Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Rafael Ferrer, 1990 Sept. 19. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
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Collection Citation:
Sally K. Ride Papers, Acc. 2014-0025, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
An interview of Rafael Ferrer conducted 1990 Sept. 19, by Cynthia Veloric, for the Archives of American Art Philadelphia Project.
Ferrer speaks about his childhood in Puerto Rico; his education in Catholic school and military school; his interest in music including his professional work as a drummer in Latin jazz bands both in Puerto Rico and New York City; studies at Syracuse University and the University of Puerto Rico; his interest in painting; meeting the surrealist Eugenio Granell and Granell's influence, including Ferrer's involvement in the 1950's with surrealists in Puerto Rico and Europe, and a discussion of his feelings on Dada and surrealism; the shift toward conceptual and process art in the 1960's; moving to Philadelphia in the 1960's, teaching at the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts) and exhibiting at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; installations and exhibits in New York City in the late 1960's and 1970's, including his twenty year association with the Nancy Hoffman Gallery; the deflected fountain piece at the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the transition to handmade art works and then to painting and figurative works partially inspired by Alex Katz; collectors Sydney and Frances Lewis; and several commissions.
Biographical / Historical:
Rafael Ferrer (1933-) is a painter and conceptual artist from Puerto Rico and Philadelphia, Pa.
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: Patrons must use microfilm copy.
Occupation:
Painters -- United States -- Interviews Search this
Conceptual artists -- Puerto Rico -- Interviews Search this
Conceptual artists -- United States -- Interviews Search this
Contemporary selections : [exhibition] from the Virginia Museum, the Frances and Sydney Lewis contemporary art fund, October 9 through November 30, 1975, Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi
Form over function : late 20th-century furniture from the Sydney and Frances Lewis collection [exhibition] October 4 to December 8, 1996, Marsh Art Gallery, University of Richmond
Late 19th and early 20th century decorative arts : the Sydney and Frances Lewis collection in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts / by Frederick R. Brandt
