An interview of Larry Jordan conducted 1995 Dec. 19-1996 July 30, by Paul Karlstrom, for the Archives of American Art, at the artist's home, in Petaluma, Calif.
Jordan discusses his family background in Denver; his attraction to contemporary avant-garde; his brief time at Harvard, and his mental breakdown and return to Denver; his move to San Francisco in 1954 because of the artistic and literary atmosphere there; meeting Kenneth Rexroth, Robert Duncan and other poets and his initial introduction to the creative community in San Francisco; his friendships with Jordan Belsen, Michael McClure, Wally Hedrick and Jay DeFeo; the San Francisco Renaissance, the beat era, and what it means to be "beat;" the distinction in intensity between bohemianism and the resurrection of the self during the beat era, the social impact of the anti-establishment movement; and the difference between artists and political activists.
Jordan discusses his influences and important moments in his experimental film career; the surrealist methods for social changes as seen in film; the west coast filmmakers focus on the interior and mystical; the rivalry in the film world; his association with Bruce Conner and their founding a film society together in 1956 and establishing an experimental theater; meeting Joseph Cornell and his invitation to assist him with films, their time spent together, Cornell as a filmmaker, preparing Cornell boxes, and the influence of Cornell on is own art. He discusses his own art; his role as an artist in society; the religious aspect in his art; his place in the avant-garde film world; the major influences in his art; and the concept of death and the celebration of the mind as a major theme in his film and artwork.
He recalls Wallace Berman, Stan Brackage, Bruce Conner, Jay DeFeo, Maya Deren, Robert Duncan, Max Ernst, Allen Ginsberg, Wally Hedrick, George Herms, Jess, Patricia Jordan, Michael McClure, Bruce Nauman, and Kenneth Rexroth.
Biographical / Historical:
Larry Jordan (1934- ) is a filmmaker and collagist from Petaluma, Calif.
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. Funding for the transcription of this interview provided by the Pasadena Art Alliance.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Topic:
Filmmakers -- California -- Interviews Search this
Collagists -- California -- Interviews Search this
The photographs of San Francisco photographer William J. Eisenlord measure 0.3 linear feet and date from 1953-1976. Photographs depict the City Lights Bookstore of San Francisco, California and the exhibition opening of "Poets of the Cities" at the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1976. Also included are photographs of jazz and beat poetry performances taken by Ed Nyberg in 1957.
Scope and Contents note:
The photographs of San Francisco photographer William J. Eisenlord measure 0.3 linear feet and date from 1953-1976. Photographs depict the City Lights Bookstore of San Francisco, California and the exhibition opening of "Poets of the Cities" at the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1976. Also included are photographs of jazz and beat poetry performances taken by Ed Nyberg in 1957.
City Lights Bookstore was a popular meeting ground for many people associated with the Beat literary movement in San Francisco. The collection includes one exterior window photograph of the bookstore taken the year of its founding in 1953, and fifteen interior photographs of the store taken circa 1959. The interior shots include images of bookstore founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti, bookstore manager Shigeyoshi Murao, and various customers browsing the stacks.
The photographs taken at the "Poets of the Cities" exhibition opening on January 30, 1976 at the San Francisco Museum of Art include notable figures Jack Micheline, Claes Oldenburg, James Broughton, Phil Linhares, Mark and Sally Green, Michael Larsen, Elizabeth Pomada, Ken deRoux, Peter and Minette LeBlanc, Jack Hirschman, Rolando Castellon, Knute Stiles, Michael and Joanna McClure, Byron Meyer, Peter Selz, Leo Castelli, George Herms, and Shirley and Wallace Berman.
Also included are ten photographs taken in 1957 by Ed Nyberg at The Jazz Cellar, a popular San Francisco beat nightclub. Notable figures include Kenneth Rexroth, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Grover Sales Jr., Sonny Wayne, and Bill Weisjahn.
Arrangement note:
The collection is arranged as 2 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: William J. Eisenlord Photographs, 1953-1976 (Box 1; 15 folders)
Series 2: Ed Nyberg Photographs, 1957 (Box 1; 1 folder)
Biographical/Historical note:
William J. Eisenlord (1926-1997) worked as a photographer in San Francisco, California. He was an acquaintance of photographer, poet, and journalist Mark Green. Together with business partner Thayne Riggs, Eisenlord opened the Omnibus Gallery in Sacramento, California in 1980.
Provenance:
The William J. Eisenlord photographs were donated to the Archives of American Art in two installments, in 1976 and 1977, by William J. Eisenlord.
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.
New Deal and the Arts Oral History Project Search this
Extent:
21 Pages (Transcript)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Pages
Sound recordings
Interviews
Date:
1964 Apr. 13
Scope and Contents:
An interview of Kenneth Rexroth conducted 1964 Apr. 13, by Minette Martin, for the Archives of American Art.
Discusses his mural painting for the Federal Arts Project during the Depression.
Biographical / Historical:
Kenneth Rexroth (1905-1982) was a painter and muralist in San Francisco, Calif.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound tape reel. Reformatted in 2010 as 1 digital wav file. Duration is 1 hr., 33 min.
Provenance:
Conducted as part of the Archives of American Art's New Deal and the Arts project, which includes over 400 interviews of artists, administrators, historians, and others involved with the federal government's art programs and the activities of the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s and early 1940s.
The Barbara Rose papers date from 1962 to circa 1969 and measure 1.4 linear feet. Papers include letters, writings, printed material, interviews with artists, panel discussions, and lectures relating to Barbara Rose's research as an art historian.
Scope and Contents:
The Barbara Rose papers date from 1962 to circa 1969 and measure 1.4 linear feet. Papers include letters, interviews with artists, panel discussions, lectures, writings, and printed material relating to Barbara Rose's work as an art historian and critic.
Letters consist of responses to queries and questionnaires Rose and Irving Sandler sent to contemporary artists as research for writing projects. Questionnaires were sesnt in preparation for an article in Art in America on artists' sensibility of the 1960s, with responses from Robert Motherwell, Robert Craig Kauffman, Len Lye, Robert Morris, George Segal, David Hare, and others. A separate query asked sculptors for their assessment of contemporary sculptor's needs and the potential for patronage, and responses are found from Carl Andre, Charles Frazier, Robert Murray, Anthony Padovano, Ron Bladen, Roy Lichtenstein, Len Lye, Sol LeWitt, Heinz Mack, Otto Peine, Dan Flavin, and Donald Judd.
Interviews conducted by Rose between 1965 and circa 1969 are found with Richard Bellamy, Leo Castelli, James E. Davis, Henry Geldzahler, Ivan Karp, Lee Krasner, John Lefebre, John Myers, Donald Judd with Frank Stella, and Tom Wesselmann. All interviews include original sound recordings, and the Judd and Stella, Krasner, and Myers interviews include transcripts. Panel discussions and lectures include sound recordings and transcripts of seven events on a variety of contemporary art and architecture subjects held between 1962 and 1968. Sound recordings are present for five of the events on 10 sound tape reels, and transcripts are present for all events. Participants in the panel discussions and lectures include Barbara Rose, Ronald Davis, Dan Flavin, Robert Kauffman, John Harvey McCracken, Friedel Dzubas, Ansel Adams, Arthur Bierman, Kenneth Rexroth, Edward Taylor, Ernst Karl Mundt, John Bowles, Roy Dean De Forest, Seymour Locks, Walter Hopps, Mark Di Suvero, Donald Judd, Robert Morris, Kynaston McShine, Walter Darby Bannard, Donald Judd, Larry Poons, Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Meier, Paul Rudolph, Claes Oldenburg, and Robert Murray.
Writings include photocopied typescripts of "Myth, Symbol, or Me," by Emily Wasserman and "Excerpts from a Work Journal on Flying Sculpture," by Charles Frazier. Printed material consists of two copies of the premiere issue of the 57th Street Review, from Nov. 15, 1966.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged as 4 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Letters (0.2 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 2: Interviews (0.6 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 3: Panel Discussions and Lectures (0.5 linear feet; Boxes 1-2)
Series 4: Writings and Printed Material (0.1 linear feet; Box 2)
Biographical / Historical:
Barbara Rose is an American art historian and critic who has published widely in the field of modern American art. Born in 1938 in Washington, DC, Rose studied at the Sorbonne, Smith College, Barnard, and finally, Columbia University under Meyer Shapiro. Rose became immersed in the New York-based circle of modernist artists and curators in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and made her substantial contribution to the discourse on contemporary art with the insider's perspective this afforded her. In 1961, she married the painter Frank Stella and they had two children before their divorce in 1969.
Rose taught at Yale University, Sarah Lawrence, University of California at Irvine and San Diego, and the American University Art in Italy program, and was senior curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, from 1981-1985. A prolific writer, Rose is the author of American Art Since 1900 (1967), The Golden Age of Dutch Painting (1969), American Painting: The 20th Century (Skira, 1969), and monographs on the artists Magdalena Abankawicz, Helen Frankenthaler, Robert Rauschenberg, Alexander Liberman, Larry Rivers, and others, as well as dozens of exhibition catalog essays. She held editorial positions at Art in America, Vogue, Artforum, Partisan Review, and Journal of Art, and her writing has also appeared in Art International, Studio International, Arts Magazine, and ARTnews, among many others.
Related Materials:
Barbara Rose papers, 1940-1993 (bulk 1960-1985) are located at The Getty Research Institute Special Collections.
Separated Materials:
Additional papers of Barbara Rose are held by The Getty Research Institute.
Provenance:
Donated 1971-1977 by Barbara Rose.
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.
Occupation:
Art historians -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Art critics -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Thou shalt not kill (In memory of Dylan Thomas) / by Kenneth Rexroth --autobiography --The statue of St. Francis --Junkman's obbligato / by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
Local Numbers:
FW-ASCH-LP-0536
Fantasy.7002
Publication, Distribution, Etc. (Imprint):
Berkeley, CA Fantasy 1957
General:
Title from container. Accompanied by improvizations played by the Cellar Jazz Quintet. Program notes by Ralph J. Gleason on container. Production notes: Recorded in The Cellar, San Francisco, spring 1957.
Restrictions:
Restrictions on access. No duplication allowed listening and viewing for research purposes only.
Collection Rights:
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections. Please visit our website to learn more about submitting a request. The Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections make no guarantees concerning copyright or other intellectual property restrictions. Other usage conditions may apply; please see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for more information.
New Deal and the Arts Oral History Project Search this
Type:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Kenneth Rexroth, 1964 Apr. 13. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
