An interview of Miyoko Ito conducted 1978 July 20, by Dennis Barrie, for the Archives of American Art.
Ito discusses her family background; being in Japan at an early age, attending school and learning calligraphy; returning to California in 1928; excelling in drawing and painting; attending Berkeley High School; studying watercolor at Berkeley School of Water Color; studying under Erle Loran, Worth Ryder, John Haley; the influence of Hans Hofmann; being in internment camp (Camp Rann); attending Smith College, Northampton to study painting under instructor George Cohen; attending the Art Institue of Chicago and meeting Francis Chapin and Joan Mitchell; being influenced by Bonnard; moving into lithography at Oxbow; studying under Max Kahn; doing printmaking and etching; and participating in the Momentum Shows. Ito mentions Ynez Johnston, Leonard Edmondson, Lionel Venturi, Ellen Lanyon, Don Baum, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and Vera Berdich.
Biographical / Historical:
Miyoko Ito (1918-1983) was a Japanese American painter based in Chicago, Illinois.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 tape reel (5 in.).
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 others.
Correspondence; photographs; scrapbook; printed material; and clippings.
REELS 1234-1235: Correspondence of Elsa Ulbricht, Director of the Ox-Bow Summer School of Painting; photographs of artists, and the 1975 craft workshop; and clippings and publications describing the history and programs of Ox-Bow.
REEL 1419: A scrapbook of clippings and flyers; brochures and printed matter; a 1950 exhibition notice; clippings; a catalog for the exhibition "50 Photographs by Wallace Kirkland"; three albums and loose photographs of the school and students.
Biographical / Historical:
Art school; Saugatuck, Michigan. Founded 1910 by Walter Marshall Clute and Frederick F. Fursman.
Provenance:
Lent for microfilming 1977-1978 through Loretta Grellner, Director of Oxbow.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
The papers of artist Ellen Lanyon measure 62.6 linear feet and 84.47 GB and date from circa 1880-2015, bulk 1926-2013. Biographical material; correspondence; interviews; writings; journals; project files; teaching files; exhibition files; personal business records; printed and broadcast material; scrapbooks; photographic material; artwork; sketchbooks; as well as sound and video recordings and digital material, provide a comprehensive view of Lanyon's career and of art circles in Chicago and New York. Correspondence with artists and friends make up a significant portion of the collection. Project and exhibition files reflect her professional and artistic career. Thousands of slides and photographs document her life and artwork over seven decades, and over seventy sketchbooks are filled with student sketches, portraits of friends and family, and preliminary drawings.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of artist Ellen Lanyon measure 62.6 linear feet and 84.47 GB and date from circa 1880-2015, bulk 1926-2013. Biographical material; correspondence; interviews; writings; journals; project files; teaching files; exhibition files; personal business records; printed and broadcast material; scrapbooks; photographic material; artwork; sketchbooks; as well as sound and video recordings and digital material, provide a comprehensive view of Lanyon's career and of art circles in Chicago and New York.
Biographical material documents Lanyon's major life events and includes calendars; addresses and contacts; life documents; awards; diplomas and school records; resumes; horoscope readings and natal chart; residence documents; personal memorabilia; family papers and memorabilia; digital material; and items relating to Lanyon's memorial.
Correspondence, both personal and professional, consists of letters, postcards, holiday and greeting cards exchanged with family, friends, artists, collectors, publishers, print shops, museums, galleries, and cultural and educational institutions. Some material is in digital format. Notable correspondents include Judy Chicago, Leon Golub, Red Grooms, Richard Hunt, Joyce Kozloff, Lucy Lippard, Gladys Nilsson, Irving Petlin, Edward Plunkett, Dorothea Rockburne, Miriam Schapiro, Buzz Spector, May Stevens, and Michelle Stuart.
Fourteen interviews are with Ellen Lanyon conducted by various interviewers on behalf of a number of organizations and consist of transcripts, sound recordings, and video recordings, some in digital format.
Writings include general writings, lectures, presentations, and thirty-seven notebooks by Lanyon. A few writings by others about Lanyon and several sound recordings of lectures by other artists are also found here.
Twenty-five journals intermittently record Lanyon's reflections on her day-to-day life including her work, obligations, and relationships.
Project files include professional activities and files documenting projects and commissions. Files may contain project proposals, correspondence, printed and digital material, applications, contracts, research notes, invoices, receipts, notebooks, sketches, plans, organizational records, and photographic material. Three multi-year projects are extensively documented, including theMiami Metamorphosis mural, Riverwalk Gateway mural, and Hiawatha Rail Line mural.
Teaching files consist of correspondence, memoranda, course descriptions and proposals, rosters, administrative documents, and printed material from a number of institutions, including Cooper Union, where Lanyon taught from the 1970s to her retirement in 1993.
Exhibition files include files for individual exhibitions, exhibitions by women artists, and chronological files. Files may contain correspondence, inventories, consignment records, layout plans, printed and digital material, and photographic material.
Personal business, inventory, and estate records document the financial and administrative history of Lanyon's career and artworks.
Printed material, broadcast material, and published video recordings document Lanyon's career, art movements in Chicago and New York, and the women's movement in art. Files may contain books, booklets, broadsides, radio and television broadcasts, brochures, exhibition announcements and catalogs, lecture announcements, news and magazine clippings, newspapers and newsletters, periodicals, press releases, programs, video recordings, digital material, source material, and posters.
Eight scrapbooks contain predominantly clippings and exhibition material documenting Lanyon's career.
Photographic material consists of thousands of prints, slides, transparencies, digital photographs, and negatives of Lanyon, family, friends, artists, places, and artwork.
A small number of artworks include a self-portrait Lanyon carved in wood, a childhood painting, a photo collage, sketches, and one folder of assignments for an art course. Artworks by others are a hand colored photograph album by Marcia Palazzolo and prints distributed by Landfall Press.
Seventy-one sketchbooks are filled with student sketches, portraits of friends and family, and preliminary drawings done in pencil, watercolor, and colored pencil.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as fifteen series
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1880-2014, bulk 1926-2015 (5.3 linear feet; Box 1-6, 62, 3.94 GB; ER01-ER04)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1936-2013 (14.3 linear feet; Box 6-20, 1.51 GB; ER05-ER11)
Series 3: Interviews, circa 1975-2012 (0.7 linear feet; Box 20-21, 7.07 GB; ER12-ER19)
Series 4: Writings, Lectures, and Notebooks, circa 1947-2015 (3.2 linear feet; Box 21-24, 0.712 GB; ER20-ER24)
Series 5: Journals, 1967-2013 (1 linear foot; Box 24-25)
Series 6: Project Files, 1952-2014 (5.8 linear feet; Box 25-31, 62, OV 66, 13.42 GB; ER25-ER32)
Series 7: Teaching Files, 1953-2010 (0.9 linear feet; Box 31)
Series 8: Exhibition Files, circa 1944-2013 (2.7 linear feet; Box 32-34, 63, 3.87 GB; ER33-ER37)
Series 9: Personal Business, Inventory, and Estate Records, circa 1950-2015 (3 linear feet; Box 34-37, 9.10 GB; ER38-ER46)
Series 10: Printed and Broadcast Material, and Published Video Recordings, 1937-2013 (13.3 linear feet; Box 37-49, 63, OV 67-77, 2.18 GB; ER47-ER49)
Series 11: Scrapbooks, 1946-2013 (0.6 linear feet; Box 49-50)
Series 12: Photographic Material, circa 1920-2015 (7.7 linear feet; Box 50-57, 63, 42.44 GB; ER50-ER71)
Series 13: Artwork, circa 1938-1979 (0.2 linear feet; Box 58, 63)
Series 14: Sketchbooks, circa 1940-2010 (3.4 linear feet; Box 58-60, 64, 65)
Series 15: Unidentified Sound and Video Recordings, and Electronic Records, circa 1974-2013 (0.5 linear feet; Box 60-61)
Biographical / Historical:
Ellen Lanyon (1926-2013) was an American painter and printmaker working in Chicago and New York. She was born in Chicago, Illinois to Howard and Ellen (Nellie) Lanyon. Lanyon received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1948 and married classmate and artist Roland Ginzel that same year. In 1950, she received her MFA from the University of Iowa. As part of her post graduate work, Lanyon studied at the Courtauld Institute, University of London on a Fulbright Fellowship.
In the late 1940s, Lanyon began exhibiting her work and was featured in several Chicago and Vicinity Annual shows as well as the Momentum exhibitions. Influenced by surrealism, magic realism, and the work of the Chicago Imagists and the Hairy Who, Lanyon's subjects range from portraits of friends and family, to objects from her collection of curios, to flora and fauna. She produced paintings, drawings, print editions, artist's books, and some ceramics. In addition to her own artwork, Lanyon took on numerous commissions including the Riverwalk Gateway murals in Chicago, the Hiawatha Transit murals in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and a variety of illustration work.
Lanyon was active in many professional organizations and women's organizations including the College Art Association (CAA) and the Women's Caucus for Art. She organized panels at CAA, contributed writings and editing to journals, including Heresies, and served on a variety of panels and juries. Lanyon was also on the Board of the Ox-Bow Summer School of Painting, which she attended in her youth. Over the course of her career, she taught at many colleges and universities, including Cooper Union, where she was Associate Professor.
Throughout her career, Lanyon participated in exhibitions around the country, including a retrospective of her work at the National Museum for Women in the Arts in 1999. She was also the recipient of many awards and grants including the Logan Price and a National Endowment for the Arts grant.
Lanyon and Ginzel had two children, Andrew and Lisa Ginzel.
Related Materials:
Also found in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Ellen Lanyon conducted by James Crawford in 1975.
Provenance:
A majority of the collection was donated in 2015 by Andrew Ginszel, Ellen Lanyon's son and executor. Lanyon also donated material in 1990. Portions of the collection were lent for microfilming from 1977-1981 by Lanyon and subsequently donated.
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.
Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access 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.
Interview of Ellen Lanyon conducted by James Crawford for the Archives of American Art.
Lanyon speaks of family background; interests in art and music and collecting objects and antiques; her early art education; remembrances of 1933 Chicago World's Fair; Art Institute; Oxbow Summer School of Painting; her work and techniques; exhibitions; Institute of Design; marriage and move to University of Iowa; Iowa art department, Iowa print group; Fulbright to England; travel in France and Italy; return to Chicago; founding of graphic workshop; Hairy Who group; The Imagists; Seven and Up exhibitions; Red Grooms in Chicago; and commissions. She recalls George Buehr, Margo Hoff, Dudley Crafts Watson, Vera Berdich, Joseph Hirsch, Carl Schneiwind, Kathleen Blackshear, Mauricio Lasansky, Gertrude Abercrombie, Julius Carleback, Roland Ginzel, and Edgar Rupprecht.
Biographical / Historical:
Ellen Lanyon (1926- ) is a painter and printmaker in New York and Chicago, Ill.
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.
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
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:
Maryette Charlton papers, circa 1890-2013. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by Smithsonian Institution Collections Care and Preservation Fund
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Ellen Lanyon, 1975 Dec. 5. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
