This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
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:
Jaime Davidovich papers, 1949-2014. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
The processing and digitization of this collection received Federal support from the Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Latino Center. Additional funding for the digitization of the papers was provided by the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation.
The Nancy Holt Estate records measure circa 58.2 linear feet and date from circa 1900-2014, with the bulk of the material dating from 1960-2000. The records include financial records, notebooks, project files including unrealized proposals, correspondence, calendars, and 9 linear feet of Holt's annotated library. Also included are the John Weber Gallery records concerning Robert Smithson that consist of the gallery's inventory and slide records of Robert Smithson's drawings and sculptures, including earthworks, and incorporate some slides from the James Cohan Gallery. James Cohan worked for John Weber before establishing his own gallery in 2001.
Scope and Contents:
The Nancy Holt Estate records measure circa 58.2 linear feet and date from circa 1900-2014, with the bulk of the material dating from 1960-2000. The records include financial records, notebooks, project files including unrealized proposals, correspondence, calendars, and 9 linear feet of Holt's annotated library. Also included are the John Weber Gallery records concerning Robert Smithson that consist of the gallery's inventory and slide records of Robert Smithson's drawings and sculptures, including earthworks. The records incorporate some slides from the James Cohan Gallery (1999-), an art gallery in Manhattan, New York, which represents the estate of Robert Smithson.
Arrangement:
The Nancy Holt Estate records are arranged as 3 series.
Series 1: Project Files, circa 1900-2014, bulk 1970-2000 (12.8 linear feet; Boxes 3-10, OVs 11-31, RDs 32-39)
Series 2: John Weber Gallery Records Concerning Robert Smithson, circa 1960-circa 2001 (2 linear feet; Boxes 1-2)
Series 3: Unprocessed Papers, circa 1960s-circa 2014 (43.4 linear feet; Boxes 11-30, 34-38, 43-49, 53, 63-70, OVs 71-72)
Biographical / Historical:
Nancy Holt (1938-2014) was an environmental and installation artist, sculptor, filmmaker, and photographer, based in New York, New York. She was best known for her large-scale public land art installations including her seminal work Sun Tunnels (1973-1976) located in the Great Basin Desert, Utah. Her work engaged with the natural environment and the celestial realm, tracing the rotation of the earth and the movement of the sun and stars. Holt was also fascinated by mechanical systems such as those used for heating, drainage, and ventilation, and her functional sculptural installations explored the relationship between architecture and the built environment.
Holt was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, grew up in New Jersey, and graduated from Tufts University in 1960 with a degree in biology. She moved to New York City later that year where she met the artist Robert Smithson, to whom she was married from 1963 until Smithson's death in 1973.
Holt's landmark work Sun Tunnels was executed in 1973-1976 in Utah's Great Basin Desert, where Holt and Smithson had purchased surrounding land specifically to ensure an unimpeded view of the horizon. Holt went on to produce many site-specific outdoor works including 30 Below (1980), Dark Star Park (1984), Solar Rotary (1995), and Up and Under (1998). Her exploration of what she termed Systems Works included Catch Basin (1982), Flow Ace Heating (1985), and Spinwinder (1991).
Holt's photography was essential in the development of her ideas. In Missouri Ranch Locators: Vision Encompassed (1972) she used photography in her development of "seeing devices," creating eye-level steel pipes to direct viewers to a specific site in the surrounding landscape, and developing a concept that was central to Sun Tunnels and other works. Her book Ransacked, Aunt Ethel: An Ending (1980) documented through text and photographs the abuse and theft her aunt was subjected to at the end of her life. In Time Outs (1985) Holt used photographs of football games taken from a television screen to create a book born out of her childhood love of TV sporting events.
Holt's work can be found in the collections of major institutions including the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, and the Museum für Gegenswartkunst, Germany. Her permanent installations can be found at public institutions including Miami University Art Museum, Southern Connecticut State University, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, Western Washington University, and University of South Florida.
In 2012 Nancy Holt was made a Chevalier of the of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government. In 2013 she was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Sculpture Center in New York. Holt received five National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, two New York Creative Artist Fellowships, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of South Florida, Tampa.
Holt lived in Galisteo, New Mexico, from 1995-2013. She died in New York City in 2014.
Related Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds the Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt papers, an interview with Nancy Holt conducted 1992 July 6 by Scott Gutterman for the Archives of American Art, and an interview with Nancy Holt conducted 1993 August 3 by Joyce Pomeroy Schwartz for the Archives of American Art.
Provenance:
Bequest of Nancy Holt, 2014.
Restrictions:
The bulk of series 1-3 of this collection are 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 born-digital records or audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more information.
Some papers remain closed to researchers including some rolled documents in the unprocessed papers, financial files, and Nancy Holt's annotated library of books.
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.
Items created by Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson copyright held by Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Requests for permission to reproduce should be submitted to ARS.
Occupation:
Sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Filmmakers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Environmental artists -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Installation artists -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Photographers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
The papers of Cuban born painter, sculptor, cartoonist, and illustrator Enrique Riverón measure 3.3 linear feet and date from 1918-1990s. The collection contains correspondence, writings, diary entries, scrapbooks, printed material, and photographs documenting Riverón's career as an illustrator, cartoonist, painter and sculptor in the United States and Cuba and, to a lesser extent, Riverón's teaching career at Wichita University in Kansas.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of Cuban born painter, sculptor, cartoonist, and illustrator Enrique Riverón measure 3.3 linear feet, date from 1918-1990s and document Riverón's career as an illustrator, cartoonist, painter and sculptor in the United States and Cuba and, to a lesser extent, his teaching career at Wichita University in Kansas. The collection includes correspondence, the majority of which concerns Riverón's exhibitions; writings, primarily Riverón's recollections of his trips to Paris and Madrid and his memories of people he met in Latin America, Europe, and the United States; printed material documenting exhibitions and Riverón's work for magazines such as Cine-Mudial and Bally-Hoo; and photographs.
Arrangement:
The collection is organized into eight series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1929-1960 (Box 1; 2 folders)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1918-1991 (box 1, 0.6 ft.)
Series 3: Writings, 1923-1980s, undated (box 1, 0.2 ft.)
Series 4: Scrapbooks, 1920s-1990s, undated (boxes 1, 3, and 4, 0.7 ft.)
Series 5: Artwork, 1958-1983, undated (boxes 1 and 5, 0.4 ft.)
Series 6: Printed Material, circa 1930-1992 (boxes 2 and 5, 0.7 ft.)
Series 7: Photographs, 1918-1992, undated (boxes 2, 5 and 6, 0.6 ft.)
Series 8: Miscellany, 1927-1989, undated (box 6, 7 folders)
Biographical Note:
Painter, sculptor, cartoonist, and illustrator Enrique Riverón was born in 1902 in Cienfuegos, Cuba and belonged to the first generation of Cuban modernists, experimenting with Cubism and pursuing abstraction from very early on in his career. During his early twenties Riverón traveled to France, Italy, Belgium, and Spain to study under scholarships and attend the Academia de San Fernando in Madrid. In 1926 Riverón's first major one-man exhibition took place at the Association Paris Amerique Latine where the catalog introduction was written by noted Mexican writer Alfonso Reyes.
In 1927 Riverón returned to Havana and had a one-man show of his European work at the Asociación de Pintores y Escultores, as well as several other shows in Havana and New York. He moved to the United States in 1930 and became a United States citizen in 1943.
In addition to being known for his naturalistic drawings of street life in Paris and Cuba, Riverón began working with collage in the 1930s and was, for a number of years, a cartoonist for newspapers in Havana and other publications such as The New Yorker and Cine Mundial which was published in New York and widely circulated in Latin America. He also worked in Hollywood for a time as an illustrator for Walt Disney Pictures.
From 1940 on, Riverón focused on painting and sculpture. He moved to Miami from Wichita, Kansas, in 1964. Enrique Riverón died in 1998.
Related Material:
The Archives of American Art also has a collection of Enrique Riverón letters to Mario Carreño, 1981-1990, in which Riverón writes of their mutual friends, his memories of Cuba, health issues, politics, pricing paintings, collages, and his longings for Paris and New York.
Provenance:
The Enrique Riverón papers were donated to the Archives of American Art by Patricia Riverón Lee, daughter of Riverón, in 1996.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Use 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.
The papers of sculptor, painter, and publishing executive Alexander Semeonovitch Liberman date from circa 1913-2003 and measure 59 linear feet. Found within the papers are biographical materials; correspondence with family, galleries, museums, and many artists; numerous recorded interviews and transcripts with and by Liberman, including one of Walter Hopps; writings and writing project files; extensive subject files maintained by Liberman; exhibition files; printed materials; scattered drawings; and extensive photographs of Liberman's artwork, exhibitions, Liberman, and of Liberman with notable artists, dealers, collectors, and critics. Many of the photographs were taken by noted photograhers. Also found within the papers are unidentified sound and video recordings. Additional sound and video recordings have been integrated into other series.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of sculptor, painter, and publishing executive Alexander Semeonovitch Liberman date from circa 1913-2003 and measure 59 linear feet. Found within the papers are biographical materials; correspondence with family, galleries, museums, and many artists; numerous recorded interviews and transcripts with and by Liberman, including one of Walter Hopps; writings and writing project files; extensive subject files maintained by Liberman; exhibition files; printed materials; scattered drawings; and extensive photographs of Liberman's artwork, exhibitions, Liberman, and of Liberman with notable artists, dealers, collectors, and critics. Many of the photographs were taken by noted photograhers. Also found within the papers are unidentified sound and video recordings. Additional sound and video recordings have been integrated into other series.
Biographical materials include awards, biographies and chronologies, family history materials, membership cards,
writings by Liberman's mother, and a scrapbook about his father.
Correspondence is extensive and concerns both personal and professional affairs. It is with artists and photographers, art magazines, organizations and museums, art collectors, businesses, and family. Notable correspondents include Cecil Beaton, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Burt Chernow, Salvador Dali, Robert Motherwell, Helen Frankenthaler, Barnett and Annalee Newman, Additional correspondence is found within the subject files compiled and organized by Liberman (series 6).
There are sound and video recordings and transcripts of interviews with and by Liberman, most completed for broadcast television and radio shows. Of particular interest are sound cassettes, a sound tape reel, and a transcript of an interview with Walter Hopps by Liberman.
Writings by Liberman include essays, short stories, and a play entitled 2+1. Writing project files were organized by Liberman for writing projects for which he was the author, collaborator, or subject. There are numerous files concerning Barbara Rose's book about Liberman Alexander Liberman that also include recorded interviews with Liberman and transcripts. Other books for which there are files include The Art and Technique of Color Photography, The Artist in His Studio, Vogue: The First 100 Years, Vogue History of Fashion Photography, and others.
Subject files were organized by Liberman for a wide variety of work projects, activities, topics, and entities of interest. Files cover commissions, the filming and distribution of the 1981 documentary film Alexander Liberman: A Lifetime Burning, Liberman's personal collection of art, gifts of artwork, and his relationship with galleries and dealers, particularly André Emmerich Gallery.
Exhibition files document exhibitions of Liberman's artwork, and include those held at André Emmerich Gallery, Bennington College, the Guggenheim, Museum of Modern Art, among other venues. Files contain correspondence, contracts, photographs, plans and drawings, notes, etc. Also found are inventory records of Liberman's artwork in the form of lists, index cards, bound registers, and notes.
Ten linear feet of printed materials include exhibition announcements and catalogs, books and book flyers, brochures, calendars, clippings, postcards, posters, press releases, and other materials.
There are scattered drawings and sketches found within the papers, some of which are sketches of sculpture pieces.
Nearly one-half of the collection is comprised of photographs of Liberman and his artwork, and of artists and colleagues, many of which were taken by noted photographers, including Cecil Beaton, Henri Cartier-Bresson, William Klein, Henri Lartique, Annie Leibowitz, Inge Morath, Ugo Mulas, Hans Namuth, Helmut Newton, Gordon Parks, Irving Penn, Herb Ritts, and Lord Snowden, among others. Subjects of note found in the photographs include Alfred Barr, Salvador Dali, Marlene Dietrich, Willem de Kooning, Andre Emmerich, Helen Frankenthaler, Clement Greenberg, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, Betty Parsons, Pablo Piccaso, Edward Steichen, Lucien Vogel, and Diana Vreeland, among many others.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into twelve series. Photographs retain Liberman's original numerical and alpha schemas and the corresponding indexes are found in the Inventory Records in Series 8.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Materials, circa 1930s-1999 (1 linear foot; Box 1, 56)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1944-1997 (4 linear feet; Boxes 1-5, 56, OV 65)
Series 3: Interviews, 1946-1996 (1.4 linear feet; Boxes 5-7, 56)
Series 4: Writings, 1948-1995 (0.9 linear feet; Boxes 7-8)
Series 5: Writing Project Files, 1951-1997 (1.8 linear feet; Boxes 8-9, 56)
Series 6: Subject Files, 1946-2000 (6 linear feet; Boxes 9-15, 56, OV 66-67)
Series 7: Exhibition Files, 1954-1991 (0.7 linear feet; Boxes 15-16, 56, OV 68)
Series 8: Inventory Records, 1938-1998 (6 linear feet; Boxes 16-22)
Series 9: Printed Materials, 1932-2003 (10 linear feet; Boxes 22-31, 56-57, OV 69)
Series 10: Artwork, circa 1940s-1990s (0.4 linear feet; Boxes 32, 57, OV 70)
Series 11: Photographic Materials, circa 1912-1999 (26 linear feet; Boxes 32-55, 57-64, OVs 71-77)
Series 12: Unidentified Sound and Video Recordings, circa 1941-1999 (0.8 linear feet; Boxes 55, 64)
Biographical / Historical:
Alexander S. Liberman (1912-1999) was a sculptor, painter, photographer, graphic designer, writer, and publishing executive who worked primarily in New York City. He held senior positions at Condé Nast Publications for 32 years.
Alexander Semeonovitch Liberman was born in 1912 in Kiev Russia. He was educated in London and the École des Beaux Art in Paris. He began his journalistic career in Paris at VU magazine owned by Lucien Vogel and there he befriended photographers Henri Cartier-Bresson, Brassai, Robert Capa, and André Kértesz. He served in the French army for a short time in 1940, but he and his family fled Paris in 1941 to New York City. Condé Nast hired Liberman in 1941 as an assistant to the art director of Vogue magazine. Liberman became art director in 1943 and editorial director of Condé Nast Publications in 1962, a position he held until his retirement in 1994.
Liberman was also a photographer whose subjects included Georges Braque, Alexander Calder, Alberto Giacometti, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and Marlene Dietrich, among others, many represented in his 1960 book entitled The Artist in his Studio and Marlene: An Intimate Photographic Memoir (1992). He was also the subject of the work of noted photographers Cecil Beaton, Irving Penn, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Gordon Parks, Lord Snowden, Jill Krementz, Henri Lartique, Annie Leibovitz, and Hans Namuth.
Liberman took up painting and sculpting in the 1950s. Although his first exhibition was at the Betty Parsons Gallery, he was primarily associated with the André Emmerich Gallery in New York City. His monumental sculptures were mostly assembled from industrial parts and painted and can be seen in museums and public sites worldwide.
Liberman was briefly married to Hildegarde Sturm. He married his second wife Tatiana Yacovleff du Plessix in 1942. Before their marriage, they fled occupied France together. She was a noted hat designer, working for Henri Bendel and Saks, where she became known as Tatiania of Saks. She died in 1991 and, in 1992, Liberman married Melinda Pechangco, a nurse who had earlier cared for Tatiania. Alexander Liberman died in 1999 in Miami, Florida.
Related Materials:
Related collections found at the Archives of American Art include the Dodie Kazanjian and Calvin Tomkins research materials on Alexander Liberman and numerous collections of gallery records.
Provenance:
The Alexander Liberman papers were donated to the Archives of American Art by Liberman Art Partners in 2010 via Dodie Kazanjian.
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. 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.
Occupation:
Publishers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Enrique Guy Garcia, 1998 Mar. 18. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Ruben Torres-Llorca, 1998 January 31. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Topic:
Artists -- Florida -- Miami -- Interviews Search this
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Tom Patti, 2010 January 18-19. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
An interview of Enrique Guy Garcia conducted 1998 Mar. 18, by Juan A. Martinez, in Garcia's studio, Miami, Fla., for the Archives of American Art.
Garcia discusses his early interest in drawing; enrolling in art school as a teenager in Santiago de Cuba; attending Havana's San Alejandro Art Academy and studying painting with Leopoldo Romanach and Domingo Ramos, and modeling for sculpture classes where his interest in sculpture developed; going to Mexico City upon graduation to study fresco painting; returning to Cuba and working in organizing craft workshops; becoming dissatisfied with the political situation in Cuba and accepting an UNESCO grant to study art in Italy; seeking political asylum on his return from Italy; living in New York and working in a foundry; moving to Miami in the mid-1970s; his sculpture, which is primarily bronzes; his abstract expressionist style; his series of works in the 1980s, "Head," and "Icarus"; his current work, "Columns"; and an upcoming exhibition in Venezuela.
Biographical / Historical:
Enrique Guy Garcia (1928-) is a sculptor and painter from Miami, Fla. Born in Havana, Cuba.
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:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
This interview received Federal support from the Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Latino Center. Funding for the digital preservation of this interview received Federal support from the Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Latino Center.
An interview of Ruben Torres-Llorca conducted 1998 January 31, by Juan A. Martínez, in Torres Llora's home/studio, Miami, Florida, for the Archives of American Art.
Torres Llora discusses his early interest in art; his father, whom he never met, who was a talented commercial artist; studying art at San Alejandro Academy of Art, Havana and fellow students Jose Bedia and Ricardo Rodriguez Brey; graduate studies at Havana's Instituto Superior del Arte; participating in the "Volumen I" exhibition in 1981; travels to Mexico, where he began sculpture and installations; returning to Cuba and curating exhibitions of younger artists; moving to Buenos Aires, Mexico City, and since 1993, Miami; artistic influences, including literature, anthropology, sociololgy, film, and other disciplines on him; his mixed media figurative objects of the 1990s which tell a narrative, are socially oriented, and at best, provide a shared experience for the viewer.
Biographical / Historical:
Ruben Torres-Llorca (1957-) is a Cuban born painter and sculptor in Miami, Florida.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 3 digital wav files. Duration is 2 hr., 6 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:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
This interview received Federal support from the Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Latino Center. Funding for the digital preservation of this interview received Federal support from the Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Latino Center.
An interview of Tom Patti conducted 2010 January 18 and 19, by William Warmus, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, at Patti's residence, in Miami Beach, Florida.
Patti talks about growing up in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in a working-class neighborhood, and playing in and around the General Electric Corp. landfill, the major employer in the area; losing vision in one eye after a childhood accident; he recalls running with a tough crowd during high school and making homemade tattoos for his friends; his probation officer during high school, who encouraged his interest in art; meeting Norman Rockwell, who encouraged him to attend Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York; majoring in industrial design at Pratt, where he worked with Rowena Reed Kostellow; the idealism and social consciousness of the 1960s; exposure to the ideas of visionary architects such as Moshe Safdie and Buckminster Fuller; the New York art/social scene in the 1960s, including Max's Kansas City; meeting Marilyn Holtz, whom he later married; a trip to Colombia to discuss shelter development, and exposure to severe poverty; a resulting focus on people-centered shelter ideas; graduate work at Pratt, and the value of his studies in an academic environment; working with inflatable shelters, experimenting with different materials, including using glass; returning to the Berkshires in Massachusetts, working odd jobs, running a small glass school for children; becoming aware of the studio glass movement and attending a glassblowing workshop at Penland School of Crafts in Penland, North Carolina, in 1971; continued work with glass, including Vitrolite and other scavenged materials; growing public recognition in the 1970s; an internship at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Deer Isle, Manie, where he met Steve Feren, with whom he worked for several years; acquisition of work by the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York, in 1976; first one-man gallery show in 1977; purchase of work by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York; series Solar Riser and the importance of a meditative/spiritual component of his work; setting up a studio in Plainfield, Massachusetts; first museum exhibition at the George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum in Springfield, Massachusetts; speaking at the World Crafts Council conference in Vienna in the late 1970s; continued travel and recognition in Europe in the 1980s; "Genic Doran Divider-Sentinel," (1982-84), commissioned sculpture for General Electric in Pittsfield, which led to his focus on laminated materials; early 1990s studio expansion to work on a larger scale; commission work with Cesar Pelli for Owens Corning Fiberglas in 1993; one-person show at Serge Lechazynski's gallery in Biot, France; travels in Europe and Israel; serving on the board of the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts; consulting work with the glass and materials industry; "Spectral-Luma Ellipse" (2000); "Spatial Boundary" (2001), commissioned by Ann and Graham Gund; continued smaller-scale work; designing the window for Sienna Gallery in Lenox, Massachusetts, owned by his daughter; recent commissions including "Morton Square" in 2004, the Roosevelt Avenue Intermodal Station (2004), both in New York City, and "Miami Rain" (2009), Miami, Florida; and the importance of transparency, opacity, and translucency in his work. He also recalls Joseph Parriott, Sybil Moholy-Nagy, Rudolf Arnheim, Art Wood, Thomas Buechner, Doug Heller, Penelope Hunter-Stiebel, Laurie Wagman and Irvin Borowsky, and Malcolm Rogers.
Biographical / Historical:
Tom Patti (1943- ) is a glass artist, sculptor, and designer in Pittsfield, Massachusetts and Miami Beach, Florida.
General:
Originally recorded on 6 memory cards. Duration is 4 hr., 47 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.
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with María Brito, 1997 October 25. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
An interview of Cuban born sculptor María Brito conducted 1997 October 25, by Juan A. Martínez, in Brito's home/studio, Miami, Florida, for the Archives of American Art.
Brito speaks of her birthplace, Havana, Cuba, and her early art education at the Edison School; her travels to Miami as part of the Peter Pan Project in 1961; her art studies at the Miami-Dade Community College and the University of Miami. She also comments on the Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art (MOCHA) in New York, The Decade Show, her first exhibition in Miami at Gallery 24 in 1980, and other exhibitions.
Biographical / Historical:
María Brito (1947-) is a sculptor from Miami, Florida. Born in Havana, Cuba.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 3 digital wav files. Duration is 2 hr., 2 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:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
This interview received Federal support from the Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Latino Center. Funding for the digital preservation of this interview received Federal support from the Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Latino Center.
