An interview of Charles Henry Sawyer conducted 1977 January 25, by Cynthia Newman (Helms), for the Archives of American Art. Sawyer speaks mainly about his involvement with the Michigan Arts Council.
Biographical / Historical:
Charles Henry Sawyer (1906-2005) was a museum director at the University of Michigan Museum of Art and other Michigan art organizations.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound tape reel. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 1 hr., 35 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives' 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 others.
Restrictions:
Transcript available online via the Archives of American Art website.
An interview of Charles Henry Sawyer conducted in 1964, by Heyward Ehrlich, for the Archives of American Art.
Sawyer speaks of how he first got involved in art after being offered a job teaching art and operating a museum in Andover by a family friend; how he became involved with the Federal Art Project; the early stages of the Project, and the difficulties they encountered, including the primary motivation of the Project, deciding where the work was to be assigned, and other administrative problems; the changes that occurred as the Federal Arts Project developed; the artists involved with the Project, such as Karl Knaths and Jack Levine; the shows that were put on by the Project; the end of the Federal Art Project; and his thoughts on the project in retrospect. Sawyer recalls Francis Taylor, Karl Knaths, Jack Levine, Howard Gibbs, John Stuart Curry, Herbert Waters, Karl Zerbe, Howard Cook, Hail Woodworth, and many others.
Biographical / Historical:
Charles Henry Sawyer (1906-2005) was a museum director in Ann Arbor, Mich.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound tape reel. Reformatted in 2010 as 1 digital wav file. Duration is 1 hr., 3 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.
Restrictions:
Transcript is available on the Archives of American Art's website.
Correspondence between Francis Henry Taylor, director of the Worcester Art Museum, and Charles Sawyer, curator of the Addison Gallery of American Art regarding the WPA Federal Art Projects in New England. Included are: a letter from Sawyer to Taylor, Sept. 11, 1935, regarding "the Government art projects. ... I am anxious to keep these projects from getting into the wrong hands, but I am not, on the other hand, anxious to get involved in the political complications of the 'New Deal.' In another exchange, Taylor thanks Sawyer for sending him a copy of his letter, July 8, 1937, to Richard Morrison, Ass't to Holger Cahill, in which Sawyer compares the FAP to the PWAP, comments on the organization of the FAP,
and recommends that an "advisory committee, regionally organized, within each state, might be definitely useful to you...if they were...informed of what the Federal Art Project was trying to do." In a letter of Aug. 30, 1937, Sawyer encloses a copy of a letter he received from Morrison regarding FAP funding. Also included are a carbon of a letter from Taylor to Sawyer, Sept. 14, 1937, regarding his opinion that the Advisory committee not get involved in WPA funding; and a letter from Sawyer to Taylor, Oct. 28, 1937, enclosing Sawyer's letter to Morrison (never sent) regarding a controversy over a loan of murals in a WPA exhibition. [Microfilm title: Addison Gallery of American Art papers].
Biographical / Historical:
Gallery at Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts.
Other Title:
Addison Gallery of American Art (microfilm title)
Provenance:
Donated 1964 by the Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Mass.
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.
An interview of Eleanor M. Garvey conducted 1997 February 28-June 13, by Robert F. Brown, for the Archives of American Art in Garvey's office, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Garvey discusses her childhood in Worcester, Massachusetts; majoring in art history at Wellesley College under Serape der Nersessian, Alexander Campbell, Agnes Abbott, and Kenneth Conant; study of education at Clark University, with drawing classes at the art school of the Worcester Art Museum; and the extremely useful experience working at the Museum under Charles Sawyer and Louisa Dresser.
Working as an art librarian and museum curator at Wellesley College (1947-1952), and art history professors John McAndrew, Sidney Freedberg, James O'Gorman; moving on to the Newark Museum (1952-1953) and its collections and administration under Katherine Coffey.
Joining the Dept. of Printing and Graphic Arts of the Houghton Library in 1953 beginning as secretary to curator Philip Hofer; Hofer's work on illustrated books; the development of the Houghton Library from the so-called "Treasure Room" of the main Harvard Library under the direction of George Parker Winship; Garvey's close relationship with William Bentinck-Smith, a Houghton patron and an authority on type design; the status of women professionals at Harvard.
Continued discussion of Houghton patron William Bentinck-Smith; publications and exhibitions while at Houghton, including: "The Artist and the Book, 1860-1960" (1961), "The Turn of a Century, 1885-1970" (1970), "Henry Hobson Richardson and His Office: Selected Drawings" (1974), and "Artists of the Book in Boston, 1890-1910" (1988), as well as her current project producing a catalog of 18th century Venetian illustrated books and her involvement in seminars on artists' books.
Biographical / Historical:
Eleanor M. Garvey (1918- ) is a curator and writer from Cambridge, Massachusetts.
General:
Originally recorded on 3 sound cassettes as X digital wav files. Duration is 3 hrs., 30 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.
2.8 Linear feet ((partially microfilmed on 3 reels))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
1933-1977
Scope and Contents:
Correspondence, reports, minutes of meetings, addresses by Sawyer and others, and printed material relating primarily to Sawyer's involvement in the areas of design and crafts, and committees which studied methods of teaching art and the arts in colleges and universities.
REELS 644-646: Files on the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Conference, 1946; the American Humanities Seminar, 1958; the Association of Art Museum Directors, 1941-1973; Design as a Function of Management conference, 1951; Ford Foundation Studies and Grants to the Arts, 1948-1963; the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard, 1934-1956; the M.I.T. Study Committee for the Visual Arts, 1952-1954; the Museum Publishers Association, 1969-1970; the Salzburg seminar "The Visual Arts in American Life," 1955-1956; the Addison Gallery, 1940-1950; the Worcester Art Museum, 1940-1948; Columbia University Bicentennial; New York State Colleges and Universities; and the American Federation of Arts.
Included in the American Humanities seminar file are lists of participants (including Sawyer), correspondence, 8 p. of quotes from participants, texts of addresses, printed articles taken from papers, clippings, and correspondence of Maxwell Goldberg, chairman, requesting suggestions for participants in the 1959 seminar. The Addison Gallery file contains correspondence between Sawyer and Bartlett Hayes, director of the Gallery; a report of the activities of the Gallery during 1946-1947, 2 typescripts concerning its display of Edward Hopper's painting "Manhattan Bridge Loop," Feb. 1940, reports and minutes of the Visiting Committee, 1950-1951, and financial statements.
UNMICROFILMED: Files concerning Federal Art Projects in New England, 1933-1937; the Museum of Modern Art, 1940-1941; Andover Committee concerning the Phillips Academy, 1950-1956; "The Arts in Universities," 1955; Visual Art Programs of the Independent Schools Art Instructors' Association, 1946; the Addison Gallery, 1964-1970; the American Craftsmen Council, 1959-1963; the first through fourth Upper Peninsula Crafts and Native Industries exhibits, 1960-1963; and the Conference on Museum Training Programs, 1972.
Biographical / Historical:
Museum director; Ann Arbor, Michigan. Director, Addison Gallery of American Art, the Worcester Art Museum, and the University of Michigan Museum of Art; Professor of Art History at Yale University and member of many committees.
Provenance:
Material on reels 644-646 lent for microfilming 1973 by Sawyer. Unmicrofilmed material donated by Sawyer 1977 and 1985. The 1985 donation included material previously filmed on reel 644, fr. 509-1071.
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.
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview of Charles Henry Sawyer, 1977 January 25. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
The sound recordings of the Addison Gallery of American Art measure 0.4 linear feet and date from 1970 to 1991. The recordings document the early history of the gallery. Materials include an untranscribed monologue by Charles Sawyer, first director of the Addison Gallery, on the development of the Gallery collection (1 5 in. reel); untranscribed interviews of Sawyer, conducted by Jock Reynolds, May 24, 1990 and June 7, 1991 (3 cassettes); Marion Faller, conducted by Reynolds, March 9, 1990, regarding work by her husband, photographer Hollis Frampton (1 cassette); and Clare Hayes, wife of Bartlett Hayes, the second director of the Addison Gallery, conducted by Carol Walker Aten, curatorial assistant, Feb. 1, 1991 (2 cassettes). Also included are a transcribed interview (2 cassettes, 38 p.) of Maud Morgan and Gordon (Diz) Bensley, who reminisce about the early days of teaching art at Abbot Academy and Phillips Andover; and a 6 p. summary of the Hayes interview.
Scope and Contents:
The sound recordings of the Addison Gallery of American Art measure 0.4 linear feet and date from 1970 to 1991. The recordings document the early history of the gallery. Materials include an untranscribed monologue by Charles Sawyer, first director of the Addison Gallery, on the development of the Gallery collection (1 5 in. reel); untranscribed interviews of Sawyer, conducted by Jock Reynolds, May 24, 1990 and June 7, 1991 (3 cassettes); Marion Faller, conducted by Reynolds, March 9, 1990, regarding work by her husband, photographer Hollis Frampton (1 cassette); and Clare Hayes, wife of Bartlett Hayes, the second director of the Addison Gallery, conducted by Carol Walker Aten, curatorial assistant, Feb. 1, 1991 (2 cassettes). Also included are a transcribed interview (2 cassettes, 38 p.) of Maud Morgan and Gordon (Diz) Bensley, who reminisce about the early days of teaching art at Abbot Academy and Phillips Andover; and a 6 p. summary of the Hayes interview.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into one series.
Series 1: Interviews, 1970-1991 (0.4 linear feet; Box 1)
Biographical / Historical:
The Addison Gallery of American Art was established by Thomas Cochran at Phillips Academy in 1931, and it contains one of the most comprehensive collections of American art dating from the 18th century to the present.
Provenance:
Donated 1984 and 1991 by the Addison Gallery of American Art.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Researchers interested in accessing audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more information.
Rights:
Sawyer monologue: Authorization to publish, quote, or reproduce requires written permission from Addison Gallery of American Art. Contact Reference Services for more information.
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.
Function:
Art museums -- Massachusetts -- Andover
Genre/Form:
Interviews
Sound recordings
Citation:
Addison Gallery of American Art sound recordings, 1970-1991. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Insitution.
Sponsor:
The processing of this collection received Federal support from the Smithsonian Collections Care and Preservation Fund, administered by the National Collections Program and the Smithsonian Collections Advisory Committee.
