United States -- Social conditions -- 1933-1945 -- New Mexico
Date:
[undated] and 1914-1970
Scope and Contents:
Correspondence with John Sloan and others, writings, poems, original art works, scrapbooks, photographs, and Shuster's own descriptions of his work.
Reel NDA 3: Instructions, releases, speeches, manuscripts notes, photographs of Shuster's PWAP murals in New Mexico; and a typescript of a comedy written by Shuster.
Reels 169-177: 400 letters, 1917-1968, including correspondence with Robert Henri, Edgar Varese, John S. Velie, Walter Karig, and family members. Other materials consist of diaries, 1918, 1928, 1933-1934, 1937-1962, and 1964-1969; photographs of Shuster, family, and friends, and his work; original drawings, watercolors, oils and etchings; sketchbooks; poems, lectures, and stories by Shuster; a record of his works; scrapbooks, 1920-1928, 1923-1935, and 1935-1963; and material relating to John Sloan, who was Shuster's close friend and his teacher in 1920.
Reel 277: Materials relating to John Sloan, including letters from him 1922-1951; notes by Winifield Townley Scott recording conversations with Helen Shuster and Mrs. Sloan after Sloan's death and commenting on Sloan's work, tributes by Oliver LaFarge and others, and clippings. Additional correspondents are John Sheridan, Robert Henri, Warren Wheelock, Willard Nash, and the Veterans Administration, concerning Shuster's medical disability after having his lungs damaged by poisoned gas during the World War, 1914-1918. Also included are poems by Shuster, 1925-1939, and other Santa Fe residents, including Scott; and correspondence and printed material relating to Shuster's participation in various Santa Fe festivals.
Reel 4283: Five letters from Sloan to Shuster. Three letters are illustrated and contain detailed instructions and advice on etching technique. A fourth letter, dated Jan 2, 1922, includes a recipe for gesso preparation and an offer from Sloan to pay Shuster's entry fee to "show in the Independents." Sloan in his two page letter, dated January 3, 1947, comments on the pace of his work; his participation in a "Mr. & Mrs. Exhibition" at the Laurel Gallery; a production of Eugene O'Neill's "The Ice Man Cometh"; and the Whitney Annual.
Arrangement:
Letters arranged chronologically.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter, printmaker, and writer active in Santa Fe, N.M.; b. 1893; d. 1969
Provenance:
The material borrowed from Will Shuster in October 1964 (reel NDA 3) was part of a project of AAA to document New Deal art projects throughout the U.S. The bulk of the Will Shuster papers (reels 169-177, 277) were lent by his widow, Selma Dingee Shuster. Five letters from John Sloan (Reel 4283) were lent in 1989 by her estate.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
United States. Dept. of the Treasury. Section of Fine Arts Search this
Extent:
6.3 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Sketches
Diaries
Photographs
Date:
1879-1967
Summary:
The papers of Olive Rush measure 6.3 linear feet and date from 1879 to 1967. They contain correspondence, artwork, photographs, writings, and other personal papers documenting Rush's education and career as an illustrator, portraitist, muralist, painter, teacher, and promoter of Native American art.
Scope and Contents note:
The records of Olive Rush measure 6.3 linear feet and date from 1879 to 1967. They contain correspondence, artwork, photographs, writings, and other records that document her education and career as an illustrator, portraitist, muralist, painter, and promoter of Native American art.
Biographical materials include several narratives written by Rush and others, as well as a few items related to Delaware artist Ethel Pennewill Brown Leach, Rush's close friend and colleague. Correspondence spans Rush's education and career, and documents her early career in illustration, purchases and exhibitions of her work, her efforts to secure exhibitions for Native American artists, and her dealings with administrators of Federal Art Projects of the 1930s.
Writings include diaries from Rush's early years, including an especially detailed diary from her Santa Fe Indian School mural project in 1932. Also found are lectures, talks, essays, notebooks with technical experiments and aesthetic ideas, and loose notes for her FAP project at the New Mexico College of Agricultural and Mechanical Arts.
Records of Rush's artwork include two record books, receipts for supplies and shipments, price lists, inventories, records of submissions, and a small number of similar records of artwork by Native American artists. Sketchbooks, loose sketches, and drawings by Rush span her entire career and include many studies and proposed designs for murals and frescoes.
Printed Materials consist of exhibition catalogs, clippings, and reproductions of artwork, especially illustration work from Rush's early career. Photographs include a class photograph from the Corcoran School of Art circa 1890 and many of Rush and her fellow artists in Wilmington, Delaware from around 1904 to 1910. Photographs of works of art document Rush's murals and frescoes in private homes, businesses, and public buildings.
Arrangement note:
The collection is arranged into seven series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1886-1966 (Box 1; 7 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1889-1964 (Boxes 1-2, 8; 1.4 linear feet)
Series 3: Writings, 1886-1962 (Box 2; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 4: Records of Artwork, 1904-1956 (Box 3; 8 folders)
Series 5: Artwork, 1896-1957 (Boxes 3-4, 7, OV 8-12; 1 linear foot)
Series 6: Printed Materials, 1879-1967 (Boxes 4-5, 7, OV 13; 1.6 linear feet)
Series 7: Photographs, circa 1890-1966 (Box 6; 0.4 linear feet)
Biographical/Historical note:
Olive Rush was born in Fairmount, Indiana in 1875 to a Quaker farm family of six children, and attended nearby Earlham College, a Quaker school with a studio art program. Encouraged by her teacher, Rush enrolled in the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C. in 1890, where she stayed for two years and achieved early recognition for her work. In 1893, Rush joined the Indiana delegation of artists to the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
In 1894, she moved to New York City and continued her studies at the Art Students League with Henry Siddons Mowbray, John Twachtman, and Augustus St. Gaudens. She secured her first job as an illustrator with Harper and Brothers and quickly started doing additional illustration work for Good Housekeeping, Scribner's, The Delineator, Woman's Home Companion, Sunday Magazine and St. Nicholas Magazine. Rush also became a staff artist at the New York Tribune and illustrated several books.
In 1904, Rush sent an inquiry with samples of her work to master illustrator Howard Pyle, who had established what was then the only school of illustration in the country in Wilmington, Delaware. There he provided free instruction to a small number hand-picked artists culled from hundreds of applicants. Although Pyle did not admit women to his studio, he encouranged her to come and join the class for lectures and criticisms. Rush moved to Delaware later that year, joining a growing number of female illustrators there including Ethel Pennewill Brown (later Leach), Blanche Chloe Grant, Sarah Katherine Smith, and Harriet Roosevelt Richards, among others. Rush and her female colleagues lived together in a boarding house known as Tusculum, which became well-known as a gathering place for women artists.
Rush traveled to Europe in 1910, embarking on a period of intense study and travel which would mark a steady transition from illustration to painting. She studied at Newlyn in Cornwall, England and then in France with the American impressionist Richard E. Miller. She returned to Wilmington in 1911, where she moved into Pyle's studio with Ethel Pennewill Brown. Rush bounced to New York, Boston, and back to France, where she lived for a time with fellow artists Alice Schille, Ethel Pennewill Brown, and Orville Houghton Peets. Her reputation grew, and she began to exhibit regularly in major national and regional juried exhibitions including the Carnegie, Pennsylvania Academy, and Corcoran annual exhibitions, as well as the Hoosier Salon.
In 1914, Rush made her first trip to Arizona and New Mexico. Passing through Santa Fe on her return trip, Rush made contact with the artists community at the Museum of New Mexico, where she secured an impromptu solo exhibition after showing her new work, inspired by the landscape of the Southwest. She made Santa Fe her permanent home in 1920 in an adobe cottage on Canyon Road, which became a main thoroughfare of the Santa Fe artists' community.
Rush began to experiment with fresco painting, and developed her own techniques suitable to the local climate. She became a sought-after muralist and was asked to create frescoes for many private homes and businesses. In her painting, she often depicted the Native American dances and ceremonies she attended. She exhibited these paintings around the country, including with the Society of Independent Artists in New York, and in the Corcoran Annual Juried exhibition, where Mrs. Herbert Hoover and Duncan Phillips both purchased her work.
In 1932, Rush was hired to teach at the Santa Fe Indian School. Rush's enthusiastic work in the 1930s with the young pueblo artists is credited with helping to bring about a flourishing of Native American visual art in New Mexico. Rush continued to work with native artists throughout her life, and many of her associates went on to gain national reputations, including Harrison Begay, Awa-Tsireh, Pop Chalee, Pablita Valerde, and Ha-So-De (Narciso Abeyta).
From 1934 to 1939, Rush executed murals for the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) and the Federal Art Project (FAP) of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Rush's federal art projects included murals for the Santa Fe Public Library (1934), the Biology Building of the New Mexico Agricultural College (1935), the Pawhuska, Oklahoma Post Office (1938), and the Florence, Colorado Post Office (1939). Rush was also asked to join the Advisory Committee on Indian Art created by the PWAP in 1934, to help administer a segment of the program aimed at employing Native American artists.
In her later years, Rush's artwork became increasingly experimental, incorporating the ideas of Chinese painting, Native American art, and her contemporaries, the modernists, especially Wassily Kandinsky. She continued painting and exhibiting until 1964, when illness prohibited her from working. She died in 1966, leaving her home and studio to the Santa Fe Society of Friends.
Sources consulted for this biography include Olive Rush: A Hoosier Artist in New Mexico (1992) by Stanley L. Cuba, and Almost Forgotten: Delaware Women Artists and Arts Patrons 1900-1950 (2002) by Janice Haynes Gilmore.
Related Archival Materials note:
The Archives of American Art holds a brief oral history interview with Olive Rush concerning her involvement with Federal Art Projects.
Separated Materials note:
The Archives of American Art also holds material lent for microfilming (reel SW4) including scrapbooks, photographs, clippings, and exhibition catalogs. Most of this material was later donated, but some items remain with the lender and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
Olive Rush donated the bulk of her papers to the Archives of American Art in 1963 and 1964. Additional exhibition catalogs and photographs were added to the collection upon her death in 1966. An anonymous donation of diaries, sketchbooks, and a photograph was received by the Archives in 1970. Also in 1970, the Olive Rush Memorial Studio lent papers for microfilming. Many, but not all, of the loaned materials were later donated.
Restrictions:
The bulk of the collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website. Use of material not digitized requires an appointment.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Reports of work in the 13th region (New Mexico), written by the supervisor, Gustave Baumann. Included are detailed personal and professional comment on numerous artists in the Santa Fe, Taos, and Albuquerque projects, among them Emil Bisttram, Tom Lea, Ward Lockwood, Olive Rush, and Will Shuster; a work journal and commentary on various artists and their projects; and commentary on the physical situation, psychological climate and supervisory problems associated with the projects.
Biographical / Historical:
The Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), the first of the New Deal art programs, was established under the Department of the Treasury in December 1933 to assist unemployed artists by enabling them to work on the decoration of non-federal public buildings. Although it lasted only until the following summer, it engaged nearly 4,000 artists in all parts of the country and served as an important precedent for subsequent federal art programs, such as the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration.
Provenance:
Lent for microfilming 1964 by Gustave Baumann.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
This collection contains an unpublished documentary film shot on May 12, 1992 that depicts an interview with artist Allan Houser [Warm Springs Chiricahua Apache (New Mexico)] discussing his remembrances of painting murals at the U.S. Department of the Interior headquarters in Washington, DC in 1939-1940. The film was shot by Victor Romero (Isleta Pueblo) and Christine Romero.
Scope and Contents:
This collection contains an unpublished documentary film that was shot by filmmakers Victor Romero (Isleta Pueblo) and Christine Romero, which depicts an interview with artist Allan Houser [Warm Springs Chiricahua Apache (New Mexico)]. The footage was shot on May 12, 1992 in the Department of the Interior penthouse in Washington, DC with Houser providing remembrances of his life and his perspective of painting murals there in 1939-1940 as part of the Treasury Department's Section of Painting and Sculpture public art program. In the documentary, Houser views the murals for the first time since he painted them 50 years before and recalls his experiences with fellow artists- Velino Shije Herrera (Zia Pueblo), Gerald Nailor [Diné (Navajo)], and Woody Crumbo (Potawatomi)- who were painting their own murals in the penthouse at the same time. At the time of filming, the penthouse was closed and off-limits and the murals were about to undergo restoration.
The materials in this collection include six 16mm processed film reels; three 1/4" sound reels; three BetacamSP transfers of reels 1 through 6; a BetacamSP master of a 2:30 promo edit; a BetacamSP transfer of music by David Spotted Eagle licensed for the promo; an interview transcript; a log of avid bins; a disc of avid bins; and other textual documents.
Victor E. Romero served as the Producer, Christine Solinski Romero as Director, Gary Geboy as Cinematographer, and Haven McKinney as the Audio Recordist. Unfortunately, the Kodak film stock they used was defective and the footage turned out grainy, while the audio of the interview turned out clear. Subsequently, the intended documentary about the restoration of the murals was not completed other than a short demo reel.
Arrangement:
Materials are arranged by media.
Allan Houser and the Department of the Interior Murals:
Allan Houser is considered one of the most renown Native American painters and sculptors of the 20th century. Born Allan Capron Houser (originally Haozous) on June 30, 1914 near Apache, Oklahoma, Houser was a member of the Warm Springs Chiricahua Apache tribe.
He left Oklahoma in 1934 to study painting with Dorothy Dunn at her Santa Fe Indian School and remained a student there until 1938. In addition to painting murals at the Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C. in 1939, he also painted murals for the Golden Gate Exposition in San Francisco and the New York World's Fair.
In 1940, Houser studied with Swedish artist Olle Nordmark at the Fort Sill Indian School art program and was encouraged to take up sculpture. Eight years later, the Haskell Institute in Lawrence, Kansas commissioned his first sculpture, Comrades in the Mourning.
Houser taught art at Intermountain Indian School in Brigham City, Utah beginning in 1952 and left in 1962 to teach sculpture at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He retired from academic life in 1975. Allan Houser died in Santa Fe in 1994.
The murals that are depicted in this documentary were commissioned by the Treasury Department's Section of Painting and Sculpture public art program, which was often referred to as the "Section." Created in 1934 during the Great Depression by President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, the program was designed to increase employment for artists. The Section artists were commissioned to create art to decorate public buildings often in the form of murals or reliefs. At the Department of the Interior headquarters in Washington, DC, six artists were commissioned from five tribes including artists Velino Shije Herrera (Ma Pe Wi [Red Bird]), Zia Pueblo, 1902-1973; Gerald Nailor (To Yah), Diné (Navajo), 1917-1952; and Woody Crumbo (Woodrow Wilson Crumbo), Potawatomi [Oklahoma], 1912-1989. The Section program was discontinued in 1943.
Victor and Christine Romero:
Victor Eugene Romero (Pueblo of Isleta) is a graduate of New Mexico State University (BA, Journalism and Mass Communications, 1976). Following a stint as an independent video producer, Victor transitioned to a career at the U.S. Census Bureau, including varied service as manager of video/photo/radio production, and team leader for promotions and branding initiatives. His high-level contributions feature extensive work on Census 1990, 2000, 2010, 2020.
Christine Solinski Romero is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin (BS, Radio-TV-Film, 1976). Her extensive documentary production credits as Producer, Director, Editor include programs for PBS, National Geographic Television, Discovery Channel, Smithsonian Channel, and an award-winning independent documentary feature, Besa: The Promise, the story of Albanians Muslims who protected refugee Jews during the Holocaust. In 2012, Christine transitioned to a career as a Yoga Instructor and Therapist.
Provenance:
Gift of Victor and Christine Romero, 2019.
Restrictions:
Access to the media materials in this collection are closed until the materials have been digitized. Textual materials are available to view for reference purposes only. Access to NMAI Archives Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu).
Rights:
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiphotos@si.edu.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Victor and Christine Romero film of Allan Houser, box # and folder #, NMAI.AC.401; National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.
