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.
The papers of Jan Butterfield measure 15 linear feet and date from circa 1950 to 1997. Papers contain hundreds of recorded interviews with and lectures by artists, panel discussions of artists and art historians, as well as extensive writings by Butterfield. Also found are project files, personal business records, printed materials, photographs, and additional sound and video recordings related to art subjects.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Jan Butterfield measure 15 linear feet and date from circa 1950 to 1997. Papers contain hundreds of recorded interviews with and lectures by artists, panel discussions of artists and art historians, as well as extensive writings by Butterfield. Also found are project files, personal business records, printed materials, photographs, and additional sound and video recordings related to art subjects.
Interviews and Lectures include hundreds of interviews conducted by Butterfield between 1971 and 1987 with contemporary artists about whom she was writing at the time. The artists Robert Irwin and Sam Francis are represented particularly well. Also found are slide talks, class discussions, and lectures given by artists, which are assumed to have been recorded by Butterfield in most cases. Also among the recordings are recorded performances by John Cage, Joe Goode, Newton and Helen Harrison, Jim Roche, and George Greene. Panel discussions include two notable recordings involving Milton Resnick, one with the painter Edward Dugmore in 1959, and the other with the painter Ad Reinhardt at The Club in 1961, which was later dubbed "The Attack."
The bulk of the writings relate to Butterfield's published work The Art of Light and Space, represented here in multiple drafts, research, and photographs of works of art by the artists discussed in the work including Robert Irwin, James Turrell, Maria Nordman, Douglas Wheeler, Bruce Nauman, Eric Orr, Larry Bell, DeWain Valentine, Susan Kaiser Vogel, and Hap Tivey. Also found are extensive drafts and research for catalog essays for exhibitions of Larry Bell, Richard Shaw, Robert Hudson, and Elmer Bischoff. Drafts of articles and publicity writing are mainly about artists but also some galleries and other art events. There are a few transcripts of recorded interviews, and it appears that many of the writings are based on Butterfield's interviews.
Project files include records relating to Butterfield's involvement with the production of a catalog for the corporate art collection of Pacific Enterprises. These also include additional artist interviews and artist files containing research and writing, mainly by her associate Michael Karp. Also found are photographs and sound recordings for the Waterfront Project at the San Francisco Art Institute, an interdisciplinary community-centered development project that involved Larry Bell, Robert Irwin, Melinda Wortz, Eric Orr, Dr. E. Wortz, Frank Gehry, Newton and Helen Harrison, Josh Young, and students at the Art Institute. And finally, project files include photographs, interviews, and printed material related to publications of Lapis Press, where Butterfield was Executive Director.
Personal business records include correspondence, price lists, financial records, notes, press releases, and career documentation of Butterfield. Printed materials include articles by Butterfield, articles about Butterfield, and articles by Henry Hopkins, most of which are photocopies. There are also clippings, exhibition catalogs, exhibition posters, and publicity. Of note is a disassembled scrapbook pertaining to the controversial Ed Kienholz exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1966, and a directory of art spaces in Los Angeles from 1978.
Most of the photographs are of works of art by artists about whom Butterfield wrote. Also found are a few files of photographs of artists, some taken by Butterfield, including Philip Guston, Ed Kienholz, Henry Hopkins with Clyfford Still, Robert Irwin, Robert Rauschenberg, and James Turrell. Additional video and sound recordings include artist installations, a documentary on Sam Francis, and an acoustiguide for an Ed Ruscha exhibition.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged as 7 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Interviews and Lectures (Boxes 1-5; 4.2 linear feet)
Series 2: Writings (Boxes 5-7, 16, OV 17; 3.7 linear feet)
Series 3: Project Files (Boxes 8-10, 16; 1.6 linear feet)
Series 4: Personal Business Records (Boxes 10-11, OV 17-19; 1.1 linear feet)
Series 5: Printed Materials (Boxes 11-12, 16, OV 17-19; 1.8 linear feet)
Series 6: Photographs (Boxes 12-14, 16; 2.2 linear feet)
Series 7: Sound and Video Recordings (Box 15; 0.4 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
Jan Butterfield (1937-2000) was an art writer and critic of contemporary art who spent most of her career in California. She is best known for her writings on late twentieth century installation and craft artists, particularly those who worked in California and the American West.
Butterfield was born Jan Van Alstine in Los Angeles, California in 1937 and attended the Univeristy of California, Los Angeles. She received numerous fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts as an art critic, and contributed art writing to dozens of exhibition catalogs and art publications including Art International, Images and Issues, Art News, Art in America, and Flash Art. Her most ambitious work of writing was The Art of Light and Space (Abbeville Press: 1993), which profiles the work of contemporary artists Robert Irwin, James Turrell, Maria Nordman, Douglas Wheeler, Bruce Nauman, Eric Orr, Larry Bell, DeWain Valentine, Susan Kaiser Vogel, and Hap Tivey. She was also the author of a 1972 monograph of the Abstract Expressionist painter Sam Francis.
Butterfield held positions in public relations at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art from its opening until 1970, and at the Fort Worth Art Museum from 1970 to 1974. She taught at Northwood Experimental Art Institute in Dallas, Texas, the San Francisco Art Institute, San Jose State University, and Mills College in Oakland, California between 1973 and 1983. At the San Francisco Art Institute, she was Director of the extension program and Coordinator of the visiting artist program and the Waterfront Project between 1976 and 1978. In 1984, Butterfield and the artist Sam Francis co-founded the Lapis Press, where she served as Executive Director from its founding until 1988.
Butterfield was married twice, the second time to Henry Hopkins, Museum Director at LACMA, the Museum of Fine Art of Houston, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. She died in 2000 after an extended illness.
Related Materials:
Also found among the collections of the Archives of American Art is a 1981 panel discussion on Bay area art criticism sponsored by the National Women's Caucus for Art, in which Butterfield participated, as well as an oral history interview Butterfield conducted with Helen Lundeberg for the Archives' Oral History Program in 1980.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming on reel 1042 including two volumes of scrapbooks. Loaned materials were returned to the lender and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
Jan Butterfield lent material in 1975 for microfilming. She donated the Robert Irwin material in 1980 of and most of the interviews and audio tapes in 1989. An additional 12 feet of papers, including some material previously loaned and microfilmed, along with two additional audio tapes, were donated by Butterfield's brother, and Trustee of the Jan Butterfield Trust, Derek Van Alstine in 2002.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment. 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.
Occupation:
Art critics -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Art historians -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Authors -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Lapis Press was a publishing firm Butterfield was involved in. A few scattered records exist in this collection relating to Lapis publications, including a catalog, clippings with cartoons files as "Lapis Jokes," newspaper clippings relating the activities of the press, and two interviews on two sound cassettes with unidentified scholars of Carl Jung, possibly including one with C.A. Meyer, the author of Lapis publication Soul and Body. One of the interviews is falsely labeled Jean Star Untermeyer, but could not have been her as it post-dates her death. Also found are a number of photographs that were collected for Lapis publications, including copy negatives for Dorothea Tanning's Birthday, photographs of San Francisco beat-era writers from various sources for the book Whitman's Wild Children, and photographs of an unidentified publishing event.
Collection Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment. 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:
Jan Butterfield papers, 1959-1998. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Council on Library and Information Resources "Hidden Collections" grant program.
Recordings in this series are mostly interviews of artists conducted by Butterfield between 1971 and 1987. Also found are slide talks, class discussions, and lectures given by artists, which are assumed to have been recorded by Butterfield in most cases. Artists of the United States who are associated with the Light and Space movement in sculpture are highly represented, as well as artists of the new crafts movement and contemporary West Coast artists in particular. Also among the recordings are recorded performances by John Cage, Joe Goode, Newton and Helen Harrison, Jim Roche, and George Greene.
Butterfield's interviews were mainly conducted for specific writing projects, either for articles, reviews, published artist interviews, catalog essays, or books Butterfield was writing. Some interviews were conducted over the phone. Some recordings are editing sessions in which Butterfield consults with her subjects during the editing process for a specific article or interview to be published. Multiple, extensive interviews are found with artists Sam Francis and Robert Irwin. A few interviews conducted by others are found, including a radio interview of Henry Hopkins regarding the Clyfford Still bequest to SF Moma, interviews by Henry Hopkins of Joe Goode, Philip Guston (in a recording of a public Q&A), Walter Hopps (with Jan Butterfield), and possibly Milton Resnick, and an interview with Ursula Schneider conducted by Lorri Surrihan. A transcript is found for the interview by Henry Hopkins with Walter Hopps. Additional transcripts, usually highly edited from the recorded version, are found among the published interviews in the Writings series. Most of the lectures found in this series take place in Texas and California, including multiple lectures that took place at the Berkeley Art Museum, the Northwood Experimental Artists Institute in Dallas, Texas, and the San Francisco Art Institute. In all, the series contains 107 sound tape reels, 97 cassettes, and 1 videoreel.
Panel discussions include two notable recordings that Butterfield seems to have acquired from Milton Resnick during his solo exhibition at the Fort Worth Art Center in 1971. These include a 1959 appearance of Edward Dugmore and Milton Resnick at Southern Illinois State University, and a 1961 debate between Ad Reinhardt and Milton Resnick which later became known as "The Attack," held at "The Club" in New York City. Also found are recordings of a 1976 conference at UCLA entitled "Space and Place" which included talks by Lloyd Hamrol, Richard Serra, Robert Irwin, and others.
Arrangement:
Interviews, lectures, and performances are filed in alphabetical order by their subject's name, and multiple recordings for a single subject are filed chronologically under his or her name. Recordings listed in this series are interviews conducted by Jan Butterfield unless otherwise indicated in the folder listing. Often physical tapes contained multiple recordings, and where an additional recording of a different subject is found on a single physical tape, it is noted with the main entry for that tape, and cross referenced under the additional artist's name alphabetically in the item list. Panel discussions are arranged chronologically at the end of the series.
Additional artist interviews conducted by Michael Karp in the early 1990s are found in the Pacific Enterprises files of series 3, Project files. Additional sound recordings are also found in the Waterfront Project files of series 3, the Lapis Press files of series 3, and in series 7, sound and video recordings.
Collection Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment. 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:
Jan Butterfield papers, 1959-1998. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Council on Library and Information Resources "Hidden Collections" grant program.
Use of original papers requires an appointment. 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:
Jan Butterfield papers, 1959-1998. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Council on Library and Information Resources "Hidden Collections" grant program.
Use of original papers requires an appointment. 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:
Jan Butterfield papers, 1959-1998. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Council on Library and Information Resources "Hidden Collections" grant program.
Use of original papers requires an appointment. 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:
Jan Butterfield papers, 1959-1998. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Council on Library and Information Resources "Hidden Collections" grant program.
Use of original papers requires an appointment. 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:
Jan Butterfield papers, 1959-1998. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Council on Library and Information Resources "Hidden Collections" grant program.
Use of original papers requires an appointment. 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:
Jan Butterfield papers, 1959-1998. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Council on Library and Information Resources "Hidden Collections" grant program.
Use of original papers requires an appointment. 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:
Jan Butterfield papers, 1959-1998. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Council on Library and Information Resources "Hidden Collections" grant program.
Use of original papers requires an appointment. 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:
Jan Butterfield papers, 1959-1998. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Council on Library and Information Resources "Hidden Collections" grant program.
Use of original papers requires an appointment. 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:
Jan Butterfield papers, 1959-1998. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Council on Library and Information Resources "Hidden Collections" grant program.
Use of original papers requires an appointment. 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:
Jan Butterfield papers, 1959-1998. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Council on Library and Information Resources "Hidden Collections" grant program.
This series contains handwritten and typewritten drafts, notes, research, correspondence, photographs of works of art, and other documentation related to Butterfield's book projects, articles, catalog essays, and publicity writings.
The most extensive project in this series is Butterfield's book The Art of Light and Space, represented here in multiple drafts, galleys, photographs of works of art, editorial correspondence, records related to later exhibitions of the artists represented in the book, and records of an exhibition of artist portraits created for the book by the photographer James McHugh. Extensive files of photographs of works of art by the artists included in the book are also found in the photographs series. Note that the first two drafts in the series bear earlier titles, Context, the art of light and space, and California Light and Space, but are the same work.
Book projects on the artists Fletcher Benton and Leonard Cutrow are also documented in this series in correspondence, business records, photographs of works of art, and scattered typescript and printout draft writings. Butterfield does not take an author credit for these projects, but she seems to have been involved in their editing and production to different degrees. A book on outdoor sculpture in San Francisco by Warren Radford is found in draft form and appears to have been edited by Butterfield. The draft is filed at the end of the series under "writings by others".
Articles by Butterfield found in this series are mostly in the form of typescript drafts, some hand-corrected. Photocopies of Butterfield's published articles are filed with Printed Materials. Articles about artists or galleries are arranged by the subject's name. Other articles are listed in the series by title.
Many of the files relating to catalog essays by Butterfield contain extensive documentation related to the artist subjects, including multiple drafts, photographs of works of art, and research gathered about the artist or subject matter in the form of printed materials, artist biographies and CVs from galleries, notes, and correspondence. The file for Richard Shaw also contains an interview transcript, presumably for the 1981 interview by Butterfield found In the Interviews series.
Some of Butterfield's work as a publicist for artists and galleries is filed under publicity writings, which include drafts of press releases, exhibition reviews, photographs of artwork, research, and occasionally correspondence with the artist. A large amount of material is found related to Peter Erskine's project "Secrets of the Sun" (1992) including two videocassettes (VHS). An additional videocassette (VHS) is found with publicity writings for the artist Anne Labirola.
Arrangement:
Many of the writings are based on recorded interviews that can be found in series 1, Interviews and Lectures. A variety of material related to Butterfield's work on books published by Lapis Press is found in series 3, Project files, which also contains additional publicity writings by Butterfield. Extensive writings by others on the artist George Herms are found in series 4, Personal Business Records. Many of Butterfield's writings that appeared in print are found in series 5, Printed Materials. Additional photographs of works of art by the artists about whom Butterfield wrote are found in series 6, Photographs.
Collection Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment. 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:
Jan Butterfield papers, 1959-1998. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Council on Library and Information Resources "Hidden Collections" grant program.
Use of original papers requires an appointment. 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:
Jan Butterfield papers, 1959-1998. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Council on Library and Information Resources "Hidden Collections" grant program.
This series contains records relating to major projects overseen by Butterfield, including a catalog of artworks held by the corporation Pacific Enterprises, a cross-disciplinary project overseen by Butterfield at the San Francisco Art Institute called the Waterfront Project, and a publishing company for which Butterfield served as managing editor called Lapis Press.
Arrangement:
The series is arranged as 3 subseries.
Missing Title
3.1: The Art Collection of Pacific Enterprises Artist Files and Interviews
3.2. Waterfront Project Photographs and Sound Recordings
3.3. Lapis Press
Collection Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment. 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:
Jan Butterfield papers, 1959-1998. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Council on Library and Information Resources "Hidden Collections" grant program.
Greenwood Press (San Francisco, Calif.) Search this
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Jack Werner Stauffacher, 1993 February 8. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
An interview of Jack Stauffacher conducted 1993 February 8, by Paul Karlstrom, for the Archives of American Art.
Stauffacher speaks of his childhood in San Mateo, California and his early interest in printing; his collaboration with his older brother, Frank, a filmmaker, and his contacts through him with other experimental filmmakers including Man Ray and Oskar Fischinger; his developing interest in post-war modernism; and his connection with avant-garde group around "Circle Magazine" in Berkeley which included Henry Miller, Kenneth Rexroth, among others.
He recounts his friendships with Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, Sam Francis, Hassel Smith, and Gordon Cook; his army experience and meeting Lee Mullican; the founding of the Dynaton with Wolfgang Paalen and Gordon Onslow-Ford; the preparation and printing of the Dynaton Catalog at Greenwood Press; the 1951 film of the exhibition by his brother; the changes and breakup of Dynaton; working on artists' books such as Francis' Lapis Press; and his interest in the history of type and its connections to the classical tradition in Greenwood's printing of Phaedrus, 1976 and Horace, 1992.
Biographical / Historical:
Jack Werner Stauffacher (1920- ) is a typographer, designer, and publisher from San Francisco, California.
General:
Originally recorded on 3 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 6 digital wav files. Duration is 2 hr.. 53 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 administrators. Funding for the transcription of this interview provided by Pasadena Art Alliance
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Gloria Katz and Willard M. Huyck Jr. collection Search this
Credit Line:
Purchase and partial gift from the Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck Collection — Acquisition fund in honor of Julian Raby, director emeritus of the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
