Search Results

Creator:

Gordon, Elizabeth, 1906-2000  Search this

Names:

Claiborne, Craig  Search this

Gordon, Elizabeth, 1906-2000  Search this

Leach, Bernard, 1887-1979  Search this

Extent:

3 Linear feet

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Periodicals

Photographs

Correspondence

Personal papers

Place:

Japan

Date:

1958-1987

Summary:

Papers, 1959-1987, of Elizabeth Gordon, editor of the periodical, House Beautiful from 1941-1964, mostly related to her research for the August and September 1960 issues of House Beautiful regarding the Japanese aesthetic concept of "shibui", and the subsequent travelling "shibui exhibition" from 1961-1964. Included are correspondence, some photocopies, 1959-1963; notes; drafts for articles and lectures; printed material including magazine and newspaper clippings, 1959-1987; 2 books, and exhibition announcements; drawings of paper and foil art; a photo album containing photos of exhibition installations; and photographs, slides, color transparencies, and lantern slides depicting people, sites, and objects reflecting the "shibui" aesthetic.

Scope and Contents:

The Elizabeth Gordon Papers measure 4.5 linear feet and span the years 1959-1987. The collection mainly documents Ms. Gordon's research for the August and September 1960 issues of House Beautiful regarding the Japanese aesthetic concept of "shibui", and the subsequent travelling "shibui exhibition" from 1961-1964. Included are correspondence, some photocopies, 1959-1963; research notes and materials; articles; lectures; printed material including magazine and newspaper clippings, 1959-1987; 2 books, and exhibition announcements; article materials; a photo album containing photos of exhibition installations; and photographs, slides, color transparencies, and lantern slides depicting people, sites, and objects reflecting the "shibui" aesthetic.

Arrangement note:

This collection is organized into eight series. 1. Biographical data, 2. Shibui research, 3. Shibui issues of, House Beautiful, 4. Correspondence, 5. Shibui promotion, 6. Exhibition files, 7. Printed materials, and 8. Photographs.

Biographical Information:

Born in Logansport, Indiana in 1906, Elizabeth Gordon served as editor of House Beautiful magazine 1941 to 1964. Ms. Gordon first became interested in Japanese aesthetics during the mid-1950s. As a result she began to read and study Japanese art, history and culture. In 1959, Gordon travelled to Japan with three staff people from, House Beautiful. In Kyoto she met Eiko Yuasa, a young woman then employed by the City of Kyoto to handle foreign V.I.P.s, who was assigned to assist Gordon during her stay there. It was Ms. Yuasa who, in the course of discussions of Japanese aesthetics, introduced the term "shibui." Around that term and its related concepts ("iki", "jimi", "hade") the theme for the issue began to crystallize. In August and September, 1960, House Beautiful, under the editorial control of Ms. Gordon, published two extremely popular issues devoted to the subject of "shibui". Due to the popularity of the issues, museum exhibits devoted to the concept of "shibui" travelled around the United States. Ms. Gordon died in Adamstown, Maryland in 2000.

Biographical Overview

1906 -- Born in Logansport, Indiana

1920s -- Attended the University of Chicago

1930s -- Moved to New York to work as a promotional copywriter for several newspapers

1930s -- Syndicated columnist on home maintenance for The New York Herald Tribune

1930s -- Editor at Good Housekeeping (here for 8 years)

1937 -- More House for your Money by Elizabeth Gordon and Dorothy Ducas published by W. Morrow and Company: New York.

1937 -- Married Carl Hafey Norcross

1939 -- Appointed editor of House Beautiful

1964 -- Left the magazine world

1972 -- Published a special issue on Scandinavian design and awarded the insignia of a knight, first class, in the Finnish Order of the Lion

1987 -- American Institute of Architects made her an honorary member

1988 -- Carl Hafey Norcross died

September 3, 2000 -- Died in Adamstown, MD

(The following biography of Elizabeth Gordon comes courtesy of curator Louise Cort. Written in consultation with Elizabeth Gordon, October 23, 1987)

The research papers, memoranda, magazines, books, photographs and color transparencies and other materials in this archives are related to the publication by Elizabeth Gordon (Mrs. Carl Norcross), editor of House Beautiful from 1941 to 1964 and creator of the August, 1960 issue of the magazine on the special theme of the Japanese aesthetic concept of "shibui". The "shibui issue" was followed by the September, 1960, issue of the same publication on the theme, "How to be shibui with American things." As a by-product of the issues, a "Shibui Exhibition" travelled to eleven museums in the United States during 1961-1964. Each exhibition was opened with a slide lecture by Elizabeth Gordon.

Miss Gordon first became curious about Japanese aesthetics in the mid-1950s when she began to see Japanese objects being displayed and used in the homes of Americans who had spent time in Japan during the Occupation and Japanese influence began to appear in wholesale showrooms of home furnishings manufacturers. It was clear that the time had come: she HAD to go to Japan!

She read for five years before going to Japan - history, social mores, art history. (Many of the books on Japan that she collected during this time have been presented to the library at the University of Maryland, College Park.)

An important bit of advice came from Alice Spaulding Bowen, owner of Pacifica, the highest quality shop of Asian antiquities in Honolulu, who told her, "Be sure to read, The Tale of Genji - then you'll understand everything."

She made her first trip to Japan in April, 1959, accompanied by three staff people from, House Beautiful. In Kyoto she met Eiko Yuasa, a young woman then employed by the City of Kyoto to handle foreign V.I.P.s, who was assigned to assist Miss Gordon during her stay there. It was Ms. Yuasa who, in the course of discussions of Japanese aesthetics, introduced the term "shibui." Around that term and its related concepts ("iki", "jimi", "hade") the theme for the issue began to crystallize.

Miss Gordon came home, planning to spend the summer researching "shibui" with the aid of the Japan Society. But she found virtually nothing written in English on the concept. So she returned to Japan in December, 1959 together with staff member Marion Gough, to dig deeper and to work out details and get better educated with Eiko Yuasa. One of their devices was to walk through department stores and discuss with sales personnel whether objects for sale were "shibui", or were "jimi" or "hade", and why. Between themselves, they did the same for the costumes of women they saw on the streets.

Lacking printed sources for information on "shibui", Miss Gordon sought out and interviewed experts, including Douglas Overton, head of the Japan Society in New York. In Japan in December, 1959, she met Yanagi Soetsu, founder of Japan's Folk Craft Movement and head of the Craft Museum in Tokyo (with an introduction from Tonomura Kichinosuke, head of the Craft Museum in Kurashiki). She met the chef Tsuji Kaichi, who was commissioned to write an article on "kaiseki" (that could not be used because of an inadequate English translation) and Frances Blakemore. She met several times with Bernard Leach and attended his lecture at Bonnier's while he was in New York in March, 1960. (He would later write a "fan letter" for the issue)

As the concept of "the shibui issue" began to take shape, a third trip in the spring of 1960 focused on photography - to produce the shooting script decided on the preceding December. This was executed by the noted photographer Ezra Stoller of Rye, New York, and John DeKoven Hill, House Beautiful's Editorial Director. (Mr. Hill worked with Frank Lloyd Wright except for the ten years that he was a member of the House Beautiful editorial staff)

Miss Gordon was back in Japan in Mid-August 1960 as the "shibui issue" was causing a sensation. Altogether she spent sixteen months in Japan.

As one of the experiences that influenced her strong interest in Japanese costumes and textiles, Miss Gordon remembers a spectacularly thorough exhibition at the Tokyo National Museum in Ueno on, 1200 Years of Japanese Costume. She saw it on the last day of its exhibition (possibly 1964).

The August 1960 issue sold out quickly. Copies of the magazine, which sold for fifty cents, were sold on the "black market" for ten dollars.

The publication of the August 1960 issue was followed by an unprecedented avalanche of "fan mail". Many department heads in colleges and universities, including the Harvard-Yenching Institute and the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (where Miss Gordon had worked as an undergraduate) wrote to comment on the issue. Many people in other fields of endeavor wrote: heads of firms concerned with interior design, landscape architecture, and related areas expressed their interest in the concept of "shibui" Other writers include Bernard Leach, Gertrude Natzler, Laura Gilpin, Mainbocher, the architect Yoshimura Junzo, the textile artist Marianne Strengell, Walter Kerr, Craig Claiborne, and Oliver Statler.

The "shibui issue" was followed immediately by the September issue dealing with the use of non-Japanese objects to express the concept of "shibui." (Miss Gordon convinced her advertisers, who had been skeptical about the potential success of the August issue, by promising the September issue dealing with American products.) Four American firms were involved in the production of an integrated line of paints, wallpaper, furniture and carpets expressive of the concept. Products were designed by the firms' designers following the clues offered by objects and fabrics purchased by Miss Gordon in Japan in December 1959 and spring 1960. Miss Gordon has expressed her dissatisfaction with the September issue, although public opinion was positive. She feels that some of the firms failed in the "shibui" project, though some "caught" the message: namely the paint company and the fabric/wallpaper company.

In response to strong public interest, the House Beautiful staff prepared a travelling exhibition to introduce the concept of "shibui" through a series of vignettes, mixing fabrics and objects, colors and textures. The museum installation was designed by John Hill of House Beautiful. Japan Air Lines underwrote shipping costs.

The exhibition began in Philadelphia in late 1961. Ezra Stoller was sent to photograph the installation in considerable detail at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts in January, 1962, so that his photographs cold serve as guidelines for installations at the other museums, which included the San Francisco Museum of Art (April 1962), the Newark Pubic Library, and the Honolulu Academy of Art. Miss Gordon presented a lecture on "shibui" at each of the museum installations.

In appreciation of her work to introduce Americans to the concept of "shibui", the city of Kyoto presented a bolt of especially "shibui" kimono fabric executed by a Living National Treasure textile artist. Miss Gordon eventually tailored the fabric into a dress and jacket. She received the 1961 Trail Blazer Award from the New York Chapter of the National Home Fashions League, Inc. In June, 1987, Miss Gordon was named an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects, with her introduction of the concept of "shibui" and her promotion of an understanding of other culture cited as her major contributions to American architecture.

Provenance:

Elizabeth Gordon donated her papers to the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives in 1988.

Elizabeth Gordon donated her papers to the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives in 1988.

Restrictions:

Collection is open for research.

Rights:

No restrictions on use.

Topic:

Interior decoration -- Periodicals  Search this

Landscape gardening  Search this

Art, Japanese  Search this

Aesthetics, Japanese  Search this

House funishings  Search this

Interior decoration  Search this

Museum exhibits  Search this

Interior decorators  Search this

Gardens -- Japan  Search this

Genre/Form:

Periodicals -- 1940-1970

Photographs

Correspondence

Personal papers -- 1950-2000

Citation:

The Elizabeth Gordon Papers. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of Elizabeth Gordon, 1988

Identifier:

FSA.A1988.03

See more items in:

Elizabeth Gordon Papers

Archival Repository:

Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/dc3bd5683e5-f956-4a04-9d0c-4565a6b761b7

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-fsa-a1988-03

Interviewee:

Halpert, Edith Gregor, 1900-1970  Search this

Interviewer:

Phillips, Harlan B. (Harlan Buddington), 1920-  Search this

Names:

C.W. Kraushaar Art Galleries  Search this

Daniel Gallery  Search this

Downtown Gallery (New York, N.Y.)  Search this

Ferargil Galleries  Search this

Grand Central Art Galleries  Search this

M. Knoedler & Co.  Search this

Montross Gallery  Search this

New Gallery (New York, N.Y.)  Search this

Bacon, Peggy, 1895-1987  Search this

Barr, Alfred H., Jr., 1902-1981  Search this

Barrie, Erwin S., 1886-1983  Search this

Benton, Thomas Hart, 1889-1975  Search this

Brackman, Robert, 1898-  Search this

Bridgman, George Brant, 1864-1943  Search this

Brixey, Richard de Wolfe  Search this

Cahill, Holger, 1887-1960  Search this

Calder, Alexander, 1898-1976  Search this

Cary, Elisabeth Luther, 1867-1936  Search this

Chase, William Merritt, 1849-1916  Search this

Coleman, Glenn O., 1887-1932  Search this

Crowninshield, Frank, 1872-1947  Search this

Daniel, Charles, 1878-1971  Search this

Davis, Stuart, 1892-1964  Search this

Demuth, Charles, 1883-1935  Search this

Deskey, Donald, 1894-  Search this

Dove, Arthur Garfield, 1880-1946  Search this

Dudensing, F. Valentine, 1892-1967  Search this

Fergusson, John Duncan, 1874-1961  Search this

Field, Hamilton Easter  Search this

Force, Juliana, 1876-1948  Search this

Ford, Ford Madox, 1873-1939  Search this

Frost, Robert, 1874-1963  Search this

Fuller, R. Buckminster (Richard Buckminster), 1895-1983  Search this

Goodyear, A. Conger (Anson Conger), 1877-1964  Search this

Greenberg, Clement, 1909-1994  Search this

Halpert, Samuel, 1884-1930  Search this

Hartley, Marsden, 1877-1943  Search this

Hirsch, Stefan, 1899-1964  Search this

Hopkinson, Charles, 1869-1962  Search this

Hopper, Edward, 1882-1967  Search this

Johns, Jasper, 1930-  Search this

Kline, Franz, 1910-1962  Search this

Knox, Seymour H., 1898-1990  Search this

Kroll, Leon, 1884-1974  Search this

Kuhn, Walt, 1877-1949  Search this

Kuniyoshi, Yasuo, 1889-1953  Search this

Laurent, Robert, 1890-1970  Search this

Lawrence, Jacob, 1917-2000  Search this

Levine, Jack, 1915-2010  Search this

Levy, Julien  Search this

Locke, Charles, 1899-  Search this

Luks, George Benjamin, 1867-1933  Search this

Léger, Fernand, 1881-1955  Search this

Marin, John, Jr., 1915?-1988  Search this

McBride, Henry, 1867-1962  Search this

Mellon, Paul  Search this

Mercer, Henry Chapman  Search this

Montross, N. E. (Newman E), 1849-1932  Search this

Noguchi, Isamu, 1904-1988  Search this

O'Keeffe, Georgia, 1887-1986  Search this

Pascin, Jules, 1885-1930  Search this

Picasso, Pablo, 1881-1973  Search this

Pollock, Jackson, 1912-1956  Search this

Pound, Ezra, 1885-1972  Search this

Rivera, Diego, 1886-1957  Search this

Robinson, Edward G., 1893-1973  Search this

Rockefeller, Abby Aldrich  Search this

Saarinen, Aline B. (Aline Bernstein), 1914-1972  Search this

Saklatwalla, Beram K.  Search this

Sandburg, Carl, 1878-1967  Search this

Shahn, Ben, 1898-1969  Search this

Sheeler, Charles, 1883-1965  Search this

Siporin, Mitchell, 1910-1976  Search this

Soutine, Chaim, 1893-1943  Search this

Steichen, Edward, 1879-1973  Search this

Stein, Gertrude, 1874-1946  Search this

Stella, Frank  Search this

Stern, Louis E., 1886-1962  Search this

Stieglitz, Alfred, 1864-1946  Search this

Tannahill, Robert Hudson  Search this

Vollard, Ambroise, 1867-1939  Search this

Weber, Max, 1881-1961  Search this

Whitney, Gertrude Vanderbilt, 1875-1942  Search this

Williams, William Carlos, 1883-1963  Search this

Wittenberg, Philip, 1895-1987  Search this

Zerbe, Karl, 1903-1972  Search this

Zorach, Marguerite, 1887-1968  Search this

Zorach, William, 1887-1966  Search this

Extent:

436 Pages (Transcript)

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Pages

Date:

1962-1963

Scope and Contents:

An interview of Edith Halpert conducted 1962-1963, by Harlan Phillips, for the Archives of American Art.

Halpert speaks of her childhood in Russia and growing up in New York City; working at Bloomindale's, Macy's, Stern Brothers, and Cohen Goldman; her marriage to artist Sam Halpert, his health, and living in Paris in 1925; becoming an art student at the Academy of Design and feeling that Leon Kroll was an excellent art teacher until he began to correct her drawings; when George Bridgman thought she was ruining his class; the Lincoln Square Arcade, when she and Ernest Fiener and Robert Brackman would rent Conan's studio evenings and bring in instructors; how Newman Montross influenced her more than anybody about showing her art that she loved; burning all of her work because Kroll said she had no talent; receiving a painting from John Marin; her friendship and working relationship with Abby Rockefeller and other family members.

She recalls opening the Downtown Gallery, in Greenwich Village, in 1926; a brief history of modern art; many artists helping decorate the new Daylight Gallery in 1930 and the first show being called "Practical Manifestations of Art"; meeting Robert and Sonia Delaunay in France; when she refused to allow Ezra Pound to speak at one of the gallery lectures because of his anti-Semite remarks and William Carlos Williams and Ford Madox Ford argued with her over it; experiencing jealousy and professional attacks from other dealers; the successful "Pop" Hart show and book in 1929; the "Thirty-three Moderns" show in 1930 at the Grand Central Galleries; the Jules Pascin show in 1930; in America, most of the art buyers supporters of culture were women, until the WPA and World War II, when it became fashionable for men to be involved; Ambroise Vollard's advice on selling art; handling the frustrations of working in the art field; friendships with Stuart Davis,Charles Sheeler, and Ben Shahn; how artists work through dry periods in their creativity and the "Recurrent Image" show; a discussion on modern art galleries of New York City, such as Daniel, Knoedler, Ferargil, the New Gallery, 291, the Grand Central, Kraushaar, and Montross; her travels through Pennsylvania and Maine for good examples of folk art for the gallery; the "The Artist Looks at Music" show; the non-competitive spirit of the early modern American artists; of being saved financially in 1940 by selling a William Harnett painting to the Boston Museum and then renting new space for the gallery.

Also, Mitchell Siporin bringing Halpert and Edmund Gurry to Mitchell Field during World War II for a camouflage show and consequently Downtown Gallery artists and others were enlisted in the camouflage corps for the U.S. Air Force; Charles Sheeler and his wife find Halpert a house in Newtown, Conn.; her decision in 1933 to push folk art for acquisition by the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery in Kansas City, Missouri; her great concern about what to do with her folk art literature collection; dismay and that no one writes about the history of folk art and those responsible for its creation and popularity; Louis Stern hiring her to organize a municipal exhibit in Atlantic City, N.J., with Donald Deskey designing the furniture and Holger Cahill managing the publicity; Joe Lillie helping her meet Fiorello La Guardia and Joe McGoldrick in 1934 about a municipal show in New York City, but it is moved to Radio City Music Hall through Nelson Rockefeller; the "Salons of America" show; wanting articles written about art for love rather than art for investment; working with Aline Saarinen on her book, "Proud Possessors;" letters from Stuart Davis, William Zorach and others that hurt her feelings; enjoying giving educational lectures and considering retirement because of ill health; the desire to write a book on the history of trade signs in folk art; feeling that the young artists are being ruined by too much support without working for it; planning to write a book entitled, "Unsung Heroes," about artists brave enough to experiment; organizing a show in Russia at her own expense; later representing the U.S. in art at the "American National Exposition"; the agitators and success of the exposition; Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O'Keeffe.

Halpert also recalls Juliana Force, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Buckminster Fuller, George Luks, Edsel Ford, Max Weber, Danny Diefenbacker, Hamilton Easter Field, Frank Stella, Glenn Coleman, Margaret Zorach, Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Henry Mercer, Romany Marie, Edward G. Robinson, Paul Mellon, Charles Pollet, Alex Brook, Lunca Curass, Dorothy Lambert, Duncan Candler, Frank Rhen, Louis Rittman, Bea Goldsmith, Arthur Craven, Robert Frost, Philip Wittenberg, Caesar de Hoke, Richard deWolfe Brixey, Seymour Knox, Walt Kuhn, Elisabeth Luther Cary, Charles Locke, Duncan Fergusson, Mrs. Solomon Guggenheim, Bob Tannahill, David Thompson, Marsden Hartley, Erwin Barrie, Robert Laurent, Conger Goodyear, Henry McBride, Edward Hopper, Charles Daniel, William Merritt Chase, Charles Hopkinson, Thomas Hart Benton, Frank Crowninshield, Alfred Barr, Lord Duveen, Jacob Lawrence, John Marin Jr., Karl Zerbe, Franz Kline, Arthur Dove, Julian Levy, Jack Levine, Valentine Dudensing, Peggy Bacon, Stefan Hirsch, Gertrude Stein, Isamu Noguchi, Jasper Johns, Chaim Soutine, B. K. Saklatwalla; Fernand Leger, Pablo Picasso, Ben Shahn, Charles Demuth, Alexander Calder, Jackson Pollock, Edward Steichen, Carl Sandburg, Clement Greenberg, and others.

Biographical / Historical:

Edith Halpert (1900-1970) was an art dealer from New York, N.Y.

General:

Originally recorded on 7 tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 27 digital wav files. Duration is 32 hrs., 27 min.

Provenance:

This interview is part of the Archives of American Art 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 transcript was microfilmed in 1996.

Occupation:

Art dealers -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this

Topic:

Art -- Economic aspects  Search this

Camouflage  Search this

Folk art -- Collectors and collecting  Search this

Women art dealers  Search this

Sponsor:

Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service.

Identifier:

AAA.halper62

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw94b057b9a-c3f9-4586-8d44-ee2d58857127

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-aaa-halper62

Creator:

Dale, Dianne  Search this

Polk, P. H., 1898-1985  Search this

Names:

Barry, Marion, 1936-2014  Search this

Dale, Almore M., 1911-1984  Search this

Dale, Dianne  Search this

Dale, John Henry, Jr., 1888-1973  Search this

Dale, Lucille Emma Patterson, 1889-1973  Search this

Dale, Marie Howard, 1914-2011  Search this

Dale, Norman Edward, 1908-1991  Search this

Garner, Araminta Dale, 1913-1987  Search this

Patterson, Frederick D. (Frederick Douglass), 1901-1988  Search this

Patterson, Wilhelmina Bessie, 1888-1962  Search this

Extent:

6 Linear feet (9 boxes)

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Photographs

Programs

Clippings

Correspondence

Ephemera

Postcards

Place:

Anacostia (Washington, D.C.)

Date:

1866 - 1990.

Summary:

The Dale-Patterson family papers, which date from 1866 to 2010 and measure 6 linear feet, document the personal and professional lives of the Dale-Patterson family who came to live in Hillsdale, Anacostia, area of Washington, D.C., in 1892.

Scope and Contents note:

The Dale-Patterson family papers, which date from 1866 to 1990 and measure 6 linear feet, document the personal and professional lives of the Dale-Patterson family who came to live in Hillsdale, Anacostia, area of Washington, D.C., in 1892. The collection is comprised of correspondence, photographs, clippings, and ephemera.

Arrangement note:

The collection is arranged in four series:

Series 1: Dale-Patterson Family papers Series 2: Charles Qualls papers Series 3: Community Organizations Series 4: Subject Files

Biographical/Historical note:

The Dale family came to Washington, DC in 1886 when John Henry Dale, Sr., a gifted self-taught man, obtained a position as clerk in the newly contracted Pension Bureau building at 5th and G Streets, NW. First they lived near 13th Street and Florida Avenue, NW, then moved to Howard Road in Anacostia. Dale built a house at 2619 Nichols Avenue, now Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue, drawing the plans and supervising the construction. The Dales and only one other family lived in this solidly built house for 100 years before it was sold to a church group and demolished.

General Note:

Finding Aid Note: This finding aid is associated with a MARC collection-level record.361883

Provenance:

The Dale-Patterson Family collection was donated to the Anacostia Community Museum on April 07, 2013.

Restrictions:

Use of the materials requires an appointment. Please contact the archivist at acmarchives@si.edu.

Rights:

The Dale-Patterson Family collection is the physical property of the Anacostia Community Museum. Literary and copyright belong to the author/creator or their legal heirs and assigns. Rights to work produced during the normal course of Museum business resides with the Anacostia Community Museum. For further information, and to obtain permission to publish or reproduce, contact the Museum Archives.

Topic:

African Americans  Search this

African American families  Search this

Genre/Form:

Photographs

Programs

Clippings

Correspondence

Ephemera

Postcards

Citation:

Dale-Patterson Family collection, Anacostia Community Museum Archives, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Dianne Dale.

Identifier:

ACMA.06-074

See more items in:

Dale-Patterson Family collection

Archival Repository:

Anacostia Community Museum Archives

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/qa7c29572e9-2bd6-4b2a-8982-b527693b7885

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-acma-06-074

Creator:

Hopper, Inslee  Search this

Interviewer:

Brown, Robert F.  Search this

Names:

Bruce, Edward, 1879-1943  Search this

Force, Juliana, 1876-1948  Search this

Shahn, Ben, 1898-1969  Search this

Watson, Forbes, 1880-1960  Search this

Extent:

1 Sound tape reel (Sound recording, 5 in.)

44 Pages (Transcript)

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Sound tape reels

Pages

Sound recordings

Interviews

Date:

1981 July 28

Scope and Contents:

An interview of Inslee Hopper conducted 1981 July 28, by Robert Brown, for the Archives of American Art.

Hopper speaks of his education in art history at Princeton University; his work as editor of THE ARTS under Forbes Watson, 1933-1934; a survey of sculptors for Juliana Force of the Whitney Museum of American Art, 1934-1935; his involvement in the Painting and Sculpture section of the Treasury Department under Edward Bruce, 1935-1938; supervising the decoration for the Federal Building at the World's Fair, 1938-1939; his work with Ben Shahn on the documentation of a resettlement project in West Virginia; the Smithsonian Gallery of Art project, 1938-1940; and his work as Edward Bruce's aide.

Biographical / Historical:

Inslee Hopperis an art administrator and preservationist.

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 available on the Archives of American Art website.

Occupation:

Arts administrators -- Interviews  Search this

Topic:

Art and state  Search this

Preservationists -- Interviews  Search this

Genre/Form:

Sound recordings

Interviews

Sponsor:

Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service.

Identifier:

AAA.hopper81

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9f78d7a86-5d09-4d2a-8513-0441342309ac

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-aaa-hopper81

Creator:

Hirsch, Stefan, 1899-1964  Search this

Rogo, Elsa, 1901-1996  Search this

Names:

Bard College -- Faculty  Search this

Bennington College -- Faculty  Search this

Downtown Gallery (New York, N.Y.)  Search this

United States. Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs  Search this

Albers, Josef  Search this

Anguiano, Raúl, 1915-2006  Search this

Bier, Justus, 1899-1990  Search this

Field, Hamilton Easter  Search this

Halpert, Edith Gregor, 1900-1970  Search this

Mumford, Lewis, 1895-1990  Search this

Mérida, Carlos, 1891-1984  Search this

Shahn, Ben, 1898-1969  Search this

Extent:

19.6 Linear feet

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Motion pictures (visual works)

Sound recordings

Etchings

Sketchbooks

Scrapbooks

Glass plate negatives

Transcripts

Place:

Mexico -- Photographs

Date:

1851-1986

bulk 1920-1960

Summary:

The papers of artists and educators Stefan Hirsch and Elsa Rogo measure 19.6 linear feet and date from 1851 to 1986, with the bulk of the material dating from 1920s to the 1960s. Together, they traveled throughout Mexico and Latin America where they became involved in the social and art scenes. Hirsch and Rogo's artistic, teaching, and journalism careers are documented through biographical materials, correspondence, writings and notes, professional files, printed materials, photographs and motion picture films, and sketchbooks and other artwork.

Scope and Contents:

The papers of artists and educators Stefan Hirsch and Elsa Rogo measure 19.6 linear feet and date from 1851 to 1986, with the bulk of the material dating from 1920s to the 1960s. Together, they traveled throughout Mexico and Latin America where they became involved in the social and art scenes. Hirsch and Rogo's artistic, teaching, and journalism careers are documented through biographical materials, correspondence, writings and notes, professional files, printed materials, photographs and motion picture films, and sketchbooks and other artwork.

Biographical materials include address lists, resumes and biographical sketches, identification cards, material relating to Hirsch's military service, and legal documents. Two sound recordings, one personal and another of Rogo on Spanish National Radio, are also found here.

Correspondence is both professional and personal. Professional correspondence concerns commissions, exhibitions, travel, and teaching. Notable correspondents include Josef Albers, Justus Bier, Downtown Gallery (Edith Halpert), Carlos Mérida, Lewis Mumford, Ben Shahn, and many others. Personal correspondence is largely between Hirsch and Rogo. Writings are found for both Hirsch and Rogo and include notebooks, diary fragments and transcripts, lectures, essays on art, articles, and notes. A manuscript by Hamilton Easter Field is also found and a writing by an unknown author. Professional files document teaching positions, projects, commissions, memberships, and other professional activities undertaken by Hirsch and Rogo. They document Hirsch's teaching career at Bard College, Bennington College, and his mural work in South Carolina and Mississippi. Files concerning Rogo's work with the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs are found here, as well as files documenting their professional and personal travel. These contain a wide variety of materials, such as correspondence, printed material, meeting minutes, photographs, and writings. Also found are scattered files relating to general areas of interest.

Hirsch's and Rogo's business records include contracts concerning Elsa Rogo's book agreements, records settling the estate of the Hirsch family in Nürnberg (Nuremberg), Germany, insurance records, a lease, price lists, and general receipts and invoices. Also found are personal art collection records including a sales agreement and a list of Latin American art owned by Hirsch and Rogo. Printed materials include books, brochures, clippings, exhibition announcements and catalogs for Stefan Hirsch and others, issues of magazines and other periodicals, copies of published writings by Hirsch and Rogo, and a dismantled printed materials scrapbook.

Photographs are extensive and include personal photos of Stefan Hirsch and Elsa Rogo, their family, friends, and colleagues. Numerous travel photos were taken by Rogo in her role as a journalist in Latin American and the United States. The bulk of the professional travel photos were taken in Mexico in the 1930s to the 1960s and show events, cities, and cultural activities. Also found are glass plate negatives, photographs of works of art, and sixteen reels of motion picture film taken in Mexico, Bard College, and Oqunquit, Maine.

Eighteen sketchbooks are largely unsigned but are likely by Stefan Hirsch. Additional artwork includes sketches and etchings by Hirsch, sketches by Elsa Rogo, and works by others including Raul Anquiano and Efren Villalobos.

Arrangement:

The collection is arranged as 9 series:

Missing Title

Series 1: Biographical Material, 1899-1986 (0.6 linear feet; Box 1)

Series 2: Correspondence, 1920s-1960s (3.2 linear feet; Boxes 1-4)

Series 3: Writings and Notes, circa 1920-1960s (1.2 linear feet: Boxes 4-5)

Series 4: Professional Files, 1912-1966 (2.8 linear feet; Boxes 6-8)

Series 5: Personal Business Records, 1927-1957 (0.5 linear feet; Boxes 8-9)

Series 6: Printed Material, 1851-1964 (2.9 linear feet; Boxes 9-12, 19)

Series 7: Photographs and Motion Picture Film, circa 1870-1960s (6.9 linear feet; Boxes 12-17, 20, FC 21-29)

Series 8: Sketchbooks, circa 1930s-circa 1940s (0.6 linear feet; Box 18)

Series 9: Artwork and Artifacts, 1916-1982 (0.5 linear feet; Boxes 18-19)

Biographical / Historical:

German-born Stefan Hirsch (1899-1964) was a painter and educator. Elsa Rogo (1901-1966) was married to Hirsch and was an artist, educator and journalist. They were active in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, and Vermont, and traveled extensively throughout Mexico and Latin America where they documented local arts and crafts, village life, and befriended prominent Mexican artists.

Born in Nurnberg, Germany, Stefan Hirsch grew up in Europe and studied art at the University of Zurich. After settling in the United States in 1919, he took summer courses under Hamilton Easter Field in Ogunquit, Maine. Hirsch developed a Precisionist style combined with Social Realism but much of his work was difficult to restrict to one specific style. Hirsch was a founder and exhibitor at the avant-garde Salons of America which served as an alternative to the Society of Independent Artists. During the 1930s and 1940s, Hirsch participated in the U.S. government's Federal Art Project and painted murals in Aiken, South Carolina and Booneville, Mississippi. Hirsch began his teaching career in 1937 at Bennington College in Vermont, and later accepted a position at Bard College where he served as the chairman of the art department until he retired in 1961.

In 1930, Hirsch married Elsa Rogo. Together, they traveled throughout Mexico and Latin America where they became involved in the social and art scenes. They befriended prominent Mexican artists like Diego Rivera and David Siqueiros. As a journalist, Rogo documented Mexican life, events, and art extensively through photographs. Rogo also served in the U.S. Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, established in 1940 to promote cultural diplomacy and solidarity primarily in Latin America. In Taxaco, Mexico, she taught art to school children. Her book, Walls and Volcanos: The Creative Impulse of the Mexican People, was published in 1937.

Stefan Hirsch died in 1964. Elsa Rogo died in 1966.

Provenance:

Portions of the Stefan Hirsch and Elsa Rogo papers were donated in 1996 by the Elsa Rogo estate, via Sylvia Siskin, executrix. Additions were donated 2002, 2014, and 2019 by professor James Oles, Art Department, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts on behalf of Sylvia Siskin.

Restrictions:

Use of original papers requires an appointment. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice. Original film reels and archival negative copies are stored off-site and are closed to researchers.

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:

Painters -- New York (State)  Search this

Art teachers  Search this

Journalists -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this

Topic:

Art -- Study and teaching  Search this

Educators -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this

Art, Latin American  Search this

Mural painting and decoration, Mexican -- Photographs  Search this

Mural painting and decoration -- South Carolina  Search this

Mural painting and decoration -- Mississippi  Search this

Latino and Latin American artists  Search this

Genre/Form:

Motion pictures (visual works)

Sound recordings

Etchings

Sketchbooks

Scrapbooks

Glass plate negatives

Transcripts

Citation:

Stefan Hirsch and Elsa Rogo papers, 1851-1986, bulk 1920s-1960s. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Sponsor:

Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by Smithsonian Institution's Collections Care and Preservation Fund. Funding for the preservation of the Stefan Hirsch and Elsa Rogo home movies shot in Mexico was provided by the National Film Preservation Foundation. Glass plate negatives in this collection were digitized in 2019 with funding provided by the Smithsonian Women's Committee.

Identifier:

AAA.hirsstef

See more items in:

Stefan Hirsch and Elsa Rogo papers

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw98ab444b5-7fc2-4e6b-ad62-a18f38f904f9

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-aaa-hirsstef

Creator:

Kuh, Katharine  Search this

Names:

Albright-Knox Art Gallery  Search this

Art Institute of Chicago -- Faculty  Search this

Biennale di Venezia  Search this

Katharine Kuh Gallery (Chicago, Ill.)  Search this

Adams, Ansel, 1902-1984  Search this

Albers, Josef  Search this

Albright, Ivan, 1897-1983  Search this

Archipenko, Alexander, 1887-1964  Search this

Arensberg, Louise S. (Louise Stevenson), 1879-1953  Search this

Arensberg, Walter, 1878-1954  Search this

Arp, Jean, 1887-1966  Search this

Barnet, Will, 1911-  Search this

Barr, Alfred H., Jr., 1902-1981  Search this

Biddle, George, 1885-1973  Search this

Breuer, Marcel, 1902-  Search this

Calder, Alexander, 1898-1976  Search this

Campoli, Cosmo  Search this

Chagall, Marc, 1887-1985  Search this

Chavez Morado, José, 1909-2002  Search this

Chermayeff, Serge, 1900-  Search this

Cornell, Joseph  Search this

Cox, Richard  Search this

Davis, Stuart, 1892-1964  Search this

Day, Worden, 1916-1986  Search this

De Kooning, Willem, 1904-1997  Search this

Dickinson, Edwin Walter, 1891-1978  Search this

Dubuffet, Jean, 1901-  Search this

Duchamp, Marcel, 1887-1968  Search this

Elizabeth, Queen of Great Britain, II, 1926-  Search this

Ernst, Jimmy, 1920-1984  Search this

Falkenstein, Claire, 1908-1997  Search this

Feitelson, Lorser, 1898-1978  Search this

Friendly, Fred W.  Search this

Giacometti, Alberto, 1901-1966  Search this

Golub, Leon, 1922-2004  Search this

Goto, Joseph, 1920-  Search this

Grabe, Klaus  Search this

Graves, Robert, 1895-1985  Search this

Guggenheim, Peggy, 1898-1979  Search this

Guston, Philip, 1913-1980  Search this

Hare, David, 1917-  Search this

Hare, Denise Browne  Search this

Hayter, Stanley William, 1901-1988  Search this

Hirshhorn, Joseph  Search this

Hofmann, Hans, 1880-1966  Search this

Hélion, Jean, 1904-1987  Search this

Inverarity, Robert Bruce, 1909-1999  Search this

Johns, Jasper, 1930-  Search this

Johnson, Philip, 1906-2005  Search this

Johnson, Ray, 1927-  Search this

Kandinsky, Wassily, 1866-1944  Search this

Kepes, Gyorgy, 1906-2001  Search this

Kepes, Juliet  Search this

Klee, Paul, 1879-1940  Search this

Kline, Franz, 1910-1962  Search this

Knox, Seymour H., 1898-1990  Search this

Le Corbusier, 1887-1965  Search this

Lundeberg, Helen, 1908-1999  Search this

Lye, Len, 1901-1980  Search this

Léger, Fernand, 1881-1955  Search this

Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig, 1886-1969  Search this

Millier, Arthur, 1893-  Search this

Moholy-Nagy, László, 1895-1946  Search this

Motherwell, Robert  Search this

Mérida, Carlos, 1891-1984  Search this

Nutting, Muriel Leone Tyler, b. 1892  Search this

Nutting, Myron Chester, 1890-1972  Search this

O'Higgins, Pablo, 1904-  Search this

Orozco, José Clemente, 1883-1949  Search this

Ozbekhan, Hasan, 1921-2007  Search this

Perkins, Frances  Search this

Picasso, Pablo, 1881-1973  Search this

Putnam, Wallace, 1899-1989  Search this

Ray, Man, 1890-1976  Search this

Rich, Daniel Catton, 1904-1976  Search this

Rothko, Mark, 1903-1970  Search this

Sandberg, Carl  Search this

Seligmann, Kurt, 1900-1962  Search this

Shackelford, Shelby  Search this

Shahn, Ben, 1898-1969  Search this

Spaeth, Otto, d. 1966  Search this

Sterne, Hedda, 1916-  Search this

Stevenson, Adlai E. (Adlai Ewing), 1900-1965  Search this

Still, Clyfford, 1904-  Search this

Tanning, Dorothea, 1910-2012  Search this

Tobey, Mark  Search this

Winston, Harry Lewis  Search this

Woolf, Olga  Search this

Young, Victor  Search this

Photographer:

Pollack, Peter, 1909-1978  Search this

Extent:

12 Linear feet

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Illustrated letters

Resumes

Travel diaries

Minutes

Calendars

Visitors' books

Photographs

Paintings

Awards

Drawings

Sound recordings

Collages

Scrapbooks

Lithographs

Prints

Wills

Watercolors

Poetry

Lecture notes

Lectures

Sales records

Date:

1875-1994

bulk 1930-1994

Summary:

The papers of art historian, dealer, critic, and curator Katharine Kuh measure 12 linear feet and date from 1875-1994, with the bulk of the material dating from 1930-1994. The collection documents Kuh's career as a pioneer modernist art historian and as the first woman curator of European Art and Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago. Found within the papers are biographical material; correspondence with family, friends and colleagues; personal business records; artwork by various artists; a travel journal; writings by Kuh and others; scrapbooks; printed material; photographs of Kuh and others; and audio recordings of Kuh's lectures and of Daniel Catton Rich reading poetry.

Scope and Content Note:

The papers of art historian, dealer, critic, and curator Katharine Kuh measure 12 linear feet and date from 1875-1994, with the bulk of the material dating from 1930-1994. Found within the papers are biographical material; correspondence with family, friends and colleagues; personal business records; artwork by various artists; a travel journal; writings by Kuh and others; scrapbooks; printed material; photographs of Kuh and others; and audio recordings of Kuh's lectures and of Daniel Catton Rich reading poetry.

Biographical material consists of copies of Kuh's birth certificate, resumés, passports, award certificates, honorary diplomas, and address books listing information about several prominent artists and colleagues.

Four linear feet of correspondence offers excellent documentation of Kuh's interest in art history, her travels, her career at the Art Institute of Chicago, her work as a corporate art advisor, and as an author. There are letters from her mother Olga Woolf, friends, and colleagues. There is extensive correspondence with various staff members of the Art Institute of Chicago, the First National Bank of Chicago, and The Saturday Review. Also of interest are letters from artists and collectors, several of whom became life-long friends including Walter and Louise Arensberg, Cosmo Campoli, Serge Chermayeff, Richard Cox, Worden Day, Claire Falkenstein, Fred Friendly, Leon Golub, Joseph Goto, David Hare, Denise Brown Hare, Jean Hélion, Ray Johnson, Gyorgy and Juliet Kepes, Len Lye, Wallace Putnam, Kurt Seligmann, Shelby Shackelford, Hedda Sterne, and Clyfford Still. Many letters are illustrated with original artwork in various media.

There are also scattered letters from various artists and other prominent individuals including Josef Albers, George Biddle, Marcel Breuer, Joseph Cornell, Stuart Davis, Edwin Dickinson, Joseph Hirshhorn, Daniel Catton Rich, and Dorothea Tanning.

Personal business records include a list of artwork, Olga Woolf's will, inventories of Kuh's personal art collection, miscellaneous contracts and deeds of gift, receipts for the sale of artwork, files concerning business-related travel, and miscellaneous receipts.

Artwork in the collection represents a wide range of artist friends and media, such as drawings, watercolors, paintings, collages, and prints. Included are works by various artists including lithographs by David Hare and a watercolor set, Technics and Creativity, designed and autographed by Jasper Johns for the Museum of Modern Art, 1970.

Notes and writings include annotated engagement calendars, travel journals for Germany, a guest book for the Kuh Memorial gathering, and many writings and notes by Kuh for lectures and articles concerning art history topics. Of interest are minutes/notes from meetings for art festivals, conferences, and the "Conversations with Artists Program (1961). Also found are writings by others about Kuh and other art history topics.

Six scrapbooks contain clippings that document the height of Kuh's career as a gallery director and museum curator. Scrapbook 6 contains clippings about Fernand Léger, the subject of a retrospective exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1953.

Additional printed material includes clippings about Kuh and her interests, a comprehensive collection of clippings of Kuh's articles for The Saturday Review, exhibition announcements and catalogs, calendars of events, programs, brochures, books including Poems by Kuh as a child, and reproductions of artwork. Of particular interest are the early and exhibition catalogs from the Katharine Kuh Gallery, and rare catalogs for artists including Jean Arp, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Stanley William Hayter, Hans Hofmann, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Franz Kline, Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Pablo Picasso.

Photographs provide important documentation of the life and career of Katharine Kuh and are of Kuh, family members, friends, colleagues, events, residences, and artwork. Several of the photographs of Kuh were taken by Will Barnet and Marcel Breuer and there is a notable pair of photo booth portraits of Kuh and a young Ansel Adams. There are also group photographs showing Angelica Archipenko with Kuh; designer Klaus Grabe; painters José Chavez Morado and Pablo O'Higgins in San Miguel, Mexico; Kuh at the Venice Biennale with friends and colleagues including Peggy Guggenheim, Frances Perkins, Daniel Catton Rich, and Harry Winston; and "The Pre-Depressionists" including Lorser Feitelson, Robert Inverarity, Helen Lundeberg, Arthur Millier, Myron Chester Nutting, and Muriel Tyler Nutting.

Photographs of exhibition installations and openings include views of the Katharine Kuh Gallery; Fernand Léger, Man Ray, and László Moholy-Nagy at the Art Institute of Chicago; and Philip Guston, Jimmy Ernst, Seymour H. Knox, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, and Mark Rothko at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York. There are also photographs depicting three men posing as Léger's "Three Musicians" and the visit of Queen Elizabeth II to the Art Institute of Chicago. There is a photograph by Peter Pollack of an elk skull used as a model by Georgia O'Keeffe.

Additional photographs of friends and colleagues include Ivan Albright, Alfred Barr, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Willem De Kooning, Edwin Dickinson, Marcel Duchamp, Claire Falkenstein, Alberto Giacometti, poet Robert Graves with Len Lye, Philip Johnson, Gyorgy and Juliet Kepes, Carlos Mérida, José Orozco, Hasan Ozbekhan, Pablo Picasso, Carl Sandberg, Ben Shahn, Otto Spaeth, Hedda Sterne, Adlai Stevenson, Clyfford Still, Mark Tobey, and composer Victor Young.

Photographs of artwork include totem poles in Alaska; work by various artists including Claire Falkenstein, Paul Klee, and Hedda Sterne; and work donated to the Guggenheim Museum.

Four audio recordings on cassette are of Katharine Kuh's lectures, including one about assembling corporate collections, and of Daniel Catton Rich reading his own poetry. There is also a recording of the Second Annual Dialogue between Broadcasters and Museum Educators.

Arrangement:

The collection is arranged as 9 series. Undated correspondence, artwork, and photographs of individual artists are arranged alphabetically. Otherwise, each series is arranged chronologically.

Missing Title

Series 1: Biographical Material, 1945-1992 (Box 1; 16 folders)

Series 2: Correspondence, 1908-1994 (Boxes 1-5, 13-14, OV 15; 4.0 linear feet)

Series 3: Personal Business Records, 1941-1989 (Box 5; 19 folders)

Series 4: Artwork, 1931-1986 (Boxes 5, 13-14, OVs 15-23; 1.7 linear feet)

Series 5: Notes and Writings, 1914-1994 (Boxes 5-7; 1.7 linear feet)

Series 6: Scrapbooks, 1935-1953 (Box 7; 8 folders)

Series 7: Printed Material, 1916-1992 (Boxes 7-10, 13, OV 22; 3.0 linear feet)

Series 8: Photographs, 1875-1993 (Boxes 10-13; 1.2 linear feet)

Series 9: Audio Recordings, 1977 (Box 12; 1 folder)

Biographical Note:

Katharine Kuh (1904-1994) worked primarily in the Chicago area as an modern art historian, dealer, critic, curator, writer, and consultant. She operated the Katharine Kuh Gallery from 1935-1943 and was the first woman curator of European and Art and Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Katharine Kuh (née Woolf) was born on July 15, 1904 in St. Louis, Missouri, the youngest of the three daughters of Olga Weiner and Morris Woolf, a silk importer. In 1909, the family moved to Chicago, Illinois. While traveling with her family in Europe in 1914, Katharine contracted polio, causing her to spend the next decade in a body brace. During this time of restricted movement, she developed an interest in art history through the collecting of old master prints.

After her recovery, Katharine Woolf attended Vassar College where one of her professors, Alfred Barr, encouraged her to study modern art. She graduated from Vassar in 1925 and received a master's degree in art history from the University of Chicago in 1929. Later that year, she moved to New York to pursue a Ph.D. in Renaissance and medieval art at New York University.

In 1930, Katharine Woolf returned to Chicago and married businessman George Kuh and began to teach art history courses in the suburbs of Chicago. After divorcing George Kuh in 1935, she opened the Katharine Kuh Gallery, the first gallery devoted to avant-garde art in Chicago. It was also the first gallery to exhibit photography and typographical design as art forms, and featured the work of Ansel Adams, Josef Albers, Alexander Calder, Wassily Kandinsky, Fernand Léger, and Man Ray, among others. From 1938 to1940, Kuh was the Visiting Professor of Art at the University School of Fine Arts, San Miguel, Mexico.

After the Katharine Kuh Gallery closed in 1943, Kuh was hired by museum director Daniel Catton Rich to fill a position in public relations at the Art Institute of Chicago. During the following years, Kuh edited the museum's Quarterly publication, took charge of the museum's Gallery of Interpretive Art, and began a long term relationship with Rich. In 1946, Kuh was sent on a special mission for the U. S. Office of Indian Affairs to make a detailed study of Native American totemic carvings in Alaska.

In 1949, Kuh persuaded Mr. and Mrs. Walter Arensberg of Los Angeles to exhibit their collection of modern art, creating the first post-war exhibition of modern art in Chicago. She published her first book Art Has Many Faces in 1951, and in the following year, she began writing art criticism for The Saturday Review. In 1954, Kuh was appointed the first woman curator of European Art and Sculpture at the Art Institute. She assembled the American contribution for the Venice Biennale in 1956 and during these years, Kuh helped acquire many of the works of modern art currently in the museum's collection.

A year following Daniel Catton Rich's 1958 resignation from the Art Institute of Chicago, Kuh also resigned and pursued a career in New York as an art collection advisor, most notably for the First National Bank of Chicago. In 1959, Kuh was made art critic for The Saturday Review, and she continued to publish books, including The Artist's Voice in 1962, Break-Up: The Core of Modern Art in 1965, and The Open Eye: In Pursuit of Art in 1971.

Katharine Kuh died on January 10, 1994 in New York City.

Provenance:

The Katharine Kuh papers were donated in several installments from 1971 to 1989 by Katharine Kuh and in 1994 by her estate. Artwork was donated in 1995 by Kuh's former employer, the Art Institute of Chicago.

Restrictions:

Authorization to quote, publish or reproduce requires written permission until 2019. Contact the Archives of American Art Reference Services department for additional information.

Rights:

The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.

Occupation:

Authors -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this

Art historians -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this

Art dealers -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this

Art critics -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this

Curators -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this

Art consultants -- Illinois -- Chicago  Search this

Topic:

Art, Abstract -- United States  Search this

Art, American  Search this

Art, Modern -- 20th century -- United States  Search this

Women art dealers  Search this

Women art historians  Search this

Women museum curators  Search this

Women authors  Search this

Women art critics  Search this

Function:

Art festivals

Genre/Form:

Illustrated letters

Resumes

Travel diaries

Minutes

Calendars

Visitors' books

Photographs

Paintings

Awards

Drawings

Sound recordings

Collages

Scrapbooks

Lithographs

Prints

Wills

Watercolors

Poetry

Lecture notes

Lectures

Sales records

Citation:

Katharine Kuh papers, 1875-1994, bulk 1930-1994. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Sponsor:

Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art

Identifier:

AAA.kuhkath

See more items in:

Katharine Kuh papers

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw987a0763e-de6c-4f9e-b143-4875b3a2244a

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-aaa-kuhkath

Creator:

Boris Mirski Gallery (Boston, Mass.)  Search this

Names:

Aronson, David, 1923-2015  Search this

Baskin, Leonard, 1922-2000  Search this

Bloom, Hyman, 1913-  Search this

Geller, Esther  Search this

Lebrun, Rico, 1900-1964  Search this

Mazur, Michael, 1935-2009  Search this

Mirski, Boris, 1898-1974  Search this

Polonsky, Arthur  Search this

Shahn, Ben, 1898-1969  Search this

Siporin, Mitchell, 1910-1976  Search this

Swan, Barbara, 1922-  Search this

Zerbe, Karl, 1903-1972  Search this

Extent:

6.2 Linear feet

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Photographs

Date:

circa 1936-2000

bulk 1945-1972

Summary:

The Boris Mirski Gallery records measure 6.2 linear feet and date from 1936-2000, bulk 1945-1972. They include gallery administrative files; artist files including correspondence, exhibition and loan paperwork as well as photographic documentation of artwork; gallery correspondence; financial materials including outgoing and incoming invoices and sales records; printed materials promoting the gallery and its artists; press materials; and a number of photographs of Boris Mirski at events and with others, as well as photographs of artwork. Artists particularly well represented in the collection include David Aronson, Leonard Baskin, Hyman Bloom, Esther Geller, Rico Lebrun, Michael Mazur, Arthur Polonsky, Ben Shahn, Mitchell Siporin, Barbara Swan, and Karl Zerbe.

Scope and Contents:

The records of the Boris Mirski Gallery, which showed the avant-garde art of the Boston Expressionist school, as well as New York and international modern art styles and non-western art, measure 6.2 linear feet and date from 1936-2000, bulk 1945-1972. They include gallery administrative files; artist files including correspondence, exhibition and loan paperwork as well as photographic documentation of artwork; gallery correspondence; financial materials including outgoing and incoming invoices and sales records; printed materials promoting the gallery and its artists; press materials; and a number of photographs of Boris Mirski at events and with others, as well as photographs of artwork. Artists particularly well represented in the collection include David Aronson, Leonard Baskin, Hyman Bloom, Esther Geller, Rico Lebrun, Michael Mazur, Arthur Polonsky, Ben Shahn, Mitchell Siporin, Barbara Swan, and Karl Zerbe.

The administrative files cover a number of topics including documents related to various properties, mortgages, and insurance, copyrights, legal cases, administrative events, and select group exhibitions at the gallery.

The artist files document each gallery artist's exhibition history in the gallery and include correspondence with the artist as well as files documenting significant outside exhibitions, projects and the placement of artworks. While exhibiting artists showed a range of sculpture, painting, and drawing at the gallery, there was a tendency towards highly expressive figurative artwork sometimes referred to as Boston Expressionism, often associated with the first generation Jewish American experience.

The gallery correspondence, primarily with patrons and institutions, is arranged alphabetically with select regular correspondents of the gallery having their own file, in addition to a folder of holiday cards.

The financial files include both outgoing and incoming transactions as invoices and sales records, organized by patron or vendor.

The printed materials are a records of the printing activities of the gallery as well as a press archive, with select printed materials from outside the gallery reflecting the activities of the gallery and gallery artists.

The photographic materials include both images that include the gallerist as well as images that document artworks.

Arrangement:

The collection is arranged as 6 series.

Series 1: Administrative Files, circa 1948-1995 (0.5 Linear feet; Box 1)

Series 2: Artist Files, circa 1945-2000 (2.7 Linear feet; Boxes 1-4, OV 7)

Series 3: Gallery Correspondence, circa 1936-1976 (1 Linear feet; Boxes 4-5)

Series 4: Financial Files, circa 1958-1974 (1.2 Linear feet; Boxes 5-6)

Series 5: Printed Material, circa 1944-1981 (0.7 Linear feet; Box 6, OV 8)

Series 6: Photographic Material, circa 1945-1976 (0.1 Linear feet; Box 6)

Biographical / Historical:

The Boris Mirski Gallery (est.1944; closed 1979) was a gallery in Boston, Massachusetts owned and operated by Boris Mirski (1898-1974). The gallery evolved out of various businesses owned by Mirski from the late 1910s, including his first formal gallery established alongside a framing shop on Charles Street in Beacon Hill in 1927. The gallery moved to its final incarnation on the lower level of 166 Newbury in 1972, and closed in 1979 following the gallerist's death in 1974.

Boris Chaim Mirski, born 1898, immigrated to the United States at the age of fourteen, leaving behind his troubled youth as a Lithuanian Jew in a harsh political climate that included frequent pogroms. At the advice of his mother, an activist in the resistance, Boris acquired a number of marketable skills including metalwork and framing, which allowed him to establish a lucrative business while he developed opportunities to show art that interested him. Early in his career this included a home for non-western and "primitive" art styles from around the globe, as well as the work of emerging local artists. Mirski's gallery created opportunities for artists working against the generally conservative tradition of the Boston School, and helped establish an identity for the local avant-garde. The gallery program had strong ties with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston alumni and faculty, and frequently hosted exchange shows with New York City's Downtown Gallery, whose director Edith Halpert acted as a mentor. While exhibiting artists showed a range of sculpture, painting, and drawing at the gallery, there was a tendency towards highly expressive figurative artwork sometimes referred to as Boston Expressionism, often associated with the first generation Jewish American experience. Gallery artists included David Aronson, Leonard Baskin, Hyman Bloom, Esther Geller, Rico Lebrun, Michael Mazur, Arthur Polonsky, Ben Shahn, Mitchell Siporin, Barbara Swan, and Karl Zerbe.

Related Materials:

Related materials include Archives of American Art's Oral history interview with Boris Mirski, 1973 June 19.

Provenance:

The Boris Mirski Gallery records were donated by Deborah Mirski Brown, Boris Mirski's daughter from 1989-1996, with additions in 2007 and 2017.

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.

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.

Topic:

Expressionism (Art)  Search this

Jewish artists  Search this

Modernism (Art)  Search this

New York school of art  Search this

Sculptors  Search this

Function:

Art galleries, Commercial -- Massachusetts

Genre/Form:

Photographs

Citation:

Boris Mirski Gallery records, 1936-2000, bulk 1945-1972. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Identifier:

AAA.mirsbori

See more items in:

Boris Mirski Gallery records

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw97a5810a0-f6bb-4929-9fa5-c484ee8c9cdc

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-aaa-mirsbori

Creator:

Shahn, Ben, 1898-1969  Search this

Names:

Baskin, Leonard, 1922-2000  Search this

Delano, Jack  Search this

Evans, Walker, 1903-1975  Search this

Osborn, Robert Chesley, 1904-1994  Search this

Rivera, Diego, 1886-1957  Search this

Robbins, Jerome  Search this

Soyer, Raphael, 1899-1987  Search this

Extent:

25.1 Linear feet

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Motion pictures (visual works)

Sketchbooks

Video recordings

Drawings

Sound recordings

Interviews

Date:

1879-1990

bulk 1933-1970

Summary:

The papers of social realist painter, photographer, printmaker, and teacher Ben Shahn (1898-1969) measure 25.1 linear feet and date from 1879-1990, with the bulk of the material dating from 1933-1970. The bulk of the collection consists of over 14 linear feet of incoming letters from artists, writers, colleagues, publishers, art organizations, galleries, and universities and colleges. Also found are biographical materials, project and source files, printed material, artwork by Shahn and others, photographs taken of and by Shahn, interview transcripts, sound recordings of interviews and a motion picture film.

Scope and Contents note:

The papers of social realist painter, photographer, illustrator, printmaker, and teacher Ben Shahn (1898-1969) measure 25.1 linear feet and date from 1879-1990, with the bulk of the material dating from 1933-1970. The bulk of the collection consists of over 14 linear feet of incoming letters from artists, writers, colleagues, publishers, art organizations, galleries, and universities and colleges. Also found are biographical materials, project and source files, printed material, artwork by Shahn and others, photographs taken of and by Shahn, interview transcripts, sound recordings of interviews and a motion picture film.

Biographical material and family records include a 1924 passport for Shahn and his first wife, Tillie, biographical sketches of Shahn, and award certificates received by him.

Letters are primarily written to Shahn from family members, artists, writers, colleagues, publishers, art organizations, galleries, and universities and colleges. Notable correspondents include Leonard Baskin, Alexander Calder, Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Joseph Hirsch, Leo Lionni, John Bartlow Martin, George and Marian Nakashima, Clifford Odets, Charles Olson, Robert Osborn, Diego Rivera, Jerome Robbins, Selden Rodman, James Thrall Soby, Raphael Soyer, and William Carlos Williams. A small number of scattered letters from Shahn can also be found throughout the series.

Project files document approximately twenty-one of Shahn's commissions, including murals for the community center at Jersey Homesteads, the Bronx Central Annex Post Office, the Social Security Building in Washington D.C. , and the William E. Grady Vocational High School. The files also document his involvement in the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Roosevelt, in addition to projects for schools, temples and private homes.

Financial and legal records include consignment records, loan agreements, royalty statements and receipts for artwork sold.

Notes and writings are by Shahn and others including Alan Dugan, W. H. Ferry, Theodore Gusten, and John Bartlow Martin. They include lists of artwork, many of which are annotated.

Artwork includes a sketchbook and several unbound sketches and lettering by Shahn, in addition to drawings and prints by others including Shahn's children, Mario Casetta and Stefan Martin.

Source files contain printed material and photographs relating to topics depicted by Shahn in his artwork such as children, dams, farming, houses, industry, mines and miners, slums, war and workers. These files also contain scattered photographic prints by FSA and OWI photographers including Shahn, Jack Delano, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Carl Mydans, Marion Post Wolcott, Arthur Rothstein, and John Vachon.

Printed material includes news clippings covering Shahn and his career as well as subjects of interest to Shahn. Also found are exhibition catalogs and announcements for exhibitions for Shahn and others, and reproductions of Shahn's artwork including publications illustrated by him.

Photographs are of Shahn, his family and friends and colleagues including Alexander Calder, Jerome Robbins, Charles Sheeler, David Smith and William Zorach. Also included are photographs taken by Shahn of New York City and for the FSA in the 1930s, as well as photographs of artwork by Shahn. Photographs by others include one photo each by Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee and Arthur Rothstein.

The collection also contains transcripts of eight radio, television and motion picture interviews of Shahn and a reel of 16mm motion picture film from the BBC-TV program "Monitor," in addition to sound recordings of interviews of Shahn by Tony Schwartz and Arlene Francis. Artifacts include a Christmas greeting in the form of a sock.

Arrangement note:

The collection is arranged as 12 series:

Missing Title

Series 1: Biographical and Family Records, 1879-1984 (Box 1, OV 36; 0.2 linear ft.)

Series 2: Letters, 1929-1990 (Boxes 1-25, 35, 43, OVs 36-38; 14.5 linear ft.)

Series 3: Project Files, 1933-1975 (Boxes 25-26; OVs 36-37; 1.03 linear ft.)

Series 4: Financial and Legal Records, 1934-1988 (Boxes 26-27, 35; 0.81 linear ft.)

Series 5: Notes and Writings, circa 1933-1988 (Boxes 27-28, 43; 1.72 linear ft.)

Series 6: Artwork, circa 1930s-1965 (Boxes 28, 35; 11 folders)

Series 7: Source Files, circa 1900s-1960s (Boxes 28-30, 35; 1.81 linear ft.)

Series 8: Printed Material, 1912-1988 (Boxes 30-33, 35, OV 39; 3.22 linear ft.)

Series 9: Photographs, circa 1900-1969 (Boxes 33-35; 0.86 linear ft.)

Series 10: Interview Transcripts, 1943-1968 (Box 34; 0.25 linear ft.)

Series 11: Audio and Video Recordings, 1959-1968 (Box 34; 0.25 linear ft.)

Series 12: Artifacts, circa 1930s-circa 1960s (Box 34; 2 items)

Biographical/Historical note:

Ben Shahn (1898-1969) was a social realist painter, muralist, printmaker, photographer, illustrator, and educator who worked primarily in Brooklyn, New York and New Jersey. He was most active in the 1930s through the 1950s and worked on several federally funded arts projects, including the Farm Security Administration's photographic documentation project of rural America during the Depression.

Ben Shahn was born in Kovno, Lithuania and immigrated with his family to the United States in 1906 where he settled in Brooklyn, and later Roosevelt, New Jersey, after becoming a naturalized citizen in 1918.

Following an apprenticeship as a lithographer from 1913-1917, Shahn studied at New York University, the City College of New York, and the National Academy of Design from 1919-1922. He married Tillie Goldstein in 1922 and they had two children, Judith and Ezra.

Two years after Shahn's first solo exhibition at the Downtown Gallery in 1930, his Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti, a series of 23 gouaches about the Sacco and Vanzetti trial of the 1920s, was exhibited at the Downtown Gallery to critical and public acclaim. The exhibition marked the beginning of Shahn's reputation as one of the most important social realist painters in America. Shahn's commitment to social and political justice found a natural outlet in mural painting when, in 1933, he was hired to assist Diego Rivera on the labor and industry mural Man at the Crossroads, for New York City's Rockefeller Center. The mural was destroyed amid controversy in 1933 before it was completed, but Shahn had learned much about the art of fresco painting during the project and was inspired by the potential of the mural as a unique art form for presenting life's struggles and stories to a large public audience. Between 1933 and 1937 Shahn worked on various murals for other buildings, including New York's Central Park Casino (circa 1934) and Riker's Island Prison (1934), none of which saw completion. In 1937, however, the Farm Security Administration (FSA) commissioned Shahn to execute a mural for the Community Center in the town of Jersey Homesteads, later Roosevelt, New Jersey, which Shahn completed in 1938. Shahn settled in Jersey Homesteads the following year and remained there for the rest of his life. Other important mural commissions followed for the Bronx Central Post office (1939) and the Social Security Building in Washington DC (1942).

One of Shahn's assistants on the Jersey Homesteads mural was Bernarda Bryson, whom he had met in 1933 when she came to New York to interview Rivera about the Rockefeller Center mural controversy for an Ohio newspaper. Shahn and Bryson became lifetime companions and had three children, Susanna, Jonathan and Abigail, although they did not marry until shortly before Shahn's death in 1969. Shahn and Tillie Goldstein were divorced in 1944.

Shahn had enrolled with the federal Public Works of Art Project in 1934, and between 1935 and 1938 he and Bryson travelled across country as Shahn photographed poverty-stricken areas and documented rural life for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) and the Resettlement Agency. Shahn's interest in photography developed in the early 1930s when, encouraged by his friendship with Walker Evans, he began photographing street scenes and people in New York City. He later used the images as the basis for many of his prints and paintings.

In 1942 Shahn began working for the Office of War Information (OWI) and was instructed to produce posters and pamphlets explaining to citizens the necessities of wartime, such as the need for secrecy and food rationing. Ultimately, only two of Shahn's posters were ever used; the rest were rejected as being too harsh for their intended audience. Shahn later worked for the Congress of Industrial Organization Political Action Committee (CIO-PAC), producing posters for the 1944 campaign to re-elect Roosevelt, who he believed in deeply. He was promoted to director of the CIO's Graphic Arts Division for the 1946 congressional campaign following Roosevelt's death, but that job ended when the election went poorly for the Democratic party.

Shahn returned increasingly to painting and a retrospective of his work was held at the Museum of Modern Art in 1947. He also became more active in academia as an accomplished writer, teacher and lecturer. He received honorary doctorates from Princeton University and Harvard University, and become the Charles Eliot Norton professor at Harvard in 1956. Shahn's Norton lectures were collected and published as the influential The Shape of Content in 1957. He also began to work as a commercial artist for a variety of companies and publications including CBS, Time, Harper's, and the Container Corporation of America. Shahn believed, however, that the artist's ideas and integrity must always be reflected in his commercial art. He refused to compromise on this point and was very selective in his choice of commercial commissions. Shahn illustrated many books and articles, designed sets for stage productions such as New York Export: Opus Jazz, choreographed by Jerome Robbins, and designed mural mosaics for synagogues, universities and private homes.

Since the 1930s Shahn had been represented by Edith Halpert at the Downtown Gallery, but his relationship with her was always contentious on the subject of payments Shahn received for commercial work, and became increasingly so as his income from such sources increased. Finally, in 1968, Shahn wrote to Halpert telling her that after ten years of "an accumulation of ill-feeling, discomfort and recrimination between us" he felt compelled to end their dealer-artist relationship.

By the time of Shahn's break with Halpert his health had begun to fail. He died of a heart attack following surgery in a New York City hospital on March 14, 1969.

Related Archival Materials note:

The Archives of American Art holds four oral history interviews with Ben Shahn: 1964 Apr. 14 interview conducted by Richard K. Doud for the Archives of American Art New Deal and the Arts Project in which Shahn speaks of his travels and work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) and the American image as portrayed by FSA; 1965 Jan. 17 interview; 1965 Oct. 3. interview conducted by Harlan Phillips for the Archives of American Art New Deal and the Arts Project; and 1968 Sept. 27 interview conducted by Forrest Selvig. Most of these interviews have transcripts available online.

The Archives also holds the Bernarda Bryson Shahn papers, circa 1947-2005, and two oral history interviews with Bernarda Bryson Shahn: 1983 Apr. 29 and 1995 July 3.

Separated Materials note:

The Archives of American Art also holds material lent for microfilming (reel N70-6) including addresses and essays by Shahn, seven royalty statements, and three letters from publishers. Many of the writings found on this reel were included in subsequent donations. All other lent material was returned to the lender and is not described in the collection container inventory.

Provenance:

The Ben Shahn papers were donated to the Archives of American Art in several installments between 1967-1991 by Shahn's widow, Bernarda Bryson Shahn who also lent materials for microfilming in 1969. Jean Shahn, Ben Shahn's daughter-in-law and estate representative, donated additional material in 2018 and 2021.

Restrictions:

This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.

Researchers interested in accessing audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more information.

Rights:

The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.

Occupation:

Painters -- New Jersey -- Roosevelt  Search this

Painters -- New York (State) -- Brooklyn  Search this

Photographers -- New York (State) -- Brooklyn  Search this

Photographers -- New Jersey -- Roosevelt  Search this

Printmakers -- New Jersey -- Roosevelt  Search this

Printmakers -- New York (State) -- Brooklyn  Search this

Educators -- New York (State) -- Brooklyn  Search this

Educators -- New Jersey -- Roosevelt  Search this

Muralists -- New York (State) -- Brooklyn  Search this

Muralists -- New Jersey -- Roosevelt  Search this

Topic:

Social realism  Search this

Genre/Form:

Motion pictures (visual works)

Sketchbooks

Video recordings

Drawings

Sound recordings

Interviews

Citation:

Ben Shahn papers, 1879-1990, bulk 1933-1970. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Sponsor:

Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art

Identifier:

AAA.shahben

See more items in:

Ben Shahn papers

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw983b06d9b-dd51-45bc-9b11-09b06a88f6c6

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-aaa-shahben

Interviewee:

Bryson, Bernarda  Search this

Interviewer:

Kirwin, Liza  Search this

Names:

Artists' Union (New York, N.Y.)  Search this

John Reed Club  Search this

Shahn, Ben, 1898-1969  Search this

Extent:

37 Pages (Transcript)

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Pages

Sound recordings

Interviews

Date:

1983 April 29

Scope and Contents:

An interview of Bernarda Bryson conducted 1983 April 29, by Liza Kirwin, for the Archives of American Art.

Bryson speaks of her family background and education; writing for the Ohio State Journal; teaching etching and lithography; meeting Diego Rivera and Ben Shahn; the formation of the Unemployed Artists Group and her role as secretary, 1933; the Gibson Committee, the John Reed Club, and the Artists' Union in New York City; founding Art Front magazine; pressure from the Communist Party; demonstrating at the Whitney Museum of American Art, 1934; lithography under Adrian Dornbush; assisting Ben Shahn; her work as an illustrator; and her painting since 1971.

Biographical / Historical:

Bernarda Bryson (1903-2004) was a printmaker and painter from Roosevelt, New Jersey. She is the widow of artist Ben Shahn.

General:

Originally recorded on 1 sound cassette. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 1 hr., 26 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 others.

Occupation:

Painters -- New Jersey -- Roosevelt  Search this

Illustrators -- New Jersey -- Roosevelt  Search this

Printmakers -- New Jersey -- Roosevelt  Search this

Topic:

Art, Modern  Search this

Women artists  Search this

Women painters  Search this

Women printmakers  Search this

Genre/Form:

Sound recordings

Interviews

Sponsor:

Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service.

Identifier:

AAA.shahn83

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw92717e6b5-7e5a-482f-9216-68cb62174c59

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-aaa-shahn83

Interviewee:

Okada, Frank S. (Frank Sumio), 1931-2000  Search this

Interviewer:

Johns, Barbara  Search this

Names:

Cornish School of Allied Arts (Seattle, Wash.)  Search this

Cranbrook Academy of Art -- Students  Search this

Northwest Asian American Project  Search this

University of Oregon -- Faculty  Search this

Bunce, Louis, 1907-1983  Search this

Charles, Ray, 1930-2004  Search this

Chin, Frank, 1940-  Search this

Davis, Sammy, 1925-  Search this

Derbyshire, Leon  Search this

Dusanne, Zoe, 1884-1977  Search this

Horiuchi, Paul, 1906-  Search this

Inada, Lawson Fusao  Search this

Ivey, William, 1919-1992  Search this

Jones, Quincy, 1933-  Search this

Kusama, Yayoi, 1929-  Search this

Martin, David Stone  Search this

Nomura, Kenjiro, 1896-1956  Search this

Okada, John  Search this

Peck, James Edward, 1907-  Search this

Shahn, Ben, 1898-1969  Search this

Tobey, Mark  Search this

Tsutakawa, George  Search this

Extent:

87 Pages (Transcript)

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Pages

Sound recordings

Interviews

Date:

1990 Aug. 16-17

Scope and Contents:

An interview of Frank Okada conducted 1990 Aug. 16-17, in Seattle, Wash., by Barbara Johns, for the Archives of American Art Northwest Asian American Project. Okada discusses his parents' background; his family including his brothers, John, author of "No-No Boy," and Charlie, a graphic designer; traveling to Japan for the Pacific Northwest Artists and Japan exhibition; being in an internment camp; painting in Eugene, Ore. and Seattle, Wash.; his painting techniques; studying under Leon Derbyshire; his connection with the jazz scene in Seattle in the late 1940s and 1950s including musicians Sammy Davis, Ray Charles, and Quincy Jones; attending Cornish School of Art, Seattle; meeting Mark Tobey; comparision of his painting style to Tobey's; his stint in the Army; attending Cranbrook Academy of Art and studying with painter Fred Mitchell; his Whitney fellowship in New York; study of Japanese, Chinese, and Zen paintings; working for Boeings in the early 1960s; traveling to France on a Guggenheim; teaching at University of Oregon in Eugene; his minimalist work; influence of Japanese art in his painting. Okada mentions Lawson Inada (Asian American poet), Frank Chin (Asian American playwright), artists David Stone Martin, James Edward Peck, Yayoi Kusama, George Tsutakawa, Paul Horiuchi, Ben Shahn, Kenjiro Nomura, Louis Bunce, Bill Ivey, and art gallery owner Zoe Dusanne.

Biographical / Historical:

Frank S. Okada (1931-2000) was a Japanese American painter based in Seattle, Washington. He taught at University of Oregon from 1969-1999.

General:

Originally recorded on 5 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 9 digital wav files. Duration is 4 hrs., 38 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 administrators.

Restrictions:

Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.

Occupation:

Sculptors -- United States  Search this

Painters -- Washington (State) -- Seattle  Search this

Topic:

Asian American art  Search this

Asian American artists  Search this

Japanese American art  Search this

Japanese American artists  Search this

Painting, Japanese  Search this

Painting, Modern -- 20th century -- Washington (State) -- Seattle  Search this

Painting, Chinese  Search this

Asian American painters  Search this

Asian American sculptors  Search this

Japanese Americans -- Forced removal and internment, 1942-1945  Search this

Genre/Form:

Sound recordings

Interviews

Sponsor:

Funding for this interview was provided by the Henry Luce Foundation.

Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service.

Identifier:

AAA.okada90

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9ff6868c7-38fd-4e50-9323-474b69e03b8e

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-aaa-okada90

Creator:

Brooklyn Museum  Search this

Names:

Listening to pictures (1968-1973: Brooklyn Museum)  Search this

Anderson, Lennart, 1928-2015  Search this

Antonakos, Stephen, 1926-2013  Search this

Arisman, Marshall  Search this

Barker, Walter  Search this

Baskin, Leonard, 1922-2000  Search this

Bauermeister, Mary, 1934-  Search this

Benton, Thomas Hart, 1889-1975  Search this

Bishop, Isabel, 1902-1988  Search this

Brackman, Robert, 1898-  Search this

Butchkes, Sydney, 1922-  Search this

Casarella, Edmond, 1920-1996  Search this

Constant, George  Search this

Dash, Robert  Search this

De Creeft, José, 1884-1982  Search this

Dombek, Blanche, 1914-  Search this

Doyle, Tom, 1928-  Search this

Ernst, Jimmy, 1920-1984  Search this

Estern, Neil, 1926-  Search this

Evergood, Philip, 1901-1973  Search this

Frankenthaler, Helen, 1928-2011  Search this

Freilicher, Jane, 1924-2014  Search this

Goldin, Leon, 1923-  Search this

Goodman, Sidney  Search this

Graziani, Sante, 1920-  Search this

Greene, Balcomb, 1904-1990  Search this

Grillo, John, 1917-  Search this

Gropper, William, 1897-1977  Search this

Gross, Chaim, 1904-1991  Search this

Gussow, Roy, 1918-2011  Search this

Gwathmey, Robert, 1903-1988  Search this

Hartigan, Grace  Search this

Hopper, Edward, 1882-1967  Search this

Jaffe, Nora  Search this

Jenkins, Paul, 1923-2012  Search this

Kawabata, Minoru, 1911-  Search this

Kienbusch, William, 1914-1980  Search this

Knaths, Karl, 1891-1971  Search this

Koch, John, 1909-1978  Search this

Kosama, Yayoi  Search this

Lam, Jennett, 1911-  Search this

Lang, Steven, 1944-1971  Search this

Laurent, Robert, 1890-1970  Search this

Lawrence, Jacob, 1917-2000  Search this

Levine, Jack, 1915-2010  Search this

Lipchitz, Jacques, 1891-1973  Search this

Lipton, Seymour, 1903-1986  Search this

Margo, Boris, 1902-1995  Search this

Meyer, Ursula, 1915-  Search this

Moller, Hans, 1905-  Search this

Murch, Walter  Search this

Nevelson, Louise, 1899-1988  Search this

Odate, Toshio  Search this

Offner, Elliot  Search this

Ohlson, Douglas Dean, 1936-  Search this

Okada, Kenzo, 1902-1982  Search this

Palmer, Amanda, 1931-  Search this

Pereira, I. Rice (Irene Rice), 1902-1971  Search this

Peterdi, Gabor  Search this

Reinhardt, Ad, 1913-1967  Search this

Richards, Bill, 1936-  Search this

Rivers, Larry, 1925-2002  Search this

Sanchez, Emilio, 1921-1999  Search this

Schrag, Karl  Search this

Shahn, Ben, 1898-1969  Search this

Sheeler, Charles, 1883-1965  Search this

Sopher, Aaron, 1905-1972  Search this

Soyer, Moses, 1899-1974  Search this

Soyer, Raphael, 1899-1987  Search this

Thon, William, 1906-2000  Search this

Weinberg, Albert  Search this

Zorach, Marguerite, 1887-1968  Search this

Zorach, William, 1887-1966  Search this

Interviewer:

Jacobowitz, Arlene  Search this

Extent:

7 Linear feet

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Transcripts

Interviews

Date:

1965-1968

Summary:

Interviews of 72 artists, and transcripts for all but five, conducted by Arlene Jacobowitz, the Associate Curator for the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Brooklyn Museum, between 1965 and 1968. The artists discuss their work in the museum collection. Also included are 38 edited excerpts of the interviews, approximately 2-3 min. in length, used as "audio-labels" in the 1968 "Listening to Pictures" installation at the museum.

Scope and Content Note:

Interviews of 72 artists, and transcripts for all but five, conducted by Arlene Jacobowitz, the Associate Curator for the Department of Painting and Sculpture, between 1965 and 1968. The artists discuss their work in the museum collection. Also included are 38 edited excerpts of the interviews, approximately 2-3 min. in length, used as "audio-labels" in the 1968 "Listening to Pictures" installation.

The artists interviewed are: Lennart Anderson, Stephen B. Antonakos, Marshall Arisman, Walter Barker, Leonard Baskin, Mary Bauermeister, Thomas Hart Benton, Isabel Bishop, Robert Brackman, Sydney Butchkes, Edmund Casarella, George Constant, Robert Warren Dash, Jose DeCreeft, Blanche Dombek, Tom Doyle, Jimmy Ernst, Neil Estern, Philip Evergood, Helen Frankenthaler, Jane Freilicher, Leon Goldin, Sidney Goodman, Sante Graziani, Balcomb Greene, John Grillo, William Gropper, Chaim Gross, Roy Gussow, Robert Gwathmey, Grace Hartigan, Edward Hopper, Nora Jaffe, Paul Jenkins, Minoru Kawabata, William Kienbusch, Karl Knaths, John Koch, Yayoi Kosama, Jennett Lam, Steven Lang, Robert Laurent, Jacob Lawrence, Jack Levine, Jacques Lipchitz, Seymour Lipton, Boris Margo, Ursula Meyer, Hans Moller, Walter Murch, Louise Nevelson, Toshio Odate, Elliot Offner, Douglas Ohlson, Kenzo Okada, Amanda Palmer, Irene Rice Pereira, Gabor Peterdi, Ad Reinhardt, Bill Richards, Larry Rivers, Emilio Sanchez, Karl Schrag, Ben Shahn, Charles Sheeler, Aaron Sopher, Moses Soyer, Raphael Soyer, William Thon, Albert Weinberg, and William and Marguerite Zorach.

Arrangement:

The collection is arranged as a single series:

Missing Title

Series 1: Interviews, 1965-1968 (Box 1-7; 7 lin. ft.)

Historical Note:

The interview program at the Brooklyn Museum was begun by Arlene Jacobowitz in the spring of 1965 with artists whose works were on exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum. In 1968, excerpts from the interviews were incorporated into an exhibition entitled "Listening to Pictures," in which visitors could access the sound recordings using headphones while standing before the painting being discussed. The exhibition opened April 28, 1968, and was gradually disassembled, 1971-1973.

Related Material:

The Brooklyn Museum Archives houses the records of the Departments of European Painting and Sculpture, American Painting and Sculpture, Contemporary Art (1897-2005), which contain records relating to the work of Arlene Jacobowitz.

Provenance:

This collection was donated to the Archives of American Art by Dierdre Lawrence of the Brooklyn Museum in 1989.

Restrictions:

Use of original papers requires an appointment. Researchers may view the original reels for the archival notations on them, but original reels are not available for playback due to fragility.

Rights:

Authorization to quote or reproduce for purposes of publication requires written permission from the interviewee. Citations must read:"Interview between [artist's name] and [interviewer's name] from the "Listening to Pictures" program of the Brooklyn Museum. Archives of American Art. Gift of the Brooklyn Museum." Contact Reference Services for more information.

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.

Topic:

Artists -- United States -- Interviews  Search this

Art, American -- Exhibitions  Search this

Genre/Form:

Transcripts

Interviews

Citation:

Interview between [artist's name] and [interviewer's name] from the "Listening to Pictures" program of the Brooklyn Museum. Gift of the Brooklyn Museum. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Identifier:

AAA.broomuse

See more items in:

Brooklyn Museum interviews of artists

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9bdcd26e1-568c-4c81-8ba1-e07f5afbdfad

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-aaa-broomuse

Creator:

Biddle, George, 1885-1973  Search this

Names:

Federal Art Project  Search this

Justice Dept. Building (Washington, D.C.)  Search this

National Library Building (Rio de Janerio, Brazil)  Search this

Supreme Court Building (Mexico City, Mexico)  Search this

United States. Dept. of the Treasury. Section of Fine Arts  Search this

United States. Dept. of the Treasury. Section of Painting and Sculpture  Search this

Berenson, Bernard, 1865-1959  Search this

Brewer, Bessie Marsh, d. 1952  Search this

Brooks, Van Wyck, 1886-1963  Search this

Diederich, William Hunt, 1884-1953  Search this

Kuniyoshi, Yasuo, 1889-1953  Search this

Pascin, Jules, 1885-1930  Search this

Poor, Anne, 1911-2011  Search this

Poor, Henry Varnum, 1887-1970  Search this

Pound, Ezra, 1885-1972  Search this

Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945  Search this

Shahn, Ben, 1898-1969  Search this

Sterne, Maurice, 1878-1957  Search this

Extent:

0.76 Linear feet

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Diaries

Place:

United States -- Social conditions -- 1933-1945

Date:

circa 1910-1970

Summary:

The papers of New York painter and muralist George Biddle (1885-1973), measure 0.76 linear feet and date from circa 1910-1970. The collection includes a certificate signed by President Harry Truman, transcripts of Biddle's diaries, a manuscript of a memoir about meeting President Franklin Roosevelt, three letters from William Hunt Diederich's daughter, transcripts of letters from Bernard Berenson, sketches and mural studies, and two glass plate negatives.

Scope and Contents:

The papers of New York painter and muralist George Biddle (1885-1973), measure 0.76 linear feet and date from circa 1910-1970. The collection includes a certificate signed by President Harry Truman, transcripts of Biddle's diaries, a manuscript of a memoir about meeting President Franklin Roosevelt, three letters from William Hunt Diederich's daughter, transcripts of letters from Bernard Berenson, sketches and mural studies, and two glass plate negatives.

Arrangement:

The collection is arranged as one series.

Series 1: George Biddle Papers, circa 1910-1970 (0.7 linear feet; Box 1, OVs 2-4, MGP4)

Biographical / Historical:

New York painter and muralist George Biddle (1885-1973) proposed to President Franklin Roosevelt the establishment of a federal relief program for artists during the Depression, and subsequently painted a number of government murals under the auspices of the Federal Art Project, including murals for the Department of Justice in 1935.

Biddle was born to a prominent Philadelphia family and graduated from Harvard College. He studied at the Académie Julian and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and served in the United States Army in World War I, before returning to New York where he had his first series of one-man shows.

In 1933 Biddle wrote to long-time friend President Franklin Roosevelt, to suggest a work relief program that supported mural painters. Although the idea initially met with opposition, Biddle persisted and the resulting art projects of the Works Progress Administration went on to support the production of thousands of paintings in government buildings throughout the country during the Depression.

In 1940 Biddle was invited by the Mexican government to create a mural for the supreme court building in Mexico City. Biddle had visited Mexico in 1928 where he had traveled and sketched with Diego Rivera, and seen firsthand the value of government sponsored art programs.

In addition to his murals, Biddle was also known for his portraits, lithographs, and paintings. His work can be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and others. His work has been shown throughout the United States, Europe, Mexico, Japan, and India in over a hundred one-man shows and group exhibitions.

Related Materials:

Originals of the edited diary transcripts in this collection are in the Library of Congress, Manuscript Division. The unedited diary has many more entries than the edited version and includes more details about Biddle's daily life and work, versions of articles by Biddle, and lists of his works of art through 1934.

Separated Materials:

The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming, including one of Biddle's original diaries, 1933-1935 (reel D127), records from the Federal Art Project, personal correspondence, articles and talks relating to Artists Equity (reels P17-P18), and a photocopy of Biddle's inventory notebook listing artwork and exhibitions (reel 4909). While the inventory notebook was discarded after microfilming, all other loaned materials were returned to the lender and are not described in the collection container inventory.

Provenance:

The papers on reels P12-P18 were loaned for microfilming in 1954 by the Philadelphia Museum of Art in Philadelphia, PA. George Biddle lent the material on reel D127 in 1963 and donated the rest of the collection to the Archives of American Art between 1966-1970. In 1972, Michael Biddle, George Biddle's son, gifted a photocopy of an inventory notebook that was discarded after microfilming.

Restrictions:

Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center.

Rights:

The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.

Topic:

New Deal, 1933-1939  Search this

Federal aid to the arts  Search this

Mural painting and decoration, American  Search this

Art and state -- United States  Search this

Muralists  Search this

Genre/Form:

Diaries

Citation:

George Biddle papers, circa 1910-1970. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Sponsor:

Glass plate negatives in this collection were digitized in 2019 with funding provided by the Smithsonian Women's Committee.

Identifier:

AAA.biddgeor

See more items in:

George Biddle papers

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw914a8a397-8d17-42b1-8038-b8b6e3075445

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-aaa-biddgeor

Creator:

Anacostia Museum  Search this

Names:

Anacostia Community Museum  Search this

Anacostia Neighborhood Museum  Search this

Seabrooke, Georgette (Georgette Ernestine), 1916-2011  Search this

Collection Creator:

Smithsonian Institution. Anacostia Community Museum  Search this

Extent:

3 Video recordings (U-matic, 3/4")

2 Video recordings (VHS)

Type:

Archival materials

Video recordings

Place:

New York (N.Y.)

Washington (D.C.)

United States

Date:

1994

Scope and Contents:

Georgette Seabrooke Powell talked about her life in Charleston, South Carolina, New York City, and Washington, D.C.; her educational experience at Washington Irving High School and Cooper Union School of Art; her involvement in the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the murals she painted as part of the project; her family, particularly her children and her husband; her community activism when she lived in the Bronx; and her work as an art therapist and with community art programs in Washington, D.C.

Interview. Related to exhibition 'Art Changes Things: The Art and Activism of Georgette Seabrooke Powell.' AV000846: master, dated 19941205. AV000847: dated 19941214. AV000848: dated 1994. AV002168: edited version, dated 19941116. AV002645: dated 19941116.

Biographical / Historical:

'Art Changes Things: The Art and Activism of Georgette Seabrooke Powell' was a retrospective exhibition featuring works by post-Harlem Renaissance artist Georgette Powell. The exhibition was held at the Anacostia Museum from March 4, 1995 - May 28, 1995.

Local Numbers:

ACMA AV000847

ACMA AV000848

ACMA AV002168

ACMA AV002645

Series Restrictions:

Use of the materials requires an appointment. Some items are not accessible due to obsolete format and playback machinery restrictions. Please contact the archivist at acmarchives@si.edu.

Occupation:

Artists  Search this

Topic:

African Americans  Search this

Women artists  Search this

African American women artists  Search this

Activists  Search this

Community activists  Search this

Museum exhibits  Search this

Genre/Form:

Video recordings

Citation:

Art Changes Things: Interview with Georgette Seabrooke Powell, Anacostia Community Museum Archives, Smithsonian Institution.

Identifier:

ACMA.03-007, Item ACMA AV000846

See more items in:

Art Changes Things: the Art and Activism of Georgette Seabrooke Powell Exhibition Records

Art Changes Things: the Art and Activism of Georgette Seabrooke Powell Exhibition Records / Series ACMA AV03-007: Art changes things: the art and activism of Georgette Seabrooke Powell audiovisual records

Archival Repository:

Anacostia Community Museum Archives

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/qa769272d5c-3584-4239-a06d-3889e63c2913

EDAN-URL:

ead_component:sova-acma-03-007-ref509

Creator:

National Visionary Leadership Project  Search this

Anacostia Community Museum  Search this

Names:

Anacostia Community Museum  Search this

Anacostia Neighborhood Museum  Search this

Seabrooke, Georgette (Georgette Ernestine), 1916-2011  Search this

Collection Creator:

National Visionary Leadership Project  Search this

Extent:

1 Video recording (VHS, 1/2")

Type:

Archival materials

Video recordings

Oral histories (document genres)

Interviews

Place:

Charleston (S.C.)

New York (N.Y.)

Washington (D.C.)

United States

Date:

2003

Scope and Contents:

Through an oral history interview, artist Georgette Seabrooke Powell talks about her extended family, who owned businesses in Charleston, South Carolina, where she was born in 1916. Her family moved to New York City when Powell was six; she describes living in a tenement building, her time as a student at Washington Irving High School and later Cooper Union, and her experiences during the Harlem Renaissance. Powell talks about a few of her paintings, particularly her early work, and the WPA's Federal Art Project, including the mural "Recreation in Harlem." After moving to Washington, D.C., Powell becomes an art therapist and obtains a degree from Howard University. Powell also talks about Operation Heritage, Art in the Park, and P.S. 6. She describes her encounters with racism as a child and then later with her artwork; and explains her greatest accomplishment - raising her family.

Interview. Part of the National Visionary Leadership Project 2003. Dated 20030604.

Biographical / Historical:

Co-founded in 2001 by Camille O. Cosby, Ed.D. and Renee Poussaint, The National Visionary Leadership Project (NVLP), a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization, unites generations to create tomorrow's leaders by recording, preserving, and distributing through various media, the wisdom of extraordinary African American elders - Visionaries - who have shaped American history. National Visionary Leadership Project 2003 collection contains five videotaped oral history interviews conducted in partnership with the National Visionary Leadership Project and the Anacostia Community Museum's Education Department in 2003. Interviewees include Georgette Seabrooke Powell, William Langford, Louise Daniel Hutchinson, Jeannine Clark, and Charles Clark. Full transcripts of the interviews are available for reference in the archive.

General:

Title transcribed from cover page of the video recording's transcript.

Collection Restrictions:

Use of the materials requires an appointment. Please contact the archivist at acmarchives@si.edu.

Occupation:

Artists  Search this

Topic:

African Americans  Search this

African American families  Search this

African American artists  Search this

Harlem Renaissance  Search this

Civic leaders  Search this

Racism  Search this

Genre/Form:

Video recordings

Oral histories (document genres)

Interviews

Citation:

Legacy Keepers: Interview of Georgette Seabrooke Powell, National Visionary Leadership Project 2003, Anacostia Community Museum Archives, Smithsonian Institution.

Identifier:

ACMA.09-005, Item ACMA AV000919

See more items in:

National Visionary Leadership Project 2003

Archival Repository:

Anacostia Community Museum Archives

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/qa79b61fc66-4c89-402b-8878-be05e4866cfd

EDAN-URL:

ead_component:sova-acma-09-005-ref1

Creator:

Knight, Gwendolyn  Search this

Lawrence, Jacob, 1917-2000  Search this

Names:

Bearden, Romare, 1911-1988  Search this

Bocour, Leonard, 1910-1993  Search this

Dintenfass, Terry, 1920-  Search this

Eichenberg, Fritz, 1901-1990  Search this

Evergood, Philip, 1901-1973  Search this

Halpert, Edith Gregor, 1900-1970  Search this

Extent:

25.35 Linear feet

0.001 Gigabytes

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Gigabytes

Photographs

Date:

1816

1914-2008

bulk 1973-2001

Summary:

The papers of African American painter and educator Jacob Lawrence and his wife, artist Gwendolyn Knight measure 25.35 linear feet and 0.001 GB date from 1914 to 2008, with one item from 1816 and the bulk of the material dating from 1973 to 2001. The collection includes biographical material; correspondence including condolence letters to Gwendolyn Knight after Jacob Lawrence's death; writings by Jacob Lawrence and others; printed and digital material; photographs; personal business records; artwork; records from the Jacob Lawrence Catalogue Raisonné Project; materials related to the Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation; professional files; and material related to awards and honors received by Jacob Lawrence and Gwendolyn Knight.

Scope and Content Note:

The papers of African American painter and educator Jacob Lawrence and his wife, artist Gwendolyn Knight measure 25.35 linear feet and 0.001 GB and date from 1914 to 2008, with one item from 1816 and the bulk of the material dating from 1973 to 2001. The collection includes biographical material; correspondence including condolence letters to Gwendolyn Knight after Jacob Lawrence's death; writings by Jacob Lawrence and others; printed and digital material; photographs; personal business records; artwork; records from the Jacob Lawrence Catalogue Raisonné Project; materials related to the Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation; professional files; and material related to awards and honors received by Jacob Lawrence and Gwendolyn Knight.

Biographical material includes appointment and address books; education and personal identification certificates and documents; awards, certificates, curriculum vitae, and chronologies; biographical material related to other individuals, including identification documents and memorial programs; and transcripts of interviews with Jacob Lawrence and Gwendolyn Knight.

The correspondence series includes extensive personal and professional correspondence with family, friends, artists, admirers (including students in a number of elementary and middle schools), university students, government agencies, art schools, galleries, museums, publishing houses, and others. Included in this series are condolence letters received by Gwendolyn Knight after Jacob Lawrence's death in 2000.

Writings include published and unpublished writings by and about Jacob Lawrence, as well as writings by others. These writings include speeches, notes, essays, articles, lists, and short stories. Also included is a visitor comment book from the Los Angeles County Museum exhibition of Jacob Lawrence's Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass series.

Printed material includes books; brochures; business cards; clippings; exhibition and event announcements, invitations, catalogs, and programs; magazines; newsletters; posters; post cards; and press releases. Books in this collection may include illustrations by Jacob Lawrence or have personal inscriptions from the author to Jacob Lawrence and Gwendolyn Knight.

Photographs include photographs of Jacob Lawrence artwork, photographs and reproductions of Gwendolyn Knight artwork, and photographs of Jacob Lawrence, Gwendolyn Knight, and other individuals. Also included in this series are photographs and reproductions of work by others.

Personal business records include a ledger; consignment, financial, and shipping records related to the Terry Dintenfass Gallery; contracts and agreements; and estate documents.

Artwork includes sketches by Jacob Lawrence, a blank sketchbook inscribed by Jacob Lawrence to Gwendolyn Knight, and artwork by other artists.

Jacob Lawrence Catalogue Raisonné Project Records include materials generated by the Jacob Lawrence Catalogue Raisonné Project, a non-profit created with the goal of producing a catalogue raisonné (and later, a digital archive) of Jacob Lawrence's work. These records include address books and phone logs; copies of Jacob Lawrence's CV; founding documents, bylaws, and meeting minutes; correspondence; writings, including draft pages of the catalogue raisonné; business records, including employment files, contracts, invoices, insurance, and tax information; printed and digital material; and photographs and artwork.

The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation and Related Material series includes founding documents and foundation bylaws, correspondence, financial documents, reports, and proposals. Found within this series are materials related to the Lawrence Center for the Visual Arts, a subsidiary foundation of the Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation.

Professional files include material related to projects and exhibitions, teaching files and inclusion in curricula, files regarding possible fake Jacob Lawrence works, and gallery files.

The honors series is divided into two subseries: awards and certificates, and government honors. Awards and certificates includes honorary degrees, arts prizes, and any other honors awarded to Jacob Lawrence or Gwendolyn Knight. Government honors include resolutions, proclamations, and keys to cities. Also included in this series are correspondence related to awards and honorary degrees, commencement programs, plaques, and medals.

Arrangement:

The collection is arranged in 11 series.

Missing Title

Series 1: Biographical Material, 1914-2005 (Boxes 1, 11, 26, OV 10; 0.5 linear feet)

Series 2: Correspondence, 1943, 1952-2005 (Boxes 1-5, 12-14, 26; 7.7 linear feet)

Series 3: Writings, 1954-1959, 1973-2005, undated (Boxes 5-6, 14-15; 0.5 linear feet)

Series 4: Printed Material, 1816, 1926, 1937, 1945-2008 (Boxes 6-9, 15-17, 26, OV 30, OV 31; 6.8 linear feet)

Series 5: Photographs, circa 1970-1997, undated (Boxes 9, 17, OV 10; 0.4 linear feet)

Series 6: Personal Business Records, 1962-2005 (Boxes 9, 17; 0.3 linear feet)

Series 7: Artwork, 1984, 1990-1994, undated (Boxes 9, 18, 26; 0.3 linear feet)

Series 8: Jacob Lawrence Catalogue Raisonne Project Records, 1982-2002 (Boxes 18-23, Box 26; 5.1 linear feet, ER01; 0.001 GB)

Series 9: Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation and Related Material, 1997-2005 (Box 23; 0.6 linear feet)

Series 10: Professional Files, 1964-2004 (Boxes 23-24; 1.2 linear feet)

Series 11: Honors, 1948, 1966-2005 (Boxes 24-25, 27-29, OV 30; 2.3 linear feet)

Biographical Note:

Modernist painter and educator Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) was born in 1917 as Jacob Armstead Lawrence in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He began his art studies at the Utopia Children's Center in New York City's Harlem district where he studied under the painter Charles Alston. Lawrence dropped out of high school at the age of sixteen to continue his art instruction with Alston, this time at the Harlem Art Workshop, where he met several artists associated with the Harlem Renaissance including the sculptor Augusta Savage.

Gwendolyn Knight (1913-2005) was born in Barbados and moved to New York City with her adoptive parents when she was seven. She attended New York's Wadleigh High School and later Howard University in Washington, D.C. where she studied fine arts with Lois Mailou Jones and James Porter. Forced to leave her studies at Howard because of the Depression, Knight returned to Harlem and continued her artistic pursuits in Augusta Savage's workshop. In 1935, Knight joined the Harlem Mural Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) working under Selma Day and Charles Alston. Lawrence and Knight met in Savage's workshop and married in the summer of 1941.

During the Depression, Lawrence also joined the WPA Federal Arts Project in Harlem. Finding WPA murals overwhelming, Lawrence concentrated on traditional painting instead. He produced his first major works in the late 1930s, most notably the Toussaint L'Ouverture series, images that document the life of the revolutionary hero and Haiti's struggle for independence. Other significant works include visual narratives of the lives of abolitionists Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass. In 1940, Lawrence received the prestigious Julius Rosenwald Fellowship, which made it possible for him to purchase his first art studio on 125th Street in the heart of Harlem. He soon portrayed Harlem street life in paintings that became commentaries on the role of African Americans in United States society with highly developed themes of resistance and social opposition. That same year, Lawrence began his most celebrated series, The Migration of the American Negro, multiple tempera panels depicting the exodus of African American sharecroppers in the south to northern industrial cities in search of better employment and social opportunities. Edith Halpert exhibited the works in their entirety at her Downtown Gallery in 1941, establishing Lawrence as the first African American artist to exhibit in a top New York gallery. The following year, New York's Museum of Modern Art and the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC each bought half of the sixty panels in the series, helping to further Lawrence's career within the larger world of American art.

In the summer of 1946, the artist Joseph Albers invited Lawrence to teach at North Carolina's Black Mountain College. It was the first in a series of teaching positions in prestigious art schools including Pratt Institute (1956-1971), Brandeis University (1965), The New School (1966), the Art Students League (1967), and others. During the 1950s and 1960s, Lawrence's work continued to focus on racism and political activism but in the late 1960s shifted to themes of racial harmony.

Both Lawrence and Knight continued independent careers in art. Knight pursued her art studies at the New School in New York and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. In the mid-1960s, she collaborated with other female artists to form the Studio Gallery in New York City. Knight's main body of work consists of portraits and still-lifes that incorporate expressions of African sculpture, Impressionism, dance, and theater. Focusing on gesture, her art is described as light and airy with a minimum of lines allowing empty space to define the work. In 1970, Lawrence traveled to Seattle to teach as a visiting artist at the University of Washington. He was hired on a permanent basis the following year and remained on staff until his retirement in 1986.

Jacob Lawrence died June 9, 2000, in Seattle, Washington at the age of 83. Gwendolyn Knight continued to paint and exhibit her work around the country until her death on February 18, 2005 in Seattle, Washington at the age of 92.

Related Material:

Also found at the Archives of American Art are an oral history interview with Jacob Lawrence conducted by Carroll Greene (1968 October 26), interviews conducted by Avis Berman (1982 July 20-August 4), and an oral history interview with Jacob Lawrence and Gwendolyn Knight conducted by Paul Karlstrom (1998 November 18). The Archives of American Art also holds a collection of Jacob Lawrence papers, available on microfilm only, reels D286 and 4571-4573. Originals reside at Syracuse University Library, Special Collections.

Provenance:

The Jacob Lawrence and Gwendolyn Knight papers were donated to the Archives of American Art in five accretions between 1979 and 1997. Additional papers were donated in 2012 by the Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation via Barbara Earl Thomas, representative.

Restrictions:

Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.

Rights:

The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.

Occupation:

Painters -- Washington (State) -- Seattle  Search this

Painters -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this

Educators -- Washington (State) -- Seattle  Search this

Topic:

Painting, Modern -- 20th century -- United States  Search this

African American artists  Search this

Women artists  Search this

African American art -- African influences  Search this

African American educators  Search this

African American painters  Search this

Women painters  Search this

Genre/Form:

Photographs

Citation:

Jacob Lawrence and Gwendolyn Knight papers, 1816, 1914-2008, bulk 1973-2001. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Sponsor:

Funding for the 2007 processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art. Funding for the 2018 processing of this collection was provided by the Henry Luce Foundation.

Identifier:

AAA.lawrjaco

See more items in:

Jacob Lawrence and Gwendolyn Knight papers

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw97b5bfd17-13f8-4cb6-ab12-22124f7d1fee

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-aaa-lawrjaco

Creator:

Dempsey, Richard W., 1909-  Search this

Names:

Art in Embassies Program (U.S.)  Search this

Clark Atlanta University Art Gallery  Search this

Corcoran Gallery of Art  Search this

Franz Bader Gallery  Search this

Howard University  Search this

United States. Embassy (Colombia)  Search this

United States. Embassy (Jamaica)  Search this

Brooks, Vonja Kirkland  Search this

Lawrence, Jacob, 1917-2000  Search this

Perlmutter, Jack, 1920-2006  Search this

Waters, Ethel, 1896-1977  Search this

Extent:

2.9 Linear feet

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Photographs

Poetry

Sketches

Place:

Colombia -- Description and Travel

Date:

1929-1989

bulk 1960s-1980s

Summary:

The papers of painter Richard W. Dempsey measure 2.9 linear feet and date from 1929 to 1989, with the bulk of the papers dating from the 1960s to the 1980s. The papers contain biographcial material, correspondence, writings, project and exhibition files, printed material, photographs, and artwork and notes related to planning artwork.

Scope and Contents:

The papers of painter Richard W. Dempsey measure 2.9 linear feet and date from 1929 to 1989, with the bulk of the papers dating from the 1960s to the 1980s. The papers contain biographical material, correspondence, writings, project and exhibition files, printed material, photographs, and artwork and notes related to planning artwork.

Biographical material consists of employment records; resumes, chronologies, and biographies; and compiled personal papers that may have once been part of scrapbooks. These materials are not bound, but have remained together and in the order in which they were received. This series also includes a folder of material related to Dempsey's wife, Vonja Kirkland Brooks.

Correspondence includes letters both sent, and received by the artist, primarily concerning the exhibition of Dempsey's paintings at the Franz Bader Gallery, the Atlanta University Gallery, Howard University, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the U.S. Embassies in Colombia and Jamaica, and with the Art in Embassies Program. Notable correspondents include Jack Perlmutter, Ethel Waters, and Jacob Lawrence. Personal and professional correspondence are intermingled throughout.

Writings include notes and drafts of lectures and other course materials, as well as excerpts and quotes from reviews of exhibitions of Dempsey's work. These excerpts, usually titled "comments," are frequently copied out by hand. Also included in this series are two folders of poetry.

Project and exhibition files include photographs; correspondence; lists; sketches and other plans; and printed material including clippings and exhibition announcements. Materials related to his Rosenwald Fellowship, his participation in the Art in Embassies program, his many exhibitions at Franz Bader Gallery, and his international exhibitions in Colombia and Jamaica are featured. Some files in this series may only include photographs or sketches.

Photographs are primarily of Dempsey's work and of exhibitions. There are some of the artist and of his Takoma Park, MD home and studio (designed by Harry Ormston of McLean, VA and occasionally featured in architecture articles).

Artwork is primarily composed of sketches, often with detailed planning notes for the completion of paintings.

Arrangement:

The collection is arranged as seven series.

Series 1: Biographical Material, 1930-1987 (Box 1; 0.2 linear feet)

Series 2: Correspondence, 1938-1985, undated (Box 1; 0.2 linear feet)

Series 3: Writings, 1981, undated (Box 1; 3 folders)

Series 4: Project and Exhibition Files, 1929-1986 (Boxes 1-2; 1.2 linear feet)

Series 5: Printed Material, 1930s-1989, undated (Boxes 2-3; 0.4 linear feet, OV 5)

Series 6: Photographic Material, 1932-1981, undated (Boxes 3-4; 0.5 linear feet)

Series 7: Artwork, 1965-1981, undated, (Box 4; 5 folders, OV 5)

Biographical / Historical:

Richard W. Dempsey (1909-1987) was a painter known primarily for his abstract works and his portraits of prominent African American individuals including Ethel Waters, Duke Ellington, Thurgood Marshall, and Adam Clayton Powell. He was born in Ogden, Utah, but spent the majority of his youth in Oakland, California. He studied art at Sacramento Junior College, the California School of Arts and Crafts, and the Student Arts Center. Dempsey had four exhibitions in California before moving to Washington, D.C. to begin work as an engineering draftsman with the Federal Power Commission in 1941. He later transferred to a position as an illustrator with the General Services Administration (GSA), where he would spend the rest of his nearly 30-year government career.

In addition to his work with the GSA, Dempsey participated in the Art in Embassies program for decades, and his work was chosen by Congressman Adam Clayton Powell to hang in the Education Labor Committee rooms.

Dempsey was awarded a Julius Rosenwald Fellowship in 1946 to paint 100 portriats of "Outstanding American Negros." He taught art courses at the Corcoran School of Art and at Glen Echo and received invitations to exhibit around the world in places like Haiti, Colombia, and Jamaica. He exhibited frequently in the U.S., most often with Franz Bader Gallery in Washington, D.C.

Separated Materials:

The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming (reel 4368) including a photograph album chronicling Dempsey's 1951 trip to Haiti and other photographic material. Loaned materials were returned to the lender and are not described in the collection container inventory.

Provenance:

The Richard Dempsey papers were initially lent for microfilming in 1990 by Vonja Kirkland Dempsey, Richard Dempsey's widow. After the collection was microfilmed, Vonja Kirkland Dempsey donated the bulk of the collection, excluding some photographic material, in 1990.

Restrictions:

Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center.

Occupation:

Educators -- Washington (D.C.)  Search this

Painters -- Washington (D.C.)  Search this

Portrait painters -- Washington (D.C.)  Search this

Topic:

Artists' studios -- Photographs  Search this

Painting, Abstract -- Washington (D.C.)  Search this

Jamaica -- Description and Travel  Search this

African American artists  Search this

Genre/Form:

Photographs

Poetry

Sketches

Citation:

Richard Dempsey papers, 1929-1989, bulk 1960s-1980s. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Sponsor:

Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Henry Luce Foundation.

Identifier:

AAA.demprich

See more items in:

Richard Dempsey papers

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9e6e8842f-d2fd-487c-b7cc-00c85bc82a34

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-aaa-demprich

Interviewee:

Dintenfass, Terry, 1920-  Search this

Interviewer:

Cummings, Paul  Search this

Names:

Terry Dintenfass, Inc.  Search this

Alan, Charles, 1908?-1975  Search this

Baron, Herman, 1892-1961  Search this

Bloom, Hyman, 1913-  Search this

Erpf, Armand  Search this

Evergood, Philip, 1901-1973  Search this

Goodman, Sidney  Search this

Gwathmey, Robert, 1903-1988  Search this

Halpert, Edith Gregor, 1900-1970  Search this

Lawrence, Jacob, 1917-2000  Search this

O'Keeffe, Georgia, 1887-1986  Search this

Watkins, Franklin Chenault, 1894-1972  Search this

Extent:

75 Pages (Transcript)

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Pages

Sound recordings

Interviews

Date:

1974 December 2-1975 January 13

Scope and Contents:

Interview of Terry Dintenfass conducted 1974 December 2-1975 January 13, by Paul Cummings, for the Archives of American Art, in her home in New York, New York.

Dintenfass speaks of her family; education; travel; studying with Franklin Chenault Watkins and Clayton Whitehall at the Philadelphia College of Art; working as a nurse; her galleries in Atlantic City, New Jersey; social protest painting; buying American paintings for Armand Erpf; her apprenticeship with Herman Baron; critics; discovering Sidney Goodman; women art dealers; and visiting Georgia O'Keeffe. She recalls Charles Alan, Hyman Bloom, Philip Evergood, Robert Gwathmey, Edith Halpert, Jacob Lawrence, and others.

Biographical / Historical:

Terry Dintenfass (1920-2004) was an art dealer from New York, New York. She operated Terry Dintenfass, Inc.

General:

Originally recorded on 2 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 3 digital wav file. Duration is 2 hr., 38 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.

Restrictions:

Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.

Occupation:

Art dealers -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this

Topic:

Women art dealers  Search this

Genre/Form:

Sound recordings

Interviews

Sponsor:

Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service.

Identifier:

AAA.dinten74

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw964b3bacf-4a71-4c42-8cdb-bd2f3d610201

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-aaa-dinten74

Interviewee:

Blackburn, Robert Hamilton, 1920-  Search this

Interviewer:

Cummings, Paul  Search this

Names:

Barnet, Will, 1911-2012  Search this

Francis, Sam, 1923-1994  Search this

Grosman, Tatyana, 1904-1982  Search this

Harrison, Wallace, 1900-  Search this

Hartigan, Grace  Search this

Lawrence, Jacob, 1917-2000  Search this

Rauschenberg, Robert, 1925-2008  Search this

Vytlacil, Vaclav, 1892-1984  Search this

Extent:

52 Pages (Transcript)

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Pages

Sound recordings

Interviews

Date:

1970 December 4

Scope and Contents:

An interview of Robert Blackburn conducted 1970 December 4, by Paul Cummings, for the Archives of American Art. Blackburn speaks of his early life in Jamaica and New York; the influences of his youth including school, gangs, religion, art, music, and culture; the Harlem Community Art Center; studying with Charles Alston; the difficulties suffered by Black artists trying to gain recognition in a white-dominated art world; attending the Art Students League and studying under Vaclav Vytlacil and Will Barnet; his work with children; his film work at the Harmon Foundation; financial problems; the Printmaking Workshop; attending New York University's School of Visual Arts and the Cooper Union School; blacks in the arts; and the influence of music on his paintings. He recalls Jacob Lawrence, Will Barnet, Vaclav Vytlacil, Wallace Harrison, Tatyana Grosman, Grace Hartigan, Sam Francis, and Robert Rauschenberg.

Biographical / Historical:

Robert Blackburn (1920-) was a printmaker from New York, New York.

General:

Originally recorded 2 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 6 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hr., 28 min.

Provenance:

This interview is part of the Archives' Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and others.

Occupation:

Printmakers -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this

Topic:

Prints -- Technique  Search this

Art and race  Search this

African American artists  Search this

Genre/Form:

Sound recordings

Interviews

Identifier:

AAA.blackb70

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw95587be3c-ce7a-47a4-ae63-91dec62e6a45

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-aaa-blackb70

Creator:

Lawrence, Jacob, 1917-2000  Search this

Extent:

4 Microfilm reels

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Microfilm reels

Date:

1937-1992

Scope and Contents:

This microfilm collection documents the artistic and teaching career of African American painter Jacob Lawrence.

Included are biographical materials and awards; correspondence; writings and speeches by Lawrence, 1947-1962, and writings about Lawrence; photographs; scattered financial material, 1941-1957; and printed materials.

Correspondence dates from 1937-1971. Among the correspondents are: Ralph Abernathy, Charles Alston, Benny Andrews, Romare Bearden, Claude Clark, Hy Cohen, Mildred Cummings, Terry Dintenfass, Inc., David Driskell, Fritz Eichenberg, Philip Evergood, Creighton Gilbert, Edith Gregor Halpert (Downtown Gallery), Langston Hughes, Raymond Patterson, Pratt Institute, Margaret Rigg, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Moses and Raphael Soyer, and the United States Committee for the First World Festival of Negro Arts, Inc. Photographs include personal photographs, 1939-1966, and photographs of art work, 1941-1949. Printed material consists of reproductions of work, brochures and course catalogs, programs and calendars, exhibition announcements and catalogs, posters, articles, and clippings.

Biographical / Historical:

Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) was an African American painter and educator in New York, New York and Seattle, Washington. Lawrence worked for the WPA's Federal Art Project and taught at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, Pratt Institute (1956-1971), Brandeis University (1965), The New School (1966), the Art Students League (1967), the University of Washington, and others. One of his most well-known works of art is the The Migration of the Negro (now known as The Migration Series), a 60-panel epic Lawrence created when he received a Rosenwald Fellowship in 1940.

Provenance:

Lent for microfilming by Syracuse University Library, Special Collections, 1992. Among the three reels are papers that Lawrence lent to the Archives of American Art for microfilming in 1966 which he subsequently donated to Syracuse.

Restrictions:

The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.

Rights:

Authorization to publish, quote or reproduce requires written permission from Curator, Syracuse University Library, Special Collections. Contact Reference Services for more information.

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:

Painters -- Washington (State) -- Seattle  Search this

Painters -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this

Educators -- Washington (State) -- Seattle  Search this

Topic:

Painting, Modern -- 20th century -- United States  Search this

African American artists  Search this

African American educators  Search this

African American painters  Search this

Identifier:

AAA.lawrjaco2

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw990a2887b-999f-4460-b515-217f7377ae2c

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-aaa-lawrjaco2

Creator:

Brown, Milton Wolf (Milton Wolf), 1911-1998  Search this

Names:

Archives of American Art  Search this

Armory Show 50th anniversary exhibition (1963 : New York, N.Y.)  Search this

Brooklyn College -- Faculty  Search this

Century Association (New York, N.Y.)  Search this

City University of New York -- Faculty  Search this

Whitney Museum of American Art  Search this

Brown, Blanche  Search this

Lawrence, Jacob, 1917-2000  Search this

Lozowick, Louis, 1892-1973  Search this

Lynes, Russell, 1910-1991  Search this

Meltzoff, Stanley  Search this

Panofsky, Erwin, 1892-1968  Search this

Prendergast, Charles, 1863-1948  Search this

Prendergast, Maurice Brazil, 1858-1924  Search this

Sachs, Paul J. (Paul Joseph), 1878-1965  Search this

Extent:

26 Linear feet

0.225 Gigabytes

Type:

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Gigabytes

Travel diaries

Articles

Interviews

Essays

Drafts (documents)

Transcripts

Photographs

Notebooks

Lectures

Scripts (documents)

Date:

1908-1998

Summary:

The papers of art historian and educator Milton Wolf Brown date from 1908 to 1998 and measure 26.0 linear feet and 0.225 GB. The collection documents Brown's career through scattered biographical material, correspondence with friends, publishers, colleagues, artists, museums, and art organizations, travel journals, files for the Prendergast Catalogue Raisonne Project, exhibition, research, teaching, and organization files, printed and digital material, and scattered photographs. A large portion of this collection consists of writings by Brown including notebooks, draft writings for books and other publications, lectures, and his writings as a student.

Scope and Content Note:

The papers of art historian and educator Milton Wolf Brown date from 1908 to 1998 and measure 25.8 linear feet and 0.225 GB. The collection documents Brown's career through scattered biographical material, correspondence with friends, publishers, colleagues, artists, museums, and art organizations, travel journals, files for the Prendergast Catalogue Raisonne Project, exhibition, research, teaching, and organization files, printed and digital material, and scattered photographs. A large portion of this collection consists of writings by Brown including notebooks, draft writings for books and other publications, lectures, and his writings as a student.

Biographical material includes academic records, travel documents, financial documents, Brown's military records, and a transcript of a 1997 interview. Correspondence is with students, museums, universities, publishers, art organizations, and others. The bulk of these letters document Brown's professional activities, but also found are scattered letters from friends, artists, and colleagues such as Russell Lynes, Stanley Meltzoff, Louis Lozowick, Erwin Panofsky, and Paul Sachs.

This collection also contains 33 detailed travel journals written primarily by Milton Brown's wife, Blanche, documenting their travels in Europe, the United States, and other parts of the world. Within the writings series are notebooks from the period that Brown was a student and while traveling in Europe in 1959 and 1960; book project files, which include draft writings as well as related correspondence, research material, notes, photographs and other material. Files are found for American Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Decorative Arts, Photography (1979), American Painting, From the Armory Show to the Depression (1955), The Story of the Armory Show (1963, 1988 2nd ed.), and other books. Among the writings are files for lectures written by Brown; essays, articles, and scripts written for various publications; general research notes and student writings; and writings by others sent to Brown for review and feedback.

Brown maintained a set of files documenting his work on the Prendergast Catalogue Raisonne Project, which consist of correspondence, drafts, reports, and research materials, including notes on twenty meetings with Mrs. Prendergast. Exhibition files document Brown's work as curator on several major exhibitions, including a Jacob Lawrence exhibition at the Whitney Museum, and his contributions to others. Also found here are three interviews of Milton Brown and Marcel Duchamp concerning the 50th Anniversary of the Armory Show and anniversary exhibition. Research files include notes, research material, and printed material on various art-related subjects that were maintained by Milton and Blanche Brown for regular use for lectures, teaching, and writing projects. Brown's teaching files contain scattered lecture notes, syllabi, correspondence, faculty records, and other materials from his time at CUNY, Brooklyn College, and other visiting professorships. Organization Files contain correspondence, reports, planning documents, and event materials. These records document his membership or advisory role in various organizations such as the Archives of American Art and Century Association.

This collection also contains printed material, such as exhibition announcements, newsletters, brochures, journals, event programs, and magazine and newspapers clippings compiled by Brown. Scattered photographs include nine photographs of Milton Brown, a few photographs of friends, and photographs of artwork.

Arrangement:

The collection is arranged as 11 series:

Missing Title

Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1932-1998 (Box 1; 0.3 linear feet)

Series 2: Correspondence, 1908, 1934-1998 (Boxes 1-3; 1.8 linear feet)

Series 3: Travel Journals, 1941-1996 (Boxes 3-4; 1.6 linear feet)

Series 4: Writings, circa 1929-1990s (Boxes 4-13, 25; 8.7 linear feet)

Series 5: Prendergast Catalogue Raisonne Project, circa 1952-1990 (Boxes 13-14, 25; 1.8 linear feet)

Series 6: Exhibition Files, 1962-circa 1997 (Boxes 14-16, 28; 2.0 linear feet, ER01; 0.225 GB)

Series 7: Research Files, circa 1930s-1986 (Boxes 16-19; 3.0 linear feet)

Series 8: Teaching Files, circa 1946-1993 (Boxes 19-21; 2.0 linear feet)

Series 9: Organization Files, 1959-1995 (Boxes 21-22; 1.3 linear feet)

Series 10: Printed Material, 1925-1990s (Boxes 22-24, 26, 27; 3.2 linear feet)

Series 11: Photographs, circa 1956-1990s (Boxes 25, 27; 0.2 linear feet)

Biographical Note:

Milton Wolf Brown (1911-1998) was an art historian and educator in New York City.

Known to his friends as "Mainey," Brown was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1911. At a young age he intended to be a painter and studied with Louis Lozowick. However, instead of attending art school, he entered New York University to study education and eventually received his master's and doctorate in art history from the Institute of Fine Arts. While there he took courses with Walter Friedlander, Erwin Panofsky, and Mayer Schapiro. He also received fellowships to the Courtauld Institute of Art in 1934 and Brussels in 1937, and studied from 1938-1939 at the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University. In 1938 he married fellow student Blanche Levine. After serving in World War II, he began teaching in the art department at Brooklyn College in 1946. There he developed a specialization in American art history and his doctoral dissertation, American Painting from the Armory Show to the Depression, was published in 1955. In 1963 he participated in the fiftieth anniversary exhibition of the 1913 Armory Show. The publication of his book Story of the Armory Show coincided with this event.

In 1971 Brown established the graduate program in Art History at the City University of New York, which became preeminent in the areas of modern art and American art history. During the 1980s he remained a resident professor at CUNY, though he retired in 1979, and he held visiting professorships at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art. From 1983 to 1987 he had a senior fellowship at Williams College for the Prendergast Catalogue Raisonne Project.

Over the course of his career Brown curated exhibitions, including an exhibition on the works of Jacob Lawrence and The Modern Spirit: American Painting and Photography, 1908-1935, and wrote for numerous publications. He also served as an active member of several professional societies. Brown was close friends with art scholars and artists, such as Jack Levine, Moses and Raphael Soyer, Ad Reinhardt, and Paul Strand. In 1991 he returned to painting landscape watercolors, and had the opportunity to exhibit his work before his death in 1998.

Related Material:

Also at the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Milton Wolf Brown, conducted in 1976 by Paul Cummings.

Provenance:

The Milton Wolf Brown papers were donated in 2000 and 2001 by Blanche R. Brown, Brown's widow. Three reel-to reel sound recordings were lent for duplication to cassette and transcript in 1986 by Milton Brown. A cassette copy of the Martha Deane interview was donated in 2006 by Milton Brown's estate, via Naomi Rosenblum. Additional material was donated in 2002 and 2004 by Naomi Rosenblum, executor for the estate of Blanche R. Brown, who died in 2002.

Restrictions:

Use of original papers 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:

Art museum curators -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this

Educators -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this

Art historians -- New York (State) -- New York  Search this

Topic:

Art, American History Sources  Search this

Genre/Form:

Travel diaries

Articles

Interviews

Essays

Drafts (documents)

Transcripts

Photographs

Notebooks

Lectures

Scripts (documents)

Citation:

Milton Wolf Brown papers, 1908-1998. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Sponsor:

Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.

Identifier:

AAA.browmilt

See more items in:

Milton Wolf Brown papers

Archival Repository:

Archives of American Art

GUID:

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9c2f1a099-bc53-4b03-a5fd-61e0feca9db8

EDAN-URL:

ead_collection:sova-aaa-browmilt