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.
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.
The papers of New York art collector Chester Dale measure 8.4 linear feet and date from circa 1883-2003. Dale amassed one of the world's most complete collections of nineteenth and twentieth century French art, was a collector of eighteenth century American portraitists, and a patron and collector of twentieth American artists including George Bellows and Mary Cassatt. The bulk of the collection dates from 1920 to 1970 and documents Dale's activities through biographical material, correspondence, memoirs and other writings, purchase, sales and estate records, printed material, scrapbooks, and photographs.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of New York art collector Chester Dale measure 8.4 linear feet and date from circa 1883-2003. Dale amassed one of the world's most complete collections of nineteenth and twentieth century French art, was a collector of eighteenth century American portraitists, and a patron and collector of twentieth American artists including George Bellows and Mary Cassatt. The bulk of the collection dates from 1920 to 1970 and documents Dale's activities through biographical material, correspondence, memoirs and other writings, purchase, sales and estate records, printed material, scrapbooks, and photographs.
Biographical material comprises brief genealogical and biographical notes on Dale's father's side of the family; four pieces of miscellaneous artwork; several certificates, membership cards, and programs; circa six unidentified dictaphone recordings; and a home movie of an unidentified social event.
Correspondence provides scattered documentation of Dale's activities as a collector and benefactor, including correspondence relating to gifts to various museums such as the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as posthumous gifts to the Allentown Art Museum and Amherst College. Also documented is Dale's election as president of the National Gallery of Art in 1955. There are several letters to and from Salvador and Gala Dali, copies of two letters from Diego Rivera, and letters from other friends and business associates, including historian Georges Salles. Over one third of the correspondence consists of condolence telegrams and letters sent to Mary Dale following Dale's death. Other correspondence documents Mary Dale's work as exhibition chairman for the Parrish Museum of Art, and includes letters from Andrew, Jamie, and Nicholas Wyeth.
Writings include typed drafts of Dale's memoirs which recall the beginning of his career in banking, and include stories of his early experiences in buying art. Dale credits the highly discerning and influential eye of his first wife, Maud Dale, for guiding him in his early selections, and his memoirs recall his unconventionally direct way of doing business with the Paris art dealers. Two travel diaries record a 1904 trip to Europe, and five trips to Europe and the Caribbean between 1949 and 1953. Writings by others include several essays on Dale by various authors, several essays on art by Maud Dale, and a typed draft of a manuscript on Dale's life by Neil MacNeil.
Extensive inventories, estate appraisals, and will disbursement records document the contents of the Chester Dale collection in Series 4. Also found here are receipts for specific purchases of works by Cezanne, Cassatt, Dali, Dufy, Picasso, and others.
Printed material includes catalogs for auction sales annotated with sales prices and other purchase information; catalogs of Dale's collection; and exhibition catalogs and announcements for the Parrish Museum of Art during Mary Dale's tenure as exhibition chairman. Some of the catalogs include essays by Maud Dale. News clippings and magazine articles document press coverage of Dale's activities at home and abroad.
Scrapbooks contain additional printed material, primarily news clippings, documenting press coverage of Chester Dale's life from the 1920s until his death. One of the scrapbooks includes multiple photographs of Dale and others, including a photo of Frida Kahlo and Jose Orozco. An additional scrapbook of photographs and clippings documents Mary Dale's life before and after her marriage to Dale.
Photographs are of Dale, Mary Dale, Maud Dale, family, friends, and colleagues. There are photographs of Dale and Mary Dale with artists including George Braques, Salvador and Gala Dali, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, and Jamie and Nicholas Wyeth; and friends and associates Renee and Claire Batigne, Veronica "Rocky" Cooper and Maria Cooper, Robert Sturgis Ingersoll, Edith Hamilton with Robert Frost, Neil MacNeil, Herbert Mayes, and Paul and Timothy Mellon. There are individual photos and three photograph albums of Dale's various residences and his collection, including photographs taken shortly before his death at his Plaza Hotel apartment showing some of his favorite pictures. Photographers include Rudolph Burkhardt, Irving Cantor, Ivan Dmitri, and Dmitri Kessel. There are also many photographs of exhibition openings and museum events, especially events at the National Gallery of Art, including the presentation of Dale's gift of Dali's The Sacrament of the Last Supper to the museum in 1956, and the occasion of Queen Elizabeth II of England's visit to the museum in 1957. Photographs also include photographs of artwork in Dale's collection.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as seven series.
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1897-circa 1960, 2003 (Boxes 1, 7-8; FC 20; 0.45 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1911-1984 (Box 1; 0.9 linear feet)
Series 3: Writings, 1904-1963 (Boxes 2, 8; 0.55 linear feet)
Series 4: Chester Dale Collection, circa 1930-1968 (Boxes 2-3; 1 linear foot)
Series 5: Printed Material, 1925-circa 1972 (Boxes 3-4, 8, OV 9; 1.2 linear feet)
Series 6: Scrapbooks, circa 1920s-1963 (Box 4, BVs 10-14; 1.2 linear feet)
Series 7: Photographs, circa 1883-1972 (Boxes 4-6, 19, BVs 15-17, OV 18; 3.3 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
New York art patron and collector of French and American art Chester Dale (1883-1962), made his fortune as a banker who pioneered the sale of public utility securities. He began purchasing French paintings in the mid-1920s and retired from the investment security business in 1935 in order to focus full time on the acquisition of art.
Dale was encouraged to begin collecting art by his first wife, Maud Dale, who was an artist, a writer, and a former chairman of the Exhibition Committee of the Museum of French Art. With the benefit of his wife's knowledge, passion, and perception, Dale began to lay the foundation of his collection in 1926, and amassed circa seven hundred pictures within ten years. His collection is considered to be one of the most complete collections of nineteenth and twentieth century French art in the world, and includes some of the finest examples of works by Braque, Corot, Delacroix, Degas, Derain, Dufy, Leger, Matisse, and Renoir, as well as by artists representative of the French tradition in art including Modigliani, Picasso, Rivera, and Van Gogh.
Although primarily interested in French art, Dale also collected and encouraged American artists. He was a patron of George Bellows and Salvador Dali, and had his portrait painted by both artists. Dale presented the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art with their first Dali paintings, the latter being The Sacrament of the Last Supper. Dale also purchased works by Mary Cassatt, representative works by "the Eight," and examples of eighteenth century American portraitists John Smibert, Gilbert Stuart and Thomas Sully. In the early 1940s he visited Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Mexico, and Rivera subsequently completed a portrait of Dale in 1945.
Dale served as a trustee to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Chicago Art Institute, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He made the first of a series of gifts to the National Gallery of Art when it opened in 1941. In 1955 he was elected president of the museum, by which time his collection occupied ten of its galleries. Dale bequeathed the bulk of his remaining collection to the National Gallery in his will. This final gift included eighty of his favorite pictures, which had been located in his Manhattan apartment at the Plaza Hotel up until his death.
A year after the death of Maud Dale in 1953, Dale married Mary Towar Bullard, whom he had employed as his secretary for twenty-five years. Mary Dale oversaw the disbursement of her husband's estate, following Dale's death from a heart attack in 1962.
Related Materials:
Holdings at the Archives of American Art also include the Chester Dale papers concerning George Bellows, 1919-1956, comprising correspondence, a photograph, and invoices relating to Chester Dale's relationship with George Bellows and Dale's interest in artwork by Bellows; and the Chester Dale eulogy, consisting of one 35 minute, 9 second sound tape reel of a eulogy delivered by an unidentified speaker.
Provenance:
The collection was donated in 1972 by Mary Dale, Chester Dale's second wife, and in 1985 by Mary Dale's estate.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D. C., Research Center. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate 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.
Chester Dale papers, circa 1883-2003, bulk 1920-1970. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of the Chester Dale papers is provided by The Walton Family Foundation. Funding for the reformatting of the 16mm film reel was provided by the Smithsonian Institution Women's Committee.
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.
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.
Tobey, Alton S. (Alton Stanley), 1914-2005 Search this
Extent:
2.8 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Interviews
Video recordings
Photographs
Date:
1913-2000
Summary:
The Abraham Joel Tobias papers date from 1913 to 2000 and measure 2.8 linear feet. Through project and exhibition files, printed material, correspondence, and photographs, the collection provides an overview of Tobias's career as a painter and muralist in New York City.
Scope and Content Note:
The Abraham Joel Tobias papers date from 1913 to 2000 and measure 2.8 linear feet. Through project and exhibition files, printed material, correspondence, and photographs, the collection provides an overview of Tobias's career as a painter and muralist in New York City.
General correspondence regards mural proposals, exhibitions, professional activities, and museums' acquisitions of artwork by Tobias. A file of correspondence with the Fine Arts Federation of New York concerns efforts to recognize murals by Irving Block, James Brooks, Philip Evergood, Abraham Lishinsky, José Clemente Orozco, and Max Spivak as landmarks; it also includes minutes of meetings, 1988-1995, that reflect Tobias's service as a board member. Other correspondence is with friends and artists including Edward Caswell, George Gaber, Filia Holtzman, Vincent La Gambina, and Alton S. Tobey.
Project files document murals such as: The Four Freedoms, Midwood High School, Brooklyn, New York, honoring students and teachers who died in World War II (circa 1946); Birth for the maternity ward at Mount Sinai Hospital, New York City (1951-1953); and Medical Science and Medical Research, Long Island Jewish Hospital (1954). The Science and Engineering project file (1958) contains a patent certificate for striated plastic, a material Tobias used in two murals. Also of interest is correspondence with the Harman Foundation regarding a documentary film about Tobias's use of ethyl silicate for outdoor murals. Among the exhibitions documented are: "Plastics U.S.A.," "New York WPA Artists Then and Now," and "Abraham Joel Tobias: Sculptural Paintings of the 1930s."
Printed material consists of announcements, invitations, solo and group exhibition catalogs, and clippings relating to Tobias's artistic career. Also found are pamphlets he designed for the Congress of Industrial Organizations. Photographs are of Tobias's artwork and the artist with friends and family. There is a video recording of an interview with Tobias conducted by Brendan Gill in 1995.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 8 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1913-1996 (Boxes 1, 4; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1933-1997 (Box 1; 0.4 linear feet)
Series 3: Project and Exhibition Files, 1938-2000 (Boxes 1, 2, 4, OV 5; 1.6 linear feet)
Series 4: Writings, circa 1928-1992 (Box 2; 0.1 linear feet)
Series 5: Printed Material, 1913-1999 (Boxes 3, 4; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 6: Artwork, circa 1990s (Box 3; 1 folder)
Series 7: Photographs, 1929-1970 (Box 3; 0.1 linear feet)
Series 8: Video Recording, 1995 (Box 3, 1 folder)
Biographical Note:
Abraham Joel Tobias (1913-1996) was a painter, muralist, and educator in New York City. He was a pioneer in the use of shaped canvases.
A native of Rochester, New York, Tobias came to New York City to study at the Cooper Union School of Art, 1930-1931, and at the Art Students League, 1930-1933. He worked for the Federal Arts Project,1938-1940, where he continued his training as a muralist, working with artist and technicians.
During World War II, Tobias served in the armed forces. He was an art director with the Intelligence Division, Army Air Force, and in 1945 was employed as a graphic designer for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Tobias was artist-in-residence and served as instructor in painting and drawing at Adelphia College, Garden City, Long Island, 1947-1957. He also was was a visiting lecturer at various schools including Howard University, Brooklyn Museum Art School, Pratt Institute Art School, as well as at colleges in Illinois and Kansas.
Tobias completed over ten mural commissions for governmental agencies and educational institutions, including: United States Post Office, Clarendon, Arkansas; Howard University, Washington, D.C.; James Madison High School, Brooklyn, New York; Beth Israel Hospital, New York City; Domestic Relations Court Building, Brooklyn, New York; and Adelphi College, Garden City, New York. In 1962, Tobias began The History of Science mural for the lobby of the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn; it was never completed.
Tobias experimented with diverse materials such as terrazzo and mosaic for mural application. He also broke new ground with the use of ethyl silicate paint as a permanent medium for outdoor murals. In 1958, he patented striated plastic, a pliable material used to achieve an effect similar to stained glass.
He participated in many solo and group exhibitions. In 1935, Tobias presented his shaped canvas painting in the "Sculptural Painting" exhibition at Delphic Studios in New York City. In 1987, Tobias was recognized for his earlier pioneering work with a retrospective exhibition, "Abraham Joel Tobias: Sculptural Paintings" at The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum of Rutgers University. Other exhibitions included: "Plastics U.S.A.," the United States Information Service's exhibition in Moscow (1961); "New York City WPA Art," Parsons School of Design, New York City (1977); "For a Permanent Public Art," Tweed Gallery, New York City (1989); and "The Technological Muse," Katonah Museum of Art, New York (1991).
Tobias's professional memberships included the Architectural League of New York, National Society of Mural Painters, and New York Artists Equity Association. He served on the Board of Directors for the Fine Arts Federation of New York from 1988-1996. He won the Architectural League Award in 1952. The Art Commission of the City of New York recognized Tobias, posthumously, for distinguished service to public art.
Abraham Joel Tobias married Carolyn Pratt in 1949; the couple had one daughter. Abraham Joel Tobias died in Rego Park, New York, in 1996 at the age of 82.
Provenance:
The papers were donated in 2001 by Carolyn Tobias, the widow of Abraham Joel Tobias.
Restrictions:
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