4 Microfilm reels (5 linear feet on 4 microfilm reels)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Microfilm reels
Date:
1887-1925
Scope and Contents:
The microfilmed Paul Wayland Bartlett papers contain correspondence with family, artists, and others (1887-1925); legal and financial documents (1887-1925); printed materials (1888-1925); sketches, drawings, and blueprints (undated, 1916-1920); and certificates (1915-1918).
Correspondence consists of a chronological series (1887-1925) containing letters and postcards from John White Alexander, Samuel P. Avery, William A. Clark, Frank Edwin Elwell, John Flanagan, Daniel Chester French, Henry-Bonnard Bronze Company, Gorham Company, J. Scott Hartley, John LaFarge, Charles Loring, Frederick MacMonnies, Charles Sprague Pearce, Auguste Rodin, Frederic Wellington Ruckstull, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and scattered letters from other nineteenth century artists regarding the execution of works, commissions, exhibitions and expositions in Paris and the United States, among them the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (1904) and the Exposition Universale (1899-1900), and Bartlett's illness and death in 1925.
The remainder of the correspondence, arranged by subject, includes letters from Bartlett's father, Truman Howe Bartlett (1899-1913), many written from Boston where he taught in the architecture department of MIT, or from New Hampshire where he kept a studio, and letters to Paul regarding his father's entry in the National Cyclopedia of American Biography (1925); correspondence with the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers (1905-1907), some from Joseph Pennell, regarding exhibitions; correspondence regarding commissions, including Lafayette, McClellan, General Warren, Library of Congress, and other statues; postcards from artists (1892-1895); and miscellaneous letters.
Legal documents relate to the Lafayette statue (1900) and also include Bartlett's death certificate. Financial records (1899-1922) consist of bank statements, checkbooks, bills and receipts for casting, photography, dues, and rent. Clippings and a scrapbook deal with Barlett's Lafayette statue. Other printed material includes articles on various Bartlett sculptures and other sculptors, exhibition catalogs, passes and announcements, yearbooks from the American Club of Paris (1905-1909), and material from the American Art Association of Paris, including a 20-page booklet by Bartlett giving the history of the group, and an invitation (1906) to an auction to benefit the victims of the San Francisco earthquake.
Also included are sketches by Bartlett and his father (undated and circa 1913); oversized drawings, plans and prints for monuments, statues, and the Capitol ceiling (undated and 1916-1920); postcards depicting Bartlett's sculpture; and certificates from the National Academy of Design and the Panama Pacific International Exposition.
Biographical / Historical:
Paul Wayland Bartlett (1865-1925) was a sculptor and portraitist. Born in Connecticut and raised in France, Bartlett attended the Ecole des Beaux Arts and also studied under Emmanual Frémiet and Auguste Rodin. His early sculpture focused on animals and his piece Bear Tamer was presented to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1891 and exhibited in the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893. After 1895, he produced a number of public monuments, sculptures, and historical portraits, including the figures of Columbus and Michelangelo for the Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress, the Lafayette statue presented to France, and the pediment for the House wing of the U.S. Capitol.
Related Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds the microfilmed Suzanne Bartlett papers relating to Paul W. Bartlett, circa 1883-1950s; the microfilmed Caroline Ogden-Jones Peter papers relating to Paul W. Bartlett, 1955-1965; and the microfilmed Armistead Peter, Jr. papers relating to Paul W. Bartlett, 1920-1925. The Library of Congress Manuscript Division holds the Paul Wayland Bartlett papers, 1875-1959.
Provenance:
Lent for microfilming by the Tudor Place Foundation, Inc., 1994. The Tudor Place Foundation inherited the papers in 1994 with the estate of Armistead Peter III of Tudor Place. Peter III was married to Caroline, the daughter of Bartlett's wife by her first marriage to Mahlon Odgen-Jones. After Bartlett's death in 1925, Suzanne cared for his papers, and donated the bulk of them to the Library of Congress in 1954. The papers she retained passed on to Caroline, and at her death to Armistead Peter III.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Correspondence regarding the St. Louis Exposition, the World's Columbian Exposition, the South Carolina Interstate and West Indian Exposition, statuary in New York City and the Library of Congress, the Washington statue in Newburyport, Mass. Letters from Robert Cushing in Italy pertain to the supervision of the execution of Ward's marble statuary group in Carrara. Correspondents include Herbert Adams, Thomas Gold Appleton, Karl Bitter, Gutzon Borglum, Daniel Chester French, Robert Underwood Johnson, Thomas Addison Richards, Edward Clark Potter, Alexander E. Orr, R. S. Chilton, Paul Dana, F. Wellington Ruckstuhll, Charles N. Thomas, C. A. Herber and Ward's wife.
Biographical / Historical:
Sculptor; New York, N.Y.
Provenance:
Lent 1973 by New York Historical Society.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Correspondence, business files, academic papers, photographs, clippings, sketchbook, sketches, and miscellaneous notes.
REEL 581: Selected items from 2 family scrapbooks, 1933-1943 and 1946-1956; including clippings, photographs, correspondence, invitations and awards. Most material pertains to Plaut's work as director of the ICA and advisor to the government of Israel. Also included are correspondence from Georges Rouault, Carl Milles, and Oskar Kokoschka; and 6 drawings by Waldo Peirce.
REEL 5139: Two family scrapbooks, 1956-1959 and 1960-1980, containing clippings, invitations, photographs and miscellaneous material from Plaut's work World's Fairs at Brussels, 1958, New York, 1964 and Japan, 1970. Also found are family snapshots of the Plaut's travels, their children and grandchildren and include 7 earlier photographs of Plaut and his parents, ca. 1906-1932, and one photograph of Eleanor Roosevelt, 1959.
UNMICROFILMED: Travel sketchbook of Rome; term papers, honors thesis, and sketches for an architectural history course; files relating to Plaut's positions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the ICA, the World Crafts Council, and other professional and personal concerns; correspondence, including letters from Eugene Berman, Carl Milles, Lincoln Kirstein, Paul Sachs and others; personal and work related photographs; lecture notes; slides from the World's Craft Fair Council, 1974; 2 untranscribed sound tape reels of an interview made by Plaut for Alfred Auerbach concerning the Brussels World's Fair 1958 and typed list of questions for the interview; and miscellaneous papers.
ADDITION: Resumes and obituaries; correspondence; the book, Waldo Peirce, by Margit Varga, 1941, with insertions of a caricature by Peirce, illustrated postcards, and a letter; photographs of Walter Gropius House, Lincoln, Mass. and 7 photographs of Plaut with Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Konrad Adenauer, Indira Gandhi, Leonard Bernstein, and Dwight David Eisenhower; scrapbook and slides pertaining to Plaut's work for the World's Fair, Brussels, 1958; writings and publications; publications of the ICA and the WCC; the book, The Overcoat, by Nikoli Gogel, presented to Plaut upon retirement from the WCC; publications by others on art and design; and a file on James and Mary Plaut's personal art collection, ca. 1935-1990s.
Biographical / Historical:
Art administrator and museum director; Boston, Mass. Plaut was born to a wealthy family in Cincinnati, Ohio, graduated from HarvardCollege, and received an M.A. from Harvard University. His uncle was Paul Sachs, a connoisseur and influential museology professor at Harvard andsor. Plaut held curatorial positions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and became Director of Boston's Institute of Modern Art in 1939 (later the Institute of Contemporary Art or ICA) where he staged early exhibitions of contemporary design and European avant-garde paintings and sculpture until his resignation in 1956. Plaut was also involved in many international exhibitions and expositions, serving as Deputy U.S. Commissioner to the World's Fair in Brussels, 1958, and was Secretary General of the World Crafts Council, 1967-1976 and a consultant on industrial design in Israel.
Provenance:
Scrapbooks on reel 581 lent for microfilming by Plaut, 1973; his estate, via the executor Edward M. Condit, Jr., lent those on reel 5139 in 1996. Plaut donated the unmicrofilmed material in 1985 and 1992, and additional papers were received as a bequest in 1996 via the executor of his estate.
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.
Occupation:
Arts administrators -- Massachusetts -- Boston Search this
Museum directors -- Massachusetts -- Boston Search this
