Durandelle, Louis-Emille
Durrant, Jennifer
Dzubas, Friedel
Edgerton, Dr. Harold
Egger, Marc
Eggleston, William
Embry, Norris
Ellis, Stephen
Emmerich, Tobias
Ernst, Max
Evans, Walker
Fautrier, Jean
Feeley, Paul
Feist, Harold
Ferber, Herbert
Ferrara, Jackie
Fessler, Cristina
Fischl, Eric
Flavin, Dan
Fleming, Linda
Fontana, Corsin
Fontana, Lucio
Ford, Hermine
Fornier, Paul
Foster, John
Fournier, Paul
Francis, Sam
Francis, Sherron
Franck
Frank, Robert
Frankenthaler, Helen
Freud, Lucian
Friedberg, Richard
Freres, Henry
Friedlander, Lee
Fuger
Funakoshi, Katsura
Fuss, Adam
Galanin, Igor
Giacometti, Alberto
Gibbons, Arthur
Gilliam, Sam
Ginnever, Charles
Giordani, Patrice
Glarner, Fritz
Gliko, Carl
Gonzalez, Julio
Goodnough, Robert
Gorchov, Ron
Gordon, Harry
Gorky, Arshile
Gossweiler, Christoph
Gottlieb, Adolph
Graffin, Daniel
Graham, John
Graubner, Gotthard
Graves, Nancy
Green, June
Greenleaf, Ken
Griefen, John Adams
Grill
Gris, Juan
Groover, Jan
Guston, Philip
Gutman, John
Hacklin, Alan/Allan
Hagemeyer, Johan
Hall, Lee
Hantai, Simon
Haring, Keith
Harman, Maryann
Hartley, Marsden
Hartung, Hans
Hatcher, Brower
Held, Al
Hendler, Raymond
Hennessy, Richard
Hepworth, Barbara
Herdeg, Christian
Hide, Peter
Highstein, Jene
Hirschfeld
Hitch, Stewart
Hockney, David
Hodgkin, Howard
Hoenigsberg, Helga
Hofmann, Hans
Hollega, Wolfgang
Honegger, Gottfried
Hope, Polly
Hopper, Edward
Horne, Bernard Shea
Hosiasson, Philippe
Hoyland, John
Hoyningen-Heune, George
Hughto, Darryl
Hughto, Margie/Marjorie
Humphrey, Ralph
Hutchinson, Jay
Hutchinson, Jaqueth
Indiana, Robert
Isherwood, Jon
Jenkins, Paul
Jensen, Bill
Johns, Jasper
Johnson, Meredith
Jorn, Asger
Kandinsky, Wassily
Kelly, Ellsworth
Kertesz, Andre
Keskeny, George
Kiesler, Frederick
Kisling
Klee, Paul
Klein, Yves
Klett, Mark
Kline, Franz
Knoop, Guitou
Koekoek, B.C.
Krasner, Lee
Kupka, Frantisek
Kuwayama, Tadaaki
Lack, Stephen
Landfield, Ronnie
Lange, Dorothea
Langlois and Martens
La Noue, Terence
Laurens, Henri
Leger, Fernand
Le Gray, Gustave
Lehman, Wendy
LeRoy, Jeanette
Letellier, B.
Lettron, J.
Levee, John
Levinson, Moss
Levitt, Helen
Lewitt, Sol
Liberman, Alexander
Lichtenstein, Roy
Lindner, Richard
Lipschitz, Jacques
Lipski, Donald
Lipsky, Pat
Lissitsky, El
Lipsky, Pat
Lohse, Richard Paul
Long, Richard
Longobardi, Nino
Louis, Morris
Lüthi, Bernhard
Lüthi, Urs
Lutz
Lydis, Mariette
MacWhinnie, John
Maillol, Aristide
Mairwöger, Gottfried
Mapplethorpe, Robert
Marden, Brice
Maril, Herman
Marin, John
On Consignment from Peter Marks
Martin, Agnes
Martins, Maria
Marx, G.L.
Maryan
Masullo, Andrew
Mathieu, Georges
Matisse, Henri
Matta, Roberto
McDermott & McGough, Messrs.
McDonnell, Joseph Anthony
McLaughlin, John
McLean, John
Meadmore, Clement
Megert, Christian
Miller, Robert
Milton, Peter
Miró, Joan
Misrach, Richard
Mitchell, Joan
Model, Lisette
Moholy-Nagy, Laszlo
Monet, Claude
Moore, Henry
Morandi, Giorgio
Moses, Ed
Motherwell, Robert
Mulder, George
Muller-Brittnau, Willy
Murray, Elizabeth
Muybridge, Eadweard
Nadar, (Felix Tournachon)
Nadelman, Elie
Nakian, Reuben
Natkin, Robert
Nemont, G.
Neugass, Fritz
Nevelson, Louise
Newman, Arnold
Newman, Barnett
Nezhdanov, Alexander
Nicholson, Ben
Nickson, Graham
Nixon, Nicholas
Noel, Georges
Noguchi, Isamu
Noland, Kenneth
Nolde, Emil
Offord, J. Milton
Oldenburg, Claes
Olitski, Jules
Olmec
Ono, Yoko
Orr, Eric
O'Sullivan, Timothy
Otterness, Tom
Outerbridge, Paul
Paik, Nam June
Parodi, Filippo
Penn, Irving
Pepper, Beverly
Perless, Robert
Perlman, Joel
Pettet, William
Pfaff, Judy
Picabia, Francis
Picasso, Pablo
Pissarro, Camille
Pollock, Jackson
Pomodoro, Arnaldo
Poons, Lawrence
Porter, Fairfield
Porter, Katherine
Poulos, Basilios
Press, Naomi
Quaytman, Harvey
Quigley, Edward
Quisgard, Liz Whitney
Rainer, Arnulf
Raush, Mark
Rauschenberg, Robert
Ray, Man
Recanati, Dina
Reddinger
Reinhardt, Ad
Richter, Gerhard
Rickey, George
Ridenhour, William
Rivers, Larry
Robb, Charles
Robbins, Bruce
Robert, Louis
Rockburne, Dorothea
Rodin, Auguste
Rosan, Larry
Rosen, Felix
Rosenthal, Tony
Rosenquist, James
Rossi, Rosalie
Rothko, Mark
Row, David
Rozen, Feliz
Rutherford, Louis M.
Ryan, Anne
Ryan, Kevin
Ryman, Robert
Saba, Richard
de Saint Phalle, Niki
Saito, Kikuo
Salemme, Attilio
Samaras, Lucas
Sander, August
Sander, Ludwig
Sanders, John
Santomaso, Giuseppe
Schapiro, Miriam
Schlemmer, Oskar
Schlesinger, Mark
Schumacher, Emil
Scott, Robert
Scott, Tim
Scott, William
Seery, John
Segal, George
Seligmann, Kurt
Sellers, Daniel
Serra, Richard
Shapiro, Joel
Shields, Alan
Signac, Paul
Simpson, David
Sisley, Alfred
Slone, Sandi
Smith, David
Smith, Hassel
Smith, Kimber
Smith, Tony
Sohanievich, Oleg
Sommer, Frederick
Sommer, Giorgio
Southall, Derek
Spence, Andrew
Stamos, Theodoros
Stankiewicz, Richard
Steichen, Edward
Steiner, Michael
Stella, Frank
Stephan, Gary
Stettheimer, Florine
Stevens, Peter
Still, Clyfford
Stoltz, David
Stone, Sylvia
Strand, Paul
Sugarman, George
Sugimoto, Hiroshi
Sultan, Donald
Sutton, Carol
Sutton, Pat Lipsky
Tajiri, Shinkichi
Talbot, William Henry Fox
Tanger, Susanna
Tatafiore, Ernesto
Thiebaud, Wayne
Thorne, Joan
Tillyer, William
Torres-Garcia, Joaquin
Truitt, Anne
Twombly, Cy
Tworkov, Jack
Unger, Mary Ann
Upton, Ann
Wagner, Merrill
Van Dongen, Kees
Van Gogh Manuscript
Van Stalbent, Adrien
Van Velde, Bram
Vasarely, Victor
Venet, Bernar
Verna, Germaine
Vicente, Esteban
Vuillard, Edouard
Waid, Mary Joan
Walsh, James
Ward, Cora Kelly
Warhol, Andy
Warren, Catharine
Wells, Lynton
Watkins, Charlton E.
Wegman, William
Wessel, Henry
Wesselman, Tom
Westfall, Stephen
Wiegmann, Jenny
Willette, Adolph
Williams, Neil
Williams, Roger
Willis, Thornton
Wilmarth, Christopher
Winogrand, Garry
Witkin, Isaac
Witkin, Joel-Peter
Woelfli, Adolf
Wofford, Philip
Wolfe, James
Wols, Alfred Otto Wolfgang
Wonner, Paul
Woodman, Betty
Woolf, Paul
Wotruba, Fritz
Yokoi, Teruko
Youngerman, Jack
Yunkers, Adja
Zerbe, Karl
Zimmerman, Daniel
Zox, Larry
Collection Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Access of diaries and appointment books required written permission.
Collection 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.
Collection Citation:
André Emmerich Gallery records and André Emmerich papers, circa 1929-2009. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Leon Levy Foundation.
An interview of Imogen Cunningham conducted 1975 June 9, by Louise Katzman and Paul Karlstrom, for the Archives of American Art, in Cunningham's home. [Note: A photograph of Cunningham taken by Katzman at the time of the interview has been cataloged separately.]
Cunningham speaks of her training in Germany, working in Edward Curtis' studio, her childhood art classes, her husband Roi Partridge, the f.64 group, platinum prints, her early interest in photography, and the differences between West Coast and East Coast photographers. She discusses magazine photography, her work as a portrait photographer, collectors, and her professional and personal relationships with Ansel Adams, Maynard Dixon, Dorothea Lange, Willard Van Dyke, Edward Henry Weston, Minor White, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Imogen Cunningham (1883-1976) was a photographer from San Francisco, California.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound tape reel. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 1 hr., 56 min.
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 available on the Archives of American Art website.
Occupation:
Photographers -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Educators -- California -- San Francisco Search this
A letter from Archie Robertson to Stryker about traveling photographic exhibitions; 2 manuscripts on the origins of the FSA and containing biographical information of Stryker, the staff, and photographers on the project; a photograph of a poem, "Merry Christmas to Stryker"; "Stryker's Credo," a statement he made upon leaving the "Jersey Company" (Standard Oil); "The Children of Esso," 1948 by John Vachon, a psalm-like parody about Stryker and his affiliation with Standard Oil; and a copy of "Their Blood is Strong," 1940 by John Steinbeck on migratory agricultural workers in California illustrated with photos by Dorothea Lange for the FSA, signed by Steinbeck.
Biographical / Historical:
Director of the Farm Security Administration Historical Section; Washington, D.C. Under Stryker the Photographic project of the FSA documented the drought, poverty and despair of rural and urban America during the Depression.
Provenance:
Donated 1965 by Roy Stryker.
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.
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Washington, D.C. Research Center. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
Collection 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.
Collection Citation:
Paul Vanderbilt papers, 1854-1992, bulk 1945-1992. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Smithsonian Institution Collections Care and Preservation Fund
Correspondence with Lewis Hine, Roy Stryker, Paul Taylor and Dorothea Lange concerning the publication of photographs and articles. Hine correspondence is with Paul and Arthur Kellogg, 1918-1940, and concerns Hine's work for the American Red Cross and many other projects. Stryker correspondence, 1934-1948, is mainly with managing editor Florence Kellogg concerning his work in the Farm Security Administration. Taylor, professor of economics at University of California at Berkeley, and husband of photographer Dorothea Lange, corresponds mainly with Kellogg, 1934-1945, about articles he is writing for the magazine on "rural immigrants," Japanese internment camps, and other topics, and the photographs illustrating them by Lange. The Lange correspondence consists of a few letters, 1943-1945, concerning the mailing and payment for photographs.
Biographical / Historical:
Publisher (New York, N.Y.) of the magazine The Survey, which appeared as two separate periodicals from 1933-1948, Survey Graphic and Survey Midmontly. Leading journal of the social work profession and social reform activities. Paul Underwood Kellogg was editor 1912-1952; his brother Arthur was managing editor.
Provenance:
Microfilmed for the Archives of American Art by the University of Minnesota Libraries, 1987. The University received the Survey Associates, Inc. records in 1964 from Helen Hall.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
An interview of Edwin and Louise Rosskam conducted 1965 August 3, by Richard Doud, for the Archives of American Art, at their home, in Roosevelt, N.J.
Edwin Rosskam speaks of his background and youth in Germany; coming to the United States; his education in painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; the early development of his interest in photography; getting his photojournalism career started; joining the Farm Security Administration and working under Roy Stryker; the view of America presented by the work produced by the FSA; photography exhibits he has done; the effect upon him of the people he met and photographed during his FSA career; the political impact of the FSA; applications and uses of the photographs produced by the FSA; the project's strengths and weaknesses; books and other projects he has contributed to. He recalls Roy Stryker, Dorothea Lange, Marion Post Wolcott, John Vachon, and the novelist Richard Wright. Louise Rosskam discusses the impact upon her of the people who were photographed, propagandistic aspects of the work, and the impact of the FSA project on photojournalism.
Biographical / Historical:
Edwin (1903-1985) and Louis Rosskam (1910-2003) were photographers from Roosevelt, N.J.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 3 digital wav files. Duration is 2 hr., 49 min.
Provenance:
This interview conducted as part of the Archives of American Art's New Deal and the Arts project, which includes over 400 interviews of artists, administrators, historians, and others involved with the federal government's art programs and the activities of the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s and early 1940s.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
The Emmy Lou Packard papers measure 9.4 linear feet and date from 1900 to 1990, and focus on the career of painter, printmaker, muralist, and sculptor Emmy Lou Packard. Also found are extensive materials relating to Packard's personal and professional relationship with muralist Diego Rivera and painter Frida Kahlo, with whom Packard lived for one year in Mexico. Papers include correspondence, financial records, notes, writings, exhibition files, photographs, and printed material.
Scope and Contents note:
The Emmy Lou Packard papers measure 9.4 linear feet and date from 1900 to 1990, and focus on the career of painter, printmaker, muralist, and sculptor Emmy Lou Packard. Also found are extensive materials relating to Packard's personal and professional relationship with muralist Diego Rivera and painter Frida Kahlo, with whom Packard lived for one year in Mexico. Papers include correspondence, financial records, notes, writings, exhibition files, photographs, and printed material.
Biographical materials include resumes, personal forms, and certificates. Correspondence is with family, friends, and colleagues, including muralist Anton Refregier, songwriter Malvina Reynolds, and composer John Edmunds. There is one letter from Dorothea Lange. Also found is correspondence with various political and arts organizations, such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Russian magazine Soviet Woman. Much of the correspondence discusses personal relationships and political and art-related activities. Additional correspondence with and concerning Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo is arranged in Series 6.
Personal business records found within the papers include studio real estate and rent records, insurance records, price lists for artwork, consignment records, and miscellaneous receipts. There is one interview transcript of an interview with Packard for the Radical Elders Oral History Project. The papers include a series of notebooks/diaries, address lists, and other notes.
Packard's reference files and personal papers documenting her professional and close personal relationship with Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo are arranged into a separate series. They include her research files for a planned book on the two artists, personal letters between Packard and the couple, as well as several interesting photographs. Also found in this series are notes, writings, and printed materials relating to Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and other Mexican artists, such as Covarrubius, Juan O'Gorman, and Pablo O'Higgins.
The collection also includes typescripts and additional writings by Packard and others. Artwork consists of orginal drawings and prints by Packard and others not directly associated with projects. Exhibition and project files for many of Packard's commissioned projects are also found within the collection, including her files for the restoration of Anton Refregier's Rincon Annex Post Office mural in San Francisco and the Coit Tower murals in San Francisco. Many of the project files contain correspondence, reports, contracts, printed material, photographs, and artwork.
The papers also include photographs of Packard, her family, residences, artwork, friends, and colleagues, including Cesar Chavez, Juan O'Gorman, Malvina Reynolds, Charles Safford, Ralph Stackpole, and Tennessee Williams. Two scrapbooks are found, as well as additional printed materials such as clippings and exhibition announcements and catalogs. There are also two artifact items, a vinyl record of Malvina Reynolds and a political campaign button.
Arrangement note:
The collection is arranged into fifteen series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1942-1985 (Box 1; 1 folder)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1919-1990 (Box 1-3; 2.6 linear feet)
Series 3: Personal Business Records, 1945-1985 (Box 3; 21 folders)
Series 4: Interview Transcript, 1979 (Box 3; 1 folder)
Series 5: Notes, 1900-1985 (Box 3-4, 10; 1.1 linear feet)
Series 6: Reference Files on Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, 1929-1986 (Box 5, 10, OV 11; 0.9 linear feet)
Series 7: Writings by Packard, 1953-1984 (Box 6; 17 folders)
Series 8: Writings by Others, 1955-1984 (Box 6; 19 folders)
Series 9: Artwork, 1921-1976 (Box 6; 10 folders)
Series 10: Exhibition Files, 1950-1964 (Box 6, OV 11; 5 folders)
Series 11: Project Files, 1953-1985 (Box 6-7, 10, OV 11; 1.8 linear feet)
Series 12: Photographs, 1914-1982 (Box 8, 10; 0.8 linear feet)
Series 13: Scrapbooks, 1947-1950 (Box 8, 10; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 14: Printed Material, 1936-1988 (Box 8-9, 10; 1 linear foot)
Series 15: Artifacts, 1984 (Box 9-10, OV 11; 2 folders)
Biographical/Historical note:
Emmy Lou Packard was born in Imperial Valley, California on April 15, 1914, to Walter and Emma Leonard Packard. In the late 1920s she lived with her family in Mexico City where she became acquainted with Diego Rivera, from whom she received regular art criticism and encouragement. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley and completed courses in fresco and sculpture at the California School of Fine Arts in 1940. That year and the next, Packard worked as a full-time painting assistant to Rivera on his 1,650 square-foot fresco at the World's Fair in San Francisco. During this project, Packard became very close to Rivera and Frida Kahlo and returned to Mexico with them and spent a year living with the couple.
From then on, except for in 1944-1945 working for a defense plant, Packard worked and grew in various aspects of her art. In addition to her work in fresco, Packard is known for her work in watercolor, oil, mosaic, laminated plastic, concrete, and printmaking, both in linocuts and woodblocks. She received numerous commissions that included installations for ships, hotels, and private homes for which she executed large woodcuts and mural panels. During the 1950s and 1960s, Packard was hired to restore several historic murals, most notably the Rincon Annex Post Office mural by Anton Refregier and the Coit Tower murals in San Francisco.
Between 1966 and 1967 she was commissioned by architects to design and execute a number of concrete and mosaic pieces, one of which went to the Mirabeau Restaurant in Kaiser Center, Oakland. She also designed and executed a mural for the Fresno Convention Center Theater during that same period. In 1973-1974, she designed and supervised a glazed brick mural for a public library in Pinole, California.
Packard had one-woman shows at the San Francisco Museum of Art, Raymond and Raymond Gallery (San Francisco), Addison Gallery of American Art (Andover, Mass.), Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts, Pushkin Museum (Moscow), and March Gallery (Chicago). Emmy Lou Packard died in 1998.
Related Archival Materials note:
Also found in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Emmy Lou Packard conducted by Mary Fuller McChesney in 1964.
Provenance:
Emmy Lou Packard donated her papers to the Archives of American Art from 1984-1988.
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.
Occupation:
Painters -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Sculptors -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Muralists -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Topic:
Printmakers -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Mural painting and decoration, American Search this
Mural painting and decoration, Mexican Search this
