The collection contains approximately 2,500 costume designs in colored pencil and pastels, on tissue paper mounted on mat boards. The designs were created for entertainers such as Liberace, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Dionne Warwick, the Fifth Dimension, Nancy Sinatra, and others. Some were created for the television show Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In.
Scope and Contents:
This collection consists of the sketches and finished renderings of costumes created over approximately thirty years by Michael Travis. Many are signed by the artist; most are not, which may indicate that Travis collected renderings done by other designers to save them from destruction. They are done in a variety of media and many pencil "roughs" are present as well as the finished art presented to clients. The earlier works are relatively small in size and are believed to have been created in the late 1950s and 1960s for New York costume houses and theatrical productions. The larger format works are primarily designs for the musical performers and television productions that comprised Travis's clients in Los Angeles in the 1970s and 1980s.
During his career his style of illustration evolved and he may also have used several different styles to suit the subject. It is likely that he used assistants for some of the drawings, especially for large productions. In any case, the liveliness of the drawings, the brilliance of their color, the sheer panache they posess is the essence of the drama and excitement that is the lifeblood of the entertainment industry. Many of the illustrations have one (or many) fabric swatches attached to them; a group of large fabric samples is included as well.
Other materials include ephemera, a few publications, and photographs. There is also a small group of artworks by other artists, particularly Waldo Angelo, a long-time friend and colleague.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into five series.
Series 1: Costume Designs for Individual Performers and Performing Groups, 1961-1986, undated
Series 2: Costume Designs for Theatrical and Television Productions, 1958-1978, undated
Series 3: Ephemera, Publications, and Photographs, 1977-1985, undated
Series 4: Fabric Samples, undated
Series 5: Artworks by Others, 1947-1968, undated
Biographical / Historical:
Costume designer Michael Travis was born Louis Torakis to a Detroit Greek-American family in 1928. While serving in the postwar United States Army he was stationed in Paris. Upon his discharge in1949 he remained in the city to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and the Sorbonne on the GI Bill. Also studying haute couture, he met the designers Jacques Fath and Pierre Balmain and occasionally provided sketches for their collections.
Travis left Paris to seek work in New York and was hired at Eaves Costume Company. The company had been founded in 1863 and was the premier costumer for Broadway productions. He was hired as a secretary (his army employment) but became an assistant to the designers. With the owner's encouragement, he passed the exam for the costumers union and became a member of the Designers Guild. This made him eligible to design for Broadway shows and union films.
Travis became an assistant at Brooks Costume Company where he worked with famous Broadway and Hollywood designers such as Raul Pene du Bois and Irene Sharaff. This would lead to his designing the costumes for Ionesco's play Rhinosceros, starring Zero Mostel. The director of the play then hired Travis for a series of Public Television theater productions. Following these, he became the designer for two television programs featuring operatic and theatrical stars, The Voice of Firestone and The Bell Telephone Hour.
Beginning in 1958, Travis worked on the Motion Picture Acadmey of Arts and Sciences (MPAAS) Academy Awards, the Oscars, for eight years as assistant to well-known costume designer Edith Head. She persuaded him to move from New York to Los Angeles in the mid 1960s and he was hired to design for The Steve Lawrence Show, produced by George Schlatter. Travis and Schlatter became close friends and when Schlatter produced the ground-breaking comedy-variety show Laugh-In, Travis was hired as costume designer. The show ran for six seasons, 1968-1973, and required as many as 300 costumes per episode for a large cast, numerous guest stars, and the corps of dancers. He was nominated for an Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (ATAS) award, the Emmy, and more importantly, met and worked with a great many of the musical, film, and theatrical stars of the time. When the show ended in 1973 he was himself a star in his field.
Travis was now able to concentrate on his clientele of musical performers and groups. These included The Supremes, The Temptations, The 5th Dimension, Tony Orlando and Dawn, and solo artists Dionne Warwick, Connie Stevens, Nancy Sinatra, John Denver, Wayne Newton and many others. He also acquired his most extravagant client, Liberace, when the flamboyant pianist's designer retired in 1973.
Frank Ortiz had designed an elaborately beaded and decorated jacket for Liberace as early as 1959 and, with other designers, continued to design elaborate costumes for him throughout the 1960s and early 1970s. Following this tradition, Travis was encouraged by Liberace to create the most fabulous, beautiful, and exquisitely crafted suits, vests, boots, and capes possible. The costumes were made using the finest fabrics, embroideries, crystals, sequins, feathers and furs—even lights! Anna Nateece, Liberace's longtime furrier, continued to supply his furs. One of these ensembles was valued at $300,000 dollars and they could weigh over 100 pounds. They were objects of awe for his audiences and made a spectacular appearance with the pianos and automobiles in his stage show. One of Liberace's favorite sayings was "Too much of a good thing is wonderful!" Travis was able to demonstrate how right he was and continued as his designer and friend until the pianist died in 1987.
When Travis was in his forties he had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The disease gradually disabled him to the point that walking was extremely difficult and eventually he became wheelchair-bound. After Liberace's death, he retired from his work but continued an active social life and traveled with his care-givers both within the United States and to European countries. In 2010 he received The Career Achievement in Television Award at the 12th Annual Costume Designers Guild Awards in Beverly Hills. His friends, George Schlatter and Nancy Sinatra, were with him at the ceremony. He died on May 1, 2014 at the age of 86.
Source
Liberace Extravaganza! by Connie Furr Soloman and Jan Jewett, HarperCollins 2013
Provenance:
Donated to the Archives Center in 2015 by George Lavdas.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
The contents of the collection date from 1897 to 1936. The bulk of the collection consists of loose-leaf binders of photo prints of forty-one Cass Gilbert buildings under construction between 1908 and 1936. (This represents less than half of his firm's total output.) The volumes are arranged alphabetically by name of building. A few additional photo prints of buildings under construction are found in the unbound materials.
The collection also includes correspondence (1919-1932), contracts, statistical data, news clippings, booklets, and other miscellaneous Gilbert papers. There are three volumes of correspondence, specifications and blueprints, 1932-1935, for the construction of the U.S. Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C. Also included are twenty pencil and pastel sketch books of Gilbert's travels in Europe, 1897 to 1932, and miscellaneous loose sketches (including photo prints and negatives of his studies for the George Washington Bridge. The photographic prints are mostly mounted on cloth in loose-leaf binders. Some of the photographers are identified, although many are not. Photographers included P.O. Valentine of 33 Homestead Park, Newark, New Jersey.
Arrangement:
Collection arranged into six series.
Series 1: Correspondence, 1919-1932
Series 2: Personal Papers, 1914-1963
Series 3: New York Life Insurance Building Contracts, 1934-1935
Series 4: Woolworth Building, 1911-1913
Series 5: Sketches and Sketch Books, 1897-1932
Series 6: Photoprints, 1908-1936
Biographical / Historical:
Cass Gilbert, 1859-1934, was a prominent American architect best known for his commercial and public buildings.
Gilbert was born in Zanesville, Ohio and educated in St. Paul, Minnesota. After only a year of study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and subsequent travels in Europe, he began working for the New York firm of McKim, Mead, and White in 1880.
In 1883 he returned to St. Paul where he practised briefly with James Knox Taylor, a classmate at M.I.T., designing private homes, churches, and commercial buildings. His first major commission was the Minnesota State Capitol (1895), which he modeled after the National Capitol and the dome of St. Peter's, Rome.
Gilbert returned to New York in 1899 when he won the prized commission for the design of the U.S. Customs House. This was followed by many other major projects. The most famous of these was the Woolworth Building in New York (1913); with its fifty‑five stories and Gothic ornament it is considered Gilbert's greatest achievement.
Firmly supportive of the European tradition and eastern academic architecture, Gilbert continued his numerous and successful designs until his death in 1934. Among his many familiar public buildings are the Treasury Annex and the Supreme Court in Washington, DC, the state capitol buildings of West Virginia and Arkansas, and the public libraries of St. Louis and Detroit.
Related Materials:
Materials at Other Organizations
Library of Congress
Cass Gilbert Archive, 1890-1939
Montana Historical Society
Cass Gilbert Papers, 1902-1910
Oberlin College Archives
Cass Gilbert Collection, 1903-1984, 2000
University of Minnesota, Archives and Special Collections
Cass Gilbert Collection, 1909-1910
United States Supreme Court, Office of the Curator
Provenance:
Gift of Emily Gilbert and Cass Gilbert, Jr. through Mr. Silvio Bedini, November 30, 1961, January 15, 1962, and later in 1962.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
The papers document the career of Roland C. Hawes (1908-) who worked in the field of immunnassay, spectrophotometry, scientific apparatus and instruments industry, and administrative duties at Applied Physics Corporation/Cary Instruments. The papers include correspondence, handwritten notes and sketches, memorandum reports, catalogs, printed material, patent documents, drawings, blueprints (original and diazo copies), and photographs.
Scope and Contents:
Correspondence, handwritten notes and sketches, memorandum reports, catalogs, printed material, patent documents, drawings, blueprints (original and diazo copies), and photographs document Hawes's work in the field of immunnassay, spectrophotometry, scientific apparatus and instruments industry, and administrative duties at Applied Physics Corporation/Cary Instruments.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into seven series.
Series 1, Personal files, 1938-1997
Series 2, Research files, A-Z, 1913 (1927-1990)
Series 3, Piness Laboratories, 1920-1979
Series 4, Beckman Instruments, Inc., 1939-1974
Series 5, Cary Instruments, 1937-1992
Series 6, Consulting work, 1908-(1939-1992)
Series 7, Professional activities, 1949-1996
Biographical/Historical note:
The career of Roland C. Hawes, born Oct. 4, 1908, Riverside, California, began in chemical analysis and led him into the scientific apparatus and instruments industry, where he worked in the field of spectrophotometry. B.S., chemistry, California Institute of Technology, 1930. He died in 1999.
Related Archival Materials:
Materials at Other Organizations
Office Of History, National Institutes of Health
Images of Applied Physics Corp. Vibrating Reed Electrometer, Model 31 (89.0001.206); Applied Physics Corp. Cary Vibrating Reed Electrometer, Model 31-V (89.0001.208); and Applied Physics Corp. Cary Recording UV-Vis Spectrophotometer, Model 14 (90.0010.001).
California Institute of Technology Archives
Arnold Orville Beckman: oral history, 1978
Papers of Arnold O. Beckman, 1919-1989
Provenance:
This collection was donated by Roland C. Hawes on September 9, 1997.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
This series consists of drawings, primarily black ink on paper, but some feature colored pencil work as well. Subjects include the political commentary and satire for which Mohasses is best known, animals and street scenes, and drawings inspired by Bijan Mofid's play Shahr-e-Ghesseh. Drawings also range from more complete, complex works to sparser and perhaps incomplete pieces.
Arrangement:
Organized into eight subseries, based on the names of each collection of drawings:
Subseries 1: Animals
Subseries 2: One Party System
Subseries 3: Post-Revolution
Subseries 4: Pre-Revolution Cabaret
Subseries 5: Road
Subseries 6: Shahr-e-Ghesseh
Subseries 7: Street
Subseries 8: Various
Collection Restrictions:
The collection is open for research use.
Collection Citation:
Ardeshir Mohasses Drawings, FSA A2019.01. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of Farzad and Neda Rastegar.
Researchers interested in accessing audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more information.
Collection Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Collection Citation:
Betty Parsons Gallery records and personal papers, 1916-1991. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art and The Walton Family Foundation.
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Collection Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Collection Citation:
Elizabeth McCausland papers, 1838-1995, bulk 1920-1960. 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
Many of SIA's holdings are located off-site, and advance notice is recommended to consult a collection. Please email the SIA Reference Team at osiaref@si.edu.
