An interview with Allan Sekula conducted 2011 August 20-2012 February 14, by Mary Panzer, for the Archives of American Art at Sekula's studio and home in Los Angeles, California and at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, New York.
Sekula speaks of his career and some of the mediums he works in; language and contemporary art; Roland Barthes; his relation to contemporary art; west coast conceptualism; genre switches; realism; documentary photography; Belgium and the industrial revolution; Meunier; minor figures; art history and marginalism; Roberto Matta; World War I; Homer Folks; Fish Story; historic cinema; economic factors of art shows and publication; galleries and the art world; growing up and his family; his father and moving; Ohio; his brothers and sisters; San Pedro; demographics of students at school; sports at school; Vietnam; protests; cross country and swimming; California; fishing; college; U.C. system; declaring a major; John Altoon; Ed Kienholz; exposure to art; visiting museums; Marcuse's classes; Baldessari's classes; course work and student life; student demonstrations; working in a library and exposure to books; father losing his job; science and working as a chemical technician; politics; his uncle committing suicide; moving away from his father; the draft; John Birch; Students for a Democratic Society; his mother; politics of his parents; Aerospace Folk Tales, autodidacts and scholarship; San Diego and Mexico; obtaining a camera and starting to use it; art school; CalArts; UCSD; Meditations on a Triptych; David Salle; Fred Lonidier; Phel Steinmetz; MFA and art training; poets; story of Allen Ginsberg and one of Sekula's sculptures; production and the audience; A Photograph is Worth a Thousand Questions, photography and the burden of tradition; pictorialism; moving to New York; Artforum; October; New York music scene; Captain Beefheart; Bo Diddley; Little Richard; Steichen and aerial photography; origins of October; New Criterion; Art Critic's Grant; teaching at Ohio State; television; technological historians; New York subway and getting a ticket for using French money; RISD lectures; Long Beach; photography; collages; Metro Pictures; New Topographics; School as a Factory; moral choice and the viewer; work method and the audience; Social Criticism and Art Practice; east and west coasts; Ed Ruscha; documentary; film, Los Angeles; cinema and social history; Ohio State Department of Photography and Cinema; Los Angeles Plays Itself; Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador; Ohio State campus, anti-Semitism; Ronald Reagan and protest; influences and colleagues; intellectual genealogy; Michael Graves and Ohio State architecture; Bad Ohio; tenure; University Exposed; AIDS issue of October; The Body and the Archive; making film; Korean War; collectors and images. Sekula also recalls Eleanor Antin, Jeff Wall, Terry Fox, Lewis Hine, Walker Evans, Paul Saltman, Marcuse, Baldessari, Sacvan Bercovitch, Stanley Miller, Jef Raskin, Paul Brach, David Antin, Howard Fried, Peter Van Riper, Alison Knowles, Dick Higgins, Manny Farber, Ihab Hassan, Diane Wakoski, Jackson Mac Low, Martha Rosler, Lenny Neufeld, Joshua Neufeld, David Wing, Brian Connell, Max Kozloff, Ian Burn, Mel Ramsden, Carole Conde, Karl Beveridge, Barry Rosens, Tom Crow, John Copeland, Harry Lunn, Hilton Kramer, Grace Mayer, Carol Duncan, Eva Cockroft, Richard Pommer, Rosalind Krauss, Sally Stein, Paddy Chayefsky, John Hanhardt, Mel Ramsden, Sarah Charlesworth, Jospeh Kosuth, Baruch Kirschenbaum, Robert Heinecken, Brian O'Doherty, Howard Becker, Jay Ruby, Jerry Liebling, Anna Wilkie, Ronald Feldman, John Gibson, David Ross, Britt Salvesen, Larry Sultan, Mike Mandel, Roy Ascott, Ilene Segalove, Paul Schimmel, DeeDee Halleck, Noel Burch, Joan Braderman, Woody Hayes, Thom Andersen, John Quigley, Ron Green, Kasper Koenig, Dan Graham, Jonathan Green, Christa Wolf, Catherine Lord, Ben Lifson, and Annette Michelson.
Biographical / Historical:
Allan Sekula (1951-2013) was a photographer, filmmaker, and writer, based at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California. Mary Panzer (1955- ) is a historian from New York, New York.
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.
The papers of contemporary painter and author William Anthony measure 1.5 linear feet and date from 1956 to 2003. Found within the papers are scattered biographical materials; correspondence files; exhibition files; original art work; files of reproductions of his art work; a file for his book A New Approach to Figure Drawing; clippings; photographs; a recorded lecture and announcements of Anthony's slide talks.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of contemporary painter and author William Anthony measure 1.5 linear feet and date from 1956 to 2003. Found within the papers are scattered biographical materials; correspondence files; exhibition files; original art work; files of reproductions of his art work; a file for his book A New Approach to Figure Drawing; clippings; photographs; a recorded lecture and announcements of Anthony's slide talks. This material offers a comprehensive record of the works and exhibitions of this prolific painter.
Series 9: Recorded Lecture and Announcements of Slide Talks, 1985-1990, undated (Box 2; 1 folder; Reel 5877 and unfilmed)
Biographical Note:
American painter William Graham Anthony was born on September 25, 1934 in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. While majoring in history at Yale University, Anthony attended a few art courses, one of which was taught by Josef Albers. He also attended the Art Students' League in 1958 and 1961.
After graduating from Yale, he joined his family in California, where he attended the San Francisco Art Institute. In 1962, Anthony taught figure drawing at a commercial art school in San Francisco, where he developed a method of drawing that resulted in his book A New Approach to Figure Drawing. Two years later he moved to New York City.
From 1977 to 1978, Anthony made a series of drawings for magazine Andy Warhol's Interview, and published another book Bible Stories. In 1983, he married Norma Neuman, and continued to produce and exhibit his art work, including solo exhibitions in New York, California, and Europe. In 1988, the Jargon Society published an additional book, Bill Anthony's Greatest Hits. Anthony also teaches painting to senior citizens.
Provenance:
The William Anthony papers were donated by Anthony from 2001 to 2003. In 1976, he lent miscellaneous photocopied material for microfilming. The loaned materials do not duplicate the later gifts except for single letters from Jasper Johns (1972), William King, Claes Oldenburg, Theodoros Stamos, and a book endorsement comment signed by Larry Rivers. [Note: Reel 1094 is not described in this finding aid.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Patrons must use microfilm copy.
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.
Topic:
Painting, American -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Genre/Form:
Drawings
Photographs
Citation:
William Anthony papers, 1956-2003. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Interview of Jeanne L. Wasserman, conducted by Robert F. Brown for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, in Cambridge, MA from January 28, 1993-July 19, 1994.
Wasserman speaks of her parents' cultural interests; first becoming interested in sculpture after visiting a Rodin exhibition in Paris with her family; visiting art galleries and studying painting in New York City as a young woman; her education at Fieldston and Radcliffe; trying to get a job in New York after college; working in advertising; meeting her husband, Max, and building a business with him; beginning to collect art; putting together a collection for the condominium project, 180 Beacon; the opening of 180 Beacon; working on a condominium project in the Virgin Islands; curating sculpture exhibitions at the Fogg Museum and at Wellesley; writing the catalogue for a Daumier exhibition at the Fogg; serving on the board of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; organizing forums on contemporary art with the Council of the Arts at MIT; becoming involved with Harvard's Institute for Learning in Retirement; and notable purchases of work by Daumier, Rodin, Degas, Giacometti, de Chirico, Nicolas Schöffer, Henry Moore, and others. Wasserman also recalls Alfred Stieglitz, Peppino Mangravite, Elie Nadelman, Hyman Swetzoff, Joseph Hirshhorn, Erica Brausen, René and Charles Gimpel, Louise Nevelson, Niki de Saint Phalle, Jean Tinguely, Robert Indiana, Claes Oldenburg, Denise René, Yaacov Agam, George Rickey, George Segal, David Ross, Milena Kalinovska, Jacques de Caso, Yulla Lipchitz, Vera List, Jim Cuno, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Jeanne L. Wasserman, (1915-2006) was a museum curator and art collector from Boston, Massachusetts.
General:
Originally recorded on 5 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 10 digital wav files. Duration is 7 hrs., 12 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.
Topic:
Art -- Collectors and collecting -- Massachusetts -- Interviews Search this
Art museum curators -- Massachusetts -- Interviews Search this
Function:
Art museums -- Massachusetts
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.
Binationale : deutsche Kunst der späten 80er Jahre, amerikanische Kunst der späten 80er Jahre = German art of the late 80s, American art of the late 80s / Jürgen Harten und David A. Ross ; Rainer Crone ... [et al.]
William Wegman : paintings, drawings, photographs, videotapes / edited by Martin Kunz ; essays by Martin Kunz ... [et al.] ; interview with William Wegman by David Ross
Video art : the Castello Di Rivoli collection / [texts, David A. Ross, Marcella Beccaria, Francesco Bernardelli ; edited by Ida Gianelli, Marcella Beccaria]
American art of the late 80s = Amerikanische Kunst der späten 80er Jahre : The Binational : ... / David A. Ross and Jürgen Harten ; The Institute of Contemporary Art and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Massachusetts
Quotidiana : immagini della vita di ogni giorno nella̓rte del XX secolo / [a cura di David Ross ... et al.] = Quotidiana : the continuity of the everyday in 20th century art / [curated by David Ross ... [et al.]
