An interview of Alexander Brook conducted 1977 July 7-8, by Paul Cummings, for the Archives of American Art. Brook speaks of his childhood and family; his early interest in painting; studying at the Art Students League with Dmitri Romanowsky and Kenneth Hayes Miller; women at the Art Students League; his first wife, Peggy Bacon; his travels in Europe; the Penguin Club; the Whitney Studio Club; working as a "talent scout" for Juliana Reiser Force; sharing a studio with Alexander Calder and Reuben Nakian; art sales in the 1930s; women as subjects; his portraits of Katharine Hepburn; and his painting technique. He recalls William Murrell Fisher, Lloyd Goodrich, Edward Hopper, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Alexander Brook (1898-1980) was a painter from Sag Harbor, New York.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 4 digital wav files. Duration is 4 hr., 11 min.
Provenance:
These interviews are part of the Archives' Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and others.
Wanamaker Gallery of Modern Decorative Art Search this
Type:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Louis Bouché, 1963 March 13. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Topic:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews Search this
An interview of Louis Bouché conducted on 1963 March 13, by William E. Woolfenden, for the Archives of American Art.
Bouché speaks of the Penguin Club, including Walt Kuhn's leadership, artists' balls, banquets and sketch classes; European artists at the Penguin Club including Jules Pascin, Albert Gleizes, and others; his association with the Daniel Gallery; his "lace curtain period"; his art education; teaching; working at Wanamaker's and the Folsom Gallery; Walter Arensberg's parties; and his father, Henri's career as a designer. Bouché recalls Marcel Duchamp, Samuel Wood Gaylor, Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, John Quinn, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Louis Bouché (1896-1969) was a painter and teacher from New York, New York.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound tape reel. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav file. Duration is 2 hr., 2 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.
Topic:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York -- 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.
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Louis Bouché, 1959 August 7. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
An interview of Louis Bouché conducted on 1959 August 7, by John D. Morse, for the Archives of American Art.
Bouché speaks of his art education in France; painting trips to Brittany; studying at the Art Students League with Dimitri Romanovsky and Frank Vincent DuMond; the Armory Show, 1913; managing a gallery at Wanamaker's (the Wanamaker Gallery of Modern Decorative Art) in the 1920s; his technique and materials; teaching; the Penguin Club; his taste in books and music; and abstract expressionism.
Biographical / Historical:
Louis Bouché (1896-1969) was a painter and teacher in New York, New York.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound tape reel. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav file. Duration is 53 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives' Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and others.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
The papers of painter and muralist Louis Bouché measure 5.9 linear feet and date from 1880 to 2007. Found within the papers are biographical material; personal correspondence, including correspondence from the extended Bouché family; writings; financial records; printed material; four scrapbooks; artwork; and photographs of Bouché, his family and friends, and his work.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of painter and muralist Louis Bouché measure 5.9 linear feet and date from 1880 to 2007. Found within the papers are biographical material; personal correspondence, including correspondence from the extended Bouché family; writings; financial records; printed material; four scrapbooks; artwork; and photographs of Bouché, his family and friends, and his work.
Biographical material consists of family certificates and Bouché's curriculum vitae.
The bulk of the correspondence consists of letters from Bouché 's father to his mother, and of letters addressed to his daughter, Jane. These include letters Louis and Marian wrote to Jane, along with letters from her first husband, William Pène du Bois, during the early days of their courtship and marriage. The handful of letters directly addressed to Louis and Marian include correspondence from Peggy Bacon and Katherine Schmidt.
Writings include drafts of Bouché's autobiography, eight journals kept by Marian Bouché detailing their travels in the United States and abroad, four reminiscences of Bouché written by others, and a poem written by Peggy Bacon.
Personal business records consist of two ledger books, lists, and receipts documenting inventory and records of sales.
Printed material consists of clippings, exhibition announcements and catalogs, and periodicals related to Bouché's work. There are also three books from Bouché's personal library and exhibition announcements and catalogs from Walt Kuhn's Penguin Club and Wanamaker's Gallery.
Two scrapbooks include clippings, photographs, and printed material related to Bouché 's career. One scrapbook includes material related to the extended Bouché family, and one scrapbook consists of reproductions of works of art by modern French artists.
Photographic materials include ten photograph albums. Three are of Louis, Marian, and Jane, three are of Jane and her family, and four are of Louis' parents and sister's family. There are also loose prints and negatives of Bouché, his family and friends, and works of art.
Artwork consists of sketches and drawings by Louis, Jane, Henri, and Ernest Bouché. Additional sketches by Peggy Bacon, Alexander Brook, Jo Davidson, and Reginald Marsh are also included.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged as 8 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1880-1964 (2 folders, Box 1)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1880-2003 (1.2 linear feet; Boxes 1-2)
Series 3: Writings, 1933-1995 (.9 linear feet, Boxes 2-3)
Series 4: Personal Business Records, 1930-1974 (4 folders, Box 3)
Series 5: Printed Material, 1900-1997 (.5 linear feet; Boxes 3, 6)
Series 6: Scrapbooks, 1880-1969 (.8 linear feet; Boxes 3, 7-8)
Series 7: Photographic Materials, 1890-1994 (2.3 linear feet; Boxes 3-5, 9-10)
Series 8: Artwork, 1870-1965 (10 folders; Boxes 5, 10)
Biographical / Historical:
Louis Bouché (1896-1969) was a painter, muralist, and educator who lived and worked in New York City.
Bouché was born in New York City to Henri and Marie Bouché. His father was an interior designer who worked with Stanford White and for Tiffany, and his grandfather, Ernest Louis Bouché, was a Barbizon school painter. After his father's death in 1909, his mother moved the family to Paris where Bouché attended art school at La Grand Chaumère. When the family moved back to America in 1915, Bouché enrolled at the Art Students League where he met fellow student and lifelong friend Alexander Brook. In 1916, Bouché was invited to become a member of Walt Kuhn's Penguin Club, and in 1918, he joined the stable of Charlie Daniel's Daniel Gallery. At this time, Bouché began exhibiting in shows organized by Julianna Force for the Whitney Studio Club, which later evolved into the Whitney Museum. In 1920, he was introduced to the Woodstock artist community and was a frequent summer resident at the colony.
Bouché met Marian Wright while they were both members of the Penguin Club, and they were married in 1921. Upon returning from their honeymoon, Bouché accepted a position managing exhibitions for Wanamaker's Belmaison Galleries, the first modern art gallery in a department store in New York. Their daughter Jane would later marry William Pène du Bois, son of Guy Pène du Bois, whom the Bouchés had known from their days in the Penguin Club. In 1926, Bouché separated from Wanamaker's and began taking commissions for mural and design work, eventually completing murals for the U.S. Department of the Interior, Radio City Music Hall, and the Pennsylvania Railroad. In addition to murals, Bouché did illustrative advertising work for various publications, including Condé Nast and Town and Country.
In 1936, Bouché joined the stable at Kraushaar Gallery, where he eventually exhibited a series of ten one-man shows. Bouché also held solo exhibitons at the Valentine Gallery, Staten Island Institute, Century Association, and Albany Institute. Beginning in 1943, Bouché taught for many years at the Art Students League and began teaching at the National Academy of Design in 1951. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1936 and was the American Academy in Rome's artist in residence in 1960.
Louis Bouché died in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, on August 7, 1969.
Related Materials:
Also found in the Archives of American Art are two oral history interviews with Louis Bouché, one conducted by John Morse, August 7, 1959, and another by William Woolfenden on March 13, 1963.
Provenance:
A portion of the Louis Bouché papers were loaned for microfilming and subsequently donated by the artist and his wife in 1963 and from 1972 to 1973. Additions were donated by Bouché's daughter, Jane Bouché Strong, in several accretions dating from 1978 to 1988. In 2011, Anne Strong, Jane B. Strong's executor, donated additional materials to the Archives of American Art.
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:
Muralists -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Sketches
Scrapbooks
Travel diaries
Drawings
Citation:
Louis Bouché papers, 1880-2007. 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.
Penguin Club (New York, N.Y.). Exhibition of the Vorticists at the Penguin, 1917 January 10. Walt Kuhn Family papers and Armory Show records, 1859-1984. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Penguin Club (New York, N.Y.). Flyer for a stag party given by the Penguin Club honoring Horace Brodzky, not after 1923 Mar. 22. Penguin Club invitations, 1923 and 1926. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Alfred Joseph Frueh. Exhibition announcement for a show of contemporary art at the Penguin club, circa 1916. Louis Bouché papers, 1880-2007. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Invitation to a dinner given by the Penguin club for Charles D. Farrand, 1917. Louis Bouché papers, 1880-2007. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Robert Ament and Wood Gaylor in wedding attire for the Penguin Club's strawberry festival, 1918. Wood and Adelaide Lawson Gaylor papers, 1866-[circa 1986]. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Wood Gaylor and Robert Ament in wedding attire, performing the wedding ceremony for the Penguin Club's strawberry festival, 1918. Wood and Adelaide Lawson Gaylor papers, 1866-[circa 1986]. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Penguin Club (New York, N.Y.). Flyer for the Penguin Club's Strawberry Festival, 1918. Walt Kuhn Family papers and Armory Show records, 1859-1984. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Penguin Club (New York, N.Y.). Flyer for a stag party given by the Penguin Club honoring Horace Brodzky, not after 1923 Mar. 22. Louis Bouché papers, 1880-2007. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
