The records of the Catherine Viviano Gallery measure 11.6 linear feet and date from 1930-1990, with the bulk of the materials dating from 1949-1978. Established in New York City in 1949, the gallery specialized in contemporary painting and sculpture primarily by American and European artists. The collection consists of artists' files; correspondence with artists, collectors, dealers, museum directors, curators, and publishers; business records; printed material; and photographs of artwork and artists. Also included are records relating to Catherine Viviano's activities as a private dealer and consultant after she closed the gallery in 1970.
Scope and Contents note:
The records of the Catherine Viviano Gallery measure 11.6 linear feet and date from 1930-1990, with the bulk of the materials dating from 1949-1978. Established in New York City in 1949, the gallery specialized in contemporary painting and sculpture primarily by American and European artists. The collection consists of artists' files; correspondence with artists, collectors, dealers, museum directors, curators, and publishers; business records; printed material; and photographs of artwork and artists. Also included are records relating to Catherine Viviano's activities as a private dealer and consultant after she closed the gallery in 1970.
Artists' files include biographical material; artists' statements; correspondence; sales and expense reports; lists and notes; guest lists; writings by others; receipts, invoices, and statements; printed material, including press releases, exhibition announcements, brochures, catalogues, clippings; and photographs of artwork and artists. Included are extensive files on Afro Basaldella, Renato Birolli, Robert Broderson, Anselmo Franesconi, Joseph Glasco, Manabu Mabe, César Manrique, Luciano Minguzzi, Ennio Morlotti, Bernard Perlin, Daniel Rice, and Bernard Rosenthal. There are also files on Jan Cox, Kay Sage, and Kazuo Wakabayashi.
Correspondence comprises the largest series in the collection and consists of general correspondence; correspondence with museums, galleries, and art-related institutions in the United States; and correspondence with museums, galleries, and art-related institutions abroad. Letters focus on routine business matters, e.g., appraisals and sales, acquisitions, and organizing exhibitions at the Catherine Viviano Gallery and other venues.
General correspondence includes letters between Catherine Viviano and artists and their family members. Among the correspondents are: Mary Callery, Bernard Chaet, Piero and Virginia Dorazio, Jean Dubuffet, Dallas Ernst, Karl Fortress, Alberto Giacometti, Henry Sage Goodwin, Morris Graves, José Guerrero, Earle Ludgin, Joan Miro, Alfonso Ossorio, Dorothea Tanning, Stuyvesant Van Veen, Adja Yunkers and his wife, Dore Ashton, among others. Also found is Viviano's correspondence with clients, many of whom were prominent collectors, e.g., Richard Brown Baker, Carl and Joan Fisher, Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman, Joseph Hirschhorn, Marc Moyens, Vincent Price, Joseph Pulitzer, Jr., Nelson Rockefeller, Stanley Seeger, and Frederick and Dorothy Zimmerman. Of interest, are letters from Elizabeth Bishop inquiring about the purchase of a work of art from the gallery. Included are letters from art historians, museum directors, curators, representatives at other art-related institutions, and publishers including Walter Bareiss, Walter Barker, Dominque De Menil, Valentine Dudensing, William Eisendrath, S. Lane Faison, Emily Genauer, Bertram Goodhue, Erhard and Barbara Göpel, James Laughlin, Porter McCray, Abram Lerner, Doris Meltzer, Stephen Robson Miller, John Bernard Myers, Perry Rathbone, Belle Krasne Ribicoff, Meyer Shapiro, George Stout, and Curt Valentin.
Correspondence with museums, galleries, and art-related institutions in the United States contains letters between Viviano and museum directors, curators, dealers, artists, and collectors pertaining to loans, shipping and delivery of artwork, appraisals and sales, and acquisitions. Files include substantive correspondence with the American Academy of Arts and Letters, American Federation of the Arts, Art Institute of Chicago, Arts Club of Chicago, the Barnes Foundation, Bristol Art Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Bundy Art Gallery, Carnegie Institute, City Art Museum of St. Louis, Cleveland Museum of Art, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Denver Art Museum, Des Moines Art Center, Detroit Institute of Arts, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles County Art Museum, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts of Houston, Museum of Modern Art, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia Art Alliance, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, University of Nebraska Art Galleries, University of Virginia, Mary Washington College, Wadsworth Atheneum, Walker Art Center, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Atkins Museum of the Fine Arts, World House Gallery, and Yale University Art Library.
Correspondence with museums, galleries, and art-related institutions abroad primarily concerns the lending of artwork for exhibitions, acquisition and sales; also included are letters requesting biographical information on artists. Letters between Catherine Viviano and representatives of Max Beckmann Gesellschaft Archiv and Galerie Gunther Franke contain provenance-related information on Beckmann's work.
Business records document the routine business operations of the gallery. Printed material includes an incomplete run of Catherine Viviano Gallery exhibition catalogues; invitations and announcements from other galleries and institutions; and miscellaneous printed material.
Photographs include three images of miscellaneous artwork used for art reference.
Arrangement note:
Records are generally arranged by material type and in chronological order thereafter. Artists' files and correspondence files are arranged in alphabetical order and materials within the folders are arranged chronologically
The collection is arranged as 5 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Artists' Files, 1945-1986 (Boxes 1-3; 3.5 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1939-1985 (Boxes 3-6; 5.5 linear feet)
Series 3: Business Records, 1949-1972 (Boxes 10-11; 1.0 linear feet)
Series 4: Printed Material, 1930-1990 (Boxes 11-13; 1.6 linear feet)
Series 5: Photographs (1948-1954), undated (Box 14; 1 folder)
Biographical/Historical note:
Catherine Viviano (1889-1992) opened her gallery in 1949 on 42 East 57th Street in New York City. Specializing in contemporary American paintings and sculpture, the gallery featured younger American and European artists, e.g., Robert Broderson, Carlyle Brown, Jan Cox, Joseph Glasco, Peter Lanyon, Manabu Mabe, César Manrique, Bernard Perlin, Joseph Rollo, Bernard Rosenthal, and Kay Sage, among others. The gallery was also notable for introducing the work of Italian artists, who had been cut off from the American art scene during World War II, including Afro Basaldella and his brother Mirko Basaldella, Renato Birolli, Leonardo Cremonini, and Luciano Minguzzi.
Born in Italy in 1899 and raised in Chicago, Catherine Viviano came to New York in the early 1930's to work at the Pierre Matisse Gallery, where she remained for sixteen years before founding the Catherine Viviano Gallery.
In 1970, Catherine Viviano closed the gallery, though she continued to work from her home as an art dealer and consultant. She died of a stroke at the age of ninety-two in 1992.
Related Archival Materials note:
Among the other resources relating to Catherine Viviano Gallery in the Archives of American Art are the Kay Sage papers, 1925-circa 1985, bulk 1950-1965.
Provenance:
The Catherine Viviano Gallery records were donated in 2003 on behalf of Margaret Viviano, Catherine Viviano's sister, by her grandnephew, Peter C. Salerno, who had Power of Attorney for Margaret Viviano.
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.
13 Items (photographic prints, b&w, 34 x 26 cm. and smaller)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
[1927-1950]
Scope and Contents:
REEL 1817-1818 AND SCANNED: One is of Berkowitz's teacher, George Luks, in his studio, 1927 (frame 784). Two were taken at an American Federation of Arts convention, ca. 1950, including one of Berkowitz's husband, Sidney, with Burton Cumming (fr. 1288-89), and one of Eloise Spaeth, Vincent Price, Francis Henry Taylor, and an unidentified man (fr. 1313-1314). Four are of groups of artists at Woodstock, ca. 1949, including one of Herman Cherry (misidentified as Cheney on the microfilm), Ethel Magafan, Charles Rosen, and Sidney Berkowitz all in costume (fr. 1319-1320) [same image in Konrad and Florence Cramer papers, reel 1203, fr. 988-989], one of Konrad Cramer playing a guitar with two other unidentified men (fr. 1280), one of the Berkowitzs, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Ralph Wickiser (identified as Wictheissen on microfilm), Fletcher Martin, James Turnbull, Warren Brandt, Sara Kuniyoshi, and Amy Small (fr. 1327-1328). Three photographs of Kuniyoshi taken by Adrian Siegel, ca. 1950 (fr. 710-14) and one of him with his first wife, Katherine Schmidt, taken by Stowall Studios, ca. 1940 (fr. 1304-1305) are also included. Three photos are oversize: one of Eugene Speicher at a party in Woodstock, ca. 1950 (fr. 1131-1133), one of John and Zella Pike in costume (fr. 1000-1002), and one of John Pike, Carl Walters, Bill Moore, and Carl Hubbell in Woodstock, ca. 1949 (fr. 38-39). All photos were previously microfilmed under Photos of Artists II, and have subsequently been scanned and returned to the Berkowitz photo collection.
Biographical / Historical:
Berkowitz was a painter and an art consultant; New York, N.Y. Member of Woodstock Artists Association.
Provenance:
Donated 1976 and 1979 by Rosalie Berkowitz. Microfilmed in 1980 as part of AAA's Photographs of Artists-Collection II and scanned in 2003.
Occupation:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Collectors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The Molly Saltman "Art and Artists" interviews measure 2.4 linear feet and contain 62 sound recording interviews and lectures with art collectors, teachers, actors, and artists. The interviews were conducted by Molly Saltman from 1966-1967 as part of the "Art and Artists" radio series broadcast on the KPAL radio station in Palm Springs, California. Additional recordings of KPAL content and nonbroadcast content were discovered upon digitization, including a Los Angeles Art Association anniversary event and a Charles White slide lecture.
Scope and Contents:
The Molly Saltman "Art and Artists" interviews measure 2.4 linear feet and contain 62 sound recording interviews and lectures with art collectors, teachers, actors, and artists. The interviews were conducted by Molly Saltman from 1966-1967 as part of the "Art and Artists" radio series broadcast on the KPAL radio station in Palm Springs, California. Additional recordings of KPAL content and nonbroadcast content were discovered upon digitization, including a Los Angeles Art Association anniversary event and a Charles White slide lecture.
Arrangement:
Due to the small size of this collection the sound recordings are arranged as one series.
Series 1: Interviews and other recordings, circa 1963-1968 (Box 1-3, 2.4 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
The Molly Saltman "Art and Artists" radio program was broadcast on KPAL radio station in Palm Springs, California from November 2, 1966 to March 4, 1967 on Mondays and Wednesdays at 10:30AM. Molly Saltman (1915-2010), the producer and interviewer for this broadcast, was a well-known Palm Springs artist during this time. Specializing in abstract watercolors, her work was featured in a number of local art shows as well as exhibited in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Palm Springs Desert Museum, and the Hartfield Gallery in Los Angeles. She was also closely involved with the Desert Mental Health Association and served as Chairwoman of the Jewish Family Service in Palm Springs, California.
Provenance:
The collection was donated by Molly Saltman in 1986.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center.
Rights:
Researchers must obtain copyright clearance from interviewees prior to publication or airing.
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.
2.2 Linear feet ((partially microfilmed on 1 reel))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Sketchbooks
Date:
1904-1975
Scope and Contents:
Correspondence, sketchbooks, photographs, a scrapbook, and printed material.
REEL 1255: A 27 page scrapbook, ca.1930-1969, containing letters and clippings.
UNMICROFILMED: Correspondence, 1923-1975, with Erwin S. Barrie, Pietro Pezzati, Vincent L. Price, Thomas Messer, Dorothy Miller, T. Gilbert Brouillette, and others; 27 sketchbooks; 26 sketches; 1 photograph album and ca. 80 photographs of Gibbs, his family and friends, including William Littlefield and the Provincetown Art Association; exhibition announcements, catalogs, press releases, and clippings, ca. 1929-1964.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter; Boston, Massachusetts.
Provenance:
Material on reel 1255 lent for microfilming 1975 by Margaret Gibbs, wife of Howard. Unmicrofilmed material was donated by Margaret Gibbs, 1975, and by their daughter, Katherine Gibbs Tubman La Fleur, 1976-1978.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm. Contact Reference Services for more information.
An interview of Vincent Price conducted 1992 Aug. 6-14, by Paul Karlstrom, for the Archives of American Art, in Los Angeles, Calif.
Price discusses his family and background; his college years in London and his theater work; his early career on the stage and in movies; the art world in Hollywood of the 1940s and 1950s; the relationship of Hollywood to the art world; the regional character of Los Angeles art; the influence and role of Billy Wilder, Edward G. Robinson, Charles Laughton, and others; his involvement with the Little Gallery, UCLA, the Modern Art Institute, and the Archives of American Art; and his role as a patron and collector.
Biographical / Historical:
Vincent Price (1911-1993) was an actor and art collector and patron from Los Angeles, Calif.
General:
Originally recorded on 4 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 7 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hr., 4 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.
Topic:
Art -- Collectors and collecting -- California -- Interviews Search this
An interview of Clinton Adams conducted 1995 August 2-3, by Paul Karlstrom, for the Archives of American Art, at his home, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Adams discusses his family background; involvement in Hollywood "industry"; teaching at University of California, Los Angeles; service during WWII; first contact with New York's Museum of Modern Art; his decision to return to California; teaching painting at UCLA from 1946-1954, and friends and colleagues at that time including Lorser Feitelson, Stanton Macdonald-Wright, Lynton R. Kistler and Annita Delano; the difficult political situation at UCLA and the "modernist" conflicts; his views on modernist and conservative groups; Stanton Macdonald-Wright; Adams' own work; his relationship to the ideas and nature of modernism; the Sanity in Art group and other art groups in Los Angeles; his opinion on which artists should have been included in the exhibition/catalogue "Turning the Tide: Early Los Angeles Modernists"; his observations on art historical constructs; the history of New Mexican art; the idea of regionalism; the mythology of Santa Fe, New Mexico.; Southwestern art; the Tamarind Lithography Workshop during its New Mexico phase, its background and changes after the move from Los Angeles to the University of New Mexico, his fifteen years as director, major artists involved, and his desire to publish overlooked artists. Adams recalls Fritz Scholder, John Altoon, Leonard Edmondson, Ynez Johnston, Vincent Price, Jules Langsner, and Rico Lebrun.
Biographical / Historical:
Clinton Adams (1918-2002) was a printmaker, painter, and art administrator of Los Angeles, California and Albuquerque, New Mexico.
General:
Originally recorded on 4 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 16 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hrs., 28 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. Funding for the transcription provided by the Pasadena Art Alliance.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Occupation:
Arts administrators -- New Mexico -- Albuquerque -- Interviews Search this
An interview of Fritz Scholder conducted 1995 March 3-30, by Paul Karlstrom, for the Archives of American Art.
Scholder discusses his family background and growing up in parallel worlds of Anglo and Indian cultures and the frustration of western versus tribal life; his education in Lawrence, Kan. and the University of Wisconsin; moving to California; his father's job as head of Indian relocation; studying at the Indian art program at the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, and the Indian Art Institute in Santa Fe, N.M.; his views on Indians in general and the difficulty of operating in the mainstream art world; his travels and search for adventure in Europe and Egypt; the importance of magic and the occult in his work; myths as a basis for human experience; art as an agent of social change; objections of Indian groups to his work; and his experience as an Indian role model while not part of the movement. He recalls Robert B. Green, Wayne Thiebaud, Ralph Lauren, Vincent Price, Georgia O'Keeffe, Charles Loloma, Agnes Martin, Elaine Horowitch, and Leonard Baskin.
Biographical / Historical:
Fritz Scholder (1937-2005) was a painter and sculptor from Scottsdale, Ariz.
General:
Originally recorded on 7 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 12 digital wav files. Duration is 6 hr., 11 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Topic:
Painters -- Arizona -- Scottsdale -- Interviews Search this
Sculptors -- Arizona -- Scottsdale -- Interviews Search this
Painters -- Southwest, New -- Interviews Search this
Sculptors -- Southwest, New -- Interviews Search this
Indians of North America -- Southwest, New -- Art 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 Vincent Price, 1992 Aug. 6-14. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Topic:
Art -- Collectors and collecting -- California -- Interviews Search this
KPAL (Radio station : Palm Springs, California) Search this
Type:
Sound Recording
Date:
1966-1967
Citation:
Vincent Price and Molly Saltman. Interviews with Vincent Price, 1966-1967. Molly Saltman "Art and Artists" interviews, 1966-1967. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Old and modern master drawings and watercolors from the personal collection of Vincent Price : on view at Aldis Browne Fine Arts in association with Sven Bruntjen / compiled by Claire Williams McLiam
Vincent Price collects drawings : catalogue of the exhibition held September, 1957 / introduction and catalogue notes by Mr. Price, foreword by Paul Mills
![view [Rosalie Berkowitz collection of photographs] digital asset: Finding aid](https://ids.si.edu/ids/deliveryService?max=170&id=https://sirismm.si.edu/siris/findingaid.gif "Finding aid")
