The papers of Southern California painter Stanton Macdonald-Wright measure 3.2 linear feet and date from 1907 to 1973. The collection contains correspondence with family, friends, and artists, including Morgan Russell, and his wife Suzanne Binon, Michel and Suzanne Seuplor, Ann and John Summerfield, and Bethany Wilson. Also found are writings, six diaries, travel journals, printed materials, and artwork.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Southern California painter Stanton Macdonald-Wright measure 3.2 linear feet and date from 1907 to 1973. The collection contains correspondence with family, friends, and artists, including Morgan Russell, and his wife Suzanne Binon, Michel and Suzanne Seuphor, Ann and John Summerfield, and Bethany Wilson. Also found are writings, six diaries, travel diaries, printed materials, and artwork.
Writings consist of drafts of essays, plays, and book manuscripts. There are drafts of A Treatise on Color with palettes and color wheels, The Basis of Culture, and Macdonald-Wright's autobiography Bittersweet: An Artist's Life.
There are six diaries and numerous travel journals. One diary was written in Paris in 1909 in which Macdonald-Wright muses over the aesthetics of art and his color theories. Five additional disbound diaries cover his life from 1939-1973. Travel diaries date from 1959-1972 and cover trips to Italy, Japan, and Hawaii.
Printed material includes a copy of Les Synchromistes exhibition catalog, a newspaper clipping, and The Future of Painting by Willard Wright. Artwork consists of blueprints for Macdonald-Wright's Synchrome Kineidoscope, a color and light projecting machine first envisioned by Macdonald-Wright and Morgan Russell as early as 1913 and finally completed in the late 1950s.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 5 series.
Series 1: Correspondence, circa 1907-circa 1972 (0.5 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 2: Writings, 1920-circa 1970 (0.9 linear feet; Box 1-2)
Series 3: Diaries, 1909-1973 (1.3 linear feet; Box 2-3)
Series 4: Printed Material, 1913-1967 (0.3 linear feet; Box 3, OV 4)
Series 5: Artwork, 1969 (0.1 linear feet; Box 3, OV 4)
Biographical / Historical:
Stanton Macdonald-Wright (1890-1973) was the creator of a modernist style of painting based on pure spectral color known as chromatic abstraction or "Synchromism." He worked in New York and later primarily in Los Angeles.
Stanton Macdonald-Wright was born in 1890 in Charlottesville, Virginia. In 1900 the family moved to Santa Monica, California where they ran a seaside hotel. A few years later he took courses at the Art Students League in Los Angeles, studying under Warren T. Huges. His older brother was Willard Huntington Wright, a respected art critic who wrote Modern Painting: Its Tendency and Meaning (1915), upon which he collaborated with his younger brother Stanton, and The Future of Painting (1923), and later became a detective novelist under the name S. S. Van Dine.
At the age of seventeen, Stanton Macdonald-Wright married his first wife and moved to Paris where he immersed himself in European art and studied at the Sorbonne, the Académie Julian, the École des Beaux-Arts, and the Académie Colarossi. While in Europe he also befriended fellow American painter Morgan Russell and the two artists began working closely together. They studied with Canadian painter Percyval Tudor-Hart between 1911 and 1913 and were deeply influenced by their teacher's color theory, which connected the qualities of color to those of music. Together Macdonald-Wright and Russell developed a style of painting based on color and named it "Synchromism." They introduced their work in 1913 at the Der Neue Kuntsalon in Munich and in Paris at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune. These exhibitions helped to establish Synchromism as an major influence in modern art well into the 1920s.
Stanton Macdonald-Wright and Morgan Russell returned to the United States eager to promote their work and theory. It was not long before the two separated, but both continued to work in the Synchromist style. Together, they held one more Synchromist exhibition in New York in 1916 which received significant critical support. Macdonald-Wright also participated in the prestigious 1916 "Forum Exhibition of Modern American Painters" in New York and exhibited his work at Alfred Stieglitz's famed 291 gallery in New York in 1917. Yet, financial success evaded him.
Macdonald-Wright moved to Santa Monica in 1918, where he taught and served as director of the Los Angeles Art Students League. In 1924 he published his instructive Treatise on Color. In 1927 he organized another joint exhibition with Morgan Russell at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where he also exhibited five years later. He exhibited at the Oakland Art Gallery, the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, Alfred Stieglitz's An American Place gallery in New York, and the Stendahl Galleries in Los Angeles. From 1935 to 1942 Macdonald-Wright served as director of the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project for Southern California, followed by a faculty position at the University of Southern California at Los Angeles where he taught for sixteen years.
In the late 1950s, Macdonald-Wright completed the Synchome Kineidoscope, a color and light projecting machine first envisioned by Macdonald-Wright and Morgan Russell as early as 1913.
Macdonald-Wright traveled extensively throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, spending time in Hawaii, Italy, and Japan. Macdonald-Wright married three times and died in California in 1973, at the age of 83.
This biographical note draws heavily on the Archives of American Art's West Coast Regional Collector Paul Karlstrom's collection description written upon acquisition of the papers.
Related Materials:
The Archives of American Art holds several collections related to the Stanton Macdonald-Wright papers. There is an oral interview of Stanton Macdonald-Wright conducted 1964 Apr. 13-Sept. 16, by Betty Hoag. There are also Stanton Macdonald-Wright Letters to Alan and Fanny Leslie, the Stanton Macdonald-Wright Collection of photographs, Stanton Macdonald-Wright Letters to Morgan Russell, Walter Houk Letters from Stanton Macdonald-Wright, and an Oral History of Stanton Macdonald-Wright by Jeanne M. Marshall for the Voice of America Conducted in 1967.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds material lent for microfilming (reels LA 1 and LA 5) including a brochure on the Santa Monica Library murals and six photographs of the panels while in Macdonald-Wright's studio. There is also a 1939 exhibition catalog for "Southern California Art Project" a master's thesis on Macdonald-Wright by Dori Jean Watson (1957), and one scrapbook of photographs, clippings, and other printed materials dating from circa 1910-1964. Lent materials were returned to the lender and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
Stanton Macdonald-Wright first loaned materials to the Archives of American Art for microfilming in 1964. David Nellis, a gallery owner, gave the Archives the artist's unpublished autobiography in 1978. His widow, Jean Macdonald-Wright, donated additional papers in 1995 in two seperate installments.
Restrictions:
ACCESS RESTRICTED; use requires written permission. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Rights:
The Stanton Macdonald-Wright 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, Weeks' masters thesis about Southern California painters, and miscellany.
Correspondence with Stanton Macdonald-Wright. They write about a Macdonald-Wright autobiography, the sale of his works works and of Morgan Russell paintings owned by Macdonald-Wright, the financial problems of Macdonald-Wright, and personal matters.
Other correspondents include Helen Lundeberg, Henry Gardiner, Lorser Feitelson, Jason Wong, Jan Adlmann, Dallas Conklin, George Neubert, and Jean Macdonald-Wright (Stanton's wife), among others.
Biographical / Historical:
Art administrator, agent and critic; San Francisco, Calif. Weeks was painter Stanton Macdonald-Wright's Northern California agent.
Provenance:
Lent 1974 for microfilming by Henry John Weeks.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
The papers of American art collector Keith Warner measure 0.7 linear feet and date from 1935 to 1975. Correspondence, collecting files, and artwork detail Warner's role as a collector of art in the mid-twentieth century. Present in the collection are materials related to Alexander Calder, Roland Dorcely, Stanton MacDonald-Wright, Piet Mondrian, Alfred Stieglitz, and Max Weber.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of American art collector Keith Warner measure 0.7 linear feet and date from 1935 to 1975. Correspondence, collecting files, and artwork detail Warner's role as a collector of art in the mid-twentieth century. Present in the collection are materials related to Alexander Calder, Roland Dorcely, Stanton MacDonald-Wright, Piet Mondrian, Alfred Stieglitz, and Max Weber.
Warner's relationships with artists are documented in extensive letters which make up the bulk of the collection. Subjects range from exhibitions, the art market, artists' methods and works, art criticism, and collecting to personal subjects. Letters from Roland Dorcely and Alexander Calder include illustrated letters and postcards. Letters from Calder discuss a mix of business and personal matters, including a discussion of the design of jewelry commissioned for Warner's wife, Edna. Letters from Dorcely document Warner's cultivation, criticism, and collection of Dorcely's work, as well as the hardships of Haitian artists and Dorcely's views on art. The letters are in French with some English translations.
Correspondence with Alfred Stieglitz documents his common endeavor with Warner in collecting the paintings of John Marin, and Stieglitz's gallery, An American Place. Letters associated with An American Place continue after Stieglitz's death in 1946. Found with Alfred Stieglitz's letters are two letters from Georgia O'Keeffe. Max Weber letters include comments on his painting and sculpting, his retrospective show at the Whitney, the art press, national politics, and also refer to Stieglitz and Marin. An extensive group of correspondence with Stanton MacDonald-Wright is mostly undated; MacDonald-Wright writes freely about Stieglitz, the "291" group of artists, and his partner in Synchromism, Morgan Russell. Also included are letters from Piet Mondrian related to collecting, as well as letters from unidentified correspondents.
Warner's collecting files consist of diverse materials concerning his research, writing, and relationships with artists whose paintings he collected, particularly Roland Dorcely and Stanton MacDonald-Wright. Included are biographical sketches; writings about and by the artists, including manuscripts and published materials; newspaper and magazine clippings; exhibition announcements and catalogs; and photographs of works of art. Writings by Roland Dorcely, on the subject of his artistic process and perspective, include handwritten essays in French as well as typed English translations. Published articles from Script magazine (1945-1946) by Stanton MacDonald-Wright document his career as an art critic. Writings on Alexander Calder and Paul Rosenburg, taken from Warner's journal on Calder, and on the early relationship of Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O'Keeffe, documented on a visit with Stieglitz on May 3, 1944, are also present.
Artwork consists of work by Alexander Calder and Roland Dorcely. Calder's work includes sketches proposing mobiles with notations as to material, scale, and cost. Dorcely's work includes sketches in graphite and ink of abstract figures and objects.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 3 series.
Series 1: Correspondence, 1940-1963 (0.4 linear feet; Box 1-2)
Series 2: Collecting Files, circa 1940-1975 (12 folders; Box 2, OV 3)
Series 3: Artwork, circa 1945-circa 1965 (2 folders; Box 2)
Biographical / Historical:
Keith Warner (1895-1959) was an American art collector. Warner was born and lived in Gloversville, New York, and maintained a manufacturing business that took him to New York City intermittently. Warner began collecting Chinese porcelains after World War I, and a few years later his interest shifted to American abstract painting. Warner retired from business in 1944. His collection was sold gradually after his death, mostly to private collectors, though some works are in museums in the United States and Japan.
Provenance:
The Keith Warner papers were donated in 1992 by Edna K. Allen, wife of Keith Warner.
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 Keith Warner 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.
Whitney, Gertrude Vanderbilt, 1875-1942 Search this
Extent:
6.8 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
1891-1977
Summary:
The Morgan Russell papers, 1891-1977, present a good overview of Russell's career as a painter and sculptor, with an emphasis on his development of the color theory movement, Synchromism. The papers include correspondence, biographical material, transcripts of lectures given by Russell, illustrated notebooks and sketches, printed material and photographs.
Scope and Content Note:
The Morgan Russell papers present a good overview of Russell's career as a painter and sculptor, with an emphasis on his development of the color theory movement, Synchromism. The papers include correspondence with many prominent individuals who played a role in Russell's artistic development; biographical material primarily documenting his activities in Europe; transcripts of lectures given by Russell; illustrated notebooks and sketches documenting his interest in, and development of, color theory, music and Synchromism; printed material such as exhibition announcements, catalogs and clippings; and photographs of Russell, his wife, friends and artwork.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 7 series according to record type and reflecting the lender's arrangement. With the exception of Series 1: Correspondence, all series are arranged chronologically.
Series 1: Correspondence, 1909-1964 (Reels 4524-4527)
Series 2: Biographical Material, 1925-1941 (Reel 4527)
Series 3: Business Records, 1911-1946 (Reel 4527)
Series 4: Writings, 1931-1953 (Reel 4527)
Series 5: Unbound Notes and Sketches, 1891-1977 (Reels 4528-4538)
Series 6: Printed Material, 1908-1963 (Reels 4539-4541)
Series 7: Photographs, 1908-1948 (Reel 4542)
Biographical Note:
Painter and sculptor Morgan Russell was born in New York City. He studied at the Art Students League and the New York School of Art with James Earle Fraser, Andrew Dasburg and Robert Henri from 1906 to 1907, before settling in Paris in 1909 where he remained for almost forty years. After meeting Stanton Macdonald-Wright in 1911, he became interested in Synchromism and studied with Canadian color theorist Ernest Tudor-Hart. In 1913 Russell produced the first abstract Synchromies and in 1917 developed a series of Synchromies entitled EIDOS. He visited California in the early 1930s, teaching at the Chouinard School of Art in Los Angeles from 1931-1932, in addition to lecturing at museums in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Russell left France permanently in 1946 and died in Pennsylvania in 1953.
Provenance:
The Morgan Russell papers were lent to the Archives of American Art for microfilming by the Montclair Art Museum in 1991. The material was returned to the lender in 1992.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Patrons must use microfilm copy.
Rights:
The Morgan Russell papers are owned by the Montclair Art Museum.
16.2 Linear feet ((partially microfilmed on 1 reel))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
1916-1973
Scope and Contents:
Correspondence; biographical information; family memorabilia; scrapbook; subject files; photographs; writings; business and financial records; and printed material.
REEL 2423: Material regarding MacAgy's research on Gerald Murphy and Morgan Russell included as correspondence with Gerald Murphy and Jean Lipman about an article on Murphy for ART IN AMERICA, notes for and drafts of the article; and a typescript of it, GERALD MURPHY (16 pages) with 4 photos of Murphy's work. Materials regarding Russell includes: a letter to MacAgy from Henri Dorra, February 25, 1960, about documents relating to Russell; a handwritten statement by Russell about his work, 1916 (3 pages) [an edited version appears in the catalog, THE FORUM EXHIBITION OF MODERN AMERICAN PAINTERS, Anderson Galleries, 1916]; a pencil sketch with notes by Russell, ca. 1938; a photocopy of a statement by Russell about his work, 1947 (4 pages); 2 biographical essays on Russell; and a printed brochure, MORGAN RUSSELL SOME AUTHORITATIVE OPINIONS, undated.
UNMICROFILMED: Correspondence; photographs and slides; biographical information; family memorabilia; Elizabeth Tillett's scrapbook; subject files; writings and notes; business and financial records; and printed material.
Biographical / Historical:
Art historian, administrator, museum director. Died 1973. MacAgy was chosen to revitalize the 70 year old California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco, after WWII, then he was a special consultant to the director of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, as director of research for an art dealer in New York, as director of the Dallas Museum for Contemporary Arts, and he was Director of National Exhibitions at the National Endowment for the Arts, 1968-1972.
Provenance:
Donated 1973 by Elizabeth MacAgy, widow of Douglas MacAgy.
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.
118 letters from Macdonald-Wright to Morgan Russell.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter Macdonald-Wright was Morgan Russell's sales agent and benefactor as well as his friend.
Provenance:
Donated 1975 by Jean Macdonald-Wright, widow of Stanton Macdonald-Wright. She acquired the letters from Henry Reed.
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.
Letters documenting Macdonald-Wright's travels with his wife Jean to Italy, Japan, Hawaii, and London. He discusses his activities, comments on people and places visited, his love of nature and art, his purchase of "two old Russells" [Morgan Russell] in Ipswitch, England, and buying a home in Hawaii.
Biographical / Historical:
Macdonald-Wright was a painter. The Leslies are art collectors in Palm Springs, Calif. They collected Macdonald-Wright's paintings and were close friends of the Macdonald-Wrights during the last seven years of the artists' life.
Provenance:
Donated 1994 by Alan and Fanny Leslie.
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.
The Jean Gabriel Lemoine papers relating to Morgan Russell measure 0.2 linear feet and are comprised of 20 items that date from 1921-1923 and 1964. The item dating from 1964 is a typescript of a letter fragment. Included are 17 letters and letter fragments written by Morgan Russell in 1923 to Jean Gabriel Lemoine, art critic for L'Echo de Paris. In these letters Russell explains his art and the Synchromism style that he developed with Stanton MacDonald-Wright. Also found are a one page list naming ten paintings in his studio, an article by Lemoine about Russell, and a typed extract about Russell from La Peinture Abstraite by Michel Senghor.
Scope and Content Note:
The Jean Gabriel Lemoine papers relating to Morgan Russell measure 0.2 linear feet and are comprised of 20 items that date from 1921-1923 and 1964. Included are 17 letters and letter fragments written by Morgan Russell in 1923 to Jean Gabriel Lemoine, art critic for L'Echo de Paris. One item dates from 1964 and is a typescript of a letter fragment. In these letters Russell explains his art and the Synchromism style that he developed with Stanton MacDonald-Wright. Also found are a one page list naming ten paintings in his studio, written in 1921 in Morgan Russell's hand, a news clipping of article by Lemoine about Russell, and a typed extract about Russell from La Peinture Abstraite by Michel Senghor. All of the items in the collection are in French. The collection also includes a few notes about the items in each folder, probably written by Lemoine.
Arrangement:
Due to the small size of this collection, items are arranged into one series.
Series 1: Jean Gabriel Lemoine papers relating to Morgan Russell, 1921-1923, 1964 (Box 1; 5 folders)
Biographical Note:
Jean Gabriel Lemoine was an art critic for L'Echo de Paris at the time that he corresponded with abstract painter Morgan Russell (1886-1953). Lemoine also wrote for Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Revue Belge d'Archeologie et d'histoire de l'Art and Beaux Arts Magazine. Morgan Russell studied at the Art Students League in New York with James Earle Fraser and Robert Henri from 1906 to 1907. His first trip to Europe in 1906 was sponsored by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, and he returned to Paris in 1908 and joined the Academie Matisse. He settled in Paris and did not return to the United States until 1946. In 1911 he studied with Canadian color theorist Ernest Tudor-Hart. Also at this time he met fellow artist Stanton Macdonald-Wright with whom he developed the theories of Synchromism. In 1913 he and Macdonald-Wright exhibited together as Synchromists at the Bernheim-Jeune gallery, Paris, where they attracted the attention of French critics, including Lemoine. Russell continued to paint abstract works until 1930 when he began painting large-scale religious works.
Related Material:
Also available at the Archives of American Art are the Stanton Macdonald-Wright letters to Morgan Russell, 1913-1938, found on microfilm reel 1266. Microfilm reels 4524-4542 contain Morgan Russell papers that were loaned for filming by the Montclair Art Museum in 1991.
Separated Material:
One annotated exhibition catalog, Les Synchromistes: Morgan Russell et S. Macdonald-Wright, from 1913, and four photographs of Russell's artwork were kept by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Portrait Gallery Library when they transferred the collection to the Archives of American Art. These items are also available on microfilm reel 1190 at the Archives of American Art.
Provenance:
The papers were transferred to the Archives from the National Collection of Fine Arts (now the Smithsonian American Art Museum) in 1976. NCFA acquired them as part of a purchase in 1972 of Russell's artwork from Lucien Goldschmidt, Inc.
Restrictions:
The collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website.
Rights:
The Jean Gabriel Lemoine papers relating to Morgan Russell 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.
