Correspondence, exhibition files, printed material, photographs, and business records.
Files on exhibitions, lectures and special events including exhibitions of Edgar Degas, Victor Hammer, Fernand Leger, Jose Clemente Orozco, Hans Richter, John Sloan, Chicago artists, architects, and collectors. Files contain correspondence with director Frances Strain Beisel, museums, lenders, and artists; press releases, exhibition announcements and catalogs, reviews, checklists, photographs of artists and their work, loan records, and clippings; and files on "Artist Members" exhibitions and the Christmas exhibit and sale, "Contemporary Art for Young Collectors."
Correspondence; a record book, financial, membership, and administrative records, annual reports, and minutes from Board of Directors' meetings; photographs; clippings, press releases, exhibition announcements, brochures and newsletters; and one painting and a print by Albert Bloch.
A ledger, 1960-1964, containing brief entries for exhibitions and memberships.
Biographical / Historical:
The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago (founded 1915) is an art society in Chicago, Illinois. Founded to advance understanding and appreciation of art in all forms. A non-profit organization presenting major shows by established and undiscovered artists.
Provenance:
Donated by the Rennaissance Society, 1979-1987.
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.
Function:
Arts organizations -- Illinois
Art museums, University and college -- Illinois -- Chicago
An interview of Harold Lehman conducted 1997 Mar. 28, by Stephen Polcari, for the Archives of American Art. Lehman speaks of his early educational and artistic experiences in New York; taking sculpture classes; moving to California; going to school at Manual Arts; going to Ojai and learning the religious philosophy of Krishnamurti; participating in literary discussion groups and the books he read; his years at Otis Art Institute; working with Sisqueiros, and how the frescoes they created were destroyed by the Red Squad; when he became interested in painting; working with Lorser Feitelson; working with the Public Works of Art Project; moving back to New York and working with the Federal Arts Project; his experiences with Sisqueiros and the artist workshop they set up; his thoughts on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Stalin and Trotsky; his thoughts on social realism; the project he did on Rikers Island; doing mural art; breaking both his arms two months before the attack on Pearl Harbor and how he managed to stay out of the army; working on his mural in Woodstock; working on war bond painting for the government; his art work during the war years; recollections of Jackson Pollack and his interest in Indian Art; going to see the Picasso show; his artistic influences; his thoughts on America's involvement in World War II; his life after the war and what inspired him; his memories of Phil Guston; thoughts on Harold Rosenberg and Clement Greenberg; his life after the war, and other recollections about his life and friends. He recalls Max Maikowski, Jean de Laffiere, Rutolo, Frederick J. Schwankovsky, Phil Guston, Jackson Pollack, Manuel Tolegian, Rueben Kadish, George Stanley, Roger Noble Vernon, D.A. Siqueiros, Luis Arenal, Lorser Feitelson, Helen Lundberg, Leo Katz, Merle Armiduke, Stanley McCoy, Axel Horr (Horn), Carla Mahl (Clara Moore), Louie Serstadt, Diego Rivera, Jose Orozco, Arnold Blanch, Harold Rosenberg, Clement Greenberg, Arnold Blanch, and many others.
Biographical / Historical:
Harold Lehman (1913-2006) was a painter, lithographer, designer, and sculptor from New York, N.Y.
General:
Originally recorded on 7 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 12 digital wav files. Duration is 8 hrs., 39 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.
Topic:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews Search this
Sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews Search this
The papers of Cuban born painter, sculptor, cartoonist, and illustrator Enrique Riverón measure 3.3 linear feet and date from 1918-1990s. The collection contains correspondence, writings, diary entries, scrapbooks, printed material, and photographs documenting Riverón's career as an illustrator, cartoonist, painter and sculptor in the United States and Cuba and, to a lesser extent, Riverón's teaching career at Wichita University in Kansas.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of Cuban born painter, sculptor, cartoonist, and illustrator Enrique Riverón measure 3.3 linear feet, date from 1918-1990s and document Riverón's career as an illustrator, cartoonist, painter and sculptor in the United States and Cuba and, to a lesser extent, his teaching career at Wichita University in Kansas. The collection includes correspondence, the majority of which concerns Riverón's exhibitions; writings, primarily Riverón's recollections of his trips to Paris and Madrid and his memories of people he met in Latin America, Europe, and the United States; printed material documenting exhibitions and Riverón's work for magazines such as Cine-Mudial and Bally-Hoo; and photographs.
Arrangement:
The collection is organized into eight series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1929-1960 (Box 1; 2 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1918-1991 (box 1, 0.6 ft.)
Series 3: Writings, 1923-1980s, undated (box 1, 0.2 ft.)
Series 4: Scrapbooks, 1920s-1990s, undated (boxes 1, 3, and 4, 0.7 ft.)
Series 5: Artwork, 1958-1983, undated (boxes 1 and 5, 0.4 ft.)
Series 6: Printed Material, circa 1930-1992 (boxes 2 and 5, 0.7 ft.)
Series 7: Photographs, 1918-1992, undated (boxes 2, 5 and 6, 0.6 ft.)
Series 8: Miscellany, 1927-1989, undated (box 6, 7 folders)
Biographical Note:
Painter, sculptor, cartoonist, and illustrator Enrique Riverón was born in 1902 in Cienfuegos, Cuba and belonged to the first generation of Cuban modernists, experimenting with Cubism and pursuing abstraction from very early on in his career. During his early twenties Riverón traveled to France, Italy, Belgium, and Spain to study under scholarships and attend the Academia de San Fernando in Madrid. In 1926 Riverón's first major one-man exhibition took place at the Association Paris Amerique Latine where the catalog introduction was written by noted Mexican writer Alfonso Reyes.
In 1927 Riverón returned to Havana and had a one-man show of his European work at the Asociación de Pintores y Escultores, as well as several other shows in Havana and New York. He moved to the United States in 1930 and became a United States citizen in 1943.
In addition to being known for his naturalistic drawings of street life in Paris and Cuba, Riverón began working with collage in the 1930s and was, for a number of years, a cartoonist for newspapers in Havana and other publications such as The New Yorker and Cine Mundial which was published in New York and widely circulated in Latin America. He also worked in Hollywood for a time as an illustrator for Walt Disney Pictures.
From 1940 on, Riverón focused on painting and sculpture. He moved to Miami from Wichita, Kansas, in 1964. Enrique Riverón died in 1998.
Related Material:
The Archives of American Art also has a collection of Enrique Riverón letters to Mario Carreño, 1981-1990, in which Riverón writes of their mutual friends, his memories of Cuba, health issues, politics, pricing paintings, collages, and his longings for Paris and New York.
Provenance:
The Enrique Riverón papers were donated to the Archives of American Art by Patricia Riverón Lee, daughter of Riverón, in 1996.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Use 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.
1 Linear foot ((partially microfilmed on 3 reels))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Scrapbooks
Video recordings
Date:
1941-1978
Scope and Contents:
Photographs of artists; letters; printed material; and a motion picture film.
REEL D284: Exhibition catalogs, 1941-1952, from the Valente Gallery, and clippings; a letter and a sketch from Henry Miller; and a scrapbook containing photographs by Valente of 41 artists, their art work and clippings. Photographs of artists include Boris Aronson, Milton Avery, Arbit Blatas, David Burliuk, Mario Carreño, Joseph DeMartini, Alexander Dobkin, Philip Evergood, Jose Ferrer, Adolph Gottlieb, Marion Greenwood, William Gropper, Chaim Gross, George Grosz, Robert Gwathmey, Lily Harmon, Marsden Hartley, Frederick Haucke, Frank Kleinholz, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Ben Lassen,Sigmund Menkes, Jose Clemente Orozco, Abraham Rattner, Iver Rose, Sally Ryan, Moses Soyer, Raphael Soyer, Margaret Stark, Sabina Teichman, Anthony Toney, Nahum Tschacbasov, Abraham Walkowitz and Ben Wilson.
REEL 2802: A letter from the National Gallery of Art regarding Valente's film "Art Discovers America"; exhibition catalogs on and written by Valente; clippings; and 30 photographs by Valente of 20 artists.
REEL 3480: Two letters from Henry Miller, dated 1943 and 1945. The letters refer to a "watercolor pad and brushes", and Miller also thanks Valente for a portrait of Abe Rattner.
UNMICROFILMED: Photographs by Valente of artists, each accompanied with the artists' self-portrait. Included are Milton Avery, Arbit Blatas, David Burliuk, Mario Carreño, Alexander Dobkin, Philip Evergood, Chaim Gross, Lily Harmon, Frank Kleinholz, Ben Lassen, David Lax, Lawrence H. Lebduska, Jean Liberte, Jose Orozco, Harold Rome, Moses Soyer, Raphael Soyer, Margaret Stark, Sabina Teichman, Anthony Toney, Nahum Tschacbasov, Abraham Walkowitz, and Ben Wilson and 4 photographs of composer Eugene Ormandy which are on the back of the Blatas portraits.
UNMICROFILMED: "Art Discovers America" (MGM shorts), ca. 1945, a 16mm b&w, 400 ft. film regarding the "new public interest" in American art. The film traces the trend back to the exhibition of The Eight, and shows various artists at work, including John Sloan, Thomas Hart Benton, Reginald Marsh, and Abraham Walkowitz. The film was produced by Regency Pictures. Valente was the photographer and co-director along with Hal Frater.
REEL 439-441 AND SCANNED Photos of artists, previously microfilmed under Photos of Artists I, have subsequently been scanned and returned to the Valente papers.
Biographical / Historical:
Photographer; New York City.
Provenance:
Material on reel D284 lent for microfilming by Valente, 1966; Mrs. Valente subsequently donated the scrapbook, 1979. Material on reels 2802, and 3480 donated by Mr. & Mrs. Valente, 1966 through 1979. Unmicrofilmed material donated by Harold Rome, 1988. An additional 35 photos of artists were donated by Valente ca. 1966, and microfilmed on reels 439-441 with AAA's Photographs of Artists Collection I; search under Valente for more information. Many of the photographs are duplicates.
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:
Photographers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Topic:
Art and photography -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Artists -- United States -- Photographs Search this
Portrait photography -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Genre/Form:
Scrapbooks
Video recordings
Sponsor:
Funding for the preservation of the motion picture film "Art Discovers America" provided by the National Film Preservation Foundation.
The records of the Los Angeles Stendahl Art Galleries measure 7.5 linear feet and date from 1907 to 1971. The collection is comprised of administrative and financial files, correspondence, exhibition files, and subject files on numerous artists, organizations, and other art-related topics. There is one scrapbook of clippings on the artist Edgar Payne.
Scope and Contents:
The records of the Los Angeles Stendahl Art Galleries measure 7.5 linear feet and date from 1907 to 1971. The collection is comprised of administrative and financial files, correspondence, exhibition files, and subject files on numerous artists, organizations, and other art-related topics. There is one scrapbook of clippings on the artist Edgar Payne.
Administrative and financial files concern advertising, publicity, consignments, inventory, purchases, sales, leases, and biographical information on Earl Stendahl.
The bulk of the correspondence is pre-World War II and is fairly extensive. It is with artists, organizations, collectors, art historians,and galleries. Signicant correspondents include Alexander Archipenko, Federico Beltran-Masses, Alexander Calder, Federico Cantú, Jean Charlot, Couvoisier Galleries, José de Creeft, Demotte Inc., Jerome Eddy, Lillian Genthe, Arthur Hill Gilbert, George B. Guthrie, Rockwell Kent, Louis Kronberg, Gisella Loeffler, Carlos Mérida, Isamu Noguchi, Walter Pach, Diego Rivera, Waler Elmer Schofield, David Alfaro Siquieros, Ladislas Szecsi, Wildenstein & Company, and many others.
Files are found for about ten exhibitions, including Etching and Engravings by the Old Masters (1921), Airview Paintings (1930), American Landscape Art (1930), Arts of New Guinea (1964), and for exhibitions of Emil Gelhaar, Wassily Kandinsky, Sydney Laurence, and Roberto Montenegro.
Subject files are found for numerous artists, art topics, galleries, and foundations. Most of the files consist of printed materials, but there is correspondence and additional primary source material found in files for Nicolai Ivanovich Feshin, the Thomas Gilcrease Foundation, Armin Hansen, Joseph Kleitsch, Aston Knight, José Clemente Orozco, Edgar Payne, Ralph M. Pearson, Pablo Picasso, William Ritschel, Diego Rivera, Ethel B. Rose, Guy Rose, Walter Elmer Schofield, David Alfaro Siquieros, Ladislas Szecsi, William Wendt, and Ignacio Zuloaga.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 4 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Administrative and Financial Files, 1923-1957 (0.4 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1923-1968 (2.0 linear feet; Box 1-3)
Series 3: Exhibition Files, circa 1921-1967 (0.4 linear feet; Box 3)
Series 4: Subject Files, 1907-1971 (4.6 linear feet; Box 3-8, OV 9)
Biographical / Historical:
Earl Stendahl established Stendahl Art Galleries in 1911 in Los Angeles, California.
Earl Stendahl (1887-1966) came to Southern California from a small town in Wisconsin. He began showing young Los Angeles artists at his downtown restaurant, The Black Cat Café. He opened his gallery in The Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard and organized shows focusing primarily on California Impressionists of the early twentieth century, including Edgar Payne, Guy Rose, William Wendt, Nicolai Fechin, and Joseph Kleitsch.
Stendahl Art Galleries also began to sell European and Latin American modern art. In 1939, Stendahl hosted one of only two non-museum exhibitions of Pablo Picasso's masterwork, Guernica, to benefit Spanish War orphans.
As early as 1935 Stendahl began promoting ancient artifacts from Mexico and Central America. Stendahl's first client for pre-Columbian art and artifacts was noted collector Walter Arensberg. Stendahl and the Arensburgs became friends and Stendahl helped the Arensburgs build one of the most significant collections in the U.S.
The galleries are currently owned by Ronald W. Dammann, Stendahl's grandson.
Provenance:
The Stendahl Art Galleries records were donated by Alfred Stendahl in 1976. An album of clippings was donated by Stendahl in 1995 via Nancy Moure.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
An interview of Viola Patterson conducted 1982 Oct. 22-29, by Martha Kingsbury, for the Archives of American Art's Northwest Oral History Project, in the artist's home in Seattle, Wash.
Patterson speaks of her education; family background; her early interest in art; studying at the University of Washington art department; the influence of Japanese artists; teaching art to children; her husband, Ambrose Patterson, and his life and career; and working on murals with Jose Clement Orozco and Diego Rivera. She recalls Alexander Archipenko. Patterson was a member of the Seattle area progressive artists' collective known as the "Group of Twelve."
Biographical / Historical:
Viola Patterson (1898-1984) was a painter from Seattle, Wash.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 7 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hrs., 33 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives' Northwest Oral History Project, begun in 1982 to document the Northwest artistic community through interviews with painters, sculptors, craftsmen, educators, curators, and others, in Oregon, Washington and Montana.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Occupation:
Painters -- Washington (State) -- Seattle Search this
Topic:
Artists -- Northwestern States -- Interviews Search this
An interview of Sylvia Orozco conducted 2004 Jan. 26-Feb. 2, by Cary Cordova, for the Archives of American Art, in Mexic-Arte Gallery, Austin, Tex.
Orozco speaks of her family history, having the best drawing in second grade, the earliest recollection of being an artist; Camp Fire Girls; painting for high school pep squad and protest signs; growing up in Cuero, Tex.; integration in high school; Texas A and I; the Raza Unida movement; University of Texas; the Conferencia del Plastica Chicana, held September 13-16, 1979 in Austin, Tex.; MECha, the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan; the effect of her work as a curator on her ability to do her own artwork; CONACYT, National Council of Arts and Technology; her passion for Jose Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros; meeting Pio Pulido; LUChA, the League of United Chicano Artists; organizing an exhibition on Manuel Alvarez Bravo at the Texas Memorial Museum; the beginnings of Mexic-Arte Gallery; the group Women and Their Work; the installation "Counter Colon-ialismo"; alternative spaces and museums; and future plans for Mexic-Arte Gallery. Orozco also recalls Santa Barraza, Kelly Fearing, Mike Frary, Sam Coronado, Barbina Modesta Treviño, Nora Gonzalez-Dodson, Linda Pace, Rita Starpattern, Gilbert Cardenas, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Sylvia Orozco (1954- ) is an artist from Austin, Tex. Cary Cordova (1970-) is an art historian from Austin, Tex.
General:
Originally recorded on 4 sound discs. Reformatted in 2010 as 7 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hrs., 55 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.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
This interview is part of the series "Recuerdos Orales: Interviews of the Latino Art Community in Texas," supported by Federal funds for Latino programming, administered by the Smithsonian Center for Latino Initiatives.
The digital preservation of this interview received Federal support from the Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Latino Center.
The papers of painter Edmund Quincy measure 0.7 linear feet and date from 1891-1955, with the bulk of the materials dating from 1935-1955. In addition to biographical materials, letters, price lists, printed items, and a scrapbook documenting his painting career, Quincy's papers also include family photographs and a scrapbook concerning the political career of his father, Josiah Quincy, Mayor of Boston. Material concerning Quincy's father in some cases predates Quincy's birth. Also included are a diploma and drawings by Quincy.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of painter Edmund Quincy measure 0.7 linear feet and date from 1891-1955, with the bulk of materials dated 1935 to 1955. In addition to biographical materials, letters, price lists, printed items, and a scrapbook documenting his painting career, Quincy's papers also include family photographs and a scrapbook concerning the political career of his father, Josiah Quincy, Mayor of Boston. Also included are a diploma and drawings.
Biographical materials include travel documents, student IDs and scattered personal items relating to Quincy and his father. Letters concern exhibitions and the sale of artwork. Quincy's writings are about the process of painting and research on Mexican painters Jose Clemente Orozco and Diego Rivera. Printed material includes items related to exhibitions, newspaper clippings, and publicity materials. The scrapbooks of clippings relating to Mayor Josiah Quincy provides insight into Boston politics during the period 1891-1913. Photographs are of Quincy, family and friends. Artwork consists of sketches and student work. The 2014 addition to the papers includes a diploma and assorted drawings.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged in 8 series. Materials are generally arranged by record type and chronologically thereafter.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Materials, circa 1911-1936 (Box 1; 1 folder)
Series 2: Letters, circa 1942-1946 (Box 1; 1 folder)
Series 3: Writings, circa 1935 (Box 1; 1 folder)
Series 4: Personal Business Records, circa 1935-1943 (Box 1; 1 folder)
Series 5: Printed Material, 1930-1955 (Box 1; 0.1 liner feet)
Series 6: Scrapbooks, 1891-1947 (Boxes 1-2; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 7: Photographs, circa 1892-circa 1940s (Box 1; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 8: Addition to the Edmund Quincy papers, circa 1930s-circa 1950s (Box 2; 0.1 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
Edmund Quincy (1903-1997) was a painter who lived and worked in New England and abroad. Born in Biarritz, France, and educated in the United States, Quincy was the descendant of three Boston mayors and related to President John Quincy Adams. He had solo exhibitions in Paris, London, New York, and other American cities. Quincy's work is in the permanent collections of the Grenoble Museum (France), Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and University of Arizona.
Provenance:
The papers were donated to the Archives of American Art in 2011 and 2014 by Hirschl & Adler.
Restrictions:
Use of original materials requires an appointment.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
An interview of George Biddle conducted in 1963, by Harlan Phillips, for the Archives of American Art.
Biddle speaks of his background in Philadelphia; his Harvard education in preparation for a law career; literary acquaintances; travel; the beginning of his art career; his preoccupation with portraiture; his tragic and pleasant works; the importance of mood; his drawing techniques; drawing from nature; color experimentation; Stieglitz's circle; the susceptibility of artists to change during the 1930s; his involvement with the Public Works of Art Project; government censorship of his murals; his involvement with artists overseas during World War II; and his aesthetic philosophy. He recalls Max Weber, Maurice Sterne, George Grosz, William Zorach, Kenneth Hayes Miller, Peggy Bacon, Marsden Hartley, Charles Demuth, Edith Halpert, Boardman Robinson, Reginald Marsh, Thomas Hart Benton, Henry Billings, Ned Bruce, Holger Cahill, Philip Evergood, Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco, David Siqueiros, and Rufino Tamayo.
Biographical / Historical:
George Biddle (1885-1973) was a painter and sculptor, in Croton-on-Hudson, New York.
General:
Originally recorded 3 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 9 digital wav files. Duration is 13 hr., 56 min.
Provenance:
Conducted as part of the Archives of American Art's New Deal and the Arts project, which includes over 400 interviews of artists, administrators, historians, and others involved with the federal government's art programs and the activities of the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s and early 1940s.
Restrictions:
This interview is open for research. Contact Reference Services for more information.
An interview of Arnold Blanch conducted by Dorothy Seckler (31 pages) on 1963 June 13 for the Archives of American Art, and a lecture by Blanch recorded by Seckler (6 pages), August 1, 1963.
In the interview, Blanch speaks of his childhood in Minnesota; his hostility toward formal education; his art education; moving to New York; the influence of Cezanne and Renoir on his work; the Woodstock art circle; travels in Paris; his association with New York galleries; his involvement with WPA projects; the American Artists Congress; the American art scene in the 1930s; his opinions of government aid to the arts; changes in his style; and his opinions on the contemporary art scene. He recalls Boardman Robinson, Juliana Force, George Bellows, Robert Henri, John Sloan, Kenneth Hayes Miller, Arshile Gorky, Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco, David Siqueiros, and Raoul Hague. The lecture,"Art Tradition," was delivered by Blanch to the Woodstock Art Association, Woodstock, New York, August 1, 1963.
Biographical / Historical:
Arnold Blanch (1896-1968) was a mural painter in Woodstock, New York.
General:
Originally recorded 5 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 5 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hr., 12 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives' Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and others.
An interview with Lewis and Erica Rubenstein conducted 1993 February 23, by Stephen Polcari, for the Archives of American Art.
Lewis Rubenstein discusses his early career as a fresco painter, including his training in Italy and friendship with Rico Lebrun. He talks specifically about commissioned murals at the Fogg Art Museum, the Busch-Reisinger Museum, and assisting Jose Clemente Orozco on "portable murals" for the Museum of Modern Art. He talks of his move away from realism and the themes that interested him in the 1950s and 1960s. He remembers spending summers in Provincetown and taking classes with Hans Hofmann, his work teaching studio art at Vassar College, and briefly about the visiting artists program he ran there. Erica Rubenstein talks about the significance of 1930s mural paintings, the WPA movement, and government support of the arts in general.
Biographical / Historical:
Lewis W. Rubentstein (1908-2003) was a painter, printmaker, and teacher and teacher at Vassar College. He lived in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Erica Beckh Rubenstein (1914-2014) was an art historian, whose Ph.D. thesis at Harvard, "Taxpayers Murals," related to New Deal murals.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 3 digital wav files. Duration is 1 hr., 56 min.
Side B of Tape 1 is blank.
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 entire audio recording is restricted. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Occupation:
Art historians -- New York (State) -- Poughkeepsie -- Interviews Search this
Topic:
Mural painting and decoration, American Search this
1.6 Linear feet ((partially microfilmed on 4 reels))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Scrapbooks
Date:
1913-1979
Scope and Contents:
Printed material, correspondence, photographs, a scrapbook, and a journal.
UNMICROFILMED: Ca. 450 letters from Edith to her friends and ca. 50 letters to Edith and Fred from family and friends; clippings and exhibition announcements; address lists; and a short priced list of Edith's paintings.
REEL 75: Letters to Edith and Fred from Louis Eilshemius, Jose Orozco, John Sloan of the Artists and Writers Dinner Club, Holger Cahill of the First Municipal Art Exposition, Edwin Way Teale and professional organizations; clippings about Edith and Fred, particularly Fred's religious paintings, exhibition catalogs and announcements; photographs of Fred; a sketch of Fred by Edith; and a letter from John Kieran, "Why I Want Willkie."
REEL 414: Correspondence, with letters from Anthony Lauck, Isabel Bishop and other friends and art institutions; Fred's journal containing ideas on religion, poems, and observations; a scrapbook, 1913-1946; clippings and articles; a photograph of Edith's portrait of her husband; and an address given by Fred.
REELS 1798 & 1799: Ca. 200 letters from Edith to her friends plus correspondence with Joseph Bates, Jr., Isabel Bishop, John Kieran, Elsie Nagler, and Homer Saint-Gaudens; clippings and exhibition invitations.
Biographical / Historical:
Painters; Massachusetts and Dallas, Tex. Fred Nagler and Edith Kroeger met while studying at the Art Students League in New York. Fred was a painter of religious subjects. Edith was a landscape painter.
Provenance:
Donated by Edith and Fred Nagler, 1968-1979.
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.
An interview of Edward Biberman conducted 1964 April 15, by Betty Hoag, for the Archives of American Art New Deal and the Arts Project.
Biberman speaks of his background and education; his early painting career; the influence of the Mexican muralists, especially Jose Clemente Orozco, upon him; coming to California; teaching at the Art Center School; murals he painted for the Los Angeles Post Office; serving on the jury to select a mural design for the Social Security Administration Building in Washington; his work methods, and how he researched the subject matter for his murals; the Federal Art Project's contribution to art in California and art in general; his opinions about government support for the arts. He recalls Diego Rivera.
Biographical / Historical:
Edward Biberman (1904-1986) was a painter, printmaker, and mural painter from Los Angeles, California.
General:
Originally recorded 1 sound tape reel. Reformatted in 2010 as 1 digital wav file. Duration is 1 hr., 53 min.
Interviews of Stanton Macdonald-Wright, and Charles Rogers are also on this tape.
Provenance:
This interview conducted as part of the Archives of American Art's New Deal and the Arts project, which includes over 400 interviews of artists, administrators, historians, and others involved with the federal government's art programs and the activities of the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s and early 1940s.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Occupation:
Muralists -- California -- Los Angeles -- Interviews Search this
The papers of art historian, dealer, critic, and curator Katharine Kuh measure 12 linear feet and date from 1875-1994, with the bulk of the material dating from 1930-1994. The collection documents Kuh's career as a pioneer modernist art historian and as the first woman curator of European Art and Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago. Found within the papers are biographical material; correspondence with family, friends and colleagues; personal business records; artwork by various artists; a travel journal; writings by Kuh and others; scrapbooks; printed material; photographs of Kuh and others; and audio recordings of Kuh's lectures and of Daniel Catton Rich reading poetry.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of art historian, dealer, critic, and curator Katharine Kuh measure 12 linear feet and date from 1875-1994, with the bulk of the material dating from 1930-1994. Found within the papers are biographical material; correspondence with family, friends and colleagues; personal business records; artwork by various artists; a travel journal; writings by Kuh and others; scrapbooks; printed material; photographs of Kuh and others; and audio recordings of Kuh's lectures and of Daniel Catton Rich reading poetry.
Biographical material consists of copies of Kuh's birth certificate, resumés, passports, award certificates, honorary diplomas, and address books listing information about several prominent artists and colleagues.
Four linear feet of correspondence offers excellent documentation of Kuh's interest in art history, her travels, her career at the Art Institute of Chicago, her work as a corporate art advisor, and as an author. There are letters from her mother Olga Woolf, friends, and colleagues. There is extensive correspondence with various staff members of the Art Institute of Chicago, the First National Bank of Chicago, and The Saturday Review. Also of interest are letters from artists and collectors, several of whom became life-long friends including Walter and Louise Arensberg, Cosmo Campoli, Serge Chermayeff, Richard Cox, Worden Day, Claire Falkenstein, Fred Friendly, Leon Golub, Joseph Goto, David Hare, Denise Brown Hare, Jean Hélion, Ray Johnson, Gyorgy and Juliet Kepes, Len Lye, Wallace Putnam, Kurt Seligmann, Shelby Shackelford, Hedda Sterne, and Clyfford Still. Many letters are illustrated with original artwork in various media.
There are also scattered letters from various artists and other prominent individuals including Josef Albers, George Biddle, Marcel Breuer, Joseph Cornell, Stuart Davis, Edwin Dickinson, Joseph Hirshhorn, Daniel Catton Rich, and Dorothea Tanning.
Personal business records include a list of artwork, Olga Woolf's will, inventories of Kuh's personal art collection, miscellaneous contracts and deeds of gift, receipts for the sale of artwork, files concerning business-related travel, and miscellaneous receipts.
Artwork in the collection represents a wide range of artist friends and media, such as drawings, watercolors, paintings, collages, and prints. Included are works by various artists including lithographs by David Hare and a watercolor set, Technics and Creativity, designed and autographed by Jasper Johns for the Museum of Modern Art, 1970.
Notes and writings include annotated engagement calendars, travel journals for Germany, a guest book for the Kuh Memorial gathering, and many writings and notes by Kuh for lectures and articles concerning art history topics. Of interest are minutes/notes from meetings for art festivals, conferences, and the "Conversations with Artists Program (1961). Also found are writings by others about Kuh and other art history topics.
Six scrapbooks contain clippings that document the height of Kuh's career as a gallery director and museum curator. Scrapbook 6 contains clippings about Fernand Léger, the subject of a retrospective exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1953.
Additional printed material includes clippings about Kuh and her interests, a comprehensive collection of clippings of Kuh's articles for The Saturday Review, exhibition announcements and catalogs, calendars of events, programs, brochures, books including Poems by Kuh as a child, and reproductions of artwork. Of particular interest are the early and exhibition catalogs from the Katharine Kuh Gallery, and rare catalogs for artists including Jean Arp, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Stanley William Hayter, Hans Hofmann, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Franz Kline, Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Pablo Picasso.
Photographs provide important documentation of the life and career of Katharine Kuh and are of Kuh, family members, friends, colleagues, events, residences, and artwork. Several of the photographs of Kuh were taken by Will Barnet and Marcel Breuer and there is a notable pair of photo booth portraits of Kuh and a young Ansel Adams. There are also group photographs showing Angelica Archipenko with Kuh; designer Klaus Grabe; painters José Chavez Morado and Pablo O'Higgins in San Miguel, Mexico; Kuh at the Venice Biennale with friends and colleagues including Peggy Guggenheim, Frances Perkins, Daniel Catton Rich, and Harry Winston; and "The Pre-Depressionists" including Lorser Feitelson, Robert Inverarity, Helen Lundeberg, Arthur Millier, Myron Chester Nutting, and Muriel Tyler Nutting.
Photographs of exhibition installations and openings include views of the Katharine Kuh Gallery; Fernand Léger, Man Ray, and László Moholy-Nagy at the Art Institute of Chicago; and Philip Guston, Jimmy Ernst, Seymour H. Knox, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, and Mark Rothko at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York. There are also photographs depicting three men posing as Léger's "Three Musicians" and the visit of Queen Elizabeth II to the Art Institute of Chicago. There is a photograph by Peter Pollack of an elk skull used as a model by Georgia O'Keeffe.
Additional photographs of friends and colleagues include Ivan Albright, Alfred Barr, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Willem De Kooning, Edwin Dickinson, Marcel Duchamp, Claire Falkenstein, Alberto Giacometti, poet Robert Graves with Len Lye, Philip Johnson, Gyorgy and Juliet Kepes, Carlos Mérida, José Orozco, Hasan Ozbekhan, Pablo Picasso, Carl Sandberg, Ben Shahn, Otto Spaeth, Hedda Sterne, Adlai Stevenson, Clyfford Still, Mark Tobey, and composer Victor Young.
Photographs of artwork include totem poles in Alaska; work by various artists including Claire Falkenstein, Paul Klee, and Hedda Sterne; and work donated to the Guggenheim Museum.
Four audio recordings on cassette are of Katharine Kuh's lectures, including one about assembling corporate collections, and of Daniel Catton Rich reading his own poetry. There is also a recording of the Second Annual Dialogue between Broadcasters and Museum Educators.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 9 series. Undated correspondence, artwork, and photographs of individual artists are arranged alphabetically. Otherwise, each series is arranged chronologically.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1945-1992 (Box 1; 16 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1908-1994 (Boxes 1-5, 13-14, OV 15; 4.0 linear feet)
Series 3: Personal Business Records, 1941-1989 (Box 5; 19 folders)
Series 4: Artwork, 1931-1986 (Boxes 5, 13-14, OVs 15-23; 1.7 linear feet)
Series 5: Notes and Writings, 1914-1994 (Boxes 5-7; 1.7 linear feet)
Series 6: Scrapbooks, 1935-1953 (Box 7; 8 folders)
Series 7: Printed Material, 1916-1992 (Boxes 7-10, 13, OV 22; 3.0 linear feet)
Series 8: Photographs, 1875-1993 (Boxes 10-13; 1.2 linear feet)
Series 9: Audio Recordings, 1977 (Box 12; 1 folder)
Biographical Note:
Katharine Kuh (1904-1994) worked primarily in the Chicago area as an modern art historian, dealer, critic, curator, writer, and consultant. She operated the Katharine Kuh Gallery from 1935-1943 and was the first woman curator of European and Art and Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Katharine Kuh (née Woolf) was born on July 15, 1904 in St. Louis, Missouri, the youngest of the three daughters of Olga Weiner and Morris Woolf, a silk importer. In 1909, the family moved to Chicago, Illinois. While traveling with her family in Europe in 1914, Katharine contracted polio, causing her to spend the next decade in a body brace. During this time of restricted movement, she developed an interest in art history through the collecting of old master prints.
After her recovery, Katharine Woolf attended Vassar College where one of her professors, Alfred Barr, encouraged her to study modern art. She graduated from Vassar in 1925 and received a master's degree in art history from the University of Chicago in 1929. Later that year, she moved to New York to pursue a Ph.D. in Renaissance and medieval art at New York University.
In 1930, Katharine Woolf returned to Chicago and married businessman George Kuh and began to teach art history courses in the suburbs of Chicago. After divorcing George Kuh in 1935, she opened the Katharine Kuh Gallery, the first gallery devoted to avant-garde art in Chicago. It was also the first gallery to exhibit photography and typographical design as art forms, and featured the work of Ansel Adams, Josef Albers, Alexander Calder, Wassily Kandinsky, Fernand Léger, and Man Ray, among others. From 1938 to1940, Kuh was the Visiting Professor of Art at the University School of Fine Arts, San Miguel, Mexico.
After the Katharine Kuh Gallery closed in 1943, Kuh was hired by museum director Daniel Catton Rich to fill a position in public relations at the Art Institute of Chicago. During the following years, Kuh edited the museum's Quarterly publication, took charge of the museum's Gallery of Interpretive Art, and began a long term relationship with Rich. In 1946, Kuh was sent on a special mission for the U. S. Office of Indian Affairs to make a detailed study of Native American totemic carvings in Alaska.
In 1949, Kuh persuaded Mr. and Mrs. Walter Arensberg of Los Angeles to exhibit their collection of modern art, creating the first post-war exhibition of modern art in Chicago. She published her first book Art Has Many Faces in 1951, and in the following year, she began writing art criticism for The Saturday Review. In 1954, Kuh was appointed the first woman curator of European Art and Sculpture at the Art Institute. She assembled the American contribution for the Venice Biennale in 1956 and during these years, Kuh helped acquire many of the works of modern art currently in the museum's collection.
A year following Daniel Catton Rich's 1958 resignation from the Art Institute of Chicago, Kuh also resigned and pursued a career in New York as an art collection advisor, most notably for the First National Bank of Chicago. In 1959, Kuh was made art critic for The Saturday Review, and she continued to publish books, including The Artist's Voice in 1962, Break-Up: The Core of Modern Art in 1965, and The Open Eye: In Pursuit of Art in 1971.
Katharine Kuh died on January 10, 1994 in New York City.
Provenance:
The Katharine Kuh papers were donated in several installments from 1971 to 1989 by Katharine Kuh and in 1994 by her estate. Artwork was donated in 1995 by Kuh's former employer, the Art Institute of Chicago.
Restrictions:
Authorization to quote, publish or reproduce requires written permission until 2019. Contact the Archives of American Art Reference Services department for additional 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.
