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.
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.
Correspondence in this series is primarily between Walt Kuhn and his professional and personal contacts and spans his entire career. Correspondents include family members, fellow artists, students, dealers, museum and gallery staff, collectors, friends, fans, critics and colleagues. Copies of outgoing correspondence are often present and are interfiled chronologically. Also included is scattered correspondence of Vera and Brenda Kuhn, and correspondence written after Kuhn died that documents his family's efforts to exhibit, sell, and donate his work.
The content of the correspondence ranges from personal and candid to purely transactional. Artists, collectors, dealers, and critics involved in the creation of significant works of art and collections in the early 20th century are represented. An alphabetical index of selected correspondents in this series is provided in the appendix. Another resource for accessing correspondence are the card files in Series 4.8: Notes and Writings, where correspondence with various contacts was indexed by the Kuhns and filed alphabetically by name.
In 1938, Walt and Vera Kuhn wrote and self-published the pamphlet, "The Story of the Armory Show" and sent it gratis to hundreds of interested parties. Among the correspondence from that year are many heartfelt reponses from fellow artists and other witnesses to the 1913 event, including Charles Sheeler, William Glackens, Stuart Davis, André Derain, Henri Roché, Walter Pach, and J.H. du Bois to name just a few.
Kuhn regularly instructed students through the mail with lengthy letters about painting techniques and methods. San Francisco painter Otis Oldfield is represented by over 100 lengthy letters in this subseries. Kuhn's letters to Oldfield, returned at Kuhn's request in 1945 for a publication project that was never realized, are interfiled. Other correspondence students include Patsy Santo, Frank di Gioia, Watson Bidwell, John Bernhardt, John Laurent, Goldie Paley, and Eric Lundgren. See the appendix for dates.
Types of material include letters (sometimes illustrated), postcards, invitations, announcements, and Christmas cards, which are sometimes made of original artwork. Enclosures are often found, such as photographs, clippings, tracings of art work, writings, receipts, passes and membership cards. Some letters indicate enclosures that were previously separated and can be found in other series.
Significant writings enclosed with correspondence include an early vaudeville script written by Kuhn and his friend, Archibald Macnab (1923); drafts of articles about Kuhn by the poet Genevieve Taggard (1931), critic Alan Burroughs (1930), and patron Eloise Spaeth (1950); and an unpublished history of the 1913 Armory Show by Paul Bird (1938). Photographs and photographic postcards are also found throughout the series. Included are photo postcards from Spain and France (1925), and from Arizona and California (1928); and photographs related to Kuhn's work for the Union Pacific Railroad Company (1936, 1938).
Additional correspondence can be found throughout the collection. See individual series descriptions for details.
See Appendix for a list of selected correspondents in Series 4.3.
Appendix: Selected Correspondents in Series 4.3:
The following is a selective list of correspondents represented in Series 4.3: General Correspondence, with cross-references to correspondence in 4.4: Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files and 4.5: Provenance Files. It is not comprehensive. An effort has been made to index regionally and nationally known artists, Kuhn's patrons and students, models, art historians, writers, museum and gallery staff, dealers, and persons known to be well-represented in other collections at the Archives of American Art. Cross-references to existing letters in other parts of the Kuhn papers and Armory Show records are included selectively. Correspondents who have not been indexed include family members, neighbors, business contacts from his theater and vaudeville work of the early 1920s, and from his railroad car design work from 1936 to 1948.
Barr, Alfred H. Jr. (Museum of Modern Art): 1929, 1934, 1945 (5 letters)
Barrie, Erwin S. (Grand Central Art Galleries): 1927, 1951 (5 letters; see also Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files)
Barrington, Lewis: 1932
Barry, Bobby (see Provenance Files, "Portrait of Bobby Barry")
Bartlett, Frederic Clay, Jr.: 1939-1940, 1942-1943, 1945, 1947 (7 letters; see also Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files)
Bartley, Louise: 1931
Baur, John I.H. (Brooklyn Museum): 1946 (see also Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files)
Beals, Ralph A. (New York Public Library): 1949
Bear, Donald (Santa Barbara Museum of Art): 1936-1938, 1945, 1948, 1949 (6 items including Christmas cards with original prints; see also Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files)
Beerbohm, Marvin (Detroit School of Art): 1938
Bell, Janet M. (John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art): 1952 (4 letters)
Belmont, Eleanor R.: 1935 Benjamin, Ruth: 1940
Bernays, Edward L. (see also Doris E. Fleischman): 1928, 1935-1937 (4 letters)
Bernhardt, John: 1948-1950 (4 letters; see also Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files, 1947)
Frankenstein, Alfred V. ( -- San Francisco Chronicle -- ): 1940 (2 letters)
Frankfurter, Alfred M.: 1938, 1945, 1947, 1948, 1950 (10 letters)
Fraser, Joseph T. (Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts): 1947, 1951 (3 letters; see also Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files)
Free, Karl R.: 1935
Freeman, Anna (Whitney Museum of American Art): 1938 (2 letters)
Frey, Erwin F.: 1943, 1945, 1947 (4 letters)
Frueh, Alfred: 1925, 1953 (2 letters)
Freund, Frank E.W.: 1932, 1934-1935, 1938 (7 letters)
Friede, Donald S. (Boni and Liveright Publishers): 1927
Frink, Angelika W.: 1941 (see also Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files)
Gallagher, Edward J.: 1952
Gallatin, Albert E.: 1927, 1928 (3 letters)
Gardner, Paul (William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art): 1936, 1938-1945, 1947-1950 (26 items including Christmas card with original print; see also Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files)
Gardner, Mrs. William (see Owen)
Garrett, Garet: 1928
Garrett, Alice (Mrs. John Work): 1938, 1939 (5 items, including Christmas card with original photograph)
Gates, Margaret (Studio House, Philips Memorial Gallery): 1935
Genauer, Emily (New York World Telegram): 1947
Gest, J.H. (Cincinnati Museum Association): 1928 (3 letters)
Gise, Margaret (Marie Harriman Gallery): 1938 (see also Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files and Provenance Files, "Girl in Shako" and "Guide")
Glackens, William and Edith: 1938
Glackens, Edith: 1938, 1941, 1943, 1949, 1950 (7 items, including outgoing letters of condolence when William Glackens died, and response from Edith with account of his last day)
Godwin, Black-More (Toledo Museum of Art): 1932 (2 letters)
Goodrich, Lloyd (Whitney Museum of American Art; see Provenance Files, "Man with Ship Model")
Goodyear, A. Conger: 1934, 1938, 1941, 1949 (5 letters; see also Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files, and Provenance Files, "Dryad" and "Man From Eden")
Goodyear, Mary (Mrs. A. Conger, also Mrs. John W. Ames): 1936-1942, 1947, 1949, 1954 (44 letters; see also Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files)
Grace Horne Galleries (see M.E. Brown, Littlefield; see also Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files)
Graham, John D.: 1937
Greason, Donald (Deerfield Academy): 1942 (discussing Harry Whitney)
Grossman, Ted (Edwin Booth): 1938, 1940, 1941, 1945, 1948, 1951, 1952 (13 letters; see also Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files)
Grumman, Paul H. (Joslyn Memorial Art Museum): 1943
Hagen, Oskar: 1938, 1939 (2 letters)
Hagerman, Percy (Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center): 1949
Hale, Dorothea: 1928
Hale, Robert B. (Metropolitan Museum of Art): 1950-1951 (2 letters)
Halpert, Edith (Downtown Gallery): 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930 (7 letters; New Year card 1928 printed with collage of Walt Kuhn)
Keppel, Frederick P. (Carnegie Corporation): 1938 (2 letters)
Kerr, George F. (Society of Illustrators): 1930 (2 letters)
Kimball, Fiske (The Pennsylvania Museum): 1928, 1939 (2 letters)
Kingman, Eugene (Joslyn Memorial Art Museum): 1951 (4 letters)
Kirsch, Dwight (University of Nebraska Department of Art): 1941, 1943-1944, 1946, 1950, 1953 (9 letters; see also Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files)
Kirstein, Lincoln (Museum of Modern Art): 1932
Kissel, Eleanora: 1928
Kistler, Aline ( -- San Francisco Chronicle -- , -- The San Franciscan -- , M.H. de Young Memorial Museum): 1929, 1930, 1932, 1933 (6 letters)
Klopfer, Donald S. (Random House, Inc.): 1940
Kohl, Dorothy (Philadelphia Art Alliance): 1945 (3 letters)
Komroff, Manuel: 1938
Kravis, Hal: 1936, 1941 (3 letters)
Kunstverein München E.V.: 1930
Kurtzworth, Harry Muir (Los Angeles Art Association, California Academy of the Fine Arts): 1938 (2 letters)
Lahr, Bert: 1948 (see also Provenance Files, "Portrait of Bert Lahr")
Labaudt, Lucien: 1929, 1933, 1936, 1937, 1938 (5 items including Christmas card; see also Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files)
Lamb, James E.: 1928, 1930, 1935, 1937 (4 letters)
Larcada, Dick: 1963
Laurent, John: 1947-1950, undated (12 letters; see also Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files)
Laurent, Mimi (Mrs. Robert): 1952
Laurent, Robert (Indiana University): 1923, 1949, 1953 (8 letters; see also Provenance Files, "Black Butterfly")
Lea, Lida Gorwin; 1935-1938, 1942 (8 letters, including Christmas card with original print; see also Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files)
Mencken, H.L.: 1945, 1946, 1947 (3 letters; see also Series 4.8: Notes and Writings)
Merrick, James Kirk (Philadelphia Art Alliance): 1945
Messer, Thomas M. (American Federation of Arts): 1952-1954 (5 letters)
Metcalf, Thomas N. (Boston Museum of Modern Art, Inc.): 1938, 1940 (2 letters)
Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1949, 1956 (5 letters; see also Hale, F.H. Taylor, Wehle)
Mellon, Minna (Mrs. Paul): 1946
Millay, Edna St. Vincent (typed copy): 1947 (see also Engen Boissevain in Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files)
Miller, Dorothy C. (Museum of Modern Art): 1943
Miller, Lulu F. (The Hackley Gallery of Fine Arts): 1928
Milliken, William M.: 1936 (2 letters)
Minnigerode, C. Powell (Corcoran Gallery of Art): 1928 (2 letters)
Montclair Art Museum: 1928, 1932 (2 letters)
Montgomery, Gertrude: 1928
More, Hermon (Whitney Museum of American Art): 1933, 1935, 1943, 1948-1950 (8 letters)
Morgan, Agnes: 1938
Morison, David (Hamilton Easter Field Art Foundation): 1930
Morley, Grace: 1936, 1937-1939, 1943 (11 letters; see also Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files)
Morse, John (see Provenance Files, "Man and Sea Beach")
Muguruza Otaño, Pedro: 1928
Museum of Art of Ogonquit: 1953 (see also Strater)
Museum of Modern Art (see Barr, Catlin, Haven, Hawkins, Kirstein, D. Miller, Pelles, A. Porter)
Nadelman, Viola M. (Mrs. Elie): 1947
Nankivell, Frank: 1934-1935 (Christmas cards with signed prints)
National Arts Club: 1932
Newhall, Beaumont (Museum of Modern Art): 1938
Nichols, Hobart (National Academy of Design): 1948
Nichols, J.C. (William Rockhill Nelson Trust): 1948
North, Henry Ringling (Ringling Brothers): 1941 (2 letters)
Norton Gallery and School of Art (see Hunter)
Norton, Ralph H. (Norton Gallery and School of Art): 1948
O'Connor, John Jr. (Carnegie Institute): 1943, 1945-1946, 1948 (8 letters)
Oldfield, Otis: 1928-1946, 1948-1949, 1951-1952, undated (111 letters; 1931, 1941, undated include Chritmas cards with print; see also Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files)
O'Neil, John (University of Oklahoma): 1946
Owen, Ronnie (Mrs. William Gardner): 1941-1942, 1944-1946, 1948-1949 (15 letters)
Owens, Virginia B.( -- Christian Science Monitor -- ): 1943 (2 letters)
Roullier, Alice F. (Arts Club of Chicago): 1925, 1927, 1933, 1941 (8 letters; see also Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files)
Rousseau, Théodore: 1935
Rumsey, Mary H. (Mrs. C.C.): 1930, 1934-1936, 1938, 1940, 1945, 1949, undated (11 items including Christmas card and receipts for paintings sold)
Ryan, Beatrice Judd (Beaux Arts Galerie): 1928, 1929 (4 letters)
Saint-Gaudens, Homer (Carnegie Institute): 1931, 1933, 1940, 1946-1949 (18 letters; see also Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files)
Saklatwalla, Ann: 1944-1945 (2 letters; see also Provenance Files, "Bareback Rider")
Saklatwalla, B.D.: 1928, 1930-1936, 1941 (2 letters, 7 Christmas cards containing prints, 1931 print signed Jean Crotti)
Salinger, Jehanne Bietry: 1928-1930, 1933, 1935, 1946-1948 (includes signed print by Harry Wickey; 17 letters)
Salons of America: 1923, 1924
Salpeter, Harry ( -- Esquire -- ): 1936-1938 (6 letters)
Sanborn, Robert Alden: 1945
Sands, Mary (Museum of Modern Art): 1930
Sanger, Helen: 1948-1950, 1953, 1963 (16 letters)
Sanger, Margaret (American Birth Control League, Inc.): 1928
Santa Barbara Museum of Art (see Bear, Steele, Story; see also Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files)
Santo, Patsy: 1937-1946, 1948-1949, 1953 (103 letters, some illustrated)
Sardi Gina, Anne (Marie Harriman Gallery): 1941-1942, 1947, 1949 (6 letters; see also Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files and Provenance Files, "Girl in Shako" and "Guide")
Schulte, Antoinette: 1932-1938 (8 items, including Christmas card with original print)
Seiberling, Frank Jr. (Toledo Museum of Art): 1943, 1946 (3 letters)
Seymour Halpern Associates: 1945
Shapiro, Meyer: 1938
Sharkey, Alice M. (Whitney Museum of American Art): 1944
Shaw, Marjorie: 1930 (Christmas card with woodblock print)
Sheeler, Charles: 1938 (See also Series 4.2: Walt Kuhn Letters to Family)
Shostac, Percy (Labor Division, Greater New York Fund): 1941
Shyrock, Burnett H.: 1938 (4 letters)
Siple, Walter H. (Cincinnati Art Museum): 1938, 1942, 1945 (4 letters)
Skeoch, Mary E.: 1934-1936, 1938 (8 letters)
Skira, Alfred: 1932 (5 letters; see also Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files, 1933)
Smith, Adele (Studio House, Philips Memorial Gallery, Museum of Modern Art Gallery of Washington): 1935, 1938, 1939 (5 letters; see also Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files)
Smith, Cecil: 1937-1938 (3 letters)
Smith, Gordon M. (Currier Gallery of Art): 1950
Smoluchowska, Donia (Arden Gallery, Marie Harriman Gallery): 1929, 1932 (3 letters; see also Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files)
Teigen, Peter (Princeton University School of Architecture): 1928, 1929 (2 letters)
Thayer, Ellen ( -- The Dial -- ): 1927, 1928 (2 letters)
Thompson, Mark B.: 1934, 1935, 1937 (3 letters; see also Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files)
Thorp, George G. (American Federation of Arts): 1947
Toledo Museum of Art (see Godwin, Rivière, Seiberling)
Toler, Sidney: 1941
Todd, Bianca: 1929, 1933, 1934 (3 items including Christmas cards with original prints)
Trovato, Joseph (Munson-Williams-Proctor-Institute): 1946, 1949 (2 letters)
Tucker, Allen: 1938
Turney, Winthrop: 1924
Tyson, Carroll: 1934
Underwood, Gilbert Stanley (architect): 1938, 1948 (5 letters)
Valentiner, Dr. W.R. (Detroit Institute of Arts): 1945
Valez, Dr. Xavier de: 1934
Venendi, Mario: 1949 (3 letters)
Vidar, Frede: 1936
Vreeland, Mr. and Mrs. Francis (Toby and Marion): 1934-1938 (6 letters)
Wadsworth, Alice (Mrs. James W.): 1940, 1941, 1942, 1945 (8 letters)
Waida, Robert: 1928
Waldron, James M. K. (Reading Public Museum and Art Gallery): 1936, 1937, 1961 (3 letters)
Walker, Maynard: 1946, 1948-1949, 1951-1952, 1955, 1961 (10 letters; see also Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files and Provenance Files, "Guide" and "Veteran Acrobat")
Ward, William: 1949
Washburn, Gordon B. (Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art): 1945
Watkins, C. Law (Studio House, Phillips Memorial Gallery): 1933 (2 letters)
Watson, John (for John Quinn): 1914, 1921 (2 letters), 1938
Whitney, Harry: 1942 (see also Greason and Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files)
Whitney Studio Galleries (see also Force): 1929
Whitney Museum of American Art (see Force, Free, More, Freeman, Sharkey, Goodrich)
Wilder, Mitchell A. (Colorado Springs): 1946-1953 (75 letters; see also Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files)
Wilenski, R.H.: 1938, 1939, 1945-1946 (8 letters)
Williams, Adele (Women's club of Richmond): 1930
Williamson, Ada (Philadelphia Art Alliance): 1927, 1928, 1945, 1949 (19 letters; see also Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files)
Wilmington Society of the Fine Arts (see Bissell)
Wilson, Henry J.: 1950
Winser, Beatrice: 1935, 1940 (7 letters)
Woelfle, Arthur M.: 1914 (see also Selected Gallery and Exhibition Files)
Woelfle, Georgiana: 1936, 1937, 1963 (3 letters)
Wood, Stanley: 1928
Zayas, Marius de: 1934, 1939, 1947, 1948 (10 letters)
Zügel, Heinrich von: 1904
Collection 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.
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:
Walt Kuhn Family papers and Armory Show records, 1859-1984. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Getty Foundation and the Terra Foundation for American Art.
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:
Calvert Coggeshall papers, 1920-1999, bulk 1965-1989. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art
Washburn, Gordon B. (Gordon Bailey), 1904-1983 Search this
Extent:
1.7 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Architectural drawings
Oral histories (document genres)
Notes
Transcripts
Essays
Blueprints
Photographs
Drafts (documents)
Poems
Date:
1920-1999
bulk 1965-1989
Summary:
The papers of Maine abstract painter and interior designer Calvert Coggeshall measure 1.7 linear feet and date from 1920-1999, with the bulk of the material dating from 1965-1989. They consist of scattered biographical material, personal and business related correspondence, writings, exhibition files, design business files, printed material, and photographs of Coggeshall, his friends, and his work.
Scope and Contents note:
The papers of Maine abstract painter and designer Calvert Coggeshall measure 1.7 linear feet and date from 1920-1999, with the bulk of the material dating from 1965-1989. They consist of biographical material, personal and business correspondence, personal writings, exhibition and business files, printed material, and photographs. The bulk of the material documents Coggeshall's professional work and his friendships with other artists.
Biographical material includes Coggeshall's personal address books and day planning notes, oral history transcripts, including an interview discussing his friendship with Walker Evans, a copy of his Guggenheim application and acceptance letters, and miscellaneous records.
Correspondence is predominantly in the form of cards, postcards, and short letters received from family and friends. These include correspondence from Coggeshall's father, children, his older grandchildren, and his mother-in-law, Frances Coralie Perkins. Other frequent correspondents include family friend Daphne Cox, artists Michael Lekakis, Loren McIver, Jack Tworkov, and museum director Gordon Washburn.
Personal writings consist of poetry notes and drafts and a short essay on church design.
Exhibition files concern Coggeshall's one man shows at the Betty Parsons Gallery during the 1970s and early 1980s, his retrospective at Bowdoin College in 1977, and his inclusion in shows at Artists Space, the Farnsworth Museum, and Jack Tilton Gallery.
Business files related to Coggeshall's interior design work consist of architectural renderings and blueprints, work proposals, invoices, and receipts. Some of the more significant projects include work done for Lisa de Kooning, Priscilla Morgan, Arthur Penn, and Shoji Sadao.
Printed material includes newspaper clippings, exhibition announcements from other artists, and a booklet showcasing abstract artists titled, "Artfully Taught."
Photographs are color and black and white prints of Coggeshall and his friends in his studio and outside his Newcastle, Maine residence. There are also black and white photographs of Coggeshall's early design work in furniture and fabric, as well as documentation of his gallery design work for the Albright Art Gallery.
Arrangement note:
The collection is arranged into 7 series:
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1960-1990 (Box 1, OV 3; 8 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1920-1993 (Box 1, OV 3; 28 folders)
Series 3: Writings, 1965-1989 (Box 1; 5 folders)
Series 4: Exhibition Files, 1970-1992 (Box 1, OV 3; 12 folders)
Series 5: Business Files, 1973-1989 (Boxes 1-2, OV 4-5; 27 folders)
Series 6: Printed Material, 1950-1999 (Box 2, OV 3; 6 folders)
Series 7: Photographs, 1940-1985 (Box 2; 6 folders)
Biographical/Historical note:
Calvert Coggeshall (1907-1990) worked as an abstract painter and interior designer primarily in Maine and New York City. From 1951 to 1978, he exhibited regularly with the Betty Parsons Gallery.
Born in Whitesboro, New York, Coggeshall started his career as an interior designer, working on commissions for clients in the New York City area. He later consulted on the interior designs for Henry Dreyfuss'line of cruise/cargo ships called American Export, popular from the 1940s through the 1960s. In the 1940s, he also worked with inventor Arthur Young to design interiors for the first full-sized scale of Bell helicopter models. By the 1950s, Coggeshall began splitting his time between painting and design work, though he continued to regularly consult and work on several architectural and interior design projects throughout the 1980s.
As a painter, his early monochromatic abstracts were influenced by his friend and abstract expressionist, Bradley Walker Tomlin. An early member of Betty Parson's stable of painters, Coggeshall was friends with other artists, including Jack Tworkov, Grace Hartigan, Katharine Kuh, Nora Sayre, Hedda Sterne, and Richard Tuttle. After summering and eventually moving to Newcastle, Maine in the 1960s, he began introducing color into his abstract paintings. and A major retrospective of his work was held at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art in Maine in 1977. In 1978, he received a Guggenheim fellowship in recognition of his work. Working out of his studios in Newcastle and Manhattan, Coggeshall continued producing abstract paintings into the late 1980s. Coggeshall died in 1990.
Provenance:
The papers of Calvert Coggeshall were donated in 2006 by his son Tomlin Coggeshall.
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.
103 Pan Festival Workshop- Common Roots, Raising Children / Anta Diop, Delta Dorsch.
Local Numbers:
FP-1990-CT-0279
Date/Time and Place of an Event Note:
Recorded in: Washington (D.C.), United States, June 29, 1990.
Restrictions:
Restrictions on access. Some duplication is allowed. Use of materials needs permission of the Smithsonian Institution.
Collection Rights:
Copyright and other restrictions may apply. Generally, materials created during a Festival are covered by a release signed by each participant permitting their use for personal and educational purposes; materials created as part of the fieldwork leading to a Festival may be more restricted. We permit and encourage such personal and educational use of those materials provided digitally here, without special permissions. Use of any materials for publication, commercial use, or distribution requires a license from the Archives. Licensing fees may apply in addition to any processing fees.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Cordell Hull, Henry Morgenthau, Francis Biddle, Mr. Walker, Harold L. Ickes, Claude R. Wickard, Jesse H. Jones, and Frances Perkins
Artist:
Clifford Kennedy Berryman, 2 Feb 1869 - 11 Dec 1949 Search this
Sitter:
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 30 Jan 1882 - 12 Apr 1945 Search this
Cordell Hull, 2 Oct 1871 - 23 Jul 1955 Search this
Henry Morgenthau, 26 Apr 1856 - 25 Nov 1946 Search this
