The papers of Los Angeles painter, printmaker, and educator, Charles W. White, measure 12.9 linear feet and date from 1933 to 1987, with the bulk of the material dating from the 1960s to the 1970s. The collection contains biographical material, including a sound recording of an interview with White; personal and professional correspondence; writings by White and others about his philosophy of art, his life, and career; professional files documenting White's participation in a variety of boards, committees, juries, symposiums, professional projects, and commissions; teaching files documenting White's tenure at Otis Art Institute; extensive printed material charting White's career from the 1930s until his death; scrapbooks primarily documenting his early career; and a small series of photographs.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Los Angeles painter, printmaker, and educator, Charles W. White, measure 12.9 linear feet and date from 1933 to 1987, with the bulk of the material dating from the 1960s to the 1970s. The collection contains biographical material including a sound recording of an interview with White; personal and professional correspondence; writings by White and others about his philosophy of art, his life, and career; professional files documenting White's participation in a variety of boards, committees, juries, symposiums, professional projects, and commissions; teaching files documenting White's tenure at Otis Art Institute; extensive printed material charting White's career from the 1930s until his death; scrapbooks primarily documenting his early career; and a small series of photographs.
Biographical material includes documentation of awards received by White, biographical notes, resumes, White's high school report cards, interview transcripts and a sound recording of an interview, and records related to Elizabeth Catlett from the 1940s.
Correspondence includes scattered letters from family and friends but is primarily professional. White's correspondence was often conducted by Benjamin Horowitz and, occasionally, by Frances White, although some scattered original drafts of letters by White can also be found in this series. The series documents many aspects of White's career including: his relationship with Horowitz and Heritage Gallery as his representative; sales, loans, and exhibitions of White's artwork at many museums, galleries, and art institutions; the publication of his work in journals, magazines, and books, and it's use in the film and music industries; and his relationships with others in the arts and the entertainment industry including Richmond Barthé, Margaret Burroughs, Bing Davis, David Driskell, Lorraine Hansberry, and Harry Belafonte's company, Belafonte Enterprises.
Writings by White include two addresses made to the Annual Conference of Negro Artists, statements on his philosophy of art, and an autobiographical essay. Writings by others include drafts of Benjamin Horowitz's book Images of Dignity:The Drawings of Charles White.
White's professional activities are further documented through records related to the many boards, committees, and exhibition and art contest juries he served on, as well as lectures he delivered, and panels and symposiums he participated in. White's professional files also contain records relating to fellowships he received and document projects such as designs for books, films, and magazines.
White's teaching files primarily relate to Otis Art Institute and contain some records related directly to his work there as well as general faculty and board material. The records document, to some extent, White's role as spokesperson for the faculty and students during the transfer of the Otis charter to Parsons School of Design in 1979. Documentation of White's association with Howard University is minimal and includes letters related to his appointment and resignation in 1978-1979.
Gallery and exhibition files document specific solo and group exhibitions and include records on two visits White made to Germany in 1974 and 1978.
Printed material includes announcements, exhibition catalogs, articles in journals, magazines, and news clippings, and publications with artwork by White that provide extensive coverage of White's career from the 1930s to his death. Also found is printed material collected by White on other artists, and on subjects of interest to him.
Three disbound scrapbooks provide compilations of printed material and occasional letters further documenting White's career. A small series of photographs includes holiday card photos of White, Frances White, and their two children, and photos of White and others taken at a workshop in 1969.
Throughout the collection there are folders containing notes written by Frances White, circa 1980-1981, which provide important contextual information about people, organizations and subjects in the collection, and sometimes highlight the racism White encountered, particularly during his early career. The dates of these notes are not included in folder dates.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as nine series.
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1934-1979 (Box 1; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1937-1984 (Boxes 1-4, 13; 3.64 linear feet)
Series 3: Writings, 1936-circa 1981 (Boxes 4-5; 0.45 linear feet)
Series 4: Professional Activities, circa 1942-1982 (Boxes 5-6, 13, OV 15; 1.81 linear feet)
Series 5: Teaching Files, 1950-1979 (Boxes 6, 13; 0.72 linear feet)
Series 6: Gallery and Exhibition Files, 1946-1980 (Box 7, Box 14; 0.98 linear feet)
Series 7: Printed Material, 1933-1987 (Boxes 8-14, OVs 15-17; 4.8 linear feet)
Series 8: Scrapbooks, 1936-1970s (Box 12; 0.15 linear feet)
Series 9: Photographic Material, 1940-1976 (Box 12; 0.15 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
Painter, printmaker, and educator, Charles W. White (1918-1979), was a prominent figure in the Chicago Black Renaissance and became one of the most celebrated and influential African American artists of the twentieth century. Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, White lived and worked in California beginning in 1956, and taught at the Otis Art Institute from 1965 until his death.
White began painting at a young age, earning first prize in a nationwide high school art contest. He studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he was awarded a full scholarship, from 1937-1938. After graduating from the school, White worked as a muralist for the Illinois Federal Arts Project sponsored by the Works Progress Administration from 1939 to 1940. He then received two fellowships from the Julius Rosenwald Foundation in 1942 and 1943 and created the mural The Contribution of the Negro to American Democracy at the Hampton Institute. From 1943-1945 he taught at the George Washington Carver School in New York City, and was artist-in-residence at Howard University in Washington, D.C., in 1945.
White's first marriage to Elizabeth Catlett ended in divorce and he married Frances Barrett in 1950. The couple relocated to Los Angeles where White was represented by Benjamin Horowitz's Heritage Gallery. White was widely exhibited in Los Angeles, and at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Newark Museum, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and elsewhere. Working primarily in black and white or sepia and white drawings, paintings, and lithographs, White's artwork was primarily figurative and depicted African American history, socio-economic struggles, and human relationships.
Charles White received a number of awards and honors and in 1972 he was the third African American artist to be elected a full member of the National Academy of Design.
Related Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds the Charles W. and Frances White letters and photographs to Melvin and Lorraine Williamson, the Lucinda H. Gedeon research material on Charles W. White, and an oral history interview with Charles W. White conducted by Betty Hoag, March 9, 1965.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of loaned materials (reels LA7 and 3099). Reel LA7 includes photographs of White, his work, and a career resume. Reel 3099 contains 31 items consisting of three travel diaries kept by Frances White, photographs and a recording of their trip to Russia in 1950, and 11 record album covers designed by Charles White. Loaned materials were returned to the lenders after microfilming and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Charles White's "Black Experience Archive," originally received with the papers, was donated to Howard University's Moorland-Springarn Research Center in 1985 at the request of Frances White.
Provenance:
Photographs on reel LA7 and material on reel 3099 were lent to the Archives of American Art for microfilming in 1965 and 1982, by Benjamin Horowitz, White's dealer, and by Frances White. Material on reel 2041 was donated by the George Arents Research Library, Syracuse University, 1976, who had originally received it from Horowitz. The remainder of the papers were donated by Charles White, 1975-1978, and after his death by Frances White and Benjamin Horowitz, 1981-1989.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Researchers interested in accessing audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Charles W. White papers, 1933-1987. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Henry Luce Foundation. Funding for the digitization was provided by the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation and the Alice L. Walton Foundation.
The papers of southern California Pop artist Billy Al Bengston measure 10.4 linear feet and date from circa 1940s to 1989, with the bulk of the materials dating from 1960 to 1988. The collection documents the life and work of the artist through biographical materials, correspondence, personal business records, gallery and museum files, teaching files, project and commission files, scattered artwork, printed materials, and photographs.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of Billy Al Bengston measure 10.4 linear feet and date from circa 1940s to 1989, with the bulk of the materials dating from 1960 to 1988. The collection documents the life and work of the southern California artist through biographical materials, correspondence, personal business records, gallery and museum files, teaching files, project and commission files, scattered artwork, printed materials, and photographs.
Found within the biographical materials series are three feet of calendars which extensively document Bengston's personal and professional activities for fourteen years, and include ephemera related to these activities. This series also includes health records, wills, and passports.
Correspondence is with galleries, museums, universities, businesses, friends, and colleagues, and primarily concerns exhibitions, sales, consignments, commissions, and Bengston's personal finances. Bengston's relationship with the James Corcoran Gallery, Janie C. Lee Gallery, John Berggruen Gallery, Martha Jackson Gallery, and Texas Gallery are well-documented here, as well as in the Museum and Gallery Files series. Also found is a limited amount of personal correspondence with collectors, researchers, and friends. A few letters from other artists, including Peter Plagens and a letter from Richard Diebenkorn are interfiled here.
Bengston's professional relationships with galleries, museums, and universities are well-documented in the gallery and museum files, including the galleries mentioned above, Ferus Gallery, and others. Lists of consignments and prices, invoices, records of sales, loan agreement forms, shipping receipts, exhibition checklists, and exhibition floor plans provide information about sales, exhibitions, and loans. A few files provide further information about Bengston teaching activities. His personal business records include art sales records, price lists, lists of purchases, records of investment, and personal finance records. Project files include correspondence, notes, and printed materials related to Bengston's commissions for artwork and personal projects, including a book he worked on with Ed Ruscha, Business Cards.
Writings by Bengston include responses to exhibitions of West Coast art and his thoughts on his career, art, the artistic community, motorcycles, as well as a recollection of John Altoon. Also found are questionnaires sent out by Bengston for an art survey, with responses from Peter Alexander, Carl Andre, John Chamberlain, Dan Flavin, Joe Goode, Robert Graham, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Motherwell, Ed Ruscha, and others. Writings by others consist primarily of exhibition catalog essays, manuscripts of interviews with Bengston, and other writings about Bengston. Also found is an essay by Walter Hopps. Photographs of Bengston include a family picture from the 1940s, Bengston at work on projects in Los Angeles and Syracuse, New York, and Bengston at social events. Other photographs consist of pictures of friends and artists, Bengston's artwork, documentary evidence of damaged artwork, and of commission sites.
Printed materials from the 1960s - 1980s include clippings, full articles, exhibition announcements and catalogs, and posters. They document exhibitions, art in southern California, and society and art events. The collection houses limited amounts of artwork including sketches, cut-outs, doodles and drawings.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into 10 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1958-1987 (Boxes 1-4, 11; 3.7 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1966-1989 (Boxes 4-6; 1.75 linear feet)
Series 3: Gallery and Museum Files, 1961-1989 (Boxes 6-7; 1.5 linear feet)
Series 4: Teaching Records, 1968-1982 (Box 7; 7 folders)
Series 5: Personal Business Records, circa 1960-1987 (Boxes 7-8; 1.0 linear foot)
Series 6: Project Files, 1968-1987 (Boxes 8-9; 0.25 linear feet)
Series 7: Writings, 1967-circa 1988 (Box 9, OV 12; 0.25 linear feet)
Series 8: Artwork, 1960s-1987 (Box 9; 7 folders)
Series 9: Printed Materials, 1958-1988 (Boxes 9-10, OV 12-13; 1.25 linear feet)
Series 10: Photographs, circa 1940s-1987 (Box 10; 0.5 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Billy Al Bengston was born in Dodge City, Kansas on June 7, 1934. After moving back and forth from Kansas to California multiple times, he and his family settled in Los Angeles in 1948. While attending the Manual Arts High School, Bengston became interested in art, especially ceramics. After a brief stint at Los Angeles Junior College, Bengston worked as a beach attendant at Doheny State Beach. While working there he met fellow surfer and future ceramicist Kenneth Price, who became one of Bengston's closest friends. In 1953, he reenrolled in Los Angeles Junior College to study ceramics. For the next four years he attended both the California College of Arts and Crafts and the Los Angeles County Art Institute (now the Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design). At these institutions he studied with Richard Diebenkorn, Sabro Hasegawa, Nathan Oliveira, and Peter Voulkos.
Around 1957, Bengston shifted his emphasis from ceramics to painting, and became affiliated with the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles, founded that same year by Edward Kienholz and Walter Hopps. Bengston's first solo exhibition was held at the Ferus Gallery in 1958, and a second followed in 1960. At this time Bengston began to work with Pop icons combined with Color Field abstractions. His early bold paintings often featured symmetrical strong color compositions with a central image of a valentine, star, cross, chevron, or iris. The irises he called "draculas," after Kenneth Price remarked that they resembled Dracula flying through a window. He first showed his chevron paintings in 1962 at the Martha Jackson Gallery in New York. In the early 1960s, Bengston extended his imagery to the California subculture and created paintings of leisure time activities, focusing on motorcycles, racing, and scuba diving - his own interests as well.
Throughout his career, Bengston experimented with technique and materials. He experimented with automobile lacquer and spray painting techniques associated with car customization. He also used non-traditional surfaces, such as masonite and aluminum. In 1965, Bengston began creating paintings on sheets of aluminum into which he hammered dents and sometimes bent and buckled; these subsequently came to be known as "dentos." Along with painting, Bengston has also created watercolors, ceramics, and furniture. He was also one of the artists selected by Carol and Roy Doumani to design their home.
Bengston first visited Hawaii in 1974, and after several subsequent trips, established a second studio there in 1979. The work Bengston created in the following years was characterized by the use of tropical colors and representational images of running figures, airplanes, and the moon. In 1988, the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston organized a retrospective entitled "Billy Al Bengston: Paintings of Three Decades," which traveled to the Oakland Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Contemporary Museum of Art, Honolulu. Bengston also completed several years as an art instructor and lecturer at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles and The University of California at Los Angeles. Bengston continues to create and exhibit new work.
Related Material:
Found in the Archives of American Art are oral history interviews with Bengston conducted by Susan Larsen, September 9, 1980, and Susan Ford Morgan, August 2-October 7, 2002. Also found are portraits of Bengston in the Photographs of artists taken by Mimi Jacobs collection, and a rare copy of the book Business Cards by Bengston and Ed Ruscha in the Wallace Berman papers.
Provenance:
The collection was donated to the Archives of American Art by Billy Al Bengston in 1990.
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 Millard Sheets papers comprise 27.6 linear feet of material dating from circa 1907 to 2000 with bulk dates spanning 1956 to 1981. The collection documents Sheets's career as a designer, painter, and muralist, and his personal and professional interests through correspondence, writings, lectures, printed material, drawings, slides, photographs, and ephemera.
A small addition donated 2018 by Carolyn Owen-Toole, Sheet's daughter. There is a 4.6 linear foot unprocessed addition to this collection donated 2018 that includes writings; sketchbooks and sketches; photographs and negatives of works of art, images of Millard Sheets and others including family; printed material, including two scrapbooks; and scattered correspondence regarding Sheet's projects.
Scope and Content Note:
The personal papers of Millard Sheets (1907-1990) measure 27.6 linear feet and date from circa 1907-2000, with bulk dates of 1956-1981. The collection reflects Sheets's career as a designer, painter, and muralist, as well as his other personal and professional interests, through correspondence, writings, lectures, clippings, blueprints, drawings, slides, photographs, and ephemera.
The Project Files comprise the largest group of materials in the collection and document design work undertaken by Sheets through his company Millard Sheets & Associates Designs. Sheets and his associates produced concept drawings and blueprints and supervised the construction for a wide range of design projects that ranged in scale from architectural plans for private residences to bid proposals for shopping malls and financial institutions located in California and the Southwest.
Sheets designed interior and exterior plans for over forty Home Savings and Loan bank branches in California. The distinctive modular design which Sheets created and then customized by integrating interior and exterior art elements that highlighted local historical events or natural features became synonymous with the image of Home Savings and Loan. Sheets also teamed up with the architect Edward Durrell Stone to produce a proposal for the Capitol Mall Project, an urban renewal project for the Redevelopment Agency of the City of Sacramento. Researchers will find correspondence, job costs and billing statements, and notes that trace the development of these and other building construction projects. In some instances the documents are supplemented by blueprints, photographs, and/or drawings of the project, but in many cases, visual documentation is missing.
The Project Files also document work done by Millard Sheets on public projects such as the Family of Man mural in the Los Angeles City Hall Annex, a mosaic dome in the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, D.C., and the Word of Life mural at the University of Notre Dame, Ind., along with numerous other murals and mosaics created for private individuals and corporations.
The Correspondence Series primarily reflects the interaction between Sheets and his clients, colleagues, and personal acquaintances. These files will prove valuable to researchers who are interested in the way that Sheets's beliefs about the role of art in everyday life impacted the way he conducted business and managed both large and small design projects. The correspondence also reflects Sheets's interest in popular American culture, travel, political issues of the day, and art collecting.
The Membership Files document the wide variety of interests that Sheets maintained through active membership in associations and organizations. The material in this series consists primarily of correspondence, minutes of meetings, and notes which Sheets created or used as he served as a board member or trustee on a number of organizational boards, such as the California Institute of the Arts, the Claremont Colleges, Virginia Steele Scott Foundation, Webb School of California, and Goodwill Industries of Southern California.
Also found in this series is material that documents his interest and participation in various recreational and professional organizations. Sheets maintained a long association with the Economic Roundtable, a group of businessmen who met regularly to give presentations and share discussion on contemporary political and social issues. Sheets was a frequent speaker and his talks given at the Economic Roundtables can be found in Lectures and Speeches, a subseries of the Writings Series.
Included in the Millard Sheets & Associates Designs, Inc. series are records that reflect the day-to-day operations of Sheets's design firm. Found here are chronological copies of correspondence that were sent out, files Sheets maintained on various independent contractors that the design firm frequently used, resumes and letters of recommendation that Sheets received regarding potential employees, as well as records relating to the cost and maintenance of Sheets's office building.
The Teaching and Workshop Files document the instructional activities undertaken by Sheets throughout his career in the arts. Although Sheets became pivotal in establishing a regionally recognized art department at Scripps College in Claremont, California, the files that reflect his academic position there are limited in scope and depth. Researchers will find more substantive the files that he maintained on the numerous art demonstrations and paintings workshops that he conducted privately throughout his career. Sheets traveled extensively around the world through his teaching activities and the files in this series track his path.
Closely related to the Teaching and Workshop Files is the Painting Trips series. The material in these files document Sheets's service as an American Specialist in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the USIS, Department of State. Sheets served two times as a cultural arts representative in Turkey in 1960 and in the former USSR in 1961. Sheets also made numerous trips to South East Asia, which had proved an area of fascination for him since his experiences as a war correspondent in Burma and India in World War II. The files in this series document his painting trips to Tahiti, the Pacific Ocean Rim, and Hawaii. Also found are files that detail his painting activities in Mexico.
The Exhibition Files reflect the records that Sheets maintained regarding his participation in art exhibitions, as well as his files on art shows that he personally directed or organized for public or private groups or organizations. Although Sheets exhibited his work predominantly in the West and Southwest, the files in this series demonstrate that he exhibited both nationally and internationally as well.
Also found within the records for this series are files relating to Sheets's representation of his artwork through established galleries and art agents. The Dalziel Hatfield Galleries of Los Angeles, California, served as his primary agent for most of his painting career. Correspondence between Sheets and the Hatfields provide insight into Sheets's development into a regionally and nationally significant watercolorist and painter. The files relating to the Kennedy Galleries in New York and the Circle Gallery in Chicago reflect Sheets's efforts to maintain a national presence in the arts community.
The Jury Files document Sheets's involvement as a juror in regional, as well, as national shows. The files reveal the great variety of professional watercolor and painting exhibitions in which Sheets participated as either a jury panelist or solo judge.
The Writings Files provide an excellent source for researchers interested in Sheets's philosophical beliefs about the relationship between art and everyday life. His articles, lectures, and speeches predominantly address the role of the artist, the relationships that exist between artists and the community, and the role that art can play in making a fuller, more productive life. Also found in the files of this series are articles written by others about Sheets.
The Biographical Material series provides a short introduction to Millard Sheets. The files consist of the calendars maintained by Sheets and his wife and staff, which were used to coordinate his many commitments and appointments. Also found in the files of this series are family chronologies that were created by Mary Baskerville Sheets. Medical records and resumes provide personal information about Sheets's background and health. A small file of military memorabilia provides information about Sheets's contributions to the war effort in World War II.
The Printed Matter series documents family activities and personalities through publicity clippings. Also found are exhibition catalogs and announcements that Sheets saved regarding other artists. Miscellaneous interests and activities of Sheets are found through magazine articles, brochures, and flyers.
The Photographs series includes photographic documentation for Sheets's artwork, horses, and major projects. A small group of photographs of Sheets are also in this series.
The files in the Artwork series include original drawings by Mary Baskerville Sheets and Millard Sheets.
There is a 4.6 linear foot unprocessed addition to this collection donated 2018 that includes writings; sketchbooks and sketches; photographs and negatives of works of art, images of Millard Sheets and others including family; printed material, including two scrapbooks; and scattered correspondence regarding Sheet's projects.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into fifteen series. Small series, such as Biographical Material are generally based on type of document. Larger series, such as Correspondence or Project Files, are arranged alphabetically by name of correspondent or project. General correspondence has been made into its own series, but other series or subseries may also contain some correspondence. Within particular series, materials have been further divided into subseries which represent particular aspects of the project or event. For example, the Writings Series is further divided into subseries of books and articles, eulogies, and lectures and speeches. An outline listing series and subseries titles and dates follows.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1907-1982, undated (boxes 1-2; 1.25 linear ft.)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1929-1990, undated (boxes 2-4; 2.75 linear ft.)
Series 3: Personal Business Records, 1933-1980, undated (boxes 5-6; 1.25 linear ft.)
Series 4: Membership Files, 1946-1982, undated (boxes 6-8; 2.5 linear ft.)
Series 5: Millard Sheets & Associates Designs, 1934-1982, undated (boxes 8-9; 1.0 linear ft.)
Series 6: Project Files, 1956-1981, undated (boxes 9-18; 8.25 linear ft.)
Series 7: Teaching and Workshop Files, 1932-1982 (box 18; 0.5 linear ft.)
Series 8: Painting Trips, 1959-1980, undated (box 18; 16 folders)
Series 9: Exhibition Files, 1932-1937, 1951-1988, undated (box 19; 0.75 linear ft.)
Series 10: Jury Files, 1941-1982 (boxes 19-20; 42 folders)
Series 11: Writings, 1936-1988, undated (boxes 20-22; 2.5 linear ft.)
Series 12: Printed Matter, 1936-1922, undated (boxes 22-23; 20 folders)
Series 13: Photographs, 1934-1983, undated (box 23; 17 folders)
Series 14: Artwork, circa 1929, undated (box 23; 2 folders)
Series 15: Unprocessed Addition, circa 1930-2000 (boxes 24, 26-30, OV25: 4.6 linear ft.)
Biographical Note:
"Your painting is a measure of your mind"-Millard Sheets
Millard Sheets, as one of the founding members of the "California Scene Painters," exerted a lasting influence upon subsequent generations of Western painters. He and the small group of painters who worked in California during the 1930s and 1940s, developed a new style of watercolor painting that was at the forefront of the American watercolor movement of the time, and that later gave rise to a subsequent generation of painters who became known as the California Regionalist school.
Sheets was born in Pomona, California on June 24, 1907. His mother died in childbirth, and his father, John Sheets, unprepared to raise a baby alone, sent Millard to Pomona, California to be raised by his maternal grandparents, Lewis and Emma Owen. Sheets's grandfather proved to be a guiding force in his life, and when Sheets's father remarried and offered Millard the opportunity to return to the Sheets household, Millard chose instead to remain with his grandparents.
Sheets's love of horses can be directly traced back to his childhood years spent living at his grandfather's horse ranch. Millard rode his first horse when he was three years old. Throughout his life, Sheets returned to the theme of horses in his paintings, as well as maintaining a private stable of horses, and raising and breeding racehorses.
His interest in art also began in childhood. When he was still a young boy, his two maternal aunts encouraged him to play with crayons and pencils. Sheets took his first painting lesson from a neighbor at the age of seven, and by 1919 he had already submitted artwork to the copy division of the Los Angeles County Fair fine arts show competition. He submitted a drawing he had copied of a tinted photograph of Lake KIlarney, California. Sheets won first prize in his division.
It was through this competition that Millard met Theodore B. Modra, a Polish artist who had retired to the Pomona area. After giving Sheets a lecture on the evils of copying art, Modra offered to give him art lessons.
Sheets continued to pursue his interest in art and enrolled in the Choinard School of Art in Los Angeles, California. By the time that he graduated in 1929, Sheets had also managed to come to the attention of Dalzell and Ruth Hatfield of the Dalzell Hatfield Galleries in Los Angeles, California. The Hatfields were one of the most influential art dealers in Southern California, and that same year, they sponsored Sheets in his first one-man exhibition in 1929. The exhibition brought Sheets to the attention of Western Coast art critics and launched Sheets on his painting career.
In 1929 Sheets also learned that he had won second place in the annual Edgar B. Davis art competition held in San Antonio, Texas. The award came with a cash prize and Sheets made plans to travel to Europe to study and paint. Shortly before his departure, however, he met an art student, Mary Baskerville, and they began a whirlwind romance. With Baskerville's enthusiastic support for European plans, and with her promise that she would wait for him, Sheets departed for New York and then Europe.
While overseas during 1929 and 1930, Sheets studied under Dorfinant, a master printer in Paris. Through his work at this studio workshop, he met Henri Matisse.
Five months after Millard returned to the California in 1930, Sheets and Mary Baskerville married. Sheets worked as the director of the Fine Arts Exhibition of the Los Angeles County Fair. In 1932 Sheets returned to school to study art and humanities at Scripps College in Claremont, California. After graduating from Scripps, school officials approached Sheets with an offer to set up a separate fine arts program and asked him to chair the new department. This was the beginning of a twenty year association with the school. In 1938, he also became the Director of Art at Claremont Graduate School.
Sheets left the school during the years of World War II to serve as a war-time artist and journalist for Life magazine, and from 1943-1944 was stationed on the Burma-India Front. His experiences in Asia appeared to affect him deeply. In contrast to his earlier works which featured backgrounds with neutral tones and brilliant shades that highlighted and punctuated the compositions, the paintings from the wartime featured somber tones. Sheets remarked of this time:
During the fighting and the time I spent in the C-B-1 theater, I was too shaken and intellectually stunned to do any complete paintings. I made many, many sketches, though, as well as a real effort to remember each scene that particularly affected me. Then, once I returned to America, I painted frantically, for months, exorcising demons. [Lovoos, Janice and Edmund F. Penney, Millard Sheets: One-Man Renaissance, Northland Press, Flagstaff, AZ, 1984]
Sheets returned from the war in 1944 and resumed his position at Scripps College until 1955 when he was approached by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and asked to overhaul the fledgling Los Angeles County Art Institute. Sheets accepted the position and spent the next five years reshaping the mission and format of the school, renaming it the Otis Art Institute. In the years after Sheets left the directorship, the school eventually became part of the Parson's School of Design on the West Coast.
In 1953 Sheets founded the Millard Sheets Designs company. He hired between twenty-five and thirty artisans for large projects, with Susan Hertel, a former student of his, serving as his assistant in all the operations of the design studio. The working staff included engineers, registered architects, draftsmen, and artists, and the projects that the firm produced included murals, mosaics, stained glass, and sculpture for private homes and public and commercial businesses.
The design studio completed several major architectural projects throughout the late 1950s through the mid 1970s, including the design and construction of Cal Aero, a flight training school for the US Air Force, the National American Insurance Company offices for the California financier, Howard Ahmanson, Ahmanson Bank and Trust Company in Beverly Hills, many Home Savings and Loan Association Buildings, private residences, and the Scottish Rite Memorial Temples in Los Angeles and San Francisco, among many other projects.
Sheets also designed and completed mural and mosiac work for numerous public buildings in the Los Angeles area, as well as across the nation. Many of the murals and mosiacs were for those buildings designed by his firm while others were done as independent commissions.
In 1968 Sheets first proposed the murals he designed for the Los Angeles City Hall. His design was approved and he was awarded a commission to complete The Family of Man murals over the two main entrances to the Los Angeles City Hall. The murals were completed in 1971 and installed in 1972. Sheets also designed mosiacs and murals for the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, the Library at Notre Dame University, the Scottish Rite Masonic Temple in Los Angeles, several Home Savings and Loan Association buildings in the Los Angeles area, the Detroit Public Library, and the Dome of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC.
During the early 1960s Sheets participated in the American Specialist Program of the US Department of State. His first assignment was to Turkey in 1960, where he served as a visiting artist. The following year he went to the USSR in the same capacity.
During the early to mid 1950s Sheets became involved with Columbia Pictures and was technical advisor and production designer for a few years.
Millard Sheets was a member of the National Watercolor Society, the American Watercolor Society, the National Academy of Design, the Society of Motion Picture Art Directors, and the Century Association. Sheets actively promoted his own work and was a businessman, an active and prolific artist, instructor, and designer. Millard Sheets died on March 31, 1989 in Gualala, California.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds material lent for microfilming (reels LA 10) including a biographical sketch, career resume, and a list of sheets' work prepared in 1964. Loaned materials were returned to the lender and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
Millard Sheets lent material for microfilming in 1965. Mary B. Sheets, Millard's widow, donated the papers to the Archives of American Art in 1992. Carolyn Owen-Toole, Sheet's daughter, gave a small addition of material in 2018.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
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.
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Researchers interested in accessing audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more information.
Collection 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.
Collection Citation:
Betty Parsons Gallery records and personal papers, 1916-1991. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art and The Walton Family Foundation.
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Researchers interested in accessing audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more information.
Collection 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.
Collection Citation:
Betty Parsons Gallery records and personal papers, 1916-1991. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art and The Walton Family Foundation.
The papers of Matsumi Kanemitsu measure 3.1 linear feet and date from 1947-1998. The papers document Kanemitsu's career through biographical material; correspondence with friends, family, artists, universities, and galleries; professional files such as teaching files and work on juried shows; personal and business financial records; printed materials, photographs, and artwork.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Matsumi Kanemitsu measure 3.1 linear feet and date from 1947-1998. The papers document Kanemitsu's career through biographical material; correspondence with friends, family, artists, universities, and galleries; professional files such as teaching files and work on juried shows; personal and business financial records; printed materials, photographs, and artwork.
Biographical material includes resumes, contact and business cards, assorted notes written by Kanemitsu in English and Japanese, and National Geographic membership certificates. Correspondence consist of a mix of personal letters with family and friends, many of which were other artists, as well as professional letters with galleries, museums and colleagues in both English and Japanese. Noteable correspondence include the Akron Art museum, Harold Rosenberg, Harriet and Esteban Vicente, MOMA, Paul Jenkins, Peter Pollack, William De Kooning and others. Professional files document Kanemitsu's academic appoitments, roles serving on the exhibition jury for the Utah '88: Painting and Sculpture exhibition and as a Friends of Little Tokyo Arts (FOLTA) member, commission work and an application for the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. Personal business records include sale, consignment and loan recipets, shipping records, gallery correspondence and other documents related to the creation, commission and sale of Kanemitu's work such as artwork inventory lists, gallery consignment records and commission invoices. This series also includes records pertaining to Kanemitu's travel and buisness expenses, personal finances and art collecting. Printed Material includes exhibition announcements, invitations and catalogs, magazines, posters, a posthumous retrospective exhibition catalog written in English and Japanese, clippings in English and Japanese and other miscellaneous materials. Photographic Material primarily include photographs of Kanemitsu, his children and friends. Also found are photographs of artwork, miscellaneous photographs of a winter landscape, a house and street in Japan and two slides of artwork titled Phil. The artwork series consists of two small paintings by Kanemitsu as well as a childhood drawing by his daughter Patia Valazquez.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as seven series
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1947-1992 (0.4 Linear feet: Box 1)
Series 2: Correspondence, circa 1947-1992 (1.3 Linear feet: Box 1-2)
Series 3: Professional Files, circa 1961-1990 (0.3 Linear feet: Box 2)
Series 4: Personal Business , circa 1959-1991 (0.4 Linear feet: Box 3)
Series 5: Printed Material, 1961-1998 (0.5 Linear feet: Box 3, OV 1)
Series 6: Photographic Material, circa 1960-1992 (0.2 Linear feet: Box 3)
Series 7: Artwork, circa 1970s (2 Folders: Box 3)
Biographical / Historical:
Matsumi Kanemitsu (1922-1992), also known as Mike Kanemistu was a Japanese American painter based in both New York City, New York and Los Angeles, California. Although born in Utah, Kanemitsu lived in Japan until he was eighteen. In 1940 he returned to the United States, joining the Army in 1941. But after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he was arrested and sent to a series of Army detention camps. With art supplies provided by the American Red Cross, he began to draw with pen and ink and pastels. Eventually, he was released and volunteered for overseas duty as a hospital assistant in Europe. His Army tour ended in 1946. After the war, he studied with Fernand Leger in Paris; with Kuniyoshi, Sternberg, and others at the Art Student's League in New York; and with sculptor Karl Metzler in Baltimore. A highly recognized second generation Abstract Expressionist in New York, Kanemitsu came to live permanently in Los Angeles after recieving a Ford Foundation Fellowship in 1961 to work at the Tamarind Lithography Workshop where he created a series of prints that translated sumi painting techniques into lithography. He exhibited widely throughout the United States, as well as Japan, and is work is owned by a number of public institutions in the United States and Japan. In addition to his practice, Kanemitsu also held professorial positions at a number of universities and art institutions including the University of California Berkely, the Chouinard Art Institute, amd the Otis Art Institute.
Provenance:
Donated 1994 and 1998 by Nancy Uyemura, Kanemitsu's former student, friend, and executor.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Researchers interested in accessing born-digital records or audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. 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.
Japanese Americans -- Forced removal and internment -- 1942-1945 Search this
Citation:
Matsumi Kanemitsu papers, circa 1947-1998. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
The processing of this collection received Federal support from the Smithsonian Collections Care and Preservation Fund, administered by the National Collections Program and the Smithsonian Collections Advisory Committee.
Woman's Building (Los Angeles, Calif.) Search this
Container:
Box 12, Folder 15
Type:
Archival materials
Date:
circa 1975-1978
Collection Citation:
Woman's Building records, 1970-1992. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Getty Foundation. Funding for the digitization of this collection was provided by The Walton Family Foundation and Joyce F. Menschel, Vital Projects Fund, Inc.
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.
Collection Citation:
Claire Falkenstein papers, circa 1914-1997, bulk 1940-1990. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Getty Foundation.
