This collection, which measures 7.9 linear feet and dates from 1851 to 1995 (bulk 1913-1995), documents the life and career of muralist, sculptor, and educator Reuben Kadish. The papers contain biographical material, letters, personal business records, an exhibition file, notes, writings, artwork, printed material, photographs, and artifacts.
Scope and Content Note:
The Reuben Kadish papers measure 7.9 linear feet and date from 1851 to 1995 with the bulk of the material dating from 1913 to 1995. The collection documents the life and career of muralist, sculptor, and educator Reuben Kadish and contains biographical material, letters, personal business records, an exhibition file, notes, writings, artwork, printed material, photographs, and artifacts.
Biographical material, 1938-1992, includes résumés and personal identification items. Letters are from friends and colleagues including Herman Cherry, Philip Guston, Hilaire Hiler, Jules Langsner, Urban Neininger, Charles Pollock, and Jackson Pollock. One letter from the Leonard Stark family contains a small photograph of Georgia O'Keeffe.
Personal business records, 1952-1995, consist of legal documents, including estate papers for Ida and Reuben Kadish, and financial records. The only specific exhibition file documents the 1990 exhibition Reuben Kadish: Works from 1930 to the Present at the New Jersey State Museum in 1990.
Notes include unbound notes on mural painting, printmaking, sculpture, and other art-related topics, and handwritten translations by William H. Thomson of thirty classic texts by Homer, Horace, and Demosthenes. Writings, 1975-1992, consist of an autobiographical manuscript by Kadish, and typescripts concerning Kadish and other art-related topics by other authors including Dore Ashton, Herman Cherry, Howard Conant, and Judd Tully.
Artwork, undated and 1981-1992, includes a hundred sketches and seventeen watercolors by Kadish, and a drawing for DIG (Archeology) by Barbara Kadish. Printed material relates primarily to exhibitions for Kadish and others but also includes a baseball program autographed by Darryl Strawberry. Photographs include prints of Kadish and other artists working on murals, and photographs picturing family and friends.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into ten series, based on type of material. Although acquired as a gift before the rest of the collection was loaned to the Archives of American Art in 1998, eight photographs are described in Series 9: Photographs, with those included in the 1998 loan.
Each series is arranged chronologically, except Series 2: Letters and Series 6: Writings, which are arranged alphabetically according to the surname of the writer.
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1938-1992 (box 1, 3 folders)
Series 2: Letters, 1934-1995, undated (boxes 1-3, 2.5 linear ft.)
Series 3: Personal Business Records, 1952-1995 (boxes 3-4, 37 folders)
Series 4: Exhibition File, 1989-1991 (box 4, 1 folder)
Series 5: Notes, 1851-1853, 1937-1992, undated (boxes 4-5, 35 folders)
Series 6: Writings, 1963-1992, undated (box 5, 14 folders)
Series 7: Artwork, 1981-1992, undated (boxes 5, 10, 8 folders)
Series 8: Printed Material, 1934-1993, undated (boxes 5-7, 76 folders)
Series 9: Photographs, 1913-1992, undated (boxes 7-9, sol 10, 2.0 linear ft.)
Series 10: Artifacts, undated (box 9, 1 folder)
Biographical Note:
Reuben Kadish was born in Chicago on January 29, 1913. His father and mother were from Latvia and the Ukraine respectively.
In 1921, the family moved to East Los Angeles, California, where Kadish studied painting under Lorser Feitelson. During this time, he befriended Jackson Pollock and Philip Guston, who attended the Manual Arts High School.
During a trip to New York City in 1930, Kadish was impressed with the modern art, especially the work of the Surrealists, which he saw there. Upon his return to Los Angeles the following year, Kadish attended the Otis Art School, the Stickney School of Art in Pasadena, and Los Angeles City College. He also shared a studio with Philip Guston.
In 1933, Kadish, Guston and Jules Langsner were apprenticed to Mexican muralist, David Alfaro Siqueiros. Their most notable work being the mural "Triumph of Good Over Evil", at the University of Morelia in Mexico. During the next three years, the three young artists collaborated on painting murals in California and Mexico. After another visit to New York, Kadish was invited to San Francisco by Bill Gaskin to head the art division of the WPA project there, a position he occupied until 1940.
From 1940, Kadish worked as a coppersmith and welder at the Bethlehem Steel Works in San Francisco until 1942, when he joined the Army as a member of the War Artist Unit, serving in India and Southeast Asia during World War II. In 1944, he rejoined his wife Barbara in the Bay Area, but they soon returned to New York City, where Kadish worked for Stanley William Hayter at Atelier 17. In the summer of 1945, the Kadish painted with Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner in a shared Long Island house on Slow's Point in Amagansett.
In 1946, the Kadishes moved to a dairy farm in Vernon, New Jersey, where they supported themselves by farming until 1957. A catastrophic fire in the studio destroyed most of Kadish's paintings in 1947, causing him to turn his interest to creating sculpture.
After teaching art and design at the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art in 1957, Kadish taught sculpture at the Brooklyn Museum Art School from 1958-1959. In 1960, he began his thirty-year teaching career at Cooper Union, which ended only a few months before his death on September 20, 1992 in Manhattan.
Related Material:
Other resources relating to Reuben Kadish in the Archives of American Art include an oral history interview with Kadish, April 15, 1992.
Provenance:
The eight photographs on Reel 5660 were donated to the Archives of American Art in 1984 by Reuben Kadish. The other material on Reels 5655-5660 was lent for filming in 1998 by Morris and Ruth Kadish, brother and sister-in-law of Reuben Kadish, and executors of his estate, and subsequently donated to the Archives of American Art in 2002.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Use requires an appointment. Microfilmed portion must be consulted on microfilm.
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:
Sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews Search this
An interview of Charles Duback conducted 2004 December 15-2005 May 18, by Susan C. Larsen, for the Archives of American Art, in Tenants Harbor, Maine.
Mr. Duback discusses his childhood; his Czech lineage; working at his father's bakery and gaining artistic sensibilities there; the drive to become an artist, and the financial risks therein; joining the Navy during World War II; attending trade school in New Haven, Connecticut, and the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art in Newark, New Jersey; attending the Skowhegan School in Maine; his first wife Daphne Mumford; sustaining two homes, one in New York City and another in Maine, and the difficulties in maintaining them; the influence of collage on his paintings; his "strip" paintings; the opening and closing of the Landmark Gallery; making his "projections," wherein he adheres objects to a painting's canvas; and the friends he made during his time running Landmark. Duback also mentions moving from North Waldoboro, Maine to St. George, Maine; moving again to Germantown, New York; finding living in New York difficult; divorcing Mumford; his second wife Phyllis; rising tax and insurance costs and what they mean to artists; and painting as a career. Duback recalls Bernard Langlais, Helen Langlais, Edward Dugmore, Alex Katz, Wes LaFountain, Red Grooms, George Ortman, Myron Stout, George McNeil, Dennis Pinette, John Grillo, Henry Varnum Poor, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Charles S. DuBack (1926-) is a painter of Tenants Harbor, Maine. Susan C. Larsen, interviewer, is an art historian in Tenants Harbor, Maine.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound discs. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 2 hr., 11 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.
The papers of Werner and Yetta Groshans measure 2.0 linear feet and date from 1928 to 1997. The papers document Werner Groshans career as a painter through correspondence, professional files, printed material, and photographs. Correspondence is with friends and colleagues, as well as art collectors, art organizations, and galleries. Also included is a file of correspondence in regards to Groshans jurying exhibitions. Professional material consists of awards and certificates, a statement on art written by Groshans, interviews with Alice Neel on three audio cassettes, a video retrospective on Groshans, and videos documenting Groshans artwork, one recorded just before his death. Printed material consists of magazine and newspaper clippings, exhibition catalogs, artist biographies and reports from the National Academy of Design, and Groshans' obituary. Also found are photographs of Groshans and photographs and slides of his artwork.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Werner and Yetta Groshans measure 2.0 linear feet and date from 1928 to 1997. The papers document Werner Groshans career as a painter through correspondence, professional files, printed material, and photographs. Correspondence is with friends and colleagues, as well as art collectors, art organizations, and galleries. Also included is a file of correspondence in regards to Groshans jurying exhibitions. Professional material consists of awards and certificates, a statement on art written by Groshans, interviews with Alice Neel on three audio cassettes, a video retrospective on Groshans, and videos documenting Groshans artwork, one recorded just before his death. Printed material consists of magazine and newspaper clippings, exhibition catalogs, artist biographies and reports from the National Academy of Design, and Groshans' obituary. Also found are photographs of Groshans and photographs and slides of his artwork.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into four series.
Series 1: Correspondence,1928-1997 (1.0 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 2: Professional Activity Files, 1948-1987 (0.2 linear feet; Box 2)
Series 3: Printed Material, 1948-1994 (0.6 linear feet; Box 2)
Series 4: Photographic Material, 1966-1980 (0.2 linear feet; Box 2)
Biographical / Historical:
Werner Groshans (1913-1986) was a painter in New Jersey and New York. He married Yetta Abromovitz in 1944.
Groshans was born in Germany and moved with his family to the United States at the age of thirteen. He began his studies at the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art a year later. As a young adult during the Great Depression, he participated in the Works Progress Administration Easel Project for two years, allowing him to develop as an artist without the worry of finding full-time work. By the early 1960s, his artwork began to gain recognition, and in 1965 he was elected to the National Academy of Design. Groshans often worked from his memory of real places seen in nature, but his strange juxtapositions of objects and figures led William Gerdts, a graduate professor at the City University of New York, to describe his style as "Mysterious Realism."
Provenance:
The Werner Groshans papers were donated to the archives between 1992 and 1997 by Yetta Groshans, widow of Werner Groshans.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Researchers interested in audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Werner and Yetta Groshans papers, 1928-1997. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
The processing of this collection received Federal support from the Smithsonian Collections Care and Preservation Fund, administered by the National Collections Program and the Smithsonian Collections Advisory Committee.
3 curriculum vitae of Samuel and Florence Brecher; letters from Samuel and Florence Brecher to Wancea, 1976-1994; photographs of Brecher including a photograph of him with his family, ca. 1909 and one of him at work, 1947; two photos of Brecher's works of art; six snapshots and negatives of Brecher presenting a painting demonstration in his studio to students from the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts, 1970; and twenty-one color slides and black and white 35mm negatives of Brecher's studio at 124 West 23rd St. in New York City, taken August 1, 1982.
Provenance:
Donated 1997 and 1999 by William J. Wancea, a friend and student of Brecher's at the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art (1966-1969).
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
Printmakers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
