The Paul Ryan papers measure 19.7 linear feet and document Ryan's education and career as a pioneering video artist, theorist, writer, and educator. Records include school records, family papers, correspondence, writings, project files, video recordings, teaching files, printed materials, scattered photographs, and artwork by others. Organizational records are also found for the Earthscore Foundation, Earth Environmental Group, the Gaia Institute, and the Raindance Corporation, among others. The bulk of Ryan's professional work is documented in his writings and project files.
Scope and Contents:
The Paul Ryan papers measure 19.7 linear feet and document Ryan's education and career as a pioneering video artist, theorist, writer, and educator. Records include school records, family papers, correspondence, writings, project files, video recordings, teaching files, printed materials, scattered photographs, and artwork by others. Organizational records are also found for the Earthscore Foundation, Earth Environmental Group, the Gaia Institute, and the Raindance Corporation, among others. The bulk of Ryan's professional work is documented in his writings and project files.
Biographical materials include family papers, early correspondence among Ryan family members, school records, selective service records, photographs of Paul Ryan, and career documentation such as résumés, CVs, recommendation letters, and narratives written by Ryan describing his career. Records related to Ryan's time in the seminary and monastery include letters home during this period, and his letter of resignation from 1965.
Correspondence is mainly professional in nature, and spans Ryan's career. Correspondence between Ryan and family members is also found. Professional correspondence is found with Myrdene Anderson, Peter Berg of Planet Drum, Morris Berman, Avery Johnson, Marga Bijvoet, Thomas Berry, Lois Bianchi, David Dunn, Roberta Kevelson, Gerrit Lansing, Aldo Lira, Oliver Lowenstein, Chip Lord, Claude Ponsol, Jody Procter, Jodi Sibert, Phyllis Gershuny Segura, Michael Shamberg, and Marita Sturken. Corporate correspondence is found regarding job applications, manuscript submissions to publishers, and video submissions to museums and broadcasters.
Writings include mainly articles and notebooks by Ryan, but also drafts of books, lectures, poetry, short stories, a treatment for a television show, and writings by others in various genres. Most of Ryan's prose writing is theoretical in nature, although personal writings and notes from projects are also found. Articles include both published and unpublished writings, with some published multiple times under different titles. Over one hundred notebooks spanning forty years contain a variety of content including drafts of letters, articles, grant proposals, lectures, and other writings. Ryan's two major publications, Cybernetics of the Sacred and Video Mind, Earth Mind, are documented with drafts, contracts, correspondence with publishers, layout documents, and notes.
Organizational records include writings, correspondence, printed material, financial records, grant proposals, and other records concerning various organizations, collectives, and companies in which Ryan participated, mostly having to do with environmental advocacy, video production, or a combination of the two. Organizations with substantial records in this series include the Earth Environmental Group, the Earthscore Foundation, Environment '89 (and '90, '91, and '92), the Gaia Institute, and the Raindance Corporation, among others. Documentation is most comprehensive for The Earthscore Foundation, including by-laws, grant proposals, extensive writings, financial records, and printed materials.
Project files contain video recordings, production notes, photographs, proposals, correspondence, a computer program designed by Ryan, prints for exhibition, illustrations and designs, posters, circulars, contracts, and scripts. Many of the projects documented in this series relate to Ryan's many explorations of the use of video to monitor and interpret two seemingly different subjects, environmental change and human behavior in relationships, expressed through a ritual of interaction among three persons designed by Ryan and called "Threeing," or "Triadic Behavior." The most thoroughly documented projects in this series include "Nature in New York City," "New York City Eco-Channel for Sustainable Television (NEST)," Talking Wood (a publication that incorporated the project "Watershed Watch"), "Inventing Triadic Behavior" (also known as the "Triadic Tapes"), "Tethys"(with artist Bob Schuler), and "Video Wake for my Father," a performance for video that saw many iterations, including a private performance, a public performance, an edited video program, and a published script.
Video recordings are found for three projects, including "Nature in New York City," "Inventing Triadic Behavior," and a threeing workshop held at the Kitchen entitled "Video Variations on Holy Week." A printout of records in a videotape database kept by Ryan is found in this series, with a proposal for video preservation; the list of tapes includes those found in the collection as well as tapes not extant.
Teaching files include documentation of Ryan's work at Dalton School, Hudson School, the New School for Social Research, and Savannah College of Art and Design, and many other workshops and training programs Ryan taught. Included are grade books, correspondence, curricula, training materials, and reports. Two of his programs, the Black Rock Rangers at the Dalton School, and the Urban Conservation Corps Pilot Video Program involve the implementation of the Earthscore Notational System in school curricula.
Printed material includes books, newspaper clippings, conference programs and published proceedings, exhibition catalogs and announcements, film and video programs, flyers, periodicals, poetry publications, posters, and materials relating to the artist Al Robbins, which includes an obituary written by Ryan. Also found are publications of the Raindance Corporation, which include the book, Guerrilla Television (1971), and four issues of their magazine, Radical Software (1971-1972). Most of the printed material was either written by Paul Ryan, contains articles by Paul Ryan, or documents activities of Paul Ryan. Other materials found contain works by Ryan's associates and collaborators.
Artwork contains artists' books, doodles, illustrations, prints, and photographs by named and unnamed artists. None of the artwork in this series appears to be by Ryan. Notable is an artist's book entitled "Patterns" by Lida Zerella, which incorporates still images from Ryan's Triadic Tapes in a small album. Two illustrations are found by Claude Ponsot, who also illustrated many of Ryan's publications relating to Kleinform and threeing.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged as 8 series.
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1931-2003 (0.8 linear feet; Boxes 1, 20)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1965-2007 (2 linear feet; Boxes 1-3)
Series 3: Writings, 1955-2001 (6.8 linear feet; Boxes 3-10, 20)
Series 4: Organizational Records, 1968-1996 (1.2 linear feet; Boxes 10-11, 20, OV 21)
Series 5: Project Files, 1968-2008 (6.5 linear feet; Boxes 11-17, 20, OV 21-22, 24, RD 26)
Series 6: Teaching Files, 1967-2008 (0.7 linear feet; Box 17)
Series 7: Printed Materials, 1968-2009 (1.6 linear feet; Boxes 18-20, OV 23, 25)
Series 8: Artwork, 1965-2003 (0.1 linear feet; Boxes 19-20, OV 22)
Biographical / Historical:
Paul Ryan was a pioneering video artist, writer, teacher, and theoretician based in New York City and the Hudson Valley of New York State. Born in 1943, Ryan spent his early adulthood as a seminarian and later a member of the Roman Catholic order of Passionist monks, which he left in 1965. He eventually received a B.A. from New York University. During the Vietnam War, Ryan received conscientious objector status and studied with Marshall McLuhan at Fordham University as alternative service. It was McLuhan's influence that led Ryan to begin to explore the possibilities of the medium of video.
In 1969, Ryan participated in the landmark exhibition "TV as a Creative Medium" curated by Howard Wise, which served to link the kinetic art movement of the 1960s with the emergent medium of video art. The first exhibition in the United States devoted to video, "TV as a Creative Medium" signaled radical changes and defined an emerging artistic movement. In 1969 Ryan co-founded the Raindance Corporation along with Ira Schneider, Michael Shamberg, David Cort, Beryl Korot, Phyllis Gershuny, and others. Raindance was an influential media collective that proposed radical theories and philosophies of video as an alternative form of cultural communication. Influenced by the communications theories of Marshall McLuhan and Buckminster Fuller, the collective produced tapes and writings that explored the relation of cybernetics, media, and ecology. From 1970-1974, Raindance published the seminal video journal Radical Software, which provided a network of communications for the fledgling alternative video movement. In 1971, Shamberg published Guerrilla Television, a summary of the group's principles and a blueprint for a decentralization of television through access to public and cable programming. The original Raindance collective dispersed in the mid-1970s; the nonprofit Raindance Foundation continued into the 1990s. Ryan's core writings from the Raindance era were gathered into his 1973 publication Birth and Death and Cybernation, republished in 1974 as Cybernetics of the Sacred.
Ryan's work to develop alternative uses of video technology continued long after his involvement with Raindance. He began to implement his theories about the use of video monitoring and feedback within dynamic systems with the work that came to be known as the Earthscore Notational System. With Steve Kolpan and Bob Schuler, he founded the Earthscore Foundation, through which he raised money for the exploration and development of this applied practice. Earthscore, based largely on the writings of philosopher Charles Sanders Pierce and Gregory Bateson's work on cybernetics, provided the theoretical and logical underpinnings of both the ecosystem documentation and interpretation process, and the triadic rituals of interpersonal behavior, that became the core of Ryan's work for much of his life. These ideas were implemented in a wide variety of projects such as eco-channel design, video scores specific to certain locations, threeing projects exploring interpersonal behavior with video and computer technology, and a curriculum for combining media production training with environmental education.
Ryan later worked with organizations such as Talking Wood, The Earth Environmental Group, and Environment '89, (re-named in later years Environment '90, '91, and '92) to implement Earthscore systems and prototypes. He co-founded The Gaia Institute, hosted at Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and co-directed it from 1985-1991. The Institute fostered dialogs between science, religion, and art through workshops, lectures, exhibitions and events. He was an artist-in-residence for Earth Environmental Group in 1988 via a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts, and used the residency to carry out his video project "Nature in New York City," documenting city ecosystems and demonstrating how an eco-channel might work. Environment '89 organized a coordinated campaign for a cable channel devoted to the environment, the New York City Eco-channel for a Sustainable Tomorrow (NEST).
Ryan spent his later years as a professor of media production and theory at Savannah College of Art and Design, and then at the New School for Social Research. His work has been exhibited widely in the United States, including "The Primitivism Show" in The Museum of Modern Art (1984), "The American Century Show" at the Whitney Museum of American Art (1999-2000), and the Venice Biennale (2002). He died in 2013.
Provenance:
The papers of Paul Ryan were donated to the Archives of American Art by Ryan in 2008.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers and 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.
Occupation:
Video artists -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Paul Ryan papers, 1931-2009. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, administered through the Council on Library and Information Resources' Hidden Collections grant program.
Interview of Al Hansen conducted 1973 November 6-13, by Paul Cummings, for the Archives of American Art.
Hansen traces his personal history, recalling his childhood and early education in Queens; his service in the armed forces; and jobs he held in social work, advertising, off-Broadway theater, and art galleries. He describes taking classes with John Groth at the Art Students League in the 1940s; with Reuben Nakian at Pratt in the 1950s; and with John Cage at the New School in 1958. He also discusses the rise of New York as an art center; his interest in film; his involvement in experimental sound and music; his approach to creating Happenings and that of other artists; organizing poetry readings at the Epitome Coffee Shop; his Hershey bar wrapper collages; the writing of his book, "A Primer of Happenings and Space Time Art," (New York: Something Else Press 1965); his interactions with Fluxus and George Maciunas; participating in the "Below Zero" show at the Reuben Gallery in 1959; attending the Destruction In Art symposium in London in 1966; and his recent exhibitions in Germany. People he recalls include Tony Smith; Pauline Goldfine [ph]; Dick Higgins; Wolf Vostell; Larry Poons; Allan Kaprow; Claes Oldenburg; Don McCarey [ph]; Jim Dine; George Brecht; Jackson Mac Low; James Waring; Marisol Escobar; Ivan Karp; Bob Watts; George Segal; Judith Dunn; Bob Dunn; Jan Müller; Nam June Paik; Raphael Ortiz; Charlotte Moorman; and Lettie Lou Eisenhauer.
Biographical / Historical:
Al Hansen (1927-1995) was an artist from New York, New York. Founder of Fluxus art movement and one of the first Happenings artists.
Provenance:
These interviews are 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.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
New School for Social Research (New York, N.Y.) Search this
Type:
Interviews
Sound recordings
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Michelle Stuart, 2015 November 3-2017 May 23. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
The papers of Dore Ashton measure 35.6 linear feet and date from circa 1928-2014, with one letter in the Joseph Cornell subject file dating from 1849. The records document Dore Ashton's career as an art critic, historian and educator, with particular depth for the period of 1952 through 1990. The collection contains a small amount of biographical material, as well as correspondence, writings, subject files, printed materials, artwork, and reference photographs of artworks. An addition to the Dore Ashton papers includes biographical material, correspondence, writings, writing project and subject files, teaching files, printed material, artwork and sketchbooks, and photographic material.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Dore Ashton measure 35.6 linear feet and date from circa 1928-2014, with one letter in the Joseph Cornell subject file dating from 1849. The records document Dore Ashton's career as an art critic, historian and educator, with particular depth for the period of 1952 through 1990. The collection contains a small amount of biographical material, as well as correspondence, writings, subject files, printed materials, artwork, and reference photographs of artworks. An addition to the Dore Ashton papers includes biographical material, correspondence, writings, writing project and subject files, teaching files, printed material, artwork and sketchbooks, and photographic material.
The bulk of the collection consists of correspondence with many artists, writers and others, including Pat Adams, James Adley, Rudolf Arnheim, Jake Berthot, Dennis Congdon, George Herbert, Remo Guidieri, Barbara Howes, Fred Licht, Joan Punyet Miro, Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd, and Hedda Sterne, among others. Smaller amounts of letters are from Joseph Albers, Edward Albee, Richard Avedon, Richard Diebenkorn, David Driskell, Alberto Giacometti, Philip Guston, Lillian Hellman, Alger Hiss, Bernard Malamud, Joan Miro, Robert Motherwell, Lewis Mumford, Claes Oldenburg, and Vassilis Vassilikos.
Writings consist of transcripts of miscellaneous articles or those written for various publications. Research files include reference or research materials for books, exhibitions, individuals and various topics. Individuals and topics include Jacopo Luis Borges, Allan Kaprow, Richard Lindner, Seong Moy, Jean Tinguely, Mark Tobey, Jack Tworkov, Adja Yunkers; and Dadaism, poetry and symbolism.
The addition to the Dore Ashton papers (Series 8) includes biographical material, correspondence, writings, writing project and subject files, teaching files, printed material, artwork and sketchbooks, and photographic material. Writings make up a significant part of the addition and contain hundreds of manuscripts, as well as lectures, notes, sixty notebooks, ten diaries, and writings by others. Writing project and subject files comprise over half of the addition and encompass a large collection of alphabetical files pertaining to artists, actors, writers, thinkers, and collaborators; work projects including writings, exhibitions, panels, symposia, and lecture series; as well as various other subjects and topics. The addition also contains teaching files related to Ashton's positions at the Cooper Union, the New School for Social Research, and Yale University. The photographic material in this series is also abundant and contains hundreds of original photographs of Ashton throughout all stages of her life, many with friends and family.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 8 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1962-1978
Series 2: Correspondence, 1945-2010, undated
Series 3: Writings, 1952-1976, undated
Series 4: Research files, 1849, 1950-1984, 2009, undated
Series 5: Printed Materials, 1931-1981, undated
Series 6: Artwork, 1949, 1952, 1983, undated
Series 7: Photographs of Artwork, circa 1950-2010
Series 8: Addition to the Dore Ashton Papers, circa 1928-2013
Biographical / Historical:
Dore Ashton (1928-) is an art critic, author, and educator living in New York City. She wrote, contributed , and edited more than 30 books. Ashton was born in Newark New Jersey in 1928 and received an MA from Harvard University in 1950. Her many books and articles focus on late 19th and 20th century art and artists. Ashton was associate editor at Art Digest from 1952-1954, and critic for Arts and Architecture at the New York Times, 1955-1960. Starting in 1962 she held several lecturing posts at various institutions including the School of Visual Arts, Cooper Union, and the New School for Social Research. She was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship in 1964 and a National Endowment for the Humanities grant in 1980. Among Ashton's books are Abstract Art Before Columbus, 1956; Poets and the Past, 1959; A Joseph Cornell Album, 1974; Yes, But…A Critical Study of Philip Guston, 1976, About Rothko, 1983; The New York School: a Cultural Reckoning, 1973; Noguchi East and West, 1992; and David Rankin: The New York Years, 2013. Dore Ashton was the first critic to develop a comprehensive and eye-witness account of the history of the Abstract Expressions.
Ashton married artist Adja Yunkers (1900-1983) in 1953, and they had two daughters Alexandra (known as Sasha) and Marina. In 1985 she married writer Matti Megged (1923-2003).
Related Materials:
Among the holdings of the Archives is an oral history interview with Dore Ashton conducted November 21, 2010 by George W. Sampson, for the Archives of American Art's Elizabeth Murray Oral History of Women in the Visual Arts Project.
Dore Ashton papers are also located at Emory University Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library.
Provenance:
The Dore Ashton papers were donated to the Archives of American Art by Dore Ashton May 27, 1982, May 8, 1997, June 2, 2011, and March, 25, 2016.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers 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.
Occupation:
Art critics -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Art historians -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Authors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Educators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
An interview of Dore Ashton conducted 2010 November 21 and 2011 March 9, by George W. Sampson, for the Archives of American Art's Elizabeth Murray Oral History of Women in the Visual Arts project, at Ashton's home, in New York, New York.
Ashton talks about growing up politically active; protesting the internment of the Japanese Americans during WWII; attending The New School and then Harvard University; briefly working as a gallery receptionist; writing her first reviews for Art Digest; Howard Devree hiring her as a writer for The New York Times; travels and living in Europe; writing feature pieces about individual artists for The New York Times; writing for Cahiers d'art; her relationships Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Philip Guston, Robert Motherwell, Billy Kluver, Robert Rauschenberg, Octavio Paz, and others; marriage to Adja Yunkers; teaching at Cooper Union; interest in Latin American Art; flirting; being a "dedicated reader of Nietzsche"; visits to the Cedar Tavern; being a peacenik; and other topics. She recalls Jeanne Reynal, Mario Pedrosa, Alger Hiss, Peter Selz, Peter Orlovsky, David Smith, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Dore Ashton (1928-2017) was an art historian in New York, New York. George W. Sampson (1951-) is an arts administrator in Charlottesville, Virginia.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 memory cards. Duration is 2 hr., 57 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Occupation:
Art critics -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Art historians -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Authors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Educators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Zorach, William, 1887-1966 -- Photographs Search this
Extent:
28.1 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Photographs
Sound recordings
Video recordings
Diaries
Interviews
Scrapbooks
Sketches
Date:
1871-2004, bulk 1910s-1980s
bulk 1910-1990
Summary:
The papers of Spanish-born sculptor and educator José de Creeft measure 28.1 linear feet and date from 1871 to 2004 with the bulk of the material dating from the 1910s to the 1980s. Found are biographical materials, correspondence, fifty diaries, writings, subject files, personal business records, printed materials, twenty-seven photo albums and other photographs, scrapbooks, and scattered sketches.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Spanish-born sculptor and educator José de Creeft measure 28.1 linear feet and date from 1871 to 2004 with the bulk of the material dating from the 1910s to the 1980s. Found are biographical materials, correspondence, fifty diaries, writings, subject files, personal business records, printed materials, twenty-seven photo albums and other photographs, scrapbooks, and scattered sketches.
Biographical materials include address books, awards, recorded interviews with and about de Creeft, membership materials, naturalization records, resumes, and travel documents.
Correspondence is primarily professional in nature and concerns exhibitions, de Creeft's involvement in arts organizations, and awards. There are also scattered personal letters from family and friends. Correspondents include Alexander Calder, Nina, Alice, Barbara and William de Creeft, Hunt Diederich, Joseph Escudar, and Gil Gomez, Jacques Lipchitz, Edwin Dickinson, James Johnson Sweeney, Costantino Nivola, Abraham Rattner, and Lamar Dodd, among others.
De Creeft's fifty diaries are nearly complete for the period dating from 1926 to 1981. Some are bound volumes and others are loose pages. The bulk of the diaries are in Spanish and many include sketches. Additional writings, called "escritos varios" by José de Creeft, are mostly in Spanish and consist of typed manuscripts and essays, including "Roosty Was My Friend, 1957, notebooks, an artist's statement, and writings by others, including drafts for The Sculpture of de Creeft by Jules Campos, and a video recording entitled José de Creeft by Bob Hanson. There is one sound recording of Lorrie Goulet reading poetry.
Subject files are varied and include files on de Creeft's teaching positions at the New School for Social Research, Black Mountain College, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and the Art Students League. There are files for some of his sculpture projects, inlcuding Alice in Wonderland, Poet, and a proposed model for the Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial in Georgia, as well as compiled information about various art related topics of interest.
De Creeft's business records include appraisals, contracts, leases, price lists, and scattered receipts. Also found are art inventories in the form of three sets of index cards, some of which include photographs.
Printed materials include books, clippings, exhibition announcements and catalogs, exhibition labels, postcards, and posters.
There are loose photographs and twenty-seven photograph albums depicting de Creeft, his family, friends, and works of art. There are photos of Alexander Calder; de Creeft and Goulet with Raphael Soyer, posing with Soyer's portrait of them; Gertrude Lawrence; art juries, which also include images of Chaim Gross, Jacques Lipchitz, Theodore Roszak, and William Zorach; students, friends, and faculties of Black Mountain College, the Art Students League, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and the Norton School of Art, which also includes images of Joseph Albers, Alexander Calder, Julio De Diego, Walter Gropius, J. B. Neumann, and Abraham Rattner.
Seven mixed media scrapbooks document de Creeft's career from 1929 to 1982. Also found are scattered pen and pencil sketches and one sketchbook dating from the 1920s.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 10 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1914-1979 (Boxes 1, 27; 0.9 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1910s-1980s (Boxes 1-6; 4.2 linear feet)
Series 3: Diaries, 1926-1981 (Boxes 6-11; 5.4 linear feet)
Series 4: Writings, 1871-1977 (Boxes 11-13, 28; 2.5 linear feet)
Series 5: Subject Files, 1924-1980 (Boxes 13-16, 27; 2.4 linear feet)
Series 6: Personal Business Records, 1909-1980s (Boxes 16-17, 27; 1.0 linear feet)
Series 7: Printed Material, 1921-1980s (Boxes 17-21, 27, 33; 4.7 linear feet)
Series 8: Photographs, 1900-2004 (Boxes 21-25, 29, 31; 5.1 linear feet)
Series 9: Scrapbooks, 1929-1982 (Box 26, 30, 32; 1.8 linear feet)
Series 10: Artwork, 1920s-1930s (Box 26; 2 folders)
Biographical / Historical:
José de Creeft (1908-1982) was a Spanish-born sculptor active in New York City, New York.
José de Creeft was born in Guadalajara, Spain and raised in Barcelona. In 1900, he apprenticed to sculptor Don Augustine Querol and studied drawing with Idalgo de Caviedas. De Creeft moved to Paris in 1905 and began formal art training at the Académie Julianand. He also took a studio in the Batteau Lavoir in Montmartre, where he interacted with Pablo Picasso, Juan Gris, Manolo, and Pablo Gargallo, all of whom also had studios there. During this period, de Creeft became friends with the artist Mateo Hernandez.
In 1915, de Creeft rejected the traditional technique of reproducing sculpture in stone from clay and plaster models and turned to direct carving in wood and stone. He was also one of the first sculptors who practiced assemblage and incorporated found objects into his work. His notable assemblage sculpture El Picador, a large figure on horseback, received worldwide press coverage and was exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Independents in 1926. Between 1919 and 1928, his work was exhibited in various Paris salons. In the late 1920s, he created 200 stone carvings for Roberto Ramonje's Forteleza (fortress) in Mallorca. It was around this time frame when de Creeft met Alexander Calder, who became his student in direct carving. De Creeft encouraged Calder to display his mechanical toys and Calder put his Circus together for the first time in de Creeft's studio.
De Creeft emigrated to the United States in 1929, right after marrying fellow sculptor Alice Robertson Carr. They divorced nine years later.
While in New York, de Creeft began sculpting with lead sheets beaten into three-dimensional forms and established a studio at 1 Washington Square. His first solo exhibition was at the Ferargil Galleries in New York City and included The Portrait of Cesar Vallejo in chased lead and The Silver Fox of found materials.
In 1932, de Creeft accepted a teaching position in sculpture at the New School for Social Research. He also taught courses at Black Mountain College, where he met his second wife, sculptor Lorrie Goulet, the Art Students League, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and the Norton Gallery and School of Art. In 1946, de Creeft and Goulet purchased a hundred-acre farm in Hoosick Falls, NY where they established a studio and part-time residence.
Perhaps De Creeft's most well-known monumental scuplture is Alice in Wonderland in Central Park, New York City. The 12' x 16' bronze was dedicated during a public event in 1959 and gave de Creeft worldwide recognition. In 1995 a short film about the making of the sculpture was produced by J. D'Alba and narrated by Lorrie Goulet.
De Creeft was as founding member of the American Artist's Congress, the Sculptors Guild, and the Artist's Equity Association. De Creeft was represented by the Georgette Passedoit Gallery from 1936 to 1949. Later, he joined The Contemporaries (gallery) and exhibited there until 1966. Kennedy Galleries represented de Creeft from 1970 until his death in 1982.
Related Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds an interview of José De Creeft conducted October 1-8, 1968 by Forrest Selvig and the papers of de Creeft's wife Lorrie Goulet.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming (reels D150 and 375-378). While most of the items were included in subsequent gifts, material not donated to the Archives remain with the lender and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
The José de Creeft papers were first lent for microfilming by the artist in 1963 and 1972. Lorrie Goulet, José de Creeft's widow, donated most of this material along with additional items in 1985 and 2009.
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.
The papers of New York City sculptor, painter, educator, and writer Lorrie Goulet (1925- ) measure 10.0 linear feet and date from 1931 to 2009. Goulet's career is documented through biographical materials, correspondence, writings and notes, interviews, exhibition files, project and commission files, teaching files, personal business records, printed materials, photographs, and artwork.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of New York City sculptor, painter, educator, and writer Lorrie Goulet (1925- ) measure 10.0 linear feet and date from 1931 to 2009. Goulet's career is documented through biographical materials, correspondence, writings and notes, interviews, exhibition files, project and commission files, teaching files, personal business records, printed materials, photographs, and artwork.
Biographical materials include awards, resumes, membership documents for the New York Artists Equity Association, and a scrapbook and photograph portfolio for Jose de Creeft's birthday in 1969. Scattered school records include a photocopy of a letter from Aimee Vorhees at the Inwood Pottery School.
Goulet's correspondence is mostly professional in nature but includes some letters from friends and family, including Jose de Creeft. Other notable correspondents include Chaim Gross, Herbert and Dorothy Vogel, and Richard Anuszkiewicz.
Writings and notes by Lorrie Goulet include artists' statements; notes and essays on sculpture, including a disbound binder entitled "Quadrations"; three journals about the creation of Enigma; a statement on Green Serpentine; lectures and talks, including a memorial tribute to Jose de Creeft; and poems. There are also a few writings by others about Goulet.
There are five transcripts of interviews with Lorrie Goulet and with Lorrie Goulet and Jose de Creeft. One of the interviews includes the original sound recordings on cassette tape and one includes a version of the transcript on floppy disc.
Extensive exhibition files document fifty years of Goulet's solo and group exhibitions held at galleries, museums, and institutions throughout the United States. Many of the files are from shows at Carolyn Hill Gallery, The Contemporaries, David Findlay Jr. Gallery, and Kennedy Galleries. Also found is extensive material on Goulet's exhibition at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Lorrie Goulet: Fifty Years of Making Sculpture (1998). File contents vary, but often contain photographs of openings and of works of art, correspondence, printed material, and price lists.
Project and commission files document Goulet's public commissioned works in the New York Public Library, 173 St. Branch, the Nurse's Residence and School at the Bronx Municipal Hospital, the New York City 48th Precinct Station House and Fire House, and the bust of King Juan Carlos I of Spain. There are also files concerning Goulet's television show Around the Corner, an educational children's show that aired from 1964-1968.
Teaching files are from Goulet's positions at the Art Students League, the school at the Museum of Modern Art, the New School for Social Research, and Scarsdale Studio Workshop. Personal business records include scattered bills and receipts for works of art by Goulet and Jose de Creeft and a file regarding Goulet's affiliation with art agent Anna Beck Nalle.
Among the printed materials are clippings, exhibition announcements and catalogs, and issues of magazines and periodicals, many of which include articles about Goulet or her exhibitions. Also found is a videocassette tape concerning Jose de Creeft's Alice in Wonderland narrated by Goulet.
Photographs and eleven photo albums depict Goulet, her family life with Jose de Creeft, celebrations with friends, her artwork and studio, and travel. Also found are photos, slides, and transparencies of works of art. Pencil sketches are by Goulet of her studio. There is also a sketch of Lorrie Goulet by Zorach.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 11 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1931-2009 (0.5 linear feet; Box 1, 11)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1940s-2006 (0.7 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 3: Writings and Notes, 1949-2002 (0.6 linear feet; Box 1-2)
Series 4: Interviews, 1967-2002 (0.3 linear feet; Box 2)
Series 5: Exhibition Files, 1948-2008 (3.1 linear feet; Box 2-5)
Series 6: Project Files, 1950s-2007 (0.8 linear feet; Box 6, 12)
Series 7: Teaching Files, 1958-2000 (0.2 linear feet; Box 6)
Series 8: Personal Business Records, 1969-1990s (2 folders; Box 6)
Series 9: Printed Materials, 1940s-1999 (1.1 linear feet; Box 7-8)
Series 10: Photographs, 1930s-2008 (2.3 linear feet; Box 8-11)
Series 11: Artwork, 1955-1956 (0.1 linear feet; Box 10)
Biographical / Historical:
Lorrie Goulet (1925- ) is a sculptor, painter, educator, and writer active in New York City, New York. She is well-known for direct sculpture on wood and stone.
Lorrie Goulet was born in Riverdale, NY in 1925. As early as the age of seven, Goulet attended the Inwood Pottery School in New York City where she studied under Aimee Vorhees. After the Goulet family moved to Los Angeles, Lorrie continued her studies in art and, in 1940, apprenticed under Jean Rose, a ceramicist in Southern California. In 1943, Goulet enrolled at Black Mountain College in North Carolina where she studied with Joseph and Annie Albers. This is also where she met her husband, sculptor Jose de Creeft; they married in 1944 and had one child, Donna Maria de Creeft. Goulet and de Creeft divided their time between Hoosick Falls, New York and New York City.
Goulet's first solo exhibition was held at the Clay Club Sculpture Center, New York, in 1948. She was represented by Kennedy Galleries in New York, David Findlay Jr. Gallery, and the Harmon Meek Gallery in Naples, Florida. She has exibited widely, including in a number of Annual Exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and in the fine arts pavilion of the New York World's Fair of 1965. In 1998, she was honored by the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington D.C. with a solo exhibition titled Fifty Years of Making Sculpture.
Goulet taught sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art's Peoples Center, New York, in 1957. From 1961 to 1975 she was on the faculty of the New School, New York, and in 1981 began teaching at the Art Students League of New York, where she taught until 2004. Between 1964-1968 Lorrie Goulet demonstrated sculpture techniques on a CBS Television children's program called "Around the Corner", sponsored by the New York City Board of Education.
Lorrie Goulet's sculpture can be found in the permanent collections of museums across the country. She also completed a number of public sculptures commissioned by the City of New York for several of its public buildings in the Bronx including the Branch Public Library at 173rd Street and Grand Concourse (1958), the Nurses School and Residence, Bronx Municipal Hospital (1961), and the 48th Precinct Police and Fire Station Headquarters (1971) - all in varying materials. A bronx bust of King Juan Carlos I of Spain created by Goulet is displayed in the Royal Palace in Madrid.
Goulet is also a painter, philosopher and poet and continues to work in her studio in New York City.
Related Materials:
Also found in the Archives of American Art are the papers of Lorrie Goulet's husband, sculptor Jose de Creeft.
Provenance:
Lorrie Goulet lent a portion of her papers in 1972 for microfilming and later donated those papers along with additional materials to the Archives of American Art in 2010.
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.
Occupation:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Educators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Authors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Topic:
Sculpture, Modern -- 20th century -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
New School for Social Research (New York, N.Y.) -- Faculty Search this
United States. Works Progress Administration Search this
Extent:
1.9 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Scrapbooks
Photographs
Date:
1916-1975
bulk 1940-1969
Summary:
The Francis Criss papers comprise 1.9 linear feet of material dating from 1916 to 1975 (bulk 1940-1969). The collection documents the painting and teaching career of modernist painter Francis Criss mainly through correspondence, handwritten notes for class lectures, exhibition files, newsclippings, scrapbooks, and photographs. Oversized reproductions of his commercial artwork are also found.
Scope and Content Note:
The Francis Criss papers comprise 1.9 linear feet of material dating from 1916 to 1975 (bulk 1940-1969). The collection documents the painting and teaching career of modernist painter Francis Criss mainly through correspondence, handwritten notes for class lectures, exhibition files, newsclippings, scrapbooks, and photographs. Oversized reproductions of his commercial artwork are also found.
The collection is divided into two separate parts. The first represents the papers originally microfilmed as a loan in 1970 that includes biographical information; teaching and lecture notes compiled by Criss for courses he taught at several New York art schools, including the New School and the School of Visual Arts. Also found is correspondence with museums and magazines, Cornell University, the Henry McCarter Estate, and Theodore L. Shaw; exhibition announcements and catalogs; exhibition files and photographs for the Philadelphia Art Alliance exhibition in 1953 and the Visual Arts Gallery Retrospective in 1966; a record of paintings, murals, and projects; clippings; personal photographs and photographs of works of art.
The second part of the collection represents the portion of the 1976 gift that was not microfilmed in 1970. Found is business and personal correspondence with arts organizations, colleagues, former students, and fellow artists. Also included within this accession are Criss' handwritten notes and syllabi for courses he taught and printed material, such as exhibition announcements, invitations, and catalogs. Photographs are of Criss, his studio, several family members, and photographs of artwork Criss produced between 1935-1964, including those for the U.S. Army Medical Corps.
Also found are three dismantled scrapbooks. Scrapbook #1 documents Criss' later career as a commercial artist in New York City, primarily in the 1940s, a decade in which he experienced his greatest success. This scrapbook contains a series of large scale reproductions of his illustrations. Scrapbooks #2 and #3 also include examples of Criss' commercial work, as well as illustrations by other artists, and Criss' handwritten notes and instructions on drawing and painting techniques. A small series of miscellany includes several ledger pages detailing art supply expenses, a small unidentified collage, a copy of a 1957 appraisal report titled The Role of the School of Visual Arts, and other miscellaneous items.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged in two parts. Part 1 represents the papers originally microfilmed as a loan in 1970 on reel N70-34. Part 2 is comprised of the 1976 gift.
Researchers should note that many of the papers filmed as a loan on Reel N70-34 in 1970 were also donated in their original form as part of the 1976 gift. However, certain documents may only be found on the microfilm. For this reason, the Archives maintained and arranged the collection in two separate parts. Part 1 represents the papers originally microfilmed as a loan in 1970 on reel N70-34. Part 2 is comprised of the 1976 gift. The arrangement of the first part of the collection reflects the original order of filming of the loan, with original documents found only on microfilm noted as See or See Also References. The remaining materials donated in 1976 have been arranged into series according to type of material.
Missing Title
Part 1: Papers filmed as a loan on Reel N70-34, 1916-1969 (Box 1, Reel N70-34, 0.4 linear feet)
Part 2: 1976 Gift, 1935-1975, undated (Boxes 2-6, 1.5 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Modernist painter Francis Criss was born in London in 1901 to a Jewish family of Russian descent. At the age of three, his family moved to the United States and settled in Philadelphia. Criss began his art training nine years later at the Graphic Sketch Club and continued his studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Barnes Foundation, the Art Students League in New York, and, later, with private instruction under Jan Matulka. In 1920, Criss was awarded the prestigious Cresson scholarship by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts which allowed him to further his studies in Europe. Around 1931, he began to exhibit paintings in a style that came to define his work -- clean lines, simple forms, and flat color of cityscapes and portraits. Criss' first public success as an artist was his inclusion in the inaugural 1932 Whitney Biennial Exhibition; the museum purchased his painting, Astor Place (1932) for its permanent collection. In 1934, Criss was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to study in Italy.
Throughout the 1930s and early 1940s, Criss was involved with the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the American Artists' Congress, which he helped to organize in 1936. He was also a charter member of the "American Group" with artists that included Philip Evergood, Julian Levy, Jack Levine, William Gropper, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, the Soyers, Chaim Gross, and Abraham Rattner. Critics described his work as both Surrealist and Precisionist and it is often compared to that of Giorgio De Chirico, George Ault, Charles Demuth and Charles Sheeler.
Criss' career began to wane in the 1940s when he turned his attention to commercial art and teaching in order to support his family. Criss taught painting privately and at the Knox-Albright Museum, Brooklyn Museum Art School, The Art Students League, the New School, and the School of Visual Arts. He rarely returned to his own painting during the remainder of his life. Criss died at the age of 72 in 1973.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming (reel N70-34) including notes, exhibition material, photographs of works of art, clippings and a scrapbook. Lent material was returned to the lender and is described as series 1 of the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
In 1970, Francis Criss loaned portions of his papers to the Archives of American Art for microfilming. In 1976, Criss' daughter, Katherine Criss Cappello, donated most of the previously microfilmed materials with additional papers to the Archives.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Use requires an appointment and is limited to the Washington, D.C. research facility.
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.
Topic:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
An interview of Michelle Stuart, conducted 2015 November 3 and 13, and 2017 May 23 by Annette Leddy, for the Archives of American Art at Stuart's studio in New York, New York.
Stuart speaks of her Los Angeles childhood with a Swiss mother and Australian father; her paternal and maternal grandparents; her early interest in history, travel, and art; her schooling; her father's enlistment in the U.S. military during World War II and being raised during her teenage years by her mother; her fascination with Captain Cook; art classes at Chouinard Institute of Art; her work with Diego Rivera in Mexico City; her marriage to Spanish painter Joseph Bartoli and their home life in Paris, France; her return to the U.S. in the late 1950s and life in New York City's West Village; courses at the New School; early exhibitions of her work in New York City gallery group shows; her breakthrough Art Park piece; her relationship to the "Land" artists; Lucy Lippard; Eleanor Munro; the influence of Fluxus; Lawrence Alloway's early essay on her scroll pieces; how she was brought into Galerie Schmela; the founding of Heresies; site specific work in the American Southwest; the enduring impact of the Pacific Ocean on her imagination and art; her use of rocks and other natural materials; her transition to photographic collage; commissions in Sweden, Japan, Alaska, and New York City.
Biographical / Historical:
Michelle Stuart (1933- ) is a visual artist in New York, New York. Annette Leddy is a collector for the Archives of American Art.
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 recording is restricted. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Occupation:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Biographical information, correspondence, photographs, writings, works of art, scrapbooks, artists' and organization files, and inventories documenting William Littlefield's career and a painter, writer, and art collector.
Biographical material includes resumes and awards. Correspondence is with family, friends, galleries, and others, including letters from Littlefirld written while studying in Paris and other European cities. Correspondents include Jean Paul Slusser, Vincent Grimaldi, Stanley William Hayter, Monroe Wheeler, Paul Sachs, Mary Rockwell, Lincoln Kirstein, Duncan Phillips, Muriel Draper, A. Hyatt Mayor, Peter Busa, Archibald MacLeish, among others. Photographs are of Littlefield, his work, friends, and works of art by others. Writings include poetry, articles, essays, notes, a draft for "The Son," a ballet by Littlefield, 1934, and a transcript of a speech by Hans Hofmann given at the Riverside Museum, New York City, Feb. 16, 1941. Works of art include sketches by Littlefield and Stanley Hayter.
Scrapbooks and artists' files contain printed material, correspondence and photographs pertaining to Frank and Isabel Moser, and Mary Peixotto, Herman Heilborn and Alexis Arapoff and others. Organization files include the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts, the New School for Social Research, and The Club, of which he was a member. Inventories include works of art by Littlfield and in his estate.
Biographical / Historical:
William Horace Littlefield (1902-1969) was a painter, writer, and art collector in New York, N.Y.
Provenance:
Donated 1971 by Nancy Stiner, an antique dealer who bought the papers, in 1992, by Fred J. Stone who purchased the estate, in 2007 by Peggy Stone, Fred Stone's daughter, and in 2011 by Arthur Hughes, who purchased the additional material from Nancy Stiner.
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:
Authors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
New School for Social Research (New York, N.Y.) -- Faculty Search this
Extent:
6.9 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Scrapbooks
Interviews
Sketches
Drawings
Photographs
Illustrated letters
Date:
1846-1981
Summary:
The papers of painter and teacher Julian E. (Edwin) Levi date from 1846 to 1981, and comprise 6.9 linear feet. They include biographical information and extensive correspondence with museums and galleries, as well as letters written to his family, circa 1927, while Levi was living in Paris. Also found within the papers are scattered drawings and sketches by Levi, writings and notes, financial records, two scrapbooks, printed material, miscellaneous records and photographs that document Levi's professional career and personal life.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of painter and teacher Julian E. Levi date from 1846 to 1981, and comprise 6.9 linear feet. They consist of biographical information, correspondence, artwork, writings and notes, financial records, scrapbooks, printed material, miscellaneous records and photographs that document Levi's professional career and personal life.
Biographical information includes French documents regarding his trips to Paris in 1920 and 1926-1927. Julian E. Levi's Correspondence, 1914-1981, and undated, concerns professional and personal matters and consists primarily of incoming letters from friends and colleagues, arts organizations, museums, schools, and galleries. Also found are approximately sixty letters he wrote to his family circa 1927, while living in Paris. In addition, a small number of Henderson Family letters, 1846-1886, are included with the Julian E. Levi papers; their relationship to Levi is unclear. Found within the correspondence are illustrated letters and original artwork in the form of greeting cards. Additional Artwork consists mainly of pencil drawings and sketches by Levi, including a large number of stage costume designs.
Writings by Levi consist of brief statements concerning his work and other artists, brief reminiscences of friends, a poem, and the text of a speech. Notes contain miscellaneous jottings, lists of paintings, addresses and telephone information, and address books. Among the writings by others are catalog introductions for Levi exhibitions by unknown authors, and by Lewis Mumford and Archibald MacLeish for An American Group, Inc.
Financial Records concern both business and personal transactions and document art sales, commissions, consignments, and gallery expenses. Also included are receipts, a small number of banking and tax records, and scattered documentation of purchases, appraisals, and sales of antiques in his collection.
Scrapbooks (2 disbound volumes) contain clippings, other printed items, and a few photographs documenting Levi's exhibitions. There are a substantial number of exhibition catalogs and announcements. Miscellaneous printed material includes brochures, newsletters and publications, clippings, invitations, announcements of meetings, blank postcards, travel brochures and printed souvenirs. Also found is a copy of his book, Modern Art: An Introduction, and one of the articles he published in the American expatriate periodical Gargoyle.
Items of note among the Miscellaneous Records pertain to the American Artists' Congress, An American Group, Inc., Downtown Gallery, and New York City Council for Art Week. Other items of interest are a blueprint of plans for Levi's studio at his home in Easthampton, New York, and records regarding the New School for Social Research where Levi taught for many years.
Photographs of artwork include a disbound album of Levi's work and exhibition installation views that show paintings by Levi. Pictures of Levi include some taken when he was a young child, along with many views of him in his studio, with students, and others. Many views of places probably were used as reference for paintings. Other places recorded in photographs include Downtown Gallery, Stuart Davis's grave, and studios he occupied while in Paris, circa 1926-1927 and at the American Academy in Rome, 1967-1968. Of particular note are copies of Resettlement Administration and Farm Security Administration photographs.
Arrangement:
The collection is organized into 9 series. Correspondence and Scrapbooks are arranged chronologically. Other series are further categorized by record type or broad topic, with material in each folder arranged chronologically or alphabetically, as noted in the series descriptions.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Information, circa 1906-1980 (Box 1; 14 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, circa 1846-1981 (Boxes 1-3, OV 9; 2.3 linear ft.)
Series 3: Artwork, circa 1922-1972 (Box 3; 8 folders)
Series 4: Writings and Notes, circa 1938-1978 (Box 3; 11 folders)
Series 5: Financial Records, 1920s-1980 (Box 3; 0.4 linear ft.)
Series 6: Scrapbooks, 1921-1940(Box 4; 2 folders)
Series 7: Printed Material, circa 1922-1981(Boxes 4-6 and OV 10; 2.3 linear ft.)
Series 8: Miscellaneous Records, circa 1940-1974 (Box 6 and OV 9; 0.2 linear ft.)
Series 9: Photographs, circa 1902-1974 (Boxes 6-8 and OV 11; 1.1 linear ft.)
Biographical Note:
Julian Edwin Levi was born in New York in 1900, and his family relocated to Philadelphia six years later. At age 17, Levi enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts where he studied under Henry McCarter and Arthur B. Carles. Upon completing his studies at the Academy in 1919, Levi was awarded one of the Pennsylvania Academy's Cresson Traveling Scholarship which enabled him to travel to Italy during the summer of 1920.
Levi then headed to Paris where he spent the next four years. During this time he became fluent in French, looked at a wide variety of art that influenced him to experiment with abstraction, and had paintings accepted for exhibition the Salon d'Automne of 1921 and 1922. He met many artists in Paris, and developed a close friendship with Jules Pascin. He retuned for a second stay in Paris during 1926 and 1927.
Upon his return to Philadelphia in 1924, Levi and several other modern artists in the city (including his former instructors Carles and McCarter) began exhibiting together under the name "31." The group's work was not well-received. For the remainder of his time in Philadelphia, he continued to paint and on several occasions was able to see Albert Barnes' collection that normally was not open to the public. Levi moved to New York City in 1932 and was attracted to the support and cooperation offered by various artists' organizations. He became a member of An American Group, Inc., in 1933, and was in active in the American Artists' Congress beginning around 1937. Later, Levi was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters, an Associate Artist of the National Academy of Design, and a member of the Century Association.
The sea, beaches, dunes, and shores served as inspiration for many of Levi's paintings. He studied his subjects closely, amassing a wide knowledge of boats, fishing, and related equipment; he even learned professional fishing and sailing techniques in order to better understand his subjects. Levi also focused on painting people, and his wife often served as his model. Paintings by Levi are in many museums, among them: Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Art Institute of Chicago, Butler Institute of American Art, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Des Moines Art Center, Detroit Institute of Arts, Guild Hall, Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Newark Museum, Norton Simon Museum, Santa Barbara Museum, Springfield Museum of Art, Toledo Museum, University of Illinois, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Many of the paintings Levi produced while employed by the Federal Art Project, 1936-1938, served as the nucleus of his first one-man show held in 1940 at Downtown Gallery. He remained with Downtown Gallery for more than a decade. Later, he was associated with the Alan Gallery, Frank K. M. Rehn Galleries, and Nordness Gallery, each of which staged frequent solo exhibitions of Levi's work. He participated in most of the major national exhibitions and in the Venice Biennale, winning prizes awarded by the Art Institute of Chicago, Carnegie Institute, National Academy of Design, University of Illinois, Guild Hall, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. A large retrospective exhibition of his work was organized by Boston University in 1962, and a small retrospective was held in 1971 at Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
A highly respected and much loved teacher, Levi emphasized the importance of drawing and provided individualized instruction. He considered himself a "coach" and viewed his students as less experienced artists (all were encouraged to call him Julian instead of Mr. Levi). His teaching career, which lasted for more than three decades, began in 1946 with his appointments as a painting instructor at the Art Students League and the New School for Social Research in New York City (later the New School appointed him director of its Art Workshop). In 1964 he began making weekly trips to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, where he taught painting; at the start of the 1977 academic year, he reduced his schedule to once a month and acted as a general critic. During the 1967-68 academic year, Levi was on sabbatical leave while artist-in-residence at the American Academy in Rome. In addition, he taught summer courses at Columbia University in the early 1950s and occasionally served as a guest instructor at other summer programs over the years.
Julian Levi died in New York City, February 28, 1982, after a brief illness.
Provenance:
The papers were a gift received in several accessions between 1969-1982 from Julian E. Levi and his estate (Herman Englander, executor). Portions of the collection were microfilmed upon receipt.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Use requires an appointment and is limited to the Washington, D.C. office.
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 interview with Mary Frank conducted 2010 Jan. 10, 11, and Feb. 3, by Judith Olch Richards, for the Archives of American Art, at Frank's home and studio, in New York, N.Y.
Ms. Frank speaks of her childhood in England and her evacuation to Brooklyn during WWII; her initial intention of becoming a professional dancer and studying with the Martha Graham Dance Company; her marriage and travels with photographer Robert Frank; the difficulties of women teaching art; teaching methods; her time at The New School and Queens College; western and non-Western influences; mushroom hunting; solar cookers; her works in clay, sculpture, painting, drawing, monoprint, and triptych installations; her relationships with the galleries Zabriskie, Midtown Payton and DC Moore; Frank also recalls Willem de Kooning, Ruben Nakian, Allan Kaprow, Marjorie Ponce Israel, Joe Chaikin, Paul Cadmus, Henrietta Mantooth Bagley, Joan Snyder, Elanor Munro, Jean-Louise Bourgeois, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Interviewee Mary Frank (1933- ) is a figurative sculptor and painter in New York, N.Y. She is married to musicologist Leo Treitler. Interviewer Judith Olch Richards (1947- ) is former Executive director of iCI in New York, N.Y.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Occupation:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Ceramicists -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The papers of art historian, educator, writer and psychologist Rudolf Arnheim measure 9.6 linear feet and date from 1919 to 1998. The papers document his career in New York, Michigan, and abroad through biographical material, correspondence, writings, lectures, diaries, printed material, and sound recordings.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of art historian, educator, writer and psychologist Rudolf Arnheim measure 9.6 linear feet and date from 1919 to 1998. The papers documents his career in New York, Michigan, and abroad through biographical material, correspondence, writings, lectures, diaries, printed material, and sound recordings.
Biographical material includes a bibliography, biographical sketches, contracts and agreements, sound cassettes of interviews, and other miscellaneous material.
Correspondence is with colleagues, editors, publishers, and universities on various subjects. The bulk of the correspondence is arranged by subject such as architects, art historians, dance, and film. There is correspondence with Harvard University, University of Michigan, Museum of Modern Art, and New School of Social Research, as well as various individuals such as Josef Albers, Gyorgy Kepes, and Alice Sheldon.
Writings and lectures include book reviews, articles, lecture drafts and notes, sound recordings of lectures, manuscripts, and copies of published articles.
Arnheim's diaries date from 1919 to 1987 and discuss his early life as a student in Germany and career as an educator and lecturer. Some diaries include draft writings.
Printed material includes lecture announcements, reviews, clippings, programs, brochures, assorted material from Sarah Lawrence College, and two instructional sound cassettes.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 5 series.
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1939-1991 (Box 1; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1940-1998 (Boxes 1-5; 4.4 linear feet)
Series 3: Writings and Lectures, 1930-1989 (Boxes 5-8; 2.7 linear feet)
Series 4: Diaries, 1919-1987 (Boxes 8-9; 1.0 linear feet)
Series 5: Printed Material, 1928-circa 1990 (Boxes 9-11; 1.2 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
Rudolf Arnheim (1904-2007) was a writer, educator, art historian and psychologist who was born in Germany and immigrated to the United States where he primarily worked in New York and Massachusetts.
Rudolf Arnheim was born in Berlin, Germany on July 15, 1904. He received his doctorate in psychology from the University of Berlin in 1928. Arnheim worked as a film critic and editor for several magazines and journals after graduation. During this time, he gathered information which would be compiled in his book Film as Art (1932). When the Nazis came into power in 1933, Arnheim moved to Rome where he worked at the Institute for the Educational Film for six years, then moved to London in 1939 and worked as a translator for the British Broadcasting Company.
Arnheim immigrated to the United States in 1940. In 1943, he became a psychology professor at Sarah Lawrence College where he continued to teach until 1968. He also taught at the New School for Social Research during this time. From 1959 to 1960, he was a Fulbright lecturer at Ochanomizu University in Tokyo, Japan. After Sarah Lawrence College, Arnheim became a Professor of Psychology of Art at Harvard University, where he stayed until 1974 when he moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan with his wife Mary. He was a visiting professor at the University of Michigan from 1974 to roughly 1984.
Among his many publications are Art and Visual Perception, Toward a Psychology of Art, Visual Thinking, Entropy and Art, Picasso's Guernica, and The Power of Center. Arnheim died in Ann Arbor in 2007.
Related Materials:
Also found in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Rudolf Arnheim conducted by Robert F. Brown, May 16, 1972. Additional papers on Rudolf Arnheim related to psychology are available at the Archives of the History of Psychology in Akron, Ohio.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming (reel 3767) including correspondence with German publishers and editors, 1959-1982; Dumont Buchverlag, 1963-1980; Carl Hanser Varlag, 1974-1981; Helmut Diederich, 1974-1981; Franz Rudolf Knubel, 1971-1981; Werner Korbs, 1976-1982; Jurgen Weber, 1972-1981; and others. The originals were returned to Rudolf Arnheim after microfilming and subsequently donated to the Schiller-Nationalmuseum Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Germany. This material is not described in the collection container inventory or the finding aid.
Provenance:
The Rudolf Arnheim papers were donated to the Archives of American Art in several installments between 1974 to 1998 by Rudolf Arnheim. Arnheim also loaned material for microfilming in 1986.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Use of archival audiovisual recordings and electronic records with no duplicate access copies requires advance notice.
Correspondence, printed material, sketchbooks, photographs, diaries, address books, business records, and exhibition materials.
An autobiography, biographical and genealogical information; Mimi Floch's memoir of her husband, 1980; circa 3,000 letters, some illustrated; a book of poems and writings; a diary, 1909-1974; appointment and address books; 2 transcripts of interviews; an untranscribed interview; writings and notes; an illustrated inventory of his works; business records; exhibition files; 45 sketchbooks of figure, landscape and still life studies, and sketches for his paintings; works of art by Floch and others; 2 scrapbooks of letters, telegrams, and clippings; exhibition catalogs; books; clippings and miscellaneous printed material; and circa 1,200 photographs, slides, and negatives of Floch his family, friends, exhibitions, and works of art.
Award certificates from the National Academy of Design and Columbia University; 2 appointment certificates to the faculty of the New School for Social Research; a list of his awards and appointments; 27 letters, from the National Academy of Design, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, National Institute of Arts and Letters, Carnegie Institute, Audubon Artists, and museums in the U.S., Europe, and Israel.
REEL N69-66: Photographs of paintings by Floch.
REEL 88: Exhibition catalogs, announcements, and published articles on Floch.
ADDITION: Exhibition catalogs and clippings concerning Floch, circa 1942-1978.
Biographical / Historical:
Joseph Floch (1895-1977) was a painter from New York, N.Y., Vienna, Austria, and Paris, France.
Related Materials:
Joseph Floch papers also at Syracuse University.
Provenance:
Donated 1966-1983 by Joseph Floch; his wife, Mimi Hermine Floch; and their daughter, Jenny Floch Efland. Material on reel N69/51 was originally lent by Joseph, but donated in 1983 by Jenny. Additional printed material donated 1986 by Susi Friedmann, whose mother's cousin was married to Floch.
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:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
An interview of David Ellsworth conducted 2007 July 16, by Josephine Shea, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, at Ellsworth's home, in Quakertown, Pennsylvania.
Ellsworth speaks of living and growing up in Iowa for the first fourteen years of his life; moving to Boulder, Colorado when his father became the director of libraries; being the youngest of two boys; his parents meeting at Oberlin College; his early interest and skill in leatherwork and woodwork as a child; spending time with the family at their cabin up in the mountains in Colorado; his experiences with music, vocals, and woodshop in junior high; attending a preparatory high school that had a very strong art program; singing in the Army for the Army Air Defense Command; traveling around with the band; being sent to the headquarters of United States Army of Europe in Heidelberg as a speed typist; studying and learning German while abroad; getting admitted into the architecture department at Washington University in St. Louis; flunking out after three semesters; going to New York City to follow a love interest as well as to study art; attending The New School for Social Research; moving back to the Midwest due of the heavy toll of city life; enrolling in the sculpture department at the University of Colorado and receiving both a bachelor of fine arts and a master of fine arts; his first independent show at Metropolitan State College in Denver, Colorado; working as a designer for a stainless steel food services equipment company called Green Brothers; working at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass, Colorado; opening up a private studio in Boulder; partaking in various craft shows; working with the Belles Artes Gallery in New York City and Santa Fe, the Del Mano Gallery in Los Angeles, The Hand and the Spirit Gallery in Scottsdale which became Materia Gallery, the Gargoyle Gallery in Aspen; and the Cooper-Lynn Gallery in New York City; working as a teacher at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg; his experiences working with resin; his past experiences working with various kinds of wood; his past divorce; the influence of Native American and Southwest architecture and landscape on his work; the lack of reviews on woodturners and woodturning exhibitions; the difficulty of writing about craft art because of the lack of language; turning down commission work because of the limitations it imposes on the artist or creator; the direction in which he believes the craft of woodturning is going; woodturning as predominantly a hobby for retirees seeking to satisfy a need for creative energy; woodturning as a male-dominated craft; the surprisingly large number of well-known men in the fiber field today; designing and making his own line of tools; creating tutorial videos; holding woodturning classes at his home studio; his working process and how it has changed over time; how he and his wife Wendy ended up in Quakertown, Pennsylvania; and how he came up with his various series and how each developed. Ellsworth also recalls Ed Moulthroup, Melvin and Mark Lindquist, JoAnn Rapp; Steven Hogbin, Lois Moran, James Prestini, Irving Lipton, Albert LeCoff, Rick Mastelli, Clay Foster, Michelle Holzapfel, Mark Sfirri, Virginia Dodson, Betty Scarpino, Bonnie Klein, Arthur and Jane Mason, Fleur and Charlie Bressler, Giles Gibson, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
David Ellsworth (1944- ) is a studio woodworker from Quakertown, Pennsylvania. Josephine Shea (1958- ) is a curator from Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan.
General:
Originally recorded 3 sound discs. Reformatted in 2010 as 5 digital wav files. Duration is 2 hr., 41 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.
