The papers of Jirayr Zorthian measure 2.0 linear feet and date from circa 1937 to 2004. The papers document Zorthian's career as a muralist through correspondence with family and friends; an interview, resumes, certificates, writings, and other professional activity material; clippings, exhibition announcements and catalogs, pamphlets on the Zorthian Day Ranch for Children, and other printed material; and photographs of Zorthian, his friends and family, and some of his artwork.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Jirayr Zorthian measure 2.0 linear feet and date from circa 1937 to 2004. The papers document Zorthian's career as a muralist through correspondence with family and friends; an interview, resumes, certificates, writings, and other professional activity material; clippings, exhibition announcements and catalogs, pamphlets on the Zorthian Day Ranch for Children, and other printed material; and photographs of Zorthian, his friends and family, and some of his artwork.
Correspondence includes letters from family and friends. There are also a small number of letters from colleagues and art institutions in regards to exhibitions. Professional material includes sketches by Zorthian, an interview with Zorthian, writings and observations by Zorthian and others, and financial materials. Also included is "Creative and a Little Bit Crazy," a video recording on the life of Zorthian, and material related to additions made to the Zorthian Day Ranch for Children. Printed material consists of prints of some of Zorthian's artwork, newspaper clippings on Zorthian and the Zorthian Day Ranch for Children, exhibition announcements and catalogs. Photographic material consists of photographs of Zorthian along with friends and family at the Zorthian Day Ranch for Children, photographs of the ranch, and photographs of some of Zorthian's murals.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into four series.
Series 1: Correspondence, 1959-2001 (0.2 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 2: Professional Activity Files, 1970-2004 (0.4 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 3: Printed Material, 1959-2001 (0.5 linear feet; Boxes 1-2)
Series 4: Photographic Material, circa 1937-1992 (0.9 linear feet; Box 2)
Biographical / Historical:
Mural painter, painter, sculptor; Los Angeles, Calif.; b. 1911; d. 2004.
Jirayr Zorthian (1911-2004) was a sculptor and mural painter in Los Angeles, California. Born to an Armenian family in the Ottoman Empire, he immigrated to the United States with his family following World War I. Zorthian earned a Masters of Fine Arts from Yale University and went on to study art in Italy during the 1930s. Among some of Zorthian's works are eleven murals for the Tennessee State Capitol, a mural for the United States Post Office in St. Johnsville, New York titled "Early St. Johnsville Pioneers," and "Phantasmagoria of Military Intelligence Training." In the 1960s Zorthian also established a summer camp for children on his ranch, Zorthian Day Ranch for Children.
Related Materials:
Also found in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Jirayr Zorthian conducted by Paul Karlstrom, January 28-July 9, 1997.
Provenance:
Donated 1994 and 1995 by Jirayr Zorthian.
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:
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.
Occupation:
Muralists -- California -- Los Angeles Search this
Sculptors -- California -- Los Angeles Search this
Genre/Form:
Video recordings
Drawings
Citation:
Jirayr Zorthian papers, circa 1937-2004. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
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.
The papers of sculptors Jud Fine and Barbara McCarren measure 16.7 linear feet and 0.345 Gigabytes, and date from circa 1968-2009. The majority of the collection falls into project files, with other series including correspondence, writings, personal business, printed material, photographic material, and artwork.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of sculptors Jud Fine and Barbara McCarren measure 16.7 linear feet and 0.345 Gigabytes, and date from circa 1968-2009. The majority of the collection falls into project files, with other series including correspondence, writings, personal business, printed material, photographic material, and artwork.
Correspondence is mostly professional in nature and is largely from Jud Fine's early career in the late sixties through the 1970s. There is also come McCarren/Fine correspondence starting in the 1990s as well as some correspondence regarding Barbara McCarren's solo career.
The writings series is comprised primarily of Jud Fine's writing practice associated with his earlier career, including notes and journal entries, lectures by Fine, as well as manuscripts for catalog essays and artist publications, an interview from 1984, and writings on Fine by others.
The personal business series includes exhibition files as well as gallery files containing sale and consignment paperwork, as well as daily business of the studio, primarily pertaining to Jud Fine's earlier career, with some documents pertaining to Barbara McCarren's solo career from the 1990s on.
Project files document various public art works and commissions taken on or applied for by McCarren/Fine, as well as solo projects that date before and after their formal collaboration in 1996. These documents include correspondence, contracts, reports, meeting minutes, renderings and other plans, notes, photographic material and research material, some of which is in digital formats.
Printed material includes various promotional materials for McCarren/Fine and solo projects for Barbara McCarren and Jud Fine, as well as a graphic design magazine publication, and a monographic catalog for a Jud Fine exhibition from 1974.
Photographic material includes miscellaneous snapshots and snapshot albums, some of Fine and McCarren, in the studio and with artist friends, as well as an untitled album with study images of a strelitzia plant.
Artwork includes a single, unsigned painted work on canvas that has been cut awat from the frame or support.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as seven series:
Series 1: Correspondence, circa 1970-2001 (0.5 Linear feet: Box 1)
Series 2: Writings, circa 1968-2003 (0.5 Linear feet: Box 1)
Series 3: Personal Business, circa 1969-2001 (1 Linear foot: Box 2)
Series 4: Project Files, circa 1988-2009 (14.4 Linear feet: Boxes 2-20; Oversize 21; 0.345 Gigabytes: ER0001-ER0005)
Series 5: Printed Material, circa 1974-1992 (0.2 Linear feet: Box 16)
Series 6: Photographic Material, circa 1970s-2000 (0.1 Linear feet: Box 16)
Series 7: Artwork, circa 1980s (1 Folder: Box 16)
Biographical / Historical:
Jud Fine (1944- ) is a sculptor and educator in Venice, California, as well as former director of the University of Southern California Roski School of Fine Arts. Jud Fine is married to fellow artist, sculptor and installation artist Barbara McCarren (1958-), born in Washington, D.C., and they maintain a studio where they work on projects and commissions both individually and collaboratively.
Born in Los Angeles, Fine received a BA in History from the University of California, Santa Barbara. With a limited artwork portfolio he was lucky enough to be accepted into the Masters of Fine Arts program at Cornell University. Fine's reputation as an artist took hold firmly in the late 1960s and early 1970s, becoming particularly well known for sculpture and mixed media drawings, which established a recognizable style and conceptual framework. He has been represented by Ronald Feldman Gallery in New York City since 1972. He has participated in solo and group exhibitions internationally at institutions including Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Chicago Art Institute, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Guggenheim Museum, New York, Yale University Art Museum, Museum Stuki, Poland, University of Sidney, Power Art Institute, Australia and the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Art, Moscow. McCarren received her bachelors of arts degree at UCLA in1980 and would meet Fine during work towards her masters of fine arts at USC in 1986. After nearly a decade of pursuing solo career opportunities including public art commissions, they decided to join forces making collaborative project proposals as McCarren Fine.
As Mccarren/Fine they have executed several works including Waterline a two square block mixed use development in Huntington Beach, CA, Split Mound for the San Francisco Zoo, Mais a 23-acre interactive park in Long beach, CA, Modestopo, the civic center plaza for the City of Modesto and Stanislaus County, CA and both the Central Library and Pershing Square in downtown Los Angeles. Beyond public art commissions, their collaboration has extended to their studio practice, with collaborative exhibitions including a 2002 show in Bangkok, Thailand, that was later expanded with new work for the 2005 show, Currency, at Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York. Together McCarren/Fine have completed around thirty public work projects, and numerous studio projects.
Provenance:
Donated in 2022 by Jud Fine and Barbara McCarren.
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.
Occupation:
Sculptors -- California -- Los Angeles Search this
Educators -- California -- Los Angeles Search this
Installation artists -- California -- Los Angeles Search this
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.
Missing Title
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.
The Zorach family papers measure 4.4 linear feet and consist of materials relating to the lives and careers of sculptor and painter William Zorach, his wife painter and weaver Marguerite, and their children, painter and multi-media artist Dahlov Ipcar and collector and art dealer Tessim Zorach. The bulk of the papers consists of letters to Tessim regarding his parent's artwork. Additional materials include scattered letters to William Zorach; writings and notes by William, Marguerite, and Tessim; a sketchbook and drawings by William; prints by Marguerite; Marguerite's scrapbook; printed materials; and photographs of the Zorach family and of William Zorach in his studio and at work.
Scope and Content Note:
The Zorach family papers measure 4.4 linear feet and consist of materials relating to the lives and careers of sculptor and painter William Zorach, his wife painter and weaver Marguerite, and their children, painter and multi-media artist Dahlov Ipcar and collector and art dealer Tessim Zorach. The bulk of the papers consists of letters to Tessim regarding his parent's artwork. Additional materials include scattered letters to William Zorach; writings and notes by William, Marguerite, and Tessim; a sketchbook and drawings by William; prints by Marguerite; Marguerite's scrapbook; printed materials; and photographs of the Zorach family and of William Zorach in his studio and at work.
The majority of correspondence is between Tessim Zorach and various museums and galleries concerning exhibitions and donations of his parents' works of art. There are scattered letters to William Zorach among the correspondence. Business records consist of materials relating to the Collection of the Zorach Children, including lists of works of art by the Zorach's, a file relating to an exhibition of Zorach artwork at the Brooklyn Museum, and photographs of works of art considered for donation.
Writings and Notes include a typescript of an article written by Marguerite Zorach, writings by William Zorach, a typescript of Young Poems by William and Marguerite, as well as articles written by others about the Zorachs. Artwork by Marguerite Zorach includes two prints and a tracing. Also found is one sketchbook, and additional drawings by William Zorach. There is one unsigned lithograph.
The majority of exhibition announcements, catalogs, and clippings concern William and Marguerite Zorach although there are two announcements for Dahlov Ipcar. There is one scrapbook of clippings about Marguerite.
The papers include photographs of Marguerite and William Zorach, their parents, baby photos of Tessim and Dahlov, family pictures of the Zorachs, and of Marguerite and William in their studios. There are several folders of William Zorach working in his studios and additional photos of him carving a relief sculpture and a sculpture for the Southwest Bank. Most of these photographs contain detailed annotations written by William Zorach about the work. There is one folder of photographs of William in France in 1910-1911, including one of Zorach in Roi Partridge's studio. There is one photograph of Zorach taken by Ansel Adams in Yosemite, a photo of Zorach working by Arnold Newman, and several taken by Imogen Cunnigham.
Other photographs are of works of art, most of which depict William's works.
Artifacts include Marguerite's batik tools and approximately fifty commercially made printing blocks.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into 9 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Information, circa 1907-1969 (Box 1, 6; 3 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1922-1982 (Box 1-2; 1.75 linear feet)
Series 3: Business Records, 1967-1971, circa 1960s-1970s (Box 2-3; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 4: Writings and Notes, circa 1930s-1973, 1987 (Box 3; 8 folders)
Series 5: Artworks, 1900-circa 1920s (Box 3, 6; 12 folders)
Series 6: Scrapbooks, 1922-1953 (Box 3; 1 folder)
Series 7: Printed Material, 1912-1982 (Box 3; 0.25 linear feet)
Series 8: Photographs, 1908-1966 (Box 3-5; 1.0 linear feet)
Series 9: Artifacts, circa 1910s, circa 1950s (Box 4; 0.5 linear feet)
Biographical Note:
William Zorach (1887-1966) was a modernist painter and sculptor working primarily in New York city, along with his wife Marguerite (1887-1968) who worked as a fauvist painter, printmaker, and textile artist. Their children were painter Dahlov Ipcar (1917-) and art collector Tessim Zorach (1915-1995.)
Born in Lithuania, William Zorach immigrated to the United States where his family settled in Cleveland, Ohio. An early interest in art led to a printmaking apprenticeship. He then moved to New York City and enrolled in the National Academy of Design where he studied painting and drawing. In 1910, Zorach traveled to Paris to study and where he met his wife Marguerite Thompson at the La Palette art school. Marguerite grew up in Fresno, California and studied art at Stanford University. Both artists were heavily influenced by the fauvist and cubist art movements.
Returning to America, Marguerite and William married and both continued to create and experiment with varied media. Their paintings were featured in the 1913 New York City Armory Show and they are credited with being among the first artists to introduce European modernist styles to American modernism. The Zorachs were very close both as a couple and as working active artists.
In the 1920s, Marguerite began to experiment with textiles and created large, fine art tapestries and hooked rugs. Also, she used batik dying techniques on fabrics. William also expanded his genre by creating direct sculpture in 1918, which would become his primary medium.
In 1915, William and Marguerite started a family with their son, Tessim. Two years later, their daughter Dahlov was born. The Zorachs divided the year and lived in New York City, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. In 1923, the family bought a farm on Georgetown Island, Maine where they lived, worked, and entertained friends.
Dahlov and Tessim were exposed to art from an early age. Dahlov showed artistic promise as a child and her parents supported her creativity by allowing her to express herself without formal training. Dahlov pursued painting and later became an illustrator for children's books. Additionally, she wrote fantasy novels and short stories. Dahlov married Adolf Ipcar in 1936. Like the rest of his family, Tessim Zorach developed an interest of art and along with his wife Peggy, he amassed a large private collection of ancient to modern art.
William and Marguerite continued to sculpt and paint until their deaths in 1966 and 1968, respectively.
Together, Dahlov and Tessim established the Collection of the Zorach Children which coordinated donations of their parents' art to many museums throughout the United States and the world. The artwork of both artists is found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, Delaware Art Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Farnsworth Art Museum, Portland Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Philips Collection, and educational institutions such as Colby College, University of Vermont, Williams College, Bowdoin College, and the University of Virginia. In addition William has works associated with many public buildings, among them: Radio City Music Hall, New York City Municipal Court, the U.S. Post Office in Washington D.C. as well as Farleigh Dickinson University.
Related Material:
The Archives of American Art holds the Dahlov Ipcar papers, 1906-1997. Also found is one oral history interview with William Zorach conducted by by John D. Morse on April 2, 1959 and an oral history interview with Dahlov Ipcar conducted by Robert F. Brown on November 13, 1979.
The bulk of William Zorach's papers are held by the Library of Congress.
Separated Material:
The Archives of American Art also holds material lent for microfilming on reels NY59-1-NY59-4 and NY59-19. Loaned materials were returned to the lender and are now held by the Library of Congress, Manuscript Division. This material is not described in the collection container inventory or finding aid.
Provenance:
William Zorach lent papers for microfilming to the Archives of American Art in 1959. Tessim Zorach donated materials between 1976-1987.
Restrictions:
Use of originals 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.
Occupation:
Art dealers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
An interview of Sidney Gordin conducted 1965 Sept. 2, by Dorothy Seckler, for the Archives of American Art.
Gordin speaks of immigrating to the United States from Shanghai, China in 1922; being the class artist in grade school; attending Brooklyn Technical High School; studying at the WPA art school at the Brooklyn Museum for a summer; attending the Cooper Union School of Art; encountering Cubism; working as a commercial artist and making cartoons; teaching at the Pratt Institute; and alternating, as inspiration strikes, between painting and sculpture; and Constructivist philosophy. Gordin also mentions Ralph Rosenborg, Tom Eldred, Carol and Wallace Harrison, Edward Alden Jewell, Pablo Picasso, Byron Thomas, Morris Kantor, Hans Hofmann, Paul Clay, Jackson Pollock, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Sidney Gordin (1918-1996) was a sculptor and educator from Berkeley, Calif.
General:
Originally recorded on 1 sound tape. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 1 hr., 1 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.
Occupation:
Art teachers -- California -- Berkeley -- Interviews Search this
Interview of Salvatore Scarpitta conducted 1975 January 31.-February 3, by Paul Cummings, for the Archives of American Art. Scarpitta speaks of his family's background; growing up and going to school in California; moving to Italy and going to art school at 17; attending the American Academy; his experiences in Europe after the war broke out in 1940; being arrested and interned for 18 months in Italy and escaping; joining the United States Navy; getting thrown out of the American Academy after being accused of being a Communist; his abstract paintings; moving back to America after Leo Castelli saw his work; his painting techniques; his thoughts on futurism and cubism; why he shifted from working on a canvas to tearing it apart and using it as materials; his use of color; how his interest in race cars influenced his art work; building race cars; living in New York and the art scene there; his successful art show on the Piazza San Marco in Venice; the reason for using belts in his paintings; how certain paintings led him to building sleds; his feelings about Leo Castelli; and teaching art. He recalls Phil Guston, Jack Levine, Franz Kline, Bill de Kooning, Jackson Pollack, Mark Rothko, and many others.
Biographical / Historical:
Salvatore Scarpitta (1919-2007) was a sculptor.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 4 digital wav files. Duration is 4 hr., 11 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 others.
Restrictions:
Transcript is available on the Archives of American Art's website.
Interview of Don Freeman conducted 1965 June 4, by Betty Hoag McGlynn, for the Archives of American Art, in his home, in Santa Barbara, Calif. Freeman speaks of his childhood in San Diego with his guardian; his high school years spent in St. Louis at a public school Prineipia (and his teacher Kathryn Cherry); the knowledge of his artistic destiny as a child; his move to New York City in 1929; his time spent working as an unbooked trumpet player for jazz orchestras on Broadway; his formative years at the Art Students League under the guidance of John Sloan;
the influence of Robert Henri and "Art Spirit;" his decision to do illustrations for the theater section of the Herald Tribune of ongoing performances; his time spent studying with Harry Wickey (etcher and sculptor); his relationship and marriage to wife Lydia as well as description of life in downtown Manhattan immediately following the stock market crash ; time at Art Students League studying along side with Jackson Pollock, Manuel Tolegian, Whitney Darrel; his decision to work for the WPA in
the graphics department completing lithographs (1933-1934); "Freedom of the Press," a painting completed around the same time and the possible influence of Reginald Marsh; his interest in a project called "Paint for the People" (a public works project for the New York Subway system); time spent illustrating for the WPA theater magazine "The Living Magazine;" his opinions concerning acetate and stone as well as the use of mezzotint; his personal magazine which he published for four years (name unknown); a general summary of his feelings towards the WPA as an artistic force; his separation from the Union Uprisings due to his success within the program;
his work on "Our Flying Navy" a series of illustrations (now compiled as a book) used for advertisement for the Navy; his participation in the Association of American Artists before his term spent in the Army during WWII; his budding career as a children's books writer and illustrator (Barton Press); his illustrations for William Soroyan"s The Human Comedy; his move back west and his son Roy; and his current occupation of giving "Chalk Talks" around the country, speaking with students about art, music, theater.
Biographical / Historical:
Don Freeman (1908-1978) was an Illustrator from New York, N.Y. Went to New York City at the age of 21. Studied with John Sloan and Harry Wickey at the Art Students League.
General:
An unrelated interview of Ben Messick conducted by B. Hoag McGlynn is also on this tape.
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 available on the Archives of American Art website.
Topic:
Illustrators -- California -- Interviews Search this
This collection, which measures 7.9 linear feet and dates from 1851 to 1995 (bulk 1913-1995), documents the life and career of muralist, sculptor, and educator Reuben Kadish. The papers contain biographical material, letters, personal business records, an exhibition file, notes, writings, artwork, printed material, photographs, and artifacts.
Scope and Content Note:
The Reuben Kadish papers measure 7.9 linear feet and date from 1851 to 1995 with the bulk of the material dating from 1913 to 1995. The collection documents the life and career of muralist, sculptor, and educator Reuben Kadish and contains biographical material, letters, personal business records, an exhibition file, notes, writings, artwork, printed material, photographs, and artifacts.
Biographical material, 1938-1992, includes résumés and personal identification items. Letters are from friends and colleagues including Herman Cherry, Philip Guston, Hilaire Hiler, Jules Langsner, Urban Neininger, Charles Pollock, and Jackson Pollock. One letter from the Leonard Stark family contains a small photograph of Georgia O'Keeffe.
Personal business records, 1952-1995, consist of legal documents, including estate papers for Ida and Reuben Kadish, and financial records. The only specific exhibition file documents the 1990 exhibition Reuben Kadish: Works from 1930 to the Present at the New Jersey State Museum in 1990.
Notes include unbound notes on mural painting, printmaking, sculpture, and other art-related topics, and handwritten translations by William H. Thomson of thirty classic texts by Homer, Horace, and Demosthenes. Writings, 1975-1992, consist of an autobiographical manuscript by Kadish, and typescripts concerning Kadish and other art-related topics by other authors including Dore Ashton, Herman Cherry, Howard Conant, and Judd Tully.
Artwork, undated and 1981-1992, includes a hundred sketches and seventeen watercolors by Kadish, and a drawing for DIG (Archeology) by Barbara Kadish. Printed material relates primarily to exhibitions for Kadish and others but also includes a baseball program autographed by Darryl Strawberry. Photographs include prints of Kadish and other artists working on murals, and photographs picturing family and friends.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into ten series, based on type of material. Although acquired as a gift before the rest of the collection was loaned to the Archives of American Art in 1998, eight photographs are described in Series 9: Photographs, with those included in the 1998 loan.
Each series is arranged chronologically, except Series 2: Letters and Series 6: Writings, which are arranged alphabetically according to the surname of the writer.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1938-1992 (box 1, 3 folders)
Series 2: Letters, 1934-1995, undated (boxes 1-3, 2.5 linear ft.)
Series 3: Personal Business Records, 1952-1995 (boxes 3-4, 37 folders)
Series 4: Exhibition File, 1989-1991 (box 4, 1 folder)
Series 5: Notes, 1851-1853, 1937-1992, undated (boxes 4-5, 35 folders)
Series 6: Writings, 1963-1992, undated (box 5, 14 folders)
Series 7: Artwork, 1981-1992, undated (boxes 5, 10, 8 folders)
Series 8: Printed Material, 1934-1993, undated (boxes 5-7, 76 folders)
Series 9: Photographs, 1913-1992, undated (boxes 7-9, sol 10, 2.0 linear ft.)
Series 10: Artifacts, undated (box 9, 1 folder)
Biographical Note:
Reuben Kadish was born in Chicago on January 29, 1913. His father and mother were from Latvia and the Ukraine respectively.
In 1921, the family moved to East Los Angeles, California, where Kadish studied painting under Lorser Feitelson. During this time, he befriended Jackson Pollock and Philip Guston, who attended the Manual Arts High School.
During a trip to New York City in 1930, Kadish was impressed with the modern art, especially the work of the Surrealists, which he saw there. Upon his return to Los Angeles the following year, Kadish attended the Otis Art School, the Stickney School of Art in Pasadena, and Los Angeles City College. He also shared a studio with Philip Guston.
In 1933, Kadish, Guston and Jules Langsner were apprenticed to Mexican muralist, David Alfaro Siqueiros. Their most notable work being the mural "Triumph of Good Over Evil", at the University of Morelia in Mexico. During the next three years, the three young artists collaborated on painting murals in California and Mexico. After another visit to New York, Kadish was invited to San Francisco by Bill Gaskin to head the art division of the WPA project there, a position he occupied until 1940.
From 1940, Kadish worked as a coppersmith and welder at the Bethlehem Steel Works in San Francisco until 1942, when he joined the Army as a member of the War Artist Unit, serving in India and Southeast Asia during World War II. In 1944, he rejoined his wife Barbara in the Bay Area, but they soon returned to New York City, where Kadish worked for Stanley William Hayter at Atelier 17. In the summer of 1945, the Kadish painted with Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner in a shared Long Island house on Slow's Point in Amagansett.
In 1946, the Kadishes moved to a dairy farm in Vernon, New Jersey, where they supported themselves by farming until 1957. A catastrophic fire in the studio destroyed most of Kadish's paintings in 1947, causing him to turn his interest to creating sculpture.
After teaching art and design at the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art in 1957, Kadish taught sculpture at the Brooklyn Museum Art School from 1958-1959. In 1960, he began his thirty-year teaching career at Cooper Union, which ended only a few months before his death on September 20, 1992 in Manhattan.
Related Material:
Other resources relating to Reuben Kadish in the Archives of American Art include an oral history interview with Kadish, April 15, 1992.
Provenance:
The eight photographs on Reel 5660 were donated to the Archives of American Art in 1984 by Reuben Kadish. The other material on Reels 5655-5660 was lent for filming in 1998 by Morris and Ruth Kadish, brother and sister-in-law of Reuben Kadish, and executors of his estate, and subsequently donated to the Archives of American Art in 2002.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Use requires an appointment. Microfilmed portion must be consulted on microfilm.
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:
Sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews Search this
The papers of abstract painter David Novros are dated 1963 to 2008, and measure 1.0 linear foot. Correspondence, records relating to the Liaunig Boat House commission (Middleburgh, NY), interview transcripts, printed material, and photographs document the painter's professional career.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of abstract painter David Novros are dated 1963 to 2008, and measure 1.0 linear foot. Correspondence, records relating to the Liaunig Boat House commission (Middleburgh, NY), interview transcripts, printed material, and photographs document the painter's professional career.
The vast majority of correspondence consists of incoming letters. The only reciprocal exchanges preserved are with art historian Charles Hope and the Menil Collection. Letters are from artists Rory McEwen, Paul Mogensen, and Ken Price; writers Frances Colpitt and Claudine Humblet; and from other colleagues and friends. The letters David Novros wrote to his family between 1963 and 1979 recount his travels and describe in some detail - many with accompanying illustrations and diagrams - work in progress, exhibitions, and commissions. Also preserved are copies of his letters to the Trustees of the Donald Judd Estate and Ranier Judd concerning the Marfa, Texas properties and projects, his Spring Street studio in New York City, and the Judd Foundation. Novros's letters to editors concern art-related articles that appeared in The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and other publications.
Peter Liaunig's commission for a boat house with three fresco paintings in Middleburgh, New York, is documented by correspondence, plans, and designs. The "Boat House Diary, Middleburgh, NY," kept by Novros August 10-15, 2003, describes the process of painting the frescoes with the assistance of Jason, and notes materials and techniques used.
Interview transcripts are of Phong Bui's conversation with David Novros, published June 2008 in The Brooklyn Rail, and an unpublished interview Novros conducted with sculptor Robert Graham in 2008.
Printed material about or mentioning David Novros consists of articles and reviews, exhibition announcements and posters. Items written by Novros are a review of Jackson Pollock and two poems.
Photographs are of David Novros with his family and friends. There are also views of the Novros family's home in Van Nuys, California, and Indian-painted rocks at Sears Point, Arizona that influenced Novros' art.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 5 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Correspondence, 1963-2008 (Boxes 1-2; 0.4 linear ft.)
Series 2: Liaunig Boat House, 1998-2004 (Box 2, OV3; 0.2 linear ft.)
Series 3: Interview Transcripts, 2008 (Box 2; 0.1 linear ft.)
Series 4: Printed Material, 1966-2008 (Box 2, OV 4; 0.2 linear ft.)
Series 5: Photographs, 1976-1999 (Box 2; 0.1 linear ft.)
Biographical Note:
David Novros (1941-) is an abstract painter in New York, NY.
Abstract painter David Novros was born in Los Angeles in 1941 and lived with his family in Van Nuys, California. His father, Lester Novros, was an artist whose interest in movement eventually led him to the Walt Disney Company, where he worked on animation projects. In 1941 he established his own production company, Graphic Films, and began teaching in the Cinema Department of the University of Southern California. Both David and his brother Paul were enamored with film; David turned to painting, but Paul followed in their father's line of work and became an award-winning film producer.
David entered the University of Southern California and studied painting with James Jervaisee. He made a few student films and sometimes worked with his father, but before long he turned to painting. During the summer of 1961, Novros attended courses at Yale and met Chuck Close, Brice Marden, and Vija Celmins.
After earning a B.F.A. in 1963, Novros completed his Army Reserve obligations and travelled in Europe. He moved to New York City in 1964 and met many Minimalist artists. Over the next several years, Novros's rectangular paintings gave way to multi-panel paintings and then to shaped panels. From the late 1960s through the 1970s, Novros developed a reputation as a geometric abstractionist. He showed at Park Place Gallery and had a solo exhibition at Virginia Dwan Gallery (Los Angeles) in 1966; the next year, his work was again presented at Park Place Gallery and at the Virginia Dwan Gallery (New York). Several solo exhibitions followed at Klaus Kertess's influential Bykert Gallery, as well as at other venues.
Novros participated in important exhibitions of abstraction, among them "Systemic Painting" (Guggenheim Museum, 1966), "Color and Structure" (Whitney Museum of American Art, 1971), and "Abstract-Geometry-Painting: Selected Geometric Abstract Painting in America since 1945" (Albright-Knox Gallery, 1989). In 1970, he was awarded a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship.
In the 1970s, Novros turned to fresco painting, and his eventual decision to focus on murals effectively removed him from the commercial gallery scene. One of his earliest commissions was a fresco painted in 1970 for the second floor of Donald Judd's studio/home. Other commissions include: Solar Triptych, a radial triptych that opens and closes throughout the day, for the lobby of Union Station, Newark, NJ (1984); a fresco in the Old Court House, Miami (1984); a painted-glass and copper fresco in the Gross Building, Winslow, Arizona (1994-1996); and the Liaunig Boat House with fresco paintings, Middleburgh, NY (1996-2003). A number of museums in the United States and Europe include Novros's work in their permanent collections, among them: Menil Collection, Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum Liaunig (Austria), and Daimler contemporary (Berlin).
Mr. Novros lives and works in New York City.
Related Material:
An oral history interview with David Novros was conducted by Michael Brennan for the Archives of American Art in 2008.
Provenance:
Gift of David Novros, 2009
Restrictions:
Use of original papers 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:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The Betty Parsons Gallery records and personal papers measure 61.1 linear feet and date from 1916 to 1991, with the bulk of the material dating from 1946-1983. Records provide extensive documentation of the gallery's operations from its inception in 1946 to its closing in 1983 and of the activities of Betty Parsons as one the leading art dealers of contemporary American Art in the latter half of the twentieth century, particularly the work of the Abstract Expressionists. Over one third of the of the collection is comprised of artists files containing correspondence, price lists, and printed materials. Additional correspondence is with galleries, dealers, art institutions, private collectors, and the media. Also found are exhibition files, exhibition catalogs and announcements, sales records, stock inventories, personal financial records, and photographs. Betty Parsons's personal papers consist of early curatorial files, pocket diaries, personal correspondence, and evidence of her own artwork, including sketchbooks, and files documenting her personal art collection.
Scope and Content Note:
The Betty Parsons Gallery records and personal papers measure 61.1 linear feet and date from 1916 to 1991, with the bulk of the material dating from 1946-1983. Records provide extensive documentation of the gallery's operations from its inception in 1946 to its closing in 1983 and of the activities of Betty Parsons as one the leading art dealers of contemporary American Art in the latter half of the twentieth century, particularly the work of the Abstract Expressionists. Over one third of the of the collection is comprised of artists files containing correspondence, price lists, and printed materials. Additional correspondence is with galleries, dealers, art institutions, private collectors, and the media. Also found are exhibition files, exhibition catalogs and announcements, sales records, stock inventories, personal financial records, and photographs. Betty Parsons's personal papers consist of early curatorial files, pocket diaries, personal correspondence, and evidence of her own artwork, including sketchbooks, and files documenting her personal art collection. Personal papers also include personal photographs.
Artists files, the largest and most extensive series, consist of a wide variety of documents, including biographical materials, correspondence with or related to the artist, exhibition catalogs and announcements, sales and expense invoices, clippings, price lists, and photographs of the artist, exhibitions, and artwork. The files reflect Parsons's close personal relationships with certain artists, particularly Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, and Barnett Newman. Extensive documentation is also found for Forrest Bess, William Congdon, Paul Feeley, Thomas George, Alexander Liberman, Seymour Lipton, Richard Pousette-Dart, Jesse Reichek, and Jack Youngerman. Historians and researchers will find these files to be an invaluable resource both in tracing Betty Parsons's role in promoting Abstract Expressionism and researching individual artists.
Exhibition files primarily document the gallery's infrequent group or themed exhibitions. Of particular note are the files on The Ideographic Picture, which was organized by Barnett Newman and included his work, as well as that of Pietro Lazzari, Boris Margo, Ad Reinhardt, Mark Rothko, Theodoros Stamos, and Clyfford Still. Price lists, artist biographies and exhibition schedules are housed in the general exhibition files. Loan exhibition files provide documentation of artwork borrowed by other galleries or institutions for exhibitions, as well as shows outside of the gallery that were organized by Betty Parsons. Also found are gallery exhibition guest books, and announcements and catalogs.
Gallery correspondence is primarily with galleries and dealers, museums, arts organizations, and collectors. Scattered letters from artists are also found, although the bulk of the artists' correspondence is filed in the Artists Files. Also found here are memoranda and letters between Betty Parsons and her staff that contain detailed information concerning Parsons's schedule and gallery activities. Similar correspondence is found amongst the correspondence files within the series Betty Parsons papers.
Appraisal and conservation files include correspondence, appraisal invoices, forms, and appraisal requests and other information from the Art Dealers Association of America, and conservation invoices and reports. The majority of the appraisal records contain information about the specific works of art, including artist, title, date, current owner and the estimated value at the time of the request. Conservation records document conservation treatments undertaken by outside conservators to gallery stock.
Sales, purchases, stock and inventory are well documented in the sales and inventory records. The records provide detailed information about individual sales, prices of individual pieces of artwork, consignments, and loans. Most sales records also include detailed information about the buyer and are a valuable resource for provenance research. Files documenting the general administration, routine business operations, and financial transactions (not individual sales) of the gallery are housed in the general business and financial records. These records include ledgers, receipts, tax records, and banking records. There is some limited information about works of art scattered amongst the receipts and in the "in/out slips" files. Legal records house general legal documents and those concerning specific lawsuits. Of particular note is the file detailing the lawsuit between Betty Parsons and Sidney Janis over the fifth floor of 24 West 57th Street.
The remainder of the collection consists of Betty Parsons's personal papers which document her career prior to opening her own gallery, her work as an artist, and her personal art collection.
Some information about Parsons's work prior to opening her own gallery is found in the early curatorial files she retained from her curatorial and administrative work at the Wakefield Gallery and the Mortimer Brandt Gallery. Clippings, correspondence, announcements, exhibition lists and exhibition files are found. For both positions, she kept only the exhibition files for a small group of exhibitions organized around a specific theme, the most notable being the exhibition of Pre-Columbian Sculpture at the Wakefield Gallery.
Biographical materials include copies of her biography, family genealogies, photographs of Parsons, interviews with Colette Roberts and WYNC radio, memberships, photographs, and ephemera, including a collection of programs and invitations from events that she attended. Throughout her life Parsons gave generously of her time to various cultural and charitable institutions and was awarded for her contributions. There are also a number of files that document her speaking engagements, her participation as a juror in numerous juried exhibitions, charitable work, and awards that she received.
Parsons's personal correspondence files reflect how deeply Parsons's life was intertwined with the gallery. There are letters from museum directors, dealers, artists seeking representation, and personal letters from artists with whom she had close personal relationships, most notably Larry Bigelow, Alexander Calder, William Condon, and Ad Reinhardt. There are also letters from the English artist Adge Baker, with whom Parsons was romantically involved. Correspondence also includes several files of postcards and Christmas cards.
Pocket diaries and engagement calendars, spanning from 1933-1981, record social engagements, meetings, vacations, and telephone numbers. Also found are circa two linear feet of notebooks and sketchbooks, many of which are annotated with addresses, poetry, journal entries, and other observations of people, places, and travels. Writings by others include writings about Betty Parsons or the Betty Parsons Gallery, such as Lawrence Alloway's unpublished typescript titled "An American Gallery" and other topics.
Printed material consists of exhibition announcements and catalogs, art magazines, and newspaper and magazine clippings about Betty Parsons, her family and acquaintances, artists, and other art related topics, coupled with a miscellaneous selection of clippings, and a video recording, on topics that presumably captured Parsons's attention.
Personal art work records document Betty Parsons's career as an artist through inventories, group and solo exhibitions files, price lists, appraisals, sales and consignment invoices. Photographs are primarily reproductions of her works of art, although there are scattered photographs of exhibition installations.
Betty Parsons's private art collection files document her extensive personal collection of art that included works by Jackson Pollock, Agnes Martin, Romare Bearden, Barnett Newman, and Mark Rothko, in addition to Amlash sculpture from ancient Persia and primitive sculpture from New Hebrides. These files include inventories, lists, exhibition records, sales and purchase invoices, and photographs. There are also files for donations and loans from Parsons's personal collection to museums and fund raising auctions for several non-profit institutions.
Finally, the personal financial records provide information about the Parsons's family finances and her personal financial success as an art dealer. In addition to her own investments, Parsons inherited shares in family investments through the estates of her parents, J. Fred Pierson, Jr. and Suzanne Miles Pierson, and younger sister, Emily Rayner. Real estate files include correspondence, utility bills, receipts, area maps, and land plots for houses in Sheepscot, Maine and St. Maartens, Netherlands Antilles. Tax returns, ledger worksheets, receipts, banking statements, deposit slips, and cancelled checks are among the other financial records.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as seven series. Many of the series are further divided into subseries.
Missing Title
Series 1: Artists Files, 1935-1983 (19.4 linear feet; Boxes 1-18, 51, 55-56, OVs 53, 65)
Series 2: Exhibition Files, 1941-1983 (2.9 linear feet; Boxes 18-21, 51, 55, OVs 54, 66)
Series 3: Correspondence Files, 1941-1983 (3.9 linear feet; Boxes 21-24, 52, 56)
Series 4: Appraisal Files, 1954-1983 (0.7 linear feet; Box 24)
Series 5: Sales and Inventory Records, 1946-1983 (3.9 linear feet; Boxes 25-28, 51)
Series 6: General Business and Financial Records, 1946-1983 (9.3 linear feet; Boxes 28-38, 51, 56)
Series 7: Betty Parsons Personal Papers, 1916-1991 (21 linear feet; Boxes 38-51, 55-64, OVs 65-67)
Historical Note:
Betty Parsons (1900-1982) was one of the leading art dealers in New York City specializing in modern art, particularly the work of the Abstract Expressionists, and an abstract painter and sculptor in her own right. She opened Betty Parsons Gallery in 1946 at 15 E. 57th St., later moving to 24 W. 57th St.
The history of the Betty Parsons Gallery is inextricably bound to the life and experiences of its founder. Betty Parsons was born Betty Bierne Pierson on January 31, 1900 in New York City. She enjoyed a privileged childhood, which included vacation homes in Newport and Palm Beach. Her only formal education was a five-year stint at the prestigious Chapin School from 1910-1915, where she met many of the women who would become life-long friends and supporters. In the spring of 1920, she married Schuyler Livingston Parsons from one of New York's oldest families. The marriage ended after only three years and the couple traveled to Paris where they could obtain a divorce on the grounds of incompatibility. She retained her married surname and purchased a house on the rue Boulard in Paris, where she remained for ten years, pursuing studies in painting and sculpture.
Financial constraints forced Parsons to return to the United States in 1933. She first traveled west to California, but it was her return to New York in 1935 that marked the start of her career as an art dealer. Her first opportunity to connect with the New York art world came after a successful exhibition of her watercolors at the Midtown Galleries where the owner, Alan Gruskin, noted Parson's faithful and wealthy group of supporters and offered her work installing exhibitions and selling paintings on commission. Her work for the Midtown Galleries led to a second position in the Park Avenue gallery of Mary Sullivan, one of the founders of the Museum of Modern Art. Here, Parsons learned the business of running a gallery. By 1940 Parsons was ready to take on more independent responsibility and agreed to manage a gallery within the Wakefield Bookshop. In this job, she exercised full curatorial control by selecting artists and organizing exhibitions. She championed then unknown contemporary American artists and the gallery's roster soon included Saul Steinberg, Hedda Sterne, Alfonso Ossorio, Joseph Cornell, Walter Murch, and Theodore Stamos. Although the majority of the exhibitions were solo shows, there were a few group shows and themed exhibitions, such as Love in Art (1941) and Ballet in Art (1942). Under Parson's direction, the gallery hosted an important exhibition of Pre-Columbian sculpture, curated by Barnett Newman.
When the owners of the Wakefield Bookshop decided to close the gallery late in 1944, Mortimer Brandt, a dealer who specialized in Old Master paintings and drawings, offered her a position as head of the newly created contemporary section of his gallery. Many of the artists who had shown with Parsons at the Wakefield Gallery followed her to her new gallery, where they were joined by Ad Reinhardt, Boris Mango, and Hans Hofmann. While the exhibitions garnered attention from the press and the interest of contemporary artists, the contemporary section was not a financial success and Brandt opted to close his gallery in 1946.
Using $1000 of her own money and an additional borrowed $4000, Parsons sublet the space that previously housed Mortimer Brandt's contemporary section, on the fifth floor of 15 East 57th Street, and opened the Betty Parsons Gallery.
In many respects the early years of the Betty Parsons Gallery were the most vital, as it was during the period of 1947-1951 that the gallery became linked with the Abstract Expressionists and the history of post-WWII American Art. In an unpublished history of the gallery, noted art critic Lawrence Alloway stated that the significance of the gallery's early exhibitions ranks with Durand-Ruel's Impressionists exhibitions or Kahnweiler's shows of the Cubists. Betty Parsons Gallery quickly became one of the most prestigious galleries in New York City associated with new American Art of all styles. Her close friend Barnett Newman organized the gallery's inaugural exhibition of Northwest Coast Indian Art and he soon began to exhibit his own work at the gallery. When Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century Gallery closed, Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still, and Mark Rothko joined Parsons' growing stable of artists. Although Parsons continued to promote and exhibit many of the artists whom she had previously discovered, these four artists dominated this period. Newman, Pollock, Still, and Rothko worked closely together, holding themselves apart from the other artists somewhat. They were actively involved in the curatorial process and often hung their own shows. For these artists, the exhibition itself was an artistic act of creation.
Parsons provided a supportive environment and allowed her artists enormous freedom in planning and designing their exhibitions. She was not, however, an aggressive salesperson. During this early period the gallery ledgers document sales to an impressive array of museums including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as important collectors such as Edward Root and Duncan Phillips. Nevertheless, the art that the gallery promoted was not yet widely accepted. Sales were few, prices were low and the business would not turn a profit for several years. Meanwhile, there was mounting pressure from Pollock, Newman, Still, and Rothko to drop some of the other artists from Parsons' stable and focus all resources on them. They wanted to be promoted to a larger audience and have their work sold at higher prices, but Parsons enjoyed discovering new artists and did not want to be restricted in this endeavor. The year 1951 marks the last time that Pollock's drip paintings or the monumental works of Newman, Rothko or Still were shown at the Betty Parsons Gallery.
In the following years the Betty Parsons Gallery continued to attract a diverse group of talented artists. Ellsworth Kelly, Richard Tuttle, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jack Youngerman had their first New York exhibitions at the Betty Parsons Gallery. Parsons opened Section Eleven in 1958, a short-lived annex to the main gallery, so that she could promote younger, less well-known artists. It closed in 1960 due to the administrative difficulties in running two essentially separate galleries.
In 1962, Sidney Janis, another prominent art dealer, started proceedings to evict Parsons from the floor that they shared on 15 East 57th Street. The Betty Parsons Gallery moved to 24 West 57th Street in 1963, where it remained until it closed in 1983, following Parsons' death the preceding year. Throughout the gallery's history, Parsons continued to promote faithful artists such as Hedda Sterne and Saul Steinberg, who had been with her from the beginning and to seek out new talent, both for her main gallery and for other venues, such as the short-lived Parsons-Truman Gallery, which she opened in 1974 with former Parsons Gallery director Jock Truman to show works on paper by emerging artists.
In addition to being an art dealer, Betty Parsons was a respected artist and collector. With her connoisseur's eye and connections, Parsons amassed an impressive private collection of art. She bought her first piece while an art student in Paris in the 1920s, a small gouache by Zadkine, but did not begin acquiring works in earnest until she was established as an art dealer. Partial inventories of her personal collection show that the majority of her collection contained works by artists associated with the gallery. Mark Rothko, Hans Hofmann, Ad Reinhardt, Agnes Martin, and Kenzo Okada were among the artists represented. Many were gifts from the artists, such as an ink drawing by Jackson Pollock, inscribed "For Betty." Selections from her collection appeared in small museums across the United States, including a traveling exhibition organized by Fitch College, New York, in 1968. In her role as a promoter of contemporary American art, Parsons lent generously from her collection, particularly to the federal Art in the Embassies Program. Throughout her life she also donated works to a variety of museums, most notably, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark.
Parsons frequently claimed that her desire to pursue a career as an artist stemmed from a visit to the Armory Show when she was thirteen. In her late teens, after pressuring her father for art lessons, she studied with the sculptor Gutzon Burglum of Mount Rushmore fame. In Paris, she continued her studies first with Antoine Bourdelle, whose sculptures she had admired at the Armory Show, and later with Ossip Zadkine. The first exhibition of her work, figurative watercolors and sculptures, took place in Paris in 1927. As she matured as an artist, her art became more abstract. Her late works were painted wood sculptures that she pieced together from wood that she found near her studio in Long Island. Parsons's work was exhibited in more than thirty solo exhibitions, including, Betty Parsons; Paintings, Gouaches and Sculpture, 1955-1968, at the Whitechapel Gallery in London. During her lifetime, she would not allow her works to be shown in her own gallery. Shortly after she died of a stroke in 1982, In Memoriam, Betty Parsons: Late Sculptures, opened at the Betty Parsons Gallery.
Related Material:
Also found in the Archives of American Art are oral history interviews with Betty Parsons, June 4-9, 1969, by Paul Cummings, and June 11, 1981 by Gerald Silk.
Separated Material:
Some of the material originally loaned for microfilming in 1968 and 1969 was not included in later donations and can be viewed on microfilm reels N68/62-N68/74 and N69/105-N69/106. Loaned materials are not described in the container listing in this finding aid.
Provenance:
The gallery donated some records in 1974, many of which had been loaned earlier for microfilming. The bulk of the collection was donated in 1984 and 1986 by William Rayner and Christopher Schwabacher, executors of the Estate of Betty Parsons. Additional material was donated by William Rayner in 1998 and Christopher Schwabacher in 2017. Additional material was donated in 2018 by the Lee Hall estate via Carolyn Crozier and Deborah Jacobson, co-executors. Hall was Parsons's biographer and had the material in her possession at the time of Parsons's death. An additional photograph of Parons and Marie Carr Taylor by Henri Cartier-Bresson was donated in 2021 by Mary Carpenter, who inherited the photograph from her mother, Nan Thorton Jones, who received it as a gift from Taylor.
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:
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.
Occupation:
Gallery owners -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Art dealers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
An interview of Harold Lehman conducted 1997 Mar. 28, by Stephen Polcari, for the Archives of American Art. Lehman speaks of his early educational and artistic experiences in New York; taking sculpture classes; moving to California; going to school at Manual Arts; going to Ojai and learning the religious philosophy of Krishnamurti; participating in literary discussion groups and the books he read; his years at Otis Art Institute; working with Sisqueiros, and how the frescoes they created were destroyed by the Red Squad; when he became interested in painting; working with Lorser Feitelson; working with the Public Works of Art Project; moving back to New York and working with the Federal Arts Project; his experiences with Sisqueiros and the artist workshop they set up; his thoughts on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Stalin and Trotsky; his thoughts on social realism; the project he did on Rikers Island; doing mural art; breaking both his arms two months before the attack on Pearl Harbor and how he managed to stay out of the army; working on his mural in Woodstock; working on war bond painting for the government; his art work during the war years; recollections of Jackson Pollack and his interest in Indian Art; going to see the Picasso show; his artistic influences; his thoughts on America's involvement in World War II; his life after the war and what inspired him; his memories of Phil Guston; thoughts on Harold Rosenberg and Clement Greenberg; his life after the war, and other recollections about his life and friends. He recalls Max Maikowski, Jean de Laffiere, Rutolo, Frederick J. Schwankovsky, Phil Guston, Jackson Pollack, Manuel Tolegian, Rueben Kadish, George Stanley, Roger Noble Vernon, D.A. Siqueiros, Luis Arenal, Lorser Feitelson, Helen Lundberg, Leo Katz, Merle Armiduke, Stanley McCoy, Axel Horr (Horn), Carla Mahl (Clara Moore), Louie Serstadt, Diego Rivera, Jose Orozco, Arnold Blanch, Harold Rosenberg, Clement Greenberg, Arnold Blanch, and many others.
Biographical / Historical:
Harold Lehman (1913-2006) was a painter, lithographer, designer, and sculptor from New York, N.Y.
General:
Originally recorded on 7 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 12 digital wav files. Duration is 8 hrs., 39 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Topic:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews Search this
Sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews Search this
Biographical material, correspondence with architects and artists (1903-1978), writings (1923-1969), a diary, an autograph book, subject files, printed material, photographs (1883-1979) and 5 photograph albums reflect the career of Walter Gropius, the activities of his wife Ise, and her recollections of the Bauhaus. Also included are 5 cassette tapes, untranscribed and unmicrofilmed.
REELS 2270-2283: Walter Gropius' correspondence concerns family matters (1903-1933), locating his sister in Berlin after World War II (1945-1946), and the Bauhaus Archiv (1957-1968). Ise Gropius' correspondents (1969-1978) include Alvar Aalto, Herbert Bayer, Hannes Beckmann, Arcangelo Cascieri, Ivan and Serge Chermayeff, Adolf Klarmann, Helmut Koch, Gerhard Marcks, Jack Pritchard, Hans Scharoun, and Konrad Wachsmann. Other correspondence concerns exhibitions about Gropius (1969-1976). Writings by Walter Gropius include lecture notes and short essays on architecture and design. A subject file (1945-1954) concerns visits to Japan. Printed material (1910-1978) includes galley proof sheets and clippings (1913-1957).
REELS 2284-2286: Photographs (1896-1937) show family members including Gropius' first wife Alma Schindler and their daughter Manon; Gropius' architectural projects including finished buildings, models, blueprints, and drawings (1906-1952); and an exhibition in London on Gropius.
REEL 2287: Biographical material (1883-1979) consists of Gropius' birth, marriage and death certificates, his military record (1914-1917), contracts, U.S. naturalization papers (1941-1944), financial documents (1945), Ise Gropius' will (1979), a list of works, a history of the Gropius family, real estate records, and membership cards. Excerpts from letters written by Marcel Breuer describe his European travels (1931-1937). A file on the Walter Gropius Foundation contains letters and notes (1969). An autograph book kept by Ise Gropius (1924-1981) contains illustrations by Herbert Bayer, Gyorgy and Juliet Kepes, Joan Miro, Kurt Schwitters, and Phyllis Terry, as well as autographs, notes and photographs. Writings by Ise Gropius include lecture notes and printed essays (1935-1943).
REEL 2287a: Twenty-six letters (1932-1952) from Herbert Bayer, written in German and English, to Gropius. Thirteen excerpts from Bayer's letters (1932-1949) are translated into English.
REELS 2330-2331: Photographs (1883-1979) show Walter Gropius, family members, and colleagues including Alvar Aalto, Bela Bartok, Herbert Bayer, Marcel Breuer, Alexander Calder, Arcangelo Cascieri, Naum Gabo, Julian Huxley, Gyorgy Kepes, Paul Klee, Le Corbusier, I. M. Pei, Diego Rivera, Jose Luis Sert, Kenzo Tange, Frank Lloyd Wright, and members of Gropius' firm, The Architects Collaborative. Other photographs show a skit by students of the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Bauhaus (1979).
REEL 2393: English translations of correspondence between Ise and Walter Gropius (1931-1969) and Ise's 1928 letter to a journalist commenting on Walter Gropius' resignation from the Bauhaus. A handwritten German copy (with a typewritten English translation) of a section of Ise Gropius' unpublished memoir describes her first meeting with Gropius and their courtship and marriage (1923-1929). A German transcript was not filmed. A typewritten English translation of Ise Gropius' diary (1924-1928) describes activities at the Bauhaus and mentions Josef Albers, Herbert Bayer, Marcel Breuer, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Otto Klemperer, Alma Mahler, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Georg Muche, Kurt Schwitters, Igor Stravinsky, and Franz Werfel. A handwritten translation is filmed on reel 4130.
REEL 2764: One photograph album (1925-1930) contains photographs of Walter and Ise Gropius and colleagues including Josef Albers, Herbert Bayer, Marcel Breuer, Lyonel Feininger, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Georg Muche, Claude Petit, and Joost Schmidt; construction of the Bauhaus (1925-1926); and sights in Germany and Italy. Four albums on the United States contain Gropius' photographs of New York City architecture, the Brooklyn Bridge, Chicago, California housing and industry, the Grand Canyon, and American Indians.
UNMICROFILMED: 5 cassette tapes, untranscribed, including a lecture delivered by Walter Gropius as part of "The Heritage of Man" lecture series, Cleveland, Ohio, February 13, 1952; an interview of Ise conducted by the Canadian Broadcasting Company, October 28, 1977; and 3 of a monologue delivered by Ise, 1978, in which she speaks of her early childhood.
Biographical / Historical:
Architect, educator and founder of the Bauhaus school. Born in Berlin, Walter Gropius studied at the University of Charlottenburg-Berlin and Munich. Following European travel and apprenticeship with Peter Behrens in Berlin, he established his own practice in 1910. After military service in WWI, he became director of the School of Applied Arts and the Academy of Arts, united the two and named the new institute Bauhaus Dessau in 1925. Between 1934 and 1937, he had a private practice in London. From 1938 to 1952, Gropius was chairman of Harvard's Graduate School of Design and maintained a private practice with Marcel Breuer from 1938 to 1941. Gropius married Alma Schindler, Gustav Mahler's widow, in 1915. In 1923, he married Ise (or Ilse) Franck (1897-1983).
Related Materials:
Additional photographs of Alma (Schindler) Mahler Werfel located at Bauhaus Archiv, Berlin, Germany.
Provenance:
Lent for microfilming by Ise Gropius and her daughter, Beate Gropius Forberg Johansen, 1982-1983, except for selected items on reel 2393, the handwritten translation of Ise's diary on reel 4130 and cassette tapes, which were donated in 1981, 1983 and 1987, respectively. Some photographs from albums on reel 2764 which would not reproduce were not microfilmed.
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 California artist, curator, and educator Bruria Finkel measure 15.3 linear feet and 83.815 GB, and date from 1953 to 2021. This collection includes biographical materials, correspondence, writings, project files, professional records, exhibition files, artists' files, personal business records, printed and digital materials, photographic materials, and sound and video recordings.
There is a 3.2 linear foot and .225 GB unprocessed addition to this collection donated in 2021 and 2022 that includes photographs, film photo slides and slides of works of art; printed material; biographical material; research material regarding papermaking in Japan; journals; project and exhibition files; interviews with Bruria and others on audio cassette, mini DVs and ¼ inch reels; and 16 mm film "Bruria" sequence from Art in America Part 5- Art Careers; and a video, Artist Talk with Bruria Finkel, October 21, 2021, created by the Southern California Women Caucus for the Arts for Third Thursday Artist Talk Time. Material dates from circa 1960-2021.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of California artist, curator, and educator Bruria Finkel measure 15.3 linear feet and 83.815 GB, and date from 1953 to 2021. This collection includes biographical materials, correspondence, writings, project files, professional records, exhibition files, artists' files, personal business records, printed and digital materials, photographic materials, and sound and video recordings.
Biographical materials include curriculum vitae, art portfolios, documents about studios, honors and awards, website designs and contents, travel documents, family-related video recordings, and miscellaneous items.
The bulk of the correspondence consists of professional correspondence with artists, curators, museums, and galleries about exhibitions. There is some personal correspondence with friends and family.
Writings include an annotated appointment calendar, book proposals, notes, and typescript drafts of statements and articles by Bruria Finkel, along with some writing by others.
Project files include correspondence, proposals, designs, photographic material, notes, budgets, reports, invoices, and printed and digital materials. Notable projects include the Natural Elements Sculpture Park, Tibet Project, and Verona Hotel Wall.
Professional records document Finkel's feminist and political activities. There are membership records of organizations, councils, and committees in addition to files on symposiums, conferences, workshops, and artist residencies. This series includes reports, correspondence, grant applications, mailing lists, presentations, video cassettes and digital video recordings, and other material.
Exhibition files contain material related to exhibitions that featured Bruria Finkel's work as well as exhibitions she curated. There are press releases, reviews, catalogs, correspondence, photographs, digital photographs, slides, price lists, resumes, videocassettes, and digital video recordings. Major exhibitions include Across Time, Space and The Ages (1992-1993), On Xenophobia and Walls (1997), and Women Artists of Southern California Then and Now (2007).
Artists' files consist of limited correspondence, resumes, photographs, and printed and digital materials.
Personal business records include assorted financial and legal documents such as price lists, sales invoices, contracts, and a financial ledger.
Printed material consists of exhibition catalogs, announcements, clippings, newspapers, magazines, documentaries, and news programs. Some of the materials are in digital format. Most of the material is related to Bruria Finkel, but there is some material on other artists and subjects.
Photographic materials include photographs, digital photographs, and slides. Photographs are of Bruria Finkel, her artwork, projects, and exhibitions. There are some photographs of family, friends, and travel.
There is a 3.2 linear foot and .225 GB unprocessed addition to this collection donated in 2021 and 2022 that includes photographs, film photo slides and slides of works of art; printed material; biographical material; research material regarding papermaking in Japan; journals; project and exhibition files; interviews with Bruria and others on audio cassette, mini DVs and ¼ inch reels; and 16 mm film "Bruria" sequence from Art in America Part 5- Art Careers; and a video, Artist Talk with Bruria Finkel, October 21, 2021, created by the Southern California Women Caucus for the Arts for Third Thursday Artist Talk Time. Material dates from circa 1960-2021.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 11 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1977-circa 2014 (0.5 linear feet; Box 1, 15.64 GB; ER01-ER13)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1953-2014 (2.5 linear feet; Boxes 1-3)
Series 3: Writings, 1978-circa 2010 (0.2 linear feet; Box 4)
Series 4: Project Files, 1979-2014 (2.1 linear feet; Boxes 4-6, OV 14, 2.01 GB; ER14-ER20)
Series 5: Professional Records, 1971-2013 (1.6 linear feet; Boxes 6-7, OV 14, 0.941 GB; ER21-ER22)
Series 6: Exhibition Files, 1972-2012 (3.2 linear feet; Boxes 7-10, OV 15, 54.34 GB; ER23-ER49)
Series 7: Artists' Files, 1979-2013 (0.3 linear feet; Boxes 10-11, 4.47 GB; ER50-ER55)
Series 8: Personal Business Records, 1977-2007 (0.2 linear feet; Box 11)
Series 9: Printed Materials, 1970-2014 (1 linear feet; Boxes 11-12, OV 15-16, 1.01 GB; ER56-ER58)
Series 10: Photographic Materials, circa 1963-2014 (0.5 linear feet; Boxes 12-13, 5.18 GB; ER59-ER66)
Series 11: Unprocessed Addition, 2021 and 2022 (Boxes 17-19, OV 20-21, .225 GB)
Biographical / Historical:
Bruria Finkel (1932-) is an artist, curator and teacher based in Santa Monica, California.
Bruria Finkel was born in Jerusalem in 1932. She studied animal husbandry at Ayanot Agriculture School and received a teaching degree from Seminar Hakibutzim in Tel Aviv, Israel. In 1953, she married a musician and immigrated to the U.S. Their two daughters were born in New York City. In 1959, she divorced and moved to Santa Monica, California with her children. She later married David Finkel, a civil rights lawyer who went on to become a Superior Court judge, with whom she had a son and daughter.
Finkel works with a variety of mediums including pottery, paper, painting, porcelain, and sculpture. She has exhibited widely and her work has been featured in galleries and museums in California, across the country, and abroad. Major exhibitions include Across Time, Space and The Ages (1992-1993) at the Dusseldorf Stadtmuseum in Germany, On Xenophobia and Walls (1997) at the Mill Gallery in England, and The Complete Aleph Series (2009) at Track 16 Gallery in California.
In addition to being a prolific artist, Finkel also has a successful career as a curator. She has curated major exhibitions featuring artists such as Lita Albuquerque, John Baldessari, and Frank Gehry. Santa Monica Originals (2004-2005), Women Artists of Southern California Then and Now (2007), and Breaking in Two: Provocative Images of Motherhood (2012) are a few of the exhibitions she has curated.
Finkel has a long history of political activism and advocating for women. She helped establish the Santa Monica Arts Commission which is dedicated to creating city art programs. She is also a founding member of the Los Angeles County of Women Artists and Womenspace Gallery in Los Angeles. She continues to be actively involved in the Santa Monica community and art scene.
Provenance:
The Bruria Finkel papers were donated in 2015 and 2020-2022 by Bruria Finkel.
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 and born-digital records in this collection must use access copies. Contact References 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.
The papers of arts educator James A. McGrath measure 5.4 linear feet and date from 1950-2011. Included are McGrath's papers concerning his artist's residencies and workshops for the United States Information Agency (USIA) in the Yemen Republic, Saudi Arabia, and the Republic of the Congo, 1990-1995. Also found are McGrath's papers concerning artist William Wiley. These papers date from Wiley's high school days and includes correspondence, writings, student files, printed materials, photographs, and artwork. Letters from Wiley to McGrath span several decades and provide details about his artwork, family, and travels.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of arts educator James A. McGrath measure 5.4 linear feet and date from 1950-2011. Included are McGrath's papers concerning his artist's residencies and workshops for the United States Information Agency (USIA) in the Yemen Republic, Saudi Arabia, and the Republic of the Congo, 1990-1995. Also found are McGrath's papers concerning artist William Wiley. These papers date from Wiley's high school days and includes correspondence, writings, student files, printed materials, photographs, and artwork. Letters from Wiley to McGrath span several decades and provide details about his artwork, family, and travels.
James McGrath's papers regarding his artist's residencies and workshops are currently unprocessed.
Wiley's high school student files consist of exams and two Columbia High School yearbooks with contributions from Wiley. Correspondence includes mostly letters written from Wiley to McGrath, some of which are illustrated. There are also Christmas cards, postcards, prints and a wedding invitation and photograph of Wiley and his wife Mary. Wiley writes about his artwork, family, travels and his mother's death. There are also letters to McGrath from Wiley's first and second wives, Dorothy and Mary, his mother, and artists Robert Rauschenberg and Mark Tobey.
Printed materials include exhibition catalogs and announcements, news and magazine clippings, and the books Distraction, Lyrica and Almost Old/New Poems, all illustrated by Wiley.
Artwork by Wiley includes block prints, sketches and drawings, poems, paintings, prints and posters. Photographs are of Wiley's high school yearbook staff, art work and exhibitions, and a dinner honoring Wiley. There is a signed high school photograph of Wiley and a booklet of photographs of an exhibition of McGrath's art. There are also slides of artwork by Wiley, Bob Hudson and Bill Allan.
Arrangement:
The papers are arranged as 2 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: James A. McGrath Papers Concerning William T. Wiley (Box 1-3, OVs 4-6; 2.0 linear feet)
Series 2: Unprocessed James A. McGrath Papers, circa 1990-1995 (Boxes 7-9, OVs 10-12)
Biographical Note:
Arts educator James A. McGrath was a high school art teacher at Columbia High School in Richland, Washington where he taught William T. Wiley in the mid-1950s. They remained life-long friends. Later, McGrath worked at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe as Director of Arts, Professor of Painting, and Dean. In 1973 he became Director of Arts, Humanities and Culture in the Department of Defense and was stationed in Japan, Korea, Okinawa, Taiwan and the Philippines. He also worked for the United States Information Agency in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the Republic of the Congo. He continues to be active as an arts education specialist.
William T. Wiley (1937-2021) was a contemporary artist painting and teaching primarily in the San Francisco area. His artwork is associated with the Bay area Funk Movement. Wiley studied at the California School of Fine Arts and completed his MFA in 1962. One year later he joined the faculty of the UC Davis art department along with artists Robert Arneson and Roy DeForest. Wiley's students included Bruce Nauman and Deborah Butterfield.
Wiley's first solo exhibition was held at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 1960, and he had works in the Venice Biennial (1980) and Whitney Biennial (1983), as well as major exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco. His artwork is in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among many others. Wiley was the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship Award in 2004 and, in 2009, the Smithsonian American Art Museum presented a retrospective exhibition of Wiley's career.
Related Material:
The Archives of American Art also holds several collections related to William T. Wiley including an oral history interview conducted by Paul J. Karlstrom, October 8-November 20, 1997 and the William T. Wiley illustrated journals on microfilm reel 910. The University of Washington also holds papers of James A. McGrath.
Separated Material:
Six Documenta catalogs, originally donated to AAA with the James A. McGrath Papers Concerning William T. Wiley, were transferred to the Smithsonian Institution Libraries.
Provenance:
The papers were donated by James A. McGrath in five accessions between 2010-2015. A drawing on tree bark was donated by William T. Wiley in 2016.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers 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.
Occupation:
Sculptors -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Painters -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Topic:
Performance artists -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Illustrators -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Genre/Form:
Drawings
Poems
Prints
Postcards
Paintings
Sketches
Illustrated letters
Christmas cards
Photographs
Citation:
James A. McGrath papers, 1950-2011. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
A lecture and interviews of twenty-two Southern California painters and sculptors, conducted and recorded by Los Angeles art critic Merle Schipper.
Interview tapes and Schipper's fragmentary notes are available for Greg S. Card, Tony Delap, Robert Graham, Frederick Hammersley, Marvin Harden, Craig Kauffman, Claude Kent, Charles Kessler, Harry Kipper, Jay Phillips, Charles Seliger, Peter T. Shelton, Judith Simonian, David Trowbridge, and John Van Hamersveld.
Only tapes are available for John Anderson, Joyce Cutler-Shaw, Gordon Onslow-Ford, Helen Pashgian, Frederick Stallknecht Wight and Rita Yokoi. Only Schipper's fragmentary notes are available for the DeWain Valentine interview. A tape of Craig Kauffman's May 9, 1979 lecture at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is also included.
Arrangement:
John Anderson interview is on the Gordon Onslow-Ford tape.
John Van Hamersveld interview is on the Harry Kipper tape.
Frederick Stallknecht Wight interview is on the Joyce Cutler-Shaw tape.
Rita Yokoi interview is on the Helen Pashgian tape.
Biographical / Historical:
California art critic and curator of the Fine Arts Gallery, California State University; b. in 1922.
Provenance:
Donated 1988 by Merle Schipper.
Restrictions:
Untranscribed interviews; use requires an appointment and is limited to AAA's Washington, D.C. office.
Occupation:
Conceptual artists -- California -- Interviews Search this
An interview with De Wain Valentine conducted 2013 September 4 and 5, by Robin Lee Clark, for the Archives of American Art at Valentine's studio in Torrance, California.
Biographical / Historical:
De Wain Valentine (1936-2022) was a sculptor in Torrance, California. Robin Lee Clark is a curator in San Diego, California.
General:
Originally recorded as 6 sound files. Duration is 3 hr., 19 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.
Restrictions:
This interview is open for research. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Topic:
Sculptors -- California -- Los Angeles -- Interviews Search this
Biographical data; two drafts of an interview which was published in LEONARDO magazine; correspondence, including letters from dealers Walter Kelly and John Weber concerning the exhibition and sale of Valentine's sculpture; notes; financial data, with shipping receipts; printed material including two exhibition announcements and a mock layout for an exhibition catalog; miscellany; and a photograph of a sculpture.
Biographical / Historical:
Sculptor; Venice, Calif.
Provenance:
Donated 1978 by De Wain Valentine.
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.
