An interview of Herbert Palmer conducted 2004 Dec. 6 and 22, by Susan Ehrlich, for the Archives of American Art, in West Hollywood, Calif.
Palmer discusses his family background and childhood in New York City; early exposure to art exhibitions; music appreciation; attending New York University; taking classes with Winhold Reiss, Meyer Shapiro, Richard Offner, and Heinrich Wolfflin; his master's thesis on Paul Cezanne's paintings of Mount Saint Victoire; moving to California; learning to fly; meeting Lillian, his wife; founding Feigen-Palmer Gallery with Richard Feigen; other galleries in the area, including Irving Blum, David Stuart, Felix Landau, Charles Garabedian, and Joan Ankrum; Monday Night Art Walks; John Cage and David Tudor performance pieces; the many artists he's exhibited; Andy Warhol's "The Kiss"; 1968 split with Richard Feigen to become the Herbert Palmer Gallery; the theft of a Picasso sculpture in Dec. 1981 and the ensuing legal case, which involved numerous galleries and collectors; his longstanding friendships with Gordon Onslow Ford, Lee Mullican, and Wolfgang Paalen; membership to the Art Dealers Association of California; and his enjoyment of discovering art, old and new. Palmer also recalls Henriette Riess, Harold Stevenson, Lucienne Bloch, Bridget Riley, Vasa Mihich, Maillol, Red Grooms, Norman Bluhm, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Herbert Palmer (1915-2006) owned the Herbert Palmer Gallery of West Hollywood, Calif. Interviewer Susan Ehrlich is an art historian from Beverly Hills, Calif.
General:
Originally recorded on 4 mini discs. Reformatted in 2010 as 15 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hr., 35 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 administrators.
Restrictions:
Use requires an appointment.
Topic:
Art dealers -- California -- Interviews Search this
An interview of Peter Agostini conducted in 1968, by Colette Roberts, for the Archives of American Art at 151 Avenue B, New York, New York.
Mr. Agostini speaks of his childhood spent living throughout the five boroughs of New York; his interactions with clients of his father's acting employment agency; his early education in Catholic school and the creative freedom allotted by the nuns; his first feelings of isolation as an artist at the age of seven; the development of a sense of communication as the result of the loss of his mother at the age of three and time spent at a school for orphans; his early realization and vision of artistic destiny; his religious interests which lead to mysticism in his earlier work; his time spent working freely in the DaVinci Studio with Spaventa; the discovery by Hess of his works in Gallerie Grimaud; his attainment of the Longview Grant; his working experience throughout the Depression as part of the WPA casting plaster mannequins while working indirectly with Pollack as well as Marca Relli; his subsequent move to designing department store windows (use of Mondrian-like forms and lines); his feelings of his position as an observer; the importance of communication through art (communication without words); his rejection of the Abstract Expressionist group and choice of independence; the influence of the sculpture of Kolbe and Bache in the thirties; Clement Greenberg's distaste for his work; his feelings about the relative failure to sell his work due its unusual edginess and mystery; his role in the introduction of the work of contemporary European artists (Chausserian, Gauthier, Modrian) to the American group; his description of his own work as "traditionless"; his feelings of self-importance as one of the most original sculptors in the art world; his influence on the younger generation, particularly Marisol; the enslavement to originality that the younger generation faces; his attitudes towards American Art forms and their lack of rebellious spirit; the virtues of the American writers, such as Poe, Whitman, and Melville as American "knapsack" writers; his personal technique which places an emphasis on the "skin" or volume of something; his attempt to create quiet art, or art that merely indicates features; his frustration with teaching and the problems of regurgitated knowledge; the role of Meyer Shapiro in his teaching career at Columbia; the formation of the Club and its similarity to the Cubist's café scene; his opinions on the relationship of sex and sensuality in American art; his personal struggles, including the loss of his second wife and two of his brothers, in addition to the estrangement of his only daughter by his first wife; his feelings on the role of psycho analysis and personal history in a work of art; his present works which feature the "swell." For the majority of the second half of the interview Ms. Roberts asks Mr. Agostini to express his opinions on the work of: Kline; DeKooning; Duchamp; Oldenburg; La Tour; DeChirico; Maillol; Pompon; Rothko; Chardin; Cezanne; Giacometti; Reinhardt; Chryssa; Tony Smith; Segal; Lachaise; Zorach; Manship; Flannagan; Kelly; Lassaw; David Smith; Hare; Lipton; Ferber; Lippold; Roszak; Nakian; Noguchi; Hague; Kohn; di Suvero; Chamberlain; Kaprow; Sugarman; Stankiewicz; Bontecou; Scarpitta; Cornell; Keinholz; Rivera; Judd; Robert Morris; O'Keeffe; Samaras; Mark Tobey; Marin; Pollock; Hartley; Dove; Macdonald-Wright; Demuth; Sheeler; Hopper; Mirot; Matisse; DuBuffet.
Biographical / Historical:
Peter Agostini (1913-1993) was a sculptor from New York, New York.
General:
Originally recorded on 3 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 28 digital wav files. Duration is 10 hrs., 37 min.
Transferred from 4 3" reels.
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 administrators.
Topic:
Sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews Search this
An interview of Elisabeth D. Model conducted 1977 May 19, by William McNaught, for the Archives of American Art.
Model speaks of early mentors and friendships with sculptor Moissey Kogan, author Herman Hesse, art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, and others. She recalls visits with artists and collectors, including Aristide Maillol, Charles Despiau, Jacob Epstein, and Jean Paul Getty. She also describes several events, such as the Han van Meegeren art forgeries, her family's escape to New York during WW II, and her career successes.
Biographical / Historical:
Elisabeth D. Model (1897-1993) was a painter and sculptor from New York, New York.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound tape reel. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 1 hr., 8 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.
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:
Jacques Seligmann & Co. records, 1904-1978, bulk 1913-1974. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Processing of the collection was funded by the Getty Grant Program; digitization of the collection was funded by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the Terra Foundation for American Art. Glass plate negatives in this collection were digitized in 2019 with funding provided by the Smithsonian Women's Committee.
300 Items (Reel NPM1: (on partial microfilm reel))
1.25 Linear feet (Unmicrofilmed)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
1925-1989
Scope and Contents:
REEL NPM1: Catalogs of Pierre Matisse Gallery exhibitions, 1931-1945; photographs of exhibitions interspersed among the catalogs; and a scrapbook containing clippings and reviews of shows at the gallery.
Artists represented among the catalogs, photographs, or scrapbook include Balthus, Eugene Berman, Charles Biederman, Arbit Blatas, Pierre Bonnard, Francisco Bores, Constantin Brancusi, Georges Braque, André Breton, Alexander Calder, Paul Cézanne, Marc Chagall, Salvador Dalí, Giorgio De Chirico,Edgar Degas, André Derain, Charles Despiau, John Dos Passos, Marcel Duchamp, Raoul Dufy, André de Segonzac Dunoyer, Max Ernst, John Ferren, Alberto Giacometti, Albert Gleizes, Vincent van Gogh, Juan Gris, Marcel Gromaire, Jean Hélion, Mane Katz, Moise Kisling, Roger de La Fresnaye, Wifredo Lam, Marie Laurencin, Fernand Léger, Jacques Lipchitz, Jean Lurçat, George Platt Lynes, Loren MacIver, Aristide Maillol, André Masson, Henri Matisse, Roberto Sebastián Matta Echaurren, Herbert Matter, Sigmund Menkes, Joan Miró, Amedeo Modigliani, Piet Mondrian, Paul Nelson, Amédée Ozenfant, Jules Pascin, Pablo Picasso, Luis Quintanilla, Abraham Rattner, Auguste Renoir, Georges Rouault, Kay Sage, Kurt Seligmann, Georges Seurat, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Chaim Soutine, Rufino Tamayo, Yves Tanguy, Pavel Tchelitchew, Maurice Utrillo, and Ossip Zadkine.
UNMICROFILMED: Catalogs of Pierre Matisse Gallery exhibitions of the work of: Francisco Artigas, Balthus, Reg Butler, Manolis Calliyannis, Rafael Canogar, Marc Chagall, Jean Dubuffet, Sorel Etrog, Serge Faucher, Federico Fellini, Sam Francis, Alberto Giacometti, Simon Hantaï, Stefan Knapp, Wilfredo Lam, Loren MacIver, Raymond Mason, Manolo Millares, Joan Miró, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Manuel Rivera, François Rouan, Georges Rouault, Theodore Roszak, Antonio Saura, Yves Tanguy, Claude Viallat, Wou-Ki Zao, and the Dogon and Tellem peoples of Africa.
Biographical / Historical:
Art gallery; New York, N.Y. Founded 1931 by Pierre Matisse, son of Henri Matisse; operated until his death in 1989, handling mainly 20th century European art.
Related Materials:
Pierre Matisse Gallery records also located at Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, N.Y.
Provenance:
Records on reel NPM1 were lent for microfilming 1967 by the Pierre Matisse Gallery. The unmicrofilmed catalogs were donated in 1996. The Gallery donated its records to the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York in 1997.
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.
Topic:
Art, Modern -- 20th century -- United States Search this
Function:
Art galleries, Commercial -- New York (State) -- New York
