The papers of artists Arthur and Helen Torr Dove measure 3 linear feet and date from 1905 to 1975, with the bulk of material dating from 1920 to 1946. Arthur Dove's life as an artist, and his life with the artist Helen Torr, are documented in biographical narratives, personal documents, an audio recording, correspondence, diaries, essays, poetry, notes, exhibition catalogs, clippings, magazine illustrations, pamphlets, receipts, an accounting ledger, tax records, sketches, and photographs.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of Arthur and Helen Torr Dove measure 3 linear feet and date from 1905 to 1975, with the bulk of material dating from 1920 to 1946. Arthur Dove's life as an artist, and his life with the artist Helen Torr, are documented in biographical narratives, personal documents, an audio recording, correspondence, diaries, essays, poetry, notes, exhibition catalogs, clippings, magazine illustrations, pamphlets, receipts, an accounting ledger, tax records, sketches, and photographs.
Biographical Materials include a last will and testament, biographical narratives, and other official documents, as well as an audio recording of an interview with William Dove made around 1961 by George Wolfer. Correspondence includes letters from friends, clients, other artists, and Dove's patron Duncan Phillips. There is also correspondence with family members Helen Torr and Paul Dove. Drafts of outgoing letters from Dove to various correspondents including Phillips and Alfred Stieglitz are found.
Writings are extensive and include diaries, autobiographical essays, essays about art, artists, and other subjects, and poetry by Arthur Dove; as well as essays, reminiscences, and notes of Helen Torr. Printed Materials include exhibition catalogs for Dove's shows and the shows of other artists in the Stieglitz Circle, examples of Dove's early magazine illustration work, newspaper reviews of Dove's exhibitions, and various pamphlets related to modern art. Personal Business Records include an accounting ledger of the Doves' expenses, sales receipts, tax records, and an undated art inventory. Artwork consists of ten items, mostly sketches in pencil, watercolor, ink, and colored pencil. Photographs are undated and unidentified, but depict mostly family, homes, and coastal scenes.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into 7 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1928-1937, circa 1961 (Box 1; 2 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, circa 1920-1974 (Box 1; 0.8 linear feet)
Series 3: Writings, circa 1924-1945 (Boxes 1-3; 1.5 linear feet)
Series 4: Printed Materials, circa 1905-1975 (Box 3; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 5: Personal Business Records, circa 1921-1965 (Box 3; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 6: Artwork, undated (Box 3; 1 folder)
Series 7: Photographs, 1909, undated (Box 3; 4 folders)
Biographical Note:
Arthur Garfield Dove was an early twentieth-century painter, collagist, and illustrator who was one of the first American artists to embrace abstraction in art. He was a part of Alfred Stieglitz's Circle of modern American artists introduced at Stieglitz's 291 Gallery along with John Marin and Georgia O'Keeffe. Dove spent his career developing his own idiosyncratic style of formal abstraction in painting based on his ideas about nature, feeling, and pure form, and characterized by experimentation with color, composition, and materials.
Born in Canandiagua, NY in 1880, Dove grew up in the small, rural town of Geneva, NY. He was first exposed to art by a local farmer and painter named Newton Weatherly, who gave him canvas and paint, and who Dove himself cited as an early influence. Dove went to Cornell University to study law, but soon shifted to art and illustration. He graduated in 1903 and quickly became a success as a magazine illustrator, working for Collier's, McClure's, St. Nicholas, and The Illustrated Sporting News, among other publications. In 1904, he married Florence Dorsey, a Geneva woman, and they lived in New York City. Their son, William Dove, was born in 1910.
In 1908 the couple traveled to Paris to enable Dove to pursue his interest in painting. In Paris, he met Alfred Maurer, Jo Davidson, and other American artists living abroad. The influence of his European and expatriate contemporaries would prove to be a lasting one, exposing him to ideas about abstraction and experimentation that he would develop in his work for the rest of his life.
Soon after Dove's return to the United States, he met Alfred Stieglitz and began a lifelong friendship. Stieglitz ran the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession, which came to be known as 291, in New York. His daring, avant-garde exhibitions of both European and American modern art at 291 provided a venue and gathering-place for progressive American artists that was unique for its time. Dove's first solo exhibition at 291 was held in 1912, and consisted of ten pastel drawings that have come to be known as the "Ten Commandments." The attention it received established Dove as a prominent abstract painter.
Around 1920, Dove met another Westport artist named Helen S. Torr, also known as Reds. A Philadelphia-born painter who had studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Reds was married at the time to the cartoonist Clive Weed. Torr and Dove eventually left their unhappy marriages and began a life together, moving to a houseboat docked in Manhattan. In 1922, they moved to Halesite, Long Island, New York, where Dove's artwork once again flourished. By the mid-1920s, he was exhibiting regularly, paralleled by the rise of Stieglitz's new Intimate Gallery in 1925. His work continued to explore abstraction and organic forms, and, in addition to paintings, he produced assemblages made of found materials.
Although a building teardown brought the Intimate Gallery to a sudden end in 1929, the financial support of friends enabled Alfred Stieglitz to open An American Place soon thereafter. There Stieglitz would focus on the work of a few American artists, including Dove, John Marin, and Georgia O'Keeffe. Helen Torr was also exhibited at An American Place, in a group show with Arthur in 1933. It was also at this gallery that the art collector Duncan Phillips was introduced to Dove's artwork. Phillips' interest in Dove grew into an ongoing patronage of Dove that would see them through the Depression and periods of serious illness in the 1930s and 1940s. Their arrangement, whereby Phillips had first refusal on all of Dove's new artwork, enabled him to gradually assemble the largest collection of Dove's work held anywhere.
In 1938, while on a trip to New York to attend his exhibition, Dove became suddenly ill. Although he recovered somewhat that year, his health never entirely returned to normal, and he spent long periods during what remained of his life housebound and in a wheelchair. He and Reds bought a home in Centreport, on Long Island, where they would stay the rest of his life. In 1939 he was so ill that neither his family nor Stieglitz thought he would ever paint again. Despite his physical limitations, he continued to work, turning to the less physically strenuous media of drawing and watercolor, and produced new work for five solo exhibitions in the 1940s. His work of this period embraces pure abstraction more fully than ever, and is regarded by some to be a culmination or crystallization of his singular style and approach to abstract painting.
Arthur Dove suffered a stroke in 1946 and died that November, just four months after his lifelong friend and mentor Alfred Stieglitz died of a heart attack. Reds lived until 1967 in their Centreport home. Dove's importance to American art has since been recognized with more than a dozen retrospective exhibitions at major museums and galleries.
This biography relied heavily on the monograph Arthur Dove: Life and Work, with a Catalogue Raisonné (1984) by Ann Lee Morgan.
Separated Material:
The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming. Reel 725 contains Arthur Dove's letters from Alfred Stieglitz (1918-1946) and Georgia O'Keeffe (1921-1948), and two letters from William Einstein (1937). The original letters were later donated to the Beinecke Library at Yale University, which holds the Stieglitz/O'Keeffe Archives. Reel 2803 contains photocopies of Arthur Dove's card catalog of paintings that were discarded after microfilming. This material is not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
The papers of Arthur and Helen Torr Dove were loaned to the Archives of American Art by Arthur Dove's son, William Dove, for microfilming in several increments between 1970 and 1975. The papers were later donated to the Archives by William Dove via the Terry Distenfass Gallery of New York City in multiple accessions between 1982 and 1989, with two major exceptions: 177 letters from Alfred Stieglitz, sixteen letters from Georgia O'Keeffe, and two letters from William Einstein; and Arthur Dove's card catalog of paintings, a photocopy of which had been loaned for microfilming. The papers were digitized in 2006.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Microfilmed and digitized portions must be consulted on microfilm or the Archives website. Use of unmicrofilmed, undigitized portion requires an appointment.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
An interview of Edna Andrade conducted 1987 April 1-29, by Patricia Likos, for the Archives of American Art.
Andrade speaks of her upbringing in Virginia, her education at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in the 1930s under Daniel Garber, Henry McCarter, and George Harding; visiting the Barnes Foundation; her travels in Europe and Egypt and living and working as a teacher and a graphic designer in New Orleans, Washington, and Philadelphia. She discusses the influence of the Bauhaus and Paul Klee on her work and teaching, her marriage to C. Preston Andrade, working in the training and education division of the Office of Strategic Services during World War II, the shift in her work from realism to abstraction, her associations with the Easthampton Gallery in New York and the Marian Locks Gallery in Philadelphia, and changes in the Philadelphia art scene. She recalls Violet Oakley.
Biographical / Historical:
Edna W. Andrade (1917-2008) was a painter from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
General:
Originally recorded on 4 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 7 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hrs., 31 minutes.
Provenance:
These interviews are 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.
Occupation:
Painters -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia Search this
Educators -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia Search this
An interview of Roswell Weidner conducted 1989 July 20-27, by Marina Pacini, for the Archives of American Art Philadelphia Project. Weidner discusses his early life, education, and art training at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, first at the school at Chester Springs, and later at the main school in Philadelphia. He discusses the programs at both schools, and recalls some of the faculty members, including Roy Nuse, Albert Laessle, George Harding, Joseph Pierson, Francis Speight, Daniel Garber, and Henry McCarter. He discusses the courses, exhibitions, and the competitions for traveling scholarships. He also discusses his study at the Barnes Foundation with Violette De Mazia and Angelo Pinto. After leaving the Academy, he joined the National Youth Administration and then transferred to the WPA with the Museum Extension, the Painting Project and the Print Project. He speaks of his work for each of these programs, their administration, and some of the individuals involved including Dox Thrash. He recalls Mary Curran and the efforts made by Albert Barnes to have her removed as head of the Painting Project. Weidner discusses his fifty years as a teacher at the Academy, beginning in 1939, and the changes in the institution since then, including the introduction of printmaking, the growth of abstraction, the hiring of women and black instructors, and other changes. He speaks of his wife, Marilyn Kemp Weidner, a paper conservator, and the development of her practice, as well as his own future work.
Biographical / Historical:
Roswell T. Weidner (1911-1999) was a painter and educator from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
General:
Originally recorded on 3 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 6 digital wav files. Duration is 4 hr.; 18 min.
Provenance:
These interviews are 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.
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Jane Piper, 1988 Jan. 16-17. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
An interview of Jane Piper conducted 1988 Jan. 16-17, by Barbara Wolanin, for the Archives of American Art. Piper speaks of her training at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, her studies with Arthur B. Carles and Hans Hofmann and of Carles' influence on her. Piper describes Carles' classes, his teaching methods, as well as Carles' stroke and his final unsuccessful attempt to exhibit at Princeton before his death. Piper speaks about her career as a teacher and as an artist, her exhibition history, her working methods and the development of her painting, particularly the importance of color and the move between abstraction and representational painting.
Biographical / Historical:
Jane Piper (1916-1991) was a painter from Philadelphia, Pa.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 3 digital wav files. Duration is 1 hr., 2 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.
Collection consists of records documenting one of the oldest advertising agencies created in Philadelphia. The company then moves to New York and expanses to international markets. During its history NW Ayer & Sons acquires a number of other advertising agencies and is eventually purchased. The largest portion of the collection is print advertisements but also
includes radio and television. NW Ayer is known for some of the slogans created for major American companies.
Scope and Contents:
The collection consists primarily of proof sheets of advertisements created by NW Ayer & Son, Incorporated for their clients. These materials are in series one through thirteen and consist primarily of print advertisements. There are also billboards, radio and television commercials. The advertisements range from consumer to corporate and industrial products. The majority of the advertisements were created for Ayer's New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and international offices. Printed advertisements created by Cunningham & Walsh, Hixson & Jorgensen and Newell-Emmett are also included among these materials. Researchers who are interested in records created by Ayer in the course of operating an advertising agency will find these materials in Series fourteen-nineteen.
Series fourteen consists of advertisements created by NW Ayer & Son to promote their services to potential clients.
Series fifteen are scrapbooks of some of the earliest advertisements created by the company. Series sixteen are publications. Some of the publications were created by Ayer while others were about Ayer or the advertising industry in general. Provides good background materials and puts the company in perspective. Series eighteen are the legal records. Materials relating to employees including photographs, oral histories etc. are found in series nineteen.
Series twenty is one of the smallest amounts of materials and includes information relating to the history of NW Ayer & Son.
The container lists for series one-thirteen are part of a database and are searchable. The list has been printed for the convenience of the researcher and is included in this finding aid. Series fourteen-twenty container lists are also a part of the finding aid but are not in a searchable format.
Series 1, Scrapbooks of Client Advertisements, circa 1870-1920, is arranged into three boxes by chronological date. There are two bound scrapbooks and one box of folders containing loose scrapbook pages. NW Ayer & Son compiled an assortment of their earliest ads and placed them into scrapbooks. Besides the earliest advertisements, the scrapbooks contain requests to run advertisements, reading notices and listings of papers Ayer advertised in. The early advertisements themselves range from medical remedies to jewelry to machines to clothing to education and more. Most of the advertisements in the bound scrapbooks are dated.
Series 2, Proofsheets, circa 1870-1930, NW Ayer was fond of creating scrapbooks containing proofsheets. The series contains proofsheets created between 1892 and 1930, organized into 526 boxes. For convenience of storage, access and arrangement, the scrapbooks were disassembled and the pages placed in original order in flat archival storage boxes. The proofsheets are arranged by book number rather than client name. Usually the boxes contain a listing of the clients and sometimes the dates of the advertisements to be found within the box.
Series 3, Proofsheets, circa 1920-1975, is organized into 532 oversize boxes, and contain proofsheets and tearsheets created between 1920 and 1972. Within this series, materials are arranged alphabetically by company name (occasionally subdivided by brand or product), and thereunder chronologically by date of production. Many major, national advertisers are represented, including American Telephone & Telegraph, Armour Company, Canada Dry, Cannon Mills, Carrier Corporation, Domino Sugar, Caterpillar tractor company, Ford Motor Company, General Electric, Goodyear, Hills Bros. Coffee, Ladies Home Journal, National Dairy, Plymouth (Chrysler Corporation), Steinway, TV Guide, United Airlines and the United States Army. Also contained in this series are three scrapbooks of client advertisements including Canada Dry, Ford Motor, and Victor Talking Machine.
Series 4, 2001 Addendum, circa 1976-2001, is organized into ninety three oversized boxes,one folder and contains proofsheets for select Ayer clients, created between 1975 and 2001. Within this series, materials are arranged alphabetically by client name and there under chronologically by date of production. Major national advertisers represented include American Telephone & Telegraph, Avon, the United States Army, DeBeers Consolidated Diamond Mines, Dupont, TV Guide, Sealtest, Kraft Foods, Gillette, General Motors, Cannon Mills.
Series 5, Billboards, circa 1952-1956, consists of mounted and un-mounted original art/mock-ups. Twenty-two pieces of original art created as mock-ups for Texaco billboards.
Series 6, Film and Video Commercials, 1967-1970,
Series 7, Radio and Television Materials, 1933-1993, undated, is arranged into eight boxes and includes radio scripts, television scripts, and story boards for commercials.
Subseries 7.1, Scripts and storyboards for Radio and Television Commercials, dates Scripts for radio and television commercials includes title, date, length of commercial, advertising agency, client information
NW Ayer's radio and television materials mainly focus on the American Telegraph and Telephone account. Some of Ayer's materials relate to Bell Telephone Hours.
Storyboards are used in television and film to assist the director in working with crew to tell the story. To show the viewer through the use of figures, visual effects and camera angles. When directors first start thinking about their storyboard they create a story in their mind. They think of all the camera angles, visual effects and how the figures will interact in their mind. They try to create an extraordinary story in their head to attract the viewer (YOU) In order for the storyboard to be entirely effective it can't be a passive document. When done properly, a storyboard serves as a central design, meeting the needs of many team members including graphics artists, video personnel and programmers.
Another function of a storyboard is to help the team communicate during the training development process. This communication is very important in working with a large team as in the movie King, produced in 1996. Figures help the director explain to the crew how they are going to record the film and how to present it to the audience. Sometimes the director wants special effects to be added to the film, but his budget might not be that big so the director will have to change the story to fit their budget.
The Visual Effects are an important part in the storyboards it adds a special touch of creativity to your film. Camera angles are an important expects in your film because the camera angles determine where the viewing audience will look. If you want your audience to look at a certain object you must turn their attention to it by focusing on that object and maybe you might try blocking something out. Then you will have your audience's attention and you may do whatever else you have to, it could be scaring them are just surprising them or whatever you do.
Also included is talent information and log sheets relating to the storage of the commercials.
Bell Telephone Hour Program, 1942-[19??], The Bell Telephone Hour, also known as The Telephone Hour, was a five minute musical program which began April 29, 1940 on National Broadcasting Company Radio and was heard on NBC until June 30, 1958. Sponsored by Bell Telephone showcased the best in classical and Broadway music, reaching eight to nine million listeners each week. It continued on television from 1959 to 1968.
Earlier shows featured James Melton and Francia White as soloists. Producer Wallace Magill restructured the format on April 27, 1942 into the "Great Artists Series" of concert and opera performers, beginning with Jascha Heifetz. Records indicate that the list of talents on the program included Marian Anderson, Helen Traubel, Oscar Levant, Lily Pons, Nelson Eddy, Bing Crosby, Margaret Daum, Benny Goodman, José Iturbi, Gladys Swarthout and .The series returned to radio in 1968-1969 as Bell Telephone Hour Encores, also known as Encores from the Bell Telephone Hour, featuring highlights and interviews from the original series.
National Broadcasting television specials sponsored by the Bell System, 1957-1987includes information relating to Science series, Bell system Theshold Series, Bell telephone hour and commercial and public sponsored programs
Series 8, Chicago Office Print Advertisements, 1954-1989, is arranged alphabetically by the name of the client in ninety boxes and six oversize folders. Clients include Illinois Bell Telephone (1955-1989), Microswitch (1969-1989), Teletype (1975-1984), John Deere (1974-1989) and Caterpillar (1966-1972) are particularly well represented. Other clients of interest include Dr. Scholl's shoes (circa 1968-1972), the Girl Scouts (1976-1980), Sunbeam Personal Products Company (1973-1981), Bell and Howell (1974-1983) and Alberto Culver shampoos (1967-1971), Honeywell, Incorporated, Blue Cross and Blue Shield Associations, Kraft, Incorporated, Sears, Roebuck and Company, and YMCA.
Series 9, Los Angeles Office Materials, 1950s-1987, include printed advertisements created by this office and information relating to the employees.
Subseries 9.1, Print Advertisements, 1977-1987, printed advertisements arranged in one box alphabetically by client. There is a sparse sampling of clients from this particular Ayer branch office. The majority of the advertisements contained within this series are from Pizza Hut (1986-1987). Also included are Computer Automation (1977-1978), State of the Art, Incorporated (1982) and Toshiba (1986).
Subseries 9.2, Personnel Files, 1950s-1970s, includes cards of employees who worked in the Los Angeles office. Information on the cards includes name, address, telephone number, birthday, date hired, departure date and why (retired, terminated, resigned, etc) and position. Not all cards have all information. There is also a photograph of the employees on the cards.
Series 10, Foreign Print Advertisements, 1977-1991, undated, NW Ayer maintained partnerships with international companies such as Sloanas Ayer in Argentina, Connaghan & May Paton Ayer in Australia, Moussault Ayer in Belgium, NW Ayer, LTD. in Canada, GMC Ayer in France, Co-Partner Ayer in Germany, Wong Lam Wang in Hong Kong, MacHarman Ayer in New Zealand, Grupo de Diseno Ayer in Spain, Nedeby Ayer in Sweden, and Ayer Barker in United Kingdom. This group of material is a small sampling of advertisements created from these International offices. It is arranged alphabetically by client. There are quite a few automobile advertisements (i.e. Audi, Fiat, General Motors, Mercedes-Benz, and Volkswagen). In addition there are numerous advertisements for various personal items from MacLean's toothpaste to Quick athletic shoes to Labello lip balm, etc. Most of the advertisements have the creator's name printed on the advertisements.
Series 11, Cunningham & Walsh, Incorporated Materials, 1915-1987, undated contains 98 boxes 11 folders materials from the New York advertising agency acquired by NW Ayer in the 1960s. The company began with Newel-Emmett, an agency of nine men which broke up in 1949. Two of the men Fred Walsh and Jack Cunningham formed this agency in bearing their names in 1950. The agency created "let your fingers for the walking campaign for American Telephone & Telegraph, Mother Nature for Chiffon, and Mrs. Olson for Folgers's coffee and let the good times roll for Kawasaki motorcycle. In 1986, NW Ayer Incorporated purchased Cunningham & Walsh Incorporated.
Subseries 11.1, Print Advertisements, 1915-1987, are contained in ninety eight boxes of primarily print advertisements arranged alphabetically by client name. Clients that are particularly well represented are Graybar (electrical implements, circa1926-1937), Johns-Manulle (circa1915-1971), Smith and Corono typewriters (circa 1934-1960), Sunshine Biscuit Company (circa 1925-1961), Texaco Company (circa 1936-1961), Western Electric (circa 1920- 1971) and Yellow Pages (circa 1936-1971). Cunningham and Walsh also represented several travel and tourism industry clients, including Cook Travel Services (circa 1951-1962), Italian Line (circa 1953-1961), Narragansett and Croft (circa 1956-1960) and Northwest Airlines (circa 1946-1955). There are photographs of Texaco advertisements dating from 1913-1962. There is also a scrapbook of advertisements from the Western Electric Company dating from 1920-1922.
Subseries 11.2, Radio and Television Advertisements, 1963-1967, consist of materials created for Western Electric. Materials are arranged in chronological order.
Subseries 11.3, Company Related Materials, 1962-1986, undated include client lists, information relating to NW Ayer purchase and annual report 1962.
Series 12, Hixson & Jorgensen Materials, 1953-1971, a Los Angeles advertising company, merged with Ayer in 1969. This series is housed in one box. Within the box are four scrapbooks and folders with a hodgepodge of materials relating to advertising. Of most interest are the scrapbooks. Two scrapbooks deal with Hixson and Jorgensen's self promotion ad campaign "the right appeal gets action" (1953-1957). The other two scrapbooks contain news clippings about the company and its activities (1959-1971).
Series 13, Newell-Emmet, 1942-1957, founded in 1919 and governed in the 1940s by a partnership of nine men. The partnership broke up in 1949 when the men went their separate ways. The materials consist of print advertisements for one of client, Permutit Company, a water conditioning company. The materials are arranged in one box in chronological order.
Series 14, House Print Advertisements, 1870-1991, 16 boxes consists of advertisements or self-promotion advertisements to campaign for new clients. The series is arranged chronologically by date into fifteen boxes. Within the series are two scrapbooks containing self promotion ads from 1888-1919 and 1892-1895. Numerous house ads relate to Ayer's "Human Contact" campaign. In addition to the self promotion ads, Ayer ran advertisements expounding about particular concepts or themes for example, one month the concept would "understand" while another month would be "teamwork" and yet another would be on "imagination". Some of the self promotion ads target specific groups like Philadelphia businessmen. Other advertisements incorporate the fine arts.
Series 15, Scrapbooks, 1872-1959, relates to company events, records and news clippings about Ayer's history. The six boxes are arranged by chronological date. Two of the boxes focus solely on the death of founder F.W. Ayer (1923). Another box houses a scrapbook that showcases Ayer's annual Typography Exhibition (1931-1959). One box contains a scrapbook that specifically deals with correspondences relating to Ayer's advertising. Yet another box's contents are folders of loose pages from scrapbooks that have newspaper clippings, order forms, correspondences and other company records. In one box, a bound scrapbook houses a variety of materials relating to Ayer and advertising (i.e. newspaper clippings, competitor's advertisements, NW Ayer's advertisements, correspondences for advertisements, clippings regarding the "theory of advertising."
Series 16, Publications, 1849-2006, are housed in thirty four boxes and are arranged into three main categories.
Subseries 16.1, House Publications, 1876-1994, covers diverse topics; some proscriptive works about the Ayer method in advertising, some commemorating people, anniversaries or events in the life of the agency. Materials consist of scattered issues of the employee newsletter The Next Step 1920-1921. The materials are arranged in chronological order by date of publication. Ayer in the News, The Show Windows of an Advertising Agency, 1915, book form of advertisements published on the cover of Printer's Ink, highlighting Ayer's relations with advertisers. The Story of the States, 1916, Reprint in book form of a series of articles published in Printer's Ink for the purpose of adding some pertinent fact, progressive thought and prophetic vision to the Nationalism of Advertising highlights major businesses, manufacturer, natural resources and other qualities or attractions of each state. The Book of the Golden Celebration, 1919, includes welcome address and closing remarks by founder F. Wayland Ayer, The Next Step, 1920 employee newsletter with photographs, employee profiles, in-house jokes, etc., Advertising Advertising: A Series of Fifty-two Advertisements scheduled one time a week. Twenty-seven, thirty and forty inches, a day of the week optional with publisher, 1924
Subseries 16.2, Publications about NW Ayer, 1949-2006, includes a book first published in 1939. Includes articles, documenting events and is arranged chronologically by date of publication.
Subseries 16.3, General Publications about Advertising, 1922-1974, are arranged chronologically by date of publication and relate primarily to the history of advertising.
Subseries 16.4, Publications about Other Subjects, 1948-1964, include four books about the tobacco industry primarily the history of the American Tobacco Company and Lorillard Company from the Cunningham and Walsh library.
Series 17, Business Records, circa 1885-1990s
Subseries 17.1, Contracts, 1885-1908, undated, are arranged alphabetically and span from 1885-1908. The majority of the contracts are with newspaper and magazine publishers from around the country.
Subseries 17.2, General client information, 1911-1999, undated, including active and cancelled lists with dates, client gains, historical client list, (should move this to series 20) Ayer Plan User Guide Strategic Planning for Human Contact, undated
Subseries 17.3, Individual Client Account Information, 1950s-1990s, undated, contain information used by Ayer to create advertisements for some of its clients. American Telephone &Telegraph Corporate Case History, American Telephone &Telegraph Corporate advertisement memo, commissioned artists for DeBeers advertisements, DeBeers information relating to the creative process and photography credits, a case history for DeBeers Consolidated Mines, Ltd., The Diamond Engagement Ring, Managing Communication at all levels, DuPont publications, JC Penny Marketing Communication Plan Recommendation, Leaf, Incorporated, Saturn presentation, and USAREC oral presentation.
Subseries 17.4, Potential Clients, 1993, includes grouping has a questionnaire sent to Ayer by a potential client. Questionnaire response for Prudential Securities, 1993 Prudential Securities advertising account review, 1993.
Subseries 17.5, Financial Records, 1929-1938, includes balance sheet, 1929 May 1 Balance sheet and adjustments Consolidated statement of assets and liabilities, Expenses 191936-37 Business review and expenses, 1937 and 1938 Business review and expenses comparative statement, 1937 and 1938.
Series 18, Legal Records, circa 1911-1982, Ayer's legal records are arranged by twelve subject groupings within four boxes. The twelve groupings are advertising service agreements (circa 1918-1982), bylaws, copyright claims, correspondences, international correspondences, dissolution of trusts, stock information, agreements between partners, incorporation materials, reduction of capital, property information and miscellaneous materials. The bulk of the materials are the advertising service agreements. These agreements are between Ayer and their clients and state the services Ayer will offer and at what cost. The bylaws are Ayer's company bylaws from 1969 and 1972. The copyright claims are certificates stating Ayer's ownership over certain published materials (i.e. "Policy", Media Equalizer Model, and Don Newman's Washington Square Experiment). The correspondences relate to either the voting trust and receipts for agreement or the New York Corporation. The international correspondences are from either Ayer's Canadian office or London office. The dissolutions of trusts contains materials about the dividend trust of Wilfred F. Fry, the investment trust of Winfred W. Fry, the voting trust, and the New York corporation. The stock information has stock certificates and capital stock information. The agreements between partners (1911-1916) specify the terms between F.W. Ayer and his partners. The incorporation materials (circa 1929-1977) deal with Ayer advertising agency becoming incorporated in the state of Delaware. The reduction of capital grouping is a notification that shares of stock have been retired. The property information grouping contains property deeds and insurance policy (circa 1921-1939), a property appraisal (1934), and a bill of sale (1948). The miscellaneous grouping contains a house memo regarding a set of board meeting minutes and a registry of foreign companies in Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (1929-1954).
Subseries 18.1, Advertising Service Agreements, 1918-1982
Subseries 18.2, Bylaw Materials, 1969-1972
Subseries 18.3, Copyright Claims, 1962-1969
Subseries 18.4, Correspondence, 1928-1933
Subseries 18.5, International Office Correspondence, 1947-1948
Subseries 18.6, Dissolution of Trusts, 1934-1937
Subseries 18.7, Stock Information, 1934-1974
Subseries 18.8, Agreements between Partners, 1911-1916
Series 19, Personnel Records, circa 1889-2001, are arranged into eight groupings within eight boxes. The groupings are employee card files, photographs, Ayer alumni, biographies, speeches, recollections, oral histories, and miscellaneous. Typed manuscript of book A Copy Writer Speaks by George Cecil, NW Ayer, Incorporated copy head 1920s-1950s
Subseries 19.1, Employee card files, circa 1892-1915; 1929-1963, consists of index cards with the name, age, job title, date and wage increases, date of hire/fire, as well as remarks about the employee's service and/or reasons for seeking or leaving the job. Materials are arranged alphabetically by the last name of the employee within three boxes.
Subseries 19.2, Photographs, circa 1924-1984, undated, are housed in two boxes. The photographs grouped together by subjects i.e. personnel, company events, Ayer buildings, and miscellaneous. This grouping primarily consists of personnel photographs. Includes a glass plate negative dated 1924 of NW Ayer.
Subseries 19.3, Ayer Alumni, circa 1989-98, include employees who have left Ayer. There is a listing of Ayer "graduates" and their current job. Emeritus, Ayer's alumni newsletter 1989-1996, makes up the majority of materials in this grouping. The newsletter keeps the alumni up to date with the happenings of Ayer and what has become of former Ayer employees. Emeritus is a quarterly newsletter devoted to the activities, thoughts and feelings of Ayer alumni a body of people who consists of retirees and former employees.
Subseries 19.4, Biographical Information, circa 1889-1994, undated, prominent members of Ayer's operations had biographical sketches completed of them. This was true for the bio sketches of Robert Ervin, Louis T. Hagopian, and George A. Rink. There is a substantial file on Dorothy Dignam ("Mis Dig"), a leading woman in the advertising world from the 1930s to the 1950s. Also of interest is a video ("The Siano Man") compiled by Ayer employees to commemorate Jerry Siano's retirement from Ayer in 1994. The series is arranged alphabetically by last name.
Subseries 19.5, Speeches, circa 1919-1931; 1975, contains speeches made by Wilfred W. Fry and Neal W. O'Connor. Wilfred W. Fry had various speaking engagements connected with Ayer. Contained in this group is a sampling of his speeches from 1919 to 1931. Neal O'Connor's speech "Advertising: Who Says It's a Young People's Business" was given at the Central Region Convention for the American Association of Advertising Agencies in Chicago on November 6, 1975. The speeches are arranged alphabetically by the speaker's last name.
Subseries 19.6, Recollections, 1954-1984, undated, are arranged alphabetically by last name. These are recollections from Ayer employees about the company and its advertisements. Some recollections are specifically about certain types of advertisements, like farm equipment while others reflect on F. W. Ayer and the company.
Subseries 19.7, Oral History Interview Transcripts, 1983-1985; 1989-1991, include interviews with key NW Ayer personnel, conducted by Ayer alumnae Howard Davis, Brad Lynch and Don Sholl (Vice President creative) for the Oral History Program. The materials are arranged alphabetically by the last name of the interviewee.
Subseries 19.8, Oral History Interview Audio Tapes, 1985-1990, include interviews on audiotape the materials are arranged alphabetically by the last name of the interviewee.
Subseries 19.9, Internal Communications, 1993-1999, includes information sent to employees relating to retirements, management changes, awards won by the company, promotions, potential new accounts, free items, grand opening of Ayer Café, donation events, sponsorship programs, holiday schedules, discounts for employees from clients, Ayer joins MacManus Group.
Subseries 19.10, General Materials, 1940; 1970, includes agency directory entry including a list of the employees, 1970s, annual banquet program for the Curfew Club May 22, 1940 a group formed by the Philadelphia employee in 1938. It sponsored numerous sports, social and educational activities. Groups were formed in public speaking, music appreciation and a series of talks on Monday evenings title the modern woman. The front page was a series of talks for general interest. A list of officers, 1991, Twenty five year club membership, 1973 December 1, List of NW Ayer graduates, 1970, List of Officers, 1991 May 31, Obituary for Leo Lionni, 1999 October 17, List of photographers of advertisements, 2001
Series 20, Background and History Information, 1817-1999, undated includes a chronology, 1817-1990, quick reference timeline, 1848-1923, loose pages from a scrapbook containing examples of correspondence, envelopes, advertisements dating from 1875-1878; slogans coined by NW Ayer & Sons, Incorporated, 1899-1990, history of management, 1909-1923, articles and photographs about the building and art galleries, 1926-1976, publications about the Philadelphia building, 1929, pamphlet relating to memories of NW Ayer & Sons, Incorporated, 1930s-1950s, television history, 1940-1948, Article about the history of the company, 1950 January, pocket guide, 1982, AdWeek reports about standings for advertising agencies, information relating to Human Contact which is NW Ayer's Information relating to Human Contact, undated which is their philosophy on advertising.
Series 21, Materials Created by other Advertising Agencies, 1945-1978, undated, consists of print advertisements collected by Ayer from other major advertising companies. The companies include Doyle Dane Bernback, Incorporated, Leo Burnett Company, Grey Advertising Agency, D'Arcy Ad Agency, Scali, McCabe, Sloves, Incorporated and Erwin Wasey Company. The materials are arranged in alphabetical order by client and include products from Ralston Purina and Van Camp (Chicken of the Sea), Kellogg, American Export Lines and No Nonsense Fashions.
Series 22, 2010 Addendum of Print Advertisements, circa 1879s-1999, undated, includes material given to the Archives Center in 2010. It is organized into seventy one oversized boxes and contains proofsheets of print advertisements for select Ayer clients. These are arranged alphabetically by client name and include substantial quantities of materials from American Telephone &Telegraph (1945-1996), Bahamas Ministry of Tourism (1967-1987), Carrier (1971-1981), Citibank (1973-1991), DeBeers (1940s-1960s and1990s), Electric Companies Advertising Program [ECAP] (1942-1970s), General Motors (1989-1998), J.C. Penney (1983-1986), Newsweek (1966-1975), and Proctor and Gamble (1980s-1890s). There are also numerous other clients represented by smaller quantities of materials.
Subseries 22.2, Print Advertisements on Glass Plate Negatives, 1879-1881, undated, include Cannon towels, Cheny Brothers silks, Cornish & Company organs and pianos, Enterprise Manufacturing Company, 1879 sad iron, an ad from Harper's Weekly 1881 for ladies clothing, Ostermoor & Company mattresses, Pear's soap, Porter's cough balsam, Steinway pianos.
Series 23, Microfilm of Print Advertisements, circa 1908-1985, consists of three boxes of printed advertisements for the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. Some of the same advertisements might also be found in series two, three and four.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into twenty-three series.
Series 1: Scrapbooks of Client Print Advertisements, circa 1870-1920
Series 2: Proofsheets, circa 1870-1930
Series 3: Proofsheets, circa 1920-1975
Series 4: 2001 Addendum, circa 1976-2001
Series 5: Billboards, circa 1952-1956
Series 6: Audiovisual Materials
Series 7: Radio and Television Materials, 1933-1993, undated
Series 8: Chicago Office Print Advertisements, 1954-1989
Series 9: Los Angeles Office Materials, 1950s-1987
Subseries 9.1: Printed Advertisements, 1977-1987
Subseries 9.2: Personnel Files, 1950s-1970s
Series 10: Foreign Print Advertisements, 1977-1991, undated
Series 11: Cunningham & Walsh Incorporated Materials, 1915-1987, undated
Subseries 11.1: Printed Advertisements, 1915-1987
Subseries 11.2: Radio and Television Advertisements, 1963-1967
Subseries 11.3: Company Related Materials, 1962-1986, undated
Series 12: Hixson & Jorgensen Materials, 1953-1971, undated
Series 13: Newell-Emmet, 1942-1957
Series 14: House Print Advertisements, 1870-1991
Series 15: Scrapbooks, 1872-1959
Series 16: Publications, 1849-2006
Subseries 16.1: House Publications, 1876-1994
Subseries 16.2: Publications about NW Ayer, 1949-1995
Subseries 16.3: General Publications about Advertising, 1922-2006
Subseries 16.4: Publications about other Subjects, 1948-1964
Series 17, Business Records, circa 1885-1990s
Subseries 17.1: Contracts, 1885-1908, undated
Subseries 17.2: General Client Information, 1911-1999, undated
Subseries 22.2: Print Advertisements on Glass Plate Negatives, 1879-1881, undated
Series 23: Microfilm of Print Advertisements, circa 1908-1985
Biographical / Historical:
Founded in Philadelphia in 1869, NW Ayer & Son is one of the oldest and largest advertising agencies in America. For most of its history, it was the undisputed leader and innovator in the field of advertising. In 1876, NW Ayer & Son pioneered the "open contract", a revolutionary change in the method of billing for advertising which became the industry standard for the next hundred years. NW Ayer pioneered the use of fine art in advertising and established the industry's first art department. It was the first agency to use a full-time copywriter and the first to institute a copy department. The agency relocated to New York City in 1974. During its long history, the agency's clients included many "blue-chip" clients, including American Telephone & Telegraph, DeBeers Consolidated Diamond Mines, Ford Motor Company, Nabisco, R. J. Reynolds and United Airlines. However, in later years, the Ayer's inherent conservatism left the agency vulnerable to the creative revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, the advertising industry restructuring of the 1980s and the economic recession of the early 1990s. The agency was bought out by a Korean investor in 1993. In 1996, NW Ayer merged with another struggling top twenty United States advertising agency, Darcy, Masius, Benton & Bowles, under the umbrella of the McManus Group. Ayer continues to operate as a separate, full-service agency.
Through a series of buyouts and mergers, Ayer traces its lineage to the first advertising agency founded in the United States, a Philadelphia agency begun by Volney Palmer in 1841. Palmer began his career in advertising as a newspaper agent, acting as middleman between newspaper publishers and advertisers across the country. By 1849, Palmer had founded his own newspaper, V. B. Palmer's Register and Spirit of the Press, and had developed a complete system of advertising which included securing advertising space and placing ads in scores of commercial, political, religious, scientific and agricultural journals across the country. Palmer went one step further than the "space jobbers" of the day when he began offering "advertisements carefully drawn for those who have not the time to prepare an original copy." Always an enthusiastic promoter of advertising as an incentive to trade and American economic growth, Palmer promised advertisers that "every dollar paid for advertising in country newspapers will pay back twenty-fold" and encouraged skeptical consumers that "he who wishes to buy cheap should buy of those who advertise." When Palmer died in 1863, the agency was bought by his bookkeeper, John Joy, who joined with another Philadelphia advertising agency to form Joy, Coe & Sharpe. That agency was bought out again in 1868 and renamed Coe, Wetherill & Company. In 1877, Coe, Wetherill and Company was bought out by the newly formed NW Ayer & Son.
Francis Wayland Ayer was an ambitious young schoolteacher with an entrepreneurial streak. Having worked for a year soliciting advertisements on a commission basis for the publisher of the National Baptist weekly, Francis Ayer saw the potential to turn a profit as an advertising agent. In 1869, Ayer persuaded his father, Nathan Wheeler Ayer, to join him in business, and with an initial investment of only $250.00, NW Ayer & Son was born. Notwithstanding a smallpox epidemic in Philadelphia in 1871 and the general economic depression of the early 1870s, the agency flourished. The senior Ayer died in 1873, leaving his interest in the agency to his wife, but Francis W. Ayer bought her out, consolidating his interest in the company's management. In 1877, with Coe, Wetherill & Company (the successor to Palmer's 1841 agency) on the verge of bankruptcy and heavily indebted to Ayer for advertising it had placed in Ayer publications, Ayer assumed ownership of that agency. Thus did NW Ayer lay claim to being the oldest advertising agency in the country.
Both Nathan Wheeler and Francis Wayland Ayer began their careers as schoolteachers, and one of their legacies was a commitment to the cause of education: correspondence schools and institutions of higher learning were historically well-represented among Ayer clients. Just after World War I, the agency was heralded as "co-founder of more schools than any citizen of this country" for its conspicuous efforts to advertise private schools. Well into the 1960s, an "Education Department" at Ayer prepared advertisements for over three hundred private schools, camps and colleges, representing almost half the regional and national advertising done for such institutions. In fact, to its clients Ayer presented advertising itself as being akin to a system of education. In 1886, Ayer began promoting the virtues of the Ayer way advertising with the slogan, "Keeping Everlastingly at It Brings Success."
The agency's goals were simple: "to make advertising pay the advertiser, to spend the advertiser's money as though it were our own, to develop, magnify and dignify advertising as a business." Initially, Ayer's fortunes were tied to newspapers, and the agency began to make a name for itself as compiler and publisher of a widely used American Newspaper Annual. During the first years, Ayer's singular goal was "to get business, place it [in newspapers] and get money for it"; after several years as an independent space broker, however, Francis Ayer resolved "not to be an order taker any longer." This decision led NW Ayer and Son to a change in its mode of conducting business which would revolutionize the advertising industry: in 1876, Ayer pioneered the "open contract" with Diggee & Conard, Philadelphia raised growers and agricultural suppliers. Prior to the open contract, NW Ayer & Sons and most agencies operated as "space-jobbers," independent wholesalers of advertising space, in which the opportunities for graft and corrupt practices were virtually unlimited. In contrast, the open contract, wherein the advertiser paid a fixed commission based on the volume of advertising placed, aligned the advertising agent firmly on the side of the advertiser and gave advertisers access to the actual rates charged by newspapers and religious journals. The open contract with a fixed commission has been hailed by advertising pioneer Albert Lasker as one of the "three great landmarks in advertising history." (The other two were Lasker's own development of "reason-why" advertising copy and J. Walter Thompson's pioneering of sex appeal in an advertisement for Woodbury's soap.) Although the transition to the open contract did not happen overnight, by 1884, nearly three-quarters of Ayer's advertising billings were on an open contract basis. Since Ayer was, by the 1890s, the largest agency in America, the switch to direct payment by advertisers had a significant impact on the advertising industry, as other agencies were forced to respond to Ayer's higher standard. Just as important, the open contract helped to establish N W Ayer's long-standing reputation for "clean ethics and fair dealing" -- a reputation the agency has guarded jealously for over a century.
The open contract also helped to establish Ayer as a full service advertising agency and to regularize the production of advertising in-house. From that point forward, Ayer routinely offered advice and service beyond the mere placement of advertisements. Ayer set another milestone for the industry in 1888, when Jarvis Wood was hired as the industry's first full-time copywriter. Wood was joined by a second full time copywriter four years later, and the Copy Department was formally established in 1900. The industry's first Art Department grew out of the Copy Department when Ayer hired its first commercial artist to assist with copy preparation in 1898; twelve years later Ayer became the first agency to offer the services of a full time art director, whose sole responsibility was the design and illustration of ads.
Ayer's leadership in the use of fine art in advertising has roots in this period, but achieved its highest expression under the guidance of legendary art director Charles Coiner. Coiner joined Ayer in 1924, after graduating from the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. Despite early resistance from some clients, Coiner was adamant that "the use of outstanding palette and original art forms bring a greater return in readership, in impact and prestige for the advertiser." To this end, Coiner marshaled the talents of notable painters, illustrators and photographers, including N.C. Wyeth and Rockwell Kent (Steinway), Georgia O'Keefe (Dole), Leo Lionni (DuPont), Edward Steichen (Steinway, Cannon Mills), Charles Sheeler (Ford), and Irving Penn (DeBeers). Coiner believed that there was a practical side to the use of fine art in advertising, and his success (and Ayer's) lay in the marriage of research and copywriting with fine art, an arrangement Coiner termed "art for business sake." Coiner's efforts won both awards and attention for a series completed in the 1950s for the Container Corporation of America. Titled "Great Ideas of Western Man" the campaign featured abstract and modern paintings and sculpture by leading U.S. and foreign artists, linked with Western philosophical writings in an early example of advertising designed primarily to bolster corporate image. In 1994, Charles Coiner was posthumously named to the American Advertising Federation's Hall of Fame, the first full time art director ever chosen for that honor.
Coiner and fellow art director Paul Darrow also created legendary advertising with the "A Diamond Is Forever" campaign for DeBeers; ads featured the work of Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali and other modernist painters. The "A Diamond is Forever" tagline was written in 1949 by Frances Gerety, a woman copywriter at Ayer from 1943 to 1970. In 1999, Ad Age magazine cited "A Diamond is Forever" as the most memorable advertising slogan of the twentieth century.
Coiner also earned respect for his volunteer government service during World War II; he designed the armbands for civil defense volunteers and logos for the National Recovery Administration and Community Chest. As a founding member of the Advertising Council in 1945, Ayer has had a long-standing commitment to public service advertising. In the mid-1980s, Ayer became a leading force in the Reagan-era "War on Drugs". Lou Hagopian, Ayer's sixth CEO, brokered the establishment of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, a media coalition which generated as much as a million dollars a day in donated advertising space and time to prevent the use and abuse of illegal drugs. Famous names appear among NW Ayer's clientele from the very earliest days of the agency. Retailer John Wanamaker, Jay Cooke and Company, and Montgomery Ward's mail-order business were among the first Ayer clients. The agency has represented at least twenty automobile manufacturers, including Cadillac, Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Plymouth, and Rolls-Royce. Other major, long-term clients through the years have included American Telephone & Telegraph, Canada Dry, Cannon Mills, Hills Bros. Coffee Company, Kellogg's, R. J. Reynolds, Steinway and Sons, United Airlines, and the United States Army. By the time of Ayer's hundredth anniversary in 1969, some of these companies had been Ayer clients for decades if not generations, and the longevity of those relationships was for many years a source of Ayer's strength.
But the advertising industry began to change in the late 1960s and 1970s, due in part to a "creative revolution." Small advertising agencies won attention with provocative copywriting and art direction that more closely resembled art than advertising. Advances in market research allowed clients to more narrowly tailor their advertising messages to distinct groups of consumers, and this led to a rise in targeted marketing which could more readily be doled out to specialized small agencies than to larger, established firms like NW Ayer & Son. The civil rights and anti-war movements also contributed to increasing public skepticism with the values of corporate America, and by extension, with some national advertising campaigns. Older, more conservative firms like Ayer were hard pressed to meet these new challenges.
About 1970, in an effort to meet these challenges and to establish a foothold on the West Coast, Ayer bought out two smaller agencies--Hixson & Jorgenson (Los Angeles) and Frederick E. Baker (Seattle). The agency relocated from Philadelphia to New York City in 1974 in an attempt both to consolidate operations (Ayer had operated a New York office since the 1920s) and to be closer to the historic center of the advertising industry. Riding the wave of mergers that characterized the advertising industry in the late 1980s and 1990s, Ayer continued to grow through the acquisition of Cunningham & Walsh in 1986 and Rink Wells in 19xx.
During this transitional period, Ayer received widespread acclaim for its work for the United States Army, which included the widely recognized slogan "Be All You Can Be". Ayer first acquired the Army recruitment account in 1967 and with help from its direct marketing arm, the agency was widely credited with helping the Army reach its recruitment goals despite an unpopular war and plummeting enlistments after the elimination of the draft in 1973. Ayer held the account for two decades, from the Vietnam War through the Cold War, but lost the account in 1986 amid government charges that an Ayer employee assigned to the account accepted kickbacks from a New York film production house. Despite Ayer's position as the country's 18th largest agency (with billings of $880 million in 1985), the loss of the agency's second largest account hit hard.
NW Ayer made up for the loss of the $100 million dollar a year Army account and made headlines for being on the winning end of the largest account switch in advertising history to date, when fast food giant Burger King moved its $200 million dollar advertising account from arch-rival J. Walter Thompson in 1987. Burger King must have had drive-thru service in mind, however, and Ayer made headlines again when it lost the account just eighteen months later in another record-breaking account switch. Another devastating blow to the agency was the loss of its lead position on the American Telegraph and Telephone account. Ayer pioneered telecommunications advertising in 1908, when the agency was selected to craft advertising for the Bell System's universal telephone service. Despite valiant efforts to keep an account the agency had held for most of the twentieth century, and for which they had written such memorable corporate slogans as American Telephone &Telegraph "The Voice with a Smile" and "Reach Out and Touch Someone", the agency lost the account in 1996.
After a wave of mergers and acquisitions in the late 1980s, the economic recession of the early 1990s hit Madison Avenue hard, and Ayer was particularly vulnerable. Despite the agency's long history and roster of "blue-chip" clients, Ayer was not known for cutting-edge creative work. Moreover, though the agency had offices overseas, Ayer had never built a strong multinational presence, and many of the smaller international offices were sold during the financial turmoil of the 1980s. This left a real void in the new climate of global marketplace consolidation. By about 1990, earnings were declining (although Ayer was still among the top twenty United States agencies in billings), and the agency was suffering from client defections, high management turnover, expensive real estate commitments and deferred executive compensation deals, all fallout of the high-flying 1980s. This was the atmosphere in 1993, when W.Y. Choi, a Korean investor who had already assembled a media and marketing empire in his homeland, began looking for an American partner to form an international advertising network. Jerry Siano, the former creative director who had recently been named Ayer's seventh CEO, was in no position to refuse Choi's offer of $35 million to buy the now floundering agency. The infusion of cash was no magic bullet, however. Choi took a wait-and-see approach, allowing his partner Richard Humphreys to make key decisions about Ayer's future, including the purging of senior executives and the installation of two new CEOs in as many years.
The agency's downward trend continued with the loss of another longtime client, the DeBeers diamond cartel in 1995. Adweek reported that Ayer's billings fell from $892 million in 1990 to less than $850 million in 1995. Several top executives defected abruptly, and the agency failed to attract major new accounts. Ayer was facing the loss not merely of revenue and personnel, but the loss of much of the respect it once commanded. Ayer remained among the twenty largest U.S. agencies, but an aura of uncertainty hung over the agency like a cloud. A new CEO was appointed, and Mary Lou Quinlan became the agency's first woman CEO in 1995. A year later, Ayer and another struggling top twenty agency, D'arcy, Masius, Benton & Bowles, combined as part of the McManus Group of companies. In 1998, the McManus Group had worldwide billings of more than $6.5 billion.
Under the McManus Group, Ayer was able to expand its international operations and begin to rebuild a stronger global presence. Several important new clients were won in 1997 and 1998, including Avon, General Motors, Kitchenaid, several Procter & Gamble brands and, most notably, Continental Airlines worldwide accounts. Born in the nineteenth century, Ayer may be one of a very few advertising agencies to successfully weather the economic and cultural transitions of both the twentieth and twentieth first centuries. Ayer was eventually acquired by the Publicis Groupe based in Paris, France which closed down the N.W. Ayer offices in 2002.
Related Materials:
Materials in the Archives Center
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana (AC0060)
Hills Bros. Coffee Incorporated Records (AC0395)
Provenance:
The collection was donated by N W Ayer ABH International, April 15, 1975 and by Ayer & Partners, October 30, 1996.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research use.
Physical Access: Researchers must use microfilm copy. Researchers must handle unprotected photographs with gloves. Researchers must use reference copies of audiovisual materials. When no reference copy exists, the Archives Center staff will produce reference copies on an "as needed" basis, as resources allow.
Technical Access: Viewing the film portion of the collection without reference copies requires special appointment, please inquire; listening to audio discs requires special arrangement. Do not use original materials when available on reference video or audio tapes.
Rights:
Publication and production quality duplication is restricted due to complex copyright, publicity rights, and right to privacy issues. Potential users must receive written permission from appropriate rights holders prior to obtaining high quality copies. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Access of diaries and appointment books required written permission.
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:
André Emmerich Gallery records and André Emmerich papers, circa 1929-2009. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Leon Levy Foundation.
The Historical Records of the Barnett-Aden Gallery showcases one of the first galleries owned and operated by African Americans. The work of the Gallery was invaluable as they opened the exhibition space to established and unknown artists regardless of race or gender.
Scope and Contents:
The Historical Records of Barnett-Aden Gallery collection includes historical background materials on the gallery, its founders James V. Herring and Alonzo Aden as well as Adolphus Ealey, its steward after its closure in 1969. The materials include correspondence, business records, photographs, exhibition catalogues, and clippings.
Arrangement:
The materials in this collection have been kept at the folder level and separated into four series. The materials have been ordered and organized based on the content. Within each series and subseries, the folders are organized as close to the collection's original order as when it was acquired.
Historical Sketch:
The Barnett-Aden Gallery, suggested to be the first African American privately-owned gallery in the U.S, open its doors on October 16, 1943. The gallery was founded by artist and scholar James V. Herring alongside his protegee, curator Alonzo Aden. The gallery was housed in a private home that they shared, located on 127 Randolph Street NW in Washington, DC. These men aimed to create an art gallery that provided a venue for underrepresented artists of all races and genres. It was this partnership that laid the foundation for the shift in African American representation in modern art. Aden stated that the gallery's aims were to help foster new talent while also bringing "art of superior quality" to the community. Throughout its history, the gallery held almost 200 exhibitions and showcased the work of over 400 artists.
James Vernon Herring was born on January 7, 1887 in Clio, South Carolina to an African American mother, Alice Herring (1860-1942), and white father, William Culbreth. As a young man, he moved to Washington, DC for better educational opportunities. Herring was educated at the Howard Academy, a preparatory high school located at nearby Howard University campus. Herring received his undergraduate degree from Syracuse University and completed graduate studies at Columbia and Harvard Universities. Trained in art and classical studies with a focus on French impressionism, Herring was initially brought on Howard University's faculty as architecture instructor in 1920. This experience inspired Herring to create the Department of Art at the university where he convinced former home economics student and future prominent visual artist, Alma Thomas to be the art school's first graduate in 1924. Herring continued to mentor and discover young artists as was the case with Alonzo Aden.
Alonzo Aden was born on May 6, 1906 in Spartanburg, South Carolina to Naomi Barnett (1883-1956) and Ephraim Aden (1859-1917). His working-class parents wanting more for their eldest son, decided to send him to live with relatives in Washington, DC for greater educational opportunities. Aden did well academically and completed some studies at Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) before finally entering Howard University in 1927. The following year, Herring opened the Howard University Gallery of Art and installed Aden as its first curator. Aden initially pursued a career as an educator but became more interested in art history and after his graduation from Howard in 1933, he pursued studies in museum and curatorial work.
Recent scholarship has suggested that Herring and Aden were in a romantic as well as working relationship. Working together in the Howard Gallery of Art, they sought to provide a space for art students, local artists and other relatively unknown artists from around the world. Living together since 1929, Herring supported Aden's post-graduate pursuits including his studies of African arts and crafts in galleries across Europe as well as his curatorial work at the American Negro Exposition in Chicago in 1940. Aden returned to Washington to great acclaim and continued his work with Herring at the Howard Gallery of Art.
The Gallery was housed in a Victorian townhouse located in the then middle-class African American neighborhoods of LeDroit Park and Logan Circle (present-day Bloomingdale). Research notes that the house was purchased during the late 1920s by Herring with some assistance of artist Alma Thomas (or vice versa). Both were listed as owners of the property until 1933 when Aden was listed as the co-owner. In 1943, Aden resigned as head of the Howard Gallery for unknown reasons which led Herring and Aden to open a gallery in their home. The gallery was named after Aden's mother Naomi, who also served as an early benefactor of the gallery giving $1,000 in support. It was the support of various benefactors alongside Herring's salary as a Howard professor and Aden's several "government jobs" that kept the gallery afloat during its time in the home. The first floor of the gallery consisted entirely of exhibition space with the second-floor space interchanged between exhibition, study, and living spaces over the years. Herring's library, also located on the upper floors, was used for research by students and local scholars. Herring and Aden never saw the gallery as a truly profitable venture but instead wanted to offer avenues for the artists to showcase their work. As policy, each artist retained all money earned from sales but were required to donate at least one work of art to the Barnett-Aden collection.
The gallery, the first of its kind in Washington at the time, exhibited works of artists regardless of race; African American artists displayed alongside their more notable white peers. Notable artists featured in the gallery include Henri Matisse, Paul Cezanne, Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, and M.C. Escher were exhibited alongside notable African American artists Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Charles White, Selma Burke as well as many others. Several Howard professors who went on to have notable art careers also exhibited their work at the gallery including James Porter, Lois Mailou Jones, and James Lesesne Wells. Many of the artists featured in the gallery were also greatly involved in the operations. Alma Thomas served gallery's vice president before she began exhibiting her work there in 1950s. Artist and scholar, David Driskell served as the associate director of the gallery after Aden's death.
The gallery held five to eight exhibitions every year including a special annual anniversary exhibition. In 1944, the gallery opened a show featuring Brazilian modern artist, Candido Portinari, who had previously completed a mural at the Library of Congress, that sparked great interest at the gallery. The exhibition opening brought in visitors from all over Washington including members of the president's cabinet, foreign ambassadors and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. This renewed interest created a somewhat hectic pace in keeping up with the work of the gallery. This pace coupled with the full-time jobs and other ventures including a gift shop enabled the gallery to act as a luminary of the African American and local arts community in Washington.
In 1961, while preparing for the annual anniversary exhibition, Alonzo Aden died suddenly. Herring with aid of his friends and students took on the management of the gallery after his partner's death but was unable to keep the pace of Aden's work and the attendance declined. In 1969, Herring died in the home leaving behind a formidable legacy. The home and its contents including the gallery's art collection was sold in order to settle the debts of Herring's estate. The collection was divided amongst three individuals. Artist and former Herring student, Adolphus Ealey inherited the bulk of the collection that featured 250 significant works. Herring's books, graphic drawings, and prints were given to Herring associate and friend, Dr. Felton J. Earls, while the sculptures went to art collectors and friends Dr. and Mrs. Cecil Marquez.
The portion of the collection owned by Ealey was described as the preeminent selection from the gallery's collection. The size and ongoing upkeep of the collection was significant which caused the collection to be moved several times over the years. The collection which out of necessity was originally stored in Ealey's Southwest Washington apartment then moved a to a house in LeDroit Park and then to another space in the Washington neighborhood of Fort Lincoln. Ealey collaborated with colleagues and institutions to have it exhibited in various locations but also bid to find the collection a permanent home. During the 1970s, the collection was featured at the Museum of Afro-American Culture and History in Philadelphia, the Anacostia Neighborhood Museum (now the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum) and the Corcoran Gallery of Art.
Unable to find an institutional home for the collection, Ealey was forced to sell the collection in 1989 to the Florida Endowment Fund for Higher Education. Ealey stipulated that collection must remain intact but also that the new owners had to develop educational and outreach programs focused on African Americans in the arts. Failing to find consistent opportunities to exhibit the collection, the owners were forced to sell the collection. In 1998, Robert L. Johnson, then chairman and founder of the television channel, Black Entertainment Television (BET), purchased the collection. The collection went on a national tour then was displayed for some time at the BET headquarters in Washington. In 2015, Johnson donated selections from the gallery collection to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in an effort to preserve the legacy of the Barnett-Aden Gallery and the tireless work of James V. Herring and Alonzo Aden for generations to come.
Historical Timeline
1897 -- James Vernon Herring was born January 7 in Clio, South Carolina.
1906 -- Alonzo James Aden was born May 6 in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
1914-1916 -- While attending Syracuse University, Herring taught summer classes at Wilberforce University in Ohio for two summers.
1917 -- Herring graduated from Syracuse University with a Bachelors of Pedagogy in Art degree.
1917-1920 -- Herring served as YMCA secretary for the YMCA in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and then Camp Lee, Virginia. Herring also held teaching positions at Straight College in New Orleans and Bennett College in North Carolina
1920 -- Alonzo was sent to Washington, D.C. to live with his uncle, James Aden, and his wife Laura.
1921 -- Herring was initially hired as architectural drawing instructor at Howard University and after negotiations established Department of Art later that same year.
1927 -- Herring organized an exhibition of Howard U. students' artwork that toured the Deep South U.S. Aden enrolled in Howard University in pursuit of an education degree.
1930 -- The Howard University Gallery of Art formally opened on April 7. Aden was hired as gallery assistant.
1933 -- Aden received his Bachelor of Arts in Education; Herring added Aden's name as co-owner of the 127 Randolph Place home.
1934-1939 -- Aden engaged in post-graduate study and museum curatorial work around the U.S. and Europe.
1940 -- Aden served as art curator for the American Negro Exposition (the "Negro's World Fair") in Chicago
1943 -- Aden resigned his position at the Howard University Gallery of Art for undisclosed reasons. The Barnett-Aden Gallery was founded by James V. Herring and Alonzo Aden. The first exhibition, "American Paintings for the Home" featured Elizabeth Catlett, Lois Mailou Jones, Malvin Gray Johnson, James Lesesne Wells, Jacob Lawrence, and many others.
1944 -- First anniversary exhibition featuring artist Candido Portinari, Brazilian artist who was already known in Washington from his mural for the Library of Congress. It was attended by the First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt. Exhibition, "The Negro in Art" and "American Paintings for the Home" featuring Catlett, James A. Porter, Wells, Jones, Richmond Barthé, Hale Woodruff, Betsy Graves Reyneau and others.
1946 -- Exhibition, "Paintings by Lois Mailou Jones" and featured paintings of Jacob Lawrence for Third Anniversary exhibition.
1947 -- Fourth Anniversary Exhibition, "Recent Paintings by Charles White". Exhibition of Elizabeth Catlett, "Paintings, Sculpture, and Prints of The Negro Woman".
1948 -- Exhibition, "Paintings and Drawings by James A. Porter".
1949 -- Exhibition, "Sylvia Carewe".
1950 -- "Exhibition of Six Washington Artists" featuring Romare Bearden, Samuel Bookatz, Bernice Cross, Robert Gates, Norma Mazo, and James A. Porter. "Exhibition "Paintings and Prints by James Lesesne Wells."
1951 -- Exhibition, "Three Washington Artists" featuring Richard Dempsey, Sam Herman, and Jack Perlmutter Exhibition, "Herman Maril: Paintings in Retrospect, 1931-1951"
1953 -- Tenth Anniversary Exhibition, "Eighteen Washington Artists" featuring Sarah Baker, Samuel Bookatz, William Calfee, Bernice Cross, Robert Franklin Gates, Jacob Kainen, Marjorie Phillips, James Porter, and James Lesesne Wells.
1954 -- Exhibition "Six Washington Painters" featuring Theresa Abbott, Gabriel Cherin, Gloria Besser Green, Alma W. Thomas, and Anita Wertheim.
1955 -- Twelfth anniversary exhibition focused on "Jack Perlmutter".
1957 -- Exhibition, "David C. Driskell: Exhibition of Paintings"
1958 -- Exhibition "Norman Lewis: Paintings"
1959 -- Sixteenth Anniversary Exhibition of "Paintings by Pietro Lazzari, Helen Rennie, Alma Thomas, Andrea De Zerega". Exhibition of "Religious Paintings and Prints by James L. Wells and Sculpture by Selma Burke"
1962 -- Alonzo Aden died suddenly at the age of 56 on October 13 in Washington D.C. Herring solely inherits the Gallery collection.
1969 -- Herring dies at age 84 in Washington, DC. on May 29. Artist Adolphus Ealey inherits the bulk of the gallery collection along with Dr. Felton J. Earls and Dr. and Mrs. Cecil Marquez.
1974 -- Two exhibitions of the collection at the Anacostia Neighborhood Museum and the Corcoran Gallery of Art.
1989 -- Collection sold to Florida Endowment Fund for Higher Education.
1998 -- Robert Johnson, founder and former CEO of Black Entertainment Television (BET) purchased the entire collection and serves as administrators over the collection.
Provenance:
Acquired through a purchase by the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research. Access to collection materials requires an appointment.
Rights:
The NMAAHC Archives can provide reproductions of some materials for research and educational use. Copyright and right to publicity restrictions apply and limit reproduction for other purposes.
This collection is primarily the work of one individual, Donald Harvey Sultner, known professionally as Donald Sultner-Welles (1914-1981). The collection forms a written and visual record of Sultner's family, life, and career from 1913-1980. Its major strength is Sultner's photographic documentation of the world during his travels, ca. 1950-1980. Work by other photographers and artists, correspondence, greeting cards, and contemporary memorabilia and ephemera are included, along with fewer than fifty examples of earlier materials, ca. 1790-1900, collected by Sultner.
The entire collection reflects Sultner's lifework and interests. Housed in boxes the collection is organized into eleven series: Personal Papers; Professional Papers; Lecture Materials; Biographical Materials; Transparencies; Photoprints; Photonegatives; Prints, Drawings, Mixed Media; Audio Tapes; Miscellaneous; and Steve Eyster Addenda. The arrangement within each series is based as closely as possi-ble on Sultner's own organization of the materials. However, in several instances similar materials were found separated and have been placed together. In addition, obvious filing mistakes and spelling errors have been corrected. The spelling of geographic place names is based on Official Standard Names prepared by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, Office of Geography, U.S. Department of the Interior. Not all names given by Sultner were found in the gazetteers, so there may be errors.
The bulk of the collection consists of 2-1/4-inch by 2-1/4-inch color transparencies (Series 5). However, the manuscript materials (Series 1-4) provide a detailed complement to the transparencies. For example, from the mid-1950s until the late 1970s, Sultner kept a travel diary (Se-ries 1). Written on the backs of postcards, this stream-of-consciousness journal reflects not only his daily trips, but his impressions of the countries and thoughts on his photography. A juxtaposition of cards with images is especially useful in understanding what Sultner photographed as well as why and how he photographed it. Sultner's professional corre-spondence (Series 2) documents the various types of groups before which he performed and equipment manufacturers dealt with for cameras, projectors, and so on. Notes, drafts, and final lectures (Series 3) present the performance side of Sultner. This material, when viewed with tapes of concerts and slides, begins to recreate the photo-concert as Sultner presented it. Scrapbooks (Series 4), kept by Sultner from the 1940s to the 1980s, present Sultner's life and career in chronological fashion.
The transparency portion of the collection (Series 5), containing over 87,000 images, is especially rich because of its documentation of the countries of the world. People are seen at their daily tasks, such as washing clothes, marketing, shopping, and eating. Cities are documented as they changed over the years. Two areas in particular will be of spe-cial interest to European and Asian researchers. The first is Sultner's USIS Asian tour in 1959. He visited Japan, Java, India, Korea, the Phil-ippines, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. The serene, prewar cities and coun-tryside of Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam evince nothing of the devastation to come in the 1960a and 70s.
The second area of interest is Sultner's passion for documenting archi-tecture. As a guest of the German government in 1954, Sultner documented the devastation of World War II and photographed both the reconstruction of bombed buildings and the construction of buildings reflecting "new" postwar architectural styles. In addition to photographing post-WW II styles, throughout his career Sultner documented Palladian, baroque and Rococo architecture. This interest manifested itself in several of his lectures.
A third subject area of interest to Sultner was gardens. Among his first lectures following his USIS tour was "Gardens of the World." Sultner de-veloped this theme into an ongoing commitment to ecology, culminating in a filmstrip, "The Time is Now" (Series 10), prepared for the Hudson River Conservation Society in the 1960s. Carl Carmer, a noted author, wrote the text for the filmstrip. Sultner's taped interviews, lectures, and program music (Series 9) complement the transparencies. During his USIS-sponsored Asian tour in 1959, Sultner recorded impressions of his trip on tape. Interviews with people living in the countries he visited, radio interviews, and his own personal reflections are included. Of particular interest are his "No Harm Asking" interviews in Manila (tape #2), his interview of two French hotel managers in Saigon discussing post-French control conditions (tape #9), and--perhaps the most unusual--his discussion with Erna Hanfstaengl about her personal relationship with Adolf Hitler (tape #107). Scripts for lectures (Series 3) round out the documentation of Sultner's profes-sional work.
Because of the arrangement of the transparencies, it is necessary to check several areas for the same subject. For example, Vietnam images are in the "World" section alphabetically under Vietnam (box 81). Sult-ner also lectured on Vietnam, so there are Vietnamese images in the "framed subjects" (Boxes 137-138). Another example, perhaps more compli-cated, but more common to Sultner, was his distinguishing between images of unidentified "People" and identified "Portraits." Transparency stud ies of human beings will be found under the subseries "People." "Subjects --Portraits," various countries in the subseries "World," and "Lectures." There are also individuals in the black-and-white photoprints (Series 6), and photonegatives (Series 8). The painter and print-maker Charles Shee-ler appears in a number of locations, as does tenor Roland Hayes. Another area of complexity with regard to people concerns the transparencies and negatives. Sultner interfiled his transparencies and negatives of iden-tified individuals. For appropriate storage, these two different formats have been arranged in separate series. Therefore, instead of container lists for the two series, there is a combined alphabetical index to both (pp. 166-206).
Of tangential interest are the photoprints (Series 6), etchings, wood-cuts, and other prints (Series 8) collected by Sultner. One particular subseries of interest contains photographs presented to Sultner by Asian photographers during his 1959 tour. Over 45 images were given to Sultner and represent the standards of camera-club photography in the 1950s. Thesecond subseries consists of over 25 prints by the Italian-American art-ist Luigi Lucioni (1900- ). For further information on this artist,see The Etchings of Luigi Lucioni, -A Catalogue Raisonne', by Stuart P.Embury (Washington, 1984). Lucioni also painted Sultner's portrait in1952 and the "People" section of the transparencies contains a number of images of Lucioni at work. Another significant category is the Japanese prints, including two by a major nineteenth-century artist, Ando Hiro-shige (1797-1858).
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into eleven series.
Series 1: Personal Papers, 1923-1981
Series 2: Professional Papers, 1954-1980
Series 3: Lecture Materials, 1952-1980
Series 4: Biographical Materials, 1954-1980
Series 5: Transparencies, 1947-1980
Series 6: Photoprints, 1913-ca. 1980
Series 7: Photonegatives, 1929-1981
Series 8: Prints, Drawings, Mixed Media, ca. 1790-1979
Series 9: Audio Tapes, 1947-1980
Series 10: Miscellaneous, 1947-1980
Series 11: Steve Eyster Addenda, 1937-1980
Biographical / Historical:
Donald Harvey Sultner was bom in York, Pennsylvania, on April 13, 1914, the son of Lillian May Arnold Sultner and Harvey A. Sultner. In 1923 Sultner attended the Lewis Institute in Detroit, Michigan, to overcome a speech impediment. He entered the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1932 and graduated in 1936. Sultner studied merchandising and sang in the glee club, then under the direction of composer Harl MacDonald. Sultner, a baritone, continued his interest in music and studied voice with Reinald Werrenrath and with Florence Benedict and Bruce Benjamin in New York City. In the late 1940s and early 1950s he appeared in concert with accompanists at schools, clubs, and resort hotels along the East Coast.
It appears that photography was always an important part of Sultner's life. Using a small format (120) camera, he recorded his vacation travels around the United States and Canada, parties, and his family. While living in New York, Sultner continued photographing friends and family and began photographing the famous people he encountered on his concert tours. In the early 1950s he began taking 2-1/4-inch by 2-1/4-inch color transparencies (slides) of landscapes and architecture as he traveled giving concerts.
Sultner, who had taken the stage name of "Sultner-Welles," began what was to be his lifework as a professional "photo-lecturer" in 1952. He illustrated his talks on nature, art, architecture, and the environment with his color slides. In 1954 Sultner toured West Germany as a guest of the Bonn government, and in 1959 he lectured in Asia under the auspices of the U.S. State Department. He was dubbed the "camera ambassador." Constantly adding new material to his collection of slides, Sultner traveled extensively throughout the United States, speaking before garden clubs, cultural organi-zations, and schools. He also appeared aboard various ships of the Holland-America line during a number of cruises abroad.
Sultner had established his performance style by the early 1960s. He expanded his lectures to include a combination of art, words, and music. The expanded presentation resulted in the "photo-concert," a unique synthesis of light and sound that Sultner frequently per-formed with a symphony orchestra. The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra commissioned "Concertino for Camera and Orchestra" by Eric Knight with Sultner in mind. The world premiere was in Baltimore in March 1979. While he spoke on many art, garden, and architectural topics, Sultner specialized in subjects relating to the baroque and rococo periods and Palladian architecture.
Sultner died of cancer in York, Pennsylvania, on March 25, 1981, at the age of 67.
1914 -- April 13, born York, Pennsylvania.
1929 -- In Detroit at Lewis Institute to overcome a speech impediment.
1932 -- To University of Pennsylvania.
1935 -- Summer trip to Roanoke (VA), Picketts, Hershey (PA); fall trip to New England for fraternity (AXP) convention.
1936 -- Spring glee club trip; graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania; summer trips to Newport News (VA), northern trip to Canada, Picketts (PA).
1937 -- Fall trip to Williamsburg (VA), Duke University (NC); Sultner family begins building "Glen Hill" (Dover, PA).
1938 -- Summer at home, and Picketts (PA), Camp Pratt.
1939 -- Spring trip to Washington, D.C.; September trip to The Homestead (WV), Hot Springs (WV), Virginia; Lake Mohonk (NY).
1940 -- Summer trip to New Orleans, Blowing Rock (NC); winter trip to Skytop Club (NY); fall trip to Atlantic City (NJ), Philadelphia (PA), Annapolis (MD).
1941 -- Winter 1941-42 appearance in "Hit the Deck." Lake Mohonk (NY) with Ted Walstrum (Sept. 22-23); Skytop Club (NY) (February); summer trip to Canada, Lake Chazy (NY) (Aug. 17-23).
1942 -- Spring in Atlantic City (NJ); summer to Buck Hill Falls, Lakes Chazy and Mohonk.
1943 -- Summer trip to Mohonk (NY).
1944 -- Summer: To Toronto (Ontario), Muskoka Lake, Bigwin Island, Montreal (Quebec), Mohonk (NY).
1946 -- To Mohonk (NY), Ogunquit (ME), Old Saybrook (CT), Nantucket (RI).
1947 -- Singing tour of Canada and New England; winter-spring tour to Georgia and Florida.
1948 -- To Florida and Nassau, Feb.-Mar., Vermont, July-Aug.; Nassau-Havana-Miami-Bermuda, October.
1949 -- Singing tour of North and South Carolina.
1950 -- Summer trip to South.
1951 -- To District of Columbia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, [New Jersey?], New York, Vermont.
1952 -- January 9: first public photo-concert, Pennsylvania Academy of the Arts, Philadelphia; trips to Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont.
1953 -- To Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Vermont.
1954 -- Guest of German government for a study tour in the fall. To District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia.
1955 -- To Holland; Connecticut, District of Columbia, Florida, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia.
1956 -- To California, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia.
1957 -- Holland-America Cruise to Germany, Austria, Italy. To Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia.
1958 -- Holland-America Cruises to Germany, Austria, Holland, Italy, Switzerland. To Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota., Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Wisconsin.
1959 -- United States Information Service (USIS)-sponsored tour of Asia: Burma, Cambodia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Laos, Malaya, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Vietnam. Also visited Austria, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Greece, Iran, Italy, Spain; Alaska, California, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania.
1960 -- Holland-America Cruise to Austria, Belgium, Caribbean, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Morocco. To Arizona, California, Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin.
1961 -- To Canada, France, Germany, Switzerland; Alabama, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode.Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin.
1962 -- Portfolio, "Autumn in Vermont," with introduction by Carl Carmer, published in Autumn issue of Vermont Life. Holland-America Cruise to Denmark, England, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Sweden. To Connecticut, District of Columbia, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia.
1963 -- Holland-America Cruise to Caribbean, Canada, Sweden, Thailand. To Alabama, California, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, N;w York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington.
1964 -- Holland-America Cruise to Germany, Canada, England, Holland, Wales. To Delaware, District of Columbia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia.
1965 -- Holland-America Cruise to Austria, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Holland, Portugal, Wales. To Arkansas, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Indiana, Kentucky, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia.
1966 -- Holland-America Cruise to Caribbean, Germany, France, Holland, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland. To New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia.
1967 -- Holland-America Cruise to Caribbean, Austria, Denmark, England, Germany, Holland, Italy, Portugal, Sweden, Wales. To Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia.
1968 -- To Germany; Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia.
1969 -- To England, France, Germany, Holland, Switzerland; Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia.
1970 -- Holland-America Cruise to Caribbean, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden. To Alabama, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia.
1971 -- Holland-America Cruise to Caribbean, Canada, Denmark, Italy, Portugal, Sweden. To Alabama, Georgia, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania.
1972 -- Holland-America Cruise to Asia, Pacific, Caribbean, Africa, Austria, Italy, Japan, Thailand, Turkey. To California, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia.
1973 -- Holland-America Cruise to Austria, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Iceland, Sweden. To California, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont.
1974 -- To Germany, Switzerland; California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia.
1975 -- To Austria; California, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia.
1976 -- To Canada; Connecticut, District of Columbia, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Utah.
1977 -- To Canada, Germany; New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia.
1978 -- To Scotland; Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina.
1979 -- To England; Florida.
1980 -- To Florida.
1981 -- March 25: Sultner dies of cancer, York, Pennsylania.
Introduction:
The Donald H. Sultner-Welles Collection, ca. 1790-1981, came to the National Museum of American History in 1982 from the estate of Mr. Sultner. The collection was created by Sultner over his adult life and represents one of the most extensive collections of color transparencies created by one individual and held in a public repository. Sultner's emphasis was on world culture. He took the majority of his photographs in the eastern United States, western Europe, and Asia. Gardens, architecture, and people are the three major subject areas represented in the collection. Of additional interest are Sultner's taped impressions of his 1959 United States Information Service (USIS)-sponsored Asian tour. The collection occupies 309 boxes and covers more than 83 cubic feet.
The Donald H. Sultner-Welles Collection is open to researchers in the Archives Center, third floor east, of the National Museum of American History, between 12th and 14th Streets, on Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20560. The Archives Center is open Monday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Written and telephone (202/357-3270) inquiries are welcome and researchers are encouraged to contact the Archives Center before their arrival. The FAX number is 202/786-2453.
This is the eleventh in a series of occasional guides to collections in the Archives Center. Finding aids to other collections are available. The Guide to Manuscript Collections in the National Museum of History and Technology (1978) and an updated compilation contain brief descriptions of all archival holdings in the Museum. All current Archives Center holdings are available for search on the Smithsonian Institution Bibliographic Information System (SIBIS), an online database.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research but a portion of the collection is stored off-site and special arrangements must be made to work with it. Contact the Archives Center for information at archivescenter@si.edu or 202-633-3270.
A small number of letters and photographs are restricted until the year 2031. Identification list in box.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
An interview of Rafael Ferrer conducted 1990 Sept. 19, by Cynthia Veloric, for the Archives of American Art Philadelphia Project.
Ferrer speaks about his childhood in Puerto Rico; his education in Catholic school and military school; his interest in music including his professional work as a drummer in Latin jazz bands both in Puerto Rico and New York City; studies at Syracuse University and the University of Puerto Rico; his interest in painting; meeting the surrealist Eugenio Granell and Granell's influence, including Ferrer's involvement in the 1950's with surrealists in Puerto Rico and Europe, and a discussion of his feelings on Dada and surrealism; the shift toward conceptual and process art in the 1960's; moving to Philadelphia in the 1960's, teaching at the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts) and exhibiting at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; installations and exhibits in New York City in the late 1960's and 1970's, including his twenty year association with the Nancy Hoffman Gallery; the deflected fountain piece at the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the transition to handmade art works and then to painting and figurative works partially inspired by Alex Katz; collectors Sydney and Frances Lewis; and several commissions.
Biographical / Historical:
Rafael Ferrer (1933-) is a painter and conceptual artist from Puerto Rico and Philadelphia, Pa.
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.
Restrictions:
Transcript: Patrons must use microfilm copy.
Occupation:
Painters -- United States -- Interviews Search this
Conceptual artists -- Puerto Rico -- Interviews Search this
Conceptual artists -- United States -- Interviews Search this
An interview of Warren Rohrer conducted 1989 March 9-June 1, by Marina Pacini, for the Archives of American Art Philadelphia Project. Rohrer speaks of his early life as a Mennonite and his schooling on a farm in Lancaster, Pa.; his art studies at Eastern Mennonite College, James Madison College, Pennsylvania State University with Hobson Pittman, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts with Francis Speight, and art history classes at the University of Pennsylvania; the development of his work, his efforts at portraiture, and the importance of landscape to his art for most of his career as a painter; his teaching in the Education Department at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Philadelphia College of Art; his exhibitions at the Robert Carlen Galleries, the Makler Gallery, the Pennsylvania Academy's Morris Gallery, the Marian Locks Gallery in Philadelphia, as well as the Lamagna Gallery and CDS Gallery in New York City; his collectors, and critics' reactions to his work in New York and Philadelphia.
Biographical / Historical:
Warren Rohrer (1927-1995) was a painter and educator from Philadelphia, Pa.
General:
Originally recorded on 7 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 13 digital wav files. Duration is 9 hr., 54 min.
Provenance:
These interviews are 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.
This collection, which measures 3.02 linear feet and dates from circa 1900 to 1986, documents the lives of painter and educator Leon Berkowitz and his first wife, poet Ida Fox Berkowitz, and provides insight into the cultural and artistic climate in 1940s and 1950s Washington D.C. through correspondence, notes, sketches, photographs, printed material, and audio cassettes.
Scope and Content Note:
The collection measures 3.02 linear feet and dates from circa 1900 to 1986. In addition to documenting the artistic development of Leon Berkkowitz and, to a lesser extent, Ida Fox, the collection provides insight into the cultural and artistic climate in Washington D.C. during the 1940s and 1950s.
The collection includes correspondence, primarily between Leon and Ida Fox Berkowitz, notes, sketches, personal photographs, printed material, and a cassette tape. There are notes on Leon Berkowitz's philosophy of painting, reports from a 1940s U.S. Army art therapy project in which he participated, and scattered correspondence, financial records, and promotional materials from the Washington Workshop Center for the Arts and WCFM radio. Also found here are lecture notes and administrative materials relating to Leon's Berkowitz's teaching career, papers he wrote for several education courses, his master's thesis, sporadic business records concerning shipments and sales of paintings and gallery exhibitions, and drafts of catalogs.
Series 4: Exhibitions, 1944-1985, undated (box 2, 4, 10 folders)
Series 5: Washington Workshop Center for the Arts, 1940s-1950s (boxes 2-3, 14 folders)
Series 6: Other Projects, 1944-1985 (box 3, 4 folders)
Series 7: Notes and Writings, 1940s-1971, undated (box 3, 8 folders)
Series 8: Artwork, circa 1950s, undated (box 3, 5 folders)
Series 9: Photographs, circa 1900-1970s (box 3, 5 folders)
Series 10: Interview on Audio Cassette, [1974?] (box 3, 1 folder)
Biographical Note:
Leon Berkowitz (1911-1987), a painter associated with the Washington Color School, was born in Philadelphia (the 1919 birth date given by Berkowitz in Who's Who in American Art is incorrect). He met and married his first wife, Ida Fox, between 1935 and 1937. Berkowitz received a B.F.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1942 and an M.A. from George Washington University in 1948.
From 1943 to 1945, he served as a private in the U.S. Army, participating in a psychiatric program involving art therapy at Camp Lee, Virginia. Berkowitz taught art at Eastern and Western high schools in Washington, D.C. from 1945 to 1956 and taught at Western again in the late 1960s. In 1969 Berkowitz became chairman of the Corcoran School of Art's painting department and taught there until his death.
In 1945, the Berkowitzes founded the Washington Workshop Center for the Arts with Helmuth Kern. The Center, an important part of the city's cultural life during the 1940s and 1950s, offered courses in art, music, theatre and dance. Many of the artists who later became prominent in the Washington Color School taught at the center, including Morris Louis, Ken Noland, Gene Davis, Jacob Kainen and Jack Perlmutter. The center also sponsored a retrospective for Willem de Kooning in 1953. The Berkowitzes and Kern were also active in establishing the shortlived (1949-1953) cooperative radio station WCFM.
The center collapsed in 1956, shortly after the Berkowitzes' departure on a sabbatical painting trip to Spain. They spent much of the next decade abroad, including a two-and-a half year stay in Wales and a visit of several months to Jerusalem. During this period, Berkowitz expanded his interest in light, creating paintings by priming canvases with a white ground, then using multiple layers of thin oil paint washes.
Berkowitz had his first one-man museum show at the Corcoran in 1966. Ida Fox died during the 1970s and Berkowitz then married his second wife, Maureen. He continued to paint and exhibit until his death from cancer in 1987.
Poet Ida Fox (1913-197?) was born in Philadelphia. She married Leon Berkowitz between 1934 and 1937 and moved with him to Washington, D.C. where she attended American University from 1942 to 1945. During World War II she worked as a statistician for the U.S. government. In 1945 she cofounded the Washington Workshop Center for the Arts. Fox became its director in 1947, resigning the position in 1955 to accompany her husband to Spain. She published poetry in several literary and artistic periodicals, including a series, "Painting Thru a Poet's Eye," inspired by works of art. In 1970 she published a collection of poetry, In the Wind: An American Poet in Wales (St. David's, Wales: Antiphon Press, 1970), illustrated by Arthur Okamura.
Related Material:
Also available in the Archives of American Art are two audio cassettes of a transcribed oral history interview with Leon and Ida Fox Berkowitz, June 5, 1979.
Provenance:
Leon Berkowitz donated the papers of his first wife, Ida Fox, in 1987. After his death in 1987, his second wife, Maureen Berkowitz, donated his papers to the Archives of American Art. In addition to these two accessions, one folder of material on Leon Berkowitz was donated in 1979. This material was microfilmed on reel 2786.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Microfilmed portion must be consulted on microfilm. Use of unmicrofilmed material requires an appointment and is limited to the Washington, D.C. research facility.
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 painter, printmaker, educator and administrator Ed Colker are dated 1944-2020 and measure 3.4 linear feet. Colker's painting, printmaking, and Haybarn Press, as well as his career as an art teacher and university administrator, are documented through biographical materials, correspondence, interviews, writings, subject files, printed material, and photographs. There is a 0.2 linear ft. addition to the collection donated in 2020 that includes lists of works of art, exhibition information, letters to Colker, talks and lecutres by Colker, printed material and miscellany.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of painter, printmaker, educator and administrator Ed Colker are dated 1944-2020 and measure 3.4 linear feet. Colker's painting, printmaking, and Haybarn Press, as well as his career as an art teacher and university administrator, are documented through biographical materials, correspondence, interviews, writings, subject files, printed material, and photographs. There is a 0.2 linear ft. addition to the collection donated in 2020 that includes lists of works of art, exhibition information, letters to Colker, talks and lecutres by Colker, printed material and miscellany.
Biographical materials include official letters regarding Colker's performance in the Army, caricatures of him, diplomas, resume, awards, and certificates.
Correspondence, mainly professional in nature with a few scattered personal letters, concerns Colker's academic and artistic work, Haybarn Editions, exhibitions, projects, and various interests. Poet correspondents are J. Curtis Johnson, Kathleen Norris, Deborah Pease, and Jeanne Walker; translators include Melvin Konner and others.
Interviews with Ed Colker, conducted between 1982 and 2008 for various purposes, are preserved as 1 sound cassette and published transcripts. Also found are 1 sound cassette, 1 videocassette, and a published transcript of interviews Colker conducted with Will Barnet and Toshiko Takaezu in 1981 and 1994 respectively.
Among Colker's writings are the published versions of several articles and the manuscript of an unpublished one; two proposed books for students of design and typography; lectures delivered to students (3 videocassettes), miscellaneous writings, notes, and 1 videocassete of readings by artists from one of Colker's Haybarn Press poetry portfolios.
Subject files document many of Colker's professional interests, activities, projects, and relationships. Also of note are files about Haybarn Press.
The bulk of the printed material consists of exhibition catalogs, announcements, and school catalogs. Almost all is about or mentions Colker, or features reproductions of his work. Of note is the first and only issue of Re-Art: A Reflection of Current Ideas on the Arts (1954), published by Colker and Gene Feldman.
Photographs are of Colker and his family; Colker at events related to his artistic, academic, and publishing activities; artwork by Colker, and his work as reproduced in Haybarn Editions. Also found are an exterior view of the barn studio and one of printers working at Desjobert Press.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 8 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1946-circa 2011 (Box 1; 1 folder)
Series 2: Correspondence,1954-2011 (Box 1; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 3: Interviews, 1981-2008 (Box 1; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 4: Writings, 1961-1990s (Box 1; 0.5 linear feet)
Series 5: Subject files, 1952-2013 (Boxes 2-3; 1.3 linear feet)
Series 6: Printed Material,1944-2011 (Box 3; 0.7 linear feet)
Series 7: Photographs, circa 1960s-2010 (Box 4; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 8: Unprocessed Addition, circa 1963-2020 (Box 5; 0.2 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
Ed Colker (b. 1927) is a painter, printmaker, educator, and administrator who has worked in Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York City. Colker founded the not-for-profit fine art publisher Haybarn Press. He is married to artist Elaine Galen and resides in Mt. Kisco, NY.
After high school, Colker was awarded a scholarship and began his art education at the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Arts. He interrupted his studies to serve in the U.S. Army (1944-1946). He graduated in 1949, by which time the school had become the Philadelphia Museum School of Art; today it is the University of the Arts. He taught art in the Philadelphia area before moving to New York City in 1956. Later, Colker earned degrees from New York University (B.S. Ed, 1964; M.A., 1985).
Colker taught art and design courses at the University of Pennsylvania, University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, Cornell University, Pratt Institute, and Philadelphia College of Art. By the 1980s, he had become an administrator as well as a professor. Throughout his academic career, Colker published and lectured widely, served as a visiting artist, acted as a consultant, and participated in professional organizations. He occasionally organized exhibitions and served on exhibition juries.
Since 1960, under the imprints Editions du Grenier, Haybarn Editions, and Haybarn Press, Colker has published limited edition books, portfolios, broadsides, individual pages, and folders of poetry. Most are accompanied by Colker's etchings and lithographs inspired by the texts. Haybarn Press, under the Ambor Edition imprint, also produced four portfolios with text and drawings by Elaine Galen, 1996-2008. From its inception, the work of Haybarn Press has been featured in many exhibitions of book arts. Colker also participated in group shows throughout the United States and enjoyed solo exhibitions of his paintings and prints. Haybarn Press productions and Colker's prints and paintings are in the permanent collections of Brown University, Cornell University, Harvard University, Library of Congress, Museum of Modern Art, New York Public Library, University of Arizona Museum of Art, and others.
Now retired from university administration and teaching, Colker continues to operate Haybarn Press and occasionally serves as an exhibition juror and visiting artist.
Provenance:
Donated by Ed Colker in 1991, 2013 and 2020.
Restrictions:
Use of original material requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. 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.
An interview of Franklin Watkins conducted 1971 August 18, by Paul Cummings, for the Archives of American Art.
Biographical / Historical:
Franklin Watkins (1894-1972) was a painter from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 8 digital wav files. Duration is 4 hrs., 26 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.
The papers of sculptor Beatrice Fenton date from 1836-1984 (bulk 1890-1978) and measure 9.36 linear feet. The collection documents Fenton's career as a sculptor and art instructor, as well as her life-long friendships with artist Emily Clayton and art educator Marjorie Martinet. Found are scattered biographical materials, correspondence primarily with Martinet (approximately 1/2 of the collection), business records, notes and writings, scattered records of arts organizations, transcripts of interviews with Fenton, sketches and sketchbooks, a scrapbook, brochures, clippings, postcards, reproductions of artwork, and photographs of friends and family, travels, and artwork. Writings include several illustrated hand-made books of poetry by Emily Clayton.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of sculptor Beatrice Fenton date from 1836-1984 (bulk 1890-1978) and measure 9.36 linear feet. The collection documents Fenton's career as a sculptor and art instructor, as well as her life-long friendships with artist Emily Clayton and art educator Marjorie Martinet. Found are scattered biographical materials, correspondence primarily between Fenton and Martinet (approximately 1/2 of the collection), business records, notes and writings, scattered records of arts organizations, transcripts of interviews with Fenton, sketches and sketchbooks, a scrapbook, brochures, clippings, postcards, reproductions of artwork, and photographs of friends and family, travels, and artwork.
The collection includes scattered biographical material for Fenton, Emily Clayton Bishop, and Marjorie Martinet, such as biographical accounts, membership cards, and a diploma. The correspondence is primarily between Fenton and Martinet and documents the development of their close friendship and professional concerns. There are also scattered letters from Fenton's instructor, Alexander S. Calder and Emily Clayton Bishop. Personal business records include those of Fenton and Martinet and include wills, estate papers, insurance and banking records, price lists, receipts, and records from the Oldfields School where Marjorie Martinet taught for 36 years. Found within the Notes and Writings series are address books, hand-made illustrated booklets of poems by Emily Clayton Bishop, lecture manuscripts, and notes and typescripts on various topics, including a file Fenton created to promote Bishop's artwork following Bishop's death.
There is a series of scattered records of arts organizations to which Fenton belonged, including the Charcoal Club, the Three Arts Club, Lizette Wood Reese Memorial Association, and the Maryland Institute Alumni Association. Also found in the papers are interview tapes and transcripts of interviews conducted with Fenton by Mary Hamel-Schwulst and Marlene Obarzaneck, artwork consisting primarily of sketchbooks and loose drawings by Fenton and Bishop, a scrapbook concerning Martinet, additional printed material, and photographs and photograph albums depicting Fenton, Martinet, Bishop, other family, colleagues, studios, artwork, and travel destinations.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 9 series. Glass plate negatives are housed separately and closed to researchers.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1897-1967 (Boxes 1, 10; 5 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1857-1980 (Boxes 1-5, 10; 4.5 linear feet)
Series 3: Business Records, 1836, 1907-1978 (Box 5; 39 folders)
Series 4: Notes and Writings, 1866-1971 (Boxes 5-6; 58 folders)
Series 5: Organization Records, 1903-1938 (Box 6; 9 folders)
Series 6: Interviews, 1978 (Box 6; 5 folders)
Series 7: Artwork, 1903-1943 (Boxes 7, 10; 21 folders)
Series 8: Scrapbook, 1905-1925 (Boxes 10; 1 folder)
Series 9: Printed Material, 1865-1984 (Boxes 7-8, 10; 1.7 linear feet)
Series 10: Photographs, 1890-1978 (Boxes 9-10, MGP 6; 1.0 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Beatrice Fenton was born on July 12, 1887 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to ophthalmologist Thomas H. Fenton and Lizzie Remak Fenton, who was the daughter of prominent lawyer Gustavus Remak.
From 1903-1904 Fenton began to study art at the Philadelphia School of Industrial Art under Alexander Stirling Calder. Through her father's aunt, Mary Fenton Holmes, she met Thomas Eakins who advised her to sculpt in clay in order to overcome flatness in drawings. In 1904 Eakins painted a portrait of Fenton as the central figure in The Coral Necklace.
Fenton was attracted to sculpture and continued her studies in this field from 1904-1908 at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, under Charles Grafly. Here she began life-long friendships with fellow students Marjorie Martinet and Emily Clayton Bishop.
A Cresson European Traveling Scholarship enabled Fenton to visit Belgium, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, France, and England during the summer of 1909. She returned to the Pennsylvania Academy and won a second scholarship that financed further travel to Spain, France, Holland, Belgium, and England in 1910 with Marjorie Martinet. On her return from Europe Fenton began working as an artist in Philadelphia.
Both Fenton and Martinet were deeply affected by the sudden death of Emily Clayton Bishop in 1912, and spent several years promoting Bishop's sculpture. Martinet, who changed the spelling of her surname from Martenet to Martinet in June 1918, established her own art school in Baltimore, Maryland, and later taught painting at the Maryland Institute of Art. Fenton and Martinet maintained a close relationship for fifty years, primarily through correspondence.
Fenton's first success came with a portrait bust of her father's friend, painter and etcher Peter Moran, brother of Thomas Moran. The bust was purchased by the painter's friends for the Art Club and in 1915 won Honorable Mention in the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. The success of Fenton's Seaweed Fountain in 1922 generated many commissions, primarily for fountains.
Martinet taught at Oldfields School from 1925 to 1961. From 1942 to 1953, Fenton taught at the Moore College of Art in Philadelphia, and later joined the faculty of St. John's Night School for Adults.
Beatrice Fenton died February 11, 1983 in Germantown, Pennsylvania.
Provenance:
The Beatrice Fenton papers were donated from 1987-1991 by Joan Martin, a sculptor and former Fenton student, who inherited Fenton's studio and its contents.
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.
Occupation:
Sculptors -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia Search this
An interview with Hugh Mesibov conducted 2012 Dec. 4, by James McElhinney, for the Archives of American Art, at Mesibov's home and studio, in Chestnut Ridge, N.Y. Mesibov speaks of growing up in Philadelphia; working as a shipfitter at Cramp's Shipyard; his time working with the graphic arts division of the WPA and creating a new print process called the carborundum print with artists Dox Thrash and Michael Gallagher; painting canvases and mural for the WPA; his time at the Pennsylvania Academy of Art; his relationship with Dr. Albert C. Barnes of the Barnes Foundation and Barnes Collection; gatherings at "The Heel" on South Broad Street in Philadelphia, which was part of Horn and Hodart; painting murals The Book of Job and Byzantine Figure; his relationship with art collector David Orr. He recalls moving to New York City in the 1940s and becoming a member of "The Club" with other Abstract Expressionists like David Kline and Ibram Lassaw; exhibiting his work at the Sragow Gallery, the Susan Teller Gallery, the Woodmere Art Gallery, and the Chinese Gallery; his time spent in Aspen, Colorado, where he was exposed to poets and nature that influenced his work; working as an art teacher at the Wiltwyck School in Esopus, New York; working as an art therapist with Judith Kramer at the Lenox Hill House in New York City; moving to Rockland County, New York in the 1960s with his family; teaching at Rockland Community College; his friendships with other artists in the area such as Khoren Der Harootian, Vaclav Vytlacil, Richard Pousette-Dart, and Maurice Prendergast. Mesibov is joined in the interview by his wife, Eudice Charney Meisbov, and his daughter, Deborah Mesibov. Chelsea Cooksey assists James McElhinney with the recording.
Biographical / Historical:
Interviewee Hugh Mesibov (1916-2016) was an artist and professor emeritus in Chestnut Ridge, N.Y. Interviewer James McElhinney is a painter and educator in New York, N.Y.
General:
Originally recorded as 4 sound digital wav files. Duration is 3 hrs., 24 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Topic:
Painters -- New York (State) -- Interviews Search this
Interview of Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones conducted 1964 April 26, by Ruth Gurin (Bowman), when Gurin was Curator of the Collection at New York University.
Biographical / Historical:
Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones (1885-1968) was a painter living in New York, New York, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Paris, France.
General:
Sound has been lost on tape reels; reels discarded.
Provenance:
This interview was given to the Archives of American Art by Ruth Gurin Bowman, but was not conducted for the Archives of American Art Oral History Program.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
New School for Social Research (New York, N.Y.) -- Faculty Search this
Extent:
6.9 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Scrapbooks
Interviews
Sketches
Drawings
Photographs
Illustrated letters
Date:
1846-1981
Summary:
The papers of painter and teacher Julian E. (Edwin) Levi date from 1846 to 1981, and comprise 6.9 linear feet. They include biographical information and extensive correspondence with museums and galleries, as well as letters written to his family, circa 1927, while Levi was living in Paris. Also found within the papers are scattered drawings and sketches by Levi, writings and notes, financial records, two scrapbooks, printed material, miscellaneous records and photographs that document Levi's professional career and personal life.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of painter and teacher Julian E. Levi date from 1846 to 1981, and comprise 6.9 linear feet. They consist of biographical information, correspondence, artwork, writings and notes, financial records, scrapbooks, printed material, miscellaneous records and photographs that document Levi's professional career and personal life.
Biographical information includes French documents regarding his trips to Paris in 1920 and 1926-1927. Julian E. Levi's Correspondence, 1914-1981, and undated, concerns professional and personal matters and consists primarily of incoming letters from friends and colleagues, arts organizations, museums, schools, and galleries. Also found are approximately sixty letters he wrote to his family circa 1927, while living in Paris. In addition, a small number of Henderson Family letters, 1846-1886, are included with the Julian E. Levi papers; their relationship to Levi is unclear. Found within the correspondence are illustrated letters and original artwork in the form of greeting cards. Additional Artwork consists mainly of pencil drawings and sketches by Levi, including a large number of stage costume designs.
Writings by Levi consist of brief statements concerning his work and other artists, brief reminiscences of friends, a poem, and the text of a speech. Notes contain miscellaneous jottings, lists of paintings, addresses and telephone information, and address books. Among the writings by others are catalog introductions for Levi exhibitions by unknown authors, and by Lewis Mumford and Archibald MacLeish for An American Group, Inc.
Financial Records concern both business and personal transactions and document art sales, commissions, consignments, and gallery expenses. Also included are receipts, a small number of banking and tax records, and scattered documentation of purchases, appraisals, and sales of antiques in his collection.
Scrapbooks (2 disbound volumes) contain clippings, other printed items, and a few photographs documenting Levi's exhibitions. There are a substantial number of exhibition catalogs and announcements. Miscellaneous printed material includes brochures, newsletters and publications, clippings, invitations, announcements of meetings, blank postcards, travel brochures and printed souvenirs. Also found is a copy of his book, Modern Art: An Introduction, and one of the articles he published in the American expatriate periodical Gargoyle.
Items of note among the Miscellaneous Records pertain to the American Artists' Congress, An American Group, Inc., Downtown Gallery, and New York City Council for Art Week. Other items of interest are a blueprint of plans for Levi's studio at his home in Easthampton, New York, and records regarding the New School for Social Research where Levi taught for many years.
Photographs of artwork include a disbound album of Levi's work and exhibition installation views that show paintings by Levi. Pictures of Levi include some taken when he was a young child, along with many views of him in his studio, with students, and others. Many views of places probably were used as reference for paintings. Other places recorded in photographs include Downtown Gallery, Stuart Davis's grave, and studios he occupied while in Paris, circa 1926-1927 and at the American Academy in Rome, 1967-1968. Of particular note are copies of Resettlement Administration and Farm Security Administration photographs.
Arrangement:
The collection is organized into 9 series. Correspondence and Scrapbooks are arranged chronologically. Other series are further categorized by record type or broad topic, with material in each folder arranged chronologically or alphabetically, as noted in the series descriptions.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Information, circa 1906-1980 (Box 1; 14 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, circa 1846-1981 (Boxes 1-3, OV 9; 2.3 linear ft.)
Series 3: Artwork, circa 1922-1972 (Box 3; 8 folders)
Series 4: Writings and Notes, circa 1938-1978 (Box 3; 11 folders)
Series 5: Financial Records, 1920s-1980 (Box 3; 0.4 linear ft.)
Series 6: Scrapbooks, 1921-1940(Box 4; 2 folders)
Series 7: Printed Material, circa 1922-1981(Boxes 4-6 and OV 10; 2.3 linear ft.)
Series 8: Miscellaneous Records, circa 1940-1974 (Box 6 and OV 9; 0.2 linear ft.)
Series 9: Photographs, circa 1902-1974 (Boxes 6-8 and OV 11; 1.1 linear ft.)
Biographical Note:
Julian Edwin Levi was born in New York in 1900, and his family relocated to Philadelphia six years later. At age 17, Levi enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts where he studied under Henry McCarter and Arthur B. Carles. Upon completing his studies at the Academy in 1919, Levi was awarded one of the Pennsylvania Academy's Cresson Traveling Scholarship which enabled him to travel to Italy during the summer of 1920.
Levi then headed to Paris where he spent the next four years. During this time he became fluent in French, looked at a wide variety of art that influenced him to experiment with abstraction, and had paintings accepted for exhibition the Salon d'Automne of 1921 and 1922. He met many artists in Paris, and developed a close friendship with Jules Pascin. He retuned for a second stay in Paris during 1926 and 1927.
Upon his return to Philadelphia in 1924, Levi and several other modern artists in the city (including his former instructors Carles and McCarter) began exhibiting together under the name "31." The group's work was not well-received. For the remainder of his time in Philadelphia, he continued to paint and on several occasions was able to see Albert Barnes' collection that normally was not open to the public. Levi moved to New York City in 1932 and was attracted to the support and cooperation offered by various artists' organizations. He became a member of An American Group, Inc., in 1933, and was in active in the American Artists' Congress beginning around 1937. Later, Levi was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters, an Associate Artist of the National Academy of Design, and a member of the Century Association.
The sea, beaches, dunes, and shores served as inspiration for many of Levi's paintings. He studied his subjects closely, amassing a wide knowledge of boats, fishing, and related equipment; he even learned professional fishing and sailing techniques in order to better understand his subjects. Levi also focused on painting people, and his wife often served as his model. Paintings by Levi are in many museums, among them: Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Art Institute of Chicago, Butler Institute of American Art, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Des Moines Art Center, Detroit Institute of Arts, Guild Hall, Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Newark Museum, Norton Simon Museum, Santa Barbara Museum, Springfield Museum of Art, Toledo Museum, University of Illinois, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Many of the paintings Levi produced while employed by the Federal Art Project, 1936-1938, served as the nucleus of his first one-man show held in 1940 at Downtown Gallery. He remained with Downtown Gallery for more than a decade. Later, he was associated with the Alan Gallery, Frank K. M. Rehn Galleries, and Nordness Gallery, each of which staged frequent solo exhibitions of Levi's work. He participated in most of the major national exhibitions and in the Venice Biennale, winning prizes awarded by the Art Institute of Chicago, Carnegie Institute, National Academy of Design, University of Illinois, Guild Hall, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. A large retrospective exhibition of his work was organized by Boston University in 1962, and a small retrospective was held in 1971 at Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
A highly respected and much loved teacher, Levi emphasized the importance of drawing and provided individualized instruction. He considered himself a "coach" and viewed his students as less experienced artists (all were encouraged to call him Julian instead of Mr. Levi). His teaching career, which lasted for more than three decades, began in 1946 with his appointments as a painting instructor at the Art Students League and the New School for Social Research in New York City (later the New School appointed him director of its Art Workshop). In 1964 he began making weekly trips to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, where he taught painting; at the start of the 1977 academic year, he reduced his schedule to once a month and acted as a general critic. During the 1967-68 academic year, Levi was on sabbatical leave while artist-in-residence at the American Academy in Rome. In addition, he taught summer courses at Columbia University in the early 1950s and occasionally served as a guest instructor at other summer programs over the years.
Julian Levi died in New York City, February 28, 1982, after a brief illness.
Provenance:
The papers were a gift received in several accessions between 1969-1982 from Julian E. Levi and his estate (Herman Englander, executor). Portions of the collection were microfilmed upon receipt.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Use requires an appointment and is limited to the Washington, D.C. office.
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 African American painter, printmaker, and educator Reginald Gammon measure 2.4 linear feet and 5.30 GB and date from 1927 to 2007, with bulk of the materials dating from 1960-2005. The collection consists of scattered biographical materials, including video and sound recordings of interviews; correspondence with artists, galleries, organizations, and museums; writings and notebooks; teaching files; printed materials; photographic material; and artwork in the form of sketches, drawings, and paint sketches.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of African American painter, printmaker, and educator Reginald Gammon measure 2.4 linear feet and 5.30 GB and date from 1927 to 2007, with bulk of the materials dating from 1960-2005. The collection consists of scattered biographical materials, including video and sound recordings of interviews; correspondence with artists, galleries, organizations, and museums; writings and notebooks; teaching files; printed materials; photographic material; and artwork in the form of sketches, drawings, and paint sketches.
Biographical materials include Gammon's academic records and diplomas, certificates, military records, an address book, and information about his memorial service. There is a folder on The Spiral Group which includes an exhibition catalog and photographs. There are video interviews, a conversation video, and two TV advertisements, all digital; one analog and one digital audio interview.
Approximately one-half of the collection consists of correspondence with other artists, museums, galleries and arts organizations. Correspondents include Benny Andrews, Romare Bearden, Vivian Browne, Thomas Frey, Joseph Greenberg, Harwood Art Center, Patrick King, Hughie Lee-Smith, Midtown Galleries, National Afro-American Museum & Cultural Center, New Mexico African American Artists Guild, Harvey Overton, Schomberg Center, Smithsonian Institution's Anacostia Museum, Western Michigan University, and Jonathan Wynberg, among many others.
Writings by Gammon consists of essays, a research proposal, notes, grant applications, and notebooks wherein Gammon jotted down thoughts and drafted letters.
Teaching files are related to Reginald Gammon's tenure at Western Michigan University. There are teaching certifications, lecture notes, one sound recording (sound cassette) of a lecture, student recommendations, and grade books, among other items.
Printed materials primarily consist of exhibition catalogs and announcements, including the catalog Ida Y Vuelta on Gammon's 1998 exhibition in Rodez, France. Other materials found in this series are clippings that feature Gammon and his work, periodicals, posters designed by Gammon, and source materials related to jazz. and limited subject files.
Photographic materials include prints, slides, digital photographs, and negatives depicting Reginald Gammon and his artwork, friends and family, and various studios and events.
Artwork includes pencil and ink sketches, drawings, and paint sketches. The series also contains storyboards for children's books as well as mockups for advertisements.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 7 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1936-2006 (0.2 linear feet; Box 1, 3, 5.29 GB; ER01-ER03)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1964-2005 (0.8 linear feet; Box 1-3)
Series 3: Writings and Notebooks, 1948-circa 2000 (0.1 linear feet; Box 2)
Series 4: Teaching Files, 1969-1991 (0.1 linear feet; Box 2)
Series 5: Printed Material, 1955-2005 (0.4 linear feet; Box 2, OV 4)
Series 6: Photographic Material, 1927-2007 (0.2 linear feet; Box 2-3, 0.010 GB; ER04)
Series 7: Artwork, 1937-circa 1999 (0.5 linear feet; Box 2-3)
Biographical / Historical:
Reginald A. Gammon (1921-2005) was a painter and art educator who worked in New York City, Michigan, and Albuquerque, New Mexico. He was a member of Spiral, an African American artist's collective based in New York City, as well as a member of the New Mexico Afro-American Artist Guild. He taught in the New York public schools and at Western Michigan University.
Gammon was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1941, he received a scholarship to study art at the Philadelphia Museum College of Arts (then the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Arts) and the following summer worked in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard refurbishing battleships for the war effort. While working, he also attended school at night. He was drafted and served in the Navy from 1944-1946 with an African-American unit stationed in Guam. He lived in Philadelphia briefly after the war and moved to New York City in 1948. During his early years in New York City, Gammon worked at various jobs such as sorting mail for the post office and designing advertising copy. Around this time, he first met his future wife Janice Goldberger whom he married in 1972.
In 1963, Gammon was invited to join Spiral, a group of African American artists which included Charles Alston, Romare Bearden, Alvin Hollingsworth, Norman Lewis, Richard Mayhew, and Hale Woodruff. As a member of this group, Gammon participated in the 1965 exhibition First Group Showing: Works in Black and White. Spiral disbanded later that same year. In 1969, Gammon and Benny Andrews formed the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition. This politically active group of artists picketed the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of Modern Art to protest the exclusion of black artists and curators.
Gammon also taught at the Saturday Academy Program for New York public schools. He set up an informal studio so that children from Harlem could work with resident artists. This position and a recommendation from Hughie Lee-Smith led to an offer from Western Michigan University for a visiting lectureship that turned into a full-time teaching position in which Gammon served until 1991, when he retired as Full Professor Emeritus of Fine Arts and Humanities.
After his retirement from Western Michigan University, Gammon and his wife moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico and he became involved in the New Mexico Afro-American Artist Guild and the Albuquerque United Artists, among other civic organizations. He regularly participated in exhibitions and art fairs sponsored by the Guild and served as their treasurer from 1999 until his death. He was artist-in-residence from 1992-2005 at the Harwood Art Center where he also maintained a studio.
Gammon was also one of the founding members of the New Grounds Print Workshop, where he completed his final collection of artworks - a collection of over 100 prints of historically significant gospel singers and jazz musicians. Gammon died on November 4, 2005.
Provenance:
The collection was donated in 2007 and 2008 by Reginald Gammon's widow Janice Gammon.
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 and electronic records 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.
An interview of Francis Speight conducted 1987 April 4-5, by David Sellin, for the Archives of American Art.
Speight speaks of his family background; early aspirations; his studies at the Corcoran School of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; the faculty and administration at the Academy including Arthur B. Carles, Hugh Breckenridge, Henry McCarter, Daniel Garber, and Hobson Pittman; his scholarships and fellowships; teaching at the Academy; the Academy's summer school at Chester Springs; painting in Manayunk; and his experiences as a juror. Speight's wife Sarah Blakeslee is also present during a portion of the interview and describes her studies at Chester Springs.
Biographical / Historical:
Francis Speight (1896-1989) was a painter from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Born in North Carolina.
General:
Originally recorded 5 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 10 digital wav files. Duration is 6 hr., 40 min.
Provenance:
These interviews are 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.
