Egg and Eye Gallery and Restaurant (Los Angeles, Calif.) Search this
Women in the Arts in Southern California Oral History Project Search this
Extent:
153 Pages (Transcript)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Pages
Interviews
Sound recordings
Date:
1993 March 9-September 7
Scope and Contents:
An interview of Edith Wyle conducted 1993 March 9-September 7, by Sharon K. Emanuelli, for the Archives of American Art, Women in the Arts in Southern California Oral History Project.
Wyle speaks of her family background and her early education and interests; her studies at U.C. Berkeley and UCLA; her marriage to Frank Wyle; her friendship with Rico Lebrun; the cultural scene in Los Angeles between 1940 and 1970; the founding of the Egg and the Eye restaurant and gallery; and the founding of the Craft and Folk Art Museum and its development over the years.
Biographical / Historical:
Edith R. Wyle (1918-1999) was an arts administrator and painter from Los Angeles, California. Established Egg and the Eye Gallery and Restaurant in Los Angeles in 1964 and oversaw its transformation in 1973 into the Craft and Folk Art Museum, for which she was Director and then Program director until 1984. Wyle also is a painter, and had a close friendship with Rico Lebrun.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 16 digital wav files. Duration is 8 hrs., 8 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators. Funding for this interview was provided by the Margery and Harry Kahn Philanthropic Fund of the Jewish Communal Fund of New York.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
An interview of Raimonds Staprans conducted 1997 August 14-1997 September 15, by Paul Karlstrom, for the Archives of American Art. The sessions were held in Karlstrom's San Francisco office.
Staprans discusses his family background; earliest childhood memories of growing up in Latvia; his father's persecution by Germans and Russians which ultimately led to their departure from Austria in 1947; living in Salem, Or.; attending University of Washington at Seattle and his contact there with Morris Graves, Mark Tobey, George Tsutakawa, and Alexander Archipenko; graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley; and artists he admires, including Pierre Matisse, Thomas Eakins, and Edward Hopper.
Staprans discusses at length Wayne Thiebaud and Richard Diebenkorn; and comparisons made to his work. He discusses his sensuality as a basis for his life and art; early gallery experiences; his thoughts on criticism and reviews; his relationship with Fred Maxwell of the Maxwell Galleries in San Francisco and how his loyalty to the gallery held back his career; stresses in his marriage and of raising children; the breakup of his marriage and immersion in painting and sculpture; his decorative works under the nom de plume Carl Ulmanes; developing feelings of dejection and cynicism which nearly ended his art career and recovering from those feelings; his playwriting career; and his views on both careers.
Biographical / Historical:
Raimonds Staprans (1926-) is a painter and playwright from San Francisco, California.
General:
Originally recorded on 7 sound cassette. Reformatted in 2010 as 14 digital wav files. Duration is 7 hr.. 20 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics, and administrators.
Funding for this interview provided by the Jewish Communal Fund.
Occupation:
Painters -- Washington (State) -- Seattle Search this
Topic:
Painters -- California -- California -- San Francisco -- Interviews Search this
Genre/Form:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Sponsor:
Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service.
An interview of Roland C. Petersen conducted 2002 Sept. 17, by Paul Karlstrom, for the Archives of American Art, in Petersen's home, in Pacifica, Calif.
Petersen discusses his background, education, and his influences including Stanley William Hayter, Joan Miro, and Minor White, as well as his attraction to Asian brush painting which he learned from Chiuro Obata at Berkeley, Abstract Expressionism and the University of California, Davis. Also discussed are Cezanne's and Van Gogh's techniques.
Biographical / Historical:
Roland Petersen (1926- ) is a painter from Pacifica, Calif.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound cassette. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 1 hr.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
An interview of Ron Nagle conducted 2003 July 8-9, by Bill Berkson, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, in San Francisco, California.
Nagle speaks of his childhood in San Francisco and growing up in the "Outer Mission"; his early creative influences, including his father who "could build anything," his mother, who ran a ceramics club in their basement, and his high school friend Steve Archer, who customized cars; making and selling jewelry while in high school; the Beat scene in San Francisco; teaching his high school friend Rick Gomez about jewelry in exchange for lessons in throwing clay on the wheel; attending San Francisco State University, initially as an English major then switching to art; learning about Peter Voulkos from Gomez; taking a summer course with Henry Takemoto at the Art Institute [now the California School of Fine Arts]; his "manic" interest in art magazines; studying with Charles McKee at San Francisco State; working as a studio assistant for Peter Voulkos at the University of California at Berkeley, after his graduate school application was rejected; making connections in the Los Angeles art scene through friend and sculptor Ed Bereal; the influence of Kenneth Price, James Melchert, Peter Voulkos, 16th and 17th century Japanese ceramics, popular culture, and painters such as Giorgio Morandi, Albert Pinkham Ryder, Josef Albers, Philip Guston, Billy Al Bengston, and others; his first show at the Dilexi Gallery, "Works in Clay by Six Artists," 1968; teaching for 42 years; the relation between music and "studio art"; playing the piano and his broad interest in music; his band Mystery Trend; creating sound effects for the film, "The Exorcist;" his use of color; exhibitions at Garth Clark Gallery and showing internationally; his use of porcelain in the early 1990s; the idea of craft vs. art; the meditative and playful qualities of working with clay; his references to male and female physiology in his work; and his process.
Biographical / Historical:
Ron Nagle (1939- ) is a cermacist of San Francisco, California. Bill Berkson (1939- ) is a poet.
General:
Originally recorded on 3 sound discs. Reformatted in 2010 as 11 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hrs., 27 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Occupation:
Musicians -- California -- San Francisco Search this
An interview of Fred Martin conducted 1980 Aug. 27-Sept. 19, by Terry St. John, for the Archives of American Art.
Martin speaks of his childhood and early artistic influences; his education at the University of California, Berkeley; his rebellion as a student; studying under Mark Rothko and Clyfford Still; teaching art in elementary and high schools; going to work for the Oakland Art Museum; his lack of an identifiable style and its negative impact on his early career; teaching at and becoming director of the San Francisco Art Institute; leaving there and teaching at the University of California, Berkeley; the influence of abstract expressionism on his work; his work in collage; his travels; the influence of "dynamic symmetry"; the current art market.
Biographical / Historical:
Fred Martin (1927- ) is a painter, teacher, and collagist from Oakland, Calif.
General:
Originally recorded on 8 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 14 digital wav files. Duration is 7 hrs., 9 min.
Provenance:
These interviews are part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and others.
An interview of Erle Loran conducted 1981 June 18, by Herschel Chipp, for the Archives of American Art.
Loran speaks of his education, his studies with Cameron Booth and Hans Hofmann, life in Europe on a grant, his study of Cezanne, including his book, "Cezanne's Composition," and his return to New York. He discusses teaching at the Minneapolis School of Art, the WPA Art School, in Minneapolis, and the University of California, at Berkeley. He comments on meeting Marsden Hartley, American midwestern painters, ghost towns as subject matter for paintings, American politics in the 1930s, and surrealism in America.
Biographical / Historical:
Erle Loran (1905-1999) was a painter and art historian of Minneapolis, Minn. and Berkeley, Calif.
General:
Originally recorded on 5 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 10 digital wav files. Duration is 5 hrs., 14 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives' Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and others.
Restrictions:
Transcript: Patrons must use microfilm copy.
Occupation:
Art historians -- California -- Interviews Search this
An interview of Sidney Gordin conducted 1965 Sept. 2, by Dorothy Seckler, for the Archives of American Art.
Gordin speaks of immigrating to the United States from Shanghai, China in 1922; being the class artist in grade school; attending Brooklyn Technical High School; studying at the WPA art school at the Brooklyn Museum for a summer; attending the Cooper Union School of Art; encountering Cubism; working as a commercial artist and making cartoons; teaching at the Pratt Institute; and alternating, as inspiration strikes, between painting and sculpture; and Constructivist philosophy. Gordin also mentions Ralph Rosenborg, Tom Eldred, Carol and Wallace Harrison, Edward Alden Jewell, Pablo Picasso, Byron Thomas, Morris Kantor, Hans Hofmann, Paul Clay, Jackson Pollock, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Sidney Gordin (1918-1996) was a sculptor and educator from Berkeley, Calif.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound tape. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 1 hr., 1 min.
Provenance:
These interviews are part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and others.
Occupation:
Art teachers -- California -- Berkeley -- Interviews Search this
New Deal and the Arts Oral History Project Search this
Extent:
1 Sound tape reel (Sound recordings, 5 in.)
24 Pages (Transcript)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Sound tape reels
Pages
Sound recordings
Interviews
Date:
1965 Jan. 20
Scope and Contents:
An interview of John Emmett Gerrity conducted 1965 Jan. 20, by Mary McChesney, for the Archives of American Art. Gerrity speaks of his background and education; working as a watercolorist and a mural painter for the WPA Federal Art Project; his work methods; the effect of the FAP on him and on other artists of the San Francisco Bay area; and the influence of the Mexican muralists.
Biographical / Historical:
John Emmett Gerrity (1895-1980) was a painter and mural painter from Berkeley, Calif.
Provenance:
This interview conducted as part of the Archives of American Art's New Deal and the Arts project, which includes over 400 interviews of artists, administrators, historians, and others involved with the federal government's art programs and the activities of the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s and early 1940s.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
