Interview of Peggy Bacon conducted 1973 May 8, by Paul Cummings, for the Archives of American Art, in Cape Porpoise, Maine. Bacon speaks of her family and educational background; summer art classes in Provincetown, Massachusetts and Woodstock, New York; the Art Students League; the Provincetown Players; working in black and white; her drawings, drypoints, etchings, and caricatures; her illustrated books including, "Off With Their Heards"; cats as subjects; and her husband Alexander Brook. She recalls George Bellows, Andrew Dasburg, Edith Gregor Halpert, Charles Webster Hawthorne, Jonas Lie, Kenneth Hayes Miller, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Peggy Bacon (1895-1987) was a printmaker from Cape Porpoise, Maine.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 3 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hr., 9 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:
Printmakers -- New York (State) -- Woodstock Search this
Illustrators -- New York (State) -- Woodstock Search this
Caricaturists -- New York (State) -- Woodstock Search this
Authors -- New York (State) -- Woodstock Search this
The papers of the painter, photographer, printmaker, and teacher Joseph Kaplan measure 4.8 linear feet and date from 1915-1977. The bulk of the collection consists of printed material, specifically exhibition catalogs. Also found are a large number of photographs taken of and by Kaplan. The papers also include biographical material, correspondence, personal business records, and artwork. There is a 0.3 linear foot unprocessed addition to this collection donated in 2021 that includes travel slides taken in Mexico and Provincetown, Massachusetts by Joseph Kaplan, circa 1940-1950, and a photograph of Kaplan by Arnold Newman, circa 1950.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of the painter, photographer, printmaker, and teacher Joseph Kaplan measure 4.8 linear feet and date from 1915-1977. The bulk of the collection consists of printed material, specifically exhibition catalogs. Also found are a large number of photographs taken of and by Kaplan. The papers also include biographical material, correspondence, personal business records, and artwork. There is a 0.3 linear foot unprocessed addition to this collection donated in 2021 that includes travel slides taken in Mexico and Provincetown, Massachusetts by Joseph Kaplan, circa 1940-1950, and a photograph of Kaplan by Arnold Newman, circa 1950.
Biographical material contains a few of Kaplan's personal documents, a number of certificates and medals he recieved during his lifetime, a travel itinerary notebook, and a few hand-written notes.
Kaplan's correspondence is primarily from colleagues, art organizations, galleries, museums, and colleges and universities such as the Corcoran Gallery of Art, National Academy of Design, and Audubon Artists, inc. Also found are letters from friends and colleagues such as Chaim Gross, Adolph Gottlieb, Raphael Soyer, Louis Lozowick, Milton Avery, and Sol Wilson, as well as a large number of letters to his wife Virginia written during his travels.
Personal business records concern Kaplan's art sales, loans, exhibition notifications, and his involvment in the WPA. His artwork is documented in price lists and inventory lists. Some of the material consists of routine transactions not necessarily related to Kaplan's work, including bank records, an address list, and income and expense reports.
Printed Material includes news clippings, exhibition catalogs, exhibition annoucenments, and invitations for Kaplan shows. There are a few published copies and page proofs of Kaplan's commerical artwork.
Artwork includes four Kaplan etchings, three of which are metal plates and one linoleum block. Also included are a few unidentified pen and pencil sketches.
Photographs depict Kaplan, mainly later in his life, and his family. Also found are four of Virginia Kaplan's photograph albums containing images of her and friends from early adulthood. Photographs of Kaplan's friends and colleagues include images of Aya and Eitaro Ishigaki, Chaim Gross, Raphael Soyer, William Gropper, and Joseph De Martini. Also included are photographs taken by Kaplan of New York City, his travels, and artist demonstrations. There are also a large number of photographs of Kaplan's artwork.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into 7 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1919-1975 (Box 1, 5, OV 7; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1929-circa 1975 (Box 1, OV 7; 0.4 linear feet)
Series 3: Personal Business Records, circa 1920-1977 (Box 1; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 4: Printed Material, 1915-1975 (Box 1, 2, 3, OV 7; 2.3 linear feet)
Series 5: Artwork, circa 1940-circa 1960 (Box 3, 5; 2 folders)
Series 6: Photographic Material, 1917-circa 1975 (Box 4, 6, OV 7; 1.3 linear feet)
Series 7: Unprocessed Addition, circa 1940-1950 (Box 8, OV 9; 0.3 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
Joseph Kaplan (1900-1980) was a painter, printmaker, photographer, and teacher who worked primarly in New York and Provincetown. He was most active in the 1940s through the 1950s. Earlier in his career he worked on several WPA Federal Art Projects and Treasury Relief Art Projects.
Joseph Kaplan was born in Minsk, Russia and immigrated with his family to the United States in 1888 at the age of 12. He married Virginia Haber in 1927 and they had no children.
Kaplan studied at the Eductional Alliance Art School and the Art Students League. He went to Provincetown in the mid-twenties as a student of Charles W. Hawthorne with whom he previously studied with at the National Academy of Design. Afterwards he revisited Provincetown intermittently and began to regard the Cape as his summer studio, working there each summer since 1948.
In 1948 he won the first of many gold medals from the Audubon Artists at the National Academy of Design for a marine painting. He was also the first recipient of the John J. Newman Memorial Medal, given by the National Society of Painters in Casein for his Wellfleet, Low Tide. The Shore Studios in Provincetown, the Harry Salpeter Gallery and then Krasner Gallery in New York City represented Kaplan's artwork.
Kaplan predominantly worked in watercolor and oil paint, depicting landscapes and seascapes, and becoming acclaimed as a Colorist and Romanticist. He occasionally painted figures and, as he gained recognition, he traveled extensively in search for subjects. In 1968 Kaplan recieved a grant from Chapelbrook Foundation to live and work for a year in Mexico.
Kaplan's work was included frequently in group exhibitions and he participated in more then 30 major shows in his lifetime. Throughout his career he was a member of many art organizations including Artists League of America, Audubon Artists, Provincetown Art Association, and Cape Cod Art Association. He was continually active in the art life in Provincetown serving as board members, trustees, and judges. He also occasionally taught at art schools including the American Artist School and John Reed Club, and taught a number of private pupils.
Joseph Kaplan died on February 28th, 1980 at the age of 79 in Brewster, Massachusetts.
Separated Materials:
307 nitrate negatives donated to the Archives of American Art with the Joseph Kaplan papers have been removed and are stored in off-site storage. Negatives were duplicated onto safety based film and only select prints were made.
Provenance:
The Joseph Kaplan papers were donated to the Archives of American Art by Marilyn Kearney in 1981. Additional papers were donated by Deborah Meyer in 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.
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 -- Massachusetts -- Provincetown Search this
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Topic:
Photographers -- Massachusetts -- Provincetown Search this
Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945 Search this
Extent:
39 Pages (Transcript)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Pages
Sound recordings
Interviews
Date:
1965 September 5
Scope and Contents:
An interview of Herman Maril conducted 1965 September 5, by Dorothy Seckler, for the Archives of American Art.
Maril speaks of growing up in Baltimore, Maryland.; attending the Maryland Institute of Fine Arts; visiting museums in the Washington, D.C. area; exhibiting his paintings in Washington, D.C. galleries and New York City galleries; working for the Treasury Art Project; surviving the Great Depression; teaching at the Cummington School of Art in Cummington, Massachusetts; serving in the Army Air Corps during WWII; painting murals with the Public Buildings Administration; teaching at the King-Smith School, the Washington Workshop of the Arts, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the University of Maryland; living in Provincetown; painting and his influences; being interviewed for books and a short film. Maril also recalls Roger Frye, Paul Cézanne, Henry Roben, Charles Walther, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Edward Rowan, Eleanor Roosevelt, Chaim Gross, Henri Matisse, Piero della Francesca, Mino Argento, Olin Dows, Giotto di Bondone, Georges Henri Rouault, Wassily Kandinksy, Charles Walthrop, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, Eliot O'Hara, Sheldon Cheney, Florence Watson, Jacques Lipchitz, Mason F. Lord, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Herman Maril (1908-1986) was a painter and printmaker from Baltimore, Maryland.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound tape. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 1 hr.
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.
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Michael Mazur, 1993 Jan. 12-1995 Feb. 3. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Topic:
Painters -- Massachusetts -- Interviews Search this
Prints -- Technique -- Study and teaching Search this
An interview of Michael Mazur conducted 1993 Jan. 12-1995 Feb. 3, by Robert Brown, for the Archives of American Art.
Mazur remembers growing up as the only child in a well-to-do Jewish family in Manhattan; his demanding education at the Horace Mann School where he worked on a literary magazine with Edward Koren, the cartoonist; studying with an artist in Greenwich Village; and his early determination to be an artist. Academic challenges and social conservatism at Amherst College (B.A. 1958), where he studied printmaking and drawing with Leonard Baskin, an arrogant and limited artist, and working to his advantage with the gifted young printer, George Lockwood, in Baskin's studio. The year of self-directed study in Florence, Italy, and the lasting effect on him of the great European art tradition; his marriage to the poet, Gail Mazur; being a student at the Yale School of Art (BFA 1959, MFA 1961) and the contrast of the teaching methods of the autocratic Josef Albers and the congenial Gabor Peterdi; and his valuable experience as a volunteer assistant to Naum Gabo, who introduced him to monoprints. Teaching at the Rhode Island School of Design (1961-64) and the faculty there; and the development of his first well-known work, the "Locked Ward" series of prints, based on observation at mental hospitals. Teaching at Brandeis University (1965-75) and his involvement in Vietnam War era politics; and the various genres of his paintings and prints in the 1970s and 1980s and what he feels to be the essence of his work. The speed with which the "Branching" series of paintings and drawings was done and which was perhaps based on his observations of his vascular system as he underwent angioplasty in January 1993; the ambiguity of their space; being titled only post-facto; the equal importance of every part of a composition and the use of a very limited palette; and his affinity to artists Brice Marden and Richard Diebenkorn. Recent paintings which are a continuation of his "Branching" series, but influenced by a 13th century Chinese painting at Princeton University and which has led him to cease making preliminary studies and into greater abstraction; his illustrations in monotype for Robert Pinsky's translation of Dante's INFERNO, 1992-3 and his long interest in the INFERNO; development of the New Provincetown Print Project beginning in 1988 (a two-week workshop for artists who work on monoprints with master printer Robert Townsend and Mazur at the Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, Mass.); and his improvisational method of teaching at Harvard University.
Biographical / Historical:
Michael Mazur (1935-2009) was a painter, graphic artist, and art instructor of Cambridge, Mass.
General:
Originally recorded on 6 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 12 digital wav files. Duration is 9 hrs., 14 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.
Occupation:
Art teachers -- Massachusetts -- Interviews Search this
Topic:
Painters -- Massachusetts -- Interviews Search this
Prints -- Technique -- Study and teaching Search this
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Seong Moy, 1971 Jan. 18-28. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
An interview of Seong Moy conducted 1971 Jan. 18-28, by Paul Cummings, for the Archives of American Art.
Moy speaks of his childhood in Canton, China; his immigration to Minnesota; the art scene in Minneapolis and Saint Paul in the 1930s; his education; the influence of his teachers, including Cameron Booth, Hans Hofmann, and Vaclav Vytlacil; the influence of Stanley William Hayter; being introduced to printmaking by the WPA art project in Minnesota; his service as a photographer in World War II; his teaching philosophy; and the art scene in Provincetown in the 1970s.
Biographical / Historical:
Seong Moy (1921-2013) was a Chinese American painter and printmaker based in New York City, New York and Provincetown, Massachusetts. Moy was born in Canton, China. He studied at the St. Paul School of Art, Hans Hofmann School of Art and the Art Students League. He was also the director of the Seong Moy School of Painting and Graphics, Provincetown, Massachusetts in the summer.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 3 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hrs., 19 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.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Occupation:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Printmakers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Washington Workshop Center for the Arts Search this
Type:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Herman Maril, 1965 September 5. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
