The papers of painter, etcher, printer, muralist, and art teacher Gabrielle de Veaux Clements measure 1 linear foot and date from 1860 to 1948. Found within the papers are biographical material; personal and professional correspondence, including extensive correspondence from Clements to her mother; writings, including notes and essays on art history and etching techniques; printed material; artwork; eight sketchbooks; and photographs of Clements, her family and friends, and her work.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of painter, etcher, printer, muralist, and art teacher Gabrielle de Veaux Clements measure 1 linear foot and date from 1860 to 1948. Found within the papers are biographical material; personal and professional correspondence, including extensive correspondence from Clements to her mother; writings, including notes and essays on art history and etching techniques; printed material; artwork; 8 sketchbooks; and photographs of Clements, her family and friends, and her work.
Biographical material consists of an address book, artwork sales and price lists, and autobiographical notes.
Correspondence is primarily with Clements' family, friends, and business associates. The series includes significant correspondence from Clements to her mother during her college years at Cornell University.
Writings include notes and essays on art history and etching techniques, 2 notebooks of poetry, and a travel diary chronicling a trip to Egypt with Ellen Day Hale.
Printed material includes clippings, exhibition catalogs, a map of the artists' colony at Rockport, Folly Cove in Massachusetts, and a copy of the book Suggestions for Illuminating by W. Randle Harrison.
Artwork consists of sketches and original etchings by Clements and artwork by others.
There are 8 sketchbooks consisting primarily of cityscapes, landscapes, and figure and portrait studies.
Photographs are of Clements, her family and friends, artists models, and work by Clements and others.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 7 series.
Series 1: Biographical materials, circa 1920-1944 (3 folders; Box 1)
Series 2: Correspondence, circa 1875-1945 (0.3 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 3: Writings, circa 1885-1940 (8 folders; Box 1)
Series 4: Printed material, circa 1860-1948 (5 folders; Box 1)
Series 5: Artwork, circa 1895-1940 (3 folders; Box 1)
Series 6: Sketchbooks, circa 1884-1940 (0.3 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 7: Photographs, circa 1875-1940 (0.2 linear feet; Box 1)
Biographical / Historical:
Painter, printer, and art teacher Gabrielle de Veaux Clements (1858-1948) lived and worked in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Baltimore, Maryland; and Folly Cove near Gloucester, Massachusetts. She was known for her etchings and her commissioned murals for the cities of Baltimore and Washington, D.C.
Clements was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to physician Richard Clements and his wife, Gabrielle De Vaux. Her interest in art was supported by her family and, at the age of seventeen, she began studying lithography with the designer Charles Page at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women. After graduating in 1880 from Cornell University, where she had produced a number of scientific drawings and lithographs, Clements studied with painter Thomas Eakins at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and won the school's Toppan Prize. In 1883, Clements was introduced to etching techniques by the artist Stephen Parrish and began exhibiting and printing her works professionally.
In 1884, Clements traveled abroad to Paris to study at the Academie Julian where she was joined in 1885 by fellow painter and future lifelong companion Ellen Day Hale. Upon returning to her Philadelphia studio in 1885, Clements taught other female artists, including Margaret Bush-Brown, and exhibited in numerous institutions, including the National Academy of Design and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. In 1895, Clements moved to Baltimore to teach art at the newly established Bryn Mawr School, where she remained until 1908. During her tenure in Baltimore, she was commissioned by the Bendann Galleries to etch nine views of Baltimore and also painted five church murals in Washington, D.C., which led to subsequent murals in Detroit, Philadelphia, and Chicago.
Clements and Hale frequently traveled abroad, visiting France, Italy, Egypt, Syria, and Palestine, and spent summers at "The Thickets," the house they purchased in the artists' colony at Folly Cove. During World War I, they wintered in Charleston, South Carolina where they opened their studios to young female artists and taught innovative etching, painting, and color printmaking techniques. After the war, they again opened their studios in Folly Cove to young artists and continued to teach and experiment with soft-ground etching and aquatints in color. This work was highlighted in special exhibitions at the J.B. Speed Art Museum and the Smithsonian Institution. Clements died in Rockport, Massachusetts in 1948.
Provenance:
The Gabrielle de Veaux Clements papers were donated by Mrs. Harlan Starr, Jr. in 1983.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment.
Rights:
The Gabrielle de Veaux Clements papers are owned by the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Literary rights as possessed by the donor have been dedicated to public use for research, study, and scholarship. The collection is subject to all copyright laws.
Correspondence, diaries, writings, files on publications, art works, photographs, catalogs and clippings.
Correspondence is with Yovan Radinkovitch, 1940s, and Mrs. Edward A. McGill at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1960.
Twelve diaries, 1939-1976, contain drafts of letters, clippings, lists of exhibited, sold and proposed lithographs and paintings, poems, a short autobiography, notes for books Sea Dust and A Wisconsin Story, and accounts of her travels to the Caribbean (1939), France (1956), Florida (1962), Spain (1966) and Maryland (1972). Some highlighted events are Andrus's appointment to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1952, her studies in France in 1956, as well as her living in Gloucester, 1964-1966, and Rockport, Mass. Other diary topics include Geo-metrical Art, 1957, the Rockport Art Association, and details of exhibitions throughout her career.
Writings include typescripts of The Blue Tree, Comments and Criticisms by Boardman Robinson (with related letter), Earth Foam: A Second Book of Poems, The Shining River: A Sketchbook of the Hudson (with draft), The Spirit and the Candle: El Greco and the Renaissance World (with draft); and writings about life in Gloucester and New York. Paper," (1990).
Biographical / Historical:
Lithographer, painter, author; Massachusetts and New York.
Provenance:
Donated 1990 by Lura Andrus Crowther, Andrus' sister.
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.
Sketchbooks; art works; diaries; notes; photographs; and printed material. Much of the material relates to William Merritt Chase.
REELS 278-282 & 286 (fr.1-85): A biographical sketch; 169 sketchbooks, 1974-1938; a folder of 32 "Japanese Prints," mostly watercolors; a letter to Beal from his father, 1896; 3 clippings; a book, Song of the Sea (1891), illustrated by Beal; a diary kept while cruising around Long Island and Martha's Vineyard with his brother, Albert, 1896;
REEL 286(ff. 1-60): Material relating to William Merritt Chase's classes at Shinnecock Hills, including Beal's notes on Chase's critical comments while a student of Chase; comments from Chase on museums in Holland; photographs of Chase's 10th Street studio and Shinnecock Hills studios; a catalog of the Chase retrospective, National Arts Club, 1910; clippings and miscellaneous printed material; a diary kept by Beal, 1891, "Trip to Newfoundland with Albert [Beal]," describing fishing and his sketching activity; and a notebook with expense accounts and pencil sketches, 1899.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter, printmaker; Rockport, Mass. Brother of artist Gifford Beal.
Provenance:
Materials on reels 278-282 and frames labeled as 1-85 on reel 286 lent for microfilming 1972 by Robert Campbell, Shore Galleries, Boston, Mass. Reel 286, frames labeled as 1-60 were lent by Mr. and Mrs. Wayne Morrell through Chapellier Galleries.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Reynolds Beal material includes a sketchbook containing sketches of ships, entitled "Cruising Aboard U.S.S. School Ship St. Mary's," 1901, scrapbook pages of marine etchings and photographs, a Christmas card, personal photographs, exhibition catalogs, and clippings. Gifford Beal material includes: photographs of him and one of his work, exhibition catalogs, and clippings. Also included are a photograph of the Beal family, ca. 1890, writings about the the family, selected photographs of the Beals from albums kept by Mrs. Thaddeus Beal, including some of Wilellyn, the William Beal family's summer home in Newburgh, N.Y. with gardens designed by sons Gifford and Reynolds, and Echo Lawn, home of Thaddeus Beal; and miscellaneous printed material.
Biographical / Historical:
Reynolds: painter, printmaker; Rockport, Massachusetts. Gifford: painter, mural painter; New York, N.Y. The Beals are brothers.
Provenance:
Donated 1993 by Alger Beal, whose father Thaddeus, was Reynolds' and Gifford's brother.
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.
Occupation:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Ten 16mm motion picture films by Camins, including artists and scenes from Provincetown, Rockport, Gloucester, Mass, and other unidentified locations. Nine of the reels were compiled into a single reel to transfer to video, including eight color, silent reels containing footage of the Art Students League Summer School in Woodstock, N.Y., Arnold Blanch and his students, Anton Refregier, Marion Greenwood, Howard Mandel, Julio de Diego, N. Dirk, Hans Hofmann, Morris Davidson, George Yeter, Seong Moy, and Karl Knaths. The ninth reel transferred to video contains black and white, silent home movies with family and beach scenes. A tenth reel, not transferred, is an edited film of Provincetown artists with music and narration, with footage of artists Seong Moy, Karl Knaths, Lily Harmon, Anne Brigadier, Sabina Teichman, Umberto Romano, Yeffe Kimball, Bruce McKain, Philip Malcoat, and others. Although it is an edited work, the film lacks a formal title. Also included are two original posters by Seong Moy and Anne Brigadier done for a screening of Camins's film on Provincetown, Mass; a sound tape reel (7") of an interview with Henry Botkin, Umberto Romano, Joseph Kaplan, Irving Marantz, Sol Wilson, Anne Brigadier, and Sabina Teichman, and a sound tape reel (7") of an interview of Karl Knaths, both conducted by Camins and untranscribed.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter, printmaker; New York, N.Y. and Bay Harbor Islands, Fla. Born in Russia. Studied in Paris and at the Art Students League.
Provenance:
Donated 1975-1980 by Joseph Camins.
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.
