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Walter and Ise Gropius papers

Creator:
Gropius, Walter, 1883-1969  Search this
Gropius, Ise  Search this
Names:
Architects Collaborative, Inc.  Search this
Bauhaus  Search this
Walter Gropius Foundation  Search this
Aalto, Alvar, 1898-1976  Search this
Albers, Josef  Search this
Bartók, Béla, 1881-1945  Search this
Bayer, Herbert, 1900-1985  Search this
Beckmann, Hannes, 1909-1977  Search this
Breuer, Marcel, 1902-  Search this
Calder, Alexander, 1898-1976  Search this
Cascieri, Arcangelo, 1902-1997  Search this
Chermayeff, Ivan  Search this
Chermayeff, Serge, 1900-  Search this
Davis, Charles H. (Charles Harold), 1856-1933  Search this
Feininger, Lyonel, 1871-1956  Search this
Gabo, Naum, 1890-1977  Search this
Gropius, Walter, 1883-1969  Search this
Huxley, Julian, 1887-1975  Search this
Kandinsky, Wassily, 1866-1944  Search this
Kepes, Gyorgy, 1906-2001  Search this
Klarmann, Adolf D., 1904-  Search this
Klee, Paul, 1879-1940  Search this
Klemperer, Otto, 1885-1973  Search this
Koch, Helmut  Search this
Le Corbusier, 1887-1965  Search this
Mahler, Alma, 1879-1964  Search this
Marcks, Gerhard  Search this
Miró, Joan, 1893-  Search this
Moholy-Nagy, László, 1895-1946  Search this
Muche, Georg, 1895-  Search this
Pei, I. M., 1917-  Search this
Petit, Claude  Search this
Pritchard, Jack, 1899-  Search this
Rivera, Diego, 1886-1957  Search this
Scharoun, Hans, 1893-1972  Search this
Schmidt, Joost, 1893-1948  Search this
Schwitters, Kurt, 1887-1948  Search this
Sert, José Luis, 1902-  Search this
Stravinsky, Igor, 1882-1971  Search this
Tange, Kenzō, 1913-  Search this
Wachsmann, Konrad, 1901-1980  Search this
Werfel, Franz, 1890-1945  Search this
Wright, Frank Lloyd, 1867-1959  Search this
Extent:
0.4 Linear feet ((24 microfilm reels))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Sound recordings
Interviews
Date:
1883-1981
Scope and Contents:
Biographical material, correspondence with architects and artists (1903-1978), writings (1923-1969), a diary, an autograph book, subject files, printed material, photographs (1883-1979) and 5 photograph albums reflect the career of Walter Gropius, the activities of his wife Ise, and her recollections of the Bauhaus. Also included are 5 cassette tapes, untranscribed and unmicrofilmed.
REELS 2270-2283: Walter Gropius' correspondence concerns family matters (1903-1933), locating his sister in Berlin after World War II (1945-1946), and the Bauhaus Archiv (1957-1968). Ise Gropius' correspondents (1969-1978) include Alvar Aalto, Herbert Bayer, Hannes Beckmann, Arcangelo Cascieri, Ivan and Serge Chermayeff, Adolf Klarmann, Helmut Koch, Gerhard Marcks, Jack Pritchard, Hans Scharoun, and Konrad Wachsmann. Other correspondence concerns exhibitions about Gropius (1969-1976). Writings by Walter Gropius include lecture notes and short essays on architecture and design. A subject file (1945-1954) concerns visits to Japan. Printed material (1910-1978) includes galley proof sheets and clippings (1913-1957).
REELS 2284-2286: Photographs (1896-1937) show family members including Gropius' first wife Alma Schindler and their daughter Manon; Gropius' architectural projects including finished buildings, models, blueprints, and drawings (1906-1952); and an exhibition in London on Gropius.
REEL 2287: Biographical material (1883-1979) consists of Gropius' birth, marriage and death certificates, his military record (1914-1917), contracts, U.S. naturalization papers (1941-1944), financial documents (1945), Ise Gropius' will (1979), a list of works, a history of the Gropius family, real estate records, and membership cards. Excerpts from letters written by Marcel Breuer describe his European travels (1931-1937). A file on the Walter Gropius Foundation contains letters and notes (1969). An autograph book kept by Ise Gropius (1924-1981) contains illustrations by Herbert Bayer, Gyorgy and Juliet Kepes, Joan Miro, Kurt Schwitters, and Phyllis Terry, as well as autographs, notes and photographs. Writings by Ise Gropius include lecture notes and printed essays (1935-1943).
REEL 2287a: Twenty-six letters (1932-1952) from Herbert Bayer, written in German and English, to Gropius. Thirteen excerpts from Bayer's letters (1932-1949) are translated into English.
REELS 2330-2331: Photographs (1883-1979) show Walter Gropius, family members, and colleagues including Alvar Aalto, Bela Bartok, Herbert Bayer, Marcel Breuer, Alexander Calder, Arcangelo Cascieri, Naum Gabo, Julian Huxley, Gyorgy Kepes, Paul Klee, Le Corbusier, I. M. Pei, Diego Rivera, Jose Luis Sert, Kenzo Tange, Frank Lloyd Wright, and members of Gropius' firm, The Architects Collaborative. Other photographs show a skit by students of the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Bauhaus (1979).
REEL 2393: English translations of correspondence between Ise and Walter Gropius (1931-1969) and Ise's 1928 letter to a journalist commenting on Walter Gropius' resignation from the Bauhaus. A handwritten German copy (with a typewritten English translation) of a section of Ise Gropius' unpublished memoir describes her first meeting with Gropius and their courtship and marriage (1923-1929). A German transcript was not filmed. A typewritten English translation of Ise Gropius' diary (1924-1928) describes activities at the Bauhaus and mentions Josef Albers, Herbert Bayer, Marcel Breuer, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Otto Klemperer, Alma Mahler, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Georg Muche, Kurt Schwitters, Igor Stravinsky, and Franz Werfel. A handwritten translation is filmed on reel 4130.
REEL 2764: One photograph album (1925-1930) contains photographs of Walter and Ise Gropius and colleagues including Josef Albers, Herbert Bayer, Marcel Breuer, Lyonel Feininger, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Georg Muche, Claude Petit, and Joost Schmidt; construction of the Bauhaus (1925-1926); and sights in Germany and Italy. Four albums on the United States contain Gropius' photographs of New York City architecture, the Brooklyn Bridge, Chicago, California housing and industry, the Grand Canyon, and American Indians.
UNMICROFILMED: 5 cassette tapes, untranscribed, including a lecture delivered by Walter Gropius as part of "The Heritage of Man" lecture series, Cleveland, Ohio, February 13, 1952; an interview of Ise conducted by the Canadian Broadcasting Company, October 28, 1977; and 3 of a monologue delivered by Ise, 1978, in which she speaks of her early childhood.
Biographical / Historical:
Architect, educator and founder of the Bauhaus school. Born in Berlin, Walter Gropius studied at the University of Charlottenburg-Berlin and Munich. Following European travel and apprenticeship with Peter Behrens in Berlin, he established his own practice in 1910. After military service in WWI, he became director of the School of Applied Arts and the Academy of Arts, united the two and named the new institute Bauhaus Dessau in 1925. Between 1934 and 1937, he had a private practice in London. From 1938 to 1952, Gropius was chairman of Harvard's Graduate School of Design and maintained a private practice with Marcel Breuer from 1938 to 1941. Gropius married Alma Schindler, Gustav Mahler's widow, in 1915. In 1923, he married Ise (or Ilse) Franck (1897-1983).
Related Materials:
Additional photographs of Alma (Schindler) Mahler Werfel located at Bauhaus Archiv, Berlin, Germany.
Provenance:
Lent for microfilming by Ise Gropius and her daughter, Beate Gropius Forberg Johansen, 1982-1983, except for selected items on reel 2393, the handwritten translation of Ise's diary on reel 4130 and cassette tapes, which were donated in 1981, 1983 and 1987, respectively. Some photographs from albums on reel 2764 which would not reproduce were not microfilmed.
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. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Occupation:
Architects  Search this
Educators  Search this
Painters  Search this
Photographers  Search this
Sculptors  Search this
Topic:
Architecture, Modern -- 20th century -- Germany  Search this
Architecture, Modern -- 20th century -- United States  Search this
Industrial design  Search this
Genre/Form:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Identifier:
AAA.gropwalt
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9d2bbaa43-9f9f-4122-be42-6062c8c9a297
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-gropwalt

Oral history interview with Katharine Kuh

Topic:
Saturday review
Interviewee:
Kuh, Katharine  Search this
Interviewer:
Berman, Avis  Search this
Creator:
Mark Rothko and His Times Oral History Project  Search this
Names:
Art Institute of Chicago  Search this
Black Mountain College (Black Mountain, N.C.)  Search this
First National Bank of Chicago -- Art collections  Search this
Katharine Kuh Gallery (Chicago, Ill.)  Search this
Mark Rothko and His Times Oral History Project  Search this
Vassar College  Search this
Adams, Ansel, 1902-1984  Search this
Albers, Josef  Search this
Albright, Ivan, 1897-1983  Search this
Archipenko, Alexander, 1887-1964  Search this
Arensberg, Louise S. (Louise Stevenson), 1879-1953  Search this
Arensberg, Walter, 1878-1954  Search this
Avery, Milton, 1885-1965  Search this
Barr, Alfred H., Jr., 1902-1981  Search this
Berenson, Bernard, 1865-1959  Search this
Davis, Stuart, 1892-1964  Search this
De Kooning, Willem, 1904-1997  Search this
Duchamp, Marcel, 1887-1968  Search this
Ernst, Max, 1891-1976  Search this
Hofmann, Hans, 1880-1966  Search this
Kepes, Gyorgy, 1906-2001  Search this
Klee, Paul, 1879-1940  Search this
Léger, Fernand, 1881-1955  Search this
Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig, 1886-1969  Search this
Moholy-Nagy, László, 1895-1946  Search this
Mérida, Carlos, 1891-1984  Search this
Newman, Barnett, 1905-1970  Search this
Noguchi, Isamu, 1904-1988  Search this
Paepcke, Walter Paul, 1896-1960  Search this
Porter, Eliot, 1901-1990  Search this
Ray, Man, 1890-1976  Search this
Rich, Daniel Catton, 1904-1976  Search this
Rothko, Mark, 1903-1970  Search this
Smith, David, 1906-1965  Search this
Stamos, Theodoros, 1922-1997  Search this
Stieglitz, Alfred, 1864-1946  Search this
Still, Clyfford, 1904-1980  Search this
Tamayo, Rufino, 1899-  Search this
Tobey, Mark  Search this
Tworkov, Jack  Search this
Weston, Edward, 1886-1958  Search this
Extent:
313 Pages (Transcript)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Pages
Sound recordings
Interviews
Date:
1982 Mar. 18-1983 Mar. 24
Scope and Contents:
An interview of Katharine Kuh conducted 1982 Mar. 18-1983 Mar. 24, by Avis Berman, for the Archives of American Art's Mark Rothko and His Times oral history project.
Kuh speaks of her childhood in Chicago, the development of her interest in art, classes in art history at Vassar College, and her career as curator of modern art at the Art Institute of Chicago. She recalls in particular the "Sanity in Art" movement against modern art in Chicago. Kuh describes her relationship with Mark Rothko and Rothko's relationships with Mark Tobey, Clyfford Still, Kate Rothko, Theodoros Stamos, Milton Avery, Stanley Kunitz, and Hans Hofmann.
Kuh discusses her parents, the family silk business, travelling in Europe as a child, life in Chicago, the effects of polio and other illnesses on her interests, and her student years at Vassar College. She remembers visiting Bernard Berenson in Italy with her family and again with Daniel Catton Rich, with whom she worked very closely at the Art Institute of Chicago. She speaks of the Katharine Kuh Gallery, which she started in the mid-1930s and its place in the vanguard of the Chicago art scene.
Kuh remembers the effects of the stock market crash on her personal situation, her marriage to businessman George Kuh, distaste for life in the suburbs, and her divorce. She discusses the Katharine Kuh Gallery and the actions taken against her business by members of the reactionary "Sanity in Art" movement (including a very funny anecdote concerning Carlos Merida). She speaks of the classes in modern art that she taught at her gallery and of some of the artists she exhibited there, including the photographers Ansel Adams, Alfred Stieglitz, and Edward Weston.
Kuh remembers the McCarthy era and the political conservatism in Chicago, including her testimony on behalf of Bill Zimmerman, Acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs. She criticizes blockbuster exhibitions and the changes in the role of a museum curator. She reminisces about building the collection at the Art Institute of Chicago and the art education program she ran there, and recalls Stuart Davis, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Gyorgy Kepes, and Ivan Albright.
Kuh remembers Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Marcel Duchamp, as well as the collectors Walter Paepcke and Walter and Louise Arensberg (whose collection she surveyed in their home for an exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago).
Kuh focuses on her memories of Mark Rothko, recalling when they met, their friendship, his manner of working, his feelings about his work, and his worries towards the end of his life. She talks about Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman, and Mark Tobey. Some parts of this tape repeat what she said earlier.
Kuh continues discussing Rothko, particularly his Houston chapel murals and the retrospective exhibition at MOMA in 1961. She remembers visiting Rothko's studio and describes his working methods. She relates Rothko's views on other artists, including Milton Avery, Clyfford Still, Turner, Robert Motherwell, and Adolf Gottlieb; parts repeat things said before. Kuh also discusses Rothko's wife and daughter.
Kuh recounts building the collection at the Art Institute of Chicago and speaks of the museum staff, trustees, and donors. She remembers Alfred Barr at MOMA.
Kuh continues speaking about the Art Institute of Chicago, describing the circumstances of her resignation and subsequent move to New York. She talks of knowing Peggy Guggenheim, Max Ernst, and Fernand Leger.
Kuh describes her work as a consultant to college museums and her writings. She discusses the field of art criticism and her career as art editor at Saturday Review. She recalls Clyfford Still's retrospective exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and his death.
Kuh describes her work as a collector for the First National Bank of Chicago.
Kuh recounts more about her work at Saturday Review and her resignation. She goes into great detail about her travels in Alaska and British Columbia surveying Northwest Indian art for a government report. She speaks again about the McCarthy era.
Kuh speaks again about the Katharine Kuh Gallery and the artists she exhibited there, including Josef Albers (and his Black Mountain College), Alexander Archipenko, Stuart Davis, Paul Klee, Alexander Calder, and Man Ray.
Kuh continues her discussion of artists she exhibited at the Katharine Kuh Gallery, including Mark Tobey, Paul Klee, and Isamu Noguchi.
Kuh continues talking about artists she exhibited at the Katharine Kuh Gallery, including David Smith, Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Eliot Porter, Rufino Tamayo, and Jack Tworkov.
Biographical / Historical:
Katharine Kuh (1904-1994) was an art consultant, curator, and critic from Chicago and New York City.
General:
Originally recorded on 16 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 31 digital wav files. Duration is 21 hrs., 52 min.
Provenance:
This interview was conducted as part of the Archives of American Art's Mark Rothko and his Times oral history project, with funding provided by the Mark Rothko Foundation.
Others interviewed on the project (by various interviewers) include: Sonia Allen, Sally Avery, Ben-Zion, Bernard Braddon, Ernest Briggs, Rhys Caparn, Elaine de Kooning, Herbert Ferber, Esther Gottlieb, Juliette Hays, Sidney Janis, Buffie Johnson, Jacob Kainen, Louis Kaufman, Jack Kufeld, Stanley Kunitz, Joseph Liss, Dorothy Miller, Betty Parsons, Wallace Putnam, Rebecca Reis, Maurice Roth, Sidney Schectman, Aaron Siskind, Joseph Solman, Hedda Sterne, Jack Tworkov, Esteban Vicente and Ed Weinstein. Each has been cataloged separately.
Restrictions:
Transcript: Patrons must use microfilm copy.
Rights:
Authorization to quote or reproduce for the purposes of publication requires written permission from Avis Berman. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Occupation:
Art critics -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this
Art critics -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this
Art museum curators -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this
Art museum curators -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this
Topic:
Abstract expressionism  Search this
Genre/Form:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Identifier:
AAA.kuh82
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw941cbbacd-01e0-402c-828e-c3909d220c9b
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-kuh82
Online Media:

Oral History interview with Miyoko Ito

Interviewee:
Ito, Miyoko, 1918-1983  Search this
Interviewer:
Barrie, Dennis  Search this
Names:
Art Institute of Chicago  Search this
Ox-Bow Summer School of Painting  Search this
Smith College  Search this
Baum, Don, 1922-  Search this
Berdich, Vera, 1915-2003  Search this
Chapin, Francis, 1899-1965  Search this
Cohen, George, 1913-1980  Search this
Edmondson, Leonard, 1916-  Search this
Haley, John, 1905-1991  Search this
Hofmann, Hans, 1880-1966  Search this
Johnston, Ynez, 1920-  Search this
Kahn, Max, 1903-2005  Search this
Lanyon, Ellen  Search this
Loran, Erle, 1905-1999  Search this
Mitchell, Joan, 1926-1992  Search this
Moholy-Nagy, László, 1895-1946  Search this
Ryder, Worth, 1884-1960  Search this
Venturi, Lionello, 1885-1961  Search this
Extent:
2 Items (Sound recording: 2 sound files, digital, wav file)
41 Pages (Transcript)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Pages
Sound recordings
Interviews
Date:
1978 July 20
Scope and Contents:
An interview of Miyoko Ito conducted 1978 July 20, by Dennis Barrie, for the Archives of American Art.
Ito discusses her family background; being in Japan at an early age, attending school and learning calligraphy; returning to California in 1928; excelling in drawing and painting; attending Berkeley High School; studying watercolor at Berkeley School of Water Color; studying under Erle Loran, Worth Ryder, John Haley; the influence of Hans Hofmann; being in internment camp (Camp Rann); attending Smith College, Northampton to study painting under instructor George Cohen; attending the Art Institue of Chicago and meeting Francis Chapin and Joan Mitchell; being influenced by Bonnard; moving into lithography at Oxbow; studying under Max Kahn; doing printmaking and etching; and participating in the Momentum Shows. Ito mentions Ynez Johnston, Leonard Edmondson, Lionel Venturi, Ellen Lanyon, Don Baum, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and Vera Berdich.
Biographical / Historical:
Miyoko Ito (1918-1983) was a Japanese American painter based in Chicago, Illinois.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 tape reel (5 in.).
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.
Occupation:
Painters -- Chicago -- Illinois  Search this
Topic:
Art, American  Search this
Asian American art  Search this
Asian American artists  Search this
Asian American painters  Search this
Japanese American art  Search this
Japanese American artists  Search this
Japanese American painting  Search this
Women artists  Search this
Women painters  Search this
Japanese Americans -- Forced removal and internment -- 1942-1945  Search this
Genre/Form:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Identifier:
AAA.ito78
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9fc74c5bf-beb0-466b-bc95-664a03740244
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-ito78
Online Media:

School of Design in Chicago : refugees east and west / Beatrice Takeuchi

Creator:
Takeuchi, Beatrice, 1921-  Search this
Names:
Chicago School of Design  Search this
Aaron, David  Search this
Filipowski, Richard, 1923-2008  Search this
Giedion, S. (Sigfried), 1888-1968  Search this
Hayakawa, S. I.  Search this
Keck, George Fred  Search this
Kepes, Gyorgy, 1906-2001  Search this
Leckie, Hubert W., 1913-1993  Search this
Moholy-Nagy, László, 1895-1946  Search this
Richard, Edgar  Search this
Waldheim, Jack  Search this
Extent:
54 Pages
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Pages
Date:
undated
1998
Scope and Contents:
Beatrice Takeuchi memoir, 1998. Takeuchi begins with her recollections of the bombing of Pearl Harbor and her stay in a War Relocation camp and describes in detail her impressions of the faculty, staff, and students at School of Design in Chicago. Most notable recollections involve instructors Lazlo Moholy-Nagy, Jack Waldheim, George Fred Keck, Hubert Leckie, S.I. Hayakawa, and others. The memoir concludes with a summation of her career in the arts.
Biographical / Historical:
Beatrice Takeuchi (1921-2020) was a Japanese American educator based in Chicago, Illinois and Washington, D.C. Takeuchi was born in Seattle, Washington. After the bombing of Pearl Harber, she was sent to a War Relocation Center, Pallyup, Washington and Minidoka, Idaho in August 1942. In October of 1942 she was allowed to leave to pursue studies in industrial design and architecture at the Chicago School of Design (fd. 1937 as New Bauhaus). From 1945-54 she taught foundation and visual design and held various positions in architecture and design studios in Washington, D.C., moving to NYC in 1954 and working as a free lance architect until 1968. She lived and worked in Chicago from 1968-1993, when she retired to Michigan.
Provenance:
Donated 1998 by Beatrice Takeuchi.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Occupation:
Architects  Search this
Topic:
Asian American art  Search this
Asian American artists  Search this
Japanese American art  Search this
Japanese American artists  Search this
Asian American architects  Search this
Asian American educators  Search this
Japanese Americans -- Forced removal and internment -- 1942-1945 -- Diaries  Search this
Identifier:
AAA.takebeat
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9b10be3ea-b14d-48ae-9274-330ca27261fc
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-takebeat

Lilian Swann Saarinen papers

Creator:
Saarinen, Lilian Swann, 1912-1995  Search this
Names:
Cambridge Art Center  Search this
Cranbrook Academy of Art -- Faculty  Search this
G Place Gallery (Washington, D.C.)  Search this
Knoll Associates, inc.  Search this
Massachusetts Institute of Technology -- Faculty  Search this
Midtown Galleries (New York, N.Y.)  Search this
Otava Publishing Company  Search this
Reynal & Hitchcock  Search this
Armitage, Merle, 1893-1975  Search this
Crosby, Caresse, 1892-  Search this
Eames, Charles  Search this
Eames, Ray  Search this
Koch, Carl  Search this
Kreis, Henry, 1899-1963  Search this
Milles, Carl, 1875-1955  Search this
Moholy-Nagy, László, 1895-1946  Search this
Moholy-Nagy, Sibyl, 1905-  Search this
Saarinen, Eero, 1910-1961  Search this
Saarinen, Eliel, 1873-1950  Search this
Saarinen, Loja  Search this
Venturi, Robert  Search this
Weese, Harry, 1915-1998  Search this
Extent:
9 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Blueprints
Diaries
Illustrations
Sketches
Photographs
Scrapbooks
Date:
circa 1909-1977
Summary:
The papers of Cambridge sculptor and illustrator, Lilian Swann Saarinen, measure nine linear feet and date from circa 1909 to 1977. The collection documents Saarinen's career through correspondence with artists, architects, publishers, and gallery owners; writings and notes, including manuscripts and illustrations for children's books and publications; project and teaching files; financial records; artwork, including numerous project sketches; and photos of Saarinen and her artwork. Saarinen's personal life is also documented through diaries and correspondence with friends and family members, including Eero Saarinen, to whom she was married from 1939-1953.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Cambridge sculptor and illustrator, Lilian Swann Saarinen, measure nine linear feet and date from circa 1909 to 1977. The collection documents Saarinen's career through correspondence with artists, architects, publishers, and gallery owners; writings and notes, including manuscripts and illustrations for children's books and publications; project and teaching files; financial records; artwork, including numerous project sketches; and photos of Saarinen and her artwork. Saarinen's personal life is also documented through diaries and correspondence with friends and family members, including Eero Saarinen, to whom she was married from 1939-1953.

Biographical material consists of resumes and biographical sketches, as well as a 1951 blueprint for the Eero Saarinen and Associates Office Building in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

Correspondence documents Saarinen's personal and professional life through letters to and from Eero Saarinen and other family members, including six letters from Loja Saarinen; correspondence with artists and architects, including Merle Armitage, Charles and Ray Eames, Carl Koch, Henry Kreis, Carl Milles, Laszlo and Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, Robert Venturi, and Harry Weese; and friends and colleagues at the Cranbrook Academy of Art and Knoll Associates. Also documented is Saarinen's business relationship with Midtown Galleries and Caresse Crosby, and publishers and publications including Child Life, Interiors, Otava Publishing Company, and Reynal & Hitchcock, Inc.

Writings and Notes document Saarinen's work on several children's publications, including Picture Book Zoo (1935) and Who Am I? (1946), through correspondence, notes, manuscript drafts, and extensive sketches. This series also includes Saarinen's ideas for other publications and incorporates some early writings and notes, as well as typescripts of her reminiscences about Eliel Saarinen, the Saarinen family, and the Cranbrook Academy of Art.

Diaries consist of bound diary volumes, loose-leaf journal entries, and heavily annotated engagement calendars, documenting Saarinen's personal life, artistic aspirations, and career development from the 1930s-1970s. This material provides a deeply personal view of the emotional landscape of Saarinen's life, her struggles to balance her identity as a working artist with the roles of wife, mother, and homemaker, and the complex, and often competing, relationships within the renowned architectural family into which she married.

Project files document Saarinen's work on book cover designs, federal and post office commissions in Bloomfield, Indiana, Carlisle, Kentucky, and Evanston, Illinois, reliefs for the Crow Island School in Winnetka, Illinois, and other important commissions including the Harbor National Bank Clock in Boston, Massachusetts, the KLM Airlines installation at JFK Airport, the Fountain of Noah sculpture at the Northland Center in Detroit, Michigan, and the interior of Toffenetti's restaurant in Chicago, Illinois. Also documented is her role in designs for the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, with Eero Saarinen.

Teaching files document Saarinen's "Language of Clay Course" which she taught at Cambridge Art Center and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Financial records document exhibition and sales expenses for two exhibitions, including her show at G Place Gallery in 1944.

Printed material consists of clippings about Saarinen and her family, exhibition announcements and catalogs for herself and others, and reference files from the 1930s-1940s, primarily comprising clippings of animals.

Additional printed material documenting Saarinen's career can be found in one of two scrapbooks found in the collection. An additional scrapbook consists of clippings relating primarily to Saarinen's parents.

Artwork comprises extensive sketches, particularly animal and figure sketches, in graphite, crayon, ink, pastel, and watercolor. The sketches demonstrate in particular Saarinen's developing interest in and skill with animal portraiture from her childhood to the 1960s.

Photographs are primarily of artwork and Saarinen's 1944 exhibition at G Place Gallery. Also found are one negative of Saarinen, probably with Eero Saarinen, and a group photo including Lilian, Eero, and Eliel Saarinen with the model for the Detroit Civic Center, circa 1940s.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 11 series.

Missing Title

Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1930s-1960s (3 folders; Box 1, OV 12)

Series 2: Correspondence, 1920-1974 (1.9 linear feet; Boxes 1-2, 8, OV 12)

Series 3: Writings and Notes, 1920s-1973 (1.3 linear feet, Boxes 2-3, 8, OVs 13-16)

Series 4: Diaries, 1930-1973 (1.4 linear feet, Boxes 3-5, 8)

Series 5: Project Files, 1931-1966 (1.7 linear feet, Boxes 5-6, 8, OVs 17-19)

Series 6: Teaching Files, 1966-1970 (3 folders, Box 6)

Series 7: Financial Records, 1940s-1970s (2 folders, Box 6)

Series 8: Printed Material, circa 1930s-1970s (0.2 linear feet, Box 6)

Series 9: Scrapbooks, circa 1909-1974 (2 folders; Boxes 6, 9)

Series 10: Artwork, circa 1920s-circa 1960s (1.7 linear feet, Boxes 6-7, 9-10, OVs 20-27)

Series 11: Photographs, circa 1940s, 1977 (0.5 linear feet, Boxes 7, 11, OV 27)
Biographical / Historical:
Cambridge artist and sculptor, Lilian Swann Saarinen (1912-1995), studied at the Art Students League with Alexander Archipenko in 1928, and later with Albert Stewart and Heninz Warneke from 1934-1936, before moving to Michigan where she studied with Carl Milles at the Cranbrook Academy of Art from 1936-1940. Saarinen was an accomplished skier and a member of the 1936 US Olympic ski team.

At Cranbrook, Swann met architect Eero Saarinen, whom she married in 1939. She subsequently worked with Saarinen's design group on a variety of projects, including the Westward Expansion Memorial, which later became known as the "Gateway Arch" in St. Louis. Lilian and Eero had a son, Eric, and a daughter, Susie, before divorcing in 1953.

Saarinen, who had developed an affinity for drawing animals in childhood, specialized in animal portraits in a variety of sculptural media. In 1939, she exhibited her sculpture Night, which depicted Bagheera the panther from Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book, at the World's Fair. The sculpture was placed in the Boston Public Garden in 1986. In the 1930s and 1940s Saarinen was commissioned to work on a variety of architectural projects, including reliefs for post offices in Bloomfield, Indiana, Carlisle, Kentucky, and Evanston, Illinois, and the Crow Island School in Winnetka, Illinois. She also executed commissions for the Harbor National Bank in Boston, KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines) at JFK Airport, the Northland shopping Center in Detroit Michigan, and Toffenetti's Restaurant in Chicago.

Saarinen was a contributing author and illustrator for a variety of publications, including Child Life, Interiors and Portfolio: An Intercontinental Quarterly. In 1935 she illustrated Picture Book Zoo for the Bronx Zoo and in 1946 Reynal & Hitchcock, Inc. published Who Am I?, a children's book which Saarinen wrote and illustrated.

Saarinen taught ceramic sculpture to soldiers for the Red Cross Arts and Skills Unit rehabilitation program in 1945, served on the Visiting Committee to the Museum School at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, from 1959-1964, where she taught ceramics, and later taught a course entitled "The Language of Clay" at the Cambridge Art Center and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. One of Saarinen's private students at Cambridge was her cousin, Edie Sedgwick.

Saarinen died in Cohasset, Massachusetts, in 1995 at the age of 83.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds material lent for microfilming (reels 1152 and 1192) including a scrapbook containing clippings, copies of letters and telegrams received, and reproductions of Saarinen's work. There is a copy of Saarinen's book, "Who Am I?", and three albums containing photographs of Saarinen, photographs and reproductions of her work, a list of exhibitions, quotes about her, and writings by her about sculpture. Lent material was returned to the lender and is not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
Lilian Swann Saarinen donated the collection in 1975. She lent additional materials for microfilming in 1976.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Occupation:
Sculptors -- Massachusetts -- Cambridge  Search this
Topic:
Women artists  Search this
Art -- Study and teaching  Search this
Illustrated books, Children's  Search this
Gateway Arch (Saint Louis, Mo.)  Search this
Sculpture, Modern -- 20th century -- United States  Search this
Illustrators -- Massachusetts  Search this
Art, Municipal  Search this
Women sculptors  Search this
Women illustrators  Search this
Function:
Art commissions
Genre/Form:
Blueprints
Diaries
Illustrations
Sketches
Photographs
Scrapbooks
Citation:
Lilian Swann Saarinen papers, circa 1909-1977. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Identifier:
AAA.saarlili
See more items in:
Lilian Swann Saarinen papers
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw97f1e4305-3886-479a-9db7-48c98fd8d2dd
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-saarlili
Online Media:

Oral history interview with Imogene "Tex" Gieling

Interviewee:
Gieling, Imogene, 1923-  Search this
Interviewer:
Lauria, Jo  Search this
Creator:
Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America  Search this
Names:
Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America  Search this
Moholy-Nagy, László, 1895-1946  Search this
Renk, Merry, 1921-2012  Search this
Extent:
4 Items (sound discs (3 hr., 49 min.), digital, 2 5/8 in.)
3 Items (3 sound files (1 hr., 43 min.))
79 Pages (Transcript)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Pages
Sound recordings
Interviews
Date:
2008 November 21 and 2012 April 28
Scope and Contents:
An interview of Imogene "Tex" Gieling conducted 2008 November 21 and 2012 April 28, by Jo Lauria, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, at Gieling's home, in San Fransisco, California.
Biographical / Historical:
Imogene "Tex" Gieling (1923- ) is a metal artist who founded the metals department at the University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco State University. Gieling lives and works in San Francisco, California.
General:
Originally recorded on 4 sound discs. Reformatted in 2010 as 8 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hr., 49 min.
Originally recorded as 3 digital sound files. Duration is 1 hr., 49 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:
This transcript is open for research. Access to the entire recording is restricted. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Topic:
Metal-workers -- California -- Interviews  Search this
Jewelry making  Search this
Genre/Form:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Identifier:
AAA.gielin08
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw95ecd487b-62e2-4e76-9943-3267c30730f2
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-gielin08
Online Media:

Mills College Art Gallery letters

Creator:
Mills College. Art Gallery  Search this
Names:
Adams, Ansel, 1902-1984  Search this
Albers, Josef  Search this
Feininger, Lyonel, 1871-1956  Search this
Kroll, Leon, 1884-1974  Search this
Lebrun, Rico, 1900-1964  Search this
Moholy-Nagy, László, 1895-1946  Search this
Ray, Man, 1890-1976  Search this
Taubes, Frederic, 1900-  Search this
Extent:
1,147 Items ((on partial microfilm reel))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
1843-1959
Scope and Contents:
Letters to the gallery from Berenice Abbott, Ansel Adams, Josef Albers, Alexander Archipenko, Thomas H. Benton, G. Paul Bishop, Edgar Bissantz, Lou Block, Beniamino Bufano, Douglas Connelly, Imogen Cunningham, Mary Dawson, Richard Dodge, Bill Dole, Misha Dolmkoff, Weiner Drewes, Claire Falkenstein, Lyonel Feininger, William A. Gaw, John Edwards, Joel H. Hildebrand, Clarence Kennedy, Leon Kroll, Gaston Lachaise, Dorothea Lange, Rico Lebrun, Fernand Leger, Katia Mann, Thomas Mann, Pierre Matisse, L. Moholy-Nagy, Alexander Nepote, Richard Neutra, Sonya Noskowiak, Amédée Ozenfant, Homer Page, Jose Perotti, Henry R. Poore, Raynard Puccinelli, Man Ray, Franz Rederer, Rosenberg, Dean Rusk, Karl Schmidt-Rotluff, Bernhard Sopher, Eugene Speicher, Henry Swift, Frederic Taubes, Willard Van Dyke, Hamilton Wolf, Grant Wood, and Roger Sturtevant.
Provenance:
Microfilmed with other art-related papers in Mills College Library, July 1981.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Function:
Art galleries, University and college -- California
Identifier:
AAA.millcoll
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9f0e44bc6-0327-486a-b2eb-b224d8a0a2f4
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-millcoll

Galka Scheyer papers

Creator:
Scheyer, Galka E.  Search this
Names:
Archipenko, Alexander, 1887-1964  Search this
Arp, Jean, 1887-1966  Search this
De Chirico, Giorgio, 1888-  Search this
Duchamp, Marcel, 1887-1968  Search this
Feininger, Julia  Search this
Feininger, Lyonel, 1871-1956  Search this
Jawlensky, Alexej von, 1864-1941  Search this
Kandinsky, Wassily, 1866-1944  Search this
Klee, Paul, 1879-1940  Search this
Le Corbusier, 1887-1965  Search this
Léger, Fernand, 1881-1955  Search this
Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig, 1886-1969  Search this
Moholy-Nagy, László, 1895-1946  Search this
Rivera, Diego, 1886-1957  Search this
Schmidt-Rottluff, Karl, 1884-1976  Search this
Schoenberg, Arnold, 1874-1951  Search this
Schwitters, Kurt, 1887-1948  Search this
Segal, Arthur, 1875-1944  Search this
Tamayo, Rufino, 1899-  Search this
Varèse, Edgard, 1883-1965  Search this
Weber, Max, 1881-1961  Search this
Weston, Edward, 1886-1958  Search this
Extent:
5 Reels (ca. 1200 items (on 5 partial microfilm reels))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Reels
Date:
1917-1945
Scope and Contents:
Papers relate mainly to the Blue Four and contain primarily correspondence; also business materials, photographs, essays, and printed materials.
REEL 1644: Correspondence with Lyonel Feininger and his wife Julia, mainly concerning personal matters, contemporary events in Europe and America, and Scheyer's efforts to establish the Blue Four's reputation on the west coast. Many letters are illustrated with Feininger block cuts.
REEL 1854: Letters from Feininger, Alexei Jawlensky, Wassily Kandinsky, and Paul Klee; typescripts of letters to members of the Blue Four; import declarations; a shipping invoice; a consular certificate for paintings; and price lists of works of art.
REEL 1905: Correpsondence documenting Scheyer's friendship with various artists associated with the Blue Four and her efforts to exhibit and sell their work. Important correpsondents include: Alexander Archipenko, Hans Arp, Giorgio de Chirico, Marcel Duchamp, Paul Klee, Le Corbusier, Fernand Leger, Carlos Merida, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Diego Rivera, Arthur Segal, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Arnold Schoenberg, Kurt Schwitters, Rufino Tamayo, Mies van der Rohe, Edgar Varese, Max Weber, and Edward Weston. Also included are miscellaneous photographs, essays, notes, and financial and printed materials.
REEL 2031-2032: Correspondence with Alexei Jawlensky and Wassily Kandinsky, including several illustrated letters; two photographs of interiors; a published article by Kandindsky, "Abstrakte Kunst," ca. 1925-1926; and price lists for works of art by Kandkinsky. Some letters are typescripts.
Biographical / Historical:
Art collector, dealer; b. 1889; d. 1945; Los Angeles, Calif. Scheyer worked to introduce the art of the Blue Four (Blaue Vier), Wassily Kandinsky, Lyonel Feininger, Paul Klee, and Alexei Jawlensky, to American collectors.
Other Title:
Galka Scheyer Blue Four Archive.
Provenance:
Lent for microfilming by Norton Simon Museum of Art, 1979-1980.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Occupation:
Painters -- United States  Search this
Art dealers -- California -- Los Angeles  Search this
Topic:
Blaue Vier (Group of artists)  Search this
Expressionism (Art)  Search this
Painting, German -- Collectors and collecting  Search this
Art, Modern -- 20th century -- Germany -- Collectors and collecting  Search this
Identifier:
AAA.schegalk
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw92583993e-a76d-478c-90b5-a46e40b71054
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-schegalk

Oral history interview with Don Baum

Interviewee:
Baum, Don, 1922-  Search this
Interviewer:
Prince, Sue Ann  Search this
Names:
Illinois Arts Council  Search this
Roosevelt University  Search this
Abercrombie, Gertrude, 1909-1977  Search this
Cornell, Joseph  Search this
Golub, Leon, 1922-2004  Search this
Ito, Miyoko, 1918-1983  Search this
Leaf, June, 1929-  Search this
Moholy-Nagy, László, 1895-1946  Search this
Spears, Ethel, 1903-1974  Search this
Extent:
2 Sound cassettes (Sound recording, analog)
108 Pages (Transcript)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Sound cassettes
Pages
Interviews
Date:
1986 January 31-May 13
Scope and Contents:
An interview of Don Baum conducted 1986 January 31 and May 13, by Sue Ann Kendall, for the Archives of American Art, in Chicago, Illinois.
Baum speaks about his childhood in Michigan; interests during his college years at Michigan State; classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; friendship with artists such as Miyoko Ito and Ethel Spears; the Institute of Design and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy; faculty and classes at the University of Chicago; jam sessions at Gertrude Abercrombie's home; teaching at Roosevelt University; the influence of travel; June Leaf; Leon Golub; psychoanalysis and its influence on his work; collage; The Hyde Park Art Center; objects with a magical aura; writing and writers; dolls; the relationship of self to art; outsider art; transformation; Joseph Cornell; the Hairy Who artists; collectors; the Museum of Contemporary Art; the Illinois Arts Council; Chicago art and artists; and travel in Indonesia.
Biographical / Historical:
Don Baum (1922-2008) was a sculptor, assemblage artist, curator, and educator from Chicago, Illinois.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 12 digital wav files. Duration is 5 hr., 23 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives' 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:
Patrons must use transcript.
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Topic:
Psychoanalysis and art  Search this
Art -- Study and teaching -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this
Sculpture, Modern -- 20th century -- United States  Search this
Sculptors -- Illinois -- Chicago -- Interviews  Search this
Assemblage (Art)  Search this
Function:
Art Schools -- Illinois -- Chicago
Genre/Form:
Interviews
Identifier:
AAA.baum86
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw92ba7721e-824e-4e07-8e13-b3c15587ea48
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-baum86
Online Media:

Robert Jay Wolff papers

Creator:
Wolff, Robert Jay, 1905-  Search this
Names:
Artists' Union (Chicago, Ill.)  Search this
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum  Search this
Cahill, Holger, 1887-1960  Search this
Calder, Alexander, 1898-1976  Search this
Chermayeff, Serge, 1900-  Search this
Crawford, M. D. C. (Morris De Camp), 1882-1949  Search this
Ernst, Jimmy, 1920-1984  Search this
Giedion, S. (Sigfried), 1888-1968  Search this
Gropius, Walter, 1883-1969  Search this
Holty, Carl, 1900-1973  Search this
Holtzman, Harry  Search this
Hustvedt, Stephen R.  Search this
Kuh, Katharine  Search this
Miller, Dorothy Canning, 1904-2003  Search this
Moholy-Nagy, László, 1895-1946  Search this
Moholy-Nagy, Sibyl, 1905-  Search this
Osborn, Robert Chesley, 1904-1994  Search this
Pearlstein, Philip, 1924-  Search this
Rebay, Hilla, 1890-1967  Search this
Reinhardt, Ad, 1913-1967  Search this
Robinson, Increase, 1890-1981  Search this
Seligmann, Kurt, 1900-1962  Search this
Extent:
0.4 Linear feet ((on 4 microfilm reels))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
1926-1969
Scope and Contents:
Correspondence; exhibition catalogs; notes; photographs; notebooks; scrapbook; clippings; and miscellany.
REELS N69-72-N69-74: Correspondence, 1929-1968 with Alexander Calder, Serge Chermayeff, Jimmy Ernst, Sigfried Giedion, Walter Gropius, Guggenheim Museum, Carl Holty, Katharine Kuh, L. and Sybil Moholy-Nagy, Museum of Non-Objective Painting and Hilla Rebay, Harry Holtzman, Stephen R. Hustvedt, Bob Osborn, Philip Pearlstein, Ad Reinhardt, and Kurt Seligmann; exhibition catalogs; price lists; clippings; articles; talks and notes; photographs of paintings and sculpture, 1929-1958; notebooks, 1929-1965; and a scrapbook, 1934-1938.
REEL N69-98: Nine letters from Morris D. C. Crawford and his wife, 1926-1932, and a carbon copy of a letter to Dorothy Miller Cahill, May 27, 1969, in which Wolff mentions his efforts, as president of the Artists' Union of Chicago, ca. 1936, to unseat Increase Robinson. Wolff also explains how he became Holger Cahill's "bitter enemy."
Biographical / Historical:
Designer and painter; New Preston, Connecticut. Died in 1978.
Provenance:
Lent for microfilming 1969 by Robert Jay Wolff.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Occupation:
Designers -- Connecticut -- New Preston  Search this
Painters -- Connecticut -- New Preston  Search this
Topic:
Painting, American  Search this
Design  Search this
Identifier:
AAA.wolfrobe
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9a1dc8ca4-1cb4-4ce7-8263-d011339f3ddf
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-wolfrobe

Sibyl and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy papers

Creator:
Moholy-Nagy, Sibyl, 1905-  Search this
Moholy-Nagy, László, 1895-1946  Search this
Extent:
10 Reels (ca. 1500 items (on 10 microfilm reels))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Reels
Date:
1918-1971
Scope and Contents:
Correspondence; diaries; writings; photographs; and printed material.
REELS 944-949: Correspondence; diaries, 1918-1945 and 1947-1959; articles, lecture manuscripts, book reviews, book notes, various writings; family, chilhood, and professional photos, including portrait shots from silent movies in Berlin in 1924-31; course outlines; Architectural League papers, 1970-71; AIA medal; correspondence files; South American travel diary, 1959; and miscellaneous papers.
REELS 951-952: Correspondence; photographs of Laszlo, his Hungarian family, and of his work; clippings and press notices of his 1969-1970 retrospective.
REELS 1005-1006: Undated writings, notes, and printed material relating to Sibyl Moholy-Nagy's unpublished book, "Pragma."
Biographical / Historical:
Sibyl: architectural historian, critic, educator. Birthdate also cited as 1903. Died 1971. Laszlo: sculptor, designer, painter & photographer; Chicago, Illinois. Sibyl was born Dorothea Maria Pauline Alice Sybille Pietzsche in Dresden, Germany. An actress in Berlin during her twenties, she used the stage name Sibyl Peech. Eventually she shifted to a career in the scenario office of the Tobis [Moving] Picture Syndicate where she met Moholy-Nagy in 1929. They married in 1932. Came to U.S. 1934. Laszlo taught at Walter Gropius's first Bauhaus in Weimar and Dessau, 1920's, and was one of the founders of the Institute of Design, Chicago, 1939.
Provenance:
Lent for microfilming 1971 by Hattula Hug, daughter of Sibyl and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. [Microfilm reels 1005-1006 erroneously labeled a gift.]
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Occupation:
Painters  Search this
Photographers  Search this
Sculptors  Search this
Architectural historians -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this
Topic:
Painting, Modern -- 20th century  Search this
Sculpture, Modern -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this
Photography  Search this
Architecture, Modern  Search this
Women architectural critics  Search this
Identifier:
AAA.mohosiby
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9c03b6cc3-e299-4325-b025-594af324ce25
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-mohosiby

Katharine Kuh papers

Creator:
Kuh, Katharine  Search this
Names:
Albright-Knox Art Gallery  Search this
Art Institute of Chicago -- Faculty  Search this
Biennale di Venezia  Search this
Katharine Kuh Gallery (Chicago, Ill.)  Search this
Adams, Ansel, 1902-1984  Search this
Albers, Josef  Search this
Albright, Ivan, 1897-1983  Search this
Archipenko, Alexander, 1887-1964  Search this
Arensberg, Louise S. (Louise Stevenson), 1879-1953  Search this
Arensberg, Walter, 1878-1954  Search this
Arp, Jean, 1887-1966  Search this
Barnet, Will, 1911-  Search this
Barr, Alfred H., Jr., 1902-1981  Search this
Biddle, George, 1885-1973  Search this
Breuer, Marcel, 1902-  Search this
Calder, Alexander, 1898-1976  Search this
Campoli, Cosmo  Search this
Chagall, Marc, 1887-1985  Search this
Chavez Morado, José, 1909-2002  Search this
Chermayeff, Serge, 1900-  Search this
Cornell, Joseph  Search this
Cox, Richard  Search this
Davis, Stuart, 1892-1964  Search this
Day, Worden, 1916-1986  Search this
De Kooning, Willem, 1904-1997  Search this
Dickinson, Edwin Walter, 1891-1978  Search this
Dubuffet, Jean, 1901-  Search this
Duchamp, Marcel, 1887-1968  Search this
Elizabeth, Queen of Great Britain, II, 1926-  Search this
Ernst, Jimmy, 1920-1984  Search this
Falkenstein, Claire, 1908-1997  Search this
Feitelson, Lorser, 1898-1978  Search this
Friendly, Fred W.  Search this
Giacometti, Alberto, 1901-1966  Search this
Golub, Leon, 1922-2004  Search this
Goto, Joseph, 1920-  Search this
Grabe, Klaus  Search this
Graves, Robert, 1895-1985  Search this
Guggenheim, Peggy, 1898-1979  Search this
Guston, Philip, 1913-1980  Search this
Hare, David, 1917-  Search this
Hare, Denise Browne  Search this
Hayter, Stanley William, 1901-1988  Search this
Hirshhorn, Joseph  Search this
Hofmann, Hans, 1880-1966  Search this
Hélion, Jean, 1904-1987  Search this
Inverarity, Robert Bruce, 1909-1999  Search this
Johns, Jasper, 1930-  Search this
Johnson, Philip, 1906-2005  Search this
Johnson, Ray, 1927-  Search this
Kandinsky, Wassily, 1866-1944  Search this
Kepes, Gyorgy, 1906-2001  Search this
Kepes, Juliet  Search this
Klee, Paul, 1879-1940  Search this
Kline, Franz, 1910-1962  Search this
Knox, Seymour H., 1898-1990  Search this
Le Corbusier, 1887-1965  Search this
Lundeberg, Helen, 1908-1999  Search this
Lye, Len, 1901-1980  Search this
Léger, Fernand, 1881-1955  Search this
Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig, 1886-1969  Search this
Millier, Arthur, 1893-  Search this
Moholy-Nagy, László, 1895-1946  Search this
Motherwell, Robert  Search this
Mérida, Carlos, 1891-1984  Search this
Nutting, Muriel Leone Tyler, b. 1892  Search this
Nutting, Myron Chester, 1890-1972  Search this
O'Higgins, Pablo, 1904-  Search this
Orozco, José Clemente, 1883-1949  Search this
Ozbekhan, Hasan, 1921-2007  Search this
Perkins, Frances  Search this
Picasso, Pablo, 1881-1973  Search this
Putnam, Wallace, 1899-1989  Search this
Ray, Man, 1890-1976  Search this
Rich, Daniel Catton, 1904-1976  Search this
Rothko, Mark, 1903-1970  Search this
Sandberg, Carl  Search this
Seligmann, Kurt, 1900-1962  Search this
Shackelford, Shelby  Search this
Shahn, Ben, 1898-1969  Search this
Spaeth, Otto, d. 1966  Search this
Sterne, Hedda, 1916-  Search this
Stevenson, Adlai E. (Adlai Ewing), 1900-1965  Search this
Still, Clyfford, 1904-  Search this
Tanning, Dorothea, 1910-2012  Search this
Tobey, Mark  Search this
Winston, Harry Lewis  Search this
Woolf, Olga  Search this
Young, Victor  Search this
Photographer:
Pollack, Peter, 1909-1978  Search this
Extent:
12 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Illustrated letters
Resumes
Travel diaries
Minutes
Calendars
Visitors' books
Photographs
Paintings
Awards
Drawings
Sound recordings
Collages
Scrapbooks
Lithographs
Prints
Wills
Watercolors
Poetry
Lecture notes
Lectures
Sales records
Date:
1875-1994
bulk 1930-1994
Summary:
The papers of art historian, dealer, critic, and curator Katharine Kuh measure 12 linear feet and date from 1875-1994, with the bulk of the material dating from 1930-1994. The collection documents Kuh's career as a pioneer modernist art historian and as the first woman curator of European Art and Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago. Found within the papers are biographical material; correspondence with family, friends and colleagues; personal business records; artwork by various artists; a travel journal; writings by Kuh and others; scrapbooks; printed material; photographs of Kuh and others; and audio recordings of Kuh's lectures and of Daniel Catton Rich reading poetry.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of art historian, dealer, critic, and curator Katharine Kuh measure 12 linear feet and date from 1875-1994, with the bulk of the material dating from 1930-1994. Found within the papers are biographical material; correspondence with family, friends and colleagues; personal business records; artwork by various artists; a travel journal; writings by Kuh and others; scrapbooks; printed material; photographs of Kuh and others; and audio recordings of Kuh's lectures and of Daniel Catton Rich reading poetry.

Biographical material consists of copies of Kuh's birth certificate, resumés, passports, award certificates, honorary diplomas, and address books listing information about several prominent artists and colleagues.

Four linear feet of correspondence offers excellent documentation of Kuh's interest in art history, her travels, her career at the Art Institute of Chicago, her work as a corporate art advisor, and as an author. There are letters from her mother Olga Woolf, friends, and colleagues. There is extensive correspondence with various staff members of the Art Institute of Chicago, the First National Bank of Chicago, and The Saturday Review. Also of interest are letters from artists and collectors, several of whom became life-long friends including Walter and Louise Arensberg, Cosmo Campoli, Serge Chermayeff, Richard Cox, Worden Day, Claire Falkenstein, Fred Friendly, Leon Golub, Joseph Goto, David Hare, Denise Brown Hare, Jean Hélion, Ray Johnson, Gyorgy and Juliet Kepes, Len Lye, Wallace Putnam, Kurt Seligmann, Shelby Shackelford, Hedda Sterne, and Clyfford Still. Many letters are illustrated with original artwork in various media.

There are also scattered letters from various artists and other prominent individuals including Josef Albers, George Biddle, Marcel Breuer, Joseph Cornell, Stuart Davis, Edwin Dickinson, Joseph Hirshhorn, Daniel Catton Rich, and Dorothea Tanning.

Personal business records include a list of artwork, Olga Woolf's will, inventories of Kuh's personal art collection, miscellaneous contracts and deeds of gift, receipts for the sale of artwork, files concerning business-related travel, and miscellaneous receipts.

Artwork in the collection represents a wide range of artist friends and media, such as drawings, watercolors, paintings, collages, and prints. Included are works by various artists including lithographs by David Hare and a watercolor set, Technics and Creativity, designed and autographed by Jasper Johns for the Museum of Modern Art, 1970.

Notes and writings include annotated engagement calendars, travel journals for Germany, a guest book for the Kuh Memorial gathering, and many writings and notes by Kuh for lectures and articles concerning art history topics. Of interest are minutes/notes from meetings for art festivals, conferences, and the "Conversations with Artists Program (1961). Also found are writings by others about Kuh and other art history topics.

Six scrapbooks contain clippings that document the height of Kuh's career as a gallery director and museum curator. Scrapbook 6 contains clippings about Fernand Léger, the subject of a retrospective exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1953.

Additional printed material includes clippings about Kuh and her interests, a comprehensive collection of clippings of Kuh's articles for The Saturday Review, exhibition announcements and catalogs, calendars of events, programs, brochures, books including Poems by Kuh as a child, and reproductions of artwork. Of particular interest are the early and exhibition catalogs from the Katharine Kuh Gallery, and rare catalogs for artists including Jean Arp, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Stanley William Hayter, Hans Hofmann, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Franz Kline, Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Pablo Picasso.

Photographs provide important documentation of the life and career of Katharine Kuh and are of Kuh, family members, friends, colleagues, events, residences, and artwork. Several of the photographs of Kuh were taken by Will Barnet and Marcel Breuer and there is a notable pair of photo booth portraits of Kuh and a young Ansel Adams. There are also group photographs showing Angelica Archipenko with Kuh; designer Klaus Grabe; painters José Chavez Morado and Pablo O'Higgins in San Miguel, Mexico; Kuh at the Venice Biennale with friends and colleagues including Peggy Guggenheim, Frances Perkins, Daniel Catton Rich, and Harry Winston; and "The Pre-Depressionists" including Lorser Feitelson, Robert Inverarity, Helen Lundeberg, Arthur Millier, Myron Chester Nutting, and Muriel Tyler Nutting.

Photographs of exhibition installations and openings include views of the Katharine Kuh Gallery; Fernand Léger, Man Ray, and László Moholy-Nagy at the Art Institute of Chicago; and Philip Guston, Jimmy Ernst, Seymour H. Knox, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, and Mark Rothko at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York. There are also photographs depicting three men posing as Léger's "Three Musicians" and the visit of Queen Elizabeth II to the Art Institute of Chicago. There is a photograph by Peter Pollack of an elk skull used as a model by Georgia O'Keeffe.

Additional photographs of friends and colleagues include Ivan Albright, Alfred Barr, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Willem De Kooning, Edwin Dickinson, Marcel Duchamp, Claire Falkenstein, Alberto Giacometti, poet Robert Graves with Len Lye, Philip Johnson, Gyorgy and Juliet Kepes, Carlos Mérida, José Orozco, Hasan Ozbekhan, Pablo Picasso, Carl Sandberg, Ben Shahn, Otto Spaeth, Hedda Sterne, Adlai Stevenson, Clyfford Still, Mark Tobey, and composer Victor Young.

Photographs of artwork include totem poles in Alaska; work by various artists including Claire Falkenstein, Paul Klee, and Hedda Sterne; and work donated to the Guggenheim Museum.

Four audio recordings on cassette are of Katharine Kuh's lectures, including one about assembling corporate collections, and of Daniel Catton Rich reading his own poetry. There is also a recording of the Second Annual Dialogue between Broadcasters and Museum Educators.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 9 series. Undated correspondence, artwork, and photographs of individual artists are arranged alphabetically. Otherwise, each series is arranged chronologically.

Missing Title

Series 1: Biographical Material, 1945-1992 (Box 1; 16 folders)

Series 2: Correspondence, 1908-1994 (Boxes 1-5, 13-14, OV 15; 4.0 linear feet)

Series 3: Personal Business Records, 1941-1989 (Box 5; 19 folders)

Series 4: Artwork, 1931-1986 (Boxes 5, 13-14, OVs 15-23; 1.7 linear feet)

Series 5: Notes and Writings, 1914-1994 (Boxes 5-7; 1.7 linear feet)

Series 6: Scrapbooks, 1935-1953 (Box 7; 8 folders)

Series 7: Printed Material, 1916-1992 (Boxes 7-10, 13, OV 22; 3.0 linear feet)

Series 8: Photographs, 1875-1993 (Boxes 10-13; 1.2 linear feet)

Series 9: Audio Recordings, 1977 (Box 12; 1 folder)
Biographical Note:
Katharine Kuh (1904-1994) worked primarily in the Chicago area as an modern art historian, dealer, critic, curator, writer, and consultant. She operated the Katharine Kuh Gallery from 1935-1943 and was the first woman curator of European and Art and Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Katharine Kuh (née Woolf) was born on July 15, 1904 in St. Louis, Missouri, the youngest of the three daughters of Olga Weiner and Morris Woolf, a silk importer. In 1909, the family moved to Chicago, Illinois. While traveling with her family in Europe in 1914, Katharine contracted polio, causing her to spend the next decade in a body brace. During this time of restricted movement, she developed an interest in art history through the collecting of old master prints.

After her recovery, Katharine Woolf attended Vassar College where one of her professors, Alfred Barr, encouraged her to study modern art. She graduated from Vassar in 1925 and received a master's degree in art history from the University of Chicago in 1929. Later that year, she moved to New York to pursue a Ph.D. in Renaissance and medieval art at New York University.

In 1930, Katharine Woolf returned to Chicago and married businessman George Kuh and began to teach art history courses in the suburbs of Chicago. After divorcing George Kuh in 1935, she opened the Katharine Kuh Gallery, the first gallery devoted to avant-garde art in Chicago. It was also the first gallery to exhibit photography and typographical design as art forms, and featured the work of Ansel Adams, Josef Albers, Alexander Calder, Wassily Kandinsky, Fernand Léger, and Man Ray, among others. From 1938 to1940, Kuh was the Visiting Professor of Art at the University School of Fine Arts, San Miguel, Mexico.

After the Katharine Kuh Gallery closed in 1943, Kuh was hired by museum director Daniel Catton Rich to fill a position in public relations at the Art Institute of Chicago. During the following years, Kuh edited the museum's Quarterly publication, took charge of the museum's Gallery of Interpretive Art, and began a long term relationship with Rich. In 1946, Kuh was sent on a special mission for the U. S. Office of Indian Affairs to make a detailed study of Native American totemic carvings in Alaska.

In 1949, Kuh persuaded Mr. and Mrs. Walter Arensberg of Los Angeles to exhibit their collection of modern art, creating the first post-war exhibition of modern art in Chicago. She published her first book Art Has Many Faces in 1951, and in the following year, she began writing art criticism for The Saturday Review. In 1954, Kuh was appointed the first woman curator of European Art and Sculpture at the Art Institute. She assembled the American contribution for the Venice Biennale in 1956 and during these years, Kuh helped acquire many of the works of modern art currently in the museum's collection.

A year following Daniel Catton Rich's 1958 resignation from the Art Institute of Chicago, Kuh also resigned and pursued a career in New York as an art collection advisor, most notably for the First National Bank of Chicago. In 1959, Kuh was made art critic for The Saturday Review, and she continued to publish books, including The Artist's Voice in 1962, Break-Up: The Core of Modern Art in 1965, and The Open Eye: In Pursuit of Art in 1971.

Katharine Kuh died on January 10, 1994 in New York City.
Provenance:
The Katharine Kuh papers were donated in several installments from 1971 to 1989 by Katharine Kuh and in 1994 by her estate. Artwork was donated in 1995 by Kuh's former employer, the Art Institute of Chicago.
Restrictions:
Authorization to quote, publish or reproduce requires written permission until 2019. Contact the Archives of American Art Reference Services department for additional information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Occupation:
Authors -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this
Art historians -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this
Art dealers -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this
Art critics -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this
Curators -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this
Art consultants -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this
Topic:
Art, Abstract -- United States  Search this
Art, American  Search this
Art, Modern -- 20th century -- United States  Search this
Women art dealers  Search this
Women art historians  Search this
Women museum curators  Search this
Women authors  Search this
Women art critics  Search this
Function:
Art festivals
Genre/Form:
Illustrated letters
Resumes
Travel diaries
Minutes
Calendars
Visitors' books
Photographs
Paintings
Awards
Drawings
Sound recordings
Collages
Scrapbooks
Lithographs
Prints
Wills
Watercolors
Poetry
Lecture notes
Lectures
Sales records
Citation:
Katharine Kuh papers, 1875-1994, bulk 1930-1994. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Identifier:
AAA.kuhkath
See more items in:
Katharine Kuh papers
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw987a0763e-de6c-4f9e-b143-4875b3a2244a
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-kuhkath
Online Media:

Hugo Weber papers

Creator:
Weber, Hugo, 1918-1971  Search this
Names:
Clair Fox Gallery  Search this
Howard Wise Gallery  Search this
Arp, Jean, 1887-1966  Search this
Cajori, Charles, 1921-2013  Search this
Callahan, Eleanor  Search this
Coleman, Ornette  Search this
Greenbaum, Jack  Search this
Hall, Robert D.  Search this
Held, Annet  Search this
Hervochon, Yves  Search this
Kerouac, Jack, 1922-1969  Search this
Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig, 1886-1969  Search this
Moholy-Nagy, László, 1895-1946  Search this
Siskind, Aaron  Search this
Ward, Cora Kelley, 1920-1989  Search this
Weber, Anne  Search this
Photographer:
Callahan, Harry M.  Search this
Crane, Barbara, 1928-  Search this
Siegel, Arthur S.  Search this
Woelffer, Dina, 1907-  Search this
Extent:
6.2 Linear feet ((partially microfilmed on 9 reels))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
1932-1971
Scope and Contents:
Correspondence; photographs and photograph albums; diaries; writings; sketches and sketchbooks; biographical data; catalogs; material relating to the Artists Tenants Association; clippings; and miscellany.
REEL D388: Correspondence, 1945-1966; photographs; sketches; and clippings.
REELS N70-9-N70-10: 75 photographs by Weber and photographer Harry Callahan of Mies van der Rohe, taken from 1961-1964, with occasional photos of Weber, his studio, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and other friends, including one of Moholy-Nagy by Arthur Siegel, 1946. Also included are 30 letters from Clair Fox Gallery, Howard Wise Gallery, Harry Callahan, Jack Kerouac and other friends; and 2 sketchbooks, 1962.
REEL 671: 9 photograph albums and ca. 200 photographs of Weber, friends, family (including his artist wife, Anne Weber), studios, and his works of art. Among them are one of Weber by Barbara Crane, ca. 1960, a contact sheet of photographs of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and many photographs by Harry Callahan, Aaron Siskind, Cora Ward, Robert D. Hall, Annet Held and Yves Hervochon, including photos of Charles Cajori and Jack Greenbaum by Cora Ward, and Ornette Coleman by Callahan.
REELS 841-845: Correspondence, 1932-1971; 3 diaries (written in German), 1941-1944, April 1942, and April to August 1964; poetry by Weber; writings on art, 1951-1968; writings on other artists; sketchbooks and drawings, 1945-1971; biographical material; material on the Artists Tenants Association; catalogs; clippings; and miscellany.
UNMICROFILMED: Three photos by Harry Callahan, including one each of Eleanor Callahan, Weber, and "Drawing in Space with a Flashlight"; and one of Jean (Hans) Arp by Dina Woelffer, 1957. One photo of Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe taken by Aaron Siskind, ca. 1950.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter; New York, N.Y.; b. 1918 in Basel, Switzerland; d. August 15, 1971.
Provenance:
Material on reel D388 and N70-9 (portion) lent for microfilming 1969 by Hugo Weber; and material on reel N70-9 (portion)-N70-10, 671 & 841-845 donated 1971 by Anne Weber, ex-wife of Hugo Weber.
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. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Occupation:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this
Photographers -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this
Topic:
Painting, American  Search this
Artists' studios -- Photographs  Search this
Women photographers  Search this
Identifier:
AAA.webehugo
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw901289007-6c8e-4ad8-89e1-4e12c70f0361
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-webehugo

Gyorgy Kepes papers

Creator:
Kepes, Gyorgy, 1906-2001  Search this
Names:
Center for Advanced Visual Studies  Search this
Illinois Institute of Technology  Search this
Saidenberg Gallery  Search this
Triennale di Milano (Milan, Italy)  Search this
Arnheim, Rudolf  Search this
Bertoia, Harry  Search this
Blee, Michael  Search this
Boghosian, Varujan  Search this
Brazdys, Konslancija  Search this
Burgess, Lowry, 1940-  Search this
Burnham, Jack, 1931-  Search this
Calder, Alexander, 1898-1976  Search this
Chermayeff, Serge, 1900-  Search this
Dreyfuss, Henry, 1904-1972  Search this
Eames, Charles  Search this
Eames, Ray  Search this
Egawa, Kazuhiko  Search this
Entwhistle, Clive  Search this
Fuller, R. Buckminster (Richard Buckminster), 1895-  Search this
Gropius, Walter, 1883-1969  Search this
Hayter, Stanley William, 1901-1988  Search this
Hélion, Jean, 1904-1987  Search this
Johnson, Philip, 1906-2005  Search this
Kepes, Juliet  Search this
Kowalski, Piotry  Search this
Lynch, Kevin, 1918-1984  Search this
McLuhan, Marshall, 1911-1980  Search this
Mead, Margaret, 1901-1978  Search this
Moholy-Nagy, László, 1895-1946  Search this
Moholy-Nagy, Sibyl, 1905-  Search this
Nusberg, Lev, 1937-  Search this
Osborn, Robert Chesley, 1904-1994  Search this
Piene, Otto, 1928-  Search this
Read, Herbert Edward, Sir, 1893-1968  Search this
Richards, I. A. (Ivor Armstrong), 1893-1979  Search this
Rickey, George  Search this
Saarinen, Eero, 1910-1961  Search this
Sonfist, Alan  Search this
Steinberg, Saul  Search this
Tacha, Athena, 1936-  Search this
Takis, Vassilakis  Search this
Tange, Kenzō, 1913-  Search this
Thiel, Philip  Search this
Tovish, Harold, 1921-2008  Search this
Tsʻai, Wen-ying, 1928-  Search this
Wolff, Robert Jay, 1905-  Search this
Wurster, William Wilson  Search this
Zvilna, Jēkabs, 1913-1997  Search this
Faculty:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology  Search this
Extent:
21.2 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Caricatures
Designs
Photographs
Sketchbooks
Sketches
Sound recordings
Place:
Times Square (New York, N.Y.)
Date:
1909-2003
bulk 1935-1985
Summary:
The papers of Hungarian-born artist, art theorist, and educator, Gyorgy Kepes, measure 21.2 linear feet and date from 1909-2003, with the bulk of the material dating from the 1935-1985. The papers document Kepes's career as an artist and educator, and as founder of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), through biographical material, correspondence, writings by Kepes and others, project files, exhibition files, printed material, sketchbooks, artwork, sound recordings and motion picture films, and photographic material.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Hungarian-born artist, art theorist, and educator, Gyorgy Kepes, measure 21.2 linear feet and date from 1909-2003, with the bulk of the material dating from the 1935-1985. The papers document Kepes's career as an artist and educator, and as founder of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), through biographical material, correspondence, writings by Kepes and others, project files, exhibition files, printed material, sketchbooks, artwork, sound recordings and motion picture films, and photographic material.

Correspondence provides a wide range of documentation on all aspects of Kepes's career including his collaborations and friendships with artists, architects, writers, scientists, and fellow educators including Rudolf Arnheim, Alexander Calder, Henry Dreyfuss, Charles and Ray Eames, Clive Entwhistle, R. Buckminster Fuller, Walter Gropius, S. W. Hayter, Jean Hélion, Laszlo and Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, Lev Nussberg, Robert Osborn, George Rickey, Saul Steinberg, Kenzo Tange, Robert Jay Wolff, and Jekabs Zvilna. Correspondence also documents the evolution of Kepes's vision for the Center for Advanced Visual Studies, which he established in 1967, and his subsequent leadership of CAVS at M.I.T. Records document his collaborations with students and fellows including Lowry Burgess, Jack Burnham, Piotry Kowalski, Margaret Mead, Otto Piene, Alan Sonfist, Athena Tacha, Vassilakis Takis, Philip Thiel, Harold Tovish, and Wen-Ying Tsai. Correspondents also include people who contributed to Kepes's Vision + Value series, including Michael Blee, Kazuhiko Egawa, Jean Hélion, and others. Correspondence includes three motion picture films, including what appears to be an early version of Powers of Ten by Charles and Ray Eames.

Writings include notes and manuscripts for articles and essays in which Kepes explored ideas evident in his books The New Landscape and Language of Vision, and submitted to publications such as Daedalus, Design, Domus, and Leonardo. Writings also include manuscripts for lectures, and draft manuscripts documenting Kepes's collaborative work with fellow M.I.T. professor Kevin Lynch on city planning, which culminated in Lynch's research project "The Perceptual Form of the City."

A small group of "Times Square Project" files documents Kepes's proposal for a lightscape in Times Square that was ultimately not realized.

Teaching files include sound recordings of circa five symposia and discussions held at M.I.T., the Illinois Institute of Technology, and elsewhere, some featuring Kepes and including Philip Johnson, Eero Saarinen and others.

Exhibition files include documentation of three exhibitions, including Light as a Creative Medium (1968) and a Kepes exhibition at Saidenberg Gallery (1968). They also record Kepes's involvement in designing the 1968 Triennale di Milano.

Printed material includes a substantial collection of announcements and catalogs for Kepes exhibitions, lectures, and other events, and includes catalogs and announcements for scattered exhibitions of his wife, artist and illustrator, Juliet Kepes. Clippings from newspapers and magazines include articles about Kepes, and contain some copies of published writings and designs by him. The series also includes sound recordings and motion picture films containing original material for a CBS television series "The 21st Century," probably as part of the episode "Art for Tomorrow," which appear to feature M.I.T. fellows Jack Burnham and Vassilakis Takis. Another motion picture film of an Italian documentary "Operazione Cometa" can also be found here.

Two sketchbooks contain pen and ink and painted sketches by Kepes. Artwork by Kepes includes original poster designs, caricatures, and many pencil, and pen and ink sketches and paintings on paper and board, including designs for stained glass. Artwork by others includes ink on mylar sketches by D. Judelson and Konstancija Brazdys, and a sketch by Harold Tovish. Also found are circa seventeen motion picture films and four sound recordings, the majority of which are untitled and by unidentified artists, but include films by M.I.T. fellows Otto Piene, Vassilakis Takis, Philip Thiel, Harold Tovish, Wen-Ying Tsai, and others.

Photographs are of Kepes, Juliet Kepes, and other family members; students, colleagues, and friends, including R. Buckminster Fuller, Serge Chermayeff, Harry Bertoia, Varujan Boghosian, Alexander Calder, Marchall McLuhan, Margaret Mead, Herbert Read, I. A. Richards, Saul Steinberg, and William Wurster; and of Kepes in his studio. There are also photos of exhibition installations in which Kepes's work appeared or which he designed, and photos of his artwork and of images for publications which he wrote or edited. Photos by others include artwork by established artists and work by students, as well as photographs arranged by subjects such as cityscapes, forms found in nature, light patterns, mechanical devices, and photomicrographs. A collection of lantern slides with similar content to the photos of artwork and photos by subject is also found in this series and includes a lantern slide of Picasso creating a design with light.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as eleven series.

Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1940-circa 1980 (0.25 linear feet; Boxes 1, 28)

Series 2: Correspondence, 1936-1984 (5.7 linear feet; Boxes 1-7, 28 OV 33, FCs 39-41)

Series 3: Interviews and Transcripts, 1954-1970 (4 folders; Box 7)

Series 4: Writings and Notes, 1948-circa 1980s (1.4 linear feet; Boxes 7-8, 28)

Series 5: Times Square Project Files, 1972-1974 (6 folders; Box 9)

Series 6: Teaching Files Sound Recordings, circa 1953-1972 (0.7 linear feet; Box 9)

Series 7: Exhibition Files, 1958-1973 (0.4 linear feet; Boxes 9-10)

Series 8: Printed Material, circa 1922-1989 (3.6 linear feet; Boxes 10-12, 28-29, OVs 35, 37, FCs 42-49)

Series 9: Sketchbooks, circa 1940s-circa 1970s (2 folders; Box 12)

Series 10: Artwork and Moving Images, circa 1924-2003 (2.5 linear feet; Boxes 12, 13, OVs 33-36, 38, FCs 50-62)

Series 11: Photographs, 1909-1988 (10.4 linear feet; Boxes 13-32)
Biographical / Historical:
Painter, designer, art theorist, and educator, Gyorgy Kepes (1906-2001), was born in Selyp, Hungary, and studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Budapest. He worked with Moholy-Nagy in Berlin and London before joining him at the New Bauhaus (later the Chicago Institute of Design) in 1937.

Kepes taught courses at the New Bauhaus from 1937 to 1945, and published Language of Vision in 1944, summarizing the educational ideas and methods he had developed during his time at the institute. In 1946 he accepted a teaching position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) where he initiated a program in visual design.

In 1956 Kepes published The New Landscape in Art and Science, in which he presented images from nature that were newly accessible due to developments in science and technology, and explored his ideas for a common language between science and the visual arts.

In 1965, these ideas were apparent in Kepes's proposal of an expanded visual arts program at M.I.T., which would "build new as yet undetermined bridges between art and engineering and science," according to the minutes of an M.I.T. Art Committee meeting in March of that year. Kepes's vision dovetailed with M.I.T.'s vested interest in promoting the arts, and faculty and administrators were open to the argument that "The scientific-technical enterprise needs schooling by the artistic sensibilities." In 1967, they appointed Kepes Director of M.I.T.'s Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS).

Kepes retired from the regular faculty at M.I.T. in 1967, to focus on his role as director of CAVS, where he worked to provide artists with opportunities for exploring new artistic forms on a civic scale through a working dialogue with scientists and engineers. Early fellows of the center included Maryanne Amacher, Joan Brigham, Lowry Burgess, Jack Burnham, Piotry Kowalski, Otto Piene, Vassilakis Takis, and Wen-Ying Tsai.

In 1965-1966 Kepes edited a six-volume series entitled Vision + Value, published by George Braziller, Inc. Each volume featured essays that centered around a core theme: The Education of Vision; Structure in Art and Science; The Nature and Art of Motion; Module, Symmetry, Proportion, Rhythm; Sign, Image, Symbol; and Man-Made Object. Contributions came from prominent artists, designers, architects, and scientists of the time including Rudolf Arnheim, Saul Bass, Marcel Breuer, John Cage, R. Buckminster Fuller, Johannes Itten, Marshall McLuhan, and Paul Rand.

Kepes experimented widely with photography, producing abstract images through the application of fluids and objects to photographic paper. He also took commercial work throughout his career, producing designs for all kinds of objects, including books and stained glass windows for churches. He returned to painting in the 1950s, and his development as a painter continued throughout his career at M.I.T., where he remained until his retirement in 1974, and beyond. His paintings, which were abstract and often incorporated organic shapes and hints of landscapes, can be found in museums such as the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Kepes received many awards during his lifetime, including a Guggenheim Fellowship (1958); the Gold Star Award of the Philadelphia College of Art (1958); the National Association of Art Colleges Annual Award (1968); the California College of Art Award (1968); and the Fine Arts Medal from the American Institute of Architects (1968). In 1973 he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an associate member, and became a full academician in 1978. He was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Related Materials:
Additional papers of Gyorgy Kepes can be found at Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Advanced Visual Studies Special Collection.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming (reel 1211) including ninety-eight letters to Kepes from colleagues, 1946-1974. Lent materials were returned to the lender and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
Gyorgy Kepes lent papers for microfilming in 1974 and donated material to the Archives of American Art in a series of gifts between 1974 and 1993.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate copies requires advance notice.
Rights:
Authorization to publish, quote, or reproduce requires written permission from Juliet Kepes Stone or Imre Kepes. Contact Reference Services for more information.
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.
Topic:
Art -- Philosophy  Search this
Artists' studios--Photographs  Search this
City planning  Search this
Educators--Massachusetts--Cambridge  Search this
Motion pictures (visual works)  Search this
Genre/Form:
Caricatures
Designs
Photographs
Sketchbooks
Sketches
Sound recordings
Citation:
Gyorgy Kepes papers, 1909-2003, bulk 1935-1985. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Identifier:
AAA.kepegyor
See more items in:
Gyorgy Kepes papers
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9f863f285-f429-48f1-ba6e-fb74702c12ba
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-kepegyor

George Godfrey Thorp papers

Creator:
Thorp, George Godfrey, 1904-1972  Search this
Names:
Federal Art Project (Ill.)  Search this
Moholy-Nagy, László, 1895-1946  Search this
Rich, Daniel Catton, 1904-1976  Search this
Extent:
26 Items ((on 2 microfilm reels))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
1941-1970
Scope and Contents:
Letters and telegrams; a list; a clipping; notes; and a sketchbook.
REEL 1309: Sketchbook presented to Thorp by his staff when he resigned as State Supervisor of the Illinois WPA Art and Craft Program in 1941. Included are sketches by about 30 persons.
REEL 3480: A carbon copy of Thorp's letter of resignation as State Supervisor of the Federal Art Project, Illinois WPA Art and Craft Program, August 1, 1941; letters and telegrams regarding his resignation received from Chicago administrators and artists, including Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Daniel Catton Rich; "Homage a George Thorp," a list of events scheduled for the dinner in honor of Thorp's work with WPA; a clipping on Thorp, 1947; and Thorp's notes on acrylic collage.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter, teacher, administrator; Illinois.
Provenance:
Material on reel 1309 lent for microfilming; and material on reel 3480 donated 1977 by Isabel Thorp, widow of Thorp.
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. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Occupation:
Arts administrators -- Illinois  Search this
Painters -- Illinois  Search this
Topic:
Art, American  Search this
Instructors  Search this
Federal aid to the arts -- United States  Search this
Identifier:
AAA.thorgeor
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9cdc479e6-41a2-4140-b8cb-5799617ed97e
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-thorgeor

[Experimental films] [motion picture]

Creator:
Kofler, Anne  Search this
Names:
Moholy-Nagy, László, 1895-1946  Search this
Morris, Robert, 1931-2018  Search this
Rauschenberg, Robert, 1925-2008  Search this
Richter, Hans, 1888-1976  Search this
Vanderbeek, Stan  Search this
Extent:
1 Film reel (si., b&w, 8 mm.)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Film reels
Video recordings
Date:
undated
Scope and Contents:
Contents: "Rhythm 21," by Hans Richter (1921); and excerpts from "Lightplay Black White Grey," by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (1932); "Site," by Robert Morris and Stan Vanderbeek (1964); and "Linoleum," by Robert Rauschenberg (1967).
Provenance:
The films were acquired by Anne Kofler while taking a film class at Pratt Institute ca. 1970. The reel was donated by Kofler's mother, Jane Kofler in 1991, and subsequently transferred to video by AAA.
Occupation:
Filmmakers  Search this
Topic:
Experimental films -- United States  Search this
Genre/Form:
Video recordings
Identifier:
AAA.koflanne
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9b9289e93-c542-4c7c-95e5-ee4871b633a9
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-koflanne

Oral history interview with Harold Haydon

Interviewee:
Haydon, Harold  Search this
Interviewer:
Schulze, Franz, 1927-2019  Search this
Names:
Artists Equity Association  Search this
Artists' Union (Chicago, Ill.)  Search this
Midway Studios (Chicago, Ill.)  Search this
Moholy-Nagy, László, 1895-1946  Search this
Extent:
2 Sound cassettes (Sound recording)
102 Pages (Transcript)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Sound cassettes
Pages
Sound recordings
Interviews
Date:
1988 Oct. 10
Scope and Contents:
An interview of Harold Haydon conducted 1988 Oct. 10, by Franz Schulze, for the Archives of American Art.
Haydon speaks of his education at the Art Institute of Chicago; the art scene and the gallery scene in Chicago in the 1920s and 1930s; some of the important art critics in Chicago during those years; the Artists Union; the WPA; artists he was acquainted with; art criticism; his own art work, especially murals; the post-World War II art scene; Artists Equity Association; Midway Studios, which he was director of; Haydon's exhibitions and writings; influences on him. He recalls Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
Biographical / Historical:
Harold Haydon (1909-1994) was an art critic and painter from Chicago, Ill.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives' 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.
Occupation:
Art critics -- Illinois -- Chicago -- Interviews  Search this
Topic:
Art criticism -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this
Genre/Form:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Identifier:
AAA.haydon88
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw91be5a8f9-baca-4db8-a78a-da8ceb7defa0
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-haydon88
Online Media:

James Edward Davis papers

Creator:
Davis, Jim, 1901-1974  Search this
Names:
De Marco, Norman  Search this
Kossoff, Rosalind  Search this
Lye, Len, 1901-1980  Search this
Marin, John, 1870-1953  Search this
Moholy-Nagy, László, 1895-1946  Search this
Moholy-Nagy, Sibyl, 1905-  Search this
Steichen, Edward, 1879-1973  Search this
Stieglitz, Alfred, 1864-1946  Search this
Vanderpool, Wynant D.  Search this
Wright, Frank Lloyd, 1867-1959  Search this
Extent:
3.4 Linear feet ((on 7 microfilm reels))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
1917-1969
Scope and Contents:
Correspondence; photographs; drawings; sketches and designs; typescripts; exhibition announcements and clippings.
REELS 430-433: Correspondence; ca. 1000 photographs of Davis's paintings, plastic mobiles, motion studies; 13 notebooks containing photos and notes on his films, visual design, plastics, Frank Lloyd Wright and other subjects; exhibition announcements; and clippings. Correspondents include Rosalind Kossoff (Director AF Films and FilmImages), John Marin, Frank Lloyd Wright, Len Lye, Sibyl and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Norman De Marco, Alfred Stieglitz, Wynant Vanderpool, Edward Steichen, and others.
REEL N712: Sketches, designs, and working papers relating to Davis's plastic constructions, mobiles, and abstract art films; photos of works; a file on Davis's exhibition at Princeton, 1963; statements on his work; and typescripts, "Notes on Frank Lloyd Wright," and "Notes on John Marin."
REEL N738: Selection of drawings, 1919-1950, with explanatory notes by Davis.
REEL N68-86A: Sixteen letters from John Marin, 1940-1947.
UNMICROFILMED: Slides and miscellany.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter, photographer, filmmaker; Princeton, New Jersey. Davis's specialty was abstract art. He studied with Andre Lhote in Paris.
Provenance:
Material on reels N172, N68-86A, N738 lent 1967-1968 for microfilming by James E. Davis. Material on reels 430-433 donated 1969 by Davis and Rosalind Kossoff, Davis's agent.
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. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Occupation:
Photographers  Search this
Topic:
Art, Abstract  Search this
Mobiles (Sculpture)  Search this
Identifier:
AAA.davijame
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw94e339276-871d-425c-a8b2-a2cf65c6ebeb
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-davijame

Imogen Cunningham papers

Creator:
Cunningham, Imogen, 1883-1976  Search this
Names:
George Eastman House  Search this
Group f.64  Search this
Henry Art Gallery  Search this
Witkin Gallery  Search this
Aalto, Alvar, 1898-1976  Search this
Adams, Ansel, 1902-1984  Search this
Andreson, Laura  Search this
Bissantz, Edgar, 1901-  Search this
Bourke-White, Margaret, 1904-1971  Search this
Bristol, Horace  Search this
Bullock, Wynn  Search this
Butler, John Davidson, 1890-1974  Search this
Coburn, Alvin Langdon, 1882-1966  Search this
Feininger, Lyonel, 1871-1956  Search this
Graves, Morris, 1910-  Search this
Hellman, Lillian, 1905-1984  Search this
Kanaga, Consuelo, 1894-  Search this
Lange, Dorothea  Search this
Mann, Margery  Search this
Moholy-Nagy, László, 1895-1946  Search this
Newhall, Beaumont, 1908-1993  Search this
Newman, Arnold, 1918-2006  Search this
Noskowiak, Sonya, d. 1975  Search this
O'Keeffe, Georgia, 1887-1986  Search this
Partridge, Roi, 1888-1984  Search this
Schoener, Allon  Search this
Sheeler, Charles, 1883-1965  Search this
Steichen, Edward, 1879-1973  Search this
Steinert, Otto, 1915-  Search this
Strand, Paul, 1890-1976  Search this
Struss, Karl, 1886-  Search this
Toklas, Alice B.  Search this
Van Dyke, Willard  Search this
Weston, Edward, 1886-1958  Search this
White, Minor  Search this
Witkin, Lee D.  Search this
Zorach, William, 1887-1966  Search this
Extent:
5.9 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Interviews
Illustrated letters
Photographs
Date:
1903-1991
Summary:
The papers of photographer and teacher Imogen Cunningham, date from 1903 to 1991. The collection measures 5.9 feet of material, including correspondence, business and financial records, writings, printed matter, and photographs, and provides a good overview of Cunningham's life and career.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of photographer and teacher Imogen Cunningham, date from 1903 to 1991. The collection measures 5.9 feet of material, including correspondence, business and financial records, writings, printed matter, and photographs, and provides a good overview of Cunningham's life and career. 3.6 linear feet of correspondence comprise the bulk of the collection.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into ten series according to material type:

Missing Title

Series 1: Biographical Material, 1907-1981, undated (box 1; 4 folders)

Series 2: Correspondence, 1909-1991, undated (boxes 1-4; 3.6 linear feet)

Series 3: Personal Business Records, 1944-1976 (box 4; 15 folders)

Series 4: Notes, 1959-1968 (box 4; 10 folders)

Series 5: Teaching Files, 1964-1971 (box 5; 4 folders)

Series 6: Writings, circa 1910-1976 (box 5; 21 folders)

Series 7: Interview Transcripts, 1951, undated (box 5; 2 folders)

Series 8: Printed Material, 1903-1991 (boxes 5-7; 1.2 linear feet)

Series 9: Photographs, 1916-1976 (box 7; 12 folders)

Series 10: Oversized Material, 1947-1948, 1967, undated
Biographical Note:
Born in Portland, Oregon on April 12, 1883, Cunningham's family moved to Seattle in 1889. Inspired by Gertrude Kasebier's work, she purchased her first camera in 1901. After studying chemistry and botany at the University of Washington, she worked for the Edward S. Curtis Studio, Seattle, from 1907 to 1909. Receiving a scholarship, Cunningham studied for a year at the Technische Hochschule, Dresden.

Upon her return to Seattle in 1910, she opened a studio and had the first major exhibition of her work at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences in 1912.

In 1915, Cunningham married printmaker Roi Partridge and gave birth to her first son, Gryffyd. Two years later, her family moved to California, where she gave birth to twin sons, Padraic and Rondal. In 1920, the family moved to Oakland, where her husband taught at Mills College. During the 1920s, she exhibited her art work and began photographing plant forms.

Along with Ansel Adams, John Paul Edwards, Sonya Noskowiak, Henry Swift, Willard Van Dyke, and Edward Weston, Cunningham formed the f/64 Group, a society of purist photographers in 1932. During the same year she began working for Vanity Fair and other magazines and began a career as a portrait photographer, including Martha Graham, Cary Grant, Morris Graves, Alfred Stieglitz, and Spencer Tracy as her subjects. She divorced her husband in 1934.

In 1947, Cunningham established a studio in her San Francisco home, and continued to exhibit extensively until her death on June 24, 1976.
Provenance:
The collection was donated to the Archives of American Art by Imogen Cunningham in 1974 and 1976, and by her son, Gryffyd Partridge, in 1991.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Patrons must use microfilm copy.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Occupation:
Photographers -- California -- San Francisco  Search this
Educators -- California -- San Francisco  Search this
Topic:
Photographers  Search this
Photography, Artistic  Search this
Portrait photography  Search this
Women artists  Search this
Women photographers  Search this
Women educators  Search this
Genre/Form:
Interviews
Illustrated letters
Photographs
Citation:
Imogen Cunningham papers, 1903-1991. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Identifier:
AAA.cunnimog
See more items in:
Imogen Cunningham papers
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9692b1f2c-56ce-4f9d-bef5-dc1636bd4128
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-cunnimog

Oral history interview with Herbert Bayer

Interviewee:
Bayer, Herbert, 1900-1985  Search this
Interviewer:
Bowman, Ruth, 1923-  Search this
Names:
Bauhaus  Search this
Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.)  Search this
Moholy-Nagy, László, 1895-1946  Search this
Extent:
16 Pages (Transcript)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Pages
Sound recordings
Interviews
Date:
1981 October 3
Scope and Contents:
An interview of Herbert Bayer conducted 1981 October 3, by Ruth Bowman, for the Archives of American Art.
Bayer speaks of his early family life in Austria, his first exposure to art, his education at the Bauhaus school in Weimar, the atmosphere and work of the early Bauhaus, leaving the Bauhaus and becoming the art director of the German edition of "Vogue," meeting Moholy-Nagy in New York, and working on exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art.
Biographical / Historical:
Herbert Bayer (1900-1985) was a painter, sculptor, and architect from Montecito, California.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound cassette. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 1 hr., 2 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives' 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.
Occupation:
Painters -- Interviews  Search this
Topic:
Architects -- Interviews  Search this
Sculptors -- Interviews  Search this
Genre/Form:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Identifier:
AAA.bayer81
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9abfaa3cd-4377-4c74-af31-4b54d91bf23c
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-bayer81
Online Media:

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