Interview of Ilya Bolotowsky conducted 1968 March 24-April 7, by Paul Cummings, for the Archives of American Art.
Bolotowsky, a lively raconteur, recalls a host of episodes from his personal and professional life. He speaks of his childhood in Russia and Azerbaijan; the effects of war and communism; the family's flight as refugees into Georgia and then to present-day Istanbul; and his early education with a private tutor and at a Jesuit school in Istanbul. Bolotowsky recalls his family's emigration to the United States by ship in 1923; his first impressions of New York City; and early visits to the city's museums. He relates numerous anecdotes about faculty and fellow students at the National Academy of Design, including Ivan Olinsky, Raymond Neilson, Charles Hawthorne, Amedee Ozenfant, and William Henry Johnson.
He speaks of various early exhibitions of his work, including those with the Art Students League, G.R.D. Studio, and the J.B. Neumann Gallery. He also describes a stay at Yaddo in 1934.
Bolotowsky recounts his participation in the Public Works of Art Project as a teacher of art to delinquent children; later work on the mural project of the Works Progress Administration; the picketing of WPA offices, providing anecdotes about Max Spivak and Joseph Vogel; military service during World War II, first working on a Russian dictionary of technical terms and then as a liason officer with the Soviet Air Force in Nome, Alaska.
Upon his return from the military, Bolotowsky immediately resumed his painting career, and describes his involvement with artists' organizations such as the American Abstract Artists, the American Artists' Congress, the Concretionists, the Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors, and the Ten; he mentions in these contexts such personalities as Byron Browne, Burgoyne Diller, Werner Drewes, Arshile Gorky, Clement Greenberg, Balcomb and Gertrude Greene, Harry Holtzman, Fernand Leger, Piet Mondrian, and Meyer Schapiro.
Bolotowsky gives an extensive description of his experiences filling in for Joseph Albers for a year at Black Mountain College, and goes on to discuss his subsequent teaching positions at the University of Wyoming (including a discussion of the impact of the Wyoming landscape on his painting), Brooklyn College, Southampton College, and SUNY New Paltz. He devotes great attention to the development of his painting, his understanding of neo-plasticism and abstraction, and his efforts in filmmaking and playwriting.
Biographical / Historical:
Ilya Bolotowsky (1907-1981) was a Russian-American abstract painter in New York, New York.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 12 digital wav files. Duration is 6 hr., 37 min.
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. Funding for the interview was provided by the New York State Council on the Arts.
Transcripts and handwritten drafts of interviews of 86 artists and architects associated with the National Academy of Design, conducted by Lockman. Also included are a few biographical sketches.
Interviewees include: Mrs. Edwin Austin Abbey, Wayman Adams, Robert I. Aiken, Ernest Albert, Alonzo R. Beal, Edward A. Bell, Edwin H. Blashfield, Roy H. Brown, George E. Browne, Arnold Brunner, Alexander S. Calder, Carleton T. Chapman, Benjamin West Clinedinst, Alphaeus Cole, Timothy Cole, Irving E. Couse, Robert B. Crane, Charles C. Curran, B. Franklin De Haven, William R. Derrick, Louis P. Dessar, Thomas W. Dewing, Frederick I. Dielman, Edward Dufner, John W. Dunsmore, Jared B. Flagg, John G. Flanagan, August R. Franzen, Daniel C. French, Sherry E. Fry, Edward Gay, Cass Gilbert, Walter Granville-Smith, Chester Harding, Childe Hassam, Charles W. Hawthorne, William H. Howe, Henry S. Hubbell, William H. Hyde, William S. Jewett, Francis C. Jones, Dora Wheeler Kieth, William Fair Kline, Jonas Lie, Louis Loeb, Will H. Low, Edward McCartan, Frederick MacMonnies, Herman A. MacNeil, Gari Melchers, Francis Luis Mora, H. Siddons Mowbray, Raymond P. R. Neilson, George G. Newell,Robert H. Nisbet,
Ivan G. Olinsky, Willard Dryden Paddock, Walter L. Palmer, Arthur Parton, William McGregor Paxton, Ernest C. Peixotto, Joseph Pennell, Edward H. Potthast, Henry Prellwitz, Wilhelm F. Ritschel, Henry Rittenberg, Frederick Roth, Carl Rungius, Emily Sartain, John Sartain, William Sartain, Henry B. Snell, Robert Spencer, Egerton Swartwout, Douglas Volk, Bessie & Robert Vonnoh, Horatio Walker, Harry Watrous, Adolph Weinman, Charles D. Weldon, William Whittemore, Irving Wiles, Frederick B. Williams, and Cullen Yates.
Biographical / Historical:
DeWitt Lockman was a portrait painter, New York, N.Y. He studied in Europe, 1891-1892 and 1901-1902; a pupil of James H. Beard, Nelson N. Bickford and William Sartain; and was president of the National Academy of Design and records secretary of the New York Historical Society.
Provenance:
Lent 1973 by the New York Historical Society.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Topic:
Artists -- United States -- Interviews Search this
Architects -- United States -- Interviews Search this
1.8 Linear feet ((partially microfilmed on 2 reels))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
1900-1962
Scope and Contents:
Correspondence; photographs; sketches; writings; and printed material.
REEL D116: Business correspondence; photographs; catalogs and clippings. Included are personal notes from Edwin H. Blashfield, Frederick S. Church, Leon Kroll, and Maurice Sterne and a long early series of letters from John La Farge concerning the work Olinsky did with La Farge in Boston prior to 1910.
REEL 1007: 309 photographs, including 254 of Olinsky's works, and 55 personal photos, some of Art Students League group and a few photos of other artists. Included is one of Olinsky taken by Francis Scott Clancy, 1915.
UNMICROFILMED: Five sketches of Olinsky by artist friends, including Bernard Karfiol, 1900; 11 letters, 1962-1963, to Olinsky's daughter, Leonore Miller, mostly letters of condolence; an undated list of his works; a recipe for egg colors; a page of anatomy notes; a copy of JOHN LA FARGE; ARTIST AND WRITER by Cecilia Waern (New York: Macmillan and Co.) 1896; and miscellaneous exhibition catalogs and articles on Olinsky.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter; Old Lyme, Connecticut. Born in Russia.
Provenance:
Material on reel D116 lent for microfilming 1963, and donated in part in 1974, along with unfilmed material, by Leonore O. Miller, daughter of Olinsky.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Olinsky, Ivan G. (Ivan Gregorewitch), 1878-1962 Search this
Extent:
0.4 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
1925-1973
Scope and Contents:
Two letters from Ivan Olinsky; photographs of La Gambina and his paintings, one of a mural executed in 1937 for the W.P.A.; awards; two notes from Sedrig Dickinson; catalogs, clippings, and a copy of the Annual Magazine of the Leonardo Da Vinci Art School, 1925 which flourished during the 1920's and 1930's.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter, mural painter; Brooklyn, N.Y.
Provenance:
Donated 1976 by Vincent La Gambina.
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:
Muralists -- New York (State) -- Brooklyn Search this
Painters -- New York (State) -- Brooklyn Search this
Photographs of and letters from artists, and a sales catalog.
REEL D10: A letter from Ann Arbor, Michigan painter Carlos Lopez answering Burroughs's request for information about a painting.
REEL 1817: Six toned silver gelatin photographs taken by Frank Scott Clark, 1915, of artists Alexis Jean Fournier, Gari Melchers, Ivan Olinsky, William Ritschel, Julius Rolshoven and Paul Troubetzkoy, each inscribed to Burroughs by the artist, 1915 and 1916. [Arranged alphabetically on microfilm with other unrelated photographs in Photographs of Artists Collection Two.]
REEL 2787: Letters from artist friends and acquaintances, including a letter from sculptor, Arthur C. Morgan, about a bust he is working on; a letter from Henry Boller Pancoast, 1925, "in receipt of your kind invitation to send my picture to Detroit for your annual exhibition," written on a card with a reproduction of a painting by Pancoast; photocopies of 11 letters received by Burroughs from Frank W. Benson, DeWitt Parshall, and William Sergeant Kendall, all regarding the exhibition of their works at the Detroit Museum of Art; and an annotated catalog of the sale of oil paintings, etchings, watercolors, and drawings belonging to Clyde Burroughs.
REEL 3482: A letter to Burroughs from Betsy Graves Reyneau, undated and one from Isaac Rader, 1927, each giving biographical information.
Biographical / Historical:
Clyde Burroughs (1882-1973) was an art administrator, director, and historian from Detroit, Mich. Director of the Detroit Museum of Art which became the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Provenance:
Donated possibly by Burroughs.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Occupation:
Art museum directors -- Michigan -- Detroit Search this
REEL 2029: 41 group photographs of artists' outings. Appearing in one or more photos are: George R. Barse, Charles Bittinger, A.E. Blackmore, Robert F. Bloodgood, J.G. Brown, Frederick S. Church, Percival De Luce, William H. Drake, Charles H. Ebert, Homer F. Emens, L. Farragut, William B. Faxon, William C. Fitler, Arthur R. Freedlander, J.C. Guy, Seymour J. Guy, William St. John Harper, Carl Hirschberg, William H. Howe, Francis C. Jones, James Kinsella, L. Kleiser, Homer Lee, Joseph Lauber, William H. Lippincott, Will H. Low, George W. Maynard, Charles F. W. Mielatz, B. Mitchell, James C. Nicoll, Ivan G. Olinsky, John F. O'Sullivan, W. P. Phelps, William M. Post, Frederick Richardson, Roswell M. Shurtleff, William T. Smedley, Charles Y. Turner, Douglas Volk, and Giles Whiting.
Biographical / Historical:
Artists' Fellowship's purpose is to assist artists and their families in case of sickness, bereavement or distress. It grew out of the Helpful Society, founded 1868, and housed in the Tenth Street Studio Building. It became the Artists' Mutual Aid Society, whose name was changed in 1889 to the Artists' Aid Society. In 1925 the Society was incorporated as Artists' Fellowhip, Inc.
Provenance:
Donated 1980 by Artists' Fellowship, via Michael Engel II, President. The original negatives and album of vintage prints on reel 2029 were found in the offices of the National Academy of Design, where the Fellowship at one time maintained offices.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Rights:
Identities of recipients of awards: Authorization to quote or reproduce for purposes of publication requires written permission from Artists' Fellowship, Inc. Contact Reference Services for more information.
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 painter Abraham Walkowitz date from 1904-1969, and measure 2.9 linear feet. Found within the papers are biographical material; letters from artists, friends, and art collectors; business records; four interview transcripts; notes and writings; exhibition announcements, cataloges, and other printed material; and photographs of Walkowitz, friends, colleagues, and artworks.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of painter Abraham Walkowitz date from 1904-1969, and measure 2.9 linear feet. Found within the papers are biographical material; letters from artists, friends, and art collectors; business records; four interview transcripts; notes and writings; exhibition announcements, catalogs, and other printed material; and photographs of Walkowitz, friends, colleagues, and artworks.
Biographical material consists of autobiographical notes, a citizenship certificate, membership and registration cards, medical records, and address books.
Letters, with scattered responses from Walkowitz, are primarily from colleagues including artists John Taylor Arms, George Biddle, Paula Eliasoph, Ivan G. Olinsky, Walter Pach, Alfred Stieglitz, Carl Van Vechten, and Max Weber, Boston art collector Louis Schapiro, publisher E. Haldeman-Julius, writer Horace Traubel, and dancers Elizabeth Duncan and Maria-Theresa Duncan, the sister and adopted daughter of Isadora Duncan respectively. Individual letters are primarily from the diverse group of notable people to whom Walkowitz had sent copies of his books. Also found are letters from art organizations and museums.
Business records consist of documents concerning the will of art collector George M. Dunaif, letters of acknowledgement of gifts of art work donated by Walkowitz to various museums, and miscellaneous financial material. Transcripts are of three interviews with Walkowitz and an interview with Walkowitz and Frank Kleinholz. Notes and writings include lists of names, addresses, and art work, miscellaneous lecture notes, and writings by Walkowitz and by others. Printed material consists of clippings, exhibition announcements and catalogs, reproductions of art work, and books by Walkowitz, and by Walkowitz and E. Haldeman-Julius.
The photographs series contains the most significant material in the collection. The majority of photographs are of Abraham Walkowitz, taken by many notable photographers including Arnold Genthe, Lotte Jacobi, Arnold Newman, Alfredo Valente, Carl Van Vechten, and Clarence White. Also found are photographs of friends and colleagues, as well as photographs of art work by Walkowitz and others.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 7 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material 1906-1944 (Box 1, 5; 8 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1906-1966 (Box 1; 0.8 linear feet)
Series 3: Business Records, 1930-1956 (Box 1; 5 folders)
Series 4: Interview Transcripts, 1944-1958 (Box 1; 5 folders)
Series 5: Notes and Writings, 1904-1949 (Box 1-2; 26 folders)
Series 6: Printed Material, 1910-1969 (Box 2, 5; 0.8 linear feet)
Series 7: Photographs, 1904-1958 (Box 2-5; 0.9 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Abraham Walkowitz (1878-1965) was a painter in Brooklyn, New York. Walkowitz was born in Tumen in Siberian Russia, the son of Jacob and Rita Schulman Walkowitz. Following the death of his father, a lay rabbi and cantor, in the late 1880s, Walkowitz immigrated to the United States with his mother and siblings and settled in the Lower East Side of New York City.
Walkowitz began his study of art at the Educational Alliance, at Cooper Union, and at the National Academy of Design. In early adulthood he worked as a sign painter and taught at the Educational Alliance from 1900 to 1906. He managed to save enough for passage to Paris where he continued his studies at the Académie Julian under Academic painter Jean-Paul Laurens. During this time, Walkowitz met Max Weber who introduced him to Matisse, Picasso, and Gertrude and Leo Stein. They exerted a considerable influence on Walkowitz's artistic development toward abstraction. Weber also introduced him to Isadora Duncan, whose style of improvisational dance inspired Walkowitz to create over 5,000 drawings and watercolors of her dancing form over the next four decades.
Walkowitz returned to New York in 1907 and laid claim to being the first to exhibit truly Modernist paintings in the United States with his exhibition at the Haas Gallery in 1908. After 1909, he became an intimate of Alfred Stieglitz's 291 Gallery where he became a regular exhibitor along with Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, and John Marin, among others. Walkowitz's work appeared in landmark avant-garde exhibitions including the 1913 Armory Show, the Forum Exhibition of 1916, the People's Art Guild showings of contemporary art from 1915-1917, and the inaugural show of the Société Anonyme in 1920.
When interest in the Modernist movement diminished during the 1930s, Walkowitz's career also diminished, but he continued as an avid member and officer in the Society of Independent Artists. In the mid-1940s, he explored the varieties of the modernist vision in the form of an exhibition of 100 portraits of Walkowitz by 100 artist colleagues. The result was widely discussed and was featured in Life magazine in 1944. In 1945, Walkowitz travelled to Kansas to reunite with his colleague, E. Haldeman-Julius, to publish in a series of books concerning Walkowitz's art work. He also executed a series of drawings of the barns and strip mines in the area. But by 1946, glaucoma had begun to impair Walkowitz's vision, leading to his eventual blindness. Also in the mid-1940s, Walkowitz lost the contents of his studio to fire.
In 1963, Walkowitz received the Marjory Peabody Award of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. His work is represented in the collections of the Newark Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Abraham Walkowitz died on January 26, 1965 in Brooklyn, New York.
Related Material:
Also found at the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview of Abraham Walkowitz conducted by Abram Lerner and Mary Bartlett Cowdrey, December 8 and 22, 1958.
Provenance:
Portions of the papers were donated in 1959 by Abraham Walkowitz; in 1966 by Dr. Rosa E. Prigosen, the artist's niece; in 1981 through a transfer of material from the National Museum of American Art/National Portrait Gallery Library; and in 1996 by Howard and Lila Schulman.
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.
Topic:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The scattered papers of painter Ernest Lawson measure 0.6 linear feet and date from 1907 to 1967. The papers consist of family correspondence with daughter Margaret, and between Margaret and her mother Ella Lawson; a dismantled scrapbook containing exhibition announcements, catalogs, and clippings; and a 1937 photograph of a group of artists at a dinner at the Salmagundi Club honoring Lawson along with a photograph of a work of art by Lawson signed by the numerous artists attending the dinner, including Victor C. Anderson, George Elmer Browne, Gordon Grant, Eugene Higgens, Ivan G. Olinsky, Eugene Speicher, Guy Wiggens, and Keith Shaw Williams, among others.
Scope and Contents:
The scattered papers of painter Ernest Lawson measure 0.6 linear feet and date from 1907 to 1967. The papers consist of family correspondence with daughter Margaret, and between Margaret and her mother Ella Lawson; a dismantled scrapbook containing exhibition announcements, catalogs, and clippings; and a 1937 photograph of a group of artists at a dinner at the Salmagundi Club honoring Lawson along with a photograph of a work of art by Lawson signed by the numerous artists attending the dinner, including Victor C. Anderson, George Elmer Browne, Gordon Grant, Eugene Higgens, Ivan G. Olinsky, Eugene Speicher, Guy Wiggens, and Keith Shaw Williams, among others.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 1 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Ernest Lawson papers, 1907-1967 (0.5 linear feet; Box 1, OVs 2-4)
Biographical / Historical:
Ernest Lawson (1873-1939) was painter active in New York City and member of the group of American early modernist painters known as "The Eight."
Born in Nova Scotia, Canada and raised in Kansas, Ernest Lawson moved to New York City in the 1880s. There, he studied at the Art Students League and studied under John Twachtman. He also studied at the Cos Cob Connecticut summer art school before moving to Paris in 1893 to study at the Académie Julian. While in Paris he also shared a studio with W. Somerset Maugham, who is believed to have used Lawson as the inspiration for the character "Frederick Lawson" in his 1915 novel Of Human Bondage
.
Lawson returned to the United States in 1896 and transitioned from his Impressionist style to a Realist style, painting primarily cityscapes. Lawson had his first solo exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1907 and won a prize for a winter landscape. Lawson joined the group painters that would become known as "The Eight," whose members included Robert Henri, William Glackens, John Sloan, George Luks, Everett Shinn, Arthur B. Davies, and William Prendergast. These painters protested that the exhibition system in New York was a closed system that did not welcome change and modern style. In 1908, Macbeth Galleries staged the seminal show of the "The Eight."
Lawson married Ella Holman and they had two daughters Margaret and Dorothy. Lawson tragically drowned in Florida in 1939.
Provenance:
Margaret Lawson Bensco donated her father's papers in 1976. In 1985, Lawson's granddaughter Alice Simon donated the 1937 photograph of artists at the Salmagundi Club and the photograph of a work of art by Lawson signed by numerous artists.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Research Center in Washington, D.C. Contact Reference 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.
