The Jacques Lipchitz papers and Bruce Bassett papers concerning Jacques Lipchitz measure 52.8 linear feet and are dated circa 1910-2001, with the bulk of the material from the period 1941-2001. Papers are comprised of sculptor Jacques Lipchitz's personal papers and filmmaker Bruce Bassett's papers relating to Jacques Lipchitz. Lipchitz's personal papers contain personal and professional correspondence, comprising nearly half of the series, and biographical material, writings by and about Lipchitz, printed material, and photographs documenting Lipchitz's commissions, exhibitions, friendships, and interests. Also found are records relating to the compilation and production of The Sculpture of Jacques Lipchitz: A Catalogue Raisonné by Alan G. Wilkinson. The Bruce Bassett papers relating to Jacques Lipchitz consist mainly of Bassett's extensive audiovisual documentation of Lipchitz's life and art. Also found are paper records related to the audiovisual projects, including letters, business records, printed materials, and production records. A small quantity of material unrelated to Lipchitz is also found among the Bassett material, including video and sound recordings related to Sidney Lifchez, IBM, Isamu Noguchi, the Storm King Sculpture Center, and Auguste Rodin.
Scope and Contents note:
The Jacques Lipchitz papers and Bruce Bassett papers concerning Jacques Lipchitz measure 52.8 linear feet and are dated circa 1910-2001, with the bulk of the material from the period 1941-2001. Papers are comprised of sculptor Jacques Lipchitz's personal papers and filmmaker Bruce Bassett's papers relating to Jacques Lipchitz. Lipchitz's personal papers contain personal and professional correspondence, comprising nearly half of the series, along with biographical material, writings by and about Lipchitz, printed material, and photographs documenting Lipchitz's commissions, exhibitions, friendships, and interests. Also found are records relating to the compilation and production of The Sculpture of Jacques Lipchitz: A Catalogue Raisonné by Alan G. Wilkinson. The Bruce Bassett papers relating to Jacques Lipchitz consist mainly of Bassett's extensive audiovisual documentation of Lipchitz's life and art. Also found are paper records related to the audiovisual projects, including letters, business records, printed materials, and production records. A small quantity of material unrelated to Lipchitz is also found among the Bassett material, including video and sound recordings related to Sidney Lifchez, IBM, Isamu Noguchi, the Storm King Sculpture Center, and Auguste Rodin.
The Jacques Lipchitz biographical material includes an address book, biographical notes, membership cards, rent receipts and a lease, and a survey of Lipchitz's property in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY.
Correspondence is both professional and personal in nature. Approximately 20 percent is in foreign languages. French predominates, followed by Russian; German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Latvian, Hebrew, and Yiddish are also represented.
Professional correspondence documents business transactions with architects, potential clients, museum officials, art dealers, and others concerning commissions, exhibition plans, loans of artwork, jury service, etc. Art groups, Jewish organizations and charities wrote to solicit donations of artwork for fundraising events and issued invitations to speak or be a guest of honor. Scholars contacted Lipchitz about their research and requested information about specific works by him, items in his collection, and his opinions on a variety of subjects. Also found are fan letters from aspiring artists seeking advice, and from the general public asking for the opportunity to meet Lipchitz and visit his studio. After the 1952 studio fire, many friends and strangers sent letters of condolence and encouragement.
Correspondence with wife Yulla, nephew Gyorgy Hay, and close friends recounts personal and family news, activities, and sometimes touches on future plans. Among these correspondents are: Jenny Courtois, Varian and Annette Fry, Leo Gaspard, R. Sturgis Ingersoll, Gregorio Landau, Juan and Marianne Larrea, Camille Soula, and Joel and Celeste Starrels.
Eleven small pocket diaries, 1940-1965, contain brief, often sporadic entries noting appointments, events, addresses and phone numbers, notes of expenses, and include some sketches. Among the other writings by Lipchitz are: a notebook containing random notes on sculpture; a list of sculptures destroyed in the 1952 studio fire; short pieces and fragments of writings about sculptors Mary Frank, Natan Rapoport, Auguste Rodin, and William Zorach; a memoir of Amedeo Modigliani; and articles and reflections on contemporary art and the church.
Catalogue raisonné records concern the compilation and production of The Sculpture of Jacques Lipchitz: A Catalogue Raisonné by Alan G. Wilkinson, sponsored by Marlborough Gallery, Inc.
Among the financial records are statements of the sculptor's accounts with Buchholz Gallery and Curt Valentin Gallery, and receipts for Lipchitz Collection purchases. Also found are insurance and tax records, as well as receipts for routine professional expenses and miscellaneous personal expenses.
Artwork consists of a few rough sketches by Lipchitz and several geometric designs by an unidentified artist. Two scrapbooks, 1945-1946, consist of newspaper clippings and a few items from other periodicals that mention Lipchitz or contain reproductions of his work. Volume 2 includes typescripts of an interview and remarks delivered by Lipchitz, both very brief.
Printed material consists of exhibition catalogs and announcements, articles, press releases, books, programs, and reproductions concerning Lipchitz's exhibitions, sculpture, commissions, and events honoring him. Of particular interest are architectural prints showing sites and project details of several commissions. Also found are a variety of printed items about general art topics.
Photographs document people, artwork, project sites and models, exhibition installations, events, and places. People include Jacques Lipchitz, family members, and other individuals. Artwork represented is by Lipchitz and other artists. Views of Lipchitz exhibition installations mainly document solo shows. Photographs of events record a variety of occasions, among them: the opening of Lipchitz's studio in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY; a dedication ceremony for Philip Johnson's Roofless Church in New Harmony, IN, with ornamental gates and a sculpture by Lipchitz; and Lipchitz addressing an anatomy class at Albert Einstein Medical College. Among the pictures of places are Lipchitz's studios in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, and Pietrasanta, Italy, and a view of Picasso's Paris studio.
The Bruce Bassett papers relating to Jacques Lipchitz contain mostly audiovisual materials from sound and film documentation projects conducted by Bassett with Lipchitz. Found are original sound recordings and photographs from Deborah Stott's 200 hour oral history with Jacques Lipchitz, as well as detailed, typewritten summaries of its content. Records from Bassett's film projects about Lipchitz include original film and sound recordings from Bassett's 40 hours of interviews with Lipchitz from 1971, and film documentation of the posthumous installations of Lipchitz's large-scale sculptures in Philadelphia, New York, and Israel in the late 1970s. In addition to the raw footage from these projects, which is incomplete, the collection contains workprint and final, edited works Bassett created in multiple versions and formats, and paper records documenting the film projects' creation, production, and later use.
Among the papers related to the film projects are scripts, an index to original footage, programming notes, film lab records, exhibition materials, an extensive collection of questions about Lipchitz gathered from the public for the interactive project, and other production records. Other papers include letters from Lipchitz and his wife, business correspondence, financial records, contracts, project files, and printed materials. Other projects by Bassett, unrelated to Lipchitz, are documented in video and sound recordings related to Sidney Lifchez, IBM, Isamu Noguchi, the Storm King Sculpture Center, and Auguste Rodin.
Arrangement note:
The collection is arranged as 2 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Jacques Lipchitz papers, circa 1910-1999, bulk 1941-1999 (Boxes 1-10, OV 11-12; 9.5 linear feet)
Series 2: Bruce Bassett papers concerning Jacques Lipchitz, 1961-2001 (Boxes 13-67, OV 68-69; 43.3 linear feet)
Biographical/Historical note:
Jacques Lipchitz (1891-1973), an internationally known and influential Cubist sculptor, studied in Paris and established his career there. He fled Paris just before the German occupation, arrived in New York City in 1941, and eventually settled in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY.
Chaim Jacob Lipchitz was born in Druskieniki, Lithuania, then part of the Russian empire. His father, a building contractor from a well-to-do Jewish banking family, expected his son to study engineering as preparation for joining the business. Lipchitz, however, aspired to become a sculptor. With financial help from his mother, and determined to pursue his dream, he left for Paris after graduating from high school in 1909. Once there, Chaim Jacob soon became Jacques, the name he used throughout his life.
He first enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts as a "free pupil." After his father agreed to provide an allowance, Lipchitz transferred to the Académie Julian to study with sculptor Raoul Verlet. He also attended evening drawing classes at the Académie Colarossi. By 1911 he was working in his own studio. Two years later, Lipchitz's entry in the Salon d'Automne received favorable recognition.
In Paris, his circle of friends and acquaintances grew to include Dr. Albert C. Barnes, Constantin Brancusi, Coco Chanel, Jean Cocteau, André Derain, Ernest Hemingway, Max Jacob, Charles-Édouard Jenneret (Le Corbusier), James Joyce, Fernand Léger, André Lhote, Jean Metzinger, Amédée Ozenfant, Pablo Picasso, Diego Rivera, Chaim Soutine, Gertrude Stein, and Virgil Tompson. Juan Gris and Amedeo Modigliani were his closest friends.
Lipchitz's earliest work was traditional. Exposure to Picasso and other avant-garde artists influenced his style, and by 1915 he was producing purely Cubist sculptures. In 1916, dealer Léonce Rosenberg offered Lipchitz a contract with a monthly stipend. Able to afford assistants, Lipchitz began much larger projects. Over time, as he came to feel that angular forms were devoid of humanity, his style gradually changed. In the 1920s, he began experimenting with "transparencies" - delicate abstract forms with large open spaces for which he developed casting techniques that influenced sculpture for a generation. In the 1950s, he began creating "semi-automatics." These were cast in bronze from forms made by submerging hot wax in water, which sometimes incorporated found objects. Much of Lipchitz's later work was massive, dynamic, and incorporated more naturalistic forms.
In the early 1920s, Lipchitz received multiple commissions from Coco Chanel and Dr. Albert C. Barnes. He became a French citizen in 1924, the year he married poet Berthe Kitrosser, with whom he had lived since 1915. (Their double portrait by Modigliani that Lipchitz commissioned in 1916, now titled The Sculptor Jacques Lipchitz and His Wife Berthe Lipchitz, is in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago). The following year they moved to a suburban home and studio designed by Le Corbusier.
Léonce Rosenberg's Galerie de l'Effort Moderne presented Lipchitz's first solo exhibition in 1930, and the first important Lipchitz exhibition in the United States was held in 1935 at Brummer Gallery, New York. As the sculptor's reputation grew throughout the 1930s, his work was very much in demand.
As World War II approached, Lipchitz sensed the impending horror of the Nazi regime but was extremely reluctant to leave Paris. With time running out, he finally was persuaded that it was too dangerous to stay. Jacques and Berthe Lipchitz departed for the free zone of Toulouse, and with help from American friends sought asylum in the United States. In June of 1941, they arrived in New York City with some clothing, a portfolio of drawings, and very little money.
Lipchitz, a mature artist with an international reputation, soon attracted invitations to teach. Although finances were tight, the offers were rejected because he understood that any commitment would impede his artistic output. In search of a gallery, he contacted Brummer Gallery, the site of his first American show six years earlier. Although Joseph Brummer had shifted his focus to antiques, he provided an introduction to art dealer Curt Valentin of Buchholz Gallery (later Curt Valentin Gallery), who was sincerely interested in modern sculpture. Valentin went on to represent Lipchitz for well over a decade. Curt Valentin Gallery closed in 1955, a year after the owner's death. Lipchitz then became affiliated with Fine Arts Associates and its many successors (Otto Gerson Gallery, Inc., and Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, Inc.), which represented him for the remainder of his life. Marlborough Gallery, Inc. handled Lipchitz's estate.
Berthe longed to go home after the war, and in 1946 the couple returned to France. But because he and France had changed, Lipchitz soon realized that his future lay in America. He returned to New York after seven months; Berthe remained, and a divorce soon followed.
Within the year, Jacques Lipchitz married Yulla Halberstadt, a fellow refugee who was also a sculptor. Their only child, Loyla Rachel, was born in 1948. The family moved to Hastings-on-Hudson, NY in 1949, and he continued to work at his studio on East 23rd Street in New York City. After a major studio fire in early 1952 destroyed commissions in progress and many other pieces, the sculptor set up a temporary work space at Modern Art Foundry, Long Island City, NY. Several museums, collectors, and friends, quickly raised funds for a new studio, which became a loan at Lipchitz's insistence. A new studio designed by Milton Lowenfish and located within walking distance of Lipchitz's Hastings-on-Hudson home opened in 1953.
During the course of his career, Lipchitz was honored with a large number of solo and retrospective exhibitions at major museums and galleries in Europe, North and South America, and Israel. His work is represented in the permanent collections of world renowned museums and is owned by a wide range of private collectors and institutions.
Lipchitz was an avid art collector. An exhibition of Scythian art at the Hermitage Museum, seen while on a brief trip home in 1912, greatly impressed and inspired him. The result was an intense interest in non-European art, especially African art. He began to collect appealing objects from other cultures, and soon developed a life-long habit of visiting flea markets, antique shops, and galleries on a regular basis in search of items for his growing collection. In addition to ethnographic and ancient art, Lipchitz also bought old masters and 19th century art, and developed a special interest in Géricault. The original collection was abandoned when he left Paris; once settled in the United States, he resumed collecting. A substantial portion of the Lipchitz Collection, with an accompanying scholarly catalogue, was exhibited in 1960 at The Museum of Primitive Art, New York City.
Lipchitz's family was observant and he attended Jewish schools that stressed religious education, but he showed little interest in his faith during his early adult life. However, the establishment of Israel affected him profoundly and, over time, religious themes emerged in Lipchitz's work. He began making arrangements for gifts of sculpture to the Bezalel National Museum and the Israel Museum, developed a friendship with Jerusalem's outspoken Zionist mayor, Theodore Kollek, and in 1963 made his first of many visits to Israel.
He was a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and received awards for artistic achievement from the American Institute of Architects, Boston University, and Brandeis University. The Jewish Theological Seminary, New York, presented him an Honorary Doctorate of Laws degree.
Jacques Lipchitz died in Capri, Italy, May 16, 1973, and is buried in Israel. At his death, several large-scale sculpture commissions were left unfinished, and his wife Yulla took over the projects and saw that the installations were accomplished as planned. These posthumous installations include Government for the People, installed in Philadelphia in 1976, Bellerophon Taming Pegasus, installed at the Columbia University School of Law in New York City in 1977, and Our Tree of Life, installed in Jersusalem in 1978.
Bruce Bassett (1925-2009), a television and film producer, worked for NBC in New York for over 20 years. Bassett met the sculptor Jacques Lipchitz (1891-1973) when they were both living in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY. In 1968, Bassett initiated an extensive oral history project when he realized that Lipchitz, as an English speaker and participant in the birth of modernism in Europe, was the only living artist who could provide an oral record of the beginnings of modern art for an English audience.
From 1968, until his death in 2009, Bassett carried out extensive documentation projects regarding Lipchitz, often in his spare time, under the auspices of two organizations he founded: the Jacques Lipchitz Art Foundation (1968-1975) and Histor Systems (circa 1991-2001). In 1968 Bassett raised funds to enable Deborah Stott to travel to Italy and conduct roughly 200 hours of audio interview with Lipchitz, interviews which cover not only his own history, but also include a complete record of the origins of his extensive collection of primitive art, numbering almost 3000 objects at the time. Bassett himself traveled to Italy and filmed nearly 40 hours of additional interviews with Lipchitz in 1971.
Drawing from these filmed interviews, Bassett created a pioneering interactive program which allowed museum-goers to pose questions to Lipchitz and moments later receive answers in the form of video segments of Lipchitz speaking. He used the same footage to write, produce, and direct a one hour documentary, "Portrait of an Artist: Jacques Lipchitz." Both projects were originally presented to the public in tandem with a retrospective exhibition of Lipchitz's sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum in New York in 1972, and were later revised and updated several times for subsequent distribution and presentation. The last presentation of the interactive project documented in Bassett's papers was held at the Krannert Art Museum of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2001. The interactive project is now online at the Israel Museum website entitled "Ask Jacques Lipchitz a Question," a project Bassett had been working on with Hanno Mott at his death. Bassett had visited the Museum several years earlier to demonstrate the video.
Bassett died in 2009 in New York, NY.
Related Archival Materials note:
Interviews with Lipchitz are represented among the following Archives of American Art collections: Brooklyn Museum interviews of artists; KPFK "Art Scene," interviews by Marian L. Gore; Interviews of artists by Brian O'Doherty; and Interviews relating to American Abstract Artists by Ruth Bowman.
The Tate Archive houses the Jacques Lipchitz collection presented by Rubin Lipchitz, with materials dating from the 1910s-1970s and measuring 9.8 linear feet.
The Israel Museum hosts a website entitled "Ask Jacques Lipchitz a Question," which presents Bruce Bassett's entire interactive project of Lipchitz, described here in series 2.5.2, as a web-accessible video project.
Provenance:
Donated in 2010 by Hanno D. Mott, step-son of Jacques Lipchitz, and also on behalf of Loyla R. Lipchitz and Frank L. Mott.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment. Use of audiovisual materials 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.
Jacques Lipchitz papers and Bruce Bassett papers concerning Jacques Lipchitz, circa 1910-2001, bulk 1941-2001. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by The Jacques and Yulla Lipchitz Foundation, Inc.
An interview of Phillip A. Bruno conducted 2009 January 13-21, by James McElhinney, for the Archives of American Art, at the Archives of American Art, in New York, New York.
Bruno speaks of some his earliest impressions of art while growing up in New York and Paris; attending Columbia University, where he majored in the history of painting and architecture and studied under Meyer Schapiro; his first job at the Weyhe Gallery as a gallery assistant; helping create the Grace Borgenicht Gallery, where he served as director for five years; traveling to Mexico, meeting Jose Cuevas and exhibiting his work at the Edward Loeb Gallery in Paris; traveling to Brazil and meeting a family of naturalist painters who emphasized the importance of painting outdoors, unlike many painters from the New York school; working with Henry Clews and the La Napoule Art Foundation; selling a piece of Salvador Dali jewelry made by Carlos Alamanni to Hugh Hefner, founder of Playboy Magazine; working as director of The World House Gallery and selling works by Fancis Bacon and Max Ernst to clients such as Joseph Hirshhorn and Roy Neuberger; organizing a exhibition of artists shown at the Brussels World Fair in 1958 at World House and meeting George Staempfli through the artist Joan Brown; moving from World House to the Staempfli Gallery in 1960 to work as co-director; the Staempfli Gallery's role in the international art world; an original drawing by Leonard Baskin inscribed to Phillip in 1954; selling the work of artists such as Harry Bertoia, Fritz Koening, and David Park; meeting Henri Matisse in Paris at the age of 21; visiting the studios of Alexander Calder and Mark Rothko; the difference between galleries that can spot new talent and galleries that sell certain artists well; the art market becoming less idealistic and more commercial; the rising importance of auction houses and the possibility of their taking the place of traditional art galleries; the move of the Staempfli Gallery to the SoHo neighborhood and soon after, leaving Staempfli for Marlborough, where he was one of the New York directors for 18 years; his appreciation for the creativity of others, retirement and current plans to write his memoirs. Bruno also recalls Milton Avery, Gabor Peterdi, Hans Muller, Ralston Crawford, Randall Morgan, Charlotte Willard, Dorthy Satterlee, Masayuki Nagare, Claude Bemardin, Kubach-Wilmsen, Louise Nevelson, Cladio Bravo, Lopez Garcia, Alberto Giacometti, The Barnes Foundation, Richard Estes, Alex Katz, and Neil Wlliver.
Biographical / Historical:
Phillip A. Bruno (1930- ) is an art collector and director of Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound discs. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 2 hr., 45 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.
Occupation:
Gallery directors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Topic:
Collectors and collecting -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Genre/Form:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Sponsor:
Funding for this interview was provided by the Widgeon Point Charitable Foundation.
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 abstract expressionist painters Jackson Pollock and wife Lee Krasner measure 16.1 linear feet and date from circa 1914 to 1984, with the bulk of the material dating from 1942 to 1984. The collection documents their personal and professional lives, as well as the legacy of Jackson Pollock's work after his death. Found are biographical material, correspondence, writings by Krasner and others, research material, business and financial records, printed material, scrapbooks, artwork by others, photographs, interview transcripts, audio and video recordings, and motion picture film.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of abstract expressionist painters Jackson Pollock and wife Lee Krasner measure 16.1 linear feet and date from circa 1914 to 1984, with the bulk of the material dating from 1942 to 1984. The collection documents their personal and professional lives, as well as the legacy of Jackson Pollock's work after his death. Found are biographical material, correspondence, writings by Krasner and others, research material, business and financial records, printed material, scrapbooks, artwork by others, photographs, interview transcripts, audio and video recordings, and motion picture film.
The collection is divided into two series, the first of which focuses on Pollock and includes his scattered papers dating from circa 1914 to his death in 1956, as well as Krasner's papers dating from his death to 1984 about managing Pollock's legacy. This series includes biographical materials, including transcripts and audio recordings of an interview with William Wright in 1949; Pollock's and Krasner's correspondence with Thomas Hart Benton, Betty Parsons Gallery, Bill Davis, B. H. Friedman, Reginald Isaacs, Sidney Janis, Violet De Lazlo, Martha Jackson Gallery, Alfonso Ossorio, Tony Smith, and Clyfford Still, and with one another; Krasner's correspondence concerning Pollock's estate and artwork after his death; numerous writings about Pollock, including an original draft of Bryan Robertson's biography and an essay by Clement Greenberg.
James Valliere extensive research files on Pollock for a never-published biography were given to Krasner and filed in Series 1. These include scattered correspondence with Lee Krasner, and Pollock's family and friends, including Charles Pollock, Thomas Hart Benton, and Robert Motherwell. There are also transcripts of interviews Valliere conducted with Pollock's friends and colleagues, including James Brooks, Dorothy Dehner, Clement Greenberg, Reuben Kadish, Lee Krasner, Charles Maddox, Mrs. Sanford McCoy, Daniel T. Miller, Robert Miller, and Tony Smith. The original audio reels and duplicates exist for many and are filed here. Additional interviews were conducted with Willem de Kooning, Alfonso Ossorio, and Burton Rouche, but not transcribed - these are filed in Series 1.10, Audio Recordings and Motion Picture Film.
Also found in Series 1 are scattered business records documenting Krasner's handling of Pollock's estate and legacy; printed materials relating to Pollock, including published biographies, exhibition catalogs, and clippings; two scrapbooks; and a sketchbook by an unidentified artist. Numerous photographs of Pollock include childhood and family photographs, photographs of Pollock in his studio by Hans Namuth, Rudy Burckhardt, and Herbert Matter, photographs of Pollock with Lee Krasner, and exhibition photographs. Audio recordings and motion film in Series 1 include a 1964 16mm film about Pollock (VHS copies are available) and reel-to-reel recordings of untranscribed interviews of Pollock's friends and colleagues by James Valliere, including interviews with Willem de Kooning and Alfonso Ossorio. Additional transcribed interviews are filed in subseries 1.4.
Lee Krasner's papers documenting her own career are arranged in Series 2 and date from 1927-1984. Biographical materials include resumes and awards, school documents, family documentation, and exhibition lists. Her correspondence with artist friends and art colleagues is extensive and includes many letters from artists such as Philip Johnson, Ray Eames, Cleve Gray, and Hans Namuth. She also maintained correspondence with many art historians and critics, curators, gallery owners, collectors, arts-related and social organizations, admirers, and family members.
There are thirteen transcripts of interviews with Krasner by Bruce Glaser, Barbara Cavaliere, Andrew Forge, Emily Wasserman, Barbara Rose, and others. The original audio recordings for these transcripts are filed in series 2.10, along with other audio recordings for which there are no transcripts, including interviews by John Gruen, Delores Holmes, Mercedes Matter, the Martha Dean Radio Show, NBC Today Show, and WQXR radio. There are also audio recordings of Krasner's lectures in series 2.10.
Krasner's papers also include writings and reminiscences by Krasner; writings about Krasner; printed materials such as exhibition catalogs and clippings; and one scrapbook containing clippings and photographs. Numerous photographs are of Krasner, including portrait photographs taken by Hans Namuth; of Krasner with Jackson Pollock and family and friends, and of her exhibitions and artwork.
Users should note that Pollock's and Krasner's papers contain similar types of material that often overlap in subject matter, especially among the correspondence and photographs.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into 2 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Jackson Pollock papers and Lee Krasner papers about Jackson Pollock, circa 1914-1984 (Box 1-7, 16, OV 18, FC 19-22; 7.4 linear feet)
Series 2: Lee Krasner papers, circa 1927-1984 (Box 7-15, 17; 8.6 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Jackson Pollock was born in 1912, in Cody, Wyoming, the youngest of five sons. His family moved several times during his childhood, finally settling in Los Angeles. In 1930 he joined his older brother, Charles, in New York City, and studied with Regionalist painter Thomas Hart Benton at the Art Students League of New York. Pollock worked during the 1930s for the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project. During 1936 he worked in artist David Alfaro Siqueiros's Experimental Workshop. In 1938 he began psychiatric treatment for alcoholism, and his artwork was greatly influenced by Jungian analysis and the exploration of unconscious symbolism.
In 1943 Pollock had his first one-man exhibition at Peggy Guggenheim's New York gallery, Art of this Century, and continued to exhibit there over the next several years. A major turning point in Pollock's life and art was in 1945 when he married fellow artist Lee Krasner and moved to East Hampton, Long Island. There he developed his mature painting style, and became famous for his abstract pouring technique on large canvases. The height of his creativity spanned from 1947 to 1952, and his work was promoted by art critic Clement Greenberg. Along with other abstract expressionists including Hans Hofmann, Alfonso Ossorio, and Barnett Newman, he joined the Betty Parsons Gallery in 1947. He had his most successful one-man show in 1950 which was widely publicized and praised. This exhibition, combined with a 1949 feature article in LIFE magazine, made Pollock an American celebrity.
In 1952 Pollock moved his work to Sidney Janis Gallery and returned to earlier motifs in a search for new breakthroughs. The last few years of his life he suffered from mental and physical health problems, and in August, 1956 he died in a car accident. His wife, Lee Krasner, oversaw his estate and worked with many museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, on Pollock retrospective exhibitions.
Lee Krasner was born Lenore Krassner in 1908 in Brooklyn, New York to Russian immigrant parents. In 1926 she was admitted to the Women's Art School of The Cooper Union, and in 1928 she attended the Art Students League. After graduating from The Cooper Union in 1929, she attended the National Academy of Design until 1932. After briefly attending City College and Greenwich House, she worked for the Public Works of Art Project and the Temporary Emergency Relief Administration, and finally became an assistant in 1935 on the WPA Federal Art Project, Mural Division. From 1937 to 1940 she studied at the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts and began exhibiting with the American Abstract Artists group.
In 1942 Krasner met Pollock as they were both preparing to exhibit work in the same show. Although they married and she became immersed in his career, she continued to exhibit her own work with other abstract artists and from 1946 to 1949 worked on the Little Image painting series. In 1953 she began working on collages, a medium she would come back to again later in her career. After Pollock's death her work was greatly influence by her sadness and anger, creating a visible evolution of her style.
For the rest of her career, Krasner consistently exhibited her work in both group and solo exhibitions. She had her first retrospective at Whitechapel Gallery, London, in 1965, and in 1966, she joined Marlborough Gallery, New York which represented Pollock's work as well. In the 1970s and early 1980s Krasner won many awards for her achievement in the visual arts, including the Augustus St. Gaudens Medal and the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. She returned to the medium of collage, and in 1976 joined the Pace Gallery, New York. In 1981 she joined the Robert Miller Gallery, New York. Lee Krasner continued creating art until her death in 1984.
Related Material:
Found in the Archives of American Art are the Charles Pollock Papers, 1902-1990, which includes correspondence, photographs, and other files relating to his brother, Jackson Pollock. Other resources in the Archives are oral history interviews with Lee Krasner, including a series of interviews conducted by Dorothy Seckler between 1964 and 1968, and interviews conducted by Barbara Rose in 1966 and Doloris Holmes in 1972.
Provenance:
The papers of Jackson Pollock were donated in 1983 by Lee Krasner through Eugene V. Thaw shortly before her death. Additional material about Pollock and the papers of Lee Krasner were donated in 1985 by Eugene V. Thaw, executor of Lee Krasner's estate.
Restrictions:
The collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website.
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.
The papers of art historian and writer Peter Howard Selz measure 31.5 linear feet and 0.696 GB and date from 1929 to 2018, with the bulk of the materials from 1950 to 2005. The papers document Selz's long career via correspondence, writings, professional files, project files, membership and association records, artists' research files, exhibition files, personal business records, printed and digital materials, and nine scrapbooks.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of art historian and writer Peter Howard Selz measure 31.5 linear feet and 0.696 GB and date from 1929 to 2018, with the bulk of the materials from 1950 to 2005. The papers document Selz's long career via correspondence, writings, professional files, project files, membership and association records, artists' research files, exhibition files, personal business records, printed and digital materials, and scrapbooks.
Correspondence is with colleagues, artists, museums, and galleries concerning a wide variety of topics, including exhibitions and publications. The bulk of the correspondence consists of alphabetical files (two linear feet) that includes correspondence with artists. Notable correspondents include Pol Bury, Alexander Calder, Gordon Onslow Ford, Alberto Giacometti, Morris Graves, Philip Guston, Dimitri Hadzi, Jacques Lipchitz, Georgia O'Keeffe, Ad Reinhardt, Mark Rothko, Jean Tinguely, and others. Eight additional files of chronological correspondence is with curators, arts organizations, and publishers. Additional correspondence is found in the professional files, project files, membership files, artists' research files, and exhibition files.
The bulk of the writings series is comprised of files related to Selz's books and includes typescript drafts and galleys, printed and digital material, correspondence, and publishing contracts. Files are found for Art in Our Times, Art of Engagement, Beyond the Mainstream, and Theories of Modern Art. Other writings consist of drafts of articles, essays, notes, and lectures by Selz. Also included are writings by others, including materials related to Paul Karlstrom's biography of Selz.
Professional files document curatorial and teaching positions at the Chicago Institute of Design, Pomona College, University of California, Berkeley, and the Museum of Modern Art. The series includes contracts, recommendations, syllabi, and correspondence.
Project files document Selz's professional work on specific art projects, panels, and symposiums. There is extensive documentation of Selz's work as project director of Christo's Running Fence, as well as other environmental art work projects by Christo, the Berkeley Art Project, Disney Art Project, "Funk Art" symposium, and the "Art and Politics in the 20th Century" symposium. Project files contain a wide variety of materials, such as correspondence, printed material, financial records, reports, photographs, and other documents. There are 2 tape reels, 1 VHS, and 1 sound cassette.
Membership and association records document Selz's involvement with or membership in various art councils, trustee boards, such as the College Art Association, Art in Chicago Advisory Committee, Bay Area Rapid Transit (B.A.R.T.) Art Council, and the San Francisco Crafts and Folk Art Museum Advisory Board, among others. Materials include meeting minutes, bulletins, correspondence, and memoranda.
Artists' Research Files consist of a wide variety of research materials Selz compiled about artists for lectures, writings, projects, exhibitions, etc. Files vary and may include original and photocopied correspondence, photographic material, resumes, printed and digital material, and writings. There is also 1 sound cassette. Files are found for Bedri Baykam, Max Beckmann, Fletcher Benton, Ciel Bergman, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Bruce Conner, Jean Dubuffet, Lyonel Feininger, Leon Golub, Dimitri Hadzi, Rico Lebrun, Harold Paris, Irving Petlin, among many others.
Exhibition files include catalogs, reviews, clippings, writings, correspondence, and other material documenting exhibitions organized by Selz. Limited materials are found for the MOMA Art Nouveau exhibition. More extensive documentation is found for Seven Decades of Modern Art, 1895-1965, The Joint Show (1967), The American Presidency in Political Cartoons (1976), American Modern Art Between the Two World Wars (1979), German Realism in the Twenties: Artist As Social Critic (1980), Twelve Artists from the German Democratic Republic (1989), a Richard Lindner Retrospective (1996), Spaces of Nature (1999), Color and Fire: Defining Moments in Studio Ceramics, 1950-2000 (2000), and a Nathan Oliviera Retrospective (2002), among others. Some of the materials are in digital format.
Personal business records are related to the Mark Rothko estate and Kate Rothko's legal case against Marlborough Gallery, Inc. Also included in this series are Peter Selz's school transcripts, bequests, royalty statements, house designs, and other material.
Printed materials include clippings, prints of articles written by Peter Selz, exhibition announcements and invitations, and photocopies of artwork images.
There are nine disbound scrapbooks dating from the 1940s up through 2012 containing clippings, exhibition announcements, and photographs of art events, Selz, and artists. This series also includes materials from the 2018 addition that may have previously been compiled in binders.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged as 10 series. When possible the original order of Peter Selz was maintained. However, multiple accessions were merged and integrated.
Missing Title
Series 1: Correspondence, 1942-2013 (2.3 linear feet; Box 1-3, Box 37)
Series 2: Writings, 1942- circa 2014 (8.3 linear feet; Box 3-10, OV 32, Box 37, 0.035 GB; ER01, ER12)
Series 3: Professional Files, 1949-2012 (1 linear feet; Box 11, Box 37)
Series 4: Project Files, 1962-2015 (2.8 linear feet; Box 12-14, OV 33, Box 37)
Series 5: Membership and Association Records, 1958-2014 (1.1 linear feet; Box 14-15, Box 37)
Series 6: Artists' Research Files, 1955-2014 (7.9 linear feet; Box 15-22, OV 34-35, 0.520 GB; ER02-ER08)
Series 7: Exhibition Files, 1959-2014 (5.2 linear feet; Box 23-27, Box 38, 0.093 GB; ER09-ER11)
Series 8: Personal Business Records, 1929-2014 (1.2 linear feet; Box 28-29, OV 36, Box 38)
Series 9: Printed Material, 1957-2014 (0.3 linear feet; Box 29, Box 38)
Series 10: Scrapbooks, 1947-2018 (1.4 linear feet, Box 29-31, Box 38)
Biographical / Historical:
Peter Howard Selz (1919-2019) was a pioneering historian of modern art, professor, and writer who taught at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1965-1988 and founded and directed the Berkeley Art Museum from 1965-1973.
Selz was born in 1919 in Munich, Germany to Eugene Selz and Edith Drey Selz. In 1936, the family fled Nazi Germany and immigrated to the United States. Selz attended Columbia University from 1937 to 1938 and became a naturalized citizen in 1942. During World War II, Selz served in the U.S. Army in the Office of Strategic Services. He married writer Thalia Cheronis in 1948 but they later divorced in 1965; he married several times afterwards.
After the war, Selz attended and taught at the University of Chicago where he received a Ph. D. in German Expressionism. He spent a year in Paris, 1949-1950, at the Sorbonne and École du Louvre on a Fulbright grant. He received a second Fulbright grant in 1953 to study at the Royal Museums of Art and History in Belgium. From 1953-1955, Selz also taught at the Chicago Institute of Design.
In 1955 Peter Selz accepted a position to chair the art history department at Pomona College in Claremont and relocated to California for a few years. He also became director of the college's art gallery.
In 1958 Selz moved to New York City to become curator of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art and was there through the transformative mid-1960s. While at MOMA, he organized several significant exhibitions of modern art, including the 1960 Jean Tinguely "Homage to New York," a sculpture that destroyed itself (and started a fire) in the sculpture garden of the museum; New Images of Man (1959), the Art Nouveau show (1960), and the Art of Assemblage (1961). He also launched important retrospectives, including the first Rodin retrospective in the United States and a comprehensive exhibition of Alberto Giacometti's work in 1965.
In 1965, Peter Selz returned to California to become the founding director of the Berkeley Art Museum at the University of California, Berkeley, a position he held until 1973. He organized exhibitions of Funk, film, and ceramicists like Peter Voulkos and Robert Arneson. Peter Selz later became project director for Christo's "Running Fence", the 24.5-mile long fabric fence over the Marin County hills in 1976. He also served concurrently as a professor of art history at UC until retiring in 1988.
Peter Selz was a member of the College Art Association's board of directors for two terms, 1958-1964 and 1966-1971. Selz is a prolific writer, and the author or co-author of numerous books, exhibition catalogs, and articles. Notable books include German Expressionist Painting (1957), Art in a Turbulent Era (1965), Art in Our Times (1981), and Sam Francis (1975).
In 1988 Peter Selz was named emeritus professor at University of California, Berkeley. In 1993 he was on the acquisitions committee of the Museums of Fine Arts, San Francisco. In 2012, Selz curated The Painted Word exhibition. Selz died in 2019 in Albany, California.
Related Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds oral history interviews of Peter Selz conducted by Paul J. Karlstrom on July 28, 1982, October 12, 1982, and November 3, 1999.
Provenance:
The Peter Howard Selz papers were donated to the Archives of American Art by Peter Selz in multiple installments from 1976 through 2014. Additional papers were donated in 2018 by Gabrielle Selz, Peter Selz's daughter.
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 copies 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.
Peter Howard Selz papers, 1929-2018, bulk 1950-2005. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the 2014 processing of this collection was provided by the Frederick Hammersley Foundation. Funding for the processing of the 2018 addition was provided by Gerald and Bente Buck.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Washington, D.C. Research Center.
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:
Charles Rand Penney Papers, 1923-1994, bulk 1945-1994. 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.
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Washington, D.C. Research Center.
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:
Charles Rand Penney Papers, 1923-1994, bulk 1945-1994. 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.
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Washington, D.C. Research Center.
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:
Charles Rand Penney Papers, 1923-1994, bulk 1945-1994. 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.
