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.
An interview of Ina Sizer Cassidy conducted by Sylvia Loomis on 1964 February 13 for the Archives of American Art.
Cassidy speaks of her husband Gerald Cassidy, including his background and education; the arts community in Santa Fe in the 1920s; Cassidy's first involvement in the Public Works of Art Project making murals for a federal building in Santa Fe; his death from carbon monoxide poisoning; and his feelings about the PWAP and about government support for the arts. She speaks of her own painting career and her work as head of the WPA Writers Project in New Mexico.
Biographical / Historical:
Ina Sizer Cassidy (1869-1965) was a painter and writer in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound tape reel. Reformatted in 2010 as 1 digital wav file. Duration is 1 hr.
Provenance:
This interview 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:
This interview is open for research. Contact Reference Services for more information.
New Deal and the Arts Oral History Project Search this
Names:
New Deal and the Arts Oral History Project Search this
Extent:
31 Pages (Transcript)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Pages
Sound recordings
Interviews
Date:
1964 July 30
Scope and Contents:
An interview of Will Shuster conducted July 30, 1964, by Sylvia Loomis in Santa Fe, N.M., for the Archives of American Art.
Shuster tells of contracting tuberculosis as a soldier in WWI and moving to New Mexico to recuperate. He describes the artistic activity of Santa Fe and his involvement in the federal art projects, including painting scenes of Carlsbad Caverns. He recounts his role in developing and continuing the Santa Fe tradition of Zozobra, an effigy figure of gloom burned at the beginning of winter celebrations and once featured as an award-winning float in the Rose Bowl parade.
Biographical / Historical:
Will Shuster (1893-1969) was a mural painter from Santa Fe, N.M.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound tape reel. Reformatted in 2010 as 1 digital wav file. Duration is 58 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.
The papers of artist Michele Zackheim measure 2.3 linear feet and date from 1976 to 2012, bulk 1980-2000. The collection documents her career in the visual arts through correspondence, interviews, writings, project files, teaching files, printed material, and photographic material.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of artist Michele Zackheim measure 2.3 linear feet and date from 1976 to 2012, bulk 1980-2000. The collection documents her career in the visual arts through correspondence, interviews, writings, project files, teaching files, printed material, and photographic material.
Series 1: Correspondence, 1986-2002 (0.2 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 2: Interviews, circa 1980s (0.1 linear foot; Box 1)
Series 3: Writings, 1990-1991 (0.3 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 4: Project Files, 1983-2012 (0.5 linear feet; Box 1-2)
Series 5: Teaching Files, circa 1990-1991 (0.4 linear feet; Box 2)
Series 6: Printed Material, 1977-1998 (0.4 linear feet; Box 2-3)
Series 7: Photographic Material, 1976-circa 2000 (0.4 linear feet; Box 2-3)
Biographical / Historical:
Michele Zackheim (1941- ) is a writer and former visual artist in New York City working throughout the 1970s-1990s as a fresco muralist, installation artist, print-maker, and painter.
In the mid-1990s, Zackheim became a writer of biographical fiction. She currently teaches Creative Writing from a Visual Perspective at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
Provenance:
Michele Zackheim donated her papers to the Archives in 2014.
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.
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
Extent:
26 Pages (Transcript)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Pages
Sound recordings
Interviews
Date:
1963 November 13
Scope and Contents:
An interview of Olive Rush conducted 1963 November 13, by Sylvia Loomis, for the Archives of American Art.
Rush speaks of her family background and youth; her education at the Corcoran School of Art; her involvement with the Federal Art Project; working on murals for public buildings in Santa Fe and the southwest; and the public's perception of the Federal Art Project and its administration.
Biographical / Historical:
Olive Rush (1873-1966) was a painter and muralist in Santa Fe, N.M.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound tape reel. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 29 min.
Provenance:
This interview 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.
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 Will Shuster, 1964 July 30. 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 Ina Sizer Cassidy, 1964 February 13. 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 Olive Rush, 1963 November 13. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
