Science, Medicine and Society, Division of (NMAH, SI). Search this
Former owner:
Science, Medicine and Society, Division of (NMAH, SI). Search this
Extent:
15 Cubic feet (17 boxes, 11 oversized folders)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Ledgers (account books)
Correspondence
Sales records
Tax records
Date:
1909-1969
Summary:
The collection documents Garfield and Company, a pharmaceutical manufacturer in New Jersey during the twentieth century. Garfield and Company, founded by Isidor Z. Garfield (1863-1951), made Seidlitz Powder, a commonly known medication composed of tartaric acid, sodium bicarbonate, and potassium sodium tartrate that was used as a mild cathartic by dissolving it in water and then drinking it. Materials include customer files, invoices, correspondence, advertising and packaging materials, calendars, posters, financial records, and an oral and video history with Julius Garfield, son of Isidor Z. Garfield.
Scope and Contents:
The Garfield Company Records are divided into seven series: Series 1, Historical Background; Series 2, Customer Materials; Series 3, Correspondence, 1937-1952; Series 4, Financial Records, 1918-1950; Series 5, Advertising and Packaging Materials, 1923-1968 and undated; Series 6, Drawings/Diagrams, 1958; and Series 7, Photographs, circa 1950s.
The collection documents Garfield and Company, a pharmaceutical manufacturer in New Jersey during the twentieth century. Garfield and Company made Seidlitz Powder, a commonly known medication composed of a mixture of tartaric acid, sodium bicarbonate, and potassium sodium tartrate that was used as a mild cathartic by dissolving it in water and then drinking it. The records include customer files, correspondence, advertising, packaging, audio visual materials, photographs, packaging, advertising and financial records. The collection provides good insight into the company during the World War II period and the hardship conditions under which they operated, such as delays in receiving raw materials and difficulty with labor.
Series 1, Historical Background, 1915-1969 and undated, consists of newspaper clippings and articles, corporate identity pieces (letterhead and envelopes), correspondence, and audio visual materials about Garfield and Company. The majority of the correspondence relates to machinery companies and their ability to provide equipment and expertise to manufacture powders and handle packaging issues. Other correspondence relates to advertising agencies and the State of New Jersey Division of Employment Security. The correspondence with Seil, Putt and Rusby, Inc., documents an analytical, consulting and research chemists firm that conducted testing for Garfield. The audio visual materials contain an oral history with Julius Garfield, son of Isidor Garfield on ½" VHS video footage (OV 820.1-2) and a demonstration of how Seidlitz powders are manufactured. The video footage, of which there are two copies, is approximately one hour in length and is divided into two segments. The first segment features the manufacturing equipment producing Seidlitz powders and the second segment features an informal interview with Julius Garfield discussing his father's background and his father's automation of the process of packaging Seidlitz powders. The audio cassettes (OTC 820.1-2) contain a more detailed oral history with Julius Garfield. He provides additional information about his father's background, his brother's (especially George's) background, and the history of the company. Curator Ray Kondratus, of the Division of Medicine and Science, National Museum of American History, conducted the oral history interview, circa 1970s.
Series 2, Customer Materials, 1909-1952, includes materials about customers who had a business relationship with Garfield and Company. The materials are divided into two subseries, Subseries 1, Index Card Files, 1909-1939 and Subseries 2, Customer Files, 1949, 1951-1952.
Subseries 1, Index Card Files, 1909-1939, contains customer names, addresses, and order history from 1909 to the 1920s. They are arranged geographically by city and alphabetically by customer name. They adhere to a color coding schema. Department stores are designated yellow; wholesalers pale blue; second jobbers buff; and chain drug stores are pink. The cards are annotated revealing information about the customer's personality, job information, and the specific salesman for that account.
Subseries 2, Customer Files, 1949, 1951-1952, is arranged alphabetically by customer name. The files contain invoices/receipts for companies, department stores, drug stores, and other organizations that ordered Seidlitz powder from Garfield and Company. The receipts include the name and address of the company and the cost for each order. Also included are bills of lading documenting where the shipment was sent and who received it.
Series 3, Correspondence, 1937-1952, is arranged alphabetically and consists of letters to and from other companies, individuals, and the War Production Board. Some general subject files are also here. The War Production Board correspondence contains information about the use and salvage of raw materials in the factory; requests to purchase certain types of materials; and compliance with quarterly requests for inventory, purchases, and usage of certain foods and materials. Included in the general subject files is documentation about insurance and workers compensation claims for employees of Garfield and Company. The documentation includes primarily State of New York Department of Labor Workers Compensation forms and accident/injury reports. The reports provide detailed information on the nature of the accident/injury, hourly wage and demographic information about the employee.
Series 4, Advertising and Packaging Materials, 1923-1968 and undated, and is divided into four subseries, Subseries 1, Advertising Materials, 1923-1968 and undated; Subseries 2, Posters, 1940s and undated; Subseries 3, Radio Broadcasts, 1951-1964, and Subseries 4, Packaging Materials, 1953 and undated.
Subseries 1, Advertising Materials, 1923-1968 and undated, contains primarily proofs of advertisements for Garfield Seidlitz powders, merchandising reports, price lists, metal printing plates for two advertisements, and calendars. The advertising proofs are in color, black-and-white, and pencil on tracing paper and were prepared by firms such as F.M. Advertising Agency, Inc. There are some pin-up calendars advertising Clairol, Inc., products, 1943, and other pin-ups advertising Garfield and Company Seidlitz powders, 1950-1951.
Subseries 2, Posters, 1940s and undated, consists of posters for Garfield and Company Seidlitz powders and war posters created from woodcuts by Frances "Fran" O'Brien Garfield and Ernest Hamlin Baker. Garfield and Baker designed the posters for the Putnum County Defense Council of New York. Garfield and Company distributed the posters.
Subseries 3, Radio Broadcasts, 1951-1964, contains two 5" inch reel-to-reel audio tapes of radio broadcasts for Garfield and Company products and four audio discs (33 rpm and 87 rpm) of radio broadcasts.
Subseries 4, Packaging Materials, 1953 and undated, consists primarily of labels for Seidlitz powders and cardboard carton packages for transporting and displaying Seidlitz powders. The labels are paper and primarily two and one half by four inches. They feature standard language about the Seidlitz powders. They are imprinted with the name of a specific drug company, such as Hazeltine and Perkins Drug Company or Gill Brook Laboratories. There are some labels that have been imprinted on aluminum sheets. The cardboard cartons are for Seidlitz powders, cough syrups, laxatives, rhinitis tablets, diarrhea remedies, and toothpaste. Packaging specific to a company/manufacturer is arranged alphabetically under the name of the company.
Series 5, Financial Records, 1918-1950, is divided into four subseries: Subseries 1, Invoices, 1918-1941; Subseries 2, Sales Books and Ledgers, 1939-1947 and undated; Subseries 3, Receipts, 1948-1952; and Subseries 4, Tax Materials, 1936-1950 and consists primarily of tax information for the company and specific employees, sales ledgers and invoices and receipts.
Subseries 1, Invoices, 1918-1941, contains invoices issued by Garfield and Company to companies, department stores, drug stores, and other organizations for purchases of Seidlitz Powders. Included are bills of lading. The subseries are arranged alphabetically. See also
Series 2, Customer Files, 1949, 1951-1952.
Subseries 2, Sales Books and Ledgers, 1939-1947 and undated, documents order information about the number of tins, carts, and packs of Seidlitz powder sold to specific companies.
Subseries 3, Receipts, 1948-1952, is arranged alphabetically by name of company and contains documentation on products and services that Garfield and Company purchased and used. For example, they purchased soda bicarbonate from the American Cyanamid Company and used the Bronx Haulage Company for rubbish removal.
Subseries 4, Tax Materials, 1936-1950, contains employee wage records, tax returns, employee withholding exemption certificates, and invoices for Samuel Markowitz, an accountant. Some of the records detail the name of the employee, time worked (days and hours), wages, deductions, and wage paid.
Series 6, Drawings/Diagrams, 1958, contains one line drawing for hot water at the Garfield Company, December, 1958, and pencil sketches and diagrams for wiring of the tins and cartons machinery, 1958.
Series 7, Photographs, circa 1950s, contains black-and-white photographs of Isidor Garfield, employees operating packaging machinery, an exterior view of the manufacturing facility, and a store display.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into seven series.
Series 1: Historical Background, 1915-1969 and undated
Series 2: Customer Materials, 1909-1952
Subseries 2.1: Index Card Files, 1909-1939
Subseries 2.2: Customer Files, 1949, 1951-1952
Series 3: Correspondence, 1937-1952
Series 4: Financial Records, 1918-1950
Subseries 4.1: Invoices, 1918-1941
Subseries 4.2: Sales Books and Ledgers, 1939-1947 and undated
Subseries 4.3: Receipts, 1948-1952
Subseries 4.4: Tax Materials, 1936-1950
Series 5: Advertising and Packaging Materials, 1923-1968 and undated
Subseries 5.1, Advertising Materials, 1923-1968 and undated
Subseries 5.2: Posters, 1940s and undated
Subseries 5.3: Radio Broadcasts, 1951-1964
Subseries 5.4: Packaging Materials, 1953 and undated
Series 6: Drawings/Diagrams, 1958
Series 7: Photographs, circa 1950s
Biographical / Historical:
Garfield and Company of Edison, New Jersey, was the largest manufactures of Seidlitz Powders in the United States. Garfield and Company was founded by Isidor Z. Garfield (1863-1951), a New York pharmacist, who began manufacturing powders in 1908. Garfield was born in Russia and graduated from the University of Moscow with a degree in chemistry. He came to the United States in 1888 with his wife Frances and their first-born son, Louis. Three other sons, George, Julius, and Henry, were born in the United States. Garfield developed an automated process to package reactive ingredients (US Patent 1,091,568) in March, 1914. The process separately packaged the powders in moisture-proof wrappers so druggists no longer had to mix the compounds. In 1916, Garfield patented a machine for measuring and compressing powders (US Patent 1,177,854). Both of Garfield's patents were assigned to Samuel Loewy of New York City. After Garfield died, his sons, Julius and George Garfield inherited the business. The New Jersey manufacturing plant closed in 1980.
Related Materials:
Packaging equipment used by Garfield and Company is located in the Division of Medicine and Science. See Accession #1979.1144.
Provenance:
This collection was donated by Julius and George Garfield in 1979.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research use.
Stored off-site. Arrangements must be made with the Archives Center staff two-weeks prior to a scheduled research visit. Reference copies of audio visual materials must be used.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
This collection documents, in correspondence, publications, forms, paperwork, drawings, newspaper clippings, diplomas and photographs, the operations and products of the Frick Company of Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, manufacturers of steam-powered engines (portable, stationary, and traction), sawmills, threshing machines, grain separators and other mechanized agricultural harvesting implements, refrigeration, mechanical cooling systems, and ice making plants, from its founding in 1852 through 1961.
Scope and Contents:
This collection documents the founding and business operations of the Frick Company* of Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, manufacturers of portable, stationary, and traction engines, threshing machines, sawmills, and refrigeration and ice making machinery. The collection covers the period from 1852 to 1961, with the bulk of the material dating from 1860-1873 and from 1880 through the 1920s and illuminates the evolution of mechanized agriculture and refrigeration technology from the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century.
The largest portion of the collection contains photographs of Frick engines and refrigeration machinery, taken both in the foundry and in various installations worldwide, as well as original drawings of Frick machines, parts, and components used to illustrate catalogs and trade publications. Another large portion of the collection is correspondence, containing communication from clients ordering Frick products for their farms or businesses, as well as receipts and correspondence from local and regional suppliers of raw materials and components for the construction of Frick products.
The collection also contains numerous examples of operational paperwork from the 1880s-1890s, such as letterheads, order forms, contracts, test logs, and timesheets, as well as a significant amount of trade literature largely from 1880-1920, such as price lists, catalogs, product pamphlets, and advertising material.
There are several published company histories, technical drawings/blueprints of Frick products, diplomas awarded to Frick machinery presented at expositions and fairs (including the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, 1893), full-color posters advertising Frick & Co., agent supplies (including telegraph cipher code books), accounting paperwork, payroll records, communications with shareholders, and significant documentation of the highly publicized labor dispute/strike at Frick in 1946.
This collection would be of interest to researchers in the areas of: agricultural machination and invention in the nineteeth century, steam and horse-powered engines, the development of refrigerating and ice making equipment in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, business operations and financial transactions in the nineteenth century, Pennsylvania history and companies, industrial photography, and nineteenth and twentieth centuries industrial trade literature.
*The name of the company was modified several times over the history of its operation, variations including George Frick, Frick & Bowman, Frick & Co., and Frick Company, depending on the time period in question. Efforts have been made to align the description of the materials throughout the collection with the correct company name at the time of their creation.
Arrangement:
This collection is divided into six series:
Series 1: Publications, 1852, 1874-1875; 1880-1932; 1942-1943; 1953; 1961
Founded in 1852 by engineer and inventor George Frick (1826-1892), Frick Company has been an innovative machinery design leader in many areas of the agricultural and refrigeration industries over the last 160 years. Frick began building steam engines and threshing machines in a small shop in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania.
Frick quickly gained a reputation for quality in the growing field of mechanized agriculture. His designs for early portable engines--transported and driven by horsepower--soon evolved into self-propelling, steam-powered vehicles that could be driven into the fields and then used to run the grain separating, cleaning and bagging machines that were revolutionizing the farming industry, increasing production at exponential rates.
In addition, Frick's stationary engines were put to use in mills of all kinds (grist, flour, paper, and woolen) to augment or replace their dependence on unreliable natural water power, including sawmills, of which Frick was soon building a line of portable, steam-driven versions. Between the mid-1850s and the early 1870s, the company continued to expand, outgrowing three different shops before building the final location of the works in Waynesboro. George Frick himself was continuously active in the company through the end of the nineteenth century as a mechanical engineer and product designer, as well as a frequent consultant, traveling to confer with clients on specifications for their orders.
Beginning in 1872, George Frick's business and personal life took a downturn with the deaths in quick succession of both his oldest son Frank and his new business partner C.F. Bowman, as a result of a typhoid fever epidemic that swept through the area. Additionally, the financial Panic of 1873 nearly closed Frick's company along with thousands of other American businesses that year, but thirteen local businessmen formed a partnership, putting forth the necessary capital to keep the manufacturing plant afloat. George Frick sold his controlling interest to the partnership, but remained as general manager of the company.
After this brief period of struggle, Frick and Company began again to expand its product line as well as its reputation. The new works in Waynesboro were modern and efficient, enough to warrant a feature article in Scientific American in 1881. The following year, the company built its first refrigeration machine, and a whole new direction of production opened up. Automatic and traction engines were still in demand, being constantly improved and updated, but refrigeration was the new frontier. Frick rose to become one of the leaders in development of high quality, durable, and functional refrigeration machinery. George's son A.O. Frick, now an engineer with the company, partnered with Edgar Penney, another design engineer, to develop the Corliss engine line, which would run the large ammonia compressors, creating what was called a refrigeration machine. They were intially used to power ice plants, which were being built all over the world after the mild winter of 1890 tipped the natural ice industry into decline. They also used cold storage/mechanical cooling units, of which breweries and meat packing plants were the earliest adopters, followed by cold food stores, florist shops, and fur storage, as well as the dairy and shipping industries. The Armour Packing Plant in Kansas City, Missouri was the proud owner of "The Largest Ice Machine in the World," built by Frick and shipped by train via specially-reinforced rails in 1896. At the turn of the twentieth century, hotels, restaurants, hospitals and industrial plants soon began to rely on refrigeration units for daily operations, and Frick's business was booming.
As gas-powered engine technology began taking over in the first decades of the twentieth century, Frick moved away from steam engines and focused on more specialized farm equipment such as dehydrators, peanut pickers, combines, balers and silo fillers. Their line of sawmills was also still in high demand. But increasingly, Frick was focused on steadily refining and improving its refrigeration equipment. Ammonia, while highly efficient as a coolant, had its dangerous downsides: it could be fatal if leaked, and could contaminate plant ice easily. Although many of Frick's ammonia compression refrigeration machines were still in use forty or more years after installation and were still preferred for industrial use, the technology needed to improve in order to be viable for the general public. Several publicized accidents led eventually to the preferred use of chloroflorocarbons as a coolant, and Frick developed enclosed-type CO2 compressors and eventually freon units. Other Frick refrigeration products included machinery for making dry ice, air conditioning units, and temperature controls for test plants, as well as marine refrigeration (developed during the First World War) for shipping food between continents. Frick did contract work for the US military during and following World War II, and was a major company involved in the development of quick-freezing systems to support the growing frozen food industry starting in the late 1940s.
Frick Company positioned itself as a permanent leader in the food production and distribution industry by the 1950s. The company is still in operation today, though it has been purchased several times, most recently by Johnson Controls, which maintains a product line bearing the name Frick.
Related Materials:
The Archives Center holds several collections that may be of interest to researchers in relation to the Frick Company Collection.
For related material on Corliss engines, see the following collections:
Chuse Engine and Manufacturing Company Records (AC 1088)
For related material on threshing machines and agricultural machinery, see the following collections:
John K. Parlett Collection (AC 3066)
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana (AC 0060)
For related material on refrigeration machinery, see the following collections:
Madison Cooper Papers (AC 1105)
Nickerson and Collins Photography (AC 1044)
Southwork Foundry and Machine Company Records (AC 1107)
Separated Materials:
The Division of Work and Industry holds artifacts related to this collection. See acquisition numbers AG79A09.1, MC 319243.12 and .13, and 58A9.
Provenance:
Collection donated by the Frick Company, through Terry Mitchell in 1961.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
The records of the Perls Galleries measure 79.6 linear feet and date from 1937 to 1997. Founded by Klaus Perls in 1937 and operating until 1997, the gallery dealt primarily in modern French art and the artwork of Alexander Calder. Found within the records are extensive correspondence (circa 44 linear feet) with artists, dealers, galleries, museums, and collectors; photographs and negatives of inventory and other artwork; exhibition files, scattered financial records; and exhibition catalogs and clippings.
Scope and Content Note:
The records of the Perls Galleries measure 79.6 linear feet and date from 1937 to 1997. Founded by Klaus Perls in 1937 and operating until 1997, the gallery dealt primarily in modern French art and the artwork of Alexander Calder. Found within the records are extensive correspondence (circa 44 linear feet) with artists, dealers, galleries, museums, and collectors; photographs and negatives of inventory and other artwork; exhibition files, scattered financial records; and exhibition catalogs and clippings.
Correspondence primarily discusses sales (and includes invoices), loans, and exhibitions, as well as more routine activities such as gallery maintenance, the printing of exhibition catalogs and letterhead, and the shipment, framing, or restoration of artwork. Many letters enclose photographs, negatives, or slides of artwork, and clippings. A few letters contain oversize architectural or engineering drawings, and a small handful of letters are illustrated.
Correspondents include artists such as Darrell Austin, Joan Mir, Pablo Picasso, and Karl Priebe; galleries such as the Corcoran Gallery, Fujikawa Galleries, Galerie Maeght, and the Pierre Matisse Gallery; museums such as the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Art, and the Whitney Museum of Modern Art; collectors such as Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz, Adelaide de Mnil, Valentine Dudensing, and Henry Ford, II; and celebrity clients such as Greta Garbo, Alfred Hitchcock, Henry and Clare Booth Luce, and Barbra Streisand.
The records contain nearly thirty-two linear feet of photographs and negatives. Photographs are of artists and the inventory of the gallery's artwork. Additional photographs represent artwork either by artists not represented by the gallery or not included in the gallery's inventory. Most of the photographs are black and white. Over fifteen linear feet of negatives are of gallery stock. Photographs are also found in the exhibition files.
There is a relatively small amount of records relating to exhibitions, loans, and sales. Found are exhibition lists, schedules, invitations and announcements, photographs of exhibition installations, press releases, and records of loans to other institutions and galleries. Sales records include artist lists, inventory lists, invoices, pick up and delivery receipts, and price lists.
Printed materials include a large number of clippings and an incomplete run of catalogs from Perls Galleries exhibitions between 1939 and 1980.
The collection also includes ten original pencil drawings from John Canaday's series entitled My Beautiful Girls and a reproduction of eight drawings from the same series
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 7 series:
Series 1: Correspondence, 1937-1995 (Boxes 1-44, OV 81-83; 43.6 linear feet)
Series 2: Negatives, circa 1937-1995 (Boxes 44-59; 15.7 linear feet)
Series 3: Photographs, circa 1937-1995 (Boxes 60-75, OV 84; 16.1 linear feet)
Series 4: Exhibition, Loan, and Sales Records, 1937-1995 (Boxes 76-78; 2.1 linear feet)
Series 5: Clippings Files, 1943-1989 (Box 78; 0.5 linear feet)
Series 6: Exhibition Catalogs, 1939-1980 (Boxes 78-79; 1.4 linear feet)
Series 7: Drawings by John Canaday, circa 1967-1972 (Box 80; 0.3 linear feet)
Historical Note:
Klaus Perls (b. 1912, d. 2008) formally opened Perls Galleries in New York in 1937, and ran it with his wife Amelia until its closing in 1997. The gallery dealt in contemporary French artists of the School of Paris, such as Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, but also acted as the primary representative of Alexander Calder beginning in 1954. In the 1970s Mr. Perls developed an interest in art from Benin and built an important collection of African sculpture, some of which was later donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Amelia Perls died in 2002, and Klaus Perls died in 2008.
Klaus Perls was born in 1912 in Berlin in a house Mies van der Rohe designed for his parents, who owned an art gallery specializing in Impressionists, post-Impressionists, Old Master paintings, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and African sculpture. Perls studied Art History in Hamburg and Munich but completed his PhD in Basel, Switzerland in 1933 after the Nazi government stopped awarding degrees to Jews. His dissertation covered the complete works of 15th-century French painter Jean Fouquet.
Before moving to New York in 1935, Perls worked for his mother, Kaethe Perls, in her Paris gallery that she opened in 1932 after splitting up with Klaus' father Hugo. He spent his first two years in New York selling paintings through other art dealers, primarily paintings shipped or recommended to him by his mother from Paris that were not selling well in the Depression-era French art market. These were primarily the work of Maurice Utrillo, Marie Laurencin, Raoul Dufy and Maurice de Vlaminck. In 1937 he formally established his own gallery, the Perls Galleries, on East 58th Street and continued to specialize in French and European contemporary art. Around the same time, his older brother Frank opened a gallery in Beverly Hills, California.
Klaus Perls was familiar with other New York dealers specializing in modern European art such as Valentine Dudensing and Pierre Matisse, but he tried to distinguish himself by catering to young collectors. When the war restricted the international art trade and his mother was forced to flee France during the Occupation, Perls began dealing in contemporary American artists such as Darrel Austin and Karl Priebe.
Perls married Amelia Blumenthal, fondly known as "Dolly," in 1940, and she became his business partner.
After the war, the international art market exploded, and the Perls made frequent buying trips to Europe. The Perls Galleries continued to sell primarily contemporary French art and gained an early reputation as a staunch defender of modern art by European artists such as Picasso, Modigliani, Braque, Lger, Soutine and Pascin. Perls prepared catalogues raisonns on Soutine and Pascin.
Klaus Perls was one of the founding members of the Art Dealer's Association, whose initial mission was to clean up the reputation of the art market following a series scandals involving fake antiquities that flourished in the 1960's. Perls was the Association's second president, after Pierre Matisse.
In 1954 Perls Galleries moved to 1016 Madison Avenue, a building that served as both gallery and home for the Perls. The same year Perls became Alexander Calder's dealer after the death of Calder's previous dealer, Curt Valentin. Perls explained his inclusion of Calder, a rare American among his stable of European artists, by saying that Calder's roots lay in France and that Calder bridged Europe and America the way Perls felt he did himself. In 1970, Calder designed the terrazzo sidewalk in front of the gallery and often resided in the Perls' home during long visits to New York City. Perls Galleries later handled Calder's estate and functioned as a quasi-archives of Calder's works, holding more than 7,000 negatives depicting Calder's art and preparing a Calder catalogue raisonn.
Klaus was named as a third-party defendant in the 1969 World War II looted art case Menzel v. List. When Erna Menzel sued Albert List for ownership of a Chagall painting confiscated from Menzel by the Nazis, List in turn sued Perls, who had sold him the painting in 1955, having purchased it himself from a Paris art dealer. The court awarded the Chagall painting to Menzel and ordered Perls to pay List the appreciated value of the painting.
Perls began building an important collection of African artwork and fell in love with art from Benin in the 1970's. In 1991 he donated more than 150 pieces of royal art from Benin to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Perls closed their gallery in 1997; Amelia Perls died in 2002, and Klaus Perls died in 2008.
Related Material:
Among the resources relating to the Perls Galleries in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Klaus Perls done by Mona Hadler on January 19, 1993.
Provenance:
The records were donated in 1997 by Douglas Mayhew, associate and legal representive of Klaus G. and Amelia B. Perls.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers 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.
