New Deal and the Arts Oral History Project Search this
Type:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Arthur and Jean Goodwin Ames, 1965 June 9. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
New Deal and the Arts Oral History Project Search this
Type:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Lowell Houser, 1964 July 31. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
New Deal and the Arts Oral History Project Search this
New York World's Fair (1939-1940 : New York, N.Y.) Search this
Type:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Monty Lewis, 1964 June 25. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Topic:
Painters -- California -- San Diego -- Interviews Search this
Muralists -- California -- San Diego -- Interviews Search this
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with David Avalos, 1988 June 16-July 5. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Topic:
Painters -- California -- San Diego -- Interviews Search this
(letter to Dr. Guy Bensusan, Associate Professor, University of Arizona, 07/22/1972; Con Safo organizational information: list of needs, meeting notes, mission statement - Brown Paper Report; "General Comments" [by Felipe Reyes?]; clippings; exhibition announcements; catalogs; photographs of Con Safo members; material for TYF's course on Chicano Culture)
Collection Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Use requires an appointment and is limited to the Washington, D.C. research facility.
Collection Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Collection Citation:
Tomás Ybarra-Frausto research material, 1965-2004. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
The papers of California painter, printmaker, and art instructor Dorr Bothwell date from 1900-2006, and measure 10.6 linear feet and 1.72 GB. Found within the papers are biographical material, correspondence, personal business records, notes and writings, five diaries, art work and 19 sketchbooks, three scrapbooks, printed material, and print and digital photographs.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of California painter, printmaker, and art instructor Dorr Bothwell date from 1900-2006, and measure 10.6 linear feet and 1.72 GB. Found within the papers are biographical material, correspondence, personal business records, notes and writings, five diaries, art work and 19 sketchbooks, three scrapbooks, printed material, and print and digital photographs.
Biographical material consists of biographical sketches, resumés, identity cards, award certificates, typescripts of autobiographical interviews, address books, and a file concerning UFOs, spirituality, and philosophy.
Correspondence consists of letters exchanged between Bothwell and her colleagues and friends discussing their art-related activities, travel, and birthday greetings. There are scattered letters from Ansel and Virginia Adams, Etel Adnan, Benjamin Chinn, Claire Falkenstein, and Emmy Lou Packard.
Personal business records include teaching contracts, contracts and royalty statements for the publication of Bothwell's book Notan, insurance records, income tax records, records concerning a grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, estate records, card files, lists of art work, price lists, exhibition entry cards, receipts for the sale of art work, travel receipts, medical receipts, and consignment/sales records.
Notes and writings include three diaries, two travel journals, guest books, miscellaneous lists, schedules of classes for various organizations and art schools including the Ansel Adams Yosemite Workshop, typescripts of lecture notes, and miscellaneous notes. There are also scattered writings by Bothwell and others.
Seventeen sketchbooks, including several completed during Bothwell's travels, and one dated 1942 illustrated with daily drawings of her activities while preparing for World War II, are found within the papers. There are also miscellaneous drawings, collages, a serigraph It's Time for a Change, an etching by Martha Jackson, and a drawing by Charles Howard.
Three scrapbooks contain clippings, exhibition announcements and catalogs, programs, and photographs of art work. Scrapbook 3 contains materials concerning spiritualism and mysticism. Additional printed material consists of clippings, exhibition announcements and catalogs, press releases, brochures for art classes, the sale of art work, travel, and camera equipment, reproductions of art work, picture postcards, programs, books, and miscellaneous commercial business cards.
Photographs are of Bothwell, her mother and brother, her studio/residences, miscellaneous friends and colleagues including her former husband, sculptor Donal Hord, miscellaneous events, and art classes conducted by Bothwell. There are also photographs of art work by Bothwell and others, as well as numerous photographs and slides of travel various forms in nature that Bothwell would incorporate into her art work.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 8 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1939-2001 (Box 1, 11, 13, 15; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1942-2002 (Box 1-3, 13; 2.3 linear feet)
Series 3: Personal Business Records, 1925-2006 (Box 3-4; 0.7 linear feet)
Series 4: Notes and Writings, 1949-1998 (Box 4, 11, 14, 15; 0.8 linear feet.)
Series 5: Art Work, 1920-1994 (Box 4-5, 11, 13, 16, 17; 1.5 linear feet)
Series 6: Scrapbooks, 1926-1979 (Box 5, 11, 12; 0.5 linear feet)
Series 7: Printed Material, 1923-2000 (Box 5-7, 12, 13; 1.8 linear feet)
Series 8: Photographs, 1900-2001 (Box 7-9, 10; 2.4 linear feet, ER01-ER04; 1.72 GB)
Biographical Note:
Dorr Bothwell (1902-2000) worked primarily in California as a painter, printmaker, and art instructor.
Doris Bothwell was born on May 3, 1902 in San Francisco, and later changed her first name to Dorr in order to more easily enter the art business. Bothwell began her art studies in 1916 with her parents' friend Anna Valentien, a student of Rodin. Between 1921 and 1922, she studied at the California School of Fine Art, and continued her studies at the University of Oregon at Eugene. After attending the Rudolph Schaeffer School of Design in 1924, she established her own studio in San Francisco from 1924 to 1927. Also during this time Bothwell, with eight other artists opened the Modern Gallery on Montgomery Street, mounting her first solo exhibition there in 1927.
Between 1928 and 1929, Bothwell traveled to American Samoa, where she created paintings and drawings, and documented tapa (barkcloth) drawings for the Bishop Museum of Honolulu. She then spent a year of study in Europe, returning to San Diego, California in 1931 and marrying sculptor Donal Hord. Four years later, they divorced and she moved to Los Angeles where she worked for the pottery manufacturer Gladding McBean, joined the post-surrealist group around Lorser Feitelson and Helen Lundeberg and opened the Bothwell-Cooke Gallery.
Between 1936 and 1939, Bothwell worked in the mural division of the Federal Arts Project of Los Angeles, and learned the art of serigraph printing. She designed dioramas and mechanized exhibitions for the Los Angeles County Museum. In 1940 she also created murals in the Manning Coffee Restaurant in San Francisco.
After teaching color and design at the California School of Fine Art in San Francisco from 1944 to 1948, Bothwell was awarded the Abraham Rosenberg Traveling Scholarship that financed study in Paris from 1949 to the fall of 1951. In 1952 she taught textile design for mass production at the Parsons School of Design in New York City.
Returning to San Francisco, Bothwell taught again at the California School of Fine Art from 1953 to 1958, and at the San Francisco Art Institute from 1959 to 1960. From 1960 to 1961 she took a sabbatical in England and France, creating paintings for an exhibition. In 1962 she was asked to teach at the new Mendocino Art Center and she taught there until 1983. She was also asked by Ansel Adams to teach design and composition for photographers at his Yosemite Workshop summer sessions, which she did from 1964 to 1977.
From 1966 to 1967, Bothwell documented indigo dying techniques, strip weaving, and pottery in Western Nigeria and Tunisia. In 1968, she published her book, co-authored with Marlys Frey, NOTAN The Principle of Dark-Light Design. The book was reissued in 1991. Bothwell continued her travels from 1970 to 1971, when she studied 12th century enamels in England, France, and Holland, and conducted a symposium, "Notan Design," for the London Educational Authority. In 1974, she traveled to Bali, Java, and Sumatra, making a slide documentary on batik, woodcarving, and folk design.
In 1977 Bothwell moved to Joshua Tree, California, from Mendocino in Northern California, but moved back and forth between the two studio/residences until 1992 when she moved to her last residence on the desert at Apache Junction, Arizona. From 1979 to 1980, she taught composition at the Victor School of Photography in Colorado and a design course at the Women's Art Guild in Kauai, Hawaii. Following a tour of China with a watercolor artists' group in 1982, Bothwell conducted workshops at the Mendocino Art Center. In 1985, she traveled to Japan.
Dorr Bothwell died on September 24, 2000 in Fort Bragg, California.
Provenance:
The Dorr Bothwell papers were donated in 1978 by the artist, and in 2002, 2009, and 2012 by the Dorr Bothwell Trust.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
New Deal and the Arts Oral History Project Search this
New York World's Fair (1939-1940 : New York, N.Y.) Search this
Extent:
1 Sound tape reel (Sound recordings, 5 in.)
15 Pages (Transcript)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Sound tape reels
Pages
Sound recordings
Interviews
Date:
1964 June 25
Scope and Contents:
An interview of Monty Lewis conducted 1964 June 25, by Betty Hoag, for the Archives of American Art.
Interview conducted at Coronado School of Fine Arts in San Diego, Calif. Lewis discusses his art training at the Art Students' League in N.Y., his study of mural and easel painting in Europe, and his freelance mural work before his involvement with the Public Works of Art Project. He describes the developing presence of mural art in New York with Diego Rivera's mural at Rockefeller Center and the 1939 New York World's Fair. Lewis tells of the Artists, Painters, and Sculptors Collaborators, a collaborative group interested in developing community art projects, and discusses the use of murals in the 1939 New York World's Fair and the different techniques used for those and other public projects.
Biographical / Historical:
Monty Lewis (1907-1997) was a painter, designer, muralist in New York and California.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound tape reel. Reformatted in 2010 as 1 digital wav files. Duration is 49 min.
Provenance:
Conducted as part of the Archives of American Art's New Deal and the Arts project, which includes over 400 interviews of artists, administrators, historians, and others involved with the federal government's art programs and the activities of the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s and early 1940s.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Topic:
Painters -- California -- San Diego -- Interviews Search this
Muralists -- California -- San Diego -- Interviews Search this
An interview of David Avalos conducted 1988 June 16-July 5, by Margarita Nieto, for the Archives of American Art. Avalos speaks of his childhood, education at the University of California at San Diego; his involvement with the Centro Cultural de la Raza; the socio-political environment that produced the San Diego Chicano Muralist movement (specifically Chicano Park); the formation of the Border art Workshop (BAW/TAF); the collaboration between the Centro and the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art (presently the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art); art activity in San Diego; Chicano activity distinct from Los Angeles; his philosophy on conceptual art; and his art career.
Biographical / Historical:
David Avalos (1947-) is a painter and administrator from San Diego, California.
General:
Originally recorded on 5 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 10 digital wav files. Duration is 4 hr., 44 min.
Provenance:
These interviews are 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:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Topic:
Painters -- California -- San Diego -- Interviews Search this
An interview of Arthur and Jean Goodwin Ames conducted 1965 June 9, by Betty Hoag McGlynn, for the Archives of American Art New Deal and the Arts Project. They speak of their participation in WPA projects at Newport Harbor Union High School, the San Diego County Courthouse, the Jon Lindbergh Junior High School, and the California Federal Building and Loan in Los Angeles; mural, mosaic and tapestry techniques and materials; Karl Drerup and the development of enameling in America; and the effect of the federal art programs on contemporary art. They also describe the work of Maxine Albro and Helen and Margaret Bruton.
Biographical / Historical:
Arthur Forbes (1906-1975) and Jean Goodwin Ames (1903-1986) were mural painters, mosaicists, and tapissiers from Claremont, California.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 4 digital wav files. Duration is 1 hr., 12 minutes.
Provenance:
Conducted as part of the Archives of American Art's New Deal and the Arts project, which includes over 400 interviews of artists, administrators, historians, and others involved with the federal government's art programs and the activities of the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s and early 1940s.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Occupation:
Tapissiers -- California -- Interviews Search this
