Biographical material, correspondence, journals, notebooks, address books, business records, writings, sketchbooks, exhibition announcements and catalogs, clippings, photographs, and subject files relating to the artistic careers of Wood Gaylor and Adelaide Lawson, to Gaylor's work as a fashion pattern desiger, and, more broadly, to the New York art scene from the 1913 Armory Show through the 1930s.
Included are reminiscences and biographical documents; letters and postcards, some illustrated, from family, friends, artists, galleries, museums, and art organizations; letters of condolence to Adelaide upon Gaylor's death and letters to her concerning his work; original holiday and greeting cards to the Gaylors; a page from Wood's 1952 journal recording names of people attending Kenneth Hayes Miller's funeral and journals kept by Adelaide recording books read, plays attended, travels, and other activities, 1906, 1910 and 1915; a notebook kept by Gaylor regarding his work organizing the 1924 Women's Club exhibition in Jacksonville, Florida, listing artists (among them Pop Hart, Marsden Hartley, Picasso, and Kuniyoshi), titles, and prices of works shipped; business records, including receipts for Gaylor's work consigned or sold to the Downtown Gallery, 1929-1934, tax returns, and other business records, 1922-1979; writings by Wood, including speeches, lectures, and articles on American art and commercial patterns, scripts for New York radio station programs, 1932 and 1949, including a discussion with Salons of America members Alexander Brook, Robert Laurent, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, David H. Morrison, and Peggy Bacon, 1932; writings by others, including 19 poems by Lillian Byrnes, the introduction to the Hamiliton Easter Field Memorial Exhibition catalog by Elsa Rogo, and an organizational memo for the Modern Artists of America with annotations by Wood; four sketchbooks by Wood, 1916, 1923, and undated, and four by Adelaide, 1920-1922 and undated, done while traveling through Europe; and loose sketches by Wood and Adelaide.
Also included are exhibition catalogs and announcements of Wood and Adelaide's group and one-person shows, among them the Wanamaker Gallery of Modern Decorative Art, Friends of the Young Artists, 1915, Thumb Box Gallery, 1916, the MacDowell Club, 1918, the Dialis at the Civic Club Gallery, 1922, the Colony Club, 1922, Gallery 134 W. 4th, 1925, Downtown Gallery, 1930 and 1932, First Municipal Art Exhibition, Rockefeller Center, 1934, Kew Gardens Art Center, 1951, and the initial exhibition of the Museum of Art of Ogunquit, 1953; catalogs and announcements for other New York artists at Mrs. H. P. Whitney's Studio, 1917, Hamilton Easter Field Memorial Show at the American Art Galleries, 1922, Rockwell Kent at the M. Knoedler & Co., 1919, Walt Kuhn at the Grand Central Art Galleries, 1927, The Wanamaker Regional Art Exhibition, 1934, Yasuo Kuniyoshi at the Municipal Art Galleries, 1939, Kenneth Hayes Miller Commemoration Exhibit at the Art Students League 1949, a hand lettered announcement for the sale of George Overbury "Pop" Hart's watercolors by the Junior Art Patrons of America, undated, and catalogs from exhibitions held at the Gaylor's Barn; newspaper and magazine clippings, mostly photocopies, 1910-1979; a book, "The Technique of Oil Paintings and other Essays" by Hamilton Easter Field, 1913, and issues of the Pagan, 1918 and the Quill, 1918, containing drawings by Wood; photographs, circa 1887-1977, of Wood, Adelaide, family, homes, friends, travel, exhibitions, works of art and works of art by others, including a photograph of Wood by Emil Ganso, of Adelaide in an art class, possibly at the Art Students League, of Adelaide's art classes at the Gaylor Barn, of Jules Pascin, Hermine L. David-Pascin, Gustaw Gwozdecki, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Katherine Schmidt-Shubert, Robert Laurent, Frank and Alice Osborn and David H. Morrison, the Armory Show, the Carnegie Institute International in Pittsburgh, and the construction and installation of the Hamilton Easter Field Art Foundation Collection at the Museum of Art, Ogunquit, Maine; subject files containing, correspondence, business records, writings, printed material, and photographs, on: Samuel Hawk, 1877; Penguin Club, 1917-1919; Wood's trusteeship of the Jules Pascin Estate, 1930-1956; Salons of America, 1923-1953 (including a group photo of Fiorella La Guardia, Holger Cahill, Robert Laurent, David H. Morrison, and Wood from the 1935 exhibition opening at Rockefeller Center); Hamilton Easter Field Art Foundation, 1930-1966; New York City Municipal Art Committee, 1934-1937; Armory Show 50th Anniversary Exhibition, 1962-1963; and the New York Society of Women Artists, 1928-1976. The collection also contains biographical documents and correspondence of and relating to the Gaylor's daughter, Isabel Dale Gaylor.
Correspondents include Josephine Baker, Robert J. Coady, Evelyn Cutler, Margaret Di Silver, John and Betty Dos Passos, Hugo Gellert of the Artists Coordination Committee, Edith Halpert, Isabella Howland, Stefan Hirsch, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Robert Laurent, John Howard Lawson, Jonas Lie, Gus Mager, Alice Newton, William Schack, Henry Strater, and Dr. Martin G. Vorhaus among others.
One postcard July 1916, sent from Charleston, South Carolina, from Jules Pascin To Samuel Wood Gaylor.
A circa 100 page typescript of a record of reminiscences on Gaylor's early art career. This is one of 4 parts dictated by Gaylor in 1953. This recording was used as the basis for Jean Lipman's article "Wood Gaylor: Diary of the Carefree Years," published in Art In America, December 1963.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter and lithographer Samuel Wood Gaylor (1883-1957) was born in Stamford, Connecticut and studied at the National Academy of Design, New York, under Walt Kuhn. He exhibited at the Armory Show, the Penguin Club, and the Downtown Gallery and participated in many art organizations including the Kit-Kat Club, the Penguin Club, Modern Artists of America, American Society of Painters, Sculptors and Engravers. He served on the board for the Salons of America, the Hamilton Easter Field Art Foundation, the New York City Municipal Art Committee, and the Museum of Art, Ogunquit, Maine.
Provenance:
Material on reel D9 was donated in 1958 by T. J. McCormick. Material on reel D160 was donated in 1964 by Adelaide Lawson Gaylor. The remainder was donated in 1986 by the Gaylors' sons, Wynn L. and Randall Gaylor. 16 items, mostly cards and letters to Gaylor were donated in 2008 by Christine Oaklander in honor of Dr. William Innes Homer, Art Historian and Professor Emeritus at the University of Delaware. Oaklander purchased the letters from Wyn Gaylor. An additional 21 documents, mostly cards and letters to Gaylor, were donated in 2015 by Wynn Gaylor.
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.
The papers of painter and muralist Louis Bouché measure 5.9 linear feet and date from 1880 to 2007. Found within the papers are biographical material; personal correspondence, including correspondence from the extended Bouché family; writings; financial records; printed material; four scrapbooks; artwork; and photographs of Bouché, his family and friends, and his work.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of painter and muralist Louis Bouché measure 5.9 linear feet and date from 1880 to 2007. Found within the papers are biographical material; personal correspondence, including correspondence from the extended Bouché family; writings; financial records; printed material; four scrapbooks; artwork; and photographs of Bouché, his family and friends, and his work.
Biographical material consists of family certificates and Bouché's curriculum vitae.
The bulk of the correspondence consists of letters from Bouché 's father to his mother, and of letters addressed to his daughter, Jane. These include letters Louis and Marian wrote to Jane, along with letters from her first husband, William Pène du Bois, during the early days of their courtship and marriage. The handful of letters directly addressed to Louis and Marian include correspondence from Peggy Bacon and Katherine Schmidt.
Writings include drafts of Bouché's autobiography, eight journals kept by Marian Bouché detailing their travels in the United States and abroad, four reminiscences of Bouché written by others, and a poem written by Peggy Bacon.
Personal business records consist of two ledger books, lists, and receipts documenting inventory and records of sales.
Printed material consists of clippings, exhibition announcements and catalogs, and periodicals related to Bouché's work. There are also three books from Bouché's personal library and exhibition announcements and catalogs from Walt Kuhn's Penguin Club and Wanamaker's Gallery.
Two scrapbooks include clippings, photographs, and printed material related to Bouché 's career. One scrapbook includes material related to the extended Bouché family, and one scrapbook consists of reproductions of works of art by modern French artists.
Photographic materials include ten photograph albums. Three are of Louis, Marian, and Jane, three are of Jane and her family, and four are of Louis' parents and sister's family. There are also loose prints and negatives of Bouché, his family and friends, and works of art.
Artwork consists of sketches and drawings by Louis, Jane, Henri, and Ernest Bouché. Additional sketches by Peggy Bacon, Alexander Brook, Jo Davidson, and Reginald Marsh are also included.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged as 8 series.
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1880-1964 (2 folders, Box 1)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1880-2003 (1.2 linear feet; Boxes 1-2)
Series 3: Writings, 1933-1995 (.9 linear feet, Boxes 2-3)
Series 4: Personal Business Records, 1930-1974 (4 folders, Box 3)
Series 5: Printed Material, 1900-1997 (.5 linear feet; Boxes 3, 6)
Series 6: Scrapbooks, 1880-1969 (.8 linear feet; Boxes 3, 7-8)
Series 7: Photographic Materials, 1890-1994 (2.3 linear feet; Boxes 3-5, 9-10)
Series 8: Artwork, 1870-1965 (10 folders; Boxes 5, 10)
Biographical / Historical:
Louis Bouché (1896-1969) was a painter, muralist, and educator who lived and worked in New York City.
Bouché was born in New York City to Henri and Marie Bouché. His father was an interior designer who worked with Stanford White and for Tiffany, and his grandfather, Ernest Louis Bouché, was a Barbizon school painter. After his father's death in 1909, his mother moved the family to Paris where Bouché attended art school at La Grand Chaumère. When the family moved back to America in 1915, Bouché enrolled at the Art Students League where he met fellow student and lifelong friend Alexander Brook. In 1916, Bouché was invited to become a member of Walt Kuhn's Penguin Club, and in 1918, he joined the stable of Charlie Daniel's Daniel Gallery. At this time, Bouché began exhibiting in shows organized by Julianna Force for the Whitney Studio Club, which later evolved into the Whitney Museum. In 1920, he was introduced to the Woodstock artist community and was a frequent summer resident at the colony.
Bouché met Marian Wright while they were both members of the Penguin Club, and they were married in 1921. Upon returning from their honeymoon, Bouché accepted a position managing exhibitions for Wanamaker's Belmaison Galleries, the first modern art gallery in a department store in New York. Their daughter Jane would later marry William Pène du Bois, son of Guy Pène du Bois, whom the Bouchés had known from their days in the Penguin Club. In 1926, Bouché separated from Wanamaker's and began taking commissions for mural and design work, eventually completing murals for the U.S. Department of the Interior, Radio City Music Hall, and the Pennsylvania Railroad. In addition to murals, Bouché did illustrative advertising work for various publications, including Condé Nast and Town and Country.
In 1936, Bouché joined the stable at Kraushaar Gallery, where he eventually exhibited a series of ten one-man shows. Bouché also held solo exhibitons at the Valentine Gallery, Staten Island Institute, Century Association, and Albany Institute. Beginning in 1943, Bouché taught for many years at the Art Students League and began teaching at the National Academy of Design in 1951. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1936 and was the American Academy in Rome's artist in residence in 1960.
Louis Bouché died in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, on August 7, 1969.
Related Materials:
Also found in the Archives of American Art are two oral history interviews with Louis Bouché, one conducted by John Morse, August 7, 1959, and another by William Woolfenden on March 13, 1963.
Provenance:
A portion of the Louis Bouché papers were loaned for microfilming and subsequently donated by the artist and his wife in 1963 and from 1972 to 1973. Additions were donated by Bouché's daughter, Jane Bouché Strong, in several accretions dating from 1978 to 1988. In 2011, Anne Strong, Jane B. Strong's executor, donated additional materials to the Archives of American Art.
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.
Topic:
Muralists -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Sketches
Scrapbooks
Travel diaries
Drawings
Citation:
Louis Bouché papers, 1880-2007. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
The papers of realist painter Isabel Bishop date from 1914 to 1983 and measure 2.6 linear feet. The collection documents Bishop's painting career, her friendship with other artists, and her participation in several arts organizations. There are scattered biographical documents, correspondence with fellow artists such as Peggy Bacon, Warren Chappell, Edward Laning, and R. B. Kitaj, and with writers, curators, museums, galleries, arts organizations, and others. Also found are arts organization files, Bishop's writings about Warren Chappell and friend Reginald Marsh, notes, exhibition catalogs, news clippings, and other printed material, photographs of Bishop and her artwork, and photographs of Reginald and Felicia Marsh. Original artwork includes 8 sketchbooks, loose sketches, prints, and watercolor figure studies.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of realist painter Isabel Bishop date from 1914 to 1983 and measure 2.6 linear feet. The collection documents Bishop's painting career, her friendship with other artists, and her participation in several arts organizations. Scattered biographical documents include awards and a file on her participation in art juries.
Bishop was friends with many artists and cultural figures and her correspondence includes letters to and from artists such as John Taylor Arms, Peggy Bacon, Peter Blume, Warren Chappell (many letters from Chappell are illustrated), Sidney Delevante, Edwin Dickinson, Philip Evergood, John Folinsbee, Malvina Hoffman, Jo Hopper, James Kearns, Leon Kroll, Clare Leighton, Jack Levine, Alice Neel, Hobson Pittman, Fairfield Porter, Abraham Rattner, Katherine Schmidt, Henry Schnakenberg, Raphael Soyer, George Tooker, Stuyvesant Van Veen, Franklin Watkins, Mahonri Young, and William Zorach. Bishop not only corresponded with artists but also many poets, authors, historians, and dancers, such as Van Wyck Brooks, John Canaday, John Ciardi, Merce Cunningham, Babette Deutsch, Edna Ferber, Richmond Lattimore, Marianne Moore, Lewis Mumford, Kurt Vonnegut, and Glenway Westcott. Also found are letters from many galleries, museums, and schools which exhibited or purchased her work, including curators Juliana Force and Una Johnson.
Bishop kept files from her affiliations with the American Society of Painters, Sculptors, and Gravers and the New Society of Artists, containing mostly membership and financial records, and a file on a UNESCO conference. Unfortunately, files documenting her membership and vice presidency of the National Institute of Arts & Letters are not found here.
A small amount of Bishop's writings and notes include essays about friends and artists Reginald Marsh and Warren Chappell. Printed material consists of exhibition catalogs and announcements, news clippings, magazines, and a design by G. Alan Chidsey for a book about Bishop. Photographs depict Bishop with her husband and in her studio, her artwork, and also include three photographs of her friend, Reginald Marsh.
Original artwork includes eight small sketchbooks, loose pen and ink sketches, intaglio prints, watercolor figure studies, and a drawing of Bishop by Aaron Bohrod.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into 7 series:
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1943-1975 (Box 1; 4 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1939-1983 (Box 1; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 3: Organization Files, 1924-1937, 1951-1952 (Box 1; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 4: Writings & Notes, 1937-1960s (Box 1; 4 folders)
Series 5: Printed Material, 1930-1979 (Box 2; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 6: Photographs, 1914, circa 1920s-1975 (Box 2, OV 5; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 7: Artwork, circa 1940s-1970s (Box 2-4, OV 5; 0.4 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Isabel Bishop (1902-1988) was born in Cincinnati, Ohio to John Remsen Bishop and Anna Bartram Newbold Bishop. Shortly after her birth the family moved to Detroit, Michigan. As a child Bishop took art classes and had a growing interest in drawing. In 1918 at the age of 16 she left home and moved to New York City where she enrolled in the School of Applied Design for Women to be an illustrator. However, her real interest was in painting, not the graphic arts, and she enrolled in the Art Students League in 1920. There she studied with Kenneth Hayes Miller and Guy Pene du Bois and met many young artists, including Reginald Marsh and Edwin Dickinson, both of whom became close friends. She took classes until 1924 and rented a studio and living space on 14th Street in a neighborhood where many artists maintained studios at the time.
Bishop began exhibiting her work and participated in artist groups, including the Whitney Studio Club and the New Society of Artists. During the 1920s and 1930s she developed a realist style of painting, primarily depicting women in their daily routine on the streets of Manhattan. Her work was greatly influenced by Peter Paul Rubens and other Dutch and Flemish painters that she had discovered during trips to Europe. In 1932 Bishop began showing her work frequently at the newly opened Midtown Galleries, where her work would be represented throughout her career.
In 1934 she married Harold Wolff, a neurologist, and moved with him to Riverdale, New York. Bishop kept her studio in Manhattan, moving from 14th Street to Union Square. She remained in her Union Square studio for fifty years (1934-1984). From 1936 to 1937 she taught at the Art Students League and in 1940 her son Remsen was born. In 1941 she was named a member of the National Academy of Design and from 1944 to 1946 she was the Vice President of the National Institute of Arts & Letters, the first woman to hold an executive position with that organization. She wrote articles and joined other artists in speaking out in support of realist painting and against the abstract style that was dominating the New York art scene.
During her long career which lasted into the 1980s, Bishop exhibited in numerous group and solo exhibitions, traveled throughout the U. S. as an exhibition juror, and won many awards for her work, including the award for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts presented by President Jimmy Carter in 1979.
Related Material:
Also found at the Archives of American Art are three oral history interviews with Isabel Bishop, April 15, 1959, May 29, 1959, and November 12-December 11, 1987.
The Whitney Museum of American Art and Midtown Galleries loaned additional Bishop papers to the Archives for microfilming on reels NY59-4 and NY59-5. These items were returned to the lenders after microfilming and are not described in the container listing of this finding aid.
Provenance:
The collection was donated in several installments by Isabel Bishop from 1959 to 1983.
Restrictions:
The collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website.
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:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The papers of printmaker, illustrator, caricaturist, and writer Peggy Bacon measure 3.6 linear feet and date from 1893 to 1973, with the bulk of materials dating from 1900 to 1936. Much of the collection consists of family correspondence, although writings, photographs, artwork, and personal business records from Bacon's late career are also found.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of printmaker, illustrator, caricaturist, and writer Peggy Bacon measure 3.6 linear feet and date from 1893 to 1973, with the bulk of materials dating from 1900 to 1936. Much of the collection consists of family correspondence, although writings, photographs, artwork, and personal business records from Bacon's late career are also found.
Correspondence is found between Peggy Bacon and her parents, Elizabeth and Charles Roswell Bacon. Letters to her mother describe in detail her life as an art student and artist at the Art Students League; summer schools in Port Jefferson, Long Island and Provincetown, Massachusetts; the Woodstock artists' colony; and her early years in New York City. Letters from her husband, Alexander Brook, to her mother are also present. Letters to Bacon include letters from her early teacher Jonas Lie, and from friends and fellow artists Catherine Wiley, Dorothy Varian, Katherine Schmidt, Anne Rector Duffy, and others. Her parents' extensive correspondence includes letters to her father from the artists Jules Adler, Rudolph Bunner, Ira Remsen, and Charles Downing Lay.
The collection also contains Peggy Bacon's school reports and writing assignments, a marriage certificate, scattered poetry manuscripts and notes by Peggy Bacon, and fiction manuscripts by Charles Roswell Bacon. Personal business records date from the 1960s and 1970s and include publisher's royalty statements, gallery sales statements, and scattered business correspondence with Antoinette Kraushaar and other staff at the Kraushaar Galleries. Photographs depict Bacon and her family, friends, homes, and works of art. Artwork includes several original drawings and sketches by Bacon, as well as artwork by Alexander Brook, Charles Roswell Bacon, and others.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into 7 series:
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1893-1913 (Box 1; 2 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1893-1939, 1969-1972 (Boxes 1-3; 3 linear feet)
Series 3: Personal Business Records, 1897-1934, 1963-1972 (Box 4; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 4: Writings, 1905-1920 (Boxes 4-5; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 5: Printed Material, 1905-1935, 1973 (Box 5; 3 folders)
Series 6: Photographs, circa 1900-1963 (Box 5, OV 6; 4 folders)
Series 7: Artwork, undated (Box 5, OVs 6-8; 9 folders)
Biographical Note:
Peggy Bacon was born in 1895 in Ridgefield, Connecticut, and grew up an only child after the death of two younger brothers in infancy. Her parents, Charles Roswell Bacon and Elizabeth Chase Bacon, had met at the Art Students League, where her father had studied with Robert Henri. Her father pursued a career in painting and writing until his suicide in 1913, and her mother painted miniatures.
A child of artists, Bacon began to draw at a very early age, and by age ten she was already earning money for her illustrations, drawings of literary characters made for dinner place cards. She did not attend school until 1909, when her parents sent her to a boarding school in Summit, New Jersey. She began her formal art training shortly after her father's death, enrolling in the School of Applied Arts for Women at the end of 1913. In the summer of 1914, she attended Jonas Lie's landscape class in Port Jefferson, Long Island, and continued private studies with him in New York City. Lie gave Bacon her first solo exhibition in 1915. From 1915 until 1920, she studied at the Art Students League under John Sloan, Kenneth Hayes Miller, George Bellows, Mahroni Young, and others. In the summers, she took classes first in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and then in Woodstock, New York, where she studied with Andrew Dasburg.
Bacon's circle was formed at the Art Students League, and the League's summer school in Woodstock. She met her husband, Alexander Brook, in Woodstock, and they were married in 1920. Both were active in the Woodstock Artists Association. Other artists in their close-knit group included Dorothea Schwarz (Greenbaum), Anne Rector (Duffy), Betty Burroughs (Woodhouse), Katherine Schmidt (Kuniyoshi Shubert), Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Molly Luce, Dorothy Varian, Edmund Duffy, Dick Dyer, David Morrison, and Andrew Dasburg. Many from this group were involved in the short-lived satirical magazine at the League called Bad News, published in 1918 with several of Bacon's earliest satirical drawings. Her first book, The True Philosopher and Other Cat Tales, was published in 1919. Brook and Bacon traveled to England in 1920, where their daughter Belinda was born. A son, Sandy, was born in Woodstock in 1922. In the early 1920s, Brook worked with Juliana Force at the Whitney Studio Club, and they were involved in the cultural life that sprang up around the gallery, which featured up-and-coming artists. For many years, Bacon and her family split their time between New York and Woodstock, and later summered in Cross River, NY. After divorcing Brook in 1940, Bacon spent summers in Ogunquit, Maine.
Though she initially thought of herself as a painter, she built her reputation on her drawings and prints, which often satirized the people around her in their natural habitats - artists in life classes, at dances, and in social situations, or a throng of people in a museum, on a city sidewalk, or a ship's deck. She became sought after for her illustrations and witty, topical verse in magazines such as Dial, Delineator, The New Yorker, New Republic, Fortune, and Vanity Fair. She helped to establish the American Print Makers, an artists' organization based in the Downtown Gallery which sought greater exhibition opportunities for printmakers. Bacon illustrated over sixty books, nineteen of which she also wrote, between 1919 and 1966, including many children's books and a successful mystery novel called The Inward Eye (1952). In 1933 she received a Guggenheim Fellowship and used it to complete a collection of caricatures of art world figures called Off With Their Heads (1934), the success of which prompted a spate of commissions for caricatures. Bacon stopped making caricatures in 1935, but they include some of her best-known work.
Bacon exhibited frequently, in New York and in major museum exhibitions nationally, showing her prints, drawings, pastels, and watercolors. She had over thirty solo exhibitions at such venues as Montross Gallery, Alfred Stieglitz's Intimate Gallery, and the Downtown Gallery, and was represented by Rehn Galleries and later Kraushaar Galleries. Bacon also taught extensively in the 1930s and 1940s, at the Fieldston School, Art Students League, Hunter College, Temple University, the Corcoran Gallery, and other places. In the 1950s, she returned to painting. She made her last prints in 1955. In the early 1970s, Bacon's eyesight failed, and she eventually went to live with her son in Cape Porpoise, Maine. She died in 1987.
Related Material:
Among the other resources relating to Peggy Bacon in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Bacon, May 8, 1973; and letters to Bernice and Harry Lurie from Peggy Bacon, 1969-1977. Additional Peggy Bacon papers are available at Syracuse University.
Provenance:
The collection was donated by Peggy Bacon in 1973 and Kraushaar Galleries in 2008.
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.
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.
The papers of painter Dorothy Varian date from circa 1902 to 1984 and measure 2.3 linear feet. This collection documents Varian's life primarily through scattered biographical material; correspondence with family, friends, artists and art galleries; personal business records; a few writings; exhibition catalogs, news clippings, and other printed material; photographs of Varian, her friends, and artwork; and original sketches by Varian and fellow artist Peggy Bacon.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of painter Dorothy Varian date from circa 1902 to 1984 and measure 2.3 linear feet. This collection documents Varian's life primarily through scattered biographical material; correspondence with family, friends, artists and art galleries; personal business records; a few writings; exhibition catalogs, news clippings, and other printed material; photographs of Varian, her friends, including Peggy Bacon, Alex Brook, Bernard Karfiol, and Yasuo Kuniyoshi, and artwork; and original sketches by Varian and fellow artist Peggy Bacon.
Varian's earliest correspondence is with her mother and her cousin Jessie, detailing her life as an artist in Paris. Also found is extensive correspondence with with Peggy Bacon, Hermine Kleinert, Lenore G. Marshall, Waldo Pierce, Katherine Schmidt, Antoinette Schulte, and the Renoir family.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 7 series.
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1920-1980 (5 folders; Box 1)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1917-1981 (0.8 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 3: Writings, 1940s-1960s (3 folders; Box 1)
Series 4: Personal Business Records, 1931-1984 (9 folders; Box 1)
Series 5: Printed Material, 1916-1981 (0.5 linear feet; Box 2)
Series 6: Photographs, circa 1902-1961 (13 folders; Boxes 2-3)
Series 7: Artwork, circa 1912-1924 (11 folders; Boxes 2-3)
Biographical / Historical:
Dorothy Varian (1895-1985) was a painter in New York City, and Woodstock, NY. Varian was born in New York City on April 26, 1895; daughter of Eugene W. and Helen Estelle Varian. She dropped out of high school at 15 and entered Cooper Union where she graduated with honors. After Cooper Union she attended the Art Students League. While a student she inadvertently won first and second prize in a local art contest sponsored by movie producer, William Fox. She used the prize money to rent her first studio in Woodstock.
In 1920, her cousins Jessie and C. Vanderbilt Barton provided her the means to study in Paris.
Varian's first one-man show was held in 1922 at the Durand-Ruel Galleries in Paris. A close friend of Varian's during this time was Jean Renior, son of Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Within the first year after she returned permanently to the United States, Varian had exhibitions at the Whitney Club, Whitney Galleries, and the Downtown Galleries. Edith Halpert, director of the Downtown Galleries became Varian's art dealer. Varian used the money from her work to buy a home in Woodstock which became her primary painting studio. The majority of her circle was formed during her time at the Art Students League and during her years in Paris. Varian also met many artists who were living and working alongside her in Woodstock. Throughout her life, she stayed in contact with many of these friends including Peggy Bacon, Alex Brook, Georgina Klitgaard, Frederick Dana Marsh, Lenore G. Marshall, and Waldo Pierce.
Varian worked primarily with watercolor and oil painting. Varian's work has been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Corcoran Galleries, Carnegie International, Whitney Museum of American Art, Association of American Artists Gallery, Brooklyn Museum, and several universities across the country. Over the course of her career, Varian held fifteen solo exhibitions and received many awards including the Kuniyoshi Award in 1975. Varian died in 1985 at the age of 90.
Related Materials:
Also found in this repository is an interview of Dorothy Varian conducted 1980 Dec. 6-7, by Avis Berman, for the Archives of American Art.
Provenance:
The collection was donated to the Archives of American Art in installments by Dorothy Varian in 1972, 1978, and 1981. An additonal installment was donated in 1986 by the Dorothy Varian estate, via Robert Plate.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
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:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Painting, Modern -- 20th century -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Women painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Sketches
Citation:
Dorothy Varian papers, circa 1902-1984. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
5.1 Linear feet ((partially microfilmed on 6 reels))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
1905-1969
Scope and Contents:
Photographs, correspondence, appointment books, etchings, a scrapbook, printed materials, writings, and posters.
REEL D113: Primarily letters received from artists, 1940s-50s; background material for Ft.Lee and Amsterdam (N.Y.) murals; and miscellaneous printed material and photographs.
Correspondents include John Angel, Artists Equity, Peggy Bacon, Gifford Beal, Henry Billings, Isabel Bishop, Peter Blume, Louis Bouche, Van Wyck Brooks, Audrey Buller, Paul Cadmus, Alexander Calder, William Congdon, Horace T. Day, Olin Dows, Marcel Duchamp, Emlen P. Etting, Philip Evergood, Barry Faulkner, Ernest Fiene, Leon Hartl, Whitney F. Hoyt, William M. Ivins, Jr., Lincoln E. Kirstein, Leon Kroll, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Edward Laning, Joseph L. Lasker, Clare Leighton, Charles W. Locke, Sanford B.D. Low, Luigi Lucioni, Reginald Marsh, Kenneth H. Miller, Nat'l Institute of Arts and Letters, Betty Parsons, Hugo Robus, Homer Saint-Gaudens, Katherine Schmidt, Ben Shahn, Charles Sheeler, Eugene Speicher, Theodoros Stamos, Franklin C. Watkins, Forbes and Nan Watson, and Leonard Weisgard.
REEL 847: Photographs, including 67 of Schnakenberg and friends, 1 of a portrait of him by Lloyd Goff, 95 of his oil paintings, 33 of his watercolors, 25 of his works in unidentified media, 29 of works by other artists, and 46 of pre-Columbian art from Central and South America. Among artists whose works are included are Antoine Louis Barye, Albert Bierstadt, Frederick Catherwood, Constantin Guys, Thomas Hardy, William Harnett, Winslow Homer, George Inness, Eastman Johnson, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Reginald Marsh, Rockland Savery, Theodoros Stamos, and Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait.
REELS 850-853: Biographical information; personal and business correspondence; 17 diaries, mainly about Schnakenberg's travels, 1905-1960; appointment calendars, 1963-1969; 70 etchings by Schnakenberg; a scrapbook containing clippings, catalogs, and other printed material; a book published by G. Alan Chidsey on Schnakenberg; clippings, catalogs, and announcements; papers relating to gifts and acquisitions of works of art; receipts for Schnakenberg paintings from C.W. Kraushaar Galleries; a 650-page typescript for a book "The Background of Painting" by Schnakenberg; and drafts of speeches.
UNMICROFILMED: Six World War I posters designed by Schnakenberg; Christmas cards from artists and other friends; printed material; and a photograph of Lloyd Goff, inscribed to Schnakenberg, in front of one of his paintings, 1939.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter, etcher; Newton, Conn.
Provenance:
Material donated 1963-1971 by Schnakenberg and, after his death, by 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.
An interview of Katherine Schmidt conducted 1969 December 8 and December 15, by Paul Cummings, for the Archives of American Art, at the artist's home, in New York, N.Y.
Biographical / Historical:
Katherine Schmidt (1898-1978) was a still life painter from New York, N.Y.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound tape reel. Reformatted in 2010 as 4 digital wav files. Duration is 4 hr., 13 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 on the Archives of American Art website.
1.8 Linear feet ((partially microfilmed on 2 reels))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Interviews
Sketchbooks
Date:
1920-1982
Scope and Contents:
Biographical material, interviews, printed materials, writings, correspondence, art work, and photographs.
REEL 290: Eleven scripts for radio programs on the Index of American Design, broadcast in New York throughout 1940. Interviewees include: Rothschild, Holger Cahill, director of the WPA-FAP; Edith Halpert, director of American Folk Art Gallery; Katherine Coffey, curator of Newark Museum; Alice Winchester, editor of "Antiques"; and Theodore Starr.
REEL NDA 15: Press releases; pamphlet on permanent art programs; Index of American Design papers; a report concerning government art programs; memorandum to Gustave Von Groschwitz outlining a plan for new subject matter for FAP artists; and "Report to the Sculptors of the Federal Art Project" by Girolamo Piccoli.[Report to the sculptors...under microfilm title Girolamo Piccoli]
UNMICROFILMED: Writings on art and on the Index of American Design; radio scripts for the series "The American Artists" sponsored by Artists Equity, 1953; clippings, 1936-1982; a nearly complete set of his newsletter, THE PRAGMATIST IN ART, 1964-1978; material on Kenneth Hayes Miller; resumes, school transcripts and memorabilia; photographs of Rothschild and of his sculpture; correspondence concerning THE PRAGMATIST IN ART (1964-1978), The Index of American Design (1968-1973), his research on Miller (1964-1977) and other publications, his work for Artists Equity, and other matters; a sketchbook; and a drawing. Among the correspondents are Samuel Kramer, editor of "The Shipyard Worker," Peppino Mangravite, Katherine Schmidt Shubert, Betty Burroughs Woodhouse, and critics Rudolf Arnheim, John Canaday and Donald Kuspit.
Biographical / Historical:
Lincoln Rothschild (1902-1983) was a cculptor and writer in New York, N.Y. Rothschild was the director of the New York Unit of the Index of American Design, 1937-1940. He taught at Columbia University and Adelphi College, 1946-1950 and was the National Executive Director for Artists' Equity Association, 1951-57. He was the author of SCULPTURE THROUGH THE AGES (1942) TO KEEP ART ALIVE-KENNETH HAYES MILLER, AMERICAN PAINTER 1876-1956 (1974), FORMS AND THEIR MEANINGS IN WESTERN ART (1976) and numerous articles.
Other Title:
Girolamo Piccoli [microfilm title]
Provenance:
Material on reel NDA15 donated by Rothschild, 1964; remainder donated 1987 by his widow, Elisabeth Rothschild.
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.
The papers of Reginald Marsh (1898-1954) measure approximately 9.3 linear feet and date from circa 1897 to 1955. The collection documents the life and work of the artist, who was best known for his paintings and illustrations depicting scenes of vaudeville, night clubs, burlesque, and New York City. Marsh was a lifelong free-lance illustrator for the New Yorker, Esquire and many other national magazines. Papers include correspondence, diaries, notebooks, sketches, scrapbooks, business and financial papers, and photographs, as well as some biographical and printed material.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of Reginald Marsh (1898-1954) measure approximately 9.3 linear feet and date from circa 1897 to 1955. The collection documents the life and work of the artist, who was best known for his paintings and illustrations depicting scenes of vaudeville, night clubs, burlesque, and New York City. Marsh was a lifelong free-lance illustrator for the New Yorker, Esquire and many other national magazines. Papers include correspondence, diaries, notebooks, sketches, scrapbooks, business and financial papers, and photographs, as well as some biographical and printed material.
Marsh's correspondence is typically with family, friends, artists, colleagues, dealers, government officials, publishers, greeting card companies, admirers and former students. Correspondence concerns both personal and professional matters, documenting his relationships with family and friends and his work on various projects ranging from book illustrations to the murals he executed as part of the Treasury Department Art Program. Diaries include those Marsh kept as an adolescent, those in which he recorded his technique and work on art, and those in which he recorded his daily engagements. Notebooks include ones on art, in which he recorded notes on particular works and on painting techniques, mediums and other processes; ones used as address books and to record notes on travel and art work; and ones on finances, in which he kept track of earnings from his stocks and art, as well as some student notebooks. Diaries and notebooks both document various practical aspects involved in the creation of Marsh's art work.
Sketches include ones on loose sheets and scraps of paper and in sketchbooks, documenting some of the sources and recurrent themes of Marsh's art work, as well as shedding light on Marsh's process of creation. Scrapbooks consist primarily of clippings (illustrations, reviews, reproductions of art work) compiled by Marsh, documenting the publication, exhibition, and reception of his art work. Business and financial papers consist of paperwork (contracts, agreements, statements, receipts, permissions) relating to business matters, practical concerns, and financial aspects involved in handling his various art projects and in exhibiting and selling his art work. Photographs include ones of Marsh's family and friends, the artist at work (sketching around Coney Island and on the streets of New York), and his art work (some of which was compiled into volumes by Marsh and some of which was compiled by Norman Sasowsky).
Also found are limited amounts of biographical material, including juvenilia, official documents, awards and certificates, writings, an appraisal of Marsh's estate, and catalogs of Marsh's art work, and printed material, including exhibition catalogs, clippings, and publications.
Arrangement:
The Reginald Marsh papers are arranged as 9 series:
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1910s-1955 (boxes 1, 11; 0.8 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1920-1954 (boxes 1-2, OV 12; 1.2 linear feet)
Series 3: Diaries, 1912-1954 (box 3; 1 linear foot)
Series 4: Notebooks, 1919-1954 (box 4; 0.8 linear feet)
Series 5: Sketches, 1901-1954, undated (boxes 4-5, OV 12-21; 1.4 linear feet)
Series 6: Scrapbooks, 1901-1954, undated (boxes 6, 9-11; 1.5 linear feet)
Series 7: Business and Financial Papers, 1923-1954 (box 6; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 8: Photographs, circa 1897-1908, 1920-1952 (boxes 6-8, 10; 1.3 linear feet)
Series 9: Printed Material, 1931-1955 (boxes 8, 10; 0.2 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
Reginald Marsh was born in Paris on March 14, 1898. His father, Fred Dana Marsh, was a well-known muralist, and his mother, Alice Randall Marsh, was also an artist who painted miniature watercolors. Marsh returned with his family to the United States in 1900 and grew up in Nutley, New Jersey.
After graduating from Yale University in 1920, Marsh moved to New York, where he worked as an illustrator for the New York Evening Post and Herald, Vanity Fair and Harper's Bazaar. Beginning in 1922, he worked as staff artist at the New York Daily News doing a cartoon review of vaudeville and burlesque. During the 1920s, he designed theater curtains for the Greenwich Village Follies and other theater productions, and became one of the original cartoonists at The New Yorker after it was founded in 1925, actively working for the magazine until 1931 and regularly contributing drawings from time to time after that.
In 1923, Marsh married Betty Burroughs, who was the daughter of the curator of painting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and herself a sculptor. They divorced in 1933, and he married his second wife, Felicia Meyer, a landscape painter, in 1934.
In the early 1920s, Marsh began to study painting and attended classes taught by John Sloan and Kenneth Hayes Miller, among others, at the Art Students League in New York. He made several trips to Europe, once in 1925-1926 and again in 1928, to study the old masters in the museums. In 1929, he began to paint in egg tempera. He also worked in watercolor, painting several large compositions in 1939-1940. In the 1940s, he studied the "Maroger medium" with Jacques Maroger and began to use this emulsion technique in his paintings. In addition to painting, he also worked in lithography, etching, and engraving.
Marsh had his first one-man show of oils and watercolors at the Whitney Studio Club in 1924 and another show of lithographs there in 1928. He had one-man shows of his watercolors at the Valentine Dudensing Galleries in 1927, the Weyhe Gallery in 1928, and the Marie Sterner Galleries in 1929. In 1930, he had his first show of paintings at the Rehn Galleries, where he regularly exhibited for the next two decades.
In 1935 and 1937 respectively, Marsh was commissioned by the Treasury Department Art Program to paint two murals in the Post Office Department Building in Washington, D.C. and a series of murals in the rotunda of the Customs House in New York. Beginning in 1935, Marsh taught drawing and painting at the Art Students League. In the summer of 1946, he was guest instructor at Mills College, Oakland, California, for six weeks. In 1949, he was appointed head of the Department of Paintings at Moore Institute of Art, Science, and Industry, Philadelphia and taught advanced painting there in 1953-1954.
Beginning in the mid-1930s, some of Marsh's art work began to be reproduced on greeting cards issued by the American Artists Group and Living American Art, Inc. He also did illustrations for editions of Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie (1938), John Dos Passos's USA (1945) and Adventures of a Young Man (1946), and Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper (1946), among others. He continued to do freelance illustrations for magazines, including Esquire, Fortune, and Life. Notably, he served as an artist correspondent for Life during the Second World War, and traveled to Brazil in 1943 to draw the army installations there.
Marsh was the recipient of various awards throughout his career, including the M. V. Kohnstamm Prize from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1931, the First W. A. Clark Prize and Corcoran Gold Medal from the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., in 1945, and the Gold Medal for Graphic Arts of the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1954.
Marsh died of a heart attack in Dorset, Vermont on July 3, 1954.
This biographical note draws heavily from information originally printed in the catalogue of the Reginald Marsh Retrospective Exhibition organized by the Whitney Museum in 1955.
Related Material:
The Archives holds several collections of different provenance that relate to Reginald Marsh, including Felicia Meyer Marsh and Meyer Family Papers (available on reels 2082, 2087-2090, and 4474-4475), Fred Dana Marsh illustrated letters (available on reel 3134), Norman Sasowsky Research Material on Reginald Marsh (partially available on reels 1195 and 1463-1464), and Reginald Marsh Printed Material, consisting of two yearbooks from Lawrenceville School donated by Alvin Macauley who was a classmate of Marsh (not available on microfilm). In addition, a portion of the materials loaned and microfilmed in 1963 on reel NRM 19, including several small paintings, are housed in the Pierpont Morgan Library.
Separated Material:
The Archives of American Art also holds material lent for microfilming. Some of the material loaned for microfilming in 1963, including the bulk of Marsh's sketchbooks and some anatomy sketches, was subsequently donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Public Library, and Whitney Museum of American Art. Other loaned material, including several small paintings, was from the Pierpont Morgan Library. Most of the files of clippings that were donated to AAA with Marsh's papers were transferred to the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery Library in 1979. Even though this material is not technically part of the collection housed in AAA, copies are available on microfilm reels NRM3-NRM17 (sketchbooks and sketches), NRM 19 (material from the Pierpont Morgan Library), NRM 20 (small paintings), and 2233-2234 (clippings). A portion of the material donated to AAA with the Reginald Marsh papers has been separated to create a new collection of Felicia Meyer Marsh and Marsh Family papers. Loaned and transferred material is not described in this finding aid.
Provenance:
A large portion of the Reginald Marsh papers, including diaries, notebooks, sketchbooks, and photograph albums, was lent for microfilming in 1963 by Marsh's wife, Felicia Meyer Marsh. Some, but not all, of this material was subsequently donated to AAA in 1979, after the death of Mrs. Marsh, along with some additional material, including notebooks, scrapbooks, biographical and printed material. Another portion of the collection, comprised mainly of correspondence and a catalog of Marsh's art work, was donated in 1964. Three items of Marsh juvenilia were donated in 1984 by Alice Heffernan. Sketches that Mrs. Marsh bequeathed to the Whitney Museum were donated to AAA by the museum in 1987, along with 5 sketchbooks previously lent. Later gift portions were microfilmed.
Restrictions:
The bulk of the collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website. Use of material not digitized 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.
Topic:
Etchers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Muralists -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Illustrators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Material relating to the three New York City galleries owned by Isaacson: Hewitt Gallery, Robert Isaacson Gallery and Durlacher Bros.
Correspondence with dealers, collectors, museums, and art organizations, 1959-1966; 2 sales ledgers, 1956-1961; statements, 1957-1959; artists' accounts unpaid; 4 subject files, 1955-1967, pertaining to group shows, "Painters of the Beautiful" exhibition, Gerome exhibition, and Vassar exhibition; artists' files containing resumes, correspondence concerning the sale and exhibition of their work, price lists, financial material, clippings, exhibition catalogues, and photographs of 27 artists including Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Elias Friedensohn, Richard Mayhew, Elie Nadelman, Sophy Regensburg, Alvin Ross, Katherine Schmidt, George Tooker, and John Wilde.
Biographical / Historical:
Art galleries; New York City.
Provenance:
Donated 1976 by Robert Isaacson.
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 Molly Luce conducted 1981 Mar.10-1981 June 18, by Robert F. Brown, for the Archives of American Art.
Luce speaks of her childhood; her early interested in drawing and botany; her two years of study at Wheaton College; her training at Art Students League; her acquaintances from the League including Anne Rector, Katherine Schmidt, Kenneth Hayes Miller; her travels in Europe with her first husband, Alan Burroughs; her residences in Minneapolis, Boston, and finally Little Compton; and observations on a range of her own paintings. She recalls Lloyd Goodrich, Dennis Miller, Kenneth Hayes Miller, Peggy Bacon, Isabel Bishop, Dorothy Varian, Alexander Brook, Edward Forbes, and many others.
Biographical / Historical:
Molly Luce (1896-1986) was a painter in Little Compton, R.I.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 3 digital wav files. Duration is 2 hrs., 27 min.
Provenance:
These interviews are 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 others.
The papers of painter and arts advocate Katherine Schmidt measure 0.2 linear feet and date from circa 1921 to 1971. Scattered correspondence, speeches, proposals, meeting minutes, and notes focus primarily on Schmidt's advocacy for federal and state government support of the arts. Printed materials includes exhibition catalogs, clippings, press releases documenting Schmidt's painting career and arts advocacy work. Photographs include portrait photos of Schmidt and photographs of Schmidt's drawings. There are two photographs taken by her first husband Yasuo Kuniyoshi of Schmidt with friends at a party.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of painter and arts advocate Katherine Schmidt measure 0.2 linear feet and date from circa 1921 to 1971. Scattered correspondence, speeches, proposals, meeting minutes, and notes focus primarily on Schmidt's advocacy for federal and state government support of the arts. Printed materials includes exhibition catalogs, clippings, press releases documenting Schmidt's painting career and arts advocacy work. Photographs include portrait photos of Schmidt and photographs of Schmidt's drawings. There are two photographs taken by her first husband Yasuo Kuniyoshi of Schmidt with friends at a party. The papers contain little documentation of Kuniyoshi or their marriage.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into 4 series:
Series 1: Correspondence, 1939-1951, 1961 (Box 1; 3 folders)
Series 2: Business Records and Writings, 1940-1950 (Box 1; 7 folders)
Series 3: Printed Material, 1925-1971 (Box 1; 4 folders)
Series 4: Photographs, circa 1921-1930 (Box 1; 3 folders)
Biographical Note:
Katherine Schmidt (1898-1978) was born in Xenia, Ohio. She moved with her family to New York City, and around the age of 13 began attending Saturday classes at the Art Students League. She continued her art classes after high school and was taught by F. Luis Mora, Kenneth Miller, and John Sloan. While attending the Art Students League, Schmidt made many friends who would later become prominent members of the New York art community, including Peggy Bacon, Alexander Brook, Reginald Marsh, and Lloyd Goodrich. In 1919 she married fellow art student, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, in Ogunquit, Maine. They lived in Maine during the summers, but settled in Brooklyn, New York. Schmidt began working for Juliana Force at the Whitney Studio Club in 1923, where she also periodically exhibited her artwork. She taught sketching classes for the club and also did various other jobs for Force and Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney until around 1930. Her work during this period consisted of drawings and paintings of landscapes, still lifes, and the homeless and unemployed.
In 1925 Schmidt and Kuniyoshi took their first trip to Europe, spending a year in Paris and Italy and visiting the studios of their American expatriate friends. After another brief trip to Europe in 1928, she and Kuniyoshi bought a house in Woodstock, New York, where they would spend several summers as part of a very active artists' community. In the late 1920s she exhibited and was represented by the Daniel Gallery in New York. In the early 1930s, she became affliated with Downtown Gallery where she became good friends with owner Edith Halpert. She and Kuniyoshi divorced in 1932 and a year later she married lawyer Irvine Shubert. In the 1930s Schmidt became dissatisfied with her artwork and had her last show at the Downtown Gallery in 1939, taking a hiatus from exhibiting for over twenty years.
During the 1930s and 1940s Schmidt became very active in promoting federal and state government support of the arts. She worked with Juliana Force and others on a New York State art bill in the early 1930s, and in 1941 testified for federal appropriations for the arts in Washington D. C. as part of the Citizens Committee for Government Arts Projects. She was also active in the Artists Equity Association.
Schmidt spent many years experimenting with different painting techniques and subjects, and in the late 1950s found a new motif that she pursued for the rest of her life: still lifes of discarded paper and dead leaves. Schmidt died in Sarasota, Florida in 1978 at the age of 79.
Related Material:
Also found at the Archives of American Art is an Oral History Interview with Katherine Schmidt, December 8-15, 1969, by Paul Karlstrom which includes a transcript available via the Archives of American Art's website.
Separated Material:
Also found at the Archives of American Art are materials lent for microfilming (reel 89) including correspondence concerning exhibitions, a scrapbook containing clippings, exhibition catalogs and announcements. Lent materials were returned to the lender and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
Katherine Schmidt lent material to the Archives of American Art for microfilming in 1971. The papers were donated in 1982 by Irvine J. Shubert, Schmidt's widower.
Restrictions:
The collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website.
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, Modern -- 20th century -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Three folders of correspondence primarily document Katherine Schmidt's advocacy for federal and state government support of the arts. Included are letters from An American Group, Inc. and J. Frederick Dewhurst from the Twentieth Century Fund concerning a national survey of the cultural and economic status of the arts in the United States, and from Holger Cahill concerning a 1941 arts conference in Washington, D.C. Also found is correspondence regarding Schmidt and husband Irvine Shubert's participation in the creation of a post-war arts commission for New York state. There are letters from Edith Halpert of the Downtown Gallery and from the Whitney Museum of American Art. Correspondence from 1961 includes congratulations on her new exhibition of artwork. Items are arranged choronologically.
Collection Restrictions:
The collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website.
Collection 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.
Collection Citation:
Katherine Schmidt papers, circa 1922-1971. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
The collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website.
Collection 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.
Collection Citation:
Katherine Schmidt papers, circa 1922-1971. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
The collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website.
Collection 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.
Collection Citation:
Katherine Schmidt papers, circa 1922-1971. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
The collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website.
Collection 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.
Collection Citation:
Katherine Schmidt papers, circa 1922-1971. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
This series houses scattered documentation of activities in which Katherine Schmidt and her colleagues were involved for advocating government support of the arts. Included are several speeches by Schmidt concerning recent trends in the arts, a presentation by Elizabeth McCausland on art patronage, and proposals, reports, and essays written by others analyzing government support of the arts. Also found are meeting minutes taken by Schmidt as secretary of the Committee for New York State Art Legislation, and minutes she collected from other art committee meetings. This series also contains other notes by Schmidt, including a list of exhibits from 1923 to 1933.
Collection Restrictions:
The collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website.
Collection 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.
Collection Citation:
Katherine Schmidt papers, circa 1922-1971. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
The collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website.
Collection 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.
Collection Citation:
Katherine Schmidt papers, circa 1922-1971. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
The collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website.
Collection 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.
Collection Citation:
Katherine Schmidt papers, circa 1922-1971. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
